Division of Moreton

Moreton Australian House of Representatives Division
Interactive map of boundaries
Created	1901
MP	Graham Perrett
Party	Labor
Namesake	Moreton Bay
Electors	107,128 (2022)
Area	109 km2 (42.1 sq mi)
Demographic	Inner metropolitan

The Division of Moreton is an Australian Electoral Division in Queensland. The current MP is Graham Perrett of the Australian Labor Party (ALP).

History

Moreton Bay, the division's namesake

The division was one of the original 65 divisions contested at the first federal election. It is named after Moreton Bay, and originally stretched from southern Brisbane all the way to the Gold Coast. While successive redistributions have left the seat completely landlocked, it has nonetheless retained the name of Moreton, mainly because the Australian Electoral Commission's guidelines on electoral redistributions require it to preserve the names of original electorates where possible.

The seat was in the hands of the Liberal Party and its predecessors from 1906 to 1990, though the Liberals' hold on the seat was usually tenuous from the 1950s onward. Labor regained it in 1990, and then until 2013 it was a bellwether seat held by the party of government. Labor narrowly retained the seat in 2013 even as it lost government, marking the first time in over a century that the non-Labor parties had been in government without holding Moreton.

The seat is known for having decided the 1961 federal election. The Liberals only won the seat by 130 votes to give the Coalition a bare one-seat majority; had 93 Communist preferences gone the other way, it would have resulted in a hung parliament.

On its current boundaries, the seat is very multicultural, with significant Asian, South Eastern European, Arab and African population in the southern part of the electorate particularly in the suburbs of Sunnybank, Acacia Ridge, Kuraby and Moorooka.

Boundaries

Since 1984, federal electoral division boundaries in Australia have been determined at redistributions by a redistribution committee appointed by the Australian Electoral Commission. Redistributions occur for the boundaries of divisions in a particular state, and they occur every seven years, or sooner if a state's representation entitlement changes or when divisions of a state are malapportioned.

Moreton is located in south east Queensland, and is based in the southern suburbs of the City of Brisbane. The division includes Acacia Ridge, Archerfield, Chelmer, Fairfield, Graceville, Karawatha, Kuraby, MacGregor, Moorooka, Nathan, Oxley, Robertson, Rocklea, Runcorn, Salisbury, Stretton, Sunnybank, Sunnybank Hills, Tennyson, Yeronga, and Yeerongpilly, and parts of Algester, Berrinba, Calamvale, Coopers Plains, Corinda, Drewvale, Eight Mile Plains, Parkinson, Sherwood and Tarragindi.

Members

	Image	Member	Party	Term	Notes
		James Wilkinson (1854–1915)	Independent Labour	30 March 1901 – 1904	Previously held the Legislative Assembly of Queensland seat of Ipswich. Lost seat
			Labour	1904 – 12 December 1906
		Hugh Sinclair (1864–1926)	Anti-Socialist	12 December 1906 – 26 May 1909	Retired
			Liberal	26 May 1909 – 17 February 1917
			Nationalist	17 February 1917 – 3 November 1919
		Arnold Wienholt (1877–1940)		13 December 1919 – 6 November 1922	Previously held the Legislative Assembly of Queensland seat of Fassifern. Retired. Later elected to the Legislative Assembly of Queensland seat of Fassifern in 1930
		Josiah Francis (1890–1964)		16 December 1922 – 7 May 1931	Served as minister under Lyons and Menzies. Retired
			United Australia	7 May 1931 – 21 February 1945
			Liberal	21 February 1945 – 4 November 1955
		Sir James Killen (1925–2007)		10 December 1955 – 15 August 1983	Served as minister under Gorton, McMahon and Fraser. Resigned to retire from politics
		Don Cameron (1940–)		5 November 1983 – 24 March 1990	Previously held the Division of Fadden. Lost seat
		Garrie Gibson (1954-)	Labor	24 March 1990 – 2 March 1996	Lost seat
		Gary Hardgrave (1960–)	Liberal	2 March 1996 – 24 November 2007	Served as minister under Howard. Lost seat
		Graham Perrett (1966-)	Labor	24 November 2007 – present	Incumbent

Election results

Main article: Electoral results for the Division of Moreton

This section is an excerpt from Results of the 2022 Australian federal election in Queensland § Moreton.[edit]

2022 Australian federal election: Moreton

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labor	Graham Perrett	34,633	37.42	+2.27
	Liberal National	Steven Huang	30,777	33.25	−7.58
	Greens	Claire Garton	19,250	20.80	+4.04
	One Nation	Neil Swann	3,364	3.63	+0.32
	United Australia	Chelsea Follett	3,064	3.31	+1.09
	Federation	Peter Power	1,468	1.59	+1.59
Total formal votes			92,556	97.24	+0.24
Informal votes			2,625	2.76	−0.24
Turnout			95,181	88.86	−2.06
Two-party-preferred result
	Labor	Graham Perrett	54,690	59.09	+7.19
	Liberal National	Steven Huang	37,866	40.91	−7.19
	Labor hold		Swing	+7.19

Alluvial diagram for preference flows in the seat of Moreton in the 2022 federal election. Y indicates at what stage the winning candidate had over 50% of the votes and was declared the winner.

Primary vote results in Moreton (Parties that did not get 5% of the vote are omitted)

  Liberal

  National

  Labor

  Australian Democrats

  Greens

  One Nation

  Palmer United/United Australia Party

Two-candidate-preferred results in Moreton

External links

• Division of Moreton (Qld) — Australian Electoral Commission