THE POLL BLUDGER
New South Wales Legislative Assembly Election 2007

CRONULLA
Liberal 8.8%

The electorate of Cronulla occupies the southern Sydney peninsula enclosed by Botany Bay to the north and Port Hacking to the south. The redistribution has extended its share of the Port Hacking shore to take in the peninsula at Yowie Bay, adding 2000 voters previously in Miranda and cutting 0.5 per cent from the Liberal margin. The seat was created in 1959 and has been won at each election by the Liberals, barring the two "Wranslides" of 1978 and 1981, when it fell to future Treasurer Michael Egan. Malcolm Kerr (right) recovered the seat for the Liberals in 1984, and Michael Egan found refuge in the upper house two years later. Kerr has been a generally low-profile figure in parliament, his highest office having been a five-month stint as Shadow Cabinet Secretary prior to the March 1999 election, and he has frequently been mentioned as a possible target of preselection challenges. There were reports he was being encouraged to retire at the 2003 election, at which time Damien Murphy of the Sydney Morning Herald quoted him saying: "My problem is that I've never been a factions player, so every time either the Left or Right wants to increase their MP numbers, one of the wheelers and dealers sees Cronulla as a way of doing a deal and starts dropping the word that Kerr could go". Kerr has nonetheless been identified elsewhere as a member of the Right. According to Piers Akerman of the Daily Telegraph, a membership surge at the Caringbah branch indicated that the Left was marshalling forces to dislodge Kerr and install its "favourite", Kogarah mayor Sam Witheridge, who had run unsuccessfully for Kogarah in 1999. More recently, it was reported in December 2005 that Kerr might be targeted by the Left as payback for the defeat of upper house member Patricia Forsythe, who had claimed in the wake of John Brogden's departure that "extremists" and "zealots" were taking over the party. Kerr was nonetheless able to retain preselection with the backing of Peter Debnam, despite ongoing reports of increasing Left control over local branches.

ASSESSMENT: Liberal retain