Division of Flinders

Flinders
Australian House of Representatives Division

Division of Flinders (green) in Victoria
Created 1901
MP Greg Hunt
Party Liberal
Namesake Matthew Flinders
Electors 105,376 (2013)[1]
Area 1,955 km2 (754.8 sq mi)
Demographic Rural

The Division of Flinders is an Australian Electoral Division in Victoria. The division is one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election. It is named for Matthew Flinders, the first man to circumnavigate Australia, and the person credited with giving Australia her name.

Originally a country seat south and east of Melbourne, Flinders has been gradually cut back to the outer southern suburbs on the Mornington Peninsula, including Dromana, Hastings and Portsea.

It has usually been a fairly safe seat for the Liberal Party and its predecessors, who have held it for all but six years since its creation. However, it has occasionally been won by the Australian Labor Party, notably in 1929 when Prime Minister Stanley Bruce was defeated. This was the first time an Australian prime minister has lost his own seat at a general election. (The only other such instance was the defeat of Liberal Prime Minister John Howard in his seat of Bennelong, also by Labor, in the 2007 federal election.)

The seat's most prominent member was Bruce, who held it for all but two years from 1918 to 1933. Other prominent former members include Jack Holloway, the Labor challenger who ousted Bruce and later a senior minister in the Curtin and Chifley governments (though he was the member for Melbourne Ports by then) and two deputy Liberal leaders Sir Phillip Lynch and Peter Reith

Members

MemberPartyTerm
  Arthur Groom Free Trade 1901–1903
  James Gibb Free Trade, Anti-Socialist 1903–1906
  (Sir) William Irvine Anti-Socialist 1906–1909
  Commonwealth Liberal 1909–1917
  Nationalist 1917–1918
  Stanley Bruce Nationalist 1918–1929
  Jack Holloway Labor 1929–1931
  Stanley Bruce United Australia 1931–1933
  James Fairbairn United Australia 1933–1940
  Rupert Ryan United Australia 1940–1944
  Liberal 1944–1952
  Keith Ewert Labor 1952–1954
  Robert Lindsay Liberal 1954–1966
  (Sir) Phillip Lynch Liberal 1966–1982
  Peter Reith Liberal 1982–1983
  Bob Chynoweth Labor 1983–1984
  Peter Reith Liberal 1984–2001
  Greg Hunt Liberal 2001–present

Election results

Australian federal election, 2013: Flinders[1]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Liberal Greg Hunt 51,972 55.34 +1.01
Labor Joshua Sinclair 23,666 25.20 −6.54
Greens Martin Rush 9,148 9.74 −1.76
Palmer United Linda Clark 5,639 6.00 +6.00
Family First David Clark 1,091 1.16 −1.26
Independent Paul Madigan 708 0.75 +0.75
Christians Ashleigh Belsar 523 0.56 +0.56
Rise Up Australia Angela Dorian 481 0.51 +0.51
Independent Denis McCormack 478 0.51 +0.51
Non-Custodial Parents John Zabaneh 215 0.23 +0.23
Total formal votes 93,921 95.03 −0.85
Informal votes 4,916 4.97 +0.85
Turnout 98,837 93.79 +0.54
Two-party-preferred result
Liberal Greg Hunt 58,048 61.81 +2.67
Labor Joshua Sinclair 35,873 38.19 −2.67
Liberal hold Swing +2.67

References

External links

Coordinates: 38°20′46″S 145°19′26″E / 38.346°S 145.324°E