ALP 6.5%
Incumbent MP
Mark Butler, since 2019. Previously member for Port Adelaide 2007-2019.
Geography
Hindmarsh covers the western coastal suburbs of Adelaide, stretching from Torrens Island and Port Adelaide to West Beach and Camden Park.
History
Hindmarsh is an original South Australian seat, having been created for the 1903 election. In the first 100 years of the seat, Labor held it for all but one term, before losing the seat again in 2013.
The seat was first held by James Hutchison of the ALP, who held the seat from 1903 to his death in 1909, and he was succeeded by William Archibald at the 1910 election. Archibald served in Andrew Fisher’s third government as Minister for Home Affairs. Archibald followed Prime Minister Billy Hughes out of the ALP in 1916 over conscription, and briefly served as a minister in Hughes’ National Labor minority government before he returned to the backbenches in the new Nationalist government. Archibald was reelected in 1917 before being defeated in 1919.
After Labor won the seat back in 1919, they held it for the next 74 years continuously. The seat was won in 1919 by Norman Makin, who went on to serve as Speaker during the Scullin government and as a minister under Curtin and Chifley, before leaving Parliament in 1946 to serve as Ambassador to the United States.
Albert Thompson won the seat in 1946, and held it for one term before moving to the new seat of Port Adelaide. Hindmarsh was won in 1949 by Clyde Cameron, who was a major figure in the ALP during the long years of opposition of the 1950s and 1960s, serving as Deputy Leader and a leading figure in the Left of the party. He served in the Whitlam ministry from 1972 to 1975 and continued as an opposition backbencher until his retirement in 1980.
The seat was held by John Scott from 1980 until his retirement in 1993. The 1993 election saw the neighbouring marginal Liberal seat of Hawker abolished, and sitting Member for Hawker Christine Gallus won Hindmarsh off the ALP. This was the only time the ALP had lost the seat to another party in ninety years.
Gallus served as a Shadow Minister in the last term of the Keating government and served in the Howard government as a Parliamentary Secretary in the early 2000s before retiring in 2004. In the election to succeed her, Steve Georganas of the ALP defeated Liberal candidate Simon Birmingham by only 108 votes.
Georganas was re-elected in 2007 and 2010, increasing his margin to 5.7%.
In 2013, Georganas lost Hindmarsh to Liberal candidate Matt Williams with a swing of almost 8%.
Georganas returned to Hindmarsh in 2016, defeating Williams in a very close result.
The redistribution prior to the 2019 election saw the neighbouring seat of Port Adelaide abolished. The Labor member for Port Adelaide, Mark Butler, shifted to Hindmarsh, while Georganas shifted to the neighbouring seat of Adelaide.
Assessment
Hindmarsh is a safe Labor seat. The electorate was a key marginal in the recent past, but the last redistribution made the seat much more solid for Labor.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Mark Butler | Labor | 46,950 | 43.1 | +3.1 |
| Jake Hall-Evans | Liberal | 40,039 | 36.7 | +5.5 |
| Matt Farrell | Greens | 11,966 | 11.0 | +4.4 |
| Rose Morris | United Australia Party | 4,729 | 4.3 | +4.3 |
| Alison Kelty | Animal Justice | 3,219 | 3.0 | +1.2 |
| Rajan Vaid | Conservative National Party | 2,052 | 1.9 | +1.9 |
| Informal | 4,924 | 4.3 | -0.4 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Mark Butler | Labor | 61,606 | 56.5 | -1.9 |
| Jake Hall-Evans | Liberal | 47,349 | 43.5 | +1.9 |
Booths have been divided into three parts: central, north and south.
The ALP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in the centre (55.9%) and the north (65.2%). The Liberal Party managed a narrow 50.1% majority in the south.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 10.4% in the centre to 12.7% in the north.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| North | 12.7 | 65.2 | 27,830 | 25.5 |
| Central | 10.4 | 55.9 | 25,891 | 23.8 |
| South | 11.3 | 49.9 | 14,980 | 13.7 |
| Pre-poll | 9.6 | 52.5 | 22,790 | 20.9 |
| Other votes | 10.7 | 54.5 | 17,464 | 16.0 |
Election results in Hindmarsh at the 2019 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the Greens.
Liberal gain.
Marshall is a very popular premier and considering the outbreak hasn’t been anywhere near as bad in Adelaide as the eastern major cities it’s fair to say Morrison will get credit. Expect a 7-8% swing here and around metro and outer Adelaide.
