ALP 12.9%
Incumbent MP
Nick Champion, since 2019. Previously member for Wakefield, 2007-2019.
Northern fringe of Adelaide. Wakefield covers the towns of Elizabeth, Gawler and Salisbury on the northern outskirts of Adelaide. In addition to the entirety of the Gawler and Playford council areas, it covers northern parts of the Salisbury council area and small parts of the Barossa and Light council areas (those parts immediately to the north and east of Gawler.
History
Spence was a new name created for the 2019 election, replacing the seat of Wakefield.
Wakefield was an original South Australian electorate, having been created in 1903 at the first election with single-member electorates in South Australia. The seat was almost always been held by conservative parties. Prior to the 2007 election, the ALP had only won the seat two times. The electorate was significantly redrawn prior to the 2004 and 2019 elections in ways that shifted the seat from being a conservative fringe seat to a Labor-leaning urban seat.
The seat was first won in 1903 by Frederick Holder. Holder had previously been Premier of South Australia and had won an at-large seat in the House of Representatives in 1901 and had been elected as the first Speaker of the House of Representatives. Holder served as an independent and as Speaker up until July 1909, when he died while presiding over a raucous session of the House of Representatives.
The ensuing by-election was won by the Commonwealth Liberal Party’s Richard Foster, who had previously served as a minister in state governments before losing his seat in 1906. Foster held the seat continuously until the 1928 election, when he was defeated by Country Party candidate Maurice Collins. Collins was defeated at the 1929 election, and the party has never won Wakefield since.
The seat was won in 1929 by Nationalist Charles Hawker, who went on to serve as a minister in Joseph Lyons’ first government before resigning from the ministry in protest against high ministerial salaries during the Depression. Hawker died in a plane crash in 1938.
The ALP’s Sidney McHugh won the seat in the following by-election. McHugh was a former state MP, and lost the seat to UAP candidate John Duncan-Hughes in 1940 before returning to state politics. Duncan-Hughes had previously held the seat of Boothby before losing it in 1928, and then had served as a UAP Senator from 1932 to 1938.
Duncan-Hughes lost to ALP candidate Albert Smith in 1943. Smith was defeated by Philip McBride (LIB) in 1946. McBride had previously held the seat of Grey and then served in the Senate, and had served in Menzies’ first ministry while in the Senate.
McBride served as a minister when the Liberal Party gained power in 1949, first as Minister for the Interior and then as Minister for Defence from 1950 until his retirement in 1958.
Bert Kelly won the seat in 1958, and was a prominent proponent of free trade at a time when it was a minority view. He served as a minister from 1967 until 1969 but his advancement was limited by his free trade advocacy.
The redistribution before the 1977 election abolished the seat of Angas and the sitting member for Angas, Geoffrey Giles, challenged Kelly for Liberal preselection and won Wakefield. Giles had held Angas since 1964, when he won a by-election triggered by the death of Alexander Downer Sr.
Giles retired in 1983, and was succeeded by Neil Andrew. Andrew had a largely undistinguished career until after the 1998 election, when he was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives.
A redistribution before the 2004 election made Wakefield a notional Labor seat, and Andrew retired. Despite the unfavourable redistribution the Liberal Party’s David Fawcett retained the seat. Fawcett held the seat for one term before losing it to the ALP’s Nick Champion in 2007.
Champion has been re-elected five times, winning the renamed seat of Spence in 2019.
Assessment
Spence is a safe Labor seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Matt Burnell | Labor | 46,596 | 43.9 | -7.1 |
| Shawn Lock | Liberal | 27,153 | 25.6 | -0.3 |
| David Deex | Greens | 12,052 | 11.3 | +4.1 |
| Linda Champion | One Nation | 11,532 | 10.9 | +10.9 |
| Alvin Eric Warren | United Australia | 7,158 | 6.7 | -0.3 |
| Matilda Bawden | Federation Party | 1,736 | 1.6 | +1.6 |
| Informal | 5,534 | 5.0 | -1.0 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Matt Burnell | Labor | 66,818 | 62.9 | -1.2 |
| Shawn Lock | Liberal | 39,409 | 37.1 | +1.2 |
Booths have been divided into three parts: central, north-east and south-west.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 55.3% in the north-east to 70% in the south-west.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 10.8% in the south-west to 13.8% in the north-east. One Nation polled slightly less than the Greens, with a primary vote ranging from 8.9% in the north-east to 12% in the centre, with a higher pre-poll vote than the Greens.
| Voter group | GRN prim | ON prim | ALP 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| Central | 12.1 | 12.0 | 65.2 | 30,497 | 28.7 |
| South-West | 10.8 | 9.4 | 70.0 | 16,935 | 15.9 |
| North-East | 13.8 | 8.9 | 55.3 | 10,406 | 9.8 |
| Pre-poll | 10.4 | 11.3 | 61.2 | 26,848 | 25.3 |
| Other votes | 10.7 | 10.8 | 59.9 | 21,541 | 20.3 |
Election results in Spence at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party, the Greens and One Nation.
