Coogee Media

Mysterious Death of First Member
The first member for Coogee, Hyam Goldstein (1876 to 1928), had previously served as a member for the proportionally-elected Eastern Suburbs from 1922 to 1925. He was an Alderman on Randwick Council and a former Mayor. He ran for the Nationalist party and was elected in 1927. He was found dead on 3rd September 1928 at the bottom of the Coogee cliffs in mysterious circumstances. It was rumoured that his death was caused by the federal Member for Barton, Thomas Ley, (aka The Minister for Murder) who was also suspected of the murder of his Labor opponent in the 1925 federal election, and later convicted of murder after moving to London. Read more here about Hyam Goldstein

NSW Parliament's Legislative Assembly in session

John Dunningham
Goldstein was followed by former Randwick Mayor John Dunningham (1884 - 1938). Dunningham defeated twelve other candidates in a preselection, to go on to easily win the seat for the Nationalist Party (and later representing the successor United Australia Party). He served for ten years from 1928 until 26th May 1938, and during the time of the Bertram Stevens government, held Ministerial rank. Dunningham collapsed and died of a heart attack in his office on the 26th May 1938. Dunningham was a popular member and his death was a great political shock. Read more about John Dunningham.

Hyam Goldstein, John Dunningham, Lou Cunningham, & Tom Mutch

Tom Mutch
Dunningham was replaced in a by-election by journalist, politician and historian Thomas Lewis Mutch (1885-1958). Mutch began his political career as a Labor man. He served as a member of the Legislative Assembly and held ministerial portfolios, but got caught up in the internecine warfare of the ALP in the 1920's and 1930's. Embittered by the infighting and excluded by the Lang faction, he drifted towards the right of politics. By the time he won the June by-election in 1938 following Dunningham's death, representing Coogee, he was a member of the United Australia Party (UAP).

Mutch had served as an Alderman on the old Mascot Council (now part of Bayside Council), and was an Alderman on Randwick Council from April 1934 till December 1937.

The 1938 Coogee by-election was notable because the conservative UAP did away with a preselection and allowed all their potential candidates to run under the UAP banner. The Labor candidate Robert B. "Bob" Keating (see Note 1) gained the most votes, with Tom Mutch trailing with the second highest number of votes. However, once the preferences from the other four UAP candidates flowed, Mutch was elected. The four other UAP candidates were Messrs John Burrows (and former Randwick Mayor), O'Connell, Walter and Collins. This unusual electoral ploy by the UAP prompted the Sun newspaper columnist Peter Pursuurkus the pen the follow ditty which was published in his "Window on the World" column:

Five little candidates by the silver shore,
One had a Tom Collins, and then there were four.
Four little candidates, approaching you and me,
One got to the Burrows, and then there were three
Three little candidates your suffrages to woo.
One went Walter-waltzing, and then there were two.
Two little candidates fighting for the bone;
Can O'Connell con a lot? And then there was one.
One little candidate praying for a run;
It was Mutch of a mutchness, and then there were none.

Mark Foots, another former Randwick Mayor, had also run as an "Independent", and though not endorsed by the UAP, seems to have remained a UAP member. Mutch went on to lose the Coogee seat at the general election in April 1941.

Lou Cunningham
Lucien Lawrence "Lou" Cunningham (4 June 1889 - 23 March 1948) born at Inverell, NSW to farmer Eugene Cunningham, and his wife Mary, nee Edgeworth, both born in Ireland. He was educated at Goonoowigall Public School and eventually ran the family farm. He became involved in the Australian Workers' Union, the No Conscription League and the Australian Labor Party. A Catholic, Cunningham was a staunch opponent of communism. In 1919 he defeated Labor defector William Webster to become the federal MHR for Gwydir which he held until the 1925 elections. He regained the seat in 1929 but lost it in 1931 in the landslide against the Scullin Labor government.

Cunningham married Catherine Crosby at Coogee on 3 September 1927 and though he maintained his links with rural NSW, lived in Coogee for the rest of his life. Unlike many colleagues, Cunningham remained loyal to the Labor Party through its many splits, although we do not know how he would have acted during the big split of the mid-1950s.

Being tall and around 108 kilograms he was nicknamed "the Goonoowigall Giant" and "Australia's biggest cabinet minister".

He ran as a candidate for the federal seat of East Sydney seats in 1932 but was defeated by Eddie Ward, then a Lang Labor candidate. Cunningham was a staunch opponent of Jack Lang. He then stood for Coogee in 1941 after Lang's removal as leader and won partly due to his political skills and standing in the local community and partly due to an invigorated Labor Party under William McKell. Cunningham's win for the Labor Party broke what had been a conservative stranglehold of the seat of Coogee.

Cunningham retained the seat until his death on 23 March 1948 of a coronary occlusion at his home at 5 Stark Street, Coogee. His funeral was held at St Brigid's Catholic Church, Coogee and he was buried at Randwick General Cemetery. He was survived by his wife and two sons. This meant that there needed to be a by-election to fill the vacancy.

