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Electoral district of Chaffey

Coordinates: 34°32′16″S 140°16′14″E / 34.53778°S 140.27056°E / -34.53778; 140.27056
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Chaffey
South AustraliaHouse of Assembly
Map of South Australia with the electoral district of Chaffey highlighted
Electoral district of Chaffey (green) in South Australia
StateSouth Australia
Created1938
MPTim Whetstone
PartyLiberal Party of Australia (SA)
NamesakeGeorge Chaffey and William Chaffey
Electors23,495 (2018)
Area24,265.88 km2 (9,369.1 sq mi)
DemographicRural
Coordinates34°32′16″S 140°16′14″E / 34.53778°S 140.27056°E / -34.53778; 140.27056
Electorates around Chaffey:
Stuart Stuart N. S. W.
Frome Schubert Chaffey N. S. W.
Victoria
Hammond MacKillop Victoria
Footnotes
Electoral District map[1]

Chaffey, created in 1936, is a single-member electoral district for the South Australian House of Assembly. It covers the Riverland region of South Australia including the towns of Renmark, Berri, Barmera, Loxton and Waikerie. The seat is named after brothers George and William Chaffey who established the irrigation area along the Murray River from 1886.

Chaffey spent most of the Playmander era in the hands of independent William MacGillivray. The Liberal and Country League did not win it until 1956. Chaffey was won three times by Labor's Reg Curren as their most marginal electorate on a two-party-preferred basis – in 1962 on 50.1%, 1965 on 50.7% and 1970 on 50.2%. Curren's 1965 victory helped put Labor in government in 1965 after 33 years in opposition, while his loss to the LCL's Peter Arnold was one of two Labor losses that returned the LCL to government in 1968. Curren reclaimed it for Labor during his party's 1970 landslide victory after the end of the Playmander, only to lose it back to Arnold in 1973. At the 1975 election, Arnold picked up a massive 13.5 percent swing, and Labor has never come close to winning it since. Chaffey was one of several rural electorates where Labor suffered large swings in 1975; Labor suffered a swing of 15.5 percent in Mount Gambier and a 16.4 percent in Millicent.

Chaffey remained in the hands of the LCL and its successor, the Liberal Party, until 1997 when Karlene Maywald narrowly won it for the SA Nationals. Maywald picked up a large swing in 2002, boosting her two-candidate preferred vote to 64 percent. She held the electorate without serious difficulty until she was defeated in 2010 by Liberal Tim Whetstone, who still holds the seat.

Members for Chaffey

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Member Party Term
  William MacGillivray Independent 1938–1956
  Harold King Liberal and Country 1956–1962
  Reg Curren Labor 1962–1968
  Peter Arnold Liberal and Country 1968–1970
  Reg Curren Labor 1970–1973
  Peter Arnold Liberal and Country 1973–1974
  Liberal 1974–1993
  Kent Andrew Liberal 1993–1997
  Karlene Maywald Nationals SA 1997–2010
  Tim Whetstone Liberal 2010–present

Election results

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2022 South Australian state election: Chaffey
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Liberal Tim Whetstone 12,050 54.6 +7.6
Labor Joanne Sutton 4,395 19.9 +1.2
One Nation Sab Feleppa 2,180 9.9 +9.9
Greens Trevor Schloithe 1,334 6.0 +4.0
National Damien Buijs 1,267 5.7 +5.7
Family First Mathew Francis 831 3.8 +3.8
Total formal votes 22,057 95.5
Informal votes 1,034 4.5
Turnout 23,091 89.5
Two-party-preferred result
Liberal Tim Whetstone 14,820 67.2 −0.8
Labor Joanne Sutton 7,237 32.8 +0.8
Liberal hold Swing −0.8

Notes

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  1. ^ Electoral District of Chaffey (Map). Electoral Commission of South Australia. 2018. Retrieved 1 April 2018.[permanent dead link]

References

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