Division of Hindmarsh

This article is about the Australian federal electorate. For the historical South Australian state electorate, see Electoral district of Hindmarsh.
Hindmarsh
Australian House of Representatives Division

Hindmarsh (dark green) in the city of Adelaide
Created 1903
MP Matt Williams
Party Liberal
Namesake Sir John Hindmarsh
Electors 106,792 (2013)
Area 78 km2 (30.1 sq mi)
Demographic Inner Metropolitan

The Division of Hindmarsh is an Australian Electoral Division in South Australia covering the western suburbs of Adelaide. The 78 km² seat includes the suburbs of Adelaide Airport, Ascot Park, Brooklyn Park, Edwardstown, Fulham, Glenelg, Grange, Henley Beach, Kidman Park, Kurralta Park, Morphettville, Plympton, Richmond, Semaphore Park, Torrensville, West Beach and West Lakes. The seat has one of the highest proportions of citizens over the age of 65 in Australia. It has long been dominated by working-class families and aged pensioners, but it is now attracting new wealth to its seaside suburbs. The Adelaide Airport is located in the electorate, and noise pollution is a prominent local issue, besides the aged care needs of the relatively elderly population.

The division was one of the seven established when the former Division of South Australia was split on 2 October 1903 and is named after Sir John Hindmarsh, who was Governor of South Australia 1836-38. Prominent members for the electorate have included Norman Makin, who was Speaker in the Scullin government, and a cabinet minister in the Curtin and Chifley governments, and Clyde Cameron, who was a cabinet minister in the Whitlam Government. For many years, it was one of the safest Labor seats in the country, and was in Labor hands for all but three years from the 1903 election to the 1993 election. Until 1949, Hindmarsh included most of what is now the safe Labor seat of Port Adelaide.

However, from 1983 onward, it became increasingly less safe for Labor. The boundaries of the seat changed dramatically over time as it moved further south and west. Cameron's successor, John Scott, retired after a redistribution prior to the 1993 election brought in most of the seaside suburbs that had previously been in nearby Hawker, including Glenelg. This reduced the Labor margin from an already marginal 5.3 percent two-party vote to a paper-thin one percent two-party vote. Liberal MP Christine Gallus, the former member for Hawker, won Liberal preselection in Hindmarsh for the 1993 election and subsequently won the seat on a two-party swing of two percent and a two-party margin of 51 percent, becoming only the second non-Labor MP to win it. She was reelected in 1996 on a swing of 6.4 percent, taking 58.6 percent of the two-party vote--technically making Hindmarsh a safe Liberal seat. This was the strongest result for a non-Labor candidate in the seat's history.

Gallus fended off spirited challenges from Labor's Steve Georganas in 1998 and 2001, winning each time with a margin of less than two percent. Gallus retired at the 2004 election, and Georganas won the seat on a razor-thin 0.06 percent margin from a one percent two-party swing. Georganas substantially increased his two-party margin above five percent at both the 2007 election and the 2010 election. Georganas was defeated in Hindmarsh at the 2013 election when Liberal Matt Williams became its third non-Labor member, and the first to oust a sitting Labor MP in the seat. Hindmarsh was the only seat in South Australia to change hands in 2013, and on a 1.9 percent two-party margin it is South Australia's most marginal seat.

South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon confirmed in December 2014 that by mid-2015 the Nick Xenophon Team party would announce candidates in the South Australian Liberal seats of Hindmarsh, Sturt and Mayo, along with seats in all states and territories, and preference against the government in the upper house, at the next federal election, with Xenophon citing the government's ambiguity on the Collins class submarine replacement project as motivation.[1] The NXT candidate in Hindmarsh is Daniel Kirk.[2]

Labor has pre-selected previous incumbent Steve Georganas to re-contest Hindmarsh at the next federal election.[3]

Members

MemberPartyTerm
  James Hutchison Labour 1903–1909
  William Archibald Labor 1910–1916
  National Labor 1916–1917
  Nationalist 1917–1919
  Norman Makin Labor 1919–1946
  Albert Thompson Labor 1946–1949
  Clyde Cameron Labor 1949–1980
  John Scott Labor 1980–1993
  Christine Gallus Liberal 1993–2004
  Steve Georganas Labor 2004–2013
  Matt Williams Liberal 2013–present

Election results

Australian federal election, 2013: Hindmarsh
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Liberal Matt Williams 43,639 46.17 +7.53
Labor Steve Georganas 35,876 37.95 −6.79
Greens Andrew Payne 8,360 8.84 −3.32
Family First Bob Randall 2,883 3.05 +0.06
Palmer United George Melissourgos 2,332 2.47 +2.47
Democratic Labour David McCabe 834 0.88 +0.88
Katter's Australian Kym McKay 599 0.63 +0.63
Total formal votes 94,523 95.12 +0.38
Informal votes 4,847 4.88 −0.38
Turnout 99,370 93.05 −1.08
Two-party-preferred result
Liberal Matt Williams 49,048 51.89 +7.97
Labor Steve Georganas 45,475 48.11 −7.97
Liberal gain from Labor Swing +7.97

Notes

  1. ↑ Subs backlash, Nick Xenophon sets sights on Liberal-held seats in Adelaide: SMH 6 April 2015
  2. ↑ 2016 NXT candidates: NXT.org.au
  3. ↑ Georganas elected unopposed: Neos Kosmos 3 September 2015

References

External links

Coordinates: 34°56′10″S 138°31′41″E / 34.936°S 138.528°E / -34.936; 138.528

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, January 20, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.