The Division of Wakefield is an Australian Electoral Division in the state

States and territories of Australia

The Commonwealth of Australia is a union of six states and various territories. The Australian mainland is made up of five states and three territories, with the sixth state of Tasmania being made up of islands. In addition there are six island territories, known as external territories, and a...

 of South Australia

South Australia

South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...

. It is located north of Adelaide

Adelaide

Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...

, incorporating the outer northern suburbs of Salisbury

Salisbury, South Australia

Salisbury is a northern suburb in Adelaide, South Australia. It is the seat of the City of Salisbury, and in the South Australian Legislative Assembly electoral district of Ramsay and the Australian House of Representatives divisions of Wakefield and Port Adelaide...

 and Elizabeth

Elizabeth, South Australia

Elizabeth is a northern suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. It is located in the City of Playford.-History:Elizabeth was established in 1955 as part of a planned satellite town by the South Australian Housing Trust on rural land between the older towns of Salisbury and...

, and extending north as far as Clare

Clare, South Australia

The town of Clare is located in South Australia in the Mid North region, 136 km north of Adelaide. It gives its name to the Clare Valley wine and tourist region.-History:One of the first settlers in the area was John Horrocks, in 1839...

. It covers the east coast of the Gulf St Vincent north of Adelaide, all the way to Port Wakefield

Port Wakefield, South Australia

Port Wakefield was the first government town to be established north of the capital, Adelaide, in South Australia.Port Wakefield is situated approximately 98.7 kilometres from Adelaide and lies on the Port Wakefield Road section of the A1 National Highway...

. It also includes the towns of Balaklava

Balaklava, South Australia

The town of Balaklava is located in South Australia, 92 kilometres north of Adelaide in the Mid North region. It is on the banks of the Wakefield River, 25 kilometres east of Port Wakefield.-History:...

, Tarlee

Tarlee, South Australia

Tarlee is a town in South Australia. The origin of the name is uncertain, but it is thought to be a corruption of the name Tralee in Ireland. The town is in the lower Mid North region where Main North Road crosses the Gilbert River. It is approximately 8 km south of Giles Corner, where the...

, Kapunda and Gawler

Gawler, South Australia

Gawler is the first country town in the state of South Australia, and is named after the second Governor of the colony of South Australia, George Gawler. It is located north of the centre of the state capital, Adelaide, and is close to the major wine producing district of the Barossa Valley...

.

The Division was named after Edward Gibbon Wakefield

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

Edward Gibbon Wakefield was a British politician, the driving force behind much of the early colonisation of South Australia, and later New Zealand....

, who promoted colonisation as a tool for social engineering, plans which formed the basis for settlements in South Australia, Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 and Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. 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

Frederick Holder

Sir Frederick William Holder KCMG was the 19th Premier of South Australia and a prominent member of the inaugural Australian Commonwealth Parliament, including the first Speaker of the House of Representatives.-Life:...

, the first Speaker of the House, who was also twice the Premier of South Australia. It has previously been held by Neil Andrew

Neil Andrew

John Neil Andrew, AO , Australian politician, was a Liberal member of the Australian House of Representatives from March 1983 to October 2004, representing the Division of Wakefield, South Australia...

, a former Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives

Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives

The Speaker of the House of Representatives is the presiding officer of the House of Representatives, the lower house of the Parliament of Australia. The presiding officer in the upper house is the President of the Senate....

.

Before the redistribution

Redistribution (Australia)

The term redistribution is used in Australia to mean a redrawing of electoral boundaries. It is equivalent to the term redistricting in the United States....

 for the 2004 election, Wakefield was predominantly rural with a large Liberal margin, including the Barossa Valley

Barossa Valley

The Barossa Valley is a major wine-producing region and tourist destination of South Australia, located 60 km northeast of Adelaide. It is the valley formed by the North Para River, and the Barossa Valley Way is the main road through the valley, connecting the main towns on the valley floor of...

 area, but not the Salisbury, Elizabeth and Smithfield areas. The northern suburbs were added to Wakefield when the Division of Bonython

