State South Australia MP Leon Bignell Demographic Metropolitan Area 248.1 km² Elector 23,969 | Created 1970 Electors 23,969 (2014) Founded 1970 Member of parliament Leon Bignell Namesake Douglas Mawson | |
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Party Australian Labor Party (South Australian Branch) | ||
Mawson is an electoral district of the House of Assembly in the Australian state of South Australia. It covers most of the outer southern suburbs of the City of Onkaparinga, including Hackham, Hackham West, Huntfield Heights, Noarlunga Downs, Old Noarlunga, Onkaparinga Hills and Seaford Heights, the regional shopping centre area at Noarlunga Centre, parts of Woodcroft, and the southern wine region around McLaren Vale and Willunga.
The electorate was created in the 1969 redistribution, taking effect at the 1970 election. It is named after Sir Douglas Mawson, a geologist and explorer who made several expeditions to Antarctica. It was traditionally a bellwether seat, as it was won by the party that subsequently formed government at every election until the 2002 election, when Robert Brokenshire held the seat for the Liberals amidst a Labor election victory. Although it was thought that Brokenshire had established a base in Mawson, it reverted to form at the 2006 election, with his defeat by Labor candidate and former journalist Leon Bignell, who went on to increase his seat margins at the 2010 and 2014 elections against the statewide trend, at odds with decades of voting patterns in the electorate.
The 2016 draft redistribution ahead of the 2018 election proposes to redistribute Mawson from a 5.6 percent Labor seat to a notional 2.6 percent Liberal seat, taking in areas down the coast as Kangaroo Island.