Electoral district of Bathurst

Bathurst[National Party of Australia – NSW|] is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of New South Wales. It is represented by Paul Toole of the
Nationals.
Bathurst is a regional electorate that encompasses the entirety of the local government areas of Bathurst Region, the City of Lithgow, Blayney Shire, Oberon Shire plus the southern part of Mid-Western Regional Council.

History

Bathurst was created in 1859, partly replacing Western Boroughs. Between 1920 and 1927, it absorbed parts of [Electoral district of Electoral district of Hartley (New South Wales)|Hartley (New South Wales)|Hartley] and Orange and elected three members under proportional representation. In 1927 Bathurst, Hartley and Orange were recreated as single-member electorates. It was held by the Labor party for 20 years until the Coalition's landslide win in 2011, where the Nationals candidate Paul Toole recorded a swing of 36.7%, the largest in state history. Of particular note was the suburb of Eglinton, where labour support plummeted from 854 of 1,690 to 180 of 1,690 first preference votes; a precipitous decline of 79%.
This trend was somewhat reversed in 2015, with Toole being re-elected by a margin of around 15,000 votes, a majority of almost two-thirds of the vote, but still down from the approximate 20,000 margin from 2011.