Division of Brand

The Division of Brand is an Australian electoral division in the state of Western Australia. Eligible voters within the Division elect a single representative, known as the member for Brand, to the Australian House of Representatives. The Division was named after Sir David Brand, the Premier of Western Australia from 1959 to 1971, and is at present a safe Labor seat held by Kim Beazley since the 1996 federal election. Beazley announced his retirement from politics in 2006, and the former ALP National Secretary Gary Gray has been elected to the seat at the 2007 election.

History

The seat was created in 1984 out of parts of Fremantle and Canning to cater for substantial population growth in the Rockingham–Mandurah coastal area south of the state capital, Perth, and was first contested at the 1984 federal election. Initially it included country areas to the south and southeast, such as agricultural regions in the Shires of Murray, Waroona and Harvey and the mining town of Collie, and was significantly more marginal for Labor—made abundantly clear by Labor's near-defeat in the seat in the 1996 federal election. A redistribution before the 1998 election saw the electorate of Brand become an entirely urban electorate, retreating north of the Peel Estuary to roughly its present borders, and the seat has been safe Labor ever since. Brand has had only two members - both of whom had previously been sitting members in other seats. Wendy Fatin had been the member for Canning for a single term prior to the creation of Brand, and went on to win in four successive elections, becoming Minister for the Arts in the early 1990s. Upon her retirement from politics, Kim Beazley, who had been a minister for defence in the Hawke government until 1990 and had several portfolios before becoming Deputy Prime Minister in 1995, was preselected for the seat following 16 years as member for the marginal seat of Swan which polling suggested the party was certain to lose. At the 1996 election, Beazley won by just 387 votes against Liberal hopeful Penny Hearne, who was later to quit the party and run as an independent against Court minister Doug Shave in the 1996 state election for the seat of Alfred Cove.

Geography

The seat presently contains the Town of Kwinana, City of Rockingham and the northern section of the City of Mandurah including the city centre and areas north of the Peel Estuary. Suburbs presently included are:

Members

Election results