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| Adam Carr's Election Archive
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Australian federal election, 2025
Division of Watson, New South Wales
Named for: Hon Chris Watson (1867-1941), NSW MP 1894-1901, federal MP 1901-10, Prime Minister 1904 (first Labor Prime Minister)
Inner western Sydney: Bankstown, Chullora, Georges Hall, Lakemba, Punchbowl
Enrolment at 2019 election: 107,810
Enrolment at 2022 election: 108,714 (+00.9)
1999 republic referendum: Yes 54.4
2018 same-sex marriage survey: No 69.6
2023 Voice referendum: No 57.9
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Sitting member: Hon Tony Burke (Labor): Elected 2004, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2022
Minister for Home Affairs
Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs
Minister for Cyber Security
Minister for the Arts
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2007 Labor majority over Liberal: 20.3%
2010 Labor majority over Liberal: 9.1%
2013 Labor majority over Liberal: 6.8%
2016 Labor majority over Liberal: 17.6%
2019 Labor majority over Liberal: 13.5%
2022 Labor majority over Liberal: 15.1%
2025 notional Labor majority over Liberal: 15.1%
Status: Safe Labor
Labor two-party vote 1983-2022
2022 results
Statistics and history
Announced candidates:
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Zakir Alam
Liberal Party |
Jocelyn Brewer
Aust Greens |
Hon Tony Burke
Aust Labor Party |
Ziad Basyouny (independent)
Division of Watson
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 multi-cultural area, and the centre of Sydney's large and
growing Muslim community. The seat has one of the highest proportion of people born in non English speaking countries
of any electorate. It has the second-highest proportion of Muslims of any seat (after Blaxland). This explains Watson's No
vote on marriage equality.
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 partly reversed this, removing parts of
Strathfield and Burwood and adding some Labor territory in Canterbury and Punchbowl, and increasing the Labor
margin. The 2024 redistribution has moved the seat even further west, taking in Bankstown and Yagoona.
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 throughout the Rudd-Gillard Government. He is now Minister for Home Affairs, Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Cyber Security and the Arts. The Liberal candidate is Zakir Alam, whose occupation is not stated.
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