Electoral district of Giles

Giles is an electoral district of the House of Assembly in the Australian state of South Australia. The largest electorate in the state, named after explorer Ernest Giles, covers a 493,365 km² swathe of South Australian outback. Its main population centre is the industrial town of Whyalla on the far south-east border of the seat which represents half of the seat's voters. The remaining half covers significant areas of pastoral leases and Pitjantjatjara Aboriginal land stretching to the Western Australian and Northern Territory borders, taking in the remote towns of Andamooka, Coober Pedy, Hawker, Iron Knob, Kimba, Quorn, Roxby Downs and Woomera. Giles also has a far north mobile booth.Giles was created at the 1991 electoral redistribution to replace the abolished seat of Whyalla. It covered an area that had traditionally been one of the few country areas where Labor consistently did well. Support for the party was particularly strong in the city of Whyalla, which had been a Labor bastion for the better part of the 20th century. Labor also had longstanding support in remote mining towns and indigenous communities. Sitting Labor MP for Whyalla and incumbent government minister Frank Blevins won his seat at the 1989 election with a safe 10.9 percent two-party margin.