Electoral district of Swan Hills

Swan Hills is an Electoral district of Western Australia. As in other districts, the Kenwick district elects a single person to the Western Australian Legislative Assembly. The elected person is then known as the Member for Swan Hills, and is said to hold the seat of Swan Hills. As of 2001, the Member for Swan Hills is Jaye Radisich who holds the seat for the Labor Party by a margin of 3.8%. The seat in 2009 is expected to be very tough seat for Labor Party to hold.

Profile

The electorate of Swan Hills covers the Swan Valley and Darling Range suburbs to the north and east of Midland. In the Swan and Avon Valleys it includes Bullsbrook, Upper Swan and Herne Hill. To the east of Midland, it includes Darlington, Glen Forrest, Mundaring, Sawyers Valley, Mt Helena, Chidlow and Wooroloo. The largest metropolitan electorate at 1,508 km².

History

This area had been held for Labor by Gavan Troy as MP for Mundaring 1983-89, and Swan Hills 1989-93. Troy was one of the three MPs dumped by Carmen Lawrence in an attempt to liven up her cabinet in 1991, but was the only one not to resign from the Party in protest. On his retirement in 1993, Swan Hills was won by the Liberal Party's June van de Klashhorst, the seat was made safer for the Liberal Party by a redistribution before the 1996 election. With a margin going into the 2001 election of 9.7%, the 11.7% swing that delivered victory to Labor's Jaye Radisich was quite an upset. One Nation polled 10.9% and the Greens 11.9%, the preferences of both turning a Liberal lead of 713 on primary votes into a Labor lead of 1,037 votes after preferences

Members