Division of Richmond

Richmond Australian House of Representatives Division
Division of Richmond in New South Wales, as of the 2016 federal election.
Created	1901
MP	Justine Elliot
Party	Labor
Namesake	Richmond River
Electors	112,820 (2016)
Area	2,148 km2 (829.3 sq mi)
Demographic	Rural

The Division of Richmond is an Australian electoral division in the state of New South Wales. The division was proclaimed in 1900, and was one of the original 75 divisions to be contested at the first federal election. The division is named after the area in which it is located, namely the Richmond Valley and Richmond River, which was named in honour of Charles, the fifth Duke of Richmond.

The division is located in the far north-east of the state, adjacent to the Coral Sea. It adjoins the Queensland border to the north, and encompasses the towns of Ballina, Tweed Heads, Murwillumbah and Byron Bay.

The current Member for Richmond, since the 2004 federal election, is Justine Elliot, a member of the Australian Labor Party.

Historically, the division has been a rural seat and fairly safe for the National Party (formerly called the Country Party), which held it for all but six years from 1922 to 2004. For 55 of those years, it was held by three generations of the Anthony family—Hubert Lawrence Anthony (a minister in the Fadden and Menzies governments), Doug Anthony (leader of the National Party from 1971 to 1984 and Deputy Prime Minister in the Gorton, McMahon and Fraser governments) and Larry Anthony (a minister in the Howard government)—the first three-generation dynasty in the Australian House of Representatives. However, it became far less safe for the Nationals from 1983 onward, and strong population growth over the last three decades has seen it progressively lose its rural territory and reduced it to a more coastal-based and urbanised division. Accompanying demographic change has made the seat friendlier to Labor since the 1990s.