Division of Kirkby

The Division of Kirkby is a Craftian federal division in the state of Meyang. It was created in 2015 and was first contested at the 2016 federal election. It is named after award-winning Craftian author and biographer Virginia Kirkby (1909–1972). The division is coastal, and stretches from the northern suburbs of Yoollagarra to semi-urban areas north of the city.

The sitting member, since the 2055 federal election, is Linda Remington, the leader of the Craftian Conservative Party.

History
The northern suburbs of Yoollagarra are among the safest Conservative strongholds in the country, due to a very high proportion of affluent and high-income families. This is combined with the conservative agricultural regions on the outskirts of the Yoollagarra metropolitan area to make Kirkby one of the heaviest-voting Conservative seats. The seat has only been held by three members since it was first contested in 2016, and has never been lost by the Conservative Party – the lowest percentage of the two-party-preferred vote it has ever received is 62 percent. Although today it does not have the largest majority, it is still regarded as the party's safest seat ever, with no signs of vote decline.

Kirkby is regarded as a 'leadership seat', with all three MPs having held important positions in the Conservative Party: Owen Steele was Deputy Leader from 2027 to 2036, Marvel Lu held multiple cabinet portfolios including Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Queanbeyan Government, and Linda Remington has held the position of party leader since 2073; additionally, she was Deputy Leader from 2067 to 2073.

The seat is also notable for consistently having one of the highest informal voting rates in the country (often in excess of 10 percent). It has been argued by psephologists that this is due to the extremely safe nature of the seat, causing a high protest vote.