The Division of Spence is an electoral district for the

Australian House of Representatives The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Senate. Its composition and powers are established in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia. The term of members of the ...

. It is located in the outer northern suburbs 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 ...

Geography

Federal electoral division boundaries in Australia are 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.

History

It is named in honour of

Catherine Helen Spence Catherine Helen Spence (31 October 1825 – 3 April 1910) was a Scottish-born Australian author, teacher, journalist, politician, leading suffragist, and Georgist. Spence was also a minister of religion and social worker, and supporter of ...

, an advocate for female suffrage and electoral reform and the first female political candidate in Australia. Spence was created in the electoral redistribution that concluded in July 2018 as a replacement for the

Division of Wakefield The Division of Wakefield was an Australian electoral division in the state of South Australia. The seat was a hybrid rural-urban electorate that stretched from Salisbury in the outer northern suburbs of Adelaide at the south of the seat right ...

. It is essentially the more urbanised southern portion of the formerly hybrid urban-rural Wakefield. The

Division of Port Adelaide The Division of Port Adelaide was an Australian electoral division in the state of South Australia. The 181 km² seat extended from St Kilda in the north to Grange Road and Findon in the south with part of Salisbury to the east. Subur ...

was abolished after South Australia was reduced from 11 electorates to ten, resulting in quite large movements of the remaining divisions' boundaries to fill in the gap. The geographic extent of Spence is approximately the

Adelaide Plains The Adelaide Plains (Kaurna name Tarndanya) is a plain in South Australia lying between the coast (Gulf St Vincent) on the west and the Mount Lofty Ranges on the east. The southernmost tip of the plain is in the southern seaside suburbs of Ade ...

between the

Little Para River The Little Para River is a seasonal creek running across the Adelaide Plains in the Australian state of South Australia, whose catchment fills reservoirs that supply some of the water needs of Adelaide’s northern suburbs. Course and features ...

in the south and the Gawler River on the north, plus areas around

Gawler Gawler is the oldest country town on the Australian mainland in the state of South Australia. It was named after the second Governor (British Vice-Regal representative) of the colony of South Australia, George Gawler. It is about north of the ...

and

Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...

. It includes all of the

City of Playford The City of Playford is a local government area of South Australia in Adelaide's northern suburbs. It was named in recognition of Sir Thomas Playford, who played a part in the development of the area, and was South Australia's premier from 1938 ...

and

Town of Gawler The Town of Gawler is a local government area located north of Adelaide city centre in South Australia containing Gawler and its suburbs. The corporate town was established in 1857 due to the township's residents' dissatisfaction at being gover ...

; along with Concordia and

Kalbeeba Kalbeeba is a locality east of Gawler in South Australia. It is named for a former railway station on the Barossa Valley railway line. The northern boundary of Kalbeeba is now the Barossa Valley Way, and its southwestern boundary is the South P ...

from the

Barossa Council Barossa Council is a local government area in the Barossa Valley in South Australia. The council area covers 912 square kilometres and had a population of over 23,000 as at the 2016 Census. History It was proclaimed on 1 July 1996 following t ...

, and Gawler Belt and Buchfelde from

Light Regional Council Light Regional Council is a local government area north of Adelaide in South Australia. It is based in the town of Kapunda, and includes the towns of Freeling, Greenock, Hansborough, Hewett, Roseworthy and Wasleys. The council is named f ...

on the outskirts of Gawler. Spence also includes six suburbs in the

City of Salisbury The City of Salisbury is a local government area (LGA) located on the northern fringes of Adelaide, South Australia. It had population of 137,979 people in 2016 and encompasses an area of 158 km². The council's main offices are situated in ...

south of the Little Para River but west and north of

Main North Road Main North Road is the major north-south arterial route through the suburbs north of the Adelaide City Centre in the city of Adelaide, South Australia. It continues north through the settled areas of South Australia and is a total of long, fro ...

and

Kings Road King's Road or Kings Road (or sometimes the King's Road, especially when it was the king's private road until 1830, or as a colloquialism by middle/upper class London residents), is a major street stretching through Chelsea and Fulham, both ...

. Spence overlaps the final configuration of Bonython before it was abolished prior to the 2004 electionBonython boundary map, 2001: AEC
/ref> and much of it was merged with what had been the southern part of Wakefield. Spence extends further east, west and north than Bonython at the time of its abolition, but Wakefield had historically been a rural seat until 2004. Spence was notionally a comfortably safe

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 ...

seat with a notional Labor margin of 17.9 percent, making it on paper the safest Labor seat in the state. By comparison, the abolished Wakefield finished with a safe Labor margin of 11.0 percent. Champion retained it in 2019 with only a small swing against him. Spence is still the safest Labor seat in the state, with a 14.1 percent swing needed for the Liberals to win it.

Members

Election results

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Spence, Division of Electoral divisions of Australia Constituencies established in 2019 2019 establishments in Australia