The district includes pastoral lease and unincorporated Crown Lands, Lake Eyre and part of the Simpson Desert in the far north.

Graham Gunn, the longtime member for Eyre, transferred to Stuart, but saw his margin dwindle over the next three elections, culminating in 2006 when he won by just 233 votes after distribution of preferences.

His successor, former basketball player Dan van Holst Pellekaan, gained a large swing at the 2010 election, making it a safe Liberal seat in one stroke.

While Port Augusta still tilted toward Labor, as it had for more than a century, it was not enough to overcome the increasingly conservative bent of the rest of the seat.

[5] The swing against Pellekaan was large enough to make Stuart notionally a Labor seat in a "traditional" two-party preferred contest for the first time in its present incarnation.