Seat of the week: Adelaide

Kate Ellis’s electorate of Adelaide is a one-time Labor stronghold which has generally been marginal since the late 1980s, although she has enjoyed a handy buffer in the wake of Labor’s strong statewide performances in 2007 and 2010.

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.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

2,009 comments on “Seat of the week: Adelaide”

Comments Page 38 of 41
1 … 37 38 39 … 41

  2. @kazadipapa: The LNP must look itself in the eye and ask “What have we done for Australia in the past 2 years, except scaring the people shitless?” Uh?

  3. [What appears to you to be disloyal is more that I am an independent thinker on a lot of issues.]

    Love it.

    Shorter feeney: ‘I’m an independent thinker which means I’m rejecting the Labor policy initiatives the party in government has delivered, because Rudd no longer leads the party.’

    Hilarious. victoria was right: you and bemused are like two peas in a pod. 😆

  6. bemused

    Thanks for your supportive comments. I seem to be copping it from all sides here today. I have been away from this site for a few weeks. Obviously I was missed.

  8. While visiting met many who are employed in various businesses associated with QLD road building. Many of them are afraid of losing their jobs and are madly paying down debts and building up slush funds. Since the announcement by the Can-Do-Cuts govt that funding will be cut for road projects the businesses they are working for are shedding jobs at a rate of 12 to 15 a week. Don’t know the size of the the business as a whole though.

  10. Boerwar@1847


    I was at a social occasion last night. Lots of people about and was then introduced to a person from Sydney who starting talking about ‘ragheads’ and how the Government was paying illegal immigrants ‘…a fortune…’

    ‘Where did you get that complete crap from?’ I enquired sensitively.

    Astonished silence. Everyone looking at him as if, instead of the being the prophet on the hill, he was a fool.

    He looked like I had clocked him between the eyes. He slunk off.

    How enjoyment.

    Good one Boerwar, I wish I had witnessed it. 😀

    One thing for sure, that stupid Nauru solution Abbott has forced the govt into is going to cost a motza, particularly with those new visas the Nauruans are introducing. $1,000 per month.

  12. Confessions

    It was from the final pages of McKew’s book. It had nothing to do with the carbon price. It was about where the Labor Party is going as an organisation and why it is in the situation it is currently in under the current federal leadership. It starts with McKew interviewing and reflecting on her experiences with Keating and ends with a call for the ALP to return to the middle and inject some passion and belied back into the party.

  15. For Feeney and Bemused SWALK…

    “He shall never know i love him: and that, not because he’s handsome, but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made out of, his and mine are the same.”
    ― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

  17. The problem with that theory on Emerson is that he supported Rudd at the time of the revolt, as mentioned in McKew’s book.

    He has gone over very strongly to Gillard since. But in this he doesn’t differ from Crean. In both cases it is stability and the working relationship rather than the personal.

    I’d take a guess that Albanese is also in that school despite his decision to support Rudd in February.

  18. Funny headline of the week:
    “Anthony Albanese attacks factions”
    If there’s a tougher factional player in the Labor Party than Albo I don’t know who it is.

  20. feeney@1856


    bemused

    Thanks for your supportive comments. I seem to be copping it from all sides here today. I have been away from this site for a few weeks. Obviously I was missed.

    I noticed, so I thought I would lend a hand.
    Not that you aren’t completely capable of dealing with those morons.

  23. And for those who say “that was six months ago” in regards to what I posted from Rod Cameron, I suggest you look at what happened yesterday with Farrell and Wong. This is a systemic problem with the party, not just some issue as to who should lead the party to the next election

  26. Ros Bates is simply complying with FWA leave provisions. She has a very conveniently provided medical certificate exempting her from attending work.

  31. newsroom is a brilliant show. I watch love that first scene in the first episode speaking to the students. lol

  33. GD

    Emerson has a very bad relationship with certain people from the union movement (I believe they threatened his preselection at one point). It’s more of a jump on the bandwagon thing with him. Top minister who’s gotten screwed by the system a lot of times

  34. Rossmore@1865


    For Feeney and Bemused SWALK…

    “He shall never know i love him: and that, not because he’s handsome, but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made out of, his and mine are the same.”
    ― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

    So your obscure point is?

  35. [feeney
    Posted Sunday, October 28, 2012 at 8:43 pm | Permalink
    …
    I am a loyal member of the ALP
    …]

    Seems to be the standard line of those hanging sh** on the current leadership group.

  37. Psephos @1868