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| Adam Carr's Election Archive
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Australian federal election, 2025
Division of Cunningham, New South Wales
Named for: Allan Cunningham (1791-1839), explorer of NSW and Queensland
South of Sydney: Bulli, Corrimal, Port Kembla, Unanderra, Wollongong
Enrolment at 2019 election: 115,312
Enrolment at 2022 election: 117,169 (+01.7)
1999 republic referendum: Yes 53.6
2018 same-sex marriage survey: Yes 65.7
2023 Voice referendum: Yes 51.9
2007 Labor majority over Liberal: 18.1%
2010 Labor majority over Liberal: 13.2%
2013 Labor majority over Liberal: 9.9%
2016 Labor majority over Liberal: 13.3%
2019 Labor majority over Liberal: 13.4%
2022 Labor majority over Liberal: 14.7%
2025 notional Labor majority over Liberal: 14.7%
Status 2022: Safe Labor
Labor two-party vote 1983-2022
2022 results
Statistics and history
Announced candidates:
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Alison Byrnes
Australian Labor Party |
Division of Cunningham
Cunningham was created in 1949, based on the industrial centre of Wollongong, south of Sydney. As
the region's heavy industry has declined, however, Wollongong has become a signicantly less
working-class city, and the creation in 1984 of the new seat of
Throsby (now
Whitlam) removed some of
the most blue-collar parts of the electorate. Today more of Cunningham's workforce work in government
services for the Illawarra region than work in manufacturing. This is why the electorate has a higher
proportion of people with professional and managerial occupations and a higher median income level than most
regional city seats.
All this explains the gradual decline in Labor strength in Cunningham, although the seat is still fairly
reliably Labor. Its members have included Labor cabinet ministers
Rex Connor and
Stewart West and Speaker
of the House
Stephen Martin. In 2002 Martin abruptly
resigned his seat, and the ensuing by-election found Labor with a new leader,
Simon Crean, whose standing with the public was low, and a candidate,
Sharon Bird, who many Labor activists in the seat did not support. The
result was a shock win for the
Green candidate Michael Organ, a blow from which Crean's leadership never
recovered.
At the 2004 election things returned to normal and Bird easily regained the seat for Labor. Bird became a parliamentary
secretary in 2012 and was a minister in the last months of the Rudd-Gillard
Government. She was a shadow minister until 2016. In November 2021 she announced her retirement.
Alison Byrnes, Labor MP for Cunningham since 2022, was an electorate officer, and later Senior Policy and Media Adviser, in Bird's
office. She has a master's degree in management from the University of Wollongong and is married to Paul Scully, a Labor state Member.
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