Transition Period: Lou Walsh and Kevin Ellis
Demographic and economic changes and post-World War Two immigration created changes in the makeup of the eastern suburbs. The boundaries of the Coogee were pushed outwards as seats were created in the western suburbs at the expense of the east. This meant that at first there was a transition period where the seat see-sawed between parties and then a long period of Labor domination.

Lou's widow, Catherine Cunningham, ran for the Labor Party in the following by-election but was defeated by the Liberal Party's Kevin Ellis (Later Sir Kevin Ellis) (1908 -1975). Though not the first conservative member for Coogee, Ellis was the first Liberal member for Coogee, with the Liberal Party founded by Sir Robert Menzies, superseding the old UAP following its formation in 1944

Ellis lost to Labor's Louis Andrew "Lou" Walsh (1899-1978) in 1953, and the two engaged in numerous election battles over the next decade. Walsh lost to Ellis in 1956, winning the seat back in 1962 for one final term. Ellis held the seat from 1965 until his retirement in 1973.

Ellis became Speaker of the Legislative Assembly with the election of the Askin Liberal Government in 1965 until his retirement in 1973. He was knighted in 1969 in recognition of service as the Speaker. He was notable for his preference to wear the elaborate wig and gown of the parliament while acting as Speaker, because he said it enhanced the authority and prestige of the office.

Lou Walsh and Kevin Ellis were rare elements in politics - though on opposite sides of the political fence, they were gentlemen in the true sense of the word. Ellis believed in good and civil conduct in political life and felt his opponents deserved recognition when they were clearly in the right. This tended to make him an ideal candidate for speaker. I remember Lou Walsh well - a high school teacher with a studious air, always impeccably dressed and unfailingly polite. He spoke quietly but passionately about causes - it was hard to imagine him in the rough atmosphere of the New South Wales Parliament which has gained the opprobrium of being the "Bear Pit" of parliamentary chambers. Lou Walsh was also an Alderman at Randwick Council 1950-1953 and 1959-1962 and Mayor in 1952.

Ross Freeman
Ross Buchanan Freeman, a lawyer, (born 1947 in nearby Maroubra) was the Liberal member for Coogee for just 6 months and 7 days in 1973 to 1974. In 1973, following the retirement of Liberal Sir Kevin Ellis, Freeman was preselected as the Liberal candidate for Ellis's seat of Coogee. In a closely fought race, Freeman emerged with an eight-vote majority over Labor candidate Michael Cleary. The result was disputed by Labor and later overturned by the Court of Disputed Returns, and a by-election was held in 1974. This resulted in a very narrow victory of 54 votes for Michael Cleary. The Coogee MP with the shortest tenure (Freeman) was replaced by the one with the longest tenure ( Michael Cleary).

The Labor Era
Labor's Michael Cleary AO (born 1940), was a champion athlete, Rugby Union and Rugby League star, and clothing retailer. Cleary won the subsequent by-election by a narrow 54 votes. He went on to serve as the Member for Coogee for 17 years - the longest serving Member for Coogee. He added celebrity status to local state politics. He served as Minister for Sport and Recreation, Tourism and Racing in subsequent Labor governments.

Ernie Page, Paul Pearce, Bruce Notely-Smith & Majorie O'Neill

At the 1990 redistribution, the seat of Waverley was abolished and absorbed into Coogee and Vaucluse. Ernie Page (1935 - 2018), a former Waverley Mayor who had been the member for the seat of Waverley since 1981, succeeded Michael Cleary for Labor in 1991 and held the seat for 12 years until 2003. He served at Minister for Local Government in the Carr Government.

Labor continued to hold the seat with Ernie Page succeeded by another former Waverley Mayor, Paul Pearce (born 1956) , for eight years until 2011.

Current Era
In 2011, Bruce Notley-Smith (born 1964) won the seat for the Liberals. It was the first time in 38 years that his party had control of the seat of Coogee. Notley-Smith was a small businessperson who served as a Councillor onf Randwick City Council (representing East Ward - i.e Coogee) from 2000 and was a Liberal Mayor in from 2007 to 2000. He held the seat again at the 2015 State Elections, but was defeated by Labor's Majorie O'Neil, a Waverley Council Counsellor, and the first woman to hold the Coogee Seat.

Eleven men and one woman have held the state seat of Coogee, split evenly between conservatives and social democrat Labor. Local government was often a springboard for their state parliamentary careers. Eight of them had the experience of local government representation and four were former Mayors of Randwick, and two former Mayors of nearby Waverley Council. In the State elections of March 2023, the Labor candidate and standing member, Majorie O'Neill, easily beat a poltical newcomer Liberal opponent Kylie Von Muenster with a swing of over 10%. History shows, the Liberals may have done better if they had had a candidate from among the alumni of local government Councillors or Mayors.

Majorie O'Neill, the current Coogee MP