Daniel
If only it could be so !!. I doubt that we will be released from having to endure the oily smugness, patronising arrogance , & impenetrable grandiosity of Mark Butler. The true idealogical JACK ASS of LABOR (ISnt that an “equal opportunity “) comment Ryan Spenser !!??)
On the other hand do you think Butler’s departure would hurt the LIBERAL vote !?
winediamond I am wholeheartedly not a Labor supporter and Daniel; same problem; saying with absolute certainty that Labor will lose here is terrible psephology. Nothing much is happening politically in SA, so I’d presume a Labor retain, albeit probably narrower. These vaccine rollout pipedreams you lot keep spinning are a bit much tbh.
Are you sure you guys aren’t getting confused with the old Hindmarsh? This seat is now basically the old Port Adelaide with Grange and Glenelg attached. Maybe there’s some demographic change as the old working class suburbs gentrify, but there’s still plenty of rock solid Labor vote here.
Even if there was a big Lib swing in 2022 (big “if”), I’d expect the Howard-era marginals like Makin or Kingston to go before this one.
Ryan Spencer
I don’t agree with Daniel. Unfortunately Jackass is in no danger. Mark Mulcair is quite right. Besides i do think not having Butler acting like the lunatic he is, would significantly damage the liberal vote, & people might start to forget just how obscenely delusional people like Butler, really are.
@Mark Mulclair
Maybe not Kingston. It’s got a margin of 12%, so that likely won’t fall for a while. In SA, there’s really only two marginal marginals (Boothby and Mayo) and unless the Libs win Mayo, they can’t really benefit because the seats Labor do hold (Hindmarsh, Adelaide, Spence, Makin and Kingston) are full of rusted-on Labor voters who will likely never change their vote.
Mark and WD, agreed. Labor are not losing this one. Best the Libs can hope for is perhaps a small swing?
Ryan – Kingston and Spence are probably out of the picture; the former due to the margin, the latter because of how Gawler’s been trending. However, I don’t see what makes Makin and Adelaide any different (demographically-speaking) than they were during the Howard years. In other words, I don’t think the margin in those seats is necessarily attributable to ‘rusted-on Labor voters’, but instead due to the weak Liberal performance in SA and very good Labor incumbents.
I’m not saying the Libs will win them, only that they aren’t incapable of doing so in the (distant?) future. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable about SA could elaborate on the extent of demographic change in these parts of Adelaide?
there is only one marginal seat in sa….. that is boothby
Wreathy one of the issues in Adelaide is the loss of seats (numerically), which has changed the political landscape, therefore the Makin and Adelaide electorates are not the same electorates they were in the Howard years.
One potential factor in the division Adelaide is that there has been a swing leftward in urban areas in much of the western world, including Australia, with rural and outer-suburban areas trending more to the right.
Adelaide now contains booths around Croydon + West Torrens, hence the seat is now quite a bit safer than what it was. Would’ve been a moderately safe Labor seat in the Howard Years. Similar case applies to Hindmarsh (which now has the Port Adelaide area) and Spence (which is now pretty much wholly urban unlike Wakefield).
Makin was made slightly safer in the 2017 redistribution, but fundamentally it’s still the same seat that Draper held throughout the Howard Years. If Zappa retires the swing will be interesting to watch (but the margin is high enough and the Salisbury area working-class enough that it’d be a big surprise if Labor lost it).
Chaisa
Agreed. Very thorough summation.
Do you have a view on why Zappia has performed so well, & never been promoted?
He APPEARS to be far more talented & capable than many others.
Perhaps you might kick off the Main thread If you choose to reply ?
Do you have a view on which SA seats may be affected by demographic changes ?
cheers WD
Chaisa, thank you for the thorough explanation. I had a feeling Makin was the most similar but wasn’t too sure. Cheers.
Thanks all.
I’m not actually from Adelaide (I’m a Sydney-based poster), so I’m not entirely sure what makes Zappia (and Rishworth) so popular. He does seem a popular performer, but IIRC doesn’t have a factional alignment so that has alas harmed his chances of parliamentary promotion.
As for the SA seats where demographic change has influenced things……it’s probably only Spence + Grey – most seats change demographically because of urbanisation or changes in employment structure (latter hasn’t applied for a long time). Adelaide hasn’t grown as rapidly as the rest of the major capitals so there’s less seats that have been impacted by demographic change there. I’ll put up a list of seats where I suspect demographic change has influenced things in the main thread.
Chaisa, that would be great, thanks.