THE POLL BLUDGER
New South Wales Legislative Assembly Election 2007

GOSFORD
Labor 8.6%

The electorate of Gosford as redrawn by the redistribution is in fact the successor to the abolished seat of Peats, having only the city itself (accounting for 9500 voters) in common with the old Gosford electorate. The bulk of the old electorate, including the area between Gosford and the coast and further territory to the south, forms the basis of the new seat of Terrigal. Accordingly, Liberal member for Gosford Chris Hartcher will contest Terrigal, while Labor's Peats MP Marie Andrews will contest Gosford. The redrawn Gosford is dominated by Gosford itself and Woy Woy on the opposite (southern) shore of Brisbane Water; from there it extends west and north-west through thinly populated territory to Wisemans Ferry and Mangrove Creek Dam, with Hawkesbury River and Broken Bay as the southern boundary. The redistribution has also moved 7500 voters around Ourimbah north of Gosford from Peats to The Entrance, and given Gosford the Mangrove Creek Dam area from Wyong in the north-west.

Peats was created at the 1973 election when it was won for Labor by Keith O'Connell, previously the member for Gosford. When O'Connell retired in 1984 it was used by Wran government Attorney-General Paul Landa to parachute in from the upper house, but he held it for only seven months until his death in November 1984. Landa was succeeded by Tony Doyle, who held the seat at a by-election in February 1985 despite a 10.7 per cent slump in the Labor primary vote. Doyle retired due to ill health on 20 December 1994 and died just four days later. There followed a familiar scenario in which the Right-dominated administrative committee imposed an "N38" ballot (the precursor of today's "N40") that gave it half the preselection vote against the protests of the Left-controlled local branches. The ballot allowed Right-backed Marie Andrews (right), an official with the Australian Railways Union, to defeat Jo Rainford of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance 34 votes to 25.

Andrews has remained on the back bench throughout her career, and there was muttering ahead of the current election as to whether she deserved another term. In July, Simon Benson of the Daily Telegraph reported that party state secretary Mark Arbib had told her to make way for generational change as part of a move to purge the last remaining members of the Right sub-faction known as the Troglodytes. This was overruled by Morris Iemma in the "first sign of friction" between him and the party organisation. It was also reported that Andrews' power base had been eroding due to an ageing membership of the branch where she controlled 66 of the electorate's 180 votes, and that "push polling" had been conducted to draw attention to Andrews' age and the relative youth of two potential rivals, John Della Bosca and his wife, former Senator Belinda Neal.

Concerns about Andrews' electoral appeal were reportedly prompted by the Liberal Party's success in recruiting Chris Holstein (left), a Gosford councillor and former mayor who polled 18.3 per cent as an independent in 2003. Holstein won a preselection vote over Debra Wales, former councillor and Liberal candidate in 1999 and 2003, by 24 votes to 17. Wales is running as an independent.

ASSESSMENT: Labor retain