Electoral district of Light

Light South Australia—House of Assembly
Electoral district of Light (green) in Greater Adelaide
State	South Australia
Dates current	1857–1902, 1938–present
MP	Tony Piccolo
Party	Australian Labor Party (SA)
Namesake	Colonel William Light
Electors	25,990 (2018)
Area	62.36 km2 (24.1 sq mi)
Demographic	Rural
Electorates around Light: Frome Frome Schubert Frome Light Schubert Taylor Taylor Elizabeth
Footnotes
Electoral District map

Light is a single-member electoral district for the South Australian House of Assembly. Light is named after Colonel William Light (1786 – 1839), who was the first Surveyor-General of South Australia. The electorate was created in 1857, abolished at the 1902 election and recreated at the 1938 election. It is based on the semi-rural township of Gawler, and stretches southwards into the outermost northern suburbs of Adelaide.

Covering a total area of 62.36 km², Light consists of the suburbs of Buchfelde, Evanston Gardens, Evanston Park, Evanston South, Gawler, Gawler East, Gawler South, Gawler West, Hewett, Hillier, Kudla, Munno Para, Munno Para Downs, Munno Para West, Reid, and Willaston. Although growing urbanisation in recent years has resulted in Adelaide's growth spilling into Gawler, Light is classed as a rural electorate.

The electorate was held by the Liberal Party and its predecessor, the Liberal and Country League, for all but one term from its re-creation in 1938 until 2006. For most of that time, it was a fairly safe to safe LCL/Liberal seat.

A redistribution prior to the 2002 election pushed Light further into the outer Adelaide suburbs, paring back the margin from a fairly safe 6.3 percent to an extremely marginal 1.1 percent. At the 2002 election, Liberal incumbent Malcolm Buckby picked up a small swing in his favour and retained the electorate even as the Liberals lost government. In 2006 Tony Piccolo became the second Labor member to win the electorate, and the first Labor member for the electorate in 62 years. At the 2010 election he increased his margin against the statewide trend and decades of voting patterns in the seat, and became the first Labor member to be re-elected to Light. His victory was one of two that allowed Labor to hold onto a narrow majority despite losing the two-party vote.

A redistribution prior to the 2014 election reduced Labor's margin significantly from 5.3 percent to 2.8 percent, but Labor again retained the electorate with an unchanged margin. After a redistribution slightly increased the Labor margin to 5.4 percent, Piccolo retained the seat in 2018 with a healthy swing of almost six percent, enough to make Light a fairly safe Labor seat (and just on the edge of being safe). This came even as Labor lost government, marking only the second time that the conservatives won government without holding Light.

The electorate's first member in its current incarnation as a single-member seat was Premier and LCL founder Richard Layton Butler, who held the electorate for a few months in 1938 before making an unsuccessful attempt to transfer to federal politics. Other particularly notable members include Bruce Eastick, leader of the LCL/Liberals from 1972 to 1975 and Speaker of the South Australian House of Assembly during the Tonkin government.

Members

Two members (1857–1875)
Member		Party	Term	Member		Party	Term
	J. T. Bagot		1857–1865		Carrington Smedley		1857–1857
					W. H. Maturin		1858–1858
					David Shannon		1858–1860
					Francis Dutton		1860–1862
					John Rowe		1862–1862
					Francis Dutton		1862–1865
	P. B. Coglin		1865–1868		John Rounsevell		1865–1868
	John Hart Sr.		1868–1870		William Lewis		1868–1870
	Edward Hamilton		1870–1871		James Pearce		1870–1875
	James White		1871–1871
	Mountifort Conner		1871–1873
	R. I. Stow		1873–1875

Three members (1875–1884)
Member		Party	Term	Member		Party	Term	Member		Party	Term
	James White		1875–1881		David Nock		1875–1878		Jenkin Coles		1875–1878
					James Shannon		1878–1881		F. S. Carroll		1878–1878
									David Moody		1878–1881
	Jenkin Coles		1881–1884		H. V. Moyle		1881–1884		Robert Dixson		1881–1884

Two members (1884–1902)
Member		Party	Term	Member		Party	Term
	Jenkin Coles		1884–1891		David Moody		1884–1887
					Paddy Glynn		1887–1890
					J. W. White		1890–1891
		Defence League	1891–1896			Defence League	1891–1896
			1896–1902		David Moody		1896–1899
					F. W. Paech		1899–1902

Single-member (1938–present)
Member		Party	Term
	Richard Layton Butler	Liberal and Country	1938–1938
	Herbert Michael	Liberal and Country	1939–1941
	Sydney McHugh	Labor	1941–1944
	Herbert Michael	Liberal and Country	1944–1956
	George Hambour	Liberal and Country	1956–1960
	Leslie Nicholson	Liberal and Country	1960–1962
	John Freebairn	Liberal and Country	1962–1970
	Bruce Eastick	Liberal and Country	1970–1974
		Liberal	1974–1993
	Malcolm Buckby	Liberal	1993–2006
	Tony Piccolo	Labor	2006–present

Election results

Main article: Electoral results for the district of Light

This section is an excerpt from Results of the 2022 South Australian state election (House of Assembly) § Light.[edit]

2022 South Australian state election: Light

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labor	Tony Piccolo	13,144	57.5	+6.4
	Liberal	Andrew Williamson	5,468	23.9	−10.5
	One Nation	David Duncan	1,542	6.8	+6.8
	Greens	Brett Ferris	1,506	6.6	−0.3
	Family First	Benjamin Hackett	1,184	5.2	+5.2
Total formal votes			22,844	97.0
Informal votes			704	3.0
Turnout			23,548	88.1
Two-party-preferred result
	Labor	Tony Piccolo	15,873	69.5	+11.1
	Liberal	Andrew Williamson	6,971	30.5	−11.1
	Labor hold		Swing	+11.1

References

• ECSA profile for Light: 2018
• ABC profile for Light: 2018
• Poll Bludger profile for Light: 2018