Division of Durack

Durack
Australian House of Representatives Division
Durack; Australian House of Representatives Division
	Division of Durack in Western Australia, as of the 2021 redistribution.
Created	2010
MP	Melissa Price
Party	Liberal
Namesake	Durack family of Western Australia
Electors	118,558 (2022)
Area	1,383,954 km2 (534,347.6 sq mi)
Demographic	Rural

The Division of Durack is an Australian Electoral Division in the state of Western Australia.

History

Dame Mary Durack, whose family is the division's namesake

The Division is named after the pioneering Durack family, whose lives are recounted in Dame Mary Durack's books of history. Created to replace parts of the divisions of Kalgoorlie (which was abolished) and O'Connor, it elected its first member at the 2010 election.^[1] It was created as a comfortably safe Liberal seat. Sitting Kalgoorlie MP Barry Haase contested the seat for the Liberals and won.^[2] Haase announced he would not recontest Durack at the next election on 15 June 2013.^[3] The seat was won at the 2013 election by Liberal candidate Melissa Price. She held the seat without serious difficulty until the 2022 election, when she suffered a swing of over 10 percent to make the seat marginal for the first time.

Geography

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.^[4]

In August 2021, the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) announced that Durack's Wheatbelt Shires of Bruce Rock, Cunderdin, Kellerberrin, Koorda, Kulin, Merredin, Mount Marshall, Mukinbudin, Narembeen, Nungarin, Quairading, Tammin, Trayning, Westonia, Wyalkatchem and Yilgarn and Durack's Mid West Shire of Wiluna would be transferred to the seat of O'Connor, while the Wheatbelt Shires of Chittering, Gingin, Northam, Toodyay and York would be transferred to Durack from the seat of Pearce. These boundary changes took effect with the next federal election.^[5]

Durack presently includes the Kimberley region (Broome, Derby-West Kimberley, Halls Creek, and Wyndham-East Kimberley), the Pilbara region (Ashburton, East Pilbara, Karratha, and Port Hedland), the Gascoyne region (Carnarvon, Exmouth, Shark Bay and Upper Gascoyne), most of the Mid West region (Carnamah, Chapman Valley, Coorow, Cue, Geraldton, Irwin, Meekatharra, Mingenew, Morawa, Mount Magnet, Murchison, Northampton, Perenjori, Sandstone, Three Springs, and Yalgoo), and northern and central parts of the Wheatbelt (Chittering, Dandaragan, Dowerin, Gingin, Goomalling, Moora, Northam, Toodyay, Victoria Plains, Wongan-Ballidu, and York). A small portion of Perth's metropolitan area also falls in the electorate with the town of Bullsbrook, part of the City of Swan, marking part of the southern boundary.

At 1,383,954 km²^[6] (over 54 per cent of the landmass of Western Australia), Durack is the largest electorate in Australia by land area, the largest constituency in the world that practices compulsory voting, and the fourth largest single-member electorate in the world after Yakutsk in Russia, Nunavut in Canada, and Alaska in the United States.^[7] It is also larger than all Australian states and territories except for Western Australia itself, Queensland and the Northern Territory.

Members

	Image	Member	Party	Term	Notes
		Barry Haase (1945–)	Liberal	21 August 2010 – 5 August 2013	Previously held the Division of Kalgoorlie. Retired
		Melissa Price (1963–)	Liberal	7 September 2013 – present	Served as minister under Morrison. Incumbent

Election results

2022 Australian federal election: Durack^[8]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Melissa Price	30,736	34.33	−10.24
	Labor	Jeremiah Riley	26,093	29.15	+6.45
	National	Ian Blayney	9,160	10.23	+2.50
	Greens	Bianca McNeair	8,457	9.45	+1.42
	One Nation	Brenton Johannsen	6,174	6.90	−2.73
	Great Australian	Adrian Mcrae	2,738	3.06	+3.06
	Western Australia	Anthony Fels	2,483	2.77	−0.52
	United Australia	Andrew Middleton	2,229	2.49	−0.23
	Federation	Craig Shore	1,453	1.62	+1.62
Total formal votes			89,523	93.50	−1.12
Informal votes			6,219	6.50	+1.12
Turnout			95,742	80.86	−4.49
Two-party-preferred result
	Liberal	Melissa Price	48,583	54.27	−9.22
	Labor	Jeremiah Riley	40,940	45.73	+9.22
	Liberal hold		Swing	−9.22

Alluvial diagram for preference flows in the seat of Durack in the 2022 federal election.

indicates at what stage the winning candidate had over 50% of the votes and was declared the winner.

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

Liberal

Labor

National

Greens

Palmer United/United Australia Party

One Nation

Two-candidate-preferred results in Durack (Parties that did not get 5% of the vote are omitted)

References

^ "Western Australia (2007–08)". Australian Electoral Commission. Retrieved 11 April 2018.
^ "Haase 'committed' to Goldfields". abc.net.au. 27 July 2009. Retrieved 11 April 2018.
^ "It's game on in Australia's biggest federal electorate". www.abc.net.au. 19 July 2013. Retrieved 11 April 2018.
^ Muller, Damon (14 November 2017). "The process of federal redistributions: a quick guide". Parliament of Australia. Retrieved 19 April 2022.
^ https://www.aec.gov.au/Electorates/Redistributions/2021/wa/files/redistribution-of-western-australia-into-electoral-divisions-august-2021.pdf ^{[bare URL PDF]}
^ "Profile of the electoral division of Durack (WA)". Australian Electoral Commission. 13 October 2021.
^ Durack: the electorate bigger than many countries still finds it hard to get noticed, The Guardian, 14 May 2016
^ Durack, WA, 2022 Tally Room, Australian Electoral Commission.

External links

Division of Durack - Australian Electoral Commission

22°46′37″S 121°25′41″E / 22.777°S 121.428°E / -22.777; 121.428

[waredis2018-1] "Western Australia (2007–08)". Australian Electoral Commission. Retrieved 11 April 2018.

[2] "Haase 'committed' to Goldfields". abc.net.au. 27 July 2009. Retrieved 11 April 2018.

[3] "It's game on in Australia's biggest federal electorate". www.abc.net.au. 19 July 2013. Retrieved 11 April 2018.

[4] Muller, Damon (14 November 2017). "The process of federal redistributions: a quick guide". Parliament of Australia. Retrieved 19 April 2022.

[5] ttps://www.aec.gov.au/Electorates/Redistributions/2021/wa/files/redistribution-of-western-australia-into-electoral-divisions-august-2021.pdf ^{[bare URL PDF]}

[6] "Profile of the electoral division of Durack (WA)". Australian Electoral Commission. 13 October 2021.

[7] Durack: the electorate bigger than many countries still finds it hard to get noticed, The Guardian, 14 May 2016

[8] Durack, WA, 2022 Tally Room, Australian Electoral Commission.

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