It’s still a tad too early to say if this will have the highest No vote in all Labor seats, but it looks like it will. Could this be under threat in future? The other 3 seats with highest No for Labor are all seen as at risk, Blair, Hunter, Paterson, etc. Why did this vote overwhelmingly No if it is a progressive seat?
I think this seat is like Blair or Longman in outer Brisbane, covering the fringe suburbs of Adelaide which consist of mostly those from white, working-class backgrounds. These are the type of voters who may be less inclined to continue supporting Labor, so I agree that this may become more marginal in the future.
One Point of difference between Adelaide/Brisbane is that the Northern Suburbs of Adelaide is heavily industrialized so has a unionized workforce so it makes it a bit difference from Longman. Longman also has Bribie Island and some more middle class areas. Blair is also marginal as it includes significant rural areas even in 2007 Labor only won it by 5% so not really a heartland as it is a mixed seat while Spence is clearly a heartland seat, it one of most deprived seats in the country. Adelaide is also a more class segregated City with a clearer class divides compared to Brisbane so it makes more akin to Sydney/Melbourne despite being much smaller.
Firstly, Spence is a working class outer suburban seat, not a “progressive” seat.
Secondly, this area has in fact trended towards Labor, as Gawler has become more an outer suburb, and less the country town it once was. Look at the state seat of Light, which has gone from safe Liberal to marginal to safe Labor in a short space of time.
Also, comparisons with recent elections (like 2007) are fraught because this electorate had a whole heap of rural territory when it was called Wakefield.
@ David Walsh agree with you. I compared Blair to 2007 which was a good year for Labor in QLD. Even if we use 2007 as an example Labor would have won it by 16% TPP so much stronger for Labor than Longman/Blair
With the result there’s no douht the LNP will try on a strategy of flipping outer suburban seats by running an anti-woke resentment wedge campaign. Imply that the government cares more about [insert issue] than the cost of living crisis. it may look different in anglo and multicultural working class seats.
They won’t win back teal seats that way except maybe Indi and Mayo, and probably lose Deakin to Labor, Bradfield to teals and Sturt to somebody. But the idea would be to take enough seats off Labor that the teals are kingmakers and hope enough of them choose the LNP (as is tradition in their seats) over Labor. Even if they don’t, they can make 2025-2028 look like 2010-2013 (without the knifing if Labor is wise).
Even if that works though, there’s a lot of safety margin in Spence.
And it may not even remotely work – people were saying the same thing about the Same Sex Marriage postal survey but the story of 2019 was more Morrison reversing Turnbull’s surprise losses than a political realignment.
It’s working class outer suburban Adelaide with a satellite town of Gawler. I read that it’s amongst the most economically depreived electorates in the country.
Labor may struggle to get over 50% here in primaries but it’s still out of reach to the Liberals. Like many other similar Labor seats, Labor is at risk of losing votes to third parties e.g. One Nation, or localist independents similar to Dai Le (pending candidate quality and campaigning).
In 2022, UAP and ONP polled strongly off the back of populism and pandemic politics. Many Labor voters fled to such parties in outer suburban Adelaide and Sydney, even though Liberal Premiers and a Liberal PM declared lockdowns, rolled out vaccines etc. For many reasons, the pandemic disproportionately affected the working class who were less likely to work from home and had less resources e.g. technology for kids, to cope with the pandemic.
Expecting a large swing away from Labor here to One Nation in the primary vote but to the Liberals in ttp. I could see a situation where Labor wins Sturt and improves in Boothby but goes backwards here.
The last of the Liberal candidates have been pre-selected in South Australia.
https://saliberal.org.au/team/daniel-wild
Gawler appears to be growing size… will
It spill over into a Barossa valley seat?
