Division of Wakefield

Wakefield Australian House of Representatives Division
Division of Wakefield in South Australia, as of the 2016 federal election.
Created	1903
MP	Nick Champion
Party	Labor
Namesake	Edward Gibbon Wakefield
Electors	112,237 (2016)
Area	6,407 km2 (2,473.8 sq mi)
Demographic	Rural

The Division of Wakefield is an Australian electoral division in the state of South Australia. The rural 6,407 km² seat is really a hybrid rural-urban electorate that stretches from Salisbury in the outer northern suburbs of Adelaide at the south of the seat right through to the Clare Valley at the north of the seat, 135 km from Adelaide. It includes the suburbs of Elizabeth, Craigmore, Munno Para, and part of Salisbury, and the towns of Balaklava, Clare, Freeling, Gawler, Kapunda, Mallala, Riverton, Tarlee, Virginia, Williamstown, and part of Port Wakefield.

The Division was named after Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who promoted colonisation as a tool for social engineering, plans which formed the basis for settlements in South Australia, Western Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The division was one of the seven established when the former Division of South Australia was redistributed on 2 October 1903. It was first contested at the 1903 federal election on very different boundaries. Two of the seat's former members of particular note have been the inaugural Speaker of the House and two-time Premier of South Australia, Frederick Holder, and Howard government two-term Speaker Neil Andrew.