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| Adam Carr's Election Archive
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Australian federal election, 2025
Division of Sydney, New South Wales
Named for: City of Sydney, named by Arthur Phillip in January 1788 (after Thomas Townshend, Viscount Sydney
(1733-1800), British Colonial Secretary 1783-89) (When Townshend was elevated to the peerage in 1783 he took the title Viscount Sydney of Chislehurst. He was related to the Sydney family who had been prominent since Elizabethan times. The name Sydney or Sidney is said to derive from an Anglo-Saxon placename, although there is no such locality in Britain today. Alternatively it may derive from the French placename St Denis.
St Denis is the patron saint of France, and there are several places in Normandy called St Denis from which the Sydney family may
originally have come.)
Central Sydney: Balmain, Newtown, Rosebery, Surry Hills, Sydney
Enrolment at 2019 election: 114,239
Enrolment at 2022 election: 125,419 (+09.8)
1999 republic referendum: Yes 67.9
2018 same-sex marriage survey: Yes 83.7
2023 Voice referendum: Yes 70.9
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Sitting member: Hon Tanya Plibersek (Labor): Elected 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2022
Minister for the Environment and Water
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2007 Labor majority over Liberal: 19.5%
2010 Labor majority over Liberal: 17.1%
2013 Labor majority over Liberal: 14.7%
2016 Labor majority over Liberal: 15.3%
2019 Labor majority over Liberal: 18.7%
2022 Labor majority over Greens: 16.7%
2025 notional Labor majority over Greens: 16.5%
Status: Very safe Labor
Labor two-party vote 1983-2022
2022 results
Statistics and history
Announced candidates:
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Hon Tanya Plibersek
Australian Labor Party |
Division of Sydney
Sydney was created in 1969, when the old Labor strongholds of
Dalley,
East Sydney* and
West Sydney were amalgamated due to
their rapidly falling populations. The seat takes in Sydney's inner suburban area, which 50 years ago was hard-core working
class, in places verging on slums, but today is one of Australia's wealthiest areas, colonised by high-income prefessionals,
most of them single or at least childless.
Sydney has the lowest proportion of families with dependent children of any seat in Australia, and the fourth-lowest
proportion of dwellings being purchased. It also has the second-highest proportion of flat-dwellers. This partly reflects the large
gay and lesbian community in Darlinghurst and Surry Hills, but there are many heterosexual singles here as well. The seat does still have pockets of poverty, particularly in Redfern, and some working-class areas in the south.
Not surprisingly, Sydney has always been one of the safest Labor seats in Australia. Its first member was
Jim Cope, Speaker during the Whitlam government. Later members included Keating
government Cabinet minister
Peter Baldwin. But much of Labor's support
now comes as second preferences from the Greens, who polled 23% here in 2022. The Greens would have some chance of winning
this seat if the Labor vote fell to 40%, but so far they have not succeeded even in coming second, let alone winning.
Sydney is the wealthiest seat held by Labor, but that does not seem to be weakening Labor's grip. Tanya Plibersek's high
profile and status as a leader of the Labor left will help keep this seat safe from the Greens. The 2024 redistribution has added the
Greens stronghold of Balmain to the seat.
Tanya Plibersek Labor MP for Sydney since 1998, the daughter of
Slovenian immigrants, worked for the Domestic Violence Unit of the NSW Ministry for the Status of Women before her election. She was on the opposition frontbench from 2004. She was successively Minister for Housing, for Human Services and for Health in the Rudd-Gillard Government.
After the 2013 election Plibersek was elected Labor Deputy Leader, making her the senior figure in the party's
left-wing. She relinquished this position after the 2019 election, when
Anthony Albanese was elected leader, since the Left
could not hold both positions. She declined to contest the leadership, citing family reasons. But she remains a potential
leadership candidate. She is now Minister for the Environment and Water.
* East Sydney was the seat of Prime Minister
Sir George Reid.
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