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| Adam Carr's Election Archive
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Australian federal election, 2025
Division of Paterson, New South Wales
Named for: A B "Banjo" Paterson (1864-1941), poet and author
North central New South Wales: Beresfield, Maitland, Nelson Bay, Raymond Terrace, Rutherford
Enrolment at 2019 election: 122,941
Enrolment at 2022 election: 132,040 (+07.5)
1999 republic referendum: No 60.3
2018 same-sex marriage survey: Yes 65.5
2023 Voice referendum: No 70.0
2007 Liberal majority over Labor: 1.5%
2010 Liberal majority over Labor: 5.3%
2013 Liberal majority over Labor: 9.8%
2016 Labor majority over Liberal: 10.7%
2019 Labor majority over Liberal: 5.0%
2022 Labor majority over Liberal: 3.3%
2025 notional Labor majority over Liberal: 2.6%
Status: Very marginal Labor
Labor two-party vote 1993-2022
2022 results
Statistics and history
Announced candidates:
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Meryl Swanson
Australian Labor Party |
Division of Paterson
Paterson was created in 1949, based on Maitland and the more rural parts of the Hunter region. It was
usually a safe Liberal or Country Party seat, although Labor came close in 1972 and 1974. The seat was
abolished in 1984, but reincarnated on much the same boundaries in 1993. Like most regional seats, Paterson
has a low level of median family income, a low proportion of people in professional and managerial occupations and a low
proportion of non English speaking households. Its ageing population is shown by its high
level of people over 65 and its low level of families with dependent children.
Bob Baldwin won Paterson for the Liberals in 1996, lost it to
Bob Horne in 1998 and regained it in 2001. He
was a Parliamentary Secretary in both the Howard and Abbott Governments, and retired in 2016.
The 2016 redistribution radically changed this seat, cutting out all the rural areas and adding Labor-voting
territory from
Hunter and
Newcastle,
particularly the Labor bastion of Kurri Kurri, plus all of Maitland, which was previously divided between Paterson and Hunter.
What Liberal strength remains is in the Port Stephens area, which has many affluent residents and retirees. The result
was to turn a Liberal majority of 9.8% into a Labor majority of 0.4%. This plus the loss of Baldwin's personal vote made
Paterson a certain Labor gain in 2016.
Meryl Swanson, Labor MP for Paterson since 2016, had the additional
advantage of already being well-known in the Hunter as a local radio host for 12 years. She was also executive director of
Hunter Tourism and a staffer for Joel Fitzgibbon MP. Although Swanson gained a large majority for Labor on the new boundaries in 2016,
she lost half of it in the swing to the Coalition in the Hunter region in 2019. The 2024 redistribution has removed Kurri Kurri
from the seat, cutting the Labor majority to a precarious 2.6%.
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