Federal Election 2022: St George, Sutherland Shire electorate winners and losers
Scott Morrison has retained his seat of Cook but appears to have lost government for the Liberal Party. Yet the battle for Hughes has returned a result. Stay tuned with our rolling coverage.
St George Shire Standard
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The federal election has been called for the seats of Hughes, Cook, Banks and Barton.
Liberal’s Jenny Ware has claimed victory in Hughes after a hard-fought battle with former MP Craig Kelly, independent Georgia Steele and Labor’s Riley Campbell.
“It feels to amazing to have won. I am so glad the hard work that my team put in has paid off and I thank the people of Hughes who have put their trust in me and I will not let them down,” she said at her victory party.
“It will be an absolute privilege to serve them in the national parliament.”
Ms Ware said she felt relieved, exhausted and the win would likely take a couple of days to sink in.
“I’m ready to do the work. I have done the work leading into the campaign. I am ready, willing and able,” she said
“I have been voted in by the people of Hughes. My job is to be the best member for Hughes if that is in opposition or government so be it.
“My job is to advocate, fight and serve the people of Hughes.”
Ms Ware said the electorate has been very loyal to Liberal Party for a long time.
“I am so glad we have been able to reclaim it for the Liberal Party tonight. Hughes is blue again.
“I will bring together small business, women, our people of faith, our multicultural and seniors like I did in campaign and that is the way I will represent the people of Hughes.
“Thank you to the people of Hughes. I am humbled and I’m ready to serve.”
Scott Morrison has easily retained his blue ribbon seat of Cook with more than 56 per cent of 78 per cent of the ballot papers counted going to the Liberal Party, well in front of Labor’s Simon Earle.
The Liberals have also seat to retain the seat of Banks with David Coleman likely to be returned to parliament but only has 44 per cent of the vote counted.
However the seat of Barton was held by incumbent Linda Burney of the Labor Party.
RESULTS SO FAR
Liberal Jenny Ware is leading the race with 43 per cent of the vote after more than 48,000 results have been counted with 38 of 51 booths returned.
She is followed by Labor candidate Riley Campbell on 21 per cent and independent Georgia Steele is sitting on over 15 per cent.
Incumbent MP and United Australia Party leader Craig Kelly has eight per cent of the vote.
There are 107,000 voters in this electorate.
Mr Kelly conceded his seat after holding it for 12 years.
“We always knew it was going to be tough,” he said at his campaign party in Sutherland. “The reality is it is very hard to get people to shift away from the major parties. We stood up for what we knew was right. I have absolutely no regrets whatsoever and it looks like Jenny Ware from the Liberals has won and I congratulate her.”
Prime Minister Scott Morrison is holding strong early in his seat of Cook after nearly 52,00 votes have been counted and 39 of 51 polling places returned.
Mr Morrison has 61 per cent of the first preference votes.
Labor’s Simon Earle has 24 per cent and The Greens candidate Catherine Dyson has nine per cent of the vote.
The electorate, in the Sutherland shire is home to 110,000 electors.
The electorate of Banks has seen 42,500 votes counted so far after 34 of 52 polling places have returned.
Liberal MP David Coleman has 44 per cent of the vote followed by Labor’s Zhi Soon who has almost 34 per cent.
The Greens’ Natalie Hanna has more than nine per cent followed by the United Australia Party’s Marika Momircevski on six per cent.
There are more than 107,000 people living in Banks and 41 of 56 booths have returned.
Labor incumbent Linda Burney looks set to retain her seat with 51 per cent of 61,00 votes in the electorate of Barton, where there are 110,000 people enrolled.
She is followed by Liberal’s John Goody on 26 per cent and The Greens’ Taylor Vandijk on 11 per cent.
VOTING CLOSES
Tens of thousands of people across St George and Sutherland Shire electorates headed to schools, churches and community halls today to cast their vote to decide who would be their next MP and which party would lead the nation.
