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| Australian federal election, 2016
Division of Watson, New South Wales
Inner western Sydney: Campsie, Canterbury, Greenacre, Lakemba
Sitting member: Hon Tony Burke (Labor), elected 2004
Enrolment at close of rolls: 105,488
2013 Labor majority over Liberal: 6.8%
2016 notional Labor majority over Liberal: 8.9%
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Candidates in ballot-paper order:
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1. Violet Abdulla
Christian Democrats |
2. Tom Gordon
Science Party |
3. Hon Tony Burke
Australian Labor Party |
4. Paul Geran
Online Direct Democracy |
5. Barbara Bloch
Australian Greens |
6. Mohammad Zaman
Liberal Party |
2013 results
Statistics and history
Watson was created in 1993, when the old seat of St George was renamed. (There was an earlier seat of Watson from 1934 to 1969, orginally Prime Minister Chris Watson's seat of South Sydney, in much the same area.) It was initially based in Sydney's inner southern suburbs, a heavily working-class and "ethnic" area, and the centre of Sydney's large and growing Muslim community. Until 2007 the seat had the highest proportion of people born in non English speaking countries of any electorate.
The 2007 and 2010 redistributions moved Watson to the north and west, so that it shed some of its working-class territory and gained more middle-class areas in Ashfield, Burwood and Strathfield. As a result, the Labor two-party vote fell from 20.3% in 2007 to 6.8% in 2013. The 2016 redistribution has partly reversed this, removing parts of Strathfield and Burwood and adding some Labor territory in Canterbury and Punchbowl, and increasing the Labor margin to 8.9%.
Members for St George included Bill Morrison, a minister in the Whitlam Government. Members for Watson have been Leo McLeay, a legendary powerbroker in the right-wing faction of the NSW Labor Party, and Tony Burke, who succeeded him in 2004.
Tony Burke, Labor MP Burke since 2004, was an organiser with the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association before being elected to the NSW Legislative Council in 2003. He went straight onto the opposition front bench in 2004 and was a senior minister in the Rudd-Gillard Government. He is now Shadow Minister for Finance and Manager of Opposition Business in the House. His name has often been mentioned as a possible Labor Leader.
The Liberal candidate is Mohammad Zaman.
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Prospective pendulum, showing all candidates
State and territory maps, showing new boundaries
The thirty seats that will decide the election
Other seats of interest
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