Division of Werriwa

"Werriwa" redirects here. For the lake, see Lake George (New South Wales).

The Division of Werriwa is an Australian electoral division in the state of New South Wales. The name Werriwa derives from a local Aboriginal name for Lake George, which was located in the division when it was established in 1900. The division was one of the original 65 divisions first contested at the first federal election.

Werriwa Australian House of Representatives Division
Interactive map of electorate boundaries from the 2025 federal election
Created	1901
MP	Anne Stanley
Party	Labor
Namesake	Lake George (Aboriginal name)
Electors	117,827 (2025)
Area	111 km2 (42.9 sq mi)
Demographic	Outer metropolitan
Electorates around Werriwa: Lindsay McMahon Fowler Hume Werriwa Fowler Hume Macarthur Hughes
Footnotes
[1]

Werriwa now covers an area in south-west Sydney, including the suburbs of Ashcroft, Austral, Bonnyrigg Heights, Busby, Carnes Hill, Cartwright, Casula, Cecil Hills, Edmondson Park, Green Valley, Heckenberg, Hinchinbrook, Horningsea Park, Hoxton Park, Lurnea, Middleton Grange, Miller, Prestons, Sadleir, and West Hoxton; as well as parts of Bonnyrigg, Cecil Park, Glenfield, Kemps Creek, Mount Pritchard, and Rossmore.

The current Member for Werriwa, since the 2016 federal election, is Anne Stanley, a member of the Australian Labor Party.

History

Lake George, the Aboriginal name of which is the division's namesake

Originally, Werriwa was a large and mostly rural electorate that stretched from south-west Sydney to the northern part of what is now the ACT, and included the Southern Highlands, Goulburn, and part of the South West Slopes. In succeeding years, with demographic change and electoral redistributions, Werriwa began to shrink and, from 1913 onwards, no longer included Lake George. It underwent several other major changes to its borders over the years. The 1949 expansion of Parliament saw Werriwa lose most of its remaining rural territory to the newly created Division of Macarthur and move to approximately its current position in south-west Sydney, over 150 kilometres (93 mi) away from Lake George. However, it has retained the name of Werriwa, primarily as it is an original Federation electorate—the Australian Electoral Commission's guidelines on electoral redistributions require it to preserve the names of original Federation electorates where possible.^[2]

It is a very safe seat for Labor, which has held it continuously since 1934 and for all but nine years since 1906.

Werriwa is best remembered for being the electorate of former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, who held it from 1952 to 1978. It was represented from 1994 to 2005 by one of Whitlam's former aides, Mark Latham, the leader of the ALP and Leader of the Opposition from 2003 to 2005. In more recent times, a by-election in March 2005 resulted in Labor's Chris Hayes elected with over 55% of the vote, in a 16-candidate race which saw no other candidate poll above 8%.

Demographics

Werriwa is a heavily working class electorate and is considered part of Labor's Western Sydney "Red Wall" (seats that are reliably safe for Labor).^[3]

Werriwa is home to relatively large immigrant communities. According to the 2021 census, 68.3% of residents had both parents born outside of Australia.^[4] 37.6% of people only speak English at home.^[4] Other languages spoken at home include Arabic at 11.4%, Vietnamese at 6.4%, Hindi at 3.6%, Assyrian Neo-Aramaic at 2.5% and Spanish at 2.2%.^[4]

Members

Image		Member	Party	Term	Notes
		Alfred Conroy (1864–1920)	Free Trade	29 March 1901 – 1906	Lost seat
			Anti-Socialist	1906 – 12 December 1906
		David Hall (1874–1945)	Labor	12 December 1906 – 1 April 1912	Previously held the New South Wales Legislative Assembly seat of Gunnedah. Resigned to become a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council
		Benjamin Bennett (1872–1939)		1 June 1912 – 23 April 1913	Retired
		Alfred Conroy (1864–1920)	Liberal	31 May 1913 – 5 September 1914	Lost seat
		John Lynch (1862–1941)	Labor	5 September 1914 – 14 November 1916	Lost seat
			National Labor	14 November 1916 – 17 February 1917
			Nationalist	17 February 1917 – 13 December 1919
		Bert Lazzarini (1884–1952)	Labor	13 December 1919 – 27 March 1931	Lost seat
			Labor (NSW)	27 March 1931 – 19 December 1931
		Walter McNicoll (1877–1947)	Country	19 December 1931 – 14 September 1934	Resigned to become Administrator of the Territory of New Guinea
		Bert Lazzarini (1884–1952)	Labor (NSW)	15 September 1934 – February 1936	Served as minister under Curtin, Forde and Chifley. Died in office
			Labor	February 1936 – 1 October 1952
		Gough Whitlam (1916–2014)		29 November 1952 – 31 July 1978	Served as Opposition Leader from 1967 to 1972, and from 1975 to 1977. Served as Prime Minister from 1972 to 1975. Resigned to retire from politics
		John Kerin (1937–2023)		23 September 1978 – 22 December 1993	Previously held the Division of Macarthur. Served as minister under Hawke and Keating. Resigned to retire from politics
		Mark Latham (1961–)		28 January 1994 – 21 January 2005	Served as Opposition Leader from 2003 to 2005. Resigned to retire from politics. Later elected to the New South Wales Legislative Council in 2019
		Chris Hayes (1955–)		19 March 2005 – 21 August 2010	Transferred to the Division of Fowler
		Laurie Ferguson (1952–)		21 August 2010 – 9 May 2016	Previously held the Division of Reid. Retired
		Anne Stanley (1961–)		2 July 2016 – present	Incumbent

Election results

Main article: Electoral results for the Division of Werriwa

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

2025 Australian federal election: Werriwa^[5]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labor	Anne Stanley	35,785	40.84	+1.71
	Liberal	Sam Kayal	27,003	30.82	−0.08
	Greens	Janet Castle	9,747	11.12	+4.48
	One Nation	Ian Cimera	3,499	3.99	−0.99
	Legalise Cannabis	Andrew Murphy	3,005	3.43	+3.43
	Libertarian	Gemma Noiosi	2,802	3.20	−5.92
	Independent	Jamal Daoud	2,232	2.55	+2.55
	Trumpet of Patriots	Shannon McGlone	1,800	2.05	+2.05
	Family First	Jacob Balestri	1,741	1.99	+1.99
Total formal votes			87,614	82.74	−7.08
Informal votes			18,274	17.26	+7.08
Turnout			105,888	89.90	+7.39
Two-party-preferred result
	Labor	Anne Stanley	49,741	56.77	+1.43
	Liberal	Sam Kayal	37,873	43.23	−1.43
	Labor hold		Swing	+1.43

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

2022 Australian federal election: Werriwa^[6]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labor	Anne Stanley	40,108	39.86	−7.90
	Liberal	Sam Kayal	30,864	30.67	−4.60
	Liberal Democrats	Victor Tey	8,978	8.92	+8.92
	United Australia	Tony Nikolic	8,813	8.76	+4.56
	Greens	Apurva Shukla	6,772	6.73	+1.36
	One Nation	Adam Booke	5,096	5.06	+5.06
Total formal votes			100,631	90.18	+1.75
Informal votes			10,962	9.82	−1.75
Turnout			111,593	88.53	−2.00
Two-party-preferred result
	Labor	Anne Stanley	56,173	55.82	+0.35
	Liberal	Sam Kayal	44,458	44.18	−0.35
	Labor hold		Swing	+0.35

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