# Catherine Hutchesson

Catherine Louise Hutchesson is an Australian politician. She has been a Labor Party member of the South Australian House of Assembly since the 2022 state election, representing Waite. With a swing of 11.4 per cent, she defeated the independent member Sam Duluk, a former Liberal Party member who had held the seat since 2018. With the exception of Duluk's two years as an independent, the constituency had been held by the Liberal Party for the previous 29 years, and its predecessor, the seat of Mitcham, had only ever been held by Liberal or independent members dating back to 1938.
Hutchesson grew up within the boundaries of the current seat of Waite, has a Bachelor of Science, and prior to her election to Parliament had been a chef and then worked in the banking and finance sector where she was a union industrial advocate. She has also been active in the Country Fire Service as a volunteer firefighter. She was the unsuccessful Labor candidate in Waite in the 2018 state election.

## Personal life and career

Catherine Louise Hutchesson grew up in Glenalta and has lived in the district for more than forty years. She worked at the Blackwood Fitness Centre, studied community service at the Panorama campus of TAFE South Australia, and studied at Flinders University where she graduated with a Bachelor of Science. She also studied at the William Angliss Institute of TAFE, where she completed a Certificate III in Commercial Cookery, and worked as a head chef. After moving to the banking and finance sector she became an industrial advocate for the Finance Sector Union. She is also a volunteer firefighter with the Upper Sturt Country Fire Service Brigade and the representative of her brigade to the CFS Volunteers' Association and delegate to the CFS Group that includes Upper Sturt. She has also been vice-president of the Upper Sturt Soldiers' Memorial Hall committee, and president of the Upper Sturt branch of the Country Women's Association in South Australia.

## Political career

Hutchesson was the Labor Party candidate for the South Australian House of Assembly electoral district of Waite at the 2018 state election, when she received 42.2 per cent of the two-party-preferred vote (2PP) from 23.5 per cent of the first-preference votes. A post-election redistribution notionally lifted her first-preference vote to 24 per cent, and a 2PP of 42.6 per cent. The constituency had been held by the Liberal Party since 1993, its predecessor, the seat of Mitcham, had only ever been held by Liberal or independent members dating back to 1938, and was regarded as a blue-ribbon Liberal seat.
She was again the Labor Party candidate for Waite at the 2022 state election, when she received 54 per cent of the 2PP, achieving an 11.4 per cent swing to the Labor Party, and defeating the independent member Sam Duluk, a former Liberal Party member who had been an independent for two years and had held the seat since 2018. Hutchesson's share of the first-preference votes was 26.6 per cent. Since 3 May 2022 she has been a member of the parliamentary Natural Resources Committee. She was a member of the Access to Urinary Tract Infection Treatment Committee from 1 December 2022 to 17 November 2023.

## Footnotes

* 1 2 3 4 SA Parliament 26 February 2024.
* 1 2 3 4 5 Power FM 25 March 2022.
* 1 2 3 ABC 2022.
* ↑ ECSA 2018.
* 1 2 ABC 24 March 2022.