Electoral district of Mawson

Mawson is a single-member electoral district for the South Australian House of Assembly. It covers the entirety of Kangaroo Island, and parts of the local government areas of Alexandrina Council, the City of Onkaparinga, and the District Council of Yankalilla. Major localities in the district include Cape Jervis, Kingscote, McLaren Vale, Port Willunga, Sellicks Beach, Willunga and Yankalilla.

Mawson
South Australia—House of Assembly
Electoral district of Mawson (green) in the Greater Adelaide area
StateSouth Australia
Created1970
MPLeon Bignell
PartyAustralian Labor Party (SA)
NamesakeSir Douglas Mawson
Electors25,044 (2018)
Area5,371.6 km2 (2,074.0 sq mi)
DemographicRural
Coordinates35°13′30″S 138°33′14″E
Electorates around Mawson:
Flinders Narungga Kaurna
Southern Ocean Mawson Heysen
Southern Ocean Southern Ocean Finniss
Footnotes
Electoral District map[1]

The electorate was created in the 1969 redistribution, taking effect at the 1970 election. It is named after Sir Douglas Mawson, a geologist and explorer who made several expeditions to Antarctica. For the first three decades of its existence, it was a bellwether seat held by the party of government. This pattern was broken at the 2002 election, when Robert Brokenshire held the seat for the Liberals amidst a Labor election victory. Although it was thought that Brokenshire had established a base in Mawson, it reverted to form at the 2006 election, when Labor candidate and former journalist Leon Bignell won amid that year's massive Labor landslide. Bignell went on to increase his seat margins at the 2010 and 2014 elections. In both cases, he not only bucked the statewide trend, but also decades of voting patterns in the electorate. The 2016 redistribution ahead of the 2018 election heavily redistributed Mawson from a 5.6 percent Labor seat to a notional 3.2 percent Liberal seat, taking in areas down the coast as far as and including Kangaroo Island.[2] However, Bignell picked up a swing of over four percent to narrowly retain the seat even as Labor lost government; he thus became its second opposition member.

Members for Mawson
Member Party Term
  Don Hopgood Labor 1970–1977
  Leslie Drury Labor 1977–1979
  Ivar Schmidt Liberal 1979–1982
  Susan Lenehan Labor 1982–1993
  Robert Brokenshire Liberal 1993–2006
  Leon Bignell Labor 2006–present

Election results
Main article: Electoral results for the district of Mawson
2018 South Australian state election: Mawson[3]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Liberal Andy Gilfillan 7,697 34.7 −9.7
Labor Leon Bignell 7,688 34.7 +1.7
SA-Best Hazel Wainwright 4,142 18.7 +18.7
Greens Ami-Louise Harrison 1,789 8.1 −3.4
Conservatives Heidi Greaves 867 3.9 −4.7
Total formal votes 22,183 96.7 −0.4
Informal votes 760 3.3 +0.4
Turnout 22,943 91.6 +3.8
Two-party-preferred result
Labor Leon Bignell 11,149 50.3 +4.5
Liberal Andy Gilfillan 11,034 49.7 −4.5
Labor gain from Liberal Swing+4.5

Notes
  1. Electoral District of Mawson (Map). Electoral Commission of South Australia. 2018. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
  2. Final Report (PDF): Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission 8 December 2016
  3. State Election Results – District Results for Mawson, ECSA.

References
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