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Port Adelaide Australian House of Representatives Division
Created:	1949
MP:	Mark Butler
Party:	Labor
Namesake:	Port Adelaide
Electors:	100,244
Area:	253 km² (98 sq mi)
Demographic:	Inner Metropolitan

The Division of Port Adelaide is an Australian Electoral Division in the state of South Australia. It is located in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, covering the area around the Barker Inlet, part of the Gulf Saint Vincent. It stretches from St Kilda in the north down to Grange Road, and is roughly bounded on the east by the Gawler railway line. It also includes the Mawson Lakes area. It includes the suburbs of Findon, Hendon, Exeter, North Haven, Wingfield, Salisbury, Buckland Park and Port Adelaide itself.

The Division was named after the suburb of Port Adelaide, the working port of Adelaide. It was proclaimed at the redistribution of 11 May 1949, and was first contested at the 1949 Federal election. The seat is currently a safe Australian Labor Party seat, the only one out of the federal South Australian seats. The closest that the ALP has ever come to losing the seat was at the 1988 by-election, where Labor candidate Rod Sawford received 55.2 percent of the two-party vote. It currently stands, after the 2007 vote, at 69.75 percent.

A notable curiosity in recent years was that in the 1998 and 2001 federal elections, the seat was the only one in Australia where a Communist Party candidate, Michael Perth, stood for election. This was the only occasion when the Liberal Party did not preference the One Nation Party last. He achieved less than 1 percent of the vote on each occasion.

The sitting member, Labor's Rod Sawford, retired at the 2007 election, which saw South Australian Labor's historically safe seat easily won by the newly endorsed Labor candidate, unionist and former head of the left state Labor faction Mark Butler.

[edit] Members

	Party	Term
Albert Thompson	Labor	1949–1963
Fred Birrell	Labor	1963–1974
Mick Young	Labor	1974–1988
Rod Sawford	Labor	1988–2007
Mark Butler	Labor	2007–present

[edit] Election results

Australian federal election, 2007: Port Adelaide
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labor	Mark Butler	52,732	58.24	+3.73
	Liberal	Brenton Chomel	22,830	25.21	-6.71
	Greens	Colin Thomas	7,935	8.76	+3.34
	Family First	Bruce Hambour	5,230	5.78	+1.01
	Democrats	Pam Moore	1,822	2.01	+0.01
Total formal votes			90,549	95.04	+2.12
Informal votes			4,724	4.96	-2.12
Turnout			95,273	95.04	+0.70
Two Candidate Preferred Result
	Labor	Mark Butler	63,158	69.75	+6.84
	Liberal	Brenton Chomel	27,391	30.25	-6.84
	Labor hold		Swing	+6.84

Australian federal election, 2004: Port Adelaide
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labor	Rod Sawford	46,692	54.51	+2.47
	Liberal	Terry Inglis	27,338	31.92	+5.21
	Greens	Anne McMenamin	4,641	5.42	+1.56
	Family First	Richard Bunting	4,085	4.77	+4.77
	Democrats	Trevor Tucker	1,710	2.00	-7.97
	One Nation	Stan Batten	1,191	1.39	-4.17
Total formal votes			85,657	92.92	+0.33
Informal votes			6,522	7.08	-0.33
Turnout			82,179	94.34	-0.73
Two Candidate Preferred Result
	Labor	Rod Sawford	53,888	62.91	-3.09
	Liberal	Terry Inglis	31,769	37.09	+3.09
	Labor hold		Swing	-3.09

[edit] External links