The division was one of the original 65 divisions contested at the first federal election in 1901. It was one of five electorates created by the Federal House of Representatives Western Australian Electorates Act 1900, an act of the parliament of Western Australia.[2] The original bill introduced by Premier John Forrest provided for the seat to be named "Occidental" rather than Swan.[3]
Historically, the electorate was a country seat extending north to Dongara, east to Merredin and south to the coast. It contracted to an area east of the Darling Range and became a safe Country Party seat. Prior to the 1949 election, its old area became the new seat of Moore, while Swan moved into approximately its present position, although initially extending as far north-east as Midland.[citation needed]
For several decades, Swan has been a marginal seat, extending along the Swan and Canning Rivers from the affluent suburbs in the City of South Perth to the west, which typically vote for the Liberal Party, to the City of Belmont to the east and parts of the City of Canning to the south-east, which are more working-class in orientation and typically vote for the Labor Party. From 2004 to 2007 it was the third most marginal electorate in Australia, after Hindmarsh and Kingston, with the ALP incumbent Kim Wilkie winning 50.08 percent of the two-party-preferred vote in 2004. A redistribution ahead of the 2010 election added the strongly Labor-voting suburb of Langford, which was previously within Tangney, which made it a notionally Labor seat. Langford was redistributed to Burt in 2016.[citation needed]
At the 2007 election, Liberal candidate Steve Irons won the seat with a swing of 0.19 percent.[4] Irons was the only Coalition challenger to unseat a Labor incumbent at the 2007 election. However, the election came at a very bad time for the state Labor government, which was only polling at 49 percent support at the time the writs were dropped. Irons was re-elected with a slightly increased majority in 2010, making it a fairly safe Liberal seat. Following the 2016 election Labor candidate Tammy Solonec managed to return Swan to marginal status.
Since 1984, federal electoral division boundaries in Australia have been determined at redistributions by a redistribution committee appointed by the Australian Electoral Commission. Redistributions occur for the boundaries of divisions in a particular state, and they occur every seven years, or sooner if a state's representation entitlement changes or when divisions of a state are malapportioned.[7]
Alluvial diagram for preference flows in the seat of Swan in the 2022 federal election. Y indicates at what stage the winning candidate had over 50% of the votes and was declared the winner.
^Black, David (2010). "Changing boundaries". The Federal Electorate of Fremantle: A History Since 1901. John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library. Retrieved 24 July 2024.
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