The Division of Mayo is an
Australian electoral division located to the east and south of
Adelaide
Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...
,
South Australia
South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...
. Created in the state redistribution of 3 September 1984, the division is named after
Helen Mayo
Helen Mary Mayo, (1 October 1878 – 13 November 1967) was an Australian medical doctor and medical educator, born and raised in Adelaide. In 1896, she enrolled at the University of Adelaide, where she studied medicine. After graduating, May ...
, a social activist and the first woman elected to an Australian University Council. The 9,315 km² rural seat covers an area from the
Barossa Valley
The Barossa Valley ( Barossa German: ''Barossa Tal'') is a valley in South Australia located northeast of Adelaide city centre. The valley is formed by the North Para River. It is notable as a major wine-producing region and tourist destinati ...
in the north to
Cape Jervis in the south. Taking in the
Adelaide Hills,
Fleurieu Peninsula
The Fleurieu Peninsula () is a peninsula in the Australian state of South Australia located south of the state capital of Adelaide.
History
Before British colonisation of South Australia, the western side of the peninsula was occupied by the ...
and
Kangaroo Island
Kangaroo Island, also known as Karta Pintingga (literally 'Island of the Dead' in the language of the Kaurna people), is Australia's third-largest island, after Tasmania and Melville Island. It lies in the state of South Australia, southwest ...
regions, its largest population centre is
Mount Barker. Its other population centres are
Aldgate
Aldgate () was a gate in the former defensive wall around the City of London. It gives its name to Aldgate High Street, the first stretch of the A11 road, which included the site of the former gate.
The area of Aldgate, the most common use of ...
,
Bridgewater,
Littlehampton
Littlehampton is a town, seaside resort, and pleasure harbour, and the most populous civil parish in the Arun District of West Sussex, England. It lies on the English Channel on the eastern bank of the mouth of the River Arun. It is south sout ...
,
McLaren Vale
McLaren Vale is a wine region in the Australian state of South Australia located in the Adelaide metropolitan area and centred on the town of McLaren Vale about south of the Adelaide city centre. It is internationally renowned for the win ...
,
Nairne,
Stirling
Stirling (; sco, Stirlin; gd, Sruighlea ) is a city in central Scotland, northeast of Glasgow and north-west of Edinburgh. The market town, surrounded by rich farmland, grew up connecting the royal citadel, the medieval old town with its me ...
,
Strathalbyn and
Victor Harbor, and its smaller localities include
American River
, name_etymology =
, image = American River CA.jpg
, image_size = 300
, image_caption = The American River at Folsom
, map = Americanrivermap.png
, map_size = 300
, map_caption ...
,
Ashbourne,
Balhannah
Balhannah is a town in the Adelaide Hills about 30 km southeast of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. It was established in 1839 as a farming community by James Turnbull Thomson, who built the first hotel. The town soon grew to inco ...
,
Brukunga
Brukunga is a small town in the Adelaide Hills, located approximately east of Adelaide and north of the town of Nairne.
History
Its name, derived from ''Barrukungga'' in the local Kaurna language, means "place of fire stone" or the "place ...
,
Carrickalinga
Carrickalinga (from Kaurna Karrakardlangga / Karragarlangga) is a small coastal town in South Australia about south of Adelaide on the Fleurieu Peninsula overlooking Gulf St Vincent. The town has no shops, with the nearest being in Normanville ...
,
Charleston,
Cherry Gardens,
Clarendon,
Crafers
The town of Crafers is in the Adelaide Hills to the south-east of Adelaide, South Australia, considered to be an outer suburb of Adelaide.
History
Crafers was named after David Crafer, who arrived in Adelaide in 1838 and moved to the area. ...
,
Cudlee Creek
Cudlee Creek is a small town near Adelaide, South Australia. It is located in the Adelaide Hills Council local government area.
History
The name Cudlee Creek is probably derived from the Kaurna word ''kadli'', meaning the Dingo Creek.
The fir ...
,
Currency Creek,
Delamere,
Echunga,
Forreston,
Goolwa,
Gumeracha
Gumeracha ( ) is a town in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia, located on the Adelaide-Mannum Road. It is located in the Adelaide Hills Council local government area on the south bank of the upper River Torrens. At the 2006 census, Gumeracha ...
,
Hahndorf
Hahndorf is a small town in the Adelaide Hills region of South Australia. Currently an important tourism spot, it has previously been a centre for farming and services.
