Division of Fremantle

This article is about the Australian federal electorate. For the Western Australian state electorate, see Electoral district of Fremantle.

Fremantle Australian House of Representatives Division
300px Division of Fremantle (green) in Western Australia
Created	1901
MP	Melissa Parke
Party	Labor
Namesake	Fremantle
Electors	100,902 (2013)
Area	201 km2 (77.6 sq mi)
Demographic	Inner Metropolitan

The Division of Fremantle is an electoral division of the Australian House of Representatives in Western Australia.

The division was created at Federation in 1900 and was one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election. It is named for the city of Fremantle, which in turn is named for Captain Charles Fremantle, captain of HMS Challenger, which brought the first settlers to Western Australia. The Division is located in the southern suburbs of Perth, and includes the entirety of the City of Fremantle, City of Cockburn, and Town of East Fremantle, as well as Rottnest Island and a portion of the City of Melville.

As originally drawn, it included nearly all of Perth's southwestern suburbs. On these boundaries, the seat frequently changed hands between the Australian Labor Party and the conservative parties for the first three decades of its existence. However, Labor has held the seat without interruption since 1934, and for all but one term since 1928. The 1949 expansion of Parliament made Fremantle even safer for Labor by shifting most of its northern portion to the newly created Division of Curtin. Since then, it has usually been one of the safest Labor seats in Australia. It was nearly lost in the landslides of 1975 and 1977, but since then the Liberals have only garnered as much as 45 percent of the two-party vote twice, in 1996 and 2013.

Over the years, Fremantle has been held by a succession of senior Labor figures. The seat's best-known member was John Curtin, who was Prime Minister of Australia from 1941 to 1945. Other high-profile members were Kim Beazley (senior), a minister in the Whitlam Government; John Dawkins, a minister in the Hawke and Keating Governments; and Carmen Lawrence, the former Premier of Western Australia and a minister in the Keating Government. Lawrence retired at the 2007 election. She was succeeded by Melissa Parke, a former United Nations lawyer and a minister in the second Rudd Government.

Members

Member		Party	Term
	Elias Solomon	Free Trade	1901–1903
	William Carpenter	Labor	1903–1906
	William Hedges	Western Australian	1906–1909
		Commonwealth Liberal	1909–1913
	Reginald Burchell	Labor	1913–1916
		National Labor	1916–1917
		Nationalist	1917–1922
	William Watson	Independent	1922–1928
	John Curtin	Labor	1928–1931
	William Watson	United Australia	1931–1934
	John Curtin	Labor	1934–1945
	Kim Beazley (senior)	Labor	1945–1977
	John Dawkins	Labor	1977–1994
	Carmen Lawrence	Labor	1994–2007
	Melissa Parke	Labor	2007–present

Election results

Main article: Electoral results for the Division of Fremantle

Australian federal election, 2013: Fremantle

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labor	Melissa Parke	35,554	40.82	+1.88
	Liberal	Matthew Hanssen	33,219	38.14	−0.43
	Greens	Jordon Steele-John	10,354	11.89	−5.76
	Palmer United	Vashil Sharma	3,451	3.96	+3.96
	Christians	Owen Mulder	1,163	1.34	+1.34
	Katter's Australian	Richard McNaught	1,061	1.22	+1.22
	Family First	Jim McCourt	811	0.93	−0.78
	Socialist Alliance	Sam Wainwright	743	0.85	+0.05
	Rise Up Australia	Philip Scott	416	0.48	+0.48
	Protectionist	Teresa van Lieshout	205	0.24	+0.24
	CEC	Ron Rowlands	131	0.15	+0.15
Total formal votes			87,108	93.64	−0.93
Informal votes			5,916	6.36	+0.93
Turnout			93,024	92.26	−0.97
Two-party-preferred result
	Labor	Melissa Parke	47,705	54.77	−0.93
	Liberal	Matthew Hanssen	39,403	45.23	+0.93
	Labor hold		Swing	−0.93

External links

• Division of Fremantle - Australian Electoral Commission