Division of Bonython

The Division of Bonython was an Australian Electoral Division in South Australia. The division was created in 1955 and abolished in 2004. It was named for Sir Langdon Bonython, philanthropist, publisher, and federal MP. Bonython was based in the northern working-class suburbs of Adelaide and was a...

 was abolished by the redistribution. As a result, the hybrid urban-rural seat became notionally Labor, prompting Andrew to retire. The Liberals held it in 2004, but in 2007 Nick Champion

Nick Champion

Nicholas David "Nick" Champion , is the ALP Member of the Australian House of Representatives representing the electorate of Wakefield...

 became only the third Labor member ever to win it. In 2010, he technically made it a safe Labor seat by winning 62 percent of the two-party vote.

Members

Member		Party	Term
	Frederick Holder Frederick Holder Sir Frederick William Holder KCMG was the 19th Premier of South Australia and a prominent member of the inaugural Australian Commonwealth Parliament, including the first Speaker of the House of Representatives.-Life:...	Independent Independent (politician) In politics, an independent or non-party politician is an individual not affiliated to any political party. Independents may hold a centrist viewpoint between those of major political parties, a viewpoint more extreme than any major party, or they may have a viewpoint based on issues that they do...	1903–1909
	Richard Foster	Commonwealth Liberal Commonwealth Liberal Party The Commonwealth Liberal Party was a political movement active in Australia from 1909 to 1916, shortly after federation....	1909–1916
		Nationalist Nationalist Party of Australia The Nationalist Party of Australia was an Australian political party. It was formed on 17 February 1917 from a merger between the conservative Commonwealth Liberal Party and the National Labor Party, the name given to the pro-conscription defectors from the Australian Labor Party led by Prime...	1916–1922
		Liberal Union Liberal Party (1922) The Liberal Party, also known as the Liberal Union or the Liberal Union Party, was a short-lived political party in Australia that operated mainly in 1922. The party was formed by disaffected Nationalists, principally Thomas Ashworth and Charles Merrett, who opposed the leadership of Prime...	1922–1925
		Nationalist Nationalist Party of Australia The Nationalist Party of Australia was an Australian political party. It was formed on 17 February 1917 from a merger between the conservative Commonwealth Liberal Party and the National Labor Party, the name given to the pro-conscription defectors from the Australian Labor Party led by Prime...	1925–1928
	Maurice Collins Maurice Collins Maurice Collins was an Australian politician. Born in Mount Bryan, South Australia, he was educated in that state before becoming a grazier, landowner and sheep breeder. He was involved in local politics, sitting on Terowie Shire Council and Burra Council...	Country	1928 Australian federal election, 1928 Federal elections were held in Australia on 17 November 1928. All 75 seats in the House of Representatives, and 19 of the 36 seats in the Senate were up for election... –1929
	Charles Hawker Charles Hawker Charles Allan Seymour Hawker was an Australian politician.Hawker was born near Clare, South Australia and educated at Geelong Grammar School, Hawker and Trinity College, Cambridge, earning Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees in 1919 and 1922 respectively. While at Cambridge he enlisted in the...	Nationalist Nationalist Party of Australia The Nationalist Party of Australia was an Australian political party. It was formed on 17 February 1917 from a merger between the conservative Commonwealth Liberal Party and the National Labor Party, the name given to the pro-conscription defectors from the Australian Labor Party led by Prime...	1929 Australian federal election, 1929 Federal elections were held in Australia on 12 October 1929. All 75 seats in the House of Representatives were up for election, with no Senate seats up for election, as a result of Billy Hughes and other rebel backbenchers crossing the floor over industrial relations legislation, depriving the... –1931
		United Australia United Australia Party The United Australia Party was an Australian political party that was founded in 1931 and dissolved in 1945. It was the political successor to the Nationalist Party of Australia and predecessor to the Liberal Party of Australia...	1931 Australian federal election, 1931 Federal elections were held in Australia on 19 December 1931. All 75 seats in the House of Representatives, and 18 of the 36 seats in the Senate were up for election... –1938