Geography
It is accessible from Adelaide, the South Australian capital, ...
,
Houghton Houghton may refer to:
Places
Australia
* Houghton, South Australia, a town near Adelaide
* Houghton Highway, the longest bridge in Australia, between Redcliffe and Brisbane in Queensland
* Houghton Island (Queensland)
Canada
* Houghton Townshi ...
,
Inglewood,
Kersbrook
Kersbrook (formerly Maidstone) is a town near Adelaide, South Australia. It is located in the Adelaide Hills Council local government area. At the 2006 census, Kersbrook had a population of 367.
History
The first settlers established farms in t ...
,
Kingscote,
Langhorne Creek,
Lobethal
Lobethal is a town in the Adelaide Hills area of South Australia. It is located in the Adelaide Hills Council local government area, and is nestled on the banks of a creek between the hills and up the sides of the valley. It was once the centr ...
,
Macclesfield
Macclesfield is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Bollin in the east of the county, on the edge of the Cheshire Plain, with Macclesfield Forest to its east ...
,
McLaren Flat,
Meadows
A meadow ( ) is an open habitat, or field, vegetated by grasses, herbs, and other non-woody plants. Trees or shrubs may sparsely populate meadows, as long as these areas maintain an open character. Meadows may be naturally occurring or artificia ...
,
Middleton,
Milang
Milang ( ) is a town and locality located in the Australian state of South Australia on the west coast of Lake Alexandrina (South Australia), Lake Alexandrina about south-east of the state capital of Adelaide city centre, Adelaide and about nor ...
,
Mount Compass,
Mount Pleasant,
Mount Torrens
Mount Torrens is a town in the eastern Adelaide Hills region of South Australia, 46 kilometres east-north-east of the state capital, Adelaide and 8 km east of Lobethal. It is located in the Adelaide Hills Council and the Mid Murray Counci ...
,
Mylor,
Myponga,
Normanville,
Norton Summit,
Oakbank,
Penneshaw
Penneshaw is a township in the Australian state of South Australia located on the northeast coast of the Dudley Peninsula on Kangaroo Island about south of the state capital of Adelaide. It is the island's main ferry port with regular services ...
,
Piccadilly
Piccadilly () is a road in the City of Westminster, London, to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road that connects central London to Hammersmith, Earl's Court, ...
,
Port Elliot
Port Elliot is a town in South Australia toward the eastern end of the south coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula. It is situated on the sheltered Horseshoe Bay, a small bay off the much larger Encounter Bay. Pullen Island lies outside the mouth of t ...
,
Second Valley,
Springton,
Summertown,
Uraidla
Uraidla (, ) is a small town in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia, Australia. At the , Uraidla had a population of 575. However it also sits at the centre of a larger population catchment of rural townships which include Summertown, Piccad ...
,
Willunga,
Woodchester
Woodchester is a Gloucestershire village in the Nailsworth (or Woodchester) Valley, a valley in the South Cotswolds in England, running southwards from Stroud along the A46 road to Nailsworth. The parish population taken at the 2011 census was ...
,
Woodside,
Yankalilla, and parts of
Birdwood,
Old Noarlunga and
Upper Sturt
Upper Sturt is a suburb in the inner south of Adelaide, South Australia. The suburb is nestled in the lower reaches of the Mount Lofty Ranges with the Western Half located in the City of Mitcham Local government in Australia, local government a ...
.
Geography
Since 1984, federal electoral division boundaries in Australia have been determined at redistributions by a redistribution committee appointed by the
Australian Electoral Commission
The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) is the independent federal agency in charge of organising, conducting and supervising federal Australian elections, by-elections and referendums.
Responsibilities
The AEC's main responsibility is to ...
. 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.
Electorate history
![Helen Mayo 1914](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Helen_Mayo_1914.jpg)
At its creation in 1984, Mayo was a rural electorate that stretched from the seaside town of Victor Harbor to the Adelaide Hills, which had previously been represented mostly by the seats of
Barker and
Boothby. A safe
Liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
seat, it began with a notional 12.3 per cent Liberal
two-party
A two-party system is a political party system in which two major political parties consistently dominate the political landscape. At any point in time, one of the two parties typically holds a majority in the legislature and is usually referr ...
margin ahead of the
1984 election. Liberal
Alexander Downer
Alexander John Gosse Downer (born 9 September 1951) is an Australian former politician and diplomat who was leader of the Liberal Party from 1994 to 1995, Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1996 to 2007, and High Commissioner to the United King ...
