Goyder was an electoral district of the

South Australian House of Assembly The House of Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of South Australia. The other is the Legislative Council. It sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Adelaide. Overview The House of Assembly was creat ...

. It was a 9,258 km² rural electorate located on the

Yorke Peninsula The Yorke Peninsula is a peninsula located northwest and west of Adelaide in South Australia, between Spencer Gulf on the west and Gulf St Vincent on the east. The peninsula is separated from Kangaroo Island to the south by Investigator Str ...

and taking in the towns of

Ardrossan Ardrossan (; ) is a town on the North Ayrshire coast in southwestern Scotland. The town has a population of 10,670 and forms part of a conurbation with Saltcoats and Stevenston known as the ' Three Towns'. Ardrossan is located on the east shore ...

, Bute,

Edithburgh Edithburgh is a small town on the south-east corner of Yorke Peninsula situated on the coastline of Salt Creek Bay, in the state of South Australia. Edithburgh is about west of Adelaide across Gulf St Vincent, but away by road. At the 2016 ...

, Kadina,

Maitland Maitland is an English and Scottish surname. It arrived in Britain after the Norman conquest of 1066. There are two theories about its source. It is either a nickname reference to "bad temper/disposition" (Old French, ''Maltalent''; Anglo Norm ...

, Minlaton, Moonta,

Port Wakefield Port Wakefield may refer to. Australia *Port Wakefield, South Australia, a town and locality * Port Wakefield railway line, part of the now-closed Balaklava-Moonta railway line in South Australia * Port Wakefield Circuit, a former motor racing cir ...

Wallaroo Wallaroo is a common name for several species of moderately large macropods, intermediate in size between the kangaroos and the wallabies. The word "wallaroo" is from the Dharug ''walaru'', and not a portmanteau of the words "kangaroo" and "wal ...

and Yorketown. The electorate was named after

George Goyder George Woodroffe Goyder (24 June 1826 – 2 November 1898) was a surveyor in the Colony of South Australia during the latter half of the nineteenth century. He rose rapidly in the civil service, becoming Assistant Surveyor-General by 1856 ...

, a former state Surveyor-General famous for developing

Goyder's Line Goyder's Line is a line that runs roughly east–west across South Australia and, in effect, joins places with an average annual rainfall of . North of Goyder's Line, annual rainfall is usually too low to support cropping, with the land being sui ...

, which indicated the area of the state that had enough rainfall to be suitable for agriculture. From the 2018 election, Goyder was renamed to

Narungga The Narungga people, also spelt Narangga, are a group of Aboriginal Australians whose traditional lands are located throughout Yorke Peninsula, South Australia. Their traditional language, one of the Yura-Thura grouping, is Narungga. Country ...

History

The abolished seat of

formed part of the newly created seat of Goyder at the 1970 election. Goyder has been in non-

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 ...

hands for the entire time from its creation at the electoral redistribution of 1969 until it was abolished in 2018. Much of the seat's territory had been represented by non-Labor MPs without interruption since the change to single-member seats in 1938. Even during Labor's landslide victory of 2006, it only managed 40.9 percent of the two-party vote. However, Goyder had a surprisingly turbulent history.

James Ferguson James Ferguson may refer to: Entertainment * Jim Ferguson (born 1948), American jazz and classical guitarist * Jim Ferguson, American guitarist, past member of Lotion * Jim Ferguson, American movie critic, Board of Directors member for the Broadca ...

, the last member for Yorke Peninsula, retained Goyder at the 1970 election for the conservative

Liberal and Country League 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 ...

. However, former LCL leader and Premier

Steele Hall Raymond Steele Hall (born 30 November 1928) is a former Australian politician who served as the 36th Premier of South Australia from 1968 to 1970. He also served in the federal Parliament as a senator for South Australia from 1974 to 1977 and ...

won it for the breakaway Liberal Movement at the 1973 election. Hall resigned in 1974 to run for the

Australian Senate The Senate is the upper house of the Bicameralism, bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives (Australia), House of Representatives. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Chapter ...

at the 1974 federal election, and his seat was successfully held for the Liberal Movement by

David Boundy Leslie David Boundy (12 August 1932 – 18 July 2003) was an Australian politician who represented the South Australian House of Assembly seat of Goyder from 1974 to 1977 for the Liberal Movement and Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any ...

at a 1974 by-election. In 1976, the Liberal Movement merged back into the

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

(the Liberal and Country League having changed its name to that of the federal party after the initial split), and Boundy won Liberal preselection for the seat at the 1977 election. However, Boundy's preselection opponent,

Keith Russack Edwin Keith Russack (2 April 1918 – 26 February 1999) known as Keith Russack, was a politician in the State of South Australia. History Russack was born at Kadina, South Australia, the youngest son of Alfred Hermann Russack (1879 – 5 Novemb ...

, subsequently contested and won the election as an independent Liberal, and was later accepted back into the party. He was succeeded by John Meier at the 1982 election, who subsequently held the seat comfortably for 24 years. Meier retired at the 2006 election and successor candidate Steven Griffiths held the seat on equally comfortable margins. As a measure of the Liberals' strength in the seat, in 2006, the Liberals suffered a swing of over seven percent amid their statewide collapse, but Griffiths still managed to win 59.1 percent of the two-party vote after winning an outright majority on the first count.

Members for Goyder

Election results

Notes

References

ABC profile for Goyder: 2014

ECSA profile for Goyder: 2014

Poll Bludger profile for Goyder: 2014
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goyder 1970 establishments in Australia Electoral districts of South Australia 2018 disestablishments in Australia Constituencies established in 1970 Constituencies disestablished in 2018