Division of Denison

This article is about the federal electorate. For the state electorate, see Division of Denison (state).

Denison Australian House of Representatives Division
Division of Denison (green) in Tasmania
Created:	1903
MP:	Andrew Wilkie
Party:	Independent
Namesake:	William Denison
Area:	288 km² (111 sq mi)
Demographic:	Inner Metropolitan

The Division of Denison is an Australian Electoral Division in Tasmania. The division was created in 1903 and is named for Sir William Denison, who was Lt-Governor of Van Diemens Land 1847-55. It is located in central Hobart, today including the suburbs of Glenorchy, New Town and Taroona.

Denison has been a consistently marginal seat, but was held by the Australian Labor Party between 1987 and 2010 with little difficulty. Its most prominent members have been Sir Philip Fysh, a member of the first federal Cabinet, and Athol Townley, Defence Minister in the Robert Menzies government. Townley resigned in 1964 when he was named Ambassador to the United States, but he died before taking up the appointment. Another prominent member is the incumbent independent MP Andrew Wilkie, elected at the 2010 election. In 2003 Wilkie resigned from his position in the Office of National Assessments (ONA), an Australian intelligence agency, over concerns that intelligence was being misrepresented for political purposes in making the case for Australia's contribution to the 2003 invasion of Iraq under the Howard government. Denison has had 16 different members, the most of any federal electorate.

Members

Member		Party	Term
	Philip Fysh	Protectionist	1903–1906
		Anti-Socialist	1906–1909
		Commonwealth Liberal	1909–1910
	William Laird Smith	Labor	1910–1916
		Nationalist	1916–1922
	David O'Keefe	Labor	1922–1925
	John Gellibrand	Nationalist	1925–1928
	Charles Culley	Labor	1928–1931
	Arthur Hutchin	United Australia	1931–1934
	Gerald Mahoney	Labor	1934–1940
	Arthur Beck	United Australia	1940–1943
	John Gaha	Labor	1943–1949
	Athol Townley	Liberal	1949–1964
	Adrian Gibson	Liberal	1964–1969
	Robert Solomon	Liberal	1969–1972
	John Coates	Labor	1972–1975
	Michael Hodgman	Liberal	1975–1987
	Duncan Kerr	Labor	1987–2010
	Andrew Wilkie	Independent	2010–present

Election results

Main article: Electoral results for the Division of Denison

Australian federal election, 2010: Denison
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labor	Jonathan Jackson	23,215	35.79	-12.37
	Liberal	Cameron Simpkins	14,688	22.65	-7.34
	Independent	Andrew Wilkie	13,788	21.26	+21.26
	Greens	Geoffrey Couser	12,312	18.98	+0.40
	Socialist Alliance	Mel Barnes	856	1.32	+0.56
Total formal votes			64,859	96.38	-1.12
Informal votes			2,435	3.62	+1.12
Turnout			67,294	94.32	-1.21
Two-candidate preferred result
	Independent	Andrew Wilkie	33,217	51.21	+51.21
	Labor	Jonathan Jackson	31,642	48.79	-16.50
	Independent gain from Labor		Swing	+51.21

References

• Division of Denison, Australian Electoral Commission

Coordinates: 42°53′17″S 147°14′38″E / 42.888°S 147.244°E / -42.888; 147.244