It covers the Riverland region of South Australia including the towns of Renmark, Berri, Barmera, Loxton and Waikerie.

The seat is named after brothers George and William Chaffey who established the irrigation area along the Murray River from 1886.

Chaffey was won three times by Labor's Reg Curren as their most marginal electorate on a two-party-preferred basis – in 1962 on 50.1%, 1965 on 50.7% and 1970 on 50.2%.

Curren reclaimed it for Labor during his party's 1970 landslide victory after the end of the Playmander, only to lose it back to Arnold in 1973.

Chaffey remained in the hands of the LCL and its successor, the Liberal Party, until 1997 when Karlene Maywald narrowly won it for the SA Nationals.