Division of Werriwa

Werriwa Australian House of Representatives Division
Division of Werriwa (green) in New South Wales
Created	1901
MP	Laurie Ferguson
Party	Labor
Namesake	Lake George (Aboriginal name)
Electors	96,054 (2013)^[1]
Area	159 km² (61.4 sq mi)
Demographic	Outer Metropolitan

The Division of Werriwa is an Australian electoral division in the state of New South Wales. The name Werriwa derives from a local Aboriginal name for Lake George, which was located in the division when it was established in 1900. The division was one of the original 75 divisions first contested at the first federal election.

Werriwa now covers an area in south-west Sydney including Austral, West Hoxton, Prestons, Lurnea and parts of Liverpool in the north, to Claymore and Minto Heights in the south, bounded by the Georges River to the east and generally by the Sydney Water Supply Channel, Raby Road, Rileys Creek, Anthony Road, Barry Avenue and Allenby Road to the west. The main suburbs include Austral, Bardia, Bow Bowing, Casula, Claymore, Denham Court, Edmondson Park, Eschol Park, Glenfield, Horningsea Park, Hoxton Park, Ingleburn, Leppington, Lurnea, Macquarie Fields, Minto, Minto Heights, Prestons, Raby, St Andrews and Varroville and parts of Liverpool, Leumeah and West Hoxton.

The current Member for Werriwa, since the 2010 federal election, is Laurie Ferguson, a member of the Australian Labor Party. Ferguson became the first new member elected at a general election since 1934.

History

Originally, Werriwa was a large and mostly rural electorate that stretched from southwest Sydney to the northern part of what is now the ACT, and included the Southern Highlands, Goulburn and part of the South West Slopes. In succeeding years following its establishment, with demographic change and electoral redistributions, Werriwa began to shrink and from 1913 onwards no longer contained Lake George. It underwent several other major changes to its borders over the years. The 1949 expansion of Parliament saw Werriwa lose most of its remaining rural territory to the newly created Division of Macarthur and move to approximately its current position in southwest Sydney, over 150 kilometres (93 mi) away from Lake George. However, it has retained the name of Werriwa, primarily as it is an original Federation electorate - the Australian Electoral Commission's guidelines on electoral redistributions require it to preserve the names of original Federation electorates where possible.^[2]

It is a very safe seat for Labor, which has held it continuously since 1934 and for all but nine years since 1906.

Werriwa is best remembered for being the electorate of former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, who held it from 1952 to 1978. It was represented from 1994 to 2005 by one of Whitlam's former aides, Mark Latham, the leader of the ALP and Leader of the Opposition from 2003 to 2005. It more recent times, a by-election in March 2005 resulted in Labor's Chris Hayes elected with over 55% of the vote, in a 16-candidate race which saw no other candidate poll above 8%.

Members

	Party	Term
Alfred Conroy	Free Trade	1901–1906
David Hall	Labour	1906–1912
Benjamin Bennett	Labour	1912–1913
Alfred Conroy	Commonwealth Liberal	1913–1914
John Lynch	Labor	1914–1916
	National Labor	1916–1917
	Nationalist	1917–1918
Bert Lazzarini	Labor	1919–1931
Bert Lazzarini	Lang Labor	1931–1931
Walter McNicoll	Country	1931–1934
Bert Lazzarini	Lang Labor	1934–1936
Bert Lazzarini	Labor	1936–1952
Gough Whitlam	Labor	1952–1978
John Kerin	Labor	1978–1994
Mark Latham	Labor	1994–2005
Chris Hayes	Labor	2005–2010
Laurie Ferguson	Labor	2010–present

Election results

Main article: Electoral results for the Division of Werriwa

Australian federal election, 2013: Werriwa^[1]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labor	Laurie Ferguson	34,117	44.09	−4.48
	Liberal	Kent Johns	30,693	39.67	+0.95
	Palmer United	Katryna Thirup	3,363	4.35	+4.35
	Christian Democrats	John Ramsay	2,936	3.79	+3.79
	Greens	Daniel Griffiths	2,532	3.27	−9.43
	Democratic Labour	Michael Byrne	1,562	2.02	+2.02
	One Nation	Marella Harris	1,519	1.96	+1.96
	Katter's Australian	Kerryn Ball	657	0.85	+0.85
Total formal votes			77,379	87.13	−2.52
Informal votes			11,433	12.87	+2.52
Turnout			88,812	92.46	+0.11
Two-party-preferred result
	Labor	Laurie Ferguson	40,426	52.24	−4.51
	Liberal	Kent Johns	36,953	47.76	+4.51
	Labor hold		Swing	−4.51

References

1 2 "NSW Division - Werriwa, NSW". Virtual Tally Room, Election 2013. Australian Electoral Commission. 30 September 2013. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
↑ "Guidelines for naming divisions". Australian Electoral Commission. 20 July 2011. Retrieved 30 March 2013.

External links

Division of Werriwa - Australian Electoral Commission

Electoral divisions of the Australian House of Representatives in New South Wales

Banks Barton Bennelong Berowra Blaxland Bradfield Calare Charlton Chifley Cook Cowper Cunningham Dobell Eden-Monaro Farrer Fowler Gilmore Grayndler Greenway Hughes Hume Hunter Kingsford Smith Lindsay Lyne Macarthur Mackellar Macquarie McMahon Mitchell New England Newcastle North Sydney Page Parkes Parramatta Paterson Reid Richmond Riverina Robertson Shortland Sydney Throsby Warringah Watson Wentworth Werriwa Abolished: Barrier Bland Canobolas Cook (1906–55) Dalley Darling Dundas East Sydney Evans Gwydir Illawarra Lang Lawson Lowe Martin Nepean Parkes (1901–69) Phillip Prospect Riverina-Darling St George South Sydney Watson (1934–69) West Sydney

Divisions in: New South Wales Victoria Queensland Western Australia South Australia Tasmania Australian Capital and Northern Territories

Coordinates: 33°58′52″S 150°50′35″E / 33.981°S 150.843°E / -33.981; 150.843

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, March 31, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.