Division of Cunningham

This article is about the Australian federal electorate. For the former Queensland state electorate, see Electoral district of Cunningham.

The Division of Cunningham is an Australian electoral division in the state of New South Wales. It is located in the Illawarra and includes all of the City of Wollongong except for some suburbs around Dapto.

Cunningham Australian House of Representatives Division
Interactive map of electorate boundaries from the 2025 federal election
Created	1949
MP	Alison Byrnes
Party	Labor
Namesake	Allan Cunningham
Electors	132,206 (2025)
Area	536 km2 (207.0 sq mi)
Demographic	Provincial

History

Allan Cunningham, the division's namesake

The division was created in 1949 and is named for Allan Cunningham, a 19th-century explorer of New South Wales and Queensland.

The division has always been represented by the Australian Labor Party, except following the 2002 by-election when the Greens won the seat; being the first time that the Greens held a seat in the House of Representatives. Labor recovered the seat at the 2004 federal election.

Its most prominent members have been Rex Connor, a senior minister in the Whitlam government, and Stephen Martin, who was Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives from 1993 to 1996, during the last term of the Keating government. The sitting member is Alison Byrnes who was elected in the 2022 federal election as a member of the Australian Labor Party.

Boundaries

Since 1984 federal electoral division boundaries in Australia have been determined at redistributions by a redistribution committee appointed by the Australian Electoral Commission. Redistributions occur for the boundaries of divisions in a particular state, and they occur every seven years, or sooner if a state's representation entitlement changes or when divisions of a state are malapportioned.^[1]

The division is located on the coast of New South Wales between southern Sydney and Wollongong. It takes in the northern portion of Wollongong, including Corrimal, Figtree and Unanderra. It also includes several of Sydney's outer southern suburbs, including Heathcote and Bundeena. The division covers areas east of the Illawarra escarpment and is bounded by the Tasman Sea to the east. It is bounded to the north by the Royal National Park and to the south by the Wollongong suburbs of Figtree, Cordeaux Heights and Coniston. Since the 2024 redistribution it has included Primbee, Windang, Cringila, Berkeley as well as the rest of Unanderra and Lake Heights.^[2]

Although the region is primarily rural, the vast majority of the population is in Wollongong and along the eastern seaboard. The main products and means of livelihood in the area are tourism, tertiary education, steel production, coal mining, brick manufacturing, textiles, and services.

Members

Image		Member	Party	Term	Notes
		Billy Davies (1884–1956)	Labor	10 December 1949 – 17 February 1956	Previously held the New South Wales Legislative Assembly seat of Wollongong-Kembla. Died in office
		Victor Kearney (1903–1982)		1 April 1956 – 1 November 1963	Retired
		Rex Connor (1907–1977)		30 November 1963 – 22 August 1977	Previously held the New South Wales Legislative Assembly seat of Wollongong-Kembla. Served as minister under Whitlam. Died in office
		Stewart West (1934–2023)		15 October 1977 – 8 February 1993	Served as minister under Hawke. Lost preselection and retired
		Stephen Martin (1948–)		13 March 1993 – 16 August 2002	Previously held the Division of Macarthur. Served as Speaker during the Keating Government. Resigned to retire from politics
		Michael Organ (1956–)	Greens	19 October 2002 – 9 October 2004	Lost seat
		Sharon Bird (1962–)	Labor	9 October 2004 – 11 April 2022	Served as minister under Gillard and Rudd. Retired
		Alison Byrnes (1974–)		21 May 2022 – present	Incumbent

Election results

Main article: Electoral results for the Division of Cunningham

This section is an excerpt from Results of the 2025 Australian federal election in New South Wales § Cunningham.[edit]

2025 Australian federal election: Cunningham^[3]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labor	Alison Byrnes	51,607	44.69	+3.49
	Liberal	Amanda Ivaneza	26,813	23.22	−1.25
	Greens	Jess Whittaker	23,584	20.42	−0.24
	One Nation	John Fuller	8,765	7.59	+2.23
	Animal Justice	Tim Lavers	3,048	2.64	+2.64
	Citizens	Alexis Garnaut-Miller	1,657	1.43	+0.45
Total formal votes			115,474	94.60	−0.06
Informal votes			6,586	5.40	+0.06
Turnout			122,060	92.37	+1.57
Two-party-preferred result
	Labor	Alison Byrnes	77,970	67.52	+2.45
	Liberal	Amanda Ivaneza	37,504	32.48	−2.45
	Labor hold		Swing	+2.45

This section is an excerpt from Results of the 2022 Australian federal election in New South Wales § Cunningham.[edit]

2022 Australian federal election: Cunningham^[4]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labor	Alison Byrnes	40,783	40.11	−6.50
	Liberal	Marcus Uren	25,418	25.00	−5.97
	Greens	Dylan Green	22,011	21.65	+6.56
	One Nation	Thomas Grogan	5,218	5.13	+5.13
	United Australia	Ben Britton	4,936	4.85	+1.05
	Liberal Democrats	Michael Glover	2,207	2.17	+2.17
	Citizens	Alexis Garnaut-Miller	1,098	1.08	+1.08
Total formal votes			101,671	94.86	+0.56
Informal votes			5,514	5.14	−0.56
Turnout			107,185	91.48	−1.17
Two-party-preferred result
	Labor	Alison Byrnes	65,783	64.70	+1.29
	Liberal	Marcus Uren	35,888	35.30	−1.29
	Labor hold		Swing	+1.29

Alluvial diagram for preference flows in the seat of Cunningham in the 2022 federal election. Y indicates at what stage the winning candidate had over 50% of the votes and was declared the winner.