THE South East’s influence in Federal Parliament has been diluted with the addition of an additional 12,000 voters from the Adelaide Hills and the Barossa Valley to the seat of Barker.
Formerly a rural seat since 1903, the boundaries now extend to within a few kilometres of the greater metropolitan area of Adelaide.
The next federal general election due within 12 months will be conducted on new House of Representatives divisions in South Australia after a notice was recently published in the Commonwealth Government Notices Gazette.
Electoral events will not be contested on these new federal electoral divisions until a writ is issued for a general election following the expiry or dissolution of the House of Representatives.
The expanded Barker electorate will now cover 65,206km2.
Enrolment in the existing Barker electorate in 2022 is projected to be 108,383 electors, which is less than the minimum number of projected electors required by the Electoral Act.
As a result, the Barker electorate had to gain at least 10,053 electors, or up to 18,643 electors, for it to fall within the permissible range for the minimum and maximum number of electors in an electoral division at the projection time.
Barker’s proposed changes to its boundaries were outlined by the Australian Electoral Commission earlier this year and were all adopted in its final determination.
Making these alterations will lead the proposed Barker electorate to a net gain of 12,085 projected electors.
This results in a projected enrolment for the proposed electoral division of 120,468 electors in 2022 or a variation from the projected enrolment quota of minus 1.84pc.
Under the new Barker boundaries, the closest towns to Adelaide would be Mount Pleasant to the north east or Williamstown to the north.
Mr Pasin has represented Barker for the Liberal Party for the past five years.
He said that due to South Australia losing a federal seat in this redistribution, all remaining seats will need to increase in size.
“While this makes the task of travelling the length and breadth of electorates – particularly the rural electorates of Barker and Grey – more of a challenge, I am very pleased that I will now be representing more of the Barossa Valley and Kapunda,” Mr Pasin said.
“It’s a beautiful region of South Australia and has many similarities to other areas of Barker.
“While I previously represented part of this region, the additional geographical area that Barker picks up will mean the Barossa as a community is now represented wholly by one member of parliament rather than it being split between Barker, Mayo and Wakefield.”
