Division of Wakefield

The Division of Wakefield is an Australian Electoral Division in the state of South Australia. It is located north of Adelaide, incorporating the outer northern suburbs of Salisbury and Elizabeth, and extending north as far as Clare. It covers the east coast of the Gulf Saint Vincent north of Adelaide, all the way to Port Wakefield. It also includes the towns of Balaklava, Tarlee, Kapunda and Gawler. The Division was named after Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who promoted colonisation as a tool for social engineering, plans which formed the basis for settlements in South Australia, Western Australia, New Zealand and Canada. It was proclaimed at the redistribution of 2 October 1903, when South Australia was first broken up into Divisions. It was first contested at the 1903 Federal election. It was first held by Hon Sir Frederick Holder, the first Speaker of the House, who was also twice the Premier of South Australia. It has previously been held by Neil Andrew, a former Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives. Before the redistribution for the 2004 election, Wakefield was predominantly rural with a large Liberal margin, including the Barossa Valley area, but not the Salisbury, Elizabeth and Smithfield areas. The northern suburbs were added to Wakefield when the Division of Bonython was abolished by the redistribution. As a result, the hybrid urban-rural seat had become very marginal, with the seat notional Labor by around 1 percent. However, at the 2004 federal election, Liberal David Fawcett retained the seat on a two party preferred margin of 0.7 percent.^[1] Fawcett will be recontesting his seat against the Labor candidate, Nick Champion, at the 2007 election.

Members

Election results

References

External links

• 2004 election results
• Map of division
• Old division boundaries