Electoral District of Heysen

Electoral District Of Heysen

Heysen is an electoral district of the House of Assembly in the Australian state of South Australia. It is named after Sir Hans Heysen, a prominent South Australian landscape artist. It is a 616 km² electoral district stretching from residential suburbs in the east and southeast of Adelaide through to farming areas some distance from the city. It includes the suburbs and towns of Aldgate, Bridgewater, Crafers, Cherry Gardens, Clarendon, Echunga, Kangarilla, Macclesfield and Stirling.

As Heysen combines both wealthier suburbs in the foothills of the Adelaide Hills and rural areas further east, it has been a Liberal stronghold ever since its creation in the electoral redistribution of 1969. It was abolished in 1977, forcing then-member David Wotton to move to another seat for the next decade, but was re-established in 1985. He subsequently held the seat until his retirement in 2002, when he was replaced by Liberal Isobel Redmond.

The 1997 state election saw the Democrats receive 48.1 percent of the two-party preferred vote, the closest they had ever come to a seat any Australian lower house (apart from the South Australian seat of Mitcham). The 2002 state election saw the Democrats receive 46 percent of the two-party preferred vote. The 2006 state election saw their vote collapse with Labor being brought back in to the two party preferred race. The SA Greens are now touted to potentially win this seat in the future. The following quote is from pollbludger.com:

A 6.9 per cent swing made a marginal seat out of a traditional Liberal stronghold, although that's unlikely to be permanent. The result definitively finished the Democrats as a threat here, their vote falling 11.0 per cent to 5.3 per cent – still their best result in the state. The beneficiaries were the Greens, whose increase from 8.7 per cent to 17.7 per cent was enough that they might almost dream of winning the seat themselves. Labor was up 9.8 per cent to 28.1 per cent, and if that doesn't stick it's quite plausible that the Greens could overtake them to score second place in a future election, and then threaten the Liberals with the aid of Labor's preferences.