Electoral district of Fremantle

This article is about the Western Australian state electorate. For the Australian federal electorate, see Division of Fremantle. For the Legislative Council constituency (1870–1890), see Electoral district of Fremantle (Legislative Council).

Fremantle is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Western Australia.

Fremantle Western Australia—Legislative Assembly
Location of Fremantle (dark green) in the Perth metropolitan area
State	Western Australia
Dates current	1890–present
MP	Simone McGurk
Party	Labor
Namesake	Fremantle
Electors	31,347 (2021)
Area	46 km2 (17.8 sq mi)
Demographic	Metropolitan
Coordinates	32.07°S 115.76°E / -32.07; 115.76

The district is located in the inner south-west of Perth, centring on the port of Fremantle.

Fremantle is a historically safe Labor seat, though the Greens WA have polled well in recent times. Labor held the seat from 1924 until a 2009 by-election which was lost to Greens candidate Adele Carles. Carles quit the party in the following year, sitting as an independent for the remainder of her term. The seat returned to Labor at the 2013 election.

Geography

Fremantle is a north–south elongated electorate. It is bounded to the north by the Swan River and to the west by the Indian Ocean. A series of roads make up the district's short southern and long eastern boundary. The district takes in the suburbs of Beaconsfield, East Fremantle, Fremantle, North Coogee, South Fremantle and White Gum Valley, as well as parts of the suburbs of Bicton, Hamilton Hill, Palmyra and Spearwood. The district also includes Rottnest Island.

History

Created for the 1890 election, Fremantle was one of the original 30 districts of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly. It has remained as an electorate ever since. In its early years, the seat changed hands regularly between different candidates. However, the seat became more favourable to the Labor Party in the early 20th century, and has been held by the Labor Party at all times between 1924 and 2021, except from 2009 to 2013.

Fremantle's longest-serving member was Joseph Sleeman, member for 35 years from 1924 to 1959. David Parker, member for Fremantle from 1980 to 1990, served as Deputy Premier of Western Australia under Premier Peter Dowding from 1988 to 1990. The seat's member until his retirement in 2009 was Jim McGinty, who was the Opposition Leader from 1994 to 1996 and Attorney-General in the Gallop and Carpenter governments from 2001 to 2008. He was replaced in the 2009 Fremantle state by-election by Greens candidate Adele Carles, who won the seat having outpolled Labor on the primary vote, and gaining sufficient preference flow to fill McGinty's vacancy. In doing so, Carles set a number of firsts for the Greens in Australia.

The seat reverted to form in 2013 election, with Simone McGurk reclaiming the seat for Labor on Green preferences. A redistribution ahead of the 2017 election ballooned McGurk's margin from a fairly safe 57.9 percent to a comfortably safe 65.4 percent. McGurk's margin blew out in Labor's 2017 landslide, when she took 73.1 percent of the two-party vote, making Fremantle Labor's fourth-safest seat.

Members for Fremantle

Member		Party	Term
	William Marmion	Ministerialist	1890–1896
	John Higham	Ministerialist	1896–1904
	Ted Needham	Labor	1904–1905
	James Price	Ministerialist	1905–1910
	William Murphy	Ministerialist	1910–1911
	William Carpenter	Labor	1911–1917
		National Labor	1917
	Walter Jones	Labor	1917–1921
	Frank Gibson	Nationalist	1921–1924
	Joseph Sleeman	Labor	1924–1959
	Harry Fletcher	Labor	1959–1977
	John Troy	Labor	1977–1980
	David Parker	Labor	1980–1990
	Jim McGinty	Labor	1990–2009
	Adele Carles	Greens	2009–2010
		Independent	2010–2013
	Simone McGurk	Labor	2013–present

Election results

Main article: Electoral results for the district of Fremantle

This section is an excerpt from Results of the 2021 Western Australian state election (Legislative Assembly) § Fremantle.[edit]

2021 Western Australian state election: Fremantle

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labor	Simone McGurk	14,646	57.3	+6.0
	Greens	Liberty Cramer	4,769	18.6	+0.0
	Liberal	Miquela Riley	3,837	15.0	−5.5
	Socialist Alliance	Sam Wainwright	726	2.8	+0.8
	No Mandatory Vaccination	W. Schulze	577	2.3	+2.3
	Liberal Democrats	Carl Schelling	492	1.9	+1.9
	Independent	Rod Grljusich	318	1.2	+1.2
	Western Australia	Janetia Knapp	216	0.8	+0.2
Total formal votes			25,581	96.6	+1.2
Informal votes			900	3.4	−1.2
Turnout			26,481	84.5	+1.5
Notional two-party-preferred count
	Labor	Simone McGurk	19,957	78.1	+5.1
	Liberal	Miquela Riley	5,596	21.9	−5.1
Two-candidate-preferred result
	Labor	Simone McGurk	16,800	65.7	−7.3
	Greens	Liberty Cramer	8,753	34.3	+34.3
	Labor hold

External links

• ABC election profiles: 2005 2008
• WAEC district maps: 1996–2005
• WAEC district maps: current boundaries, previous distributions