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]
At the 1997 redistribution, Pearce gained the Wheatbelt shires of Beverley and York from the division of O'Connor. This increased the Liberal Party's two-party-preferred vote lead over the Labor Party in Pearce by 1.7%.[5]
At the 2000 redistribution, Pearce gained the northern parts of the City of Wanneroo from the division of Moore, stretching along the coast from Tamala Park to Two Rocks. From the division of O'Connor, Pearce gained the Wheatbelt shires of Boddington, Brookton, Cuballing, Narrogin, Pingelly, Wandering and Williams, and the Town of Narrogin. However, it lost a small part of the City of Armadale to the division of Canning, and most of the Shire of Kalamunda, a small part of the Shire of Mundaring and a small part of the City of Swan to the division of Hasluck. The largest area of enrolment in the redistributed Division of Pearce in 1999 was the Shire of Mundaring, with an enrolment of 14,180, followed by the City of Wanneroo, with 13,248, and the City of Swan, with 10,429. All of the Wheatbelt local governments had relatively low populations, each with a few thousand at most.[6]
Division of Pearce as of the 2008 redistribution.
Pearce lost several Wheatbelt shires at the 2008 redistribution. The Shire of Boddington was transferred to the division of Canning. The shires of Brookton, Cuballing, Narrogin, Pingelly, Wandering and Williams, and the Town of Narrogin were transferred to the division of O'Connor. Two small boundary changes were made in the Perth metropolitan region as well: the boundary within the City of Wanneroo was moved north, which transferred Clarkson, Mindarie, Neerabup and Tamala Park to the division of Moore; and the boundary within the City of Swan was moved slightly south to Reid Highway.[7]
At the 2016 redistribution, the shires of Kalamunda and Mundaring, as well as Gidgegannup within the City of Swan, were transferred to the divisions of Canning and Hasluck.[8]
At the 2016 Australian census, which used the boundaries from the 2016 redistribution, the Division of Pearce had a median age of 33, below the state average of 36 and the national average of 38. 50.8% of residents over 15 were married, slightly higher than the state average of 48.8% and the national average of 48.1%. 13.1% of residents had a bachelor's degree or above, below the state average of 20.5% and the national average of 22.0%.[12]
56.4% of Pearce's residents were born in Australia, compared to the state average of 60.3% and the national average of 66.7%. The next-most-common birthplaces were England (12.8%), New Zealand (4.3%), South Africa (2.9%), India (1.8%), and Scotland (1.7%). 44.0% of residents had both parents born overseas and 34.4% had both parents born in Australia. The most common ancestries were English (31.6%), Australian (22.9%), Scottish (6.7%), Irish (6.5%), and Italian (2.5%). The most common religious affiliations were no religion (33.8%), Catholic (19.3%), Anglican (16.9%), and Christian, nfd (3.7%).[12]
The most common occupations were technicians and trade workers (18.7%), clerical and administrative workers (14.0%), professionals (14.0%), community and personal service workers (11.9%), managers (11.1%), labourers (10.6%), sales workers (9.6%), and machinery operators and drivers (8.5%). The most common industries of employment were hospitals (3.1%), supermarket and grocery stores (2.9%), iron ore mining (2.4%), aged care residential services (2.3%), and primary education (2.2%). The median weekly personal and household incomes were slightly above the state and national averages, but the median weekly family income was below the state average and above the national average.[12]
35.4% of families consisted of a couple without children, below the state and national averages. 48.1% of families consisted of a couple with children, above the state and national averages. 90.6% of dwellings were detached houses, 8.1% of dwellings were semi-detached, and 0.6% of dwellings were apartments or flats.[12]
Pearce was proclaimed on 31 March 1989, with it being created at the 1989 redistribution due to high population growth in Western Australia. It was the 14th division created in the state and it was first contested at the 1990 federal election. It has been contested by the Liberal Party, the Labor Party and the Australian Greens at every election for its existence. It has also been contested by the National Party at every election except 1990, 1996, 2004 and 2007, and the Australian Democrats at every election from 1990 to 2004. The division has been held by the Liberal Party, Australia's main centre-right party, for its entire existence.
At the 1993 election, Liberal candidate Judi Moylan was elected. She comfortably won every election from then until her retirement in 2013. She served as Minister for Family Services and Minister assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women from 1996 to 1998. Following the 1996 election, she was a backbencher, during which time she criticised many of the Liberal government's more conservative policies.[3][13][14]
On 12 June 2012, Christian Porter, the treasurer of Western Australia since 2010 and Attorney-General of Western Australia since 2008, announced his resignation from those roles in order to seek preselection for the Division of Pearce.[15] Porter retained the seat for the Liberal Party. In his bid for re-election in 2016, however, Porter suffered a five-point swing to reduce his margin to seven percent, just barely within the range of being fairly safe.
The 2021 redistribution made Pearce notionally a marginally Liberal seat, with a majority of 5.2 percent. At the 2022 election, the former mayor of Wanneroo, Tracey Roberts, became the first Labor member ever to win it. Roberts picked up a swing of over 14 percent amid the large swing to Labor across Western Australia. This was enough to give her a majority of 9.4 percent, on the stronger side of fairly safe (and just on the edge of turning it into a safe Labor seat in one stroke).
Alluvial diagram for preference flows in the seat of Pearce in the 2022 federal election. Y indicates at what stage the winning candidate had over 50% of the votes and was declared the winner.
Graphs
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Primary vote results in Pearce (Parties that did not get 5% of the vote are omitted)
Liberal
Labor
Greens
One Nation
Australian Democrats
Palmer United/United Australia Party
Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. Updates on reimplementing the Graph extension, which will be known as the Chart extension, can be found on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.
^ abc1989 redistribution of Western Australia into electoral divisions : Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 section 75. Australian Electoral Commission. 1989. ISBN0644097124.
^"Western Australian (WA) federal redistribution – 2000". Australian Electoral Commission. 2000. Retrieved 22 February 2022. Download the key documents file, unzip the file, open the final-report folder, then open 07-reports.pdf.
Open the "wa" folder, open the "04-Redistribution-Committee-report-and-maps" folder, open the "metro.pdf" and "south_west.pdf" files. These files show the pre-existing boundaries and the proposed boundaries.
Open the "wa" folder, open the "08-final-report-and-maps" folder, open the "final" folder, open the "wa_metro_final_boundaries.pdf" and "sw_wa_final_boundaries.pdf" files. These files show that the implemented boundaries are the same as the proposed boundaries.