Since the last federal election, Australians have battled raging bushfires, devastating floods, and a pandemic with forced lockdowns.
Polling stations across the region opened up at 8am this morning and closed at 6pm.
Sausage sizzles were cooked, volunteers handed out ‘how to vote’ cards and candidates spoke to locals as they headed into the polling booth to see if they could secure their vote.
Many people decided to forgo the traditional election day affair and rather chose to vote at pre-poll centres in the past two weeks.
Across the region there are four electorates: Hughes, Cook, Banks and Barton.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison is expected to retain his seat of Cook. Those hoping to topple him include Labor’s Simon Earle, One Nation’s Gaye Cameron, Greens’ Catherine Dyson and UAP’sJacqueline Guinane. Read more about the candidates of Cook.
But the true contest will unfold in the bellwether seat of Hughes, currently held by controversial MP Craig Kelly.
The seat of Hughes will be the main focus tonight as the results come in.
UPDATE:
Georgia Steele
Georgia Steele, who is backed by significant funding, Climate 200 and an army of thousands of volunteers, is hoping to pull off a major upset and take the seat as an independent.
She is one of several female ‘teal independents’ running in traditionally held Liberal seats.
Ms Steele was on the hustings all day starting before polling booths opened to plan logistics and then she travelled around to several booths throughout the day.
She said at the pre-poll booths people were more willing to engage than on election day but those who did spoke positively about her campaign and gave her a wink as they left the polling place.
Ms Steele’s volunteers have put in a mammoth effort to put her signs and corflutes on nearly every street in the electorate and several people manned each booth.
“I couldn’t be prouder of them. The people who have been involved have loved the community we have built through the campaign,” she said.
“The thing that I liked most was when I heard people say, ‘I spoke to your volunteer and she was so lovely and everyone on your campaign is so positive and friendly’.”
Ms Steele said she felt “nerves and butterflies” as the polls closed given it was the culmination of months of campaigning.
She did not believe a result would come on Saturday night but would be watching with keen interest at her campaign party.
“There is a quiet positivity rather than a confidence,” Ms Steele said. “The feedback has been positive, the volunteer numbers have been growing and our message has been getting out there.
“We are hopeful of what we might see tonight.”
Ms Steele said she would feel “incredibly proud” to move a seat from being “safe” because the people of the community would have more attention paid to them.
“Hughes has been so safe for so long that it has been ignored,” she said. “The representative we have had for the last 12 years has done nothing to improve the situation in Canberra for the people of Hughes. I would absolutely love the opportunity to get in and do that.”
WHAT VOTERS SAID
Bryce Cooper, who usually voted independent, said Georgia Steele was a new face, someone different and what the electorate needed.
“Georgia Steele has my vote,” he said at Jannali East Public School. “The amount of campaigning I think means she is doing something good. She is all I have seen. I’ve seen her and her volunteers at 6.30am in the pouring rain campaigning. She has a lot of committed volunteers.”
Another voter Catherine Dickie voted for Georgia Steele because she agreed with the candidate’s views on action on climate change, a federal integrity commission and her policies to help small businesses with a transition to a renewable economy.
“The things she stands for are the things I care about and are a moral and good way that our country and community can go forward,” she said.
She also enjoyed her democracy sausage and met up with friends.
LIBERAL CANDIDATE JENNY WARE
Liberal candidate for Hughes Jenny Ware suspected the race for who was going to win the seat was “going to be close”.
“I have had positive feelings from the people of Hughes over the past two weeks at pre-poll,” she said. “Today has been positive. I have put my trust in the voters of Hughes and I trust them implicitly to make the right decision.
“I think there will be change in the seat tonight.
“I have done everything I could during this campaign, meeting with many different forums, groups, small business and churches. I have reached out and engaged with as many different people and groups as I can.
“I will do exactly the same if I am given the privilege to serve in the national parliament.”
Ms Ware said her top priority was to be part of a government that had a “strong economy, with addressing housing affordability as her other key issue.
DEMOCRACY SAUSAGE
Several polling booths in the Hughes electorate did not have a sausage sizzle but those that did made a roaring trade.
At Jannali East Public School the sausage sizzle, cake stall and book donation had been very popular with voters, with funds going towards to a school hall and a playground extension,” Michelle Tull.
“It has been very busy since 9am. It has been crazy. We have been to the shops four times to stock up.
“People have been desperate for them. We sold out of cakes at 12.30pm.”
Thirty volunteers pitched in during the long day.
Labor supporter Maxine Broughton was handing out voting cards for candidate Riley Campbell in Sutherland. pic.twitter.com/KJFDaq72FH
— Ashleigh Tullis (@ashleightullis) May 21, 2022
CRAIG KELLY ‘A LONG SHOT’
When asked if Craig Kelly would be re-elected he was not confident.
“No doubt I am a very long shot and an underdog,” he said.
“Hughes is a fairly strong traditional Liberal area and it takes a lot to change people’s voting patterns of decades. I felt like I had to give it a shot.
“The Liberal Party had abandoned many of the values they and I stood for when I signed up so I felt it wasn’t me leaving the party, it was the party leaving me.”
Mr Kelly said he had not been thinking about what was next in his career if he did not win the seat and would work it out in the coming days and weeks.
“One door closes and another opens,” he said.
When speaking of his opponents Mr Kelly wished Liberal candidate Jenny Ware “all the best” but said she was a relatively unknown quantity.
However, he was much more critical of independent Georgia Steele claiming her platform was not in the “middle” but rather aligned with the Greens and she should have been upfront about it.
Mr Kelly said while he was handing out ‘how to vote’ cards many people who had gone through the polling booth had not taken flyers and perhaps had done their homework beforehand.
“The results will be very interesting. In Hughes, I think we will get a result tonight. But perhaps not given the large number of postal votes cast.”
EARLIER
United Australia Party leader Craig Kelly is going up against six other candidates.
Liberal’s Jenny Ware, independent Georgia Steele, independent Linda Seymour, Labor’s Riley Campbell, Greens’ Peter Thompson and One Nation’s Narelle Seymour.
To read more about Hughes’ candidates priorities for the region, check out their candidate profiles, and follow statewide live coverage of the election day here.
Full list of polling booths in NSW: where to vote
To give an indication, we pre-polled residents in at the Kiora Mall booth in Miranda two weeks ago where residents from the electorates of Cook and Hughes opted to vote early.
In the electorate of Cook in southern Sydney, Prime Minister Scott Morrison had the support of constituents with many backing him to lead the country and their electorate for another three years.
That was an unsurprising result given the Cook electorate is deemed a “very safe Liberal seat” with a margin of 19 per cent.
Of the 100 voters surveyed, 54 selected Liberal National Party in the number one spot while 22 put Labor as their first preference in the House of Representatives. The Greens secured 12 votes.
Hughes independent candidates Georgia Steele and Linda Seymour received six and two votes respectively.
One Nation received one vote and the United Australia Party got three in the electorates of Cook and Hughes.
Hughes incumbent MP Craig Kelly received one vote of those surveyed. Kelly sparked controversy when he left the Liberal Party and voiced his views on Covid vaccines before he became the leader of the UAP.
Turning now to the seats of Banks and Barton.
In Banks, there are six politically diverse candidates vying for the seat currently held by Liberal MP David Coleman.
They include Greens’ Natalie Hanna, Liberal Democrats Party’s Elouise Cocker, Labor’s Zhi Soon, UAP’s Marika Momircevski and independent Steve Khouw. Read more about their priorities for the area.
Labor MP Linda Burney holds the seat of Barton. Greens’ Taylor Vandijk, Liberal’s John Goody, UAP’s Dimitri Honos and One Nation’s Phillip Pollard are the candidates of Barton.
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