Australian federal election, 2016
Division of Bennelong, New South Wales
Northern Sydney: Eastwood, Epping, Meadowbank, Ryde
Sitting member: John Alexander (Liberal), elected 2010
Enrolment at close of rolls: 106,005
2013 Liberal majority over Labor: 7.8%
2016 Liberal majority over Labor: 7.8%

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Candidates in ballot-paper order:

1. Lyndal Howison Australian Labor Party	2. John August Pirate Party Australia	3. Justin Alick Australian Greens	4. Julie Worsley Christian Democrats	5. Christopher Gordon The Arts Party	6. John Alexander Liberal Party	7. Martin Mulcare Independent

2013 results

Statistics and history

Bennelong was created in 1949, occupying a block of affluent middle- class suburbia on Sydney's North Shore, and for its first 50 years was
a usually reliable seat for the Liberal Party, having only two members in that time: Sir John Cramer from 1949 to 1974 and John Howard from
1974 to 2007. Howard was Treasurer in the Fraser Government, Leader of the Liberal Party from 1985 to 1989 and again from 1995 to 2007, and
Prime Minister from 1996 to 2007.

Bennelong has the unusual combination of high median family incomes and a high proportion of people born in non English speaking countries: it
now has the highest proportion of such people of any Coalition-held seat. Many of these migrants are people from Asian countries who are in
professional occupations.

From the 1970s successive redistributions shifted the seat westwards, losing prime Liberal territory in Lane Cove and Hunters Hill and gaining
marginal or Labor-voting areas further west. Demographic change also made suburbs like Ryde and Gladesville less reliably Liberal. The result of
these changes was Howard's shock defeat in his own seat at the 2007 election. Labor's Maxine McKew held the seat for only one term, before it
returned the Liberals in 2010.

John Alexander, Liberal MP for Bennelong since 2010, was a professional tennis player and sports commentator before entering politics. Although
he was something of a Liberal hero for regaining Bennelong, he has not been promoted, and since he is now 65 it sems unlikely he will be. The Labor
candidate will be Lyndal Howison, marketing manager with the diabetes research charity JDRF. The 2016 redistribution has not changed the seat's
boundaries.

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Prospective pendulum, showing all candidates

State and territory maps, showing new boundaries

The thirty seats that will decide the election

Other seats of interest