	Sydney McHugh Sydney McHugh Sydney McHugh was an Australian politician. Born in Quorn, South Australia, he was educated at state schools before becoming a farmer and grazier. He served in the military from 1914 to 1918, during World War I. In 1924, he was elected to the South Australian House of Assembly as the Labor member...	Labor Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...	1938 Wakefield by-election, 1938 A by-election was held for the Australian House of Representatives seat of Wakefield on 10 December 1938. This was triggered by the death of United Australia MP Charles Hawker.The election was won by Labor candidate Sydney McHugh.-Results:... –1940
	Jack Duncan-Hughes	United Australia United Australia Party The United Australia Party was an Australian political party that was founded in 1931 and dissolved in 1945. It was the political successor to the Nationalist Party of Australia and predecessor to the Liberal Party of Australia...	1940 Australian federal election, 1940 Federal elections were held in Australia on 21 September 1940. All 74 seats in the House of Representatives, and 19 of the 36 seats in the Senate were up for election... –1943
	Albert Smith Albert Smith (Australian politician) Albert Edward Smith was an Australian politician. Born in Kent, England, he migrated to Australia as a child and was educated at Clare in South Australia. He became a service station proprietor and served on Clare Council...	Labor Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...	1943 Australian federal election, 1943 Federal elections were held in Australia on 21 August 1943. All 74 seats in the House of Representatives, and 19 of the 36 seats in the Senate were up for election. The incumbent Australian Labor Party led by Prime Minister of Australia John Curtin easily defeated the opposition Country Party led... –1946
	Philip McBride Philip McBride Sir Philip Albert Martin McBride KCMG was an Australian politician.McBride was born into a well-known pastoral family and educated at Burra Public School and Prince Alfred College in Adelaide. In 1931, he was elected as the member for Grey in the Australian House of Representatives, representing...	Liberal Liberal Party of Australia The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...	1946 Australian federal election, 1946 Federal elections were held in Australia on 28 September 1946. All 74 seats in the House of Representatives, and 19 of the 36 seats in the Senate were up for election... –1958
	Bert Kelly Bert Kelly Charles Robert "Bert" Kelly CMG , was an Australian politician and government minister. He was influential in moving Australian political parties away from support for high-tariff policies....	Liberal Liberal Party of Australia The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...	1958 Australian federal election, 1958 Federal elections were held in Australia on 22 November 1958. All 122 seats in the House of Representatives, and 32 of the 60 seats in the Senate were up for election... –1977
	Geoffrey Giles Geoffrey Giles Geoffrey O'Halloran Giles was an Australian politician. Born in Adelaide, South Australia, he was educated in Victoria at Geelong Grammar School before returning to South Australia to attend the University of Adelaide and Roseworthy College. He became a grazier and cattle breeder, and served in...	Liberal Liberal Party of Australia The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...	1977 Australian federal election, 1977 Federal elections were held in Australia on 10 December 1977. All 124 seats in the House of Representatives, and 34 of the 64 seats in the Senate, were up for election.... –1983
	Neil Andrew Neil Andrew John Neil Andrew, AO , Australian politician, was a Liberal member of the Australian House of Representatives from March 1983 to October 2004, representing the Division of Wakefield, South Australia...	Liberal Liberal Party of Australia The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...	1983 Australian federal election, 1983 Federal elections were held in Australia on 5 March 1983. All 125 seats in the House of Representatives, and all 64 seats in the Senate, were up for election, following a double dissolution... –2004
	David Fawcett David Fawcett David Julian Fawcett is an Australian politician and member of the Australian Senate. He was elected to the House of Representatives as member for the division of Wakefield in South Australia for the Liberal Party of Australia at the 2004 federal election. Despite an extensive campaign in 2007 he...	Liberal Liberal Party of Australia The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...	2004–2007
	Nick Champion Nick Champion Nicholas David "Nick" Champion , is the ALP Member of the Australian House of Representatives representing the electorate of Wakefield...	Labor Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...	2007–present

Election results