Electoral district of Goyder Information & Electoral district of Goyder Links at HealthHaven.com

This article is about the electorate of Goyder in South Australia. For the electorate of Goyder in the Northern Territory, see Electoral division of Goyder.

Goyder is an electoral district of the House of Assembly in the Australian state of South Australia. It is a 10,406.4 km² rural electorate based around the Yorke Peninsula and taking in the towns of Ardrossan, Bute, Corny Point, Edithburgh, Maitland, Minlaton, Moonta, Owen, Port Wakefield, Wallaroo and Yorketown. It is currently held by Steven Griffiths of the Liberal Party of Australia, and is not to be confused with the Northern Territory electorate of Goyder, currently held by the Country Liberal Party's Kezia Purick. As with its Northern Territory counterpart, the electorate is named after George Goyder, a former state Surveyor-General famous for developing Goyder's Line, which indicated the area of the state that had enough rainfall to be suitable for agriculture.

Goyder has been safely conservative ever since its creation at the electoral redistribution of 1969, but has had a surprisingly turbulent history for an otherwise safe seat. It won by James Ferguson at the 1970 election for the conservative Liberal and Country League, but was won by Steele Hall, who had not long before resigned as Opposition Leader, for the breakaway Liberal Movement at the 1973 election. Hall resigned in 1974 to run for the Australian Senate at the 1974 federal election, and his seat was successfully held for the Liberal Movement by David Boundy at the 1974 Goyder by-election. In 1976, the Liberal Movement merged back into the Liberal Party of Australia (the Liberal and Country League having changed its name to that of the federal party after the initial split), and Boundy was given Liberal endorsement to recontest the seat at the 1977 state election, defeating challenger Keith Russack for preselection. However, Russack 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 state election, who subsequently represented Goyder for 24 years. Meier retired at the 2006 state election and successor candidate Steven Griffiths held the seat comfortably with a 9.1% margin.

[edit] Members for Goyder

	Party	Term
James Ferguson	Liberal and Country League	1970–1973
Steele Hall	Liberal Movement	1973–1974
David Boundy	Liberal Movement	1974–1976
David Boundy	Liberal Party of Australia	1976–1977
Keith Russack	Independent Liberal	1977–1977
Keith Russack	Liberal Party of Australia	1977–1982
John Meier	Liberal Party of Australia	1982–2006
Steven Griffiths	Liberal Party of Australia	2006–present

[edit] Election results

South Australian state election, 2006: Goyder
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Steven Griffiths	10,310	50.1	-1.2
	Labor	Aemon Bourke	6,709	32.6	+9.3
	Family First	Robert Lawrie	1,558	7.6	+3.0
	Greens	Dennis Matthews	928	4.5	+4.5
	One Nation	Peter Fitzpatrick	552	2.7	-0.7
	Democrats	Stephen Jones	523	2.5	-3.8
Total formal votes			20,580	95.6
Informal votes			904	4.4
Turnout			21,484	94.6
Two Candidate Preferred Result
	Liberal	Steven Griffiths	12,169	59.1	-7.1
	Labor	Aemon Bourke	8,411	40.9	+7.1
	Liberal hold		Swing	-7.1

[edit] External links