Division of Spence

Not to be confused with Electoral district of Spence.

The Division of Spence is an electoral district for the Australian House of Representatives. It is located in the outer northern suburbs of Adelaide in South Australia.

Spence Australian House of Representatives Division
Interactive map of boundaries since the 2019 federal election
Created	2019
MP	Matt Burnell
Party	Labor
Namesake	Catherine Helen Spence
Electors	129,243 (2022)
Area	532 km2 (205.4 sq mi)
Demographic	Outer metropolitan
Coordinates	34.7°S 138.7°E / -34.7; 138.7
Electorates around Spence: Grey Barker Spence Hindmarsh Makin Mayo

Geography

Federal electoral division boundaries in Australia are determined at redistributions by a redistribution committee appointed by the Australian Electoral Commission. Redistributions occur for the boundaries of divisions in a particular state, and they occur every seven years, or sooner if a state's representation entitlement changes or when divisions of a state are malapportioned.^[1]

History

Catherine Helen Spence, the division's namesake

It is named in honour of Catherine Helen Spence, an advocate for female suffrage and electoral reform and the first female political candidate in Australia.^[2]

Spence was created in the electoral redistribution that concluded in July 2018 as a replacement for the Division of Wakefield. It is essentially the more urbanised southern portion of the formerly hybrid urban-rural Wakefield. The Division of Port Adelaide was abolished after South Australia was reduced from 11 electorates to ten, resulting in quite large movements of the remaining divisions' boundaries to fill in the gap.^[3]

The geographic extent of Spence is approximately the Adelaide Plains between the Little Para River in the south and the Gawler River on the north, plus areas around Gawler and Salisbury. It includes all of the City of Playford and Town of Gawler, along with Concordia and Kalbeeba from the Barossa Council, and Gawler Belt and Buchfelde from Light Regional Council on the outskirts of Gawler. Spence includes six suburbs in the City of Salisbury south of the Little Para River, west and north of Main North Road and Kings Road.^[4]

Spence overlaps the final configuration of Bonython before it was abolished prior to the 2004 election^[5] and much of it was merged with what had been the southern part of Wakefield. Spence extends further east, west and north than Bonython at the time of its abolition, but Wakefield had historically been a rural seat until 2004.^[6]

Spence was notionally a comfortably safe Labor seat, with a notional Labor margin of 17.9 percent, making it on paper the safest Labor seat in the state. By comparison, the abolished Wakefield finished with a safe Labor margin of 11.0 percent.^[6] Champion retained it in 2019 with only a small swing against him. Spence is the safest Labor seat in SA, with a 14.1 percent swing needed for the Liberals to win it.

Members

Image		Member	Party	Term	Notes
		Nick Champion (1972–)	Labor	18 May 2019 – 23 February 2022	Previously held the Division of Wakefield. Resigned to transfer to state politics. Subsequently elected to the South Australian Legislative Assembly seat of Taylor in 2022
		Matt Burnell (1978–)		21 May 2022 – present	Incumbent

Election results

Main article: Electoral results for the Division of Spence

2025 Australian federal election: Spence

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Greens	Luke Skinner
	Liberal	Daniel Wild
	Animal Justice	Miranda Joyce Smith
	Independent	Kym Hanton
	Labor	Matt Burnell
	One Nation	Darryl Bothe
	Trumpet of Patriots	Paul Michael Morrell
	Family First	John William Bennett
Total formal votes
Informal votes
Turnout

This section is an excerpt from Results of the 2025 Australian federal election in South Australia § Spence.[edit]

2022 Australian federal election: Spence^[7]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labor	Matt Burnell	46,596	43.86	−7.10
	Liberal	Shawn Lock	27,153	25.56	−0.27
	Greens	David Deex	12,052	11.35	+4.14
	One Nation	Linda Champion	11,532	10.86	+10.86
	United Australia	Alvin Warren	7,158	6.74	−0.30
	Federation	Matilda Bawden	1,736	1.63	+1.63
Total formal votes			106,227	95.05	+1.03
Informal votes			5,534	4.95	−1.03
Turnout			111,761	86.57	−3.97
Two-party-preferred result
	Labor	Matt Burnell	66,818	62.90	−1.23
	Liberal	Shawn Lock	39,409	37.10	+1.23
	Labor hold		Swing	−1.23

This section is an excerpt from Results of the 2022 Australian federal election in South Australia § Spence.[edit]

Alluvial diagram for preference flows in the seat of Spence in the 2022 federal election. Y indicates at what stage the winning candidate had over 50% of the votes and was declared the winner.