Division of Grey
| Grey Australian House of Representatives Division | |
|---|---|
|
Grey (dark green) in the state of South Australia | |
| Created | 1903 |
| MP | Rowan Ramsey |
| Party | Liberal |
| Namesake | Sir George Grey |
| Electors | 100,749 (2013) |
| Area | 904,881 km2 (349,376.5 sq mi) |
| Demographic | Rural |
The Division of Grey is an Australian electoral division in South Australia. The division was one of the seven established when the former Division of South Australia was redistributed on 2 October 1903 and is named for Sir George Grey, who was Governor of South Australia from 1841–45 (and later Prime Minister of New Zealand).
The division covers all but the south-east of South Australia, with a size of 904,881 square kilometres (349,377 sq mi) spanning a 92% of the state, stressing the highly-centralised nature of South Australia. The borders of the electorate include the Western Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland and New South Wales borders, in addition to much of the southern coastal border. The electorate spans to Marion Bay and Eudunda in the south. The main population centres of the electorate include Ceduna, Port Lincoln, Whyalla, Port Augusta, Roxby Downs, Coober Pedy, Port Pirie, Kadina, Maitland, Orroroo, Peterborough, Burra and Eudunda.
Grey was held by Labor for much of its history, and was one of the few country seats where Labor usually did well. It remained in Labor hands from 1943 to 1993, except for one Liberal win at the landslide 1966 election. For most of that time, it was a fairly safe Labor seat, though it was almost lost in the Coalition landslides of 1975 and 1977.
This changed in 1993, when Liberal Barry Wakelin became the fifth non-Labor member to win it, and only the second in 50 years. This happened even as Labor was re-elected to another term; it was the first time at an election that Labor won government without winning Grey. Wakelin was re-elected with a large swing in 1996, and since then the decline in the mining and pastoral vote has made it a fairly safe Liberal seat. While Whyalla, Port Augusta and Port Pirie still tilt Labor--as they have for more than a century--they are not enough to overcome the increasing conservative lean in the rest of the seat. The Liberals consolidated their hold on the seat ahead of the 2004 election with the addition of the Yorke Peninsula and the state's upper east, both historically strongly conservative areas, from the heavily redistributed seat of Wakefield. The Liberals suffered a nine-point swing at the 2007 election, but Wakelin's successor, Rowan Ramsey, was still able to retain it on 54 percent of the two-party vote. The seat became secure for the Liberals once again after Ramsey picked up a large swing in 2010 which he consolidated in 2013. It is now the second-safest Coalition seat in South Australia; Labor needs a 13-point swing to win it.
Members
| Member | Party | Term | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alexander Poynton | Labour | 1903–1916 | |
| National Labor | 1917–1917 | ||
| Nationalist | 1916–1922 | ||
| Andrew Lacey | Labor | 1922–1931 | |
| Philip McBride | United Australia | 1931–1937 | |
| Oliver Badman | Country | 1937–1940 | |
| United Australia | 1940–1943 | ||
| Edgar Russell | Labor | 1943–1963 | |
| Jack Mortimer | Labor | 1963–1966 | |
| Don Jessop | Liberal | 1966–1969 | |
| Laurie Wallis | Labor | 1969–1983 | |
| Lloyd O'Neil | Labor | 1983–1993 | |
| Barry Wakelin | Liberal | 1993–2007 | |
| Rowan Ramsey | Liberal | 2007–present | |
Election results
| Australian federal election, 2013: Grey | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
| Liberal | Rowan Ramsey | 49,334 | 55.65 | −0.16 | |
| Labor | Ben Browne | 24,205 | 27.30 | −3.76 | |
| Family First | Cheryl Kaminski | 4,878 | 5.50 | +0.14 | |
| Palmer United | Kristian Rees | 4,457 | 5.03 | +5.03 | |
| Greens | Alison Sentance | 3,289 | 3.71 | −4.06 | |
| Independent | Greg Fidge | 2,488 | 2.81 | +2.81 | |
| Total formal votes | 88,651 | 94.60 | −0.05 | ||
| Informal votes | 5,063 | 5.40 | +0.05 | ||
| Turnout | 93,714 | 93.02 | −0.53 | ||
| Two-party-preferred result | |||||
| Liberal | Rowan Ramsey | 56,330 | 63.54 | +2.38 | |
| Labor | Ben Browne | 32,321 | 36.46 | −2.38 | |
| Liberal hold | Swing | +2.38 | |||
Notes
References
External links
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Coordinates: 29°36′14″S 135°27′14″E / 29.604°S 135.454°E