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
300px 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. A redistribution prior to the 1993 election reduced the Labor margin from an already marginal 5.3 percent two-party vote to a paper-thin one percent two-party vote when it absorbed most of the seaside suburbs that had previously been in nearby Hawker. Liberal MP Christine Gallus, the former member for Hawker, won Liberal preselection in Hindmarsh for the 1993 election and subsequently won the seat, becoming only the second non-Labor MP to win it. She won the seat for a total of four elections on a marginal result of less than two percent of the two-party vote each time, except for the 1996 election on a swing of 6.4 percent, technically making Hindmarsh a safe Liberal seat. Gallus held the seat for 11 years before retiring from politics.

Labor's Steve Georganas, who made spirited bids for the seat in 1998 and 2001, won the seat at the 2004 election 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. The NXT candidate in Hindmarsh is Daniel Kirk.

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

Members

Member		Party	Term
	James Hutchison	Labor	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

Main article: Electoral results for the Division of Hindmarsh

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

References

• ABC profile for Hindmarsh: 2013
• AEC profile for Hindmarsh: 2013
• Poll Bludger profile for Hindmarsh: 2013
• 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