Huge swing to Liberals here I think, not enough to win but enough to make it winnable next time
When you hit rock bottom the only way you can go is up
It’s the kind of seat that will see some sort of swing to the right but if the last election is anything to go by, the swing to the Liberals will probably be muted somewhat compared to other states. One Nation did quite well in this seat last election taking 3rd place over the Greens, and preference flows suggests that the flow to the Libs are weaker than other competitive seats.
The Elizabeth/Salisbury area are your working-class, deindustrialised, demoralised, socially-deprived, mortgage belt zones that would usually be the hunting ground for the Liberals, but even in 2013 and since 2014 when Holden shut down under the Abbott government there’s been a sense of disdain towards the Liberals on both state and federal levels, as in as bad as Labor gets the votes still don’t go to the Liberals because they’re perceived to be worse, largely in part due to the gap left by GM in the formerly industrial heartland and the lack of attention paid by the Liberals in this area on both levels. In many ways this seat is like the Chifley or Calwell of South Australia (as in Mt Druitt and Greenvale are the equivalent of Elizabeth) where even if the swing is on, Labor still holds quite comfortably so to speak.
Sorry should correct the record that One Nation didn’t come 3rd overall but came third in many Labor heartland booths like Elizabeth North and Craigmore.
I’m expecting One Nation to come second here in the ttp.
Whoops wrong thread
probably only seat in metro Adelaide which will swing against Labor due to COL but no where near enough to put Labor in jeopardy
There was actually a swing against One Nation on primaries here; probably largely due to the influence of Family First; the minor right vote overall is up about 1% since last time but I expect Family First voters leaking to the Liberals will leave One Nation with a lower 4CP vote than in 2022. The Greens vote has gone up again and has now tripled in the three cycles since Spence was created, at this rate it’ll have the highest Greens vote in the state by 2028.
In the midst of all of this Matt Burnell has done very well to hold Labor’s primary vote in a demographically tough area; there may be some absolutely wild exclusion orders in Spence in the near future but nothing looks even close to threatening Labor’s comfortable majority.
I’m genuinely surprised at the swing to Labor in this seat. As someone who interacts with a lot of people living in this part of the world most of them are quite miserable and you’d think would be the exact type that Dutton’s Liberal and PHON would be able to tap into.
But the Liberal vote just crashed and One Nation barely made a mark. Conversely it was the Greens of all parties that made inroads here. The booths around Elizabeth, Salisbury, Munno Para and Parafield have Greens coming second on 2CP (on 2PP Labor’s exceeded 70% on numerous booths), and these are about as outer-suburban as you can get in Adelaide. These are some of the most socially-deprived, crime ridden areas of Adelaide where you’d expect the Greens to have no chance of appealing. Labor also made up ground and won back Virginia which they lost in 2022 (it’s development galore there along with the vastly barren Munno Para West), whilst increasing their primaries and 2PP in Gawler and the outskirts. Only bright spot for the Liberals was winning One Tree Hill but that’s a semi-rural town surrounded by farmland mountainous landscapes, so Labor winning that would’ve been a stretch.
I don’t see Labor losing Spence anytime soon after this election. It’ll take a LOT for the Liberals to have a chance here.
@ Tommo9
Can you read the first comment on this thread someone asked because it had a very strong No for the Voice vote it can be a realignment seat. I have a collegue who lives in Adelaide who describes these suburbs as the belt of misery. It has some the highest rates of domestic violence and is among the top 3 most economically deprived electorates in the nation
Also Daniel Wild the Liberal candidate wrote this article below.I wonder if he thinks one day Liberals will win it
https://ipa.org.au/ipa-today/the-liberals-need-to-embrace-their-working-class-voters-to-win-over-the-outer-suburban-freedom-fighters
@Nimalan I’ve just re-read that comment and all I can say is that whilst it’s possible that this electorate could be a ‘realignment’ seat, it won’t be realigning to the Liberals. The Liberal brand in general is tainted in metro Adelaide, but the more I think about it, the more I sense that there is a particular dislike for the Liberals largely from the weakness of the state Liberals and of course, there was the Holden debacle where the Abbott government essentially killed off Holden’s factory in Elizabeth, which was the economic lifeline of the people living in the area. I don’t think the people living there will ever forgive the Liberals for that.
