Division of North Sydney
Template:Short description Template:About Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use Australian English Template:Infobox Australian electorate
The Division of North Sydney was an Australian electoral division in the state of New South Wales from 1901 to 2025.
On 12 September 2024, the Australian Electoral Commission announced that the seat would be abolished at the 2025 Australian federal election,<ref name="Abolishment">Template:Cite news</ref> with its electors redistributed to Warringah, Bradfield and Bennelong.Template:Efn
History
The Division of North Sydney was proclaimed in 1900 and was one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election. It originally stretched as far as the Northern Beaches, though much of that area became Warringah in 1922.
At the time of the 2015 by-election, the Division of North Sydney had the nation's second-highest proportion (56.4%) of high-income families.<ref name=antony>2015 North Sydney by-election: Antony Green</ref>
Prior to its abolition, North Sydney was one of only two (the other being Wentworth) federation divisions in New South Wales to have never been held by Labor. The Liberal hold on the seat was broken in 1990 by "father of the independents" Ted Mack, who had represented much of the area in state parliament from 1981 to 1988. He held the seat for two terms before retiring at the 1996 election, after two terms, for the same reason he previously chose to resign from state parliament after two terms − to avoid receiving a parliamentary pension.<ref>Independents' 'father' says trio will choose ALP, AM 6 September 2010</ref>
However, during Mack's tenure, North Sydney was always on the stronger side of fairly safe for the Liberals in "traditional" two-party-preferred match-ups with Labor, and it was a foregone conclusion that it would revert to the Liberals once Mack retired. Indeed, when Mack retired in 1996, Joe Hockey reclaimed the seat for the Liberals on a swing large enough to revert the seat to its traditional status as a comfortably safe Liberal seat. Hockey held it easily until 2015, serving as Treasurer from 2013 to 2015 in the Abbott government. After Abbott was ousted as Liberal leader and Prime Minister by Malcolm Turnbull in the September 2015 Liberal leadership spill Hockey moved to the backbench, but six days later he announced his intention to resign from parliament, taking effect from 23 October. The 2015 North Sydney by-election was held on 5 December to elect his replacement.
Trent Zimmerman, a former Hockey staffer,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> retained the seat for the Liberal Party with 48.2 percent of the primary vote after a larger-than-predicted 12.8 percent swing against the Turnbull Coalition government.<ref name="Gartrell"/> That was only the second time in North Sydney since federation that the successful Liberal candidate had not obtained a majority of the primary vote and had to rely on preferences. Zimmerman faced a double-digit primary vote swing − more than triple that of the 2015 Canning by-election − even though Labor did not even contest the seat.<ref name=antony />
The Liberal two-candidate-preferred vote of 60.2 percent against independent Stephen Ruff compares to the previous election vote of 65.9 percent against Labor.<ref name=antony /> The reduction of 5.7 percent could not be considered a "two-party/candidate preferred swing" − when a major party is absent, preference flows to both major parties does not take place, resulting in asymmetric preference flows.<ref name=asymmetric1>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=asymmetric2>An Example of Non-Monotonicity and Opportunites [sic] for Tactical Voting at an Australian Election: Antony Green ABC 4 May 2011</ref>
Zimmerman became the first openly LGBTI member of the House of Representatives.<ref name = Gartrell>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>When an election’s not a battle but a limp formality Daily Telegraph 26 November 2015</ref> He won the seat in his own right in 2016 and 2019. However, in 2022, he lost over 13 percent of his primary vote amid the Liberals' collapse in the North Shore and other "blue ribbon" areas of metropolitan Australia, and was defeated by teal independent Kylea Tink, the second non-Liberal ever to win it. The swing against the Liberals was large enough to make the seat marginal in a "traditional" two-party contest between the Liberals and Labor for the first time in 60 years; on paper, the Liberal margin over Labor was only 1.2 percent.
The most notable member for the seat was Billy Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia from 1915 to 1923, and later a minister in the Lyons, Page, Menzies and Fadden governments. Hughes is the longest-serving parliamentarian in Australian history. He transferred to Bradfield after it was carved out of North Sydney's northern portion in 1949, and died as that seat's member in 1952. Other notable members include Mack, Hockey, and Dugald Thomson, a minister in the Reid Government.
As part of its periodic review of electoral boundaries, the Australian Electoral Commission abolished the division from the 2025 Australian federal election, with its electors distributed across the divisions of Warringah, Bradfield and Bennelong.<ref name="Abolishment"/>
Boundaries
Since 1984, federal electoral division boundaries in Australia have been determined at redistributions by a redistribution committee appointed by the Australian Electoral Commission. Redistributions occur for the boundaries of divisions in a particular state, and they occur every seven years, or sooner if a state's representation entitlement changes or when divisions of a state are malapportioned.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Located along Sydney's Lower North Shore, the division was named after the suburb of North Sydney. On its final boundaries, it also included the suburbs of Artarmon, Cammeray, Castlecrag, Crows Nest, Greenwich, Henley, Hunters Hill, Huntleys Cove, Huntleys Point, Kirribilli, Lane Cove, Lane Cove North, Lane Cove West, Lavender Bay, Linley Point, Longueville, McMahons Point, Middle Cove, Milsons Point, Naremburn, North Willoughby, Northbridge, Northwood, Riverview, St Leonards, Waverton, Willoughby, Willoughby East, Wollstonecraft, and Woolwich; as well as parts of Chatswood, Chatswood West, Cremorne, Gladesville, Gore Hill and Neutral Bay.
Members
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Election results
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Notes
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