NSW State Election 2011: Miranda
Electorate: Miranda
Margin: Labor 0.8%
Region: Sutherland Shire
Federal: Cook
Outgoing member: Barry Collier (Labor)
Click here for NSW Electoral Commission map
The candidates
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JOHN BRETT
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Electorate analysis: Bounded in the north by Georges River and in the south by Hacking River, the electorate of Miranda extends from Como and Oyster Bay south through Sutherland and Miranda to Gymea Bay. Booth results tend to be evenly balanced in Sutherland and harbourside Sylvania, but favour Labor at Miranda and Gymea in the electorate’s east and south. The seat was won by the Liberals when it was created at the 1971 election, and has since changed hands three times: in 1978 when Bill Robb won it for Labor as part of that year’s “Wranslide”; in 1984 when it fell to Liberal candidate Ron Phillips; and in 1999 when Phillips was defeated by Labor’s Barry Collier, a lawyer and former school teacher. Tim Jamieson of the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the decisive 8 per cent swing to Collier was “made possible by local dissatisfaction with housing overdevelopment and Mr Phillips’s hand in the downfall of the former Liberal leader, Peter Collins”. Collier spent his career on the back bench, but established his local popularity when the government backed down on a plan to build the Southern Freeway through the electorate, partly because it feared the prospect of Collier running as an independent. He nonetheless suffered an 8.3 per cent swing at the 2007 election which left very little of his existing margin intact.
Collier announced in September 2010 that he would join the Labor exodus at the looming election, and such were Labor’s electoral prospects that there was no great clamour to cusseed him as candidate. The nomination went to Therese Cook, an electorate officer to Kristina Keneally, motivational speaker and treasurer of the Miranda Chamber of Commerce. The Liberals have again endorsed Graham Annesley, the NRL’s chief operating officer and a former referee.
Analysis written by William Bowe. Please direct corrections or comments to pollbludger-AT-crikey.com.au. Read William’s blog, The Poll Bludger.