Division of Macquarie

Macquarie Australian House of Representatives Division
Division of Macquarie (green) within New South Wales
Created:	1901
MP:	Louise Markus
Party:	Liberal
Namesake:	Lachlan Macquarie
Area:	4,374 km² (1,689 sq mi)
Demographic:	Provincial

The Division of Macquarie is an Australian Electoral Division in New South Wales. The division was created in 1900 and was one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election. It is named for Lachlan Macquarie, who was Governor of New South Wales between 1810 and 1821. Its best known member is Ben Chifley (ALP), who was Australian Prime Minister from 1945 to 1949.

It is located to the west of Sydney, and today it covers a large part of the Blue Mountains, as well as the Hawkesbury region on Sydney's western fringe. Voting patterns within the electorate vary significantly between these two areas. The two-party preferred vote favoured the Liberal candidate by more than 70:30 in the Hawkesbury region at the 2004 Federal election. The result was partially reversed in the Blue Mountains where the result was approximately 60:40, favouring the Labor candidate. This voting pattern was evident in the three previous Federal elections up to 2007.

It has changed hands many times during its long history, but in elections previous to 2007 Kerry Bartlett consolidated his 1996 win to make the electorate a fairly safe Liberal seat.

On 13 September 2006 however the Australian Electoral Commission announced that the seat was to be redistributed. The Hawkesbury towns moved to Greenway while Macquarie moved west as far as Bathurst. The seat then contained the rural service and university town of Bathurst and the working-class towns of Lithgow, Portland and Oberon. This restored the seat's connection with Chifley and made it notionally Labor with a majority of 0.5 percent, which was won by former New South Wales Minister for the Environment and Attorney General Bob Debus at the 2007 election on a 7.04 percent margin.

During the 2009 redistribution, however, Bathurst and Lithgow were shifted to Calare, restoring its 2007 boundaries. The redistribution nearly wiped out Labor's majority in the electorate, reducing it to an extremely marginal 0.3 percent. Debus retired before the 2010 election. Louise Markus, previously the member for Greenway, reclaimed the seat for the Liberals in this election.

Members

Member		Party	Term
	Sydney Smith	Free Trade	1901–1906
	Ernest Carr	Labor	1906–1916
		Nationalist	1916–1917
	Samuel Nicholls	Labor	1917–1922
	Arthur Manning	Nationalist	1922–1928
	Ben Chifley	Labor	1928–1931
	John Lawson	United Australia	1931–1940
	Ben Chifley	Labor	1940–1951
	Anthony Luchetti	Labor	1951–1975
	Reg Gillard	Liberal	1975–1980
	Ross Free	Labor	1980–1984
	Alasdair Webster	Liberal	1984–1993
	Maggie Deahm	Labor	1993–1996
	Kerry Bartlett	Liberal	1996–2007
	Bob Debus	Labor	2007–2010
	Louise Markus	Liberal	2010–present

Election results

Main article: Electoral results for the Division of Macquarie

Australian federal election, 2010: Macquarie
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Louise Markus	38,867	44.47	-0.23
	Labor	Susan Templeman	28,284	32.36	-5.75
	Greens	Carmel McCallum	12,317	14.09	+3.11
	Liberal Democrats	Peter Whelan	2,087	2.39	+2.19
	Christian Democrats	Luke Portelli	1,883	2.15	-0.10
	Independent	Amy Bell	1,778	2.03	+2.03
	Family First	Jason Cornelius	922	1.05	-0.02
	Australia First	John Bates	676	0.77	+0.77
	Carers Alliance	Terry Tremethick	591	0.68	+0.68
Total formal votes			87,405	94.52	-1.83
Informal votes			5,067	5.48	+1.83
Turnout			92,472	94.78	-1.13
Two-candidate preferred result
	Liberal	Louise Markus	44,801	51.26	+1.54
	Labor	Susan Templeman	42,604	48.74	-1.54
	Liberal gain from Labor		Swing	+1.54

References

• Division of Macquarie - Australian Electoral Commission