Division of Port Adelaide

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Port Adelaide
Australian House of Representatives Division
State or territory: South Australia
Created: 1903
MP: Mark Butler
Party: Labor
Namesake: Port Adelaide
Electors: 100,244
Area: 253 km² (97.7 sq mi)
Demographic: Inner Metropolitan

The Division of Port Adelaide is an Australian Electoral Division in the state of South Australia. It is located in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, covering the area around the Barker Inlet, part of the Gulf Saint Vincent. It stretches from St Kilda in the north down to Grange Road, and is roughly bounded on the east by the Gawler railway line. It also includes the Mawson Lakes area. It includes the suburbs of Findon, Hendon, Exeter, North Haven, Wingfield, Salisbury, Buckland Park and Port Adelaide itself.

The Division was named after the suburb of Port Adelaide, the working port of Adelaide. It was proclaimed at the redistribution of 11 May 1949, and was first contested at the 1949 Federal election. The seat is currently a safe Australian Labor Party seat, the only one out of the federal South Australian seats. The closest that the ALP has ever come to losing the seat was in 1996, when the John Howard landslide resulted in the two-party preferred vote of Labor to be reduced to 58%. It currently stands, after the 2007 vote, at around 69%.

A notable curiosity in recent years was that in the 1998 and 2001 federal elections, the seat was the only one in Australia where a Communist Party candidate, Michael Perth, stood for election. This was the only occasion when the Liberal Party did not preference the One Nation Party last. He achieved less than 1% of the vote on each occasion.

The sitting member, Labor's Rod Sawford, retired at the 2007 election, which saw South Australian Labor's historically safe seat easily won by the newly endorsed Labor candidate, unionist and head of the left state Labor faction Mark Butler.

[edit] Members

Member Party Term
  Albert Thompson Labor 1949—1963
  Fred Birrell Labor 1963—1974
  Mick Young Labor 1974—1988
  Rod Sawford Labor 1988—2007
  Mark Butler Labor 2007—present

[edit] Election results

Australian federal election, 2007: Port Adelaide
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labor Mark Butler 52,732 58.24 +3.73
Liberal Brenton Chomel 22,830 25.21 -6.71
Greens Colin Thomas 7,935 8.76 +3.34
Family First Bruce Hambour 5,230 5.78 +1.01
Democrats Pam Moore 1,822 2.01 +0.01
Total formal votes 90,549 95.04 +2.12
Informal votes 4,724 4.96 -2.12
Turnout 95,273 95.04 +0.70
Two Candidate Preferred Result
Labor Mark Butler 63,158 69.75 +6.84
Liberal Brenton Chomel 27,391 30.25 -6.84
Labor hold Swing +6.84
Australian federal election, 2004: Port Adelaide
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labor Rod Sawford 46,692 54.51 +2.47
Liberal Terry Inglis 27,338 31.92 +5.21
Greens Anne McMenamin 4,641 5.42 +1.56
Family First Richard Bunting 4,085 4.77 +4.77
Democrats Trevor Tucker 1,710 2.00 -7.97
One Nation Stan Batten 1,191 1.39 -4.17
Total formal votes 85,657 92.92 +0.33
Informal votes 6,522 7.08 -0.33
Turnout 82,179 94.34 -0.73
Two Candidate Preferred Result
Labor Rod Sawford 53,888 62.91 -3.09
Liberal Terry Inglis 31,769 37.09 +3.09
Labor hold Swing -3.09

[edit] External links

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Electoral Divisions of the Australian House of Representatives in South Australia

Adelaide · Barker · Boothby · Grey · Hindmarsh · Kingston · Makin · Mayo · Port Adelaide · Sturt · Wakefield

Abolished: Angas (1903-34) · Angas (1949-77) · Bonython · Hawker · South Australia
Divisions in: New South Wales · Victoria · Queensland · Western Australia · South Australia · Tasmania · Australian Capital and Northern Territories