The Division of Tangney is an Australian electoral division in the state of Western Australia. The Division was named after Dame Dorothy Tangney, the first female member of the Australian Senate.

Tangney is an affluent electorate covering the southern shores of the Swan and Canning rivers, divided by the Kwinana Freeway. It extends from Bicton to Riverton and Ferndale and as far south as Murdoch, Leeming and Canning Vale. Tangney covers .

From the 1980s to 2022 it was considered a safe Liberal seat and in 2022 was held by Ben Morton, a former state director of the Liberal Party. In the 2022 Australian federal election, Sam Lim, the Labor candidate garnered a 10.4 per cent swing against the sitting member to deliver Tangney to the ALP for the first time since 1983.

History

Tangney was established at the Western Australia redistribution of 19 April 1974 and was first contested at the 1974 election. Before the 1984 redistribution, the electorate included the traditional Labor areas of Spearwood and Gosnells, and was a bellwether seat for the party in government. After 1984, the seat received its present borders. For most of the next three decades, it was a safe Liberal seat.

It was first held by John Dawkins, later a Treasurer of Australia (as Member for Fremantle), and was held from 1993 until 2004 by Daryl Williams, former Attorney-General of Australia and Rhodes Scholar.

The seat briefly made national headlines in August 2006 when Matt Brown, once a chief-of-staff to former Defence Minister Robert Hill, defeated incumbent Dennis Jensen for preselection, despite support for the latter from John Howard. However, on 7 October 2006, the decision was overturned by the Liberals' Western Australian state council and Jensen was once again confirmed as the candidate for the 2007 election.

Jensen lost Liberal preselection in Tangney for the 2016 federal election. Announced on 3 April 2016, it was revealed he had written an unpublished book that included a sex scene, subsequently published as an e-book. Former party state director Ben Morton won preselection. On 2 July 2016 Ben Morton won the Tangney seat with 61.5% of the vote, losing 1.5% towards the Labor Party.

A redistribution ahead of the 2022 federal election slightly pared back the Liberal margin to 9.5 percent. At that election, Morton lost over 10.5 percent of his primary vote, and Labor candidate and former police officer Sam Lim defeated Morton on Green preferences. Lim picked up a swing of over 11 percent amid the Liberals' collapse in Western Australia. The loss of the seat has also been attributed to the notably large swings against the Liberals among Chinese Australian voters, which cost the Liberals many key seats; approximately one in ten of the electorate's voters possessed Chinese ancestry.

In the 2025 Federal Election, Sam Lim (Labor Member for Tangney) was up against Liberal candidate Howard Ong. On May 3rd 2025, Sam Lim was called the winner had a primary vote of 42.5% and had increased his primary vote since 2022 by 4.3%. Howard Ong had received 34.2% of the primary vote. The TTP (two party preferred) was 57.0% to Sam Lim and 43.0% to Howard Ong. After post-election analysis, Tangney has been labeled a fairly safe Labor seat.

Geography 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.

In August 2021, the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) announced Tangney would gain the Canning suburb of Wilson from the seat of Swan and the Canning-Gosnells suburb of Canning Vale from the seat of Burt. These boundary changes took place at the 2022 election.

The seat presently contains most of the City of Melville, a part of the City of Canning and a small portion of the City of Cockburn and is located south of the Swan and Canning rivers. Suburbs presently included are:

City of Melville

Alfred Cove Applecross Ardross Attadale Bateman Bicton Booragoon Brentwood Bull Creek Kardinya (part) Leeming (part) Melville Mount Pleasant Murdoch Myaree Willagee Winthrop

City of Canning

Canning Vale Ferndale Lynwood Parkwood Riverton Rossmoyne Shelley Willetton Wilson

City of Cockburn

Leeming (part)

Members Image Member Party Term Notes  John Dawkins Labor 18 May 1974 –13 December 1975 Lost seat. Later elected to the Division of Fremantle in 1977  Peter Richardson Liberal 13 December 1975 –13 October 1977 Did not contest in 1977. Failed to win a Senate seat  Progress 13 October 1977 –10 November 1977  Peter Shack Liberal 10 November 1977 –5 March 1983 Lost seat  George Gear Labor 5 March 1983 –1 December 1984 Transferred to the Division of Canning  Peter Shack Liberal 1 December 1984 –8 February 1993 Retired  Daryl Williams 13 March 1993 –31 August 2004 Served as minister under Howard. Retired  Dennis Jensen 9 October 2004 –9 May 2016 Lost preselection and then lost seat  Independent 9 May 2016 –2 July 2016  Ben Morton Liberal 2 July 2016 –21 May 2022 Served as minister under Morrison. Lost seat  Sam Lim Labor 21 May 2022 –present Incumbent

Election results

References

External links Division of Tangney - Australian Electoral Commission