Division of Flinders
| Flinders Australian House of Representatives Division | |
|---|---|
 Division of Flinders (green) in Victoria | |
| Created | 1901 |
| MP | Greg Hunt |
| Party | Liberal |
| Namesake | Matthew Flinders |
| Electors | 105,376 (2013)[1] |
| Area | 1,955 km2 (754.8 sq mi) |
| Demographic | Rural |
The Division of Flinders is an Australian Electoral Division in Victoria. The division is one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election. It is named for Matthew Flinders, the first man to circumnavigate Australia, and the person credited with giving Australia its name.
Originally a country seat south and east of Melbourne, Flinders has been gradually cut back to the outer southern suburbs on the Mornington Peninsula, including Dromana, Hastings and Portsea.
It has usually been a fairly safe seat for the Liberal Party and its predecessors, who have held it for all but six years since its creation. However, it has occasionally been won by the Australian Labor Party, notably in 1929 when Prime Minister Stanley Bruce was defeated. This was the first time an Australian prime minister has lost his own seat at a general election. (The only other such instance was the defeat of Liberal Prime Minister John Howard in his seat of Bennelong, also by Labor, in the 2007 federal election.)
The seat's most prominent member was Bruce, who held it for all but two years from 1918 to 1933. Other prominent former members include Jack Holloway, the Labor challenger who ousted Bruce and later a senior minister in the Curtin and Chifley governments (though he was the member for Melbourne Ports by then) and two deputy Liberal leaders Sir Phillip Lynch and Peter Reith
Members
Election results
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal | Greg Hunt | 51,972 | 55.34 | +1.01 | |
| Labor | Joshua Sinclair | 23,666 | 25.20 | −6.54 | |
| Greens | Martin Rush | 9,148 | 9.74 | −1.76 | |
| Palmer United | Linda Clark | 5,639 | 6.00 | +6.00 | |
| Family First | David Clark | 1,091 | 1.16 | −1.26 | |
| Independent | Paul Madigan | 708 | 0.75 | +0.75 | |
| Christians | Ashleigh Belsar | 523 | 0.56 | +0.56 | |
| Rise Up Australia | Angela Dorian | 481 | 0.51 | +0.51 | |
| Independent | Denis McCormack | 478 | 0.51 | +0.51 | |
| Non-Custodial Parents | John Zabaneh | 215 | 0.23 | +0.23 | |
| Total formal votes | 93,921 | 95.03 | −0.85 | ||
| Informal votes | 4,916 | 4.97 | +0.85 | ||
| Turnout | 98,837 | 93.79 | +0.54 | ||
| Two-party-preferred result | |||||
| Liberal | Greg Hunt | 58,048 | 61.81 | +2.67 | |
| Labor | Joshua Sinclair | 35,873 | 38.19 | −2.67 | |
| Liberal hold | Swing | +2.67 | |||
References
- ^ a b VIC DIVISION - FLINDERS, AEC.