Division of Macquarie

Macquarie Australian House of Representatives Division
Division of Macquarie in New South Wales, as of the 2016 federal election.
Created	1901
MP	Susan Templeman
Party	Labor
Namesake	Lachlan Macquarie
Electors	108,039 (2019)
Area	4,374 km2 (1,688.8 sq mi)
Demographic	Provincial

The Division of Macquarie is an Australian electoral division in the state of New South Wales. The division was created in 1900 and was one of the original 65 divisions contested at the first federal election. It is named for Lachlan Macquarie, who was Governor of New South Wales between 1810 and 1821.

The division 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.

The current Member for Macquarie, since the 2016 federal election, is Susan Templeman, a member of the Australian Labor Party.

Macquarie is currently the most marginal seat in the country, held by a 0.19% margin on the 2PP.

History

Lachlan Macquarie, the division's namesake

The most prominent former member is Ben Chifley, who was Prime Minister of Australia from 1945 to 1949, and was a member of the Australian Labor Party.

Voting patterns within the electorate vary significantly between the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury region. At the 2004 election, the two-party preferred vote favoured the Liberal candidate by more than 70:30 in the Hawkesbury region. 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.

For most of the first seven decades after Federation, it was a hybrid urban-rural seat that stretched from the outer western suburbs of Sydney to the Central Tablelands, including Penrith and St Marys in Sydney and Bathurst, Lithgow, Portland and Oberon in the Central Tablelands. However, in 1977, the Central Tablelands were replaced by the Hawkesbury towns, and a 1984 redistribution carved the new seat of Lindsay out of much of its share of Sydney.

The division 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 was pushed some distance into the Central Tablelands, as far west as Bathurst. The seat then contained the rural service and university town of Bathurst and the working-class towns of Lithgow, Portland and Oberon with the Blue Mountains. This not only restored the seat's connection with Chifley (a Bathurst native), but erased Bartlett's majority. While Bartlett had previously sat on a majority of eight percent, he now found himself in a seat with a notionally marginal Labor majority of 0.5 percent. Bartlett was defeated by former New South Wales Minister for the Environment and Attorney General Bob Debus, whose state seat of Blue Mountains covered much of the eastern portion of the seat, at the 2007 election on a 7.04 percent margin, turning it into a fairly safe Labor seat in one stroke.

During the 2009 redistribution, however, Bathurst and Lithgow were shifted to Calare, restoring its pre-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. She was ousted in the 2016 election by Labor's Susan Templeman.

Members

	Image	Member	Party	Term	Notes
		Sydney Smith (1856–1934)	Free Trade	29 March 1901 – 1906	Previously held the New South Wales Legislative Assembly seat of Canterbury. Served as minister under Reid. Lost seat
			Anti-Socialist	1906 – 12 December 1906
		Ernest Carr (1875–1956)	Labor	12 December 1906 – 14 November 1916	Lost seat. Later elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly seat of Cumberland in 1920
			National Labor	14 November 1916 – 17 February 1917
			Nationalist	17 February 1917 – 5 May 1917
		Samuel Nicholls (1885–1939)	Labor	5 May 1917 – 16 December 1922	Lost seat
		Arthur Manning (1872–1947)	Nationalist	16 December 1922 – 17 November 1928	Previously held the New South Wales Legislative Assembly seat of Albury. Served as Chief Government Whip in the House under Bruce. Lost seat
		Ben Chifley (1885–1951)	Labor	17 November 1928 – 19 December 1931	Served as minister under Scullin. Lost seat
		John Lawson (1897–1956)	United Australia	19 December 1931 – 21 September 1940	Served as minister under Menzies. Lost seat
		Ben Chifley (1885–1951)	Labor	21 September 1940 – 13 June 1951	Served as minister under Curtin and Forde. Served as Prime Minister from 1945 to 1949. Served as Opposition Leader from 1949 to 1951. Died in office
		Tony Luchetti (1904–1984)	Labor	28 July 1951 – 11 November 1975	Retired
		Reg Gillard (1920–2001)	Liberal	13 December 1975 – 18 October 1980	Lost seat
		Ross Free (1943–)	Labor	18 October 1980 – 1 December 1984	Transferred to the Division of Lindsay
		Alasdair Webster (1934–)	Liberal	1 December 1984 – 13 March 1993	Lost seat
		Maggie Deahm (1938–2015)	Labor	13 March 1993 – 2 March 1996	Lost seat
		Kerry Bartlett (1949–)	Liberal	2 March 1996 – 24 November 2007	Served as Chief Government Whip in the House under Howard. Lost seat
		Bob Debus (1943–)	Labor	24 November 2007 – 19 July 2010	Previously held the New South Wales Legislative Assembly seat of Blue Mountains. Served as minister under Rudd. Retired
		Louise Markus (1958–)	Liberal	21 August 2010 – 2 July 2016	Previously held the Division of Greenway. Lost seat
		Susan Templeman (1963–)	Labor	2 July 2016 – present	Incumbent

Election results

References

External links

• Division of Macquarie - Australian Electoral Commission