Electoral district of Torrens

Torrens South Australia—House of Assembly
Electoral district of Torrens (green) in the Greater Adelaide area
State	South Australia
Dates current	1902–1915, 1938–1985, 1993–present
MP	Dana Wortley
Party	Australian Labor Party (SA)
Namesake	Robert Torrens
Electors	25,110 (2018)
Area	16.97 km2 (6.6 sq mi)
Demographic	Metropolitan
Coordinates	34°51′50″S 138°39′35″E
Electorates around Torrens: Port Adelaide Florey Newland Enfield Torrens Morialta Adelaide Dunstan Hartley
Footnotes
Electoral District map

Torrens is a single-member electoral district for the South Australian House of Assembly. Located along the River Torrens, it is named after Sir Robert Richard Torrens, a 19th-century Premier of South Australia noted for being the founder of the "Torrens title" land registration system. Torrens is an 18.8 square kilometres (7.3 sq mi) suburban electorate in Adelaide's north-east. It includes the suburbs of Gilles Plains, Greenacres, Hampstead Gardens, Hillcrest, Holden Hill, Klemzig, Manningham, Oakden, Vale Park, Valley View and Windsor Gardens.

Torrens has had three incarnations as a South Australian House of Assembly electoral district.

It was first created for the 1902 election as a five-seat multi-member district stretching from the north-eastern suburbs through the eastern and southern suburbs to the south-western suburbs; together with the three-member Port Adelaide (covering the north-western and western suburbs) and the four-member Adelaide (covering central Adelaide and the inner-northern suburbs), the three districts with a total of 12-members covered the whole of the metropolitan area in the 42 member house. Torrens was abolished and absorbed into the new seats of East Torrens and Sturt at the 1915 election.

Torrens existed as a marginal to fairly safe Liberal and Country League/Liberal single-member seat under the Playmander system from the 1938 election, lasting until the 1985 election, though it was won once by Labor at the 1944 election. Torrens was one of just three metropolitan seats (with Burnside and Mitcham) won by the Liberal and Country League in 1965 and 1968.

Torrens was recreated in its current state for the 1993 election, based on much of the abolished seats of Gilles and Todd, as a nominally marginal Labor seat, but was won for the Liberal Joe Tiernan. Tiernan died while in office in 1994, and Robyn Geraghty reclaimed the seat for Labor at the Torrens by-election with an 8.6 percent swing. Former Senator Dana Wortley won the seat for Labor at the 2014 election and has retained it through the 2018 election and subsequent 2022 election.

Members for Torrens

First incarnation (1902–1915, 5 members)
Term	Member		Party	Member		Party	Member		Party	Member		Party	Member		Party	Term
1902–1905		John Darling Jr.	National League		John Jenkins			George Soward	National League		Thomas Price	Labor		Frederick Coneybeer	Labor	1902–1905
1905–1910		Crawford Vaughan	Labor		George Dankel	Labor		Thomas Smeaton	Labor							1905–1910
1910–1912											Thomas Ryan	United Labor				1910–1912
1912–1915					Herbert Hudd	Liberal Union					Herbert Angas Parsons	Liberal Union				1912–1915

Second incarnation (1938–1985, single-member)
Member		Party	Term
	Shirley Jeffries	Liberal and Country	1938–1944
	Herbert Baldock	Labor	1944–1947
	Shirley Jeffries	Liberal and Country	1947–1953
	John Travers	Liberal and Country	1953–1956
	John Coumbe	Liberal and Country	1956–1974
		Liberal	1974–1977
	Michael Wilson	Liberal	1977–1985

Third incarnation (1993–present, single-member)
Member		Party	Term
	Joe Tiernan	Liberal	1993–1994
	Robyn Geraghty	Labor	1994–2014
	Dana Wortley	Labor	2014–present

Election results

Main article: Electoral results for the district of Torrens

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

2022 South Australian state election: Torrens

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labor	Dana Wortley	11,732	48.6	+5.3
	Liberal	Ursula Henderson	8,114	33.6	−3.2
	Greens	Lazaras Panayiotou	2,559	10.6	+3.3
	Family First	Mervin Joshua	1,737	7.2	+7.2
Total formal votes			24,142	96.9
Informal votes			772	3.1
Turnout			24,914	88.4
Two-party-preferred result
	Labor	Dana Wortley	14,475	60.0	+4.3
	Liberal	Ursula Henderson	9,667	40.0	−4.3
	Labor hold		Swing	+4.3

References

• ECSA profile for Torrens: 2018 Archived 20 February 2018 at the Wayback Machine
• ABC profile for Torrens: 2018
• Poll Bludger profile for Torrens: 2018