Local governments have been elected in New South Wales since 1842; the State Legislative Assembly became an elected body in 1856, and the Commonwealth parliament was initiated in 1901. The franchise was first limited to property-owning white men, but gradually included women and indigenous people.
As elected governments evolved, Pyrmontese organised themselves to shape these institutions. Their councillors in the City of Sydney (from 1842) were local businessmen, until the rise of the Labor Party in the 1890s. Labor’s control ended only in the 1980s as industry declined and Pyrmont began to be gentrified.
A similar pattern can be seen in representatives to the NSW Legislative Assembly: from 1856 Pyrmont elected men of property until 1890 when it became a safe Labor seat. That regime ended only in 2007 when a newly arrived middle class electorate put in Independents.
Pyrmont has never elected a non-Labor representative to the Commonwealth House of Representatives (created in 1901): as Labor policies evolved, so did the values of the electors.