An oversight that threatened to wipe the first Member for Hunter and Australian Prime Minister, Edmund Barton, from the record books has been corrected.
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The names of past Hunter MPs including Barton were omitted from the “former members” section of the electoral commission website when the seat was merged with Charlton. The error was fixed after it was flagged by Hunter MP Joel Fitzgibbon.
“I thank the commission for its quick and helpful response,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.
“We can’t have Australia’s first Prime Minister and an Opposition leader erased from our political history. Of course my father [Eric] was also among those who had been removed from the website.
“Imagine how confusing that would be for students being told that our first Prime Minister was also the first Member for Hunter, only to check the official record to find that was not the case.”
The problem arose due to the recent redistribution which effectively merged the Hunter and Charlton electorates. While the new seat is named Hunter, the electoral commission announced the old Hunter seat was being abolished because the new electorate contained more voters from the former Charlton seat than the old Hunter.
