Division of Macquarie

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Macquarie
Australian House of Representatives Division
State or territory: New South Wales
Created: 1901
MP: Bob Debus
Party: Labor
Namesake: Lachlan Macquarie
Electors: 94,670
Area: 12,084 km² (4,665.7 sq mi)
Demographic: Provincial

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 was evident for at the previous three Federal elections up to 2007.

It has changed hands many times during its long history, but in elections previous to 2007 Kerry Bartlett consolidated his 1996 win to make the electorate a fairly safe Liberal seat.

On September 13, 2006 however the Australian Electoral Commission announced that the seat was to be redistributed. The Hawkesbury towns moved to Greenway while Macquarie moved west as far as Bathurst. The seat now contains the rural service and university town of Bathurst and the working-class towns of Lithgow, Portland and Oberon. This restored the seat's connection with Ben Chifley and made it notionally Labor with a majority of 0.5 percent, which was won by former New South Wales Minister for the Environment and Attorney General Bob Debus at the 2007 election on a 7.04 percent margin.

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

Contents

[edit] Members

Member Party Term
  Sydney Smith Free Trade 19011906
  Ernest Carr Labor 19061916
  Nationalist 19161917
  Samuel Nicholls Labor 19171922
  Arthur Manning Nationalist 19221928
  Ben Chifley Labor 19281931
  John Lawson United Australia 19311940
  Ben Chifley Labor 19401951
  Anthony Luchetti Labor 1951—1975
  Reginald Gillard Liberal 19751980
  Ross Free Labor 19801984
  Alasdair Webster Liberal 19841993
  Maggie Deahm Labor 19931996
  Kerry Bartlett Liberal 19962007
  Bob Debus Labor 2007—present

[edit] Election results

Australian federal election, 2007: Macquarie
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labor Bob Debus 38,672 44.08 +17.13
Liberal Kerry Bartlett 33,197 37.84 -14.93
Greens Carmel McCallum 9,092 10.36 +1.94
Independent Tim Williams 4,145 4.72 +3.49
Christian Democrats Robert Gifford 1,702 1.94 +0.35
Family First Charles Liptak 465 0.53 -0.60
Liberty and Democracy Kirk Fletcher 355 0.40 +0.40
Citizens Electoral Council Michael Segedin 99 0.11 -0.30
Total formal votes 87,727 96.44 +0.38
Informal votes 3,240 3.56 -0.38
Turnout 90,967 96.09 -0.09
Two Candidate Preferred Result
Labor Bob Debus 50,037 57.04 +6.57
Liberal Kerry Bartlett 37,690 42.96 -6.57
Labor hold Swing +6.57

[edit] References

[edit] External links