| Richmond Australian House of Representatives Division | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Division of Richmond in New South Wales, as of the 2016 federal election | |||||||||||||||
| Created | 1901 | ||||||||||||||
| MP | Justine Elliot | ||||||||||||||
| Party | Labor | ||||||||||||||
| Namesake | Richmond River | ||||||||||||||
| Electors | 118,652 (2022) | ||||||||||||||
| Area | 2,148 km2 (829.3 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 65 divisions to be contested at the first federal election. The division is named after the area in which it is located, [1] namely the Richmond Valley and Richmond River, which was named in honour of Charles, the fifth Duke of Richmond. [2]
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. [3] However, it became far less safe for the Nationals from 1983 onward. It lost much of its territory to the new Division of Page in 1984, and strong population growth over the next three decades saw ot progressively lose almost all of its remaining rural territory and reduced it to a more coastal-based and urbanised division. Accompanying demographic change has made the seat friendlier to Labor since the 1990s. For most of the last 30 years, it has been one of the few areas of rural northern New South Wales where Labor usually does well.
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. However, despite his name recognition in the area, his hold on the seat was never as secure as those of his father and grandfather. He was 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. She retained the seat at the 2010, 2013 and 2016 elections. The victory in 2013 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. A redistribution ahead of the 2016 election pushed the seat to the south, into the area around Ballina. Much of this area is in the state seat of Ballina, which was taken by the Greens at the 2015 state election. At the 2019 election, the Greens won more booths on primary vote than Labor (Greens 20, Labor 9), although Labor won more total votes when including all booths.
Since 1984, federal electoral division boundaries in Australia have been determined at redistributions by a redistribution committee appointed by the Australian Electoral Commission. Redistributions occur for the boundaries of divisions in a particular state, and they occur every seven years, or sooner if a state's representation entitlement changes or when divisions of a state are malapportioned. [4]
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 Ballina, Tweed Heads, Murwillumbah and Byron Bay.
| Image | Member | Party | Term | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Sir Thomas Ewing (1856–1920) | Protectionist | 29 March 1901 – 26 May 1909 | Previously held the New South Wales Legislative Assembly seat of Lismore. Served as minister under Deakin. Retired | |
| Liberal | 26 May 1909 – 19 February 1910 | ||||
 | Walter Massy-Greene (1874–1952) | 13 April 1910 – 17 February 1917 | Served as Chief Government Whip in the House under Cook and Hughes. Served as minister under Hughes. Lost seat. Later appointed to the Senate in 1923 | ||
| Nationalist | 17 February 1917 – 16 December 1922 | ||||
 | Roland Green (1885–1947) | Country | 16 December 1922 – 23 October 1937 | Lost seat | |
 | Hubert Lawrence Anthony (1897–1957) | 23 October 1937 – 12 July 1957 | Served as minister under Menzies and Fadden. Died in office. Son is Doug Anthony and grandson is Larry Anthony | ||
 | Doug Anthony (1929–2020) | 14 September 1957 – 2 May 1975 | Served as minister under Menzies, Holt, McEwen, Gorton, McMahon and Fraser. Served as Deputy Prime Minister under Gorton, McMahon and Fraser. Resigned to retire from politics. Father was Hubert Lawrence Anthony and son is Larry Anthony | ||
| National Country | 2 May 1975 – 16 October 1982 | ||||
| Nationals | 16 October 1982 – 18 January 1984 | ||||
 | Charles Blunt (1951–) | 18 February 1984 – 24 March 1990 | Served as leader of the National Party from 1989 to 1990. Lost seat | ||
 | Neville Newell (1952–) | Labor | 24 March 1990 – 2 March 1996 | Lost seat. Later elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly seat of Tweed in 1999 | |
| | Larry Anthony (1961–) | Nationals | 2 March 1996 – 9 October 2004 | Served as minister under Howard. Lost seat. Grandfather was Hubert Lawrence Anthony and father is Doug Anthony | |
 | Justine Elliot (1967–) | Labor | 9 October 2004 – present | Served as minister under Rudd and Gillard. Incumbent |
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labor | Justine Elliot | 28,733 | 28.80 | −2.91 | |
| Greens | Mandy Nolan | 25,216 | 25.27 | +4.95 | |
| National | Kimberly Hone | 23,299 | 23.35 | −13.51 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Gary Biggs | 7,681 | 7.70 | +7.70 | |
| One Nation | Tracey Bell-Henselin | 4,073 | 4.08 | +4.08 | |
| United Australia | Robert Marks | 2,922 | 2.93 | −0.97 | |
| Independent | David Warth | 2,341 | 2.35 | +2.35 | |
| Informed Medical Options | Monica Shepherd | 2,271 | 2.28 | +1.10 | |
| Independent | Nathan Jones | 1,974 | 1.98 | +1.98 | |
| Independent | Terry Sharples | 1,274 | 1.28 | +1.28 | |
| Total formal votes | 99,784 | 93.08 | +0.52 | ||
| Informal votes | 7,424 | 6.92 | −0.52 | ||
| Turnout | 107,208 | 90.37 | −0.45 | ||
| Two-party-preferred result | |||||
| Labor | Justine Elliot | 58,104 | 58.23 | +4.15 | |
| National | Kimberly Hone | 41,680 | 41.77 | −4.15 | |
| Labor hold | Swing | +4.15 | |||
indicates at what stage the winning candidate had over 50% of the votes and was declared the winner. | Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. Updates on reimplementing the Graph extension, which will be known as the Chart extension, can be found on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org. |
| Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. Updates on reimplementing the Graph extension, which will be known as the Chart extension, can be found on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org. |
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