, fifth and latest of the
Downer family
The Downer family has played a significant role in the South Australian and Australian political and social sphere since the early days of European settlement. Their earliest ancestors were Mary Ann Downer (1792–1868) and her son Henry Downer ...
political dynasty, notionally retained Mayo for the Liberals and would hold the seat for 24 years.
At the
1990 election, the
Australian Democrats
The Australian Democrats is a centrist political party in Australia. Founded in 1977 from a merger of the Australia Party and the New Liberal Movement, both of which were descended from Liberal Party dissenting splinter groups, it was Australia ...
, who traditionally polled better in the area covered by Mayo than anywhere else in Australia, first revealed themselves as a real contender in that seat, polling a primary vote of 21.3 per cent from an increase of 11.7 per cent, coming third by just 2 per cent of the primary vote less than
Labor
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the la ...
. Then-Democrats leader
Janine Haines
Janine Winton Haines, AM (née Carter; 8 May 1945 – 20 November 2004) was an Australian politician who was a Senator for South Australia from 1977 to 1978 and again from 1981 to 1990. She represented the Australian Democrats, and served as t ...
chose to contest the neighbouring
Division of Kingston
The Division of Kingston is an Divisions of the Australian House of Representatives, Australian Electoral Division in South Australia covering the outer southern suburbs of Adelaide. The 171 km² seat stretches from Hallett Cove, South Aus ...
at the 1990 election, obtaining a 26.4 per cent primary vote, but came third well behind the Liberals, with sitting Labor member
Gordon Bilney
Gordon Neil Bilney (21 June 193928 October 2012) was an Australian politician. He was an Australian Labor Party member of the Australian House of Representatives for the seat of Kingston from 1983 to 1996.
Bilney was born in Renmark, South Au ...
retaining the seat. It was speculated at the time that if the high-profile Haines had contested Mayo instead, she may have been able to defeat Downer—presumably by gaining the additional 2 percent the Democrats needed to overtake Labor for second place, and defeat Downer on Labor preferences.
A redistribution following the 1990 election shifted the Fleurieu Peninsula and Kangaroo Island to
Barker, where they had been prior to the creation of Mayo. While this made Mayo an exclusively Hills based seat, the Liberal margin dropped 2 percent to a notionally fairly safe 9.6 two-party margin. It was won at the next two elections on safe margins. At the
1998 election however, high-profile Democrats candidate
John Schumann
John Lewis Schumann (born 18 May 1953) is an Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist from Adelaide. He is best known as the lead singer for the folk group Redgum, with their chart-topping hit " I Was Only 19 (A Walk in the Light Green)", a s ...
polled a primary vote of 22.4 per cent. He ended up with a
two-candidate vote of 48.3 per cent, just 1.7 per cent (3,000 votes) short of taking the seat, making Mayo a marginal seat for the first time. However, on "traditional" two-party terms, it only edged from safe to fairly safe Liberal.
Another redistribution following the 1998 election made Mayo a notionally safe two-party Liberal seat with an extra 1 per cent added to the two-party margin. Downer would be comfortably returned in Mayo until his political retirement. At the
2001 election, Labor returned to second place after preferences. At the
2004 election,
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
candidate
Brian Deegan polled a 15 per cent primary vote, overtook Labor after preferences, and polled a 38.2 per cent two-candidate vote. Downer recorded his and Mayo's lowest winning two-party result at the
2007 election with a much reduced 7.1 per cent two-party margin after a 6.5 per cent two-party swing.
Downer retired from politics triggering a
2008 Mayo by-election. Labor opted not to run a candidate.
Jamie Briggs
Jamie Edward Briggs (born 9 June 1977) is a former Australian politician, who represented the House of Representatives seat of Mayo for the Liberal Party of Australia from the 2008 Mayo by-election to the 2 July 2016 federal election. Briggs w ...
retained the seat for the Liberals on a 3 per cent two-candidate margin against
Greens candidate Lynton Vonow, once again transforming Mayo into a marginal seat. At the
2010 election, the seat was won by the Liberals on a fairly safe two-party margin for only the third time, before once again becoming a safe Liberal seat at the
2013 election.
2016 election onwards and Xenophon
South Australian Senator
Nick Xenophon
Nick Xenophon ( Nicholas Xenophou; born 29 January 1959) is an Australian politician and lawyer who was a Senator for South Australia from 2008 to 2017. He was the leader of two political parties: Nick Xenophon Team federally, and Nick Xenophon ...
confirmed in December 2014 that by mid-2015 the
Nick Xenophon Team
Centre Alliance, formerly known as the Nick Xenophon Team (NXT), is a centrist political party in Australia based in the state of South Australia. It currently has one representative in the Parliament, Rebekha Sharkie in the House of Represe ...
(NXT) would announce candidates in the South Australian Liberal seats of
Hindmarsh,
Sturt and Mayo, along with seats in all states and territories at the
2016 election, with Xenophon citing the government's ambiguity on the
Collins-class submarine replacement project
The ''Attack''-class submarine was a planned class of French-designed submarines for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), expected to enter service in the early 2030s with construction extending until 2050.Department of Defence, ''2016 Defence Whi ...
as motivation.
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
psephologist Antony Green
Antony John Green (born 2 March 1960) is an Australian psephologist and commentator. He is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's chief election analyst.
Early years and background
Born in Warrington, Lancashire, in northern England, Gre ...
's 2016 federal election guide for South Australia stated NXT had a "strong chance of winning lower house seats and three or four Senate seats". NXT's candidate in Mayo was former Briggs staffer
Rebekha Sharkie
Rebekha Carina Sharkie ( Che;
born 24 August 1972) is an Australian politician and member of the Centre Alliance party. She is a member of the Australian House of Representatives, representing the Division of Mayo in South Australia. At the 20 ...
, who is associated with a wide range of organisations in the
Adelaide Hills.
Multiple seat-level opinion polls in Mayo found NXT surprisingly leading the Liberals on the
two-candidate vote during the
2016 election campaign.
Seat-level opinion polls in the other two rural Liberal South Australian seats, both
Grey
Grey (more common in British English) or gray (more common in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning literally that it is "without color", because it can be composed o ...
and
Barker, also found NXT leading the Liberals.
New polls show Jamie Briggs and Christopher Pyne in real battle to hold their seats from Xenophon challengers: The Advertiser 3 June 2016
/ref>
Sharkie was successful in defeating Liberal incumbent Briggs in Mayo at the 2016 election with a 55 percent two-candidate vote to the Liberals' 45 percent two-candidate vote. Briggs lost over 16 percent of his primary vote from 2013, and ultimately suffered a two-candidate swing of 17.2 percent. This marked the first time this seat has been out of Liberal hands since its creation. Additionally, Mayo became a marginal seat in a "traditional" two-party matchup for the first time, with the Liberal two-party-preferred vote reduced to 55.4 percent, a swing of 7.2 percent.
Sharkie resigned on 9 May 2018, as a result of the ongoing Australian parliamentary eligibility crisis
Australian(s) may refer to:
Australia
* Australia, a country
* Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia
** European Australians
** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists
** Aboriginal Aus ...
following the ruling of the High Court that dual British citizens must have ''completed'' renunciation of their British citizenship prior to nominating for Australian Parliament with reference to Katy Gallagher
Katherine Ruth Gallagher (born 18 March 1970) is an Australian politician who has been serving as the Minister for Finance, Minister for Women, Minister for the Public Service and Vice-President of the Executive Council in the Albanese Gove ...
. The resignation triggered a by-election
A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...
, held on 28 July 2018. Sharkie re-contested the seat for her party, now known as the Centre Alliance, and retained it with a modest swing in her favour. Sharkie retained the seat at the 2019 election with an increased majority despite a collapse in voteshare for the Centre Alliance that year.
Sharkie retained her seat in the 2022 election with an increased majority and a swing of 7.12 percent to her.
Members
Election results
See also
* 2016 Australian federal election
The 2016 Australian federal election was a double dissolution election held on Saturday 2 July to elect all 226 members of the 45th Parliament of Australia, 45th Parliament of Australia, after an extended eight-week official campaign period. It ...
* Results of the Australian federal election, 2016 (South Australia)
References
ABC profile for Mayo: 2016
Poll Bludger profile for Mayo: 2016
Notes
External links
SA boundary map, 1984: Atlas SA
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mayo, Division of
Electoral divisions of Australia
Constituencies established in 1984
1984 establishments in Australia
Kangaroo Island