Electoral district of Geraldton

Geraldton is an electoral district of Western Australia. As in other districts, the Geraldton district elects a single person to the Western Australian Legislative Assembly. The elected person is then known as the Member for Geraldton, and is said to hold the seat of Gealdton. As of 2001, the Member for Geraldton is Shane Hill who holds the seat for the Labor Party by a margin of 2.1%. The seat will be strongly contested seat in 2009 by the Liberal and National Parties.

Profile

The boundaries of the electorate include all of the City of Geraldton Council area, along with the built up suburbs of Karloo, Mount Tarcoola and parts of Wandina in the neighbouring Shire of Greenough. The smallest of the Agricultural Region electorates, Geraldton covers just 52km², including the offshore Houtman Abrolhos island chain.

History

Apart from one three year term, Geraldton was Labor held from 1917 to 1991, for the first three decades by former Labor Premier John Willcock. Held by Labor's Jeff Carr 1974-91, he resigned from the seat after being dumped from Cabinet in a badly handled attempt by Carmen Lawrence to give her government new life. In the subsequent by-election, Labor was humiliated, its candidate finishing third though coming close to electing the National Party candidate on preferences. While the Labor party vote improved at the 1993 and 1996 state elections, Geraldton looked to have joined Albany as a seat that had drifted permanently away from Labor. However, in 2001, Labor achieved an astonishing victory as Liberal MP Bob Bloffwitch saw his primary vote more than halve from 50.2% to 24.5%. With the Liberal vote halved, One Nation polling 21% and a local environment Independent 12.9%, Bloffwitch was easily defeated, though he refused to concede defeat.