Division of Macquarie

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The Division of Macquarie is an Australian Electoral Division in New South Wales. The division was created in 1900 and was one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election. It is named for Lachlan Macquarie, who was Governor of New South Wales between 1810 and 1821.

It is located to the west of Sydney, and today it covers a large part of the Blue Mountains, as well as the Hawkesbury region. Voting patterns within the electorate vary significantly between these two areas. The two-party preferred vote favoured the Liberal candidate by more than 70:30 in the Hawkesbury region at the 2004 Federal election. The result was partially reversed in the Blue Mountains where the result was approximately 60:40, favouring the Labor candidate. This voting pattern has been evident for at least the past three Federal elections.

It has changed hands many times during its long history, but in recent elections Kerry Bartlett has consolidated his 1996 win to make the electorate a fairly safe Liberal seat.

On September 13 , 2006 the Australian Electoral Commission announced that the seat will be redistributed. The Hawkesbury towns will move to Greenway while Macquarie will move west as far as Bathurst. The seat will contain the rural service and university town of Bathurst and will encompass the working-class towns of Lithgow, Portland and Oberon. This restores the seat's connection with Ben Chifley and makes it notionally Labor. It remains unpredictable but will be a key seat in the 2007 election.

Macquarie's most famous former member is Ben Chifley (ALP), who was Australian Prime Minister from 1945 to 1949.

[edit] Members

Member	Party affiliation	Period
Sydney Smith	FT	1901-06
Ernest Carr	ALP	1906-17
Samuel Nicholls	ALP	1917-22
Arthur Manning	NAT	1922-28
Ben Chifley	ALP	1928-31
John Lawson	UAP	1931-40
Ben Chifley	ALP	1940-51
Anthony Luchetti	ALP	1951-75
Reginald Gillard	Lib	1975-80
Ross Free	ALP	1980-84
Alasdair Webster	Lib	1984-93
Maggie Deahm	ALP	1993-96
Kerry Bartlett	Lib	1996-