Division of Hindmarsh

Hindmarsh
Australian House of Representatives Division
Division of Hindmarsh in South Australia, as of the 2016 federal election.
Created 1903
MP Steve Georganas
Party Labor
Namesake Sir John Hindmarsh
Electors 111,715 (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, though on vastly different boundaries. The Division is named after Sir John Hindmarsh, who was Governor of South Australia 1836-38. The 78 km² seat extends from the coast in the west to South Road in the east, covering 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. Progressive boundary redistributions over many decades transformed Hindmarsh from a safe Labor seat in to a marginal seat often won by the government of the day.

Geography

Though initially based on the greater Port Adelaide area to the north of the present boundary, now represented by the Division of Port Adelaide, Hindmarsh has long been dominated by working-class families and aged pensioners. Redistributions from the late 1940s onward have moved Hindmarsh clear of its initial boundaries over time to include increasingly wealthy seaside suburbs in and around Glenelg and the Holdfast Bay area to the south.

With only the two additional seats of Adelaide and Boothby covering the metropolitan area until 1949, the south-east state border rural seat of Barker was then considered a "hybrid urban-rural" seat, stretching all the way from the southern tip of South Australia at least as far as Glenelg and the Holdfast Bay area, and at times even stretched as far as the western metropolitan suburbs of Keswick and Henley Beach. After 1949 some of the area had variously been covered by Boothby, Kingston and now-abolished Hawker. The present Hindmarsh has changed little geographically since neighbouring Hawker was abolished in 1993, though the north-western coastal strip was added from 2004.

Though now a marginal seat, for nearly a century 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. As a measure of the strength of Labor support at the time, it was the only seat in the state won by Labor in the massive United Australia Party landslide of 1931. One of the few times that Labor's hold on the seat was seriously threatened in this time came in 1966, when the Labor margin was pared down to 1.7 percent. Even then, sitting member Clyde Cameron still won enough primary votes to retain the seat outright.

Prominent members

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.

Later years

A redistribution ahead of the 1984 election made Hindmarsh far less safe for Labor. From then on, successive redistributions gradually gave it a voting pattern similar to mortgage belt seats, which tend to be fairly marginal.

Labor's hold on the seat became even more tenuous in the redistribution prior to the 1993 election when it absorbed most of the area around Holdfast Bay that had previously been in abolished Hawker. This reduced Labor's two-party margin from an already marginal 5.3 percent to a paper-thin one percent. Combined with state-level anger at the time stemming from the State Bank Collapse, this was enough for Liberal Christine Gallus, previously the member for Hawker, to win the seat in 1993 with a one percent two-party margin from a two percent two-party swing, becoming only the second non-Labor MP ever to win it. She seemingly consolidated her hold on the seat at the 1996 election amid her party's large victory that year, increasing her margin to 8.1 percent – easily the strongest result for a non-Labor candidate in the seat's history.

Gallus fended off spirited challenges from Labor's Steve Georganas at both the 1998 election and 2001 election, winning each time with a margin of less than two percent. When Gallus retired at the 2004 election, Georganas won the seat on a razor-thin 0.06 percent two-party margin from a one percent two-party swing, defeating Liberal candidate Simon Birmingham. Georganas substantially increased his two-party margin above five percent at both the 2007 election and the 2010 election. Though Georganas was thought to have built up a base with the substantial Greek community in Hindmarsh (he is himself of Greek descent), 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 Liberal seat in the state, only to be won back by Georganas for Labor at the 2016 election.

Being the only South Australian seat changing hands and won by the incoming government in 2013, coupled with being the only South Australian seat changing hands in 2016 aside from Mayo, underscored the marginal seat volatility of present-day Hindmarsh. Not a "bellwether" electorate however, ABC psephologist Antony Green listed the nearby Division of Makin as one of eleven seats throughout Australia which he classed as bellwethers in his 2016 pre-election guide, and was notably the only bellwether outside of New South Wales and Queensland.[1]

2016 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.[2] ABC psephologist Antony Green's 2016 federal election guide for South Australia stated NXT had a "strong chance of winning lower house seats and three or four Senate seats".[3] The NXT candidate in Hindmarsh was Daniel Kirk.[4]

Going into the 2016 election with a slender 1.9 percent two-party Liberal margin, Hindmarsh was the most marginal seat in South Australia, the government's only marginal seat in South Australia, the Coalition's only gain at the 2013 election in South Australia, and was the sixth most marginal Coalition-held seat in the nation. Georganas sought to retake the seat from Williams.[5] A Galaxy seat-level opinion poll of over 500 voters in Hindmarsh conducted a week out from the Saturday 2 July election indicated a knife-edge 50–50 two-party vote.[6] Ultimately, NXT preferences allowed Georgeanas to reclaim Hindmarsh for Labor with a two-party margin of just 0.6 percent, representing a two-party swing of 2.5 percent.[7] Though slender, Georganas was first elected to Hindmarsh at the 2004 election with a two-party margin of just 0.06 percent.[8]

2018 redistribution

Hindmarsh's character will be significantly altered in a redistribution ahead of the next federal election. Port Adelaide will be abolished, and most of its territory will transfer to Hindmarsh; as mentioned above, Hindmarsh had been based on Port Adelaide for much of the first half-century after Federation. At the same time, the Holdfast Bay area will transfer to Boothby. This will have the effect of making Labor's hold on the seat much more secure; on the new boundaries, Labor will have a notional majority of 8.2 percent.[9]

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 2013–2016
  Steve Georganas Labor 2016–present

Election results

Australian federal election, 2016: Hindmarsh[10]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Liberal Matt Williams 39,570 40.36 −5.81
Labor Steve Georganas 33,355 34.02 −3.93
Xenophon Daniel Kirk 14,774 15.07 +15.07
Greens Patrick O'Sullivan 6,401 6.53 −2.31
Family First Mark Potter 1,977 2.02 −1.03
Animal Justice Bin Liu 1,456 1.49 +1.49
Christian Democrats Marina William 499 0.51 +0.51
Total formal votes 98,032 95.86 +0.74
Informal votes 4,232 4.14 −0.74
Turnout 102,264 91.54 −1.51
Two-party-preferred result
Labor Steve Georganas 49,586 50.58 +2.47
Liberal Matt Williams 48,446 49.42 −2.47
Labor gain from Liberal Swing +2.47

See also

References

Notes

  1. ↑ The Bellwether Contests: Antony Green ABC
  2. ↑ Subs backlash, Nick Xenophon sets sights on Liberal-held seats in Adelaide: SMH 6 April 2015
  3. ↑ Election Guide (SA) - 2016 federal election guide: Antony Green ABC
  4. ↑ 2016 NXT candidates: NXT.org.au Archived 23 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine.
  5. ↑ Georganas elected unopposed: Neos Kosmos 3 September 2015
  6. ↑ Exclusive poll shows Hindmarsh sits on knife edge, while Liberals look safe in Boothby: The Advertiser 24 June 2016
  7. ↑ Hindmarsh, SA - 2016 Tally Room: Australian Electoral Commission Archived 2016-08-05 at the Wayback Machine.
  8. ↑ Hindmarsh, SA - 2004 Tally Room: Australian Electoral Commission
  9. ↑ "2017-18 Federal Redistribution - South Australia". ABC Elections. 26 June 2018.
  10. ↑ Hindmarsh, SA, Virtual Tally Room 2016, Australian Electoral Commission.

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

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