Division of Greenway

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Greenway
Australian House of Representatives Division
State or territory: New South Wales
Created: 1984
MP: Louise Markus
Party: Liberal
Namesake: Francis Greenway
Electors: 88,213
Area: 2,886 km² (1,114.3 sq mi)
Demographic: Outer Metropolitan

The Division of Greenway is an Australian Electoral Division in New South Wales. The division was created in 1984 and is named for Francis Greenway, an ex-convict who became a prominent architect in colonial Sydney. The seat was traditionally centred on the Blacktown district, but after the distribution it is mainly located the Hills/North-west/Hawkesbury region of Sydney and takes in suburbs such as Stanhope Gardens, Quakers Hill, Windsor and Riverstone.

For most of its history, Greenway was a safe seat for the Australian Labor Party. However, demographic changes in the areas north of Blacktown resulted in a shift away from Labor at the 2001 election. At the 2004 election this trend continued and the seat was won by the Liberal Party following the retirement of the sitting MP and an extensive Liberal campaign. Louise Markus, a conservative, fundamentalist Christian social worker, defeated Ed Husic, a former political advisor and a non-practicing Muslim, to take the seat by a small margin of 0.6%. A large Informal vote of 11.83%, the highest in the 2004 election contributed to this result. On September 13, 2006, the Australian Electoral Commission announced that the seat would be redistributed. The Hawkesbury area towns moved to Greenway from the Division of Macquarie, and lost traditional Labor-voting areas such as Blacktown, Dean Park, Lalor Park and Seven Hills as well as the Liberal-leaning areas of Kings Langley and Seven Hills North, making Greenway a very safe seat for the Liberal Party. The margin was previously 11.4 % and is is now 4.7% as of the 2007 federal election, when it experienced a 6.9% swing towards Labor.

[edit] Members

Member Party Term
  Russell Gorman Labor 19841996
  Frank Mossfield Labor 19962004
  Louise Markus Liberal 2004—present

[edit] Election results

Australian federal election, 2007: Greenway
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Liberal Louise Markus 40,338 50.10 -5.07
Labor Michael Vassili 30,973 38.47 +9.11
Greens Leigh Williams 4,617 5.73 +0.20
Christian Democrats John Phillips 1,711 2.12 -0.07
Independent F Ivor 1,343 1.67 +1.44
Family First Joanne Muller 1,312 1.63 +0.09
Citizens Electoral Council Goran Reves 228 0.28 +0.16
Total formal votes 80,522 95.37 +4.29
Informal votes 3,908 4.63 -4.29
Turnout 84,430 95.71 +1.21
Two Candidate Preferred Result
Liberal Louise Markus 43,881 54.50 -6.85
Labor Michael Vassili 36,641 45.50 +6.85
Liberal hold Swing -6.85

[edit] References