Werriwa

The Division of Werriwa is an Australian electoral division in the state of New South Wales. The name Werriwa derives from a local Aboriginal name for Lake George, which was located in the division when it was established in 1900. The division was one of the original 65 divisions first contested at the first federal election.

Werriwa now covers an area in south-west Sydney, including the suburbs of Ashcroft, Austral, Bonnyrigg Heights, Busby, Carnes Hill, Cartwright, Casula, Cecil Hills, Edmondson Park, Green Valley, Heckenberg, Hinchinbrook, Horningsea Park, Hoxton Park, Lurnea, Middleton Grange, Miller, Prestons, Sadleir, and West Hoxton; as well as parts of Bonnyrigg, Cecil Park, Glenfield, Kemps Creek, Mount Pritchard, and Rossmore.

The current Member for Werriwa, since the 2016 federal election, is Anne Stanley, a member of the Australian Labor Party.

History

Originally, Werriwa was a large and mostly rural electorate that stretched from south-west Sydney to the northern part of what is now the ACT, and included the Southern Highlands, Goulburn, and part of the South West Slopes. In succeeding years, with demographic change and electoral redistributions, Werriwa began to shrink and, from 1913 onwards, no longer included Lake George. It underwent several other major changes to its borders over the years. The 1949 expansion of Parliament saw Werriwa lose most of its remaining rural territory to the newly created Division of Macarthur and move to approximately its current position in south-west Sydney, over away from Lake George. However, it has retained the name of Werriwa, primarily as it is an original Federation electorate—the Australian Electoral Commission's guidelines on electoral redistributions require it to preserve the names of original Federation electorates where possible.

It is a very safe seat for Labor, which has held it continuously since 1934 and for all but nine years since 1906.

Werriwa is best remembered for being the electorate of former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, who held it from 1952 to 1978. It was represented from 1994 to 2005 by one of Whitlam's former aides, Mark Latham, the leader of the ALP and Leader of the Opposition from 2003 to 2005. In more recent times, a by-election in March 2005 resulted in Labor's Chris Hayes elected with over 55% of the vote, in a 16-candidate race which saw no other candidate poll above 8%.

Demographics

Werriwa is a heavily working class electorate and is considered part of Labor's Western Sydney "Red Wall" (seats that are reliably safe for Labor).

Werriwa is home to relatively large immigrant communities. According to the 2016 census, 64.8% of electors had both parents born outside of Australia. 40.0% of people only speak English at home. Other languages spoken at home include Arabic 10.1%, Vietnamese 6.3%, Hindi 4.3%, Spanish 2.8% and Italian 2.2%.

Members

Election results

References

External links

Division of Werriwa – Australian Electoral Commission

{{DEFAULTSORT:Werriwa, Division of
Electoral divisions of Australia
Electoral divisions of Australia in New South Wales
Constituencies established in 1901
1901 establishments in Australia
Gough Whitlam