Barwon Valley Park

South Barwon is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Victoria. Located in a mixed urban and rural area south of the Barwon River, it covers an area of 621 km², including the Geelong suburbs of Belmont and Grovedale, Waurn Ponds and part of Highton, the coastal centres of Torquay and Barwon Heads, and the rural towns of Barrabool, Bellbrae, Connewarre, Gnarwarre, Modewarre, Moriac and Mount Moriac. The electorate had a population of 52,241 at the 2001 census. South Barwon was created in 1976 as a predominantly rural seat which was considered safe for the conservative Liberal Party. It was won by Liberal Aurel Smith, formerly the member for Bellarine, upon its inception, and retained for the party by Harley Dickinson upon Smith's retirement in 1982. Dickinson held the seat until 1992, when he quit the party and attempted to retain the seat as an independent, but lost to endorsed Liberal candidate and former television newsreader Alister Paterson. The seat underwent significant demographic change during Paterson's tenure as successive redistributions pushed it further into Geelong. Major population growth in the traditionally Labor-voting areas of Torquay, Barwon Heads and southern Geelong, caused the seat to become progressively less safe for the Liberal Party. These changes came to a head at the 2002 election, when the Labor Party. nominated former Geelong mayor Michael Crutchfield as its candidate, and amidst a statewide landslide victory, succeeded in taking South Barwon for the first time in its history. Crutchfield was re-elected in 2006, but lost in 2010 to local councillor and Liberal candidate Andrew Katos.
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