Division of Flinders

Flinders Australian House of Representatives Division
Division of Flinders (green) in Victoria
Created:	1901
MP:	Greg Hunt
Party:	Liberal
Namesake:	Matthew Flinders
Electors:	100,852 (2010)
Area:	1,955 km² (755 sq mi)
Demographic:	Rural

The Division of Flinders is an Australian Electoral Division in Victoria. The division was one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election. It is named for Matthew Flinders, the first man to circumnavigate Australia, and the person credited with giving Australia her name.

Originally a country seat south and east of Melbourne, Flinders has been gradually cut back to the outer southern suburbs on the Mornington Peninsula, including Dromana, Hastings and Portsea.

It has usually been a fairly safe seat for the Liberal Party and its predecessors, who have held it for all but six years since its creation. However, it has occasionally been won by the Australian Labor Party, notably in 1929 when Prime Minister Stanley Bruce was defeated. This was the first time an Australian Prime Minister has lost his own seat at a general election. (The only other such instance was the defeat of Liberal Prime Minister John Howard in his seat of Bennelong, also by Labor, in the 2007 federal election.)

Other prominent members include former Deputy Liberal leaders Sir Phillip Lynch and Peter Reith.

Members

Member		Party	Term
	Arthur Groom	Free Trade	1901–1903
	James Gibb	Free Trade, Anti-Socialist	1903–1906
	(Sir) William Irvine	Anti-Socialist	1906–1909
		Commonwealth Liberal	1909–1917
		Nationalist	1917–1918
	Stanley Bruce	Nationalist	1918–1929
	Jack Holloway	Labor	1929–1931
	Stanley Bruce	United Australia	1931–1933
	James Fairbairn	United Australia	1933–1940
	Rupert Ryan	United Australia	1940–1944
		Liberal	1944–1952
	Keith Ewert	Labor	1952–1954
	Robert Lindsay	Liberal	1954–1966
	(Sir) Phillip Lynch	Liberal	1966–1982
	Peter Reith	Liberal	1982–1983
	Bob Chynoweth	Labor	1983–1984
	Peter Reith	Liberal	1984–2001
	Greg Hunt	Liberal	2001–present

Election results

Main article: Electoral results for the Division of Flinders

Australian federal election, 2010: Flinders
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Greg Hunt	49,146	54.30	-0.17
	Labor	Francis Gagliano-Ventura	28,747	31.76	-2.12
	Greens	Robert Brown	10,410	11.50	+3.02
	Family First	Reade Smith	2,198	2.43	+0.19
Total formal votes			90,501	95.87	-1.35
Informal votes			3,895	4.13	+1.35
Turnout			94,396	93.58	-1.85
Two-party-preferred result
	Liberal	Greg Hunt	53,499	59.11	+0.86
	Labor	Francis Gagliano-Ventura	37,002	40.89	-0.86
	Liberal hold		Swing	+0.86

External links

• Division of Flinders - Australian Electoral Commission