Flinders is a single-member electoral district for the South Australian House of Assembly. It is named after explorer Matthew Flinders, who was responsible for charting most of the state's coastline. It is a 58,901 km² coastal rural electorate encompassing the Eyre Peninsula and the coast along the Nullarbor Plain, based in and around the city of Port Lincoln and contains the District Councils of Ceduna, Cleve, Elliston, Lower Eyre Peninsula, Streaky Bay and Wudinna; as well as the localities of Fowlers Bay, Nullarbor and Yalata in the Pastoral Unincorporated Area. The seat was expanded in 2002 to include a western strip of land all the way to the Western Australia border.

Flinders is the only one of the original 17 electorates to be contested at every election.^[2] Created as a single-member electorate in 1857, it was a dual-member electorate 1862–1875, 1884–1902 and 1915–1938, and a three-member electorate 1875–1884 and 1902–1915.^[2]

A single-member electorate since 1938, it was held by Edward Craigie of the Single Tax League from 1938 to 1941. It has been in the hands of a conservative party–the Liberals (and their predecessors, the Liberal and Country League) or the Nationals–ever since. For most of that time, it has been safely conservative even by the standards of rural South Australia, although Labor came close to winning it with a 46.5 percent two-party vote at the 1962 election. Members have typically held the seat for 10 to 20 years.

The LCL/Liberal hold on the seat was broken in 1973 when Peter Blacker claimed the seat for the Nationals, then known as the Country Party. He held it until 1993, when Kangaroo Island was briefly redistributed to Flinders, allowing Liberal Liz Penfold to take the seat on a large swing of over 14 percent. Penfold actually won enough votes on the first count to win the seat outright. Blacker sought a rematch in 1997, after Kangaroo Island was removed. However, without the advantages of incumbency, Blacker not only lost, but suffered a further swing of three percent. The seat has reverted to form, and has been a comfortably safe Liberal seat ever since.

Flinders was also the name of an electoral district of the unicameral South Australian Legislative Council from 1851 until its abolition in 1857.^[2]

Members for Flinders

Member		Party	Term
	Marshall MacDermott		1857–1859
	W. J. Browne		1860–1862

	Term		Term
Alfred Watts	1862–1866	Charles Lindsay	1862–1865
Alfred Watts	1862–1866	John Williams	1865–1868
Augustine Stow	1866–1868	John Williams	1865–1868
Alfred Watts	1868–1875	W. R. Mortlock	1868–1870
		Hampton Gleeson	1870–1871
		W. R. Mortlock	1871–1875

	Term		Term		Term
P. B. Coglin	1875–1881	John Williams	1875–1878	Ebenezer Cooke	1875–1882
P. B. Coglin	1875–1881	W. R. Mortlock	1878–1884
Andrew Tennant	1881–1884
Andrew Tennant	1881–1884			P. B. Coglin	1882–1884

	Party	Term		Term
Andrew Tennant		1884–1887	John Moule	1884–1896
William Horn		1887–1893
Alexander Poynton	Labor	1893–1901
			W. T. Mortlock	1896–1899
			David McKenzie	1899–1902
W. T. Mortlock		1901–1902	David McKenzie	1899–1902

	Party	Term		Party	Term		Party	Term
Richard Foster	National League	1902–1904	David McKenzie		1902–1905	Thomas Burgoyne	National League	1902–1904
	Farmers and Producers	1904–1906	David McKenzie		1902–1905		Farmers and Producers	1904–1906
	Farmers and Producers	1904–1906	A. H. Inkster		1905–1906		Farmers and Producers	1904–1906
John Travers	Liberal and Democratic	1906–1910	A. H. Inkster	Liberal and Democratic	1906–1907		Liberal and Democratic	1906–1910
John Travers	Liberal and Democratic	1906–1910	E. H. Warren	Farmers and Producers	1907–1910		Liberal and Democratic	1906–1910
James O'Loghlin	Labor	1910–1912	James Moseley	Liberal Union	1910–1915		Liberal Union	1910–1915
John Travers	Liberal Union	1912–1915	James Moseley	Liberal Union	1910–1915		Liberal Union	1910–1915

	Party	Term		Party	Term
John Travers	Liberal Union	1915–1918	James Moseley	Liberal Union	1915–1923
John Chapman	Country	1918–1924		Liberal Union	1915–1923
John Chapman	Country	1918–1924		Liberal Federation	1923–1932
John O'Connor	Labor	1924–1927
Edward Coles	Country Party	1927–1928
Edward Coles	Liberal Federation	1928–1930
Edward Craigie	Single Tax	1930–1938
				Liberal and Country	1932–1933
			Arthur Christian	Liberal and Country	1933–1938

	Party	Term
Edward Craigie	Single Tax	1938–1941
Rex Pearson	Liberal and Country	1941–1951
Glen Pearson	Liberal and Country	1951–1970
John Carnie	Liberal and Country	1970–1973
Peter Blacker	Nationals SA	1973–1993
Liz Penfold	Liberal	1993–2010
Peter Treloar	Liberal	2010–2022
Sam Telfer	Liberal	2022–present

Election results

2022 South Australian state election: Flinders
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Sam Telfer	9,743	46.0	−21.4
	Independent	Liz Habermann	5,757	27.2	+27.2
	Labor	Sarah Tynan	2,943	13.9	−4.0
	Greens	Kathryn Hardwick-Franco	996	4.7	−2.1
	National	Lillian Poynter	886	4.2	+4.2
	Family First	Tracey Dalton	860	4.1	+4.1
Total formal votes			21,185	96.8
Informal votes			698	3.2
Turnout			21,883	87.2
Notional two-party-preferred count
	Liberal	Sam Telfer		70.4	−5.7
	Labor	Sarah Tynan		29.6	+5.7
Two-candidate-preferred result
	Liberal	Sam Telfer	11,224	53.0	−23.1
	Independent	Liz Habermann	9,961	47.0	+47.0
	Liberal hold

Notes

References

External links

Electoral districts of the South Australian House of Assembly

Electoral districts of the South Australian House of Assembly
Labor (28)	Adelaide Badcoe Cheltenham Croydon Davenport Dunstan Elder Elizabeth Enfield Florey Gibson Giles Hurtle Vale Kaurna King Lee Light Mawson Newland Playford Port Adelaide Ramsay Reynell Taylor Torrens Waite West Torrens Wright
Liberal (15)	Black Bragg Chaffey Colton Finniss Flinders Frome Hammond Hartley Heysen MacKillop Morialta Morphett Schubert Unley
Independent (4)	Kavel Mount Gambier Narungga Stuart

Former electoral districts of South Australia