Electoral district of Blacktown

Blacktown is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of New South Wales. The current member is Labor's Stephen Bali, who replaced former Labor leader John Robertson at a by-election in October 2017.

Blacktown New South Wales—Legislative Assembly
Interactive map of district boundaries from the 2023 state election
State	New South Wales
Created	1941
MP	Stephen Bali
Party	Labor Party
Namesake	Blacktown
Electors	58,584 (2023)
Area	33.03 km2 (12.8 sq mi)
Demographic	Outer metropolitan
Electorates around Blacktown: Londonderry Riverstone Riverstone Winston Hills Mount Druitt Blacktown Winston Hills Prospect Badgerys Creek Prospect Prospect

Blacktown is a 33.03 km² urban electorate in Sydney's outer west.

History

Blacktown is known as a largely working-class area, and as such, the electorate has tended to strongly support the Labor Party, which has held the seat for all but three years since its inception. It was briefly marginal during the late 1950s, when long-serving member John Freeman was forced into retirement after trying and failing to find a safer seat. Liberal Alfred Dennis won the seat in the 1959 election, but held it for only one term before Labor regained it.

Since then, Labor's hold on the seat has only been seriously threatened once, when Labor suffered a swing of 18.7 percent amid its massive defeat in 2011. It is the only time since the 1950s that Labor has not won an outright majority of the primary vote in the seat.

Geography

On its current boundaries, Blacktown takes in the suburbs of Blacktown, Doonside, Kings Park, Marayong, Woodcroft and parts of Bungarribee, Lalor Park, Quakers Hill and Seven Hills.^[1]

Members for Blacktown

Member		Party	Period
	Frank Hill [2]	Labor	1941–1945
	John Freeman [3]	Labor	1945–1959
	Alfred Dennis [4]	Liberal	1959–1962
		Independent	1962
	Jim Southee [5]	Labor	1962–1971
	Gordon Barnier [6]	Labor	1971–1981
	John Aquilina [7]	Labor	1981–1991
	Pam Allan [8]	Labor	1991–1999
	Paul Gibson [9]	Labor	1999–2011
	John Robertson [10]	Labor	2011–2017
	Stephen Bali [11]	Labor	2017–present

Election results

Main article: Electoral results for the district of Blacktown

This section is an excerpt from Results of the 2023 New South Wales state election (Legislative Assembly) § Blacktown.[edit]

2023 New South Wales state election: Blacktown^[12][13]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labor	Stephen Bali	27,128	55.6	+0.9
	Liberal	Allan Green	11,637	23.9	−2.6
	Legalise Cannabis	Peter Foster	2,524	5.2	+5.2
	Greens	Leonard Hobbs	2,521	5.2	−1.1
	Animal Justice	Emma Kerin	2,357	4.8	+4.7
	Liberal Democrats	Alexander Mishalow	1,559	3.2	+3.2
	Sustainable Australia	Patrick Murphy	1,022	2.1	+2.1
Total formal votes			48,748	95.8	−0.1
Informal votes			2,123	4.2	+0.1
Turnout			50,871	86.8	−2.7
Two-party-preferred result
	Labor	Stephen Bali	30,091	69.1	+2.5
	Liberal	Allan Green	13,442	30.9	−2.5
	Labor hold		Swing	+2.5