Yes the people there are mostly Anglo-Celtic and is a large mortgage belt area, but there’s also lots of social and public housing trusts in and around Elizabeth, which is another demographic that isn’t friendly to the right of politics. Furthermore, there’s actually better transport links from the northern suburbs of Adelaide than the eastern suburbs (e.g. Sturt) and there’s been an influx of migrants from SE Asia, Middle East and Africa moving into the area, which suggests that despite the anger and disappointment with cost-of-living, the Liberals as they current stand, are out of touch with that electorate.
@Tommo9
I agree, i expect this area to attract poorer immigrants it is a bit like Calwell which also had Car manufacturing. Also i expect the growth in low income housing will mean the voting power of places like One Tree Hill will be diluted over time and as David Walsh said Gawler is trending Labor as it turns from country town to Outer suburb. Labor may oneday hit 20% 2PP in this seat. The old Bonythorn was slightly safer as it did not have Gawler which is more marginal than the rest of the electorate.
@Tommo9 @Nimalan, speaking of migrants and immigrants, is it more likely that as more come in they’ll continue to choose specific types of suburbs or will they become more spread out, especially as more move to places other than Sydney and Melbourne? E.g will Chinese continue migrating to areas with lots of businesses like Chatswood and Ryde and will Muslims continue migrating to working-class poorer areas like Bankstown, or will they be more spread out? I’m wondering as to how this could affect other cities too, e.g in Adelaide will Muslims start to move into suburbs like Elizabeth?
@ NP
Interesting points Chinese will settle in more affluent areas like Ryde, Hurtsville, Knox (VIC) while poorer immigrants especially from War torn countries willl settle in poorer suburbs often in Adelaide it in the inner North but as they gentrify i think they will move further into Elizabeth. South Asians are often educated but lack wealth as they generally migrate from poorer countries so end up buying homes in outer suburban growth areas. This trend can be found in pretty much all capital cities for example Gunghalin (ACT), Riverstone (NSW), Clyde (VIC), Mickleham (VIC) and Piara Waters (WA). British immigrants often settle in beachside suburbs. I think as some migrants become assimilated they will spread out but that will take time.
@Nimalan the thing I’ve noticed that the Chinese suburbs have in common is there are lots of businesses there and they aren’t too far from the CBD. Lots of Chinese people work in business so this would make sense.
Growth areas tend to have large South Asian populations and I’ve noticed on ABS stats that even in regional cities the South Asian percentage is larger in growth areas (even if it still isn’t that much).
As for British migrants I’d say they’re pretty spread out (same goes for Irish, New Zealand and White South African migrants) but the Poms do tend to like the beach areas. Probably because UK beaches are nothing like Aussie ones. In Spain lots of British migrants live in the coastal cities of Málaga and Marbella plus the surrounding coastal areas. Southeastern Spain (where Málaga and Marbella are) have the best weather and beaches plus they’re closer to Gibraltar which is a British territory.
@Nether Portal a lot of Muslims and South East Asians have already moved into the Salisbury/Elizabeth areas. They’re not very wealthy but they’re not the type to vote Liberals either despite being more socially conservative given the Liberals’ position on people from that part of the world. A lot of people are working class and at best own a house with a large mortgage, but the rest would be in social and public housing or renters, which could be a contributor to the increased Greens vote.
The ironic thing is that the Greens’ campaign in Spence had been non-existent compared to the Liberal guy who’s been trying to get out and about. He may have had half a chance but he deluded himself into thinking that Alex Antic would be a winner in that electorate and campaigned with him. They made the same mistake in Makin where the candidate campaigned with Antic more than Dutton.
@NP
For British migrants i think it makes sense that they like Beachside areas because that is why they are migrating to Australia for better weather etc/bigger houses rather than for economic reasons. So i think in Brisbane they would move to Bowman, in Adelaide to Kingston, Sydney to Northern Beaches etc. I think NZ migrants are more spread out same with White South African migrants although South African Jews migrate to areas where there already Jewish communities such as Caulfied, St Ives and Dover Heights. I think you are right Chinese move to areas with large businesses. A lot of NZ migrants are actually Pasifika(Tongan/Samoan) but they tend to be low SES so move to Campbelltown, Blacktown, Logan etc
@Nimalan I should’ve specified for New Zealanders too. White New Zealanders (Pākehā) tend to be everywhere. However even then Māori seem to be a bit spread out too even if they do inhabit specific areas more frequently. Must just be Samoans and Tongans.
In New Zealand itself Pasifika people (non-Māori Pacific Islanders) mostly live in South Auckland which is working-class and votes heavily for Labour.