Division of Richmond

Richmond Australian House of Representatives Division
300px The location of the Division of Richmond, highlighted in red, in New South Wales, as of the 2016 federal election.
Created	1901
MP	Justine Elliot
Party	Labor
Namesake	Richmond River
Electors	97,379 (2013)
Area	2,768 km2 (1,068.7 sq mi)
Demographic	Rural

The Division of Richmond is an Australian electoral division in the state of New South Wales. The division was proclaimed in 1900, and was one of the original 75 divisions to be contested at the first federal election. The division is named after the area in which it is located, namely the Richmond Valley and Richmond River, which was named in honour of Charles, the fifth Duke of Richmond.

The division is located in the far north-east of the state, adjacent to the Coral Sea. It adjoins the Queensland border to the north, and encompasses the towns of Tweed Heads, Murwillumbah and Byron Bay.

The current Member for Richmond, since the 2004 federal election, is Justine Elliot, a member of the Australian Labor Party.

History

Historically, the division has been a rural seat and fairly safe for the National Party (formerly called the Country Party), which held it for all but six years from 1922 to 2004. For 55 of those years, it was held by three generations of the Anthony family -- Hubert Lawrence Anthony (a minister in the Fadden and Menzies governments), Doug Anthony (leader of the National Party from 1971 to 1984 and Deputy Prime Minister in the Gorton, McMahon and Fraser governments) and Larry Anthony (a minister in the Howard government) -- the first three-generation dynasty in the Australian House of Representatives. However, it became far less safe for the Nationals from 1983 onward, and strong population growth over the last three decades has seen it progressively lose its rural territory and reduced it to a more coastal-based and urbanised division. Accompanying demographic change has made the seat friendlier to Labor in more recent years, and it is now one of the several rural seats where Labor has a realistic chance of winning.

The division's most notable member outside of the Anthony family was Charles Blunt, leader of the National Party from 1989 to 1990. His tenure was short-lived, however. Just months after becoming leader of the Nationals, he was defeated in the 1990 election when the preferences of anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott allowed Neville Newell to claim the seat for Labor for the first time ever, despite only winning 27 percent of first preferences. It was only the second time that a major party leader had lost his own seat in an election. Larry Anthony (junior) regained the seat for the Nationals in 1996, only to be defeated by Labor's Justine Elliot in 2004 – the first time a member of the Anthony family had been unseated in an election. In 2007, Elliot picked up a large swing as Labor won government, technically making Richmond a safe Labor seat. She retained the seat at the 2010 and the 2013 elections. The latter victory came even as Labor lost government, marking the second time (her 2004 victory being the first) that the non-Labor parties have been in government without holding Richmond. Richmond had the sixth highest vote for the Australian Greens, and saw the highest rural seat vote for the Greens in the nation. At a state level the Greens have represented the overlapping seat of Ballina since the 2015 state election.

Members

Member		Party	Term
	(Sir) Thomas Ewing	Protectionist	1901–1909
		Commonwealth Liberal	1909–1910
	Walter Massy-Greene	Commonwealth Liberal	1910–1917
		Nationalist	1917–1922
	Roland Green	Country	1922–1937
	Larry Anthony, Sr.	Country	1937–1957
	Doug Anthony	Country	1957–1975
		National Country	1975–1982
		National	1982–1984
	Charles Blunt	National	1984–1990
	Neville Newell	Labor	1990–1996
	Larry Anthony	National	1996–2004
	Justine Elliot	Labor	2004–present

Election results

Main article: Electoral results for the Division of Richmond

Australian federal election, 2013: Richmond

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	National	Matthew Fraser	32,066	37.60	+16.39
	Labor	Justine Elliot	28,575	33.51	−5.68
	Greens	Dawn Walker	15,083	17.69	+1.54
	Palmer United	Phil Allen	6,359	7.46	+7.46
	Independent	Kev Skinner	1,971	2.31	+2.31
	Christian Democrats	John Ordish	1,224	1.44	+1.44
Total formal votes			85,278	95.09	+0.64
Informal votes			4,403	4.91	−0.64
Turnout			89,681	92.09	−0.55
Two-party-preferred result
	Labor	Justine Elliot	45,179	52.98	−4.01
	National	Matthew Fraser	40,099	47.02	+4.01
	Labor hold		Swing	−4.01

External links

• Division of Richmond - Australian Electoral Commission