Ahead of the 2025 federal election, here's everything you need to know about the Cunningham electorate in the Illawarra.
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00:00Because it's been pretty much an uncontroversial seat in the Illawarra
00:04compared to the others. There's no tight race, there's no people getting sacked.
00:08I'm Kate McElwain from the Illawarra Mercury and I'm here with our political
00:12reporter Glenn Humphreys. We are having a chat about the northernmost Illawarra
00:16electorate of Cunningham, a very safe Labour seat. We have seen a lot of
00:21politicians down here though for this campaign, a lot of ministers dropping in
00:25over the last few weeks. Is it still a safe Labour seat?
00:29Well certainly even the Prime Minister has been down here twice in the pre-campaign
00:33campaign. I always think that's a good sign because people have always said of
00:37the Illawarra that it's Labour, we get ignored, no one pays any attention but
00:42they're obviously now paying attention because they're coming down. Whether
00:46that's because they fear they need to do some legwork because they're worried they
00:49might lose it or whether it's just to sort of show no we do care, we are here, we're
00:53not taking you for granted. One of the issues we've been hearing a lot about,
00:57perhaps not from the politicians that have been dropping in, but you know from
01:01community groups is the offshore wind zone or the opposition to wind farms, do
01:07you think that issue is going to play out in the election in Cunningham?
01:10Probably not in Cunningham, there might be somewhat of a reflection but
01:15there's I think a 15% majority to Labour so any groundswell of opposition to
01:22wind farms would have to be pretty substantial to knock that over and I
01:28guess it is that thing when the anti-wind farm groups post this election as
01:32being effectively a plebiscite on wind farms. You do have to wonder well what
01:37happens if you know Labour gets in everywhere, does that mean people want it?
01:41Yeah, it'll be interesting to see whether the vote swings wildly in any
01:45direction. How many candidates do we have running? Is that five or six?
01:50Yep, yep, five or six I think from memory. I went to the polling, the ballot
01:54draw and everyone was focused on Whitlam and Gilmore. Cunningham was off on the
02:00corner by itself because it's been pretty much an uncontroversial seat in the
02:05Illawarra compared to the others. There's no tight race, there's no people
02:09getting sacked. It's all just quiet, calm, easygoing it seems. I remember reading one
02:15of your pieces that you've been writing in the lead up and it's basically that
02:18it's only ever been held by Labour. I think something was, it was so safe Labour
02:22that people have even I guess held it until they've died in office. The only time
02:26it's been held by someone else is during that by-election where the Greens
02:29got in. So do you think it's gonna stay that way this election? Well the interesting
02:35thing is to see that last time around the Green candidate Dylan Green, aptly named,
02:40I think scored about 15% of the primary vote which was a huge leap. So it's gonna
02:46be interesting to see whether that their vote goes back or whether it continues
02:50especially now because they've got a named candidate in Jess Whitaker, the
02:55Greens Council at Wollongong. So people recognise and people know her so it'd be
02:59interesting to see if she can build on that 15% figure.