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
Division of Hindmarsh in South Australia, as of the 2016 federal election.
Created	1903
MP	Matt Williams
Party	Liberal
Namesake	Sir John Hindmarsh
Electors	111,702 (2016)
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 division was one of the seven established when the former Division of South Australia was split on 2 October 1903, and was first contested at the 1903 election on vastly different boundaries. The Division is named after Sir John Hindmarsh, who was Governor of South Australia 1836-38. The 78 km² seat includes the suburbs of 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 international Adelaide Airport is centrally located in the electorate making noise pollution a prominent local issue, besides the aged care needs of the relatively elderly population − 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, though redistributions have moved it south over time to include wealthy seaside suburbs in and around Holdfast Bay.

Though now a marginal seat, for many years it had been 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. Hindmarsh originated further north and roughly covered what is now the safe Labor seat of Port Adelaide, while the safe Liberal rural seat of Barker at times first covered most of what is now Hindmarsh. After 1949 some of the area had variously been covered by Boothby, Kingston and abolished Hawker. The present Hindmarsh has changed little since neighbouring Hawker was abolished in 1993, though the north-western coastal strip was added from 2004.

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. Hawker abolished reduced the Labor margin from an already marginal 5.3 percent two-party margin to a paper-thin one percent two-party margin prior to 1993, when Liberal Christine Gallus won the seat on a two-party swing of two percent and a one percent two-party margin, becoming only the second non-Labor MP to win it, and in 1996 held the seat on an 8.1 percent margin, a Liberal record.

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. Though Georganas of Greek descent was thought to have built up a base with the substantial Greek community in Hindmarsh, he was defeated at the 2013 election when Liberal Matt Williams won the seat with a 1.89 percent margin from a 7.97 percent two-party-preferred swing. He became its third non-Labor member, and the first to oust a sitting Labor MP in the seat. The only South Australian seat to change hands in 2013, Hindmarsh became the most marginal seat in South Australia and the only marginal seat of the incoming federal government in South Australia. Now the fifth most marginal government-held seat in the nation, Labor's Georganas will attempt to defeat the Liberals' Williams at the 2016 federal election.

South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon confirmed in December 2014 that by mid-2015 the Nick Xenophon Team (NXT) party would announce candidates in the South Australian Liberal seats of Hindmarsh, Sturt and Mayo, along with seats in all states and territories at the 2016 federal election, with Xenophon citing the government's ambiguity on the Collins-class submarine replacement project as motivation. ABC psephologist Antony Green's 2016 federal election guide for South Australia states NXT has a "strong chance of winning lower house seats and three or four Senate seats". The NXT candidate in Hindmarsh is Daniel Kirk.

An opinion poll of more than 500 voters conducted by Galaxy in Hindmarsh one week out from the 2016 election indicated a knife-edge 50–50 two-party vote.

Members

Member		Party	Term
Template:Australian politics/party colours/Labor|	James Hutchison	Labour	1903–1909
Template:Australian politics/party colours/Labor|	William Archibald	Labor	1910–1916
Template:Australian politics/party colours/National Labor|		National Labor	1916–1917
Template:Australian politics/party colours/Nationalist|		Nationalist	1917–1919
Template:Australian politics/party colours/Labor|	Norman Makin	Labor	1919–1946
Template:Australian politics/party colours/Labor|	Albert Thompson	Labor	1946–1949
Template:Australian politics/party colours/Labor|	Clyde Cameron	Labor	1949–1980
Template:Australian politics/party colours/Labor|	John Scott	Labor	1980–1993
Template:Australian politics/party colours/Liberal|	Christine Gallus	Liberal	1993–2004
Template:Australian politics/party colours/Labor|	Steve Georganas	Labor	2004–2013
Template:Australian politics/party colours/Liberal|	Matt Williams	Liberal	2013–present

Election results

Main article: Electoral results for the Division of Hindmarsh

Australian federal election, 2016: Hindmarsh

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Matt Williams	37,884	40.61	−5.56
	Labor	Steve Georganas	31,825	34.11	−3.84
	Xenophon	Daniel Kirk	13,979	14.98	+14.98
	Greens	Patrick O'Sullivan	5,923	6.35	−2.49
	Family First	Mark Potter	1,853	1.99	−1.06
	Animal Justice	Bin Liu	1,360	1.46	+1.46
	Christian Democrats	Marina William	469	0.50	+0.50
Total formal votes			93,293	96.12	+1.00
Informal votes			3,769	3.88	−1.00
Turnout			97,062
Two-party-preferred result
	Labor	Steve Georganas	46,938	50.31	+2.20
	Liberal	Matt Williams	46,355	49.69	−2.20

See also

• Australian federal election, 2016

References

• ABC profile for Hindmarsh: 2016
• Poll Bludger profile for Hindmarsh: 2016
• AEC profile for Hindmarsh: 2016
• The Australian Political Almanac, 1st edition, Peter Wilson, 2002, Hardie Grant Books

External links

• SA boundary map, 2001: AEC
• SA boundary map, 1984: Atlas SA