Division of Werriwa

The Division of Werriwa is a Federal Electoral Division for the Australian House of Representatives.

The name Werriwa derives from a local Aboriginal name for Lake George, which was located in the division when it was established in 1900. The division was one of the original 75 divisions first contested at the first federal election. At that time, the electorate was a large rural one that stretched from the south west of Sydney to the northern part of what is now the ACT.

In succeeding years, with demographic change and electoral redistributions, Werriwa began to shrink and from 1913 onwards no longer contained Lake George. In spite of this, and further major changes to its borders that saw it become a south-western Sydney suburban electorate over 150 km away from Lake George, it has retained the name of Werriwa, primarily as it is an original Federation electorate - the Australian Electoral Commission's guidelines on electoral redistributions require it to preserve the names of original Federation electorates where possible.

Werriwa now covers an area from Austral, West Hoxton, Prestons, Lurnea and parts of Liverpool in the north, to Claymore and Minto Heights in the south, bounded by the Georges River to the east and generally by the Sydney Water Supply Channel, Raby Road, Rileys Creek, Anthony Road, Barry Avenue and Allenby Road to the west. The main suburbs include Austral, Bardia, Bow Bowing, Casula, Claymore, Denham Court, Edmondson Park, Eschol Park, Glenfield, Horningsea Park, Hoxton Park, Ingleburn, Leppington, Lurnea, Macquarie Fields, Minto, Minto Heights, Prestons, Raby, St Andrews and Varroville and parts of Liverpool, Leumeah and West Hoxton.

It is a very safe seat for the Australian Labor Party, which has held it continuously since 1934 and for all but nine years since 1906.

Werriwa is best remembered for being the electorate (1952-78) of former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. It was represented from 1994 to 2005 by one of Whitlam's former aides, Mark Latham, the leader of the ALP and Leader of the Opposition from 2003-2005.

It most recently faced a by-election in March 2005, when Labor's Chris Hayes was elected with over 55% of the vote, in a 16-candidate race which saw no other candidate poll above 8%.

At the 2010 election Laurie Ferguson became the first new member for Werriwa elected at a general election since 1934.