Division of Spence
The Division of Spence is an electoral district for the Australian House of Representatives. It is located in the outer northern suburbs of Adelaide in South Australia.
| Spence Australian House of Representatives Division | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Location of Spence (dark green) in Greater Adelaide, South Australia | |||||||||||||||
| Created | 2019 | ||||||||||||||
| MP | Nick Champion | ||||||||||||||
| Party | Labor | ||||||||||||||
| Namesake | Catherine Helen Spence | ||||||||||||||
| Electors | 119,402 (2019) | ||||||||||||||
| Area | 532 km2 (205.4 sq mi) | ||||||||||||||
| Demographic | Outer Metropolitan | ||||||||||||||
| Coordinates | 34.7°S 138.7°E | ||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
History
It is named in honour of Catherine Helen Spence, an advocate for female suffrage and electoral reform and the first female political candidate in Australia.[1]
Spence was created in the electoral redistribution that concluded in July 2018 as a replacement for the Division of Wakefield. It is essentially the more urbanised southern portion of the formerly hybrid urban-rural Wakefield. The Division of Port Adelaide was abolished after South Australia was reduced from 11 electorates to ten, resulting in quite large movements of the remaining electorates' boundaries to fill in the gap.[2]
The geographic extent of Spence is approximately the Adelaide Plains between the Little Para River in the south and the Gawler River on the north, plus areas around Gawler and Salisbury. It includes all of the City of Playford and Town of Gawler; along with Concordia and Kalbeeba from the Barossa Council, and Gawler Belt and Buchfelde from Light Regional Council on the outskirts of Gawler. Spence also includes six suburbs in the City of Salisbury south of the Little Para River but west and north of Main North Road and Kings Road.[3] Spence overlaps the final configuration of Bonython before it was abolished prior to the 2004 election[4] and much of it was merged with what had been the southern part of Wakefield. Spence extends further east, west and north than Bonython did, but Wakefield had historically been a rural seat until 2004.[5]
Spence was notionally a comfortably safe Labor seat with a notional Labor margin of 17.9 percent, making it on paper the safest Labor seat in the state. By comparison, the abolished Wakefield finished with a safe Labor margin of 11.0 percent.[5] Champion retained it in 2019 with only a small swing against him. Spence is still the safest Labor seat in the state, with a 14.1 percent swing needed for the Liberals to win it.
Members
| Image | Member | Party | Term | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Nick Champion (1972–) |
Labor | 18 May 2019 – present |
Previously held the Division of Wakefield. Incumbent |
Election results
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ± | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labor | Nick Champion | 51,791 | 50.96 | +5.79 | |
| Liberal | Kathleen Bourne | 26,252 | 25.83 | +5.13 | |
| Greens | Daniel Jury | 7,330 | 7.21 | +2.65 | |
| United Australia | Ron Fiedler | 7,157 | 7.04 | +7.04 | |
| Independent | Nathan Herbert | 5,473 | 5.39 | +5.39 | |
| Animal Justice | Rita Kuhlmann | 3,626 | 3.57 | +2.96 | |
| Total formal votes | 101,629 | 94.02 | −0.14 | ||
| Informal votes | 6,467 | 5.98 | +0.14 | ||
| Turnout | 108,096 | 90.54 | +2.63 | ||
| Two-party-preferred result | |||||
| Labor | Nick Champion | 65,174 | 64.13 | −3.04 | |
| Liberal | Kathleen Bourne | 36,455 | 35.87 | +3.04 | |
| Labor hold | Swing | −3.04 | |||
References
- "Profile of the electoral division of Spence (SA)". Australian Electoral Commission. 20 July 2018. Retrieved 28 July 2018.
- "Proposed redistribution of South Australia into electoral divisions" (PDF). Report of the Redistribution Committee for South Australia. Australian Electoral Commission. April 2018. Retrieved 28 July 2018.
- Map of the Federal Electoral Division of Spence (PDF) (Map). Australian Electoral Commission. July 2018. Retrieved 28 July 2018.
- Bonython boundary map, 2001: AEC
- "2017-18 Federal Redistribution - South Australia". ABC Elections. 26 June 2018.
- Spence, SA, Tally Room 2019, Australian Electoral Commission.