The electorate of Adelaide has existed without fundamental change since South Australia was first divided into electorates in 1903, currently stretching from the city centre to the Labor strongholds of Prospect, Enfield and Brompton to the north and an electorally mixed bag of areas to the east and south. There are sources of Liberal strength in Walkerville to the north-east of the city, Toorak Gardens to the west and Malvern to the south. The areas south of the city include Unley, home to the high school which Julia Gillard attended.
Labor first won Adelaide in 1908, and it was usually held by them from then until 1988. It was lost in that year at a by-election caused by the resignation of Chris Hurford, falling to Liberal candidate Mike Pratt with an 8.4% swing. Labor recovered the seat at the 1990 election, but an unfavourable redistribution together with a swing fuelled by hostility to the state government delivered it to Liberal candidate Trish Worth in 1993. Worth’s margin never rose above 3.5% in her 11 years as member, and she survived by just 343 votes in 2001. Labor finally toppled her in 2004 when inner-city seats across the land bucked the national shift to the Coalition, a decisive 1.9% swing delivering Adelaide to Labor’s 27-year-old candidate, Kate Ellis.
In keeping with statewide trends, Adelaide swung solidly to Labor in 2007, by 7.2%, and recorded little change in 2010, swinging 0.8% to the Liberals. The latest redistribution has added 1600 voters in Vale Park to bring the electorate into line with a municipal boundary, which has garnished the Labor margin from 7.7% to 7.5%. The area covered by the electorate swung resoundingly to the Liberals at the 2010 state election, with Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith losing the Adelaide electorate with a swing of 14.8%, and the eight neighbouring electorates (all of which are partly within the federal electorate) swinging by between 8.5% and 14.3%.
Kate Ellis is associated with the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association, the mainstay of the “Catholic Right”, and its powerful state figurehead, Senator Don Farrell. After serving her apprenticeship as an adviser to state Industry Minister Rory McEwen and Treasurer Kevin Foley, Ellis won preselection following a three-way factional deal that secured Hindmarsh for Steve Georganas of the “soft Left” and Makin for Dana Wortley of the “hard Left” (who nevertheless lost the preselection to Tony Zappia, but was compensated with a Senate seat).
Her elevation to the position of Youth and Sport Minister after the 2007 election victory made her Labor’s youngest ever minister, at the age of 30 – the previous record holder being Paul Keating at 31. After the 2010 election she was reassigned to employment participation, childcare and the status of women. In common with the rest of her faction, Ellis emerged as a strong supporter of Julia Gillard’s leadership. Shortly before Kevin Rudd’s challenge in February 2012, she told Adelaide radio that Rudd had approached her and other SDA figures at a hotel to ask how they could reconcile their “conservative brand of Catholicism” with “a childless, atheist ex-communist as Labor leader”.
The preselected Liberal candidate for the next election is Carmen Garcia, director of Multicultural Youth SA and a daughter of Filipino migrants.
10. DOING. RUDD,
HOW STRANGE
WAS THAT OLD FOOTAGE
ISN’T rudd on holls in london
c@tmomma
Hear bloody hear! We were running a small business during the recession we had to have. It was a nightmare. We shut up shop during this time. We reopened a business in 1996 and have been going strong ever since. We were one of the lucky ones back then. We managed to get out during the recession without losing everything. We were able to pay all our debts with money I was earning as a legal secretary. Many other small business owners during that time went bust. Keating and Labor was a dirty word.
LOL something is wrong with the SMH online. It was showing the 22 Oct edition, and has automatically refreshed….to the 26 Oct version.
Spooky!
How dumb is the liberal party the longer they keep him, labor wins by default
Abbott
[‘”There’s the carbon tax. There’s the mining tax. There’s a failure to get Government spending under control.’]
——————————————————–
what has that got to do wiht the Asian white paper
Feeney i rec all. Some months ago
I thought he never attended meetings thought u had not seen him formontgs
At one stage
Have things changed, how many branches in your area
Correct me if i am wrong
No wonder Abbott is very keen about the Colombo Plan again. It was the 50 plan from the White Colonial Bwana to the 3rd world countries
[confessions
Posted Sunday, October 28, 2012 at 4:15 pm | PERMALINK
mari:
On his recent form, definately!!]
Hic Hic lost my bottle
The Jakarta Post on the white paper:
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/10/28/australia-sets-new-strategy-engage-with-asia.html
Observation: there is too much of a sense of entitlement in political discourse.
C@tmomma
Yes, but they also radically reformed the economy from the old protectionist system to a more free market system which encouraged small business and entrepreneurialism. On top of that, policies like the prices and incomes accord and the introduction of enterprise bargaining were a complete slap in the face to the traditional union movement and were targeted towards this upwardly mobile class which was abandoned by the likes of Beazley, Crean, Swan and so on
spur212
You are spot on about enterprise bargaining being a slap in the face for the traditional union movement. This was the beginning of the steep decline in the power of unions in this country. Ironic that it was Hawke/Keating and not a Liberal govt that caused this change to occur.
Cat momma
[I was a Small Business Owner in the ‘late 80′s and early 90′s’, and let me tell you, it was smack dab in the middle of ‘The Recession We Had to Have’. I also had to pay Interest Rates of 23% on my Business Loan, which was as rare as hen’s teeth to get as well. All during the reign of the Hawke/Keating government]
My dad almost went broke paying those interest rates. Every time I bring up the economy and how well its doing under Labor, he reminds me. He was seriously scarred by it.
confessions
Why would Rudd want to serve, now or in the future, with a lying, disloyal leader like Gillard?
He knows the reality of what is happening in the electorate, and is spending buckets loads of money at the moment to retain his seat.
All QLD seats are threatened on current polling figures. Now, does that make you happy?
He may well leave during the next Parliament, as may Gillard and others. Why should they spend another decade or so in Opposition?
But, to be sure, the faceless men will live on. Feeney and Farrell are the future of the Labor Party.
rishane@1549
Indeed. And that was made easier by the foolish concession that it was a tax.
[Federal Opposition leader Tony Abbott said the Coalition supported better engagement with Asia, but the white paper lacked crucial details.
“There is a sense in which what it contains is commonsense but predictable,” he said.]
If it was so predictable, why haven’t the coalition articulated anything like it previously?
Once again, they are left looking flat-footed and reactionary.
[If it was so predictable, why haven’t the coalition articulated anything like it previously?]
Because Mesma was waiting for something to copy?
[ feeney
…
I speak regularly with him
]
Well I hope you let him know that the group of people fed up with him white anting the PM is getting larger.
[Jess McGuire @jessmcguire
Several pals of mine witnessed Tony Abbott’s daughter name dropping her dad to get into a Fitzroy nightclub last night… she failed. LOL!!!!}
Did she say, “Don’t you know who I am?” 😀
victoria and c@tmomma
They were bloody tough times. I remember it well. In my eyes, it was when Labor turned to the Right, and became like the Coal.
Has the Coalition put out its own
whitegrey paper on The Asian Century?feeney:
After the way Rudd’s behaved, he should consider himself very lucky to have won preselection again. I’d hazard a guess the only reason he’s still in parliament is because it’s a hung parliament. If Labor had won a majority HoR seats in its own right, I doubt he’d still be there.
BK:
😆
I hope feeney and confessions both realise they’re feeding the stereotypes held about each of their respective sides in the Rudd/Gillard debate…
lizzie
I remember all the mortgagee auctions and the for lease signs everywhere. My son and older daughter were born during this time. We could not find work, nor could our family and friends who had been laid off, and interest rates were hovering around 17%. It was brutal
y time I bring up the economy and how well its doing under Labor, he reminds me. He was seriously scarred by it. Dio
Those INTEREST RATES where when howard was treasure, we moved to a new ho e. 1979 7 and half per.Cent before howke got in,in about 83
Tney where around 12/14 percent.
I know bwcauce i wrote to a liberal senator,
And rang, iask what if any thing could be done,
She said that she wouod be seeing MF o. N other matters and would mention
The plight of you g families,
I have. No idea if this senator did
I. Waited a few days and rang, those days beleive it or not o e actually spoke
To the sen..not the advisor.
TOLD ME TO GET A JOB
Welost tnat house ? I mean. We had to sll
@feeney/1563
What drugs you on RE: Gillard?
feeney @ 1563
[Why would Rudd want to serve, now or in the future, with a lying, disloyal leader like Gillard?
He knows the reality of what is happening in the electorate, and is spending buckets loads of money at the moment to retain his seat.]
To the extent that Rudd is working to retain his seat, I applaud him.
To the extent that you are accusing Julia Gillard of disloyalty, you are allowing prejudice to distort your thinking.
[I hope feeney and confessions both realise they’re feeding the stereotypes held about each of their respective sides in the Rudd/Gillard debate…]
I wish the two of them could take their fight elsewhere.
Carey:
I’d be very happy for feeney to take frednk’s advice back to his local member.
my say @ 1555
Yes, you are correct. That usually occurs when Parliament is sitting or he is overseas.
When he does not attend, his Chief of Staff comes along, or he links up with phone etc, or sends a report.
The meeting I refer to was last Saturday afternoon when Rudd called all branches together to discuss strategies for his electorate, and the ALP generally in QLD.
Rudd was constructive and pointed out some of the stuff that would be thrown at us as a party.
Not sure of number of branches, but there was a turn-out of 50 odd people which is excellent for branch meetings particularly on a weekend!!
victoria
But it was a necessary policy change and it was done in a way consistent with ALP values i.e protecting the vulnerable. The Coalition’s view has always been everyone for themselves
All in all a good day for the government and a shocker for the Opposition.
You done well, Joe!
[ Costelloe was ‘hands on’.
Hmmmmm what exactly were those hands on? 👿 ]
The lever of power. The harder he pulled it the more pleasure it gave him! 😉
To add to that, i vividl y remember the market crashi g arou d 86/
Sep i think.
So all that began when frazer was in high int. I mean
So remind your dad of that
spur212
Necessary or not. It turned people off Labor and Keating was loathed by even the rusted on Labor people at that time. They said he was arrogant and did not give a stuff about the pain people were going through. I dont know how old you are, but I get the feeling you were too young to appreciate this period of time. It set many people back years.
[The Federal Government says Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey has been caught out wrongly claiming the mining tax is paying for the schoolkids bonus.
The Coalition wants to ditch the schoolkids bonus lump sum payment.
Mr Hockey told Insiders the bonus is paid for by a tax that would not exist under a Coalition government.
“It’s funded by the mining tax and there is no mining tax,” he said.
But Families Minister Jenny Macklin says Mr Hockey has been caught out because the mining revenue will not directly pay for the schoolkids bonus, instead it is funded out of general revenue.
“The money for the schoolkids bonus is in the federal budget, it’s already been accounted for,” she said.]
Oh dear. Joe gets it wrong again!
victoria
Remember the “bottom of the harbour” scheme? When that failed, so did my then-OH’s business. There was such a huge number of shonky financing deals going on then, too.
I can understand that it was “the recession we had to have” to reset the buttons. But it was hard, going through it.
And in regards to interest rates, what people forget is they went from 17% in 1990 to around 4.75% in 1993. So everytime the Coalition harp on about low interest rates, they fell by 12.25% under an ALP government over a three year period. And does Keating get credit for breaking the back of inflation? No, he’s just the miserable bastard who put the interest rates up in 1990
meanwhile, Can Doh Newman is doing his best to weaken the LNP cause in QLD. Now sacking 500 trainee doctors.
[HUNDREDS of trainee doctors have not been re-hired by Queensland Health, sparking fears the medicos will be left “driving taxis and washing windscreens” while patients languish on waiting lists.
Up to 500 doctors in their final years of training at state tertiary hospitals were recently sent emails telling them “you have not been selected for a position with Queensland Health in 2013”.
The news has outraged doctors’ groups and comes at a time when patients are waiting up to five years to be seen by specialists before they even have surgery.]
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/queensland-health-leaves-trainee-doctors-out-of-work/story-e6freoof-1226504514577?sv=b307c5710ce6ff94cf9caac04a1956cd#.UIxuHMc184o.twitter
frednk@1567
Yes feeney, go on, tell him all about the parallel universe of PB. He should get a good laugh out of it. 😀
Chris Schacht’s view on SA Senate selections seems to have missed our esteemed media – Wang shafted Schacht does not have the same kind of ring to it. 🙂
lizzie
I have never forgotten that time. We had very young children, mortgage and no job prospects. It set us financially back for years
sprocket_
That is absolutely shocking!
confessions@1571
Absolute garbage. He clearly has a strong support base in his electorate and more broadly in Queensland. The PB parallel universe is not involved in preselections.
spur212
Mortgage rates hovered around 10% from my recollection
I also remember interest rates at 17%, all business development stopped, every cent earned went into paying the bank, we where lucky we got through it. At least when Pyramid failed we owed them money.
For all that I admire Keating for what he did, he opened up the economy, we would be a basket case now if he hadn’t done what he did.
As for the accord, it was an accord, the unions signed up.
Carey Moore@1573
Yes!
feeney ➡ fact based.
obsessions ➡ totally deluded.
frednk @ 1567
Rudd is more and more becoming aware of how Gillard and Swan were whiteanting him during his time as PM. This no doubt explains much of his behaviour.
Out of all this, I believe Swan emerges as one of the chief destabilisers of Rudd’s leadership. Gillard was a passenger but joined in the fun and games a few months before when she thought/knew she could be PM. She arranged her acceptance speech a fortnight before the coup.
Damn them both!! Labor doesn’t deserve to be loaded with them. But they will lead us to nowhere – the buzzards!!
Have found the article from which spur quoted earlier.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/politics-news/keating-scorns-labors-lesser-mortals-who-lack-true-vocation/story-fn59nqld-1226504207091
It seems Rod Cameron’s comments were provided to McKew for her book, and therefore could’ve been made any time in the last 12-18mths. Which is why his blue-collar self employed remark seems so odd now that carbon pricing has been implemented without the sky falling in.
frednk
You and I understood it was for the best. That is why I continued to support Labor throughtout, not everyone saw it that way.