# Electoral district of Port Macquarie

Port Macquarie is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of New South Wales. It was most recently represented by Leslie Williams of the Liberal Party.
It presently includes parts of coastal Port Macquarie-Hastings City Council (including Port Macquarie, Dunbogan, Bonny Hills, Kendall, Kew, Laurieton, North Haven and West Haven) and the northeast of the Mid-Coast Council (including Coopernook, Lansdowne, Moorland, Hannam Vale, Johns River and Stewarts River). Since 1991, the district also includes Lord Howe Island.
While the Mid North Coast has been heavily conservative-voting throughout history, Port Macquarie is particularly conservative even by Mid North Coast standards. Labor has never won a federal or state seat that includes Port Macquarie or the surrounding suburbs. Port Macquarie was originally a National seat, but has been a Liberal seat since 2020.

## History

Port Macquarie was created in 1988, replacing Oxley (which was then recreated to the north-west of Port Macquarie in 1991). It has historically been a comfortably safe seat for the National Party and has remained a centre-right seat for its entire existence. Dating to its time as Oxley, the Port Macquarie area had been held by a conservative party since the return to single-member seats in 1927, and had been in National hands for all but six years since 1945.
This tradition was broken in 2002, when three-term National member and shadow minister Rob Oakeshott resigned from the party to become an independent. He was handily reelected as an independent in 2003 and 2007. In 2003, he was returned with 82 percent of the two-party vote, making Port Macquarie the safest seat in the legislature.
Oakeshott resigned in 2008 to run in a by-election for the federal seat of Lyne, which was based on Port Macquarie at the time. He was succeeded by longtime friend and staffer Peter Besseling. At the next election, Besseling was swept out by the Nationals' Leslie Williams at the 2011 state election amid the massive Liberal-Nationals Coalition statewide landslide that year. This was due in part to local voter anger at Oakeshott's support for the minority federal Labor government. Despite Oakeshott's personal popularity, the Port Macquarie area was still National heartland. "Traditional" two-party matchups between the Nationals and Labor during Oakeshott and Besseling's tenures had always shown Port Macquarie as a comfortably safe National seat.
Proving this, Williams easily retained Port Macquarie in 2015. Despite suffering a 9.8 percent swing against Labor, she still sits on a majority of 19 percent, making Port Macquarie the sixth-safest National seat and the 17th-safest Coalition seat.
In 2020 Williams defected to the Liberals whilst still member for Port Macquarie making it the first time the seat has been held by a Liberal. It marked the second time, after Oakeshott, that a member for Port Macquarie has quit the Nationals whilst holding the seat.
Prior to Williams' defection to the Liberals, the Liberal Party had never contested Port Macquarie in its current existence since 1988, however the Liberals have previously won Port Macquarie in its previous iteration as Oxley in 1962 when then member Les Jordan too defected from the Nationals.
As part of the redistribution of electoral districts for the 2023 state election, a proposal was received to move Lord Howe Island back into the electorate of Sydney. However, the NSW Electoral Commission eventually decided to retain the island within the electorate of Port Macquarie, where it has been included since 1991.

## Members for Port Macquarie

| Member | Party | Term | Notes |
| Bruce Jeffery (1944–) | National | 19 March 1988 – 25 May 1991 | |
| Wendy Machin (1958–) | National | 25 May 1991 – 28 August 1996 | Resigned |
| Rob Oakeshott (1969–) | National | 30 November 1996 – 9 March 2002 | Won by-election. Resigned to successfully enter federal politics at 2008 Lyne by-election |
| Rob Oakeshott (1969–) | Independent | 9 March 2002 – 13 August 2008 | Won by-election. Resigned to successfully enter federal politics at 2008 Lyne by-election |
| Peter Besseling (1970–) | Independent | 18 October 2008 – 4 March 2011 | Won by-election. Lost seat |
| Leslie Williams (1960/61–) | National | 4 March 2011 – 20 September 2020 | Resigned |
| Leslie Williams (1960/61–) | Liberal | 20 September 2020 – 31 January 2025 | Resigned |

## Election results

2025 Port Macquarie state by-election :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes |
| | Liberal | Robert Dwyer | |
| | National | Sean Gleeson | |
| | Libertarian | Breelin Coetzer | |
| | Greens | Stuart Watson | |
| | Independent | Warwick Yonge | |
| | Legalise Cannabis | Megan Mathew | |
| Total formal votes | Total formal votes | Total formal votes | |
| Informal votes | Informal votes | Informal votes | |
| Turnout | Turnout | Turnout | |
| Two-candidate-preferred result ||||||
| | hold | hold | Swing |