Division of Fremantle

The city of Fremantle, the division's namesake

The division was created at Federation in 1900 and was one of the original 65 divisions contested at the first federal election. It is named for the city of Fremantle, which in turn is named for Captain Charles Fremantle, captain of HMS Challenger, who took formal possession of the west coast of New Holland in the name of His Majesty the King. This action cleared the way for the arrival of Captain James Stirling and the first party of Swan River Colony settlers a few weeks later.[1]

The Division is located in the southern suburbs of Perth. As at the 2016 election, it includes:

• the City of Fremantle;
• the Town of East Fremantle;
• Rottnest Island;
• the vast majority of the City of Cockburn (except for a small section of Leeming contained in the city); and
• parts of the City of Melville (namely Palmyra, part of Kardinya and Ken Hurst Park in Leeming).[2]

As originally drawn, the Division of Fremantle included nearly all of Perth's south-of-the-river suburbs, plus the western suburbs south from Mt Claremont and Nedlands.[3] On these boundaries, the seat frequently changed hands between the Australian Labor Party and the conservative parties for the first three decades of its existence. However, Labor has held the seat without interruption since 1934, and for all but one term since 1928. The 1949 expansion of Parliament made Fremantle even safer for Labor by shifting most of its northern portion to the newly created Division of Curtin. Since then, it has usually been one of the safest Labor seats in Australia. It was nearly lost in the landslides of 1975 and 1977, but since the 1980 redistribution when the suburbs of Mosman Park, Peppermint Grove and Cottesloe were transferred to the Division of Curtin,[4] the Liberals have only twice garnered 45 percent of the two-party vote, in 1996 and 2013.

Since World War II, Fremantle has been held by a succession of senior Labor figures. The seat's best-known member was John Curtin, who was Prime Minister of Australia from 1941 to 1945. Other high-profile members were Kim Beazley Sr., a minister in the Whitlam Government; John Dawkins, a minister in the Hawke and Keating Governments; and Carmen Lawrence, the former Premier of Western Australia and a minister in the Keating Government. Lawrence retired at the 2007 election. She was succeeded by Melissa Parke, a former United Nations lawyer and a minister in the second Rudd Government.

• Division of Fremantle - Australian Electoral Commission