page_title: Division of Grey
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Division of Grey / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Cabinet portrait of Sir George Grey, Prime Minister of New Zealand.
context_page_description: The Division of Grey is an Australian electoral division in South Australia. The division was one of the seven established when the former Division of South Australia was redistributed on 2 October 1903 and is named for Sir George Grey, who was Governor of South Australia from 1841 to 1845.
context_section_description: When Grey was first created in 1903, it included the Northern Territory and all of northern and western South Australia, down to a line through the Mid North south of Port Pirie.
  Grey has been held by Labor for most of its history, and was one of the few country seats where Labor usually did well. It remained in Labor hands for all but one term from 1943 to 1993, the only break coming when the Liberals won it during their landslide victory in 1966. For most of that time, it was a fairly safe Labor seat, though it was almost lost in the Coalition landslides in 1975 and 1977.
  That changed in 1993, when the retirement of Labor incumbent Lloyd O'Neil, the unpopularity of the state Labor government, and the addition of the Clare Valley at a redistribution, which saw Liberal Barry Wakelin become the fifth non-Labor member to win the seat, and only the second in 50 years. That happened even as Labor won another term; it was the first time Labor had won government at an election without winning Grey. However, as mentioned, the election came at a bad time for the state Labor government, which was roundly defeated at the state election later that year.
  Wakelin was re-elected with a large swing in 1996, and since then the decline in the mining and pastoral vote has made it a fairly safe Liberal seat. While the "Iron Triangle" towns of Whyalla, Port Augusta and Port Pirie still tilt Labor — as they have for more than a century — that is not enough to overcome the increasingly conservative lean in the rest of the seat.
  The Liberals consolidated their hold on the seat ahead of the 2004 election when the Yorke Peninsula and the state's upper east, both historically strongly conservative areas, were transferred to Grey from Wakefield. The Liberals suffered a nine-point swing at the 2007 election, but Rowan Ramsey was still able to retain the seat for the Liberals, with 54 percent of the two-party vote.  The seat became secure for the Liberals once again after Ramsey picked up a large swing in 2010, which he consolidated in 2013.
caption: Sir George Grey, the division's namesake
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