Electoral district of Pittwater

Pittwater New South Wales—Legislative Assembly
Location within Sydney
State	New South Wales
Dates current	1973–present
MP	Rob Stokes
Party	Liberal Party of Australia
Area	190.16 km^2 (73.4 sq mi)

Pittwater is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of New South Wales. Located in Sydney's north-east, it is 175.32 km² in size, and comprises a part of the local government area of Northern Beaches Council. There are approximately 43,000 registered voters.

It is named after Pittwater, a body of water the district roughly surrounds.

It includes the suburbs or localities of Avalon, Bayview, Bilgola, Church Point, Cottage Point, Duffys Forest, Elanora Heights, Ingleside, Ku-ring-gai Chase, Mona Vale, Narrabeen, Newport, North Narrabeen, Palm Beach, Scotland Island, Terrey Hills, and Warriewood.

The current Member of Parliament for Pittwater is Rob Stokes of the Liberal Party of Australia. He was elected at the 2007 state election and re-elected in 2011.

History

The electoral district of Pittwater was created in 1973. Located in the traditional Liberal stronghold of Sydney's Northern Beaches, for most of its existence it has been a comfortably safe Liberal seat. Its first member was Sir Robert William Askin, then Premier of New South Wales. It had been created out of a large chunk of Askin's old seat of Collaroy, and was thus a natural place for Askin to transfer when the seat was abolished.

The seat was famously held by New South Wales Opposition Leader John Brogden until his dramatic resignation in 2005. The Liberal stranglehold on the seat was lost in the resulting by-election when the Mayor of Pittwater Council, Alex McTaggart, standing as an Independent candidate, defeated the Liberal Paul Nicolau in a landslide.

The seat reverted to form at the 2007 general election, with new Liberal candidate Rob Stokes defeating McTaggart to comfortably regain the seat for his party. Stokes won on the primary vote alone, gaining just over 50%. After preferences, his share was 61% to McTaggart's 39%. Stokes won every booth in the district with the exception of Scotland Island, whose few hundred offshore voters traditionally buck the trend.

While Labor frequently runs dead in northern Sydney, Pittwatter is very unfriendly territory for Labor even by northern Sydney standards. In recent years, Labor has been lucky to tally 20 percent of the primary vote, and has even been pushed into third place on some occasions.

Members for Pittwater

Member		Party	Period
	Sir Robert Askin	Liberal	1973–1975
	Bruce Webster	Liberal	1975–1978
	Max Smith	Liberal	1978–1984
		Independent	1984–1986
	Jim Longley	Liberal	1986–1996
	John Brogden	Liberal	1996–2005
	Alex McTaggart	Independent	2005–2007
	Rob Stokes	Liberal	2007–present

Election results

New South Wales state election, 2015: Pittwater^[1][2]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Liberal	Rob Stokes	32,761	67.8	−4.2
	Greens	Felicity Davis	7,780	16.1	−0.7
	Labor	Kieren Ash	6,167	12.8	+3.8
	Christian Democrats	Zoran Curcic	886	1.8	−0.4
	No Land Tax	Rebecca Arduca	751	1.6	+1.6
Total formal votes			48,345	97.6	+0.3
Informal votes			1,202	2.4	−0.3
Turnout			49,547	91.3	+2.1
Two-party-preferred result
	Liberal	Rob Stokes	34,015	77.9	−6.6
	Labor	Kieren Ash	9,653	22.1	+6.6
Two-candidate-preferred result
	Liberal	Rob Stokes	33,706	75.7	−2.3
	Greens	Felicity Davis	10,847	24.4	+2.3
	Liberal hold		Swing	−2.3

References

1. State Electoral District of Pittwater: First Preference Votes, NSWEC.
2. State Electoral District of Pittwater: Distribution of Preferences, NSWEC.

External links

• "Pittwater". New South Wales Electoral Commission. Retrieved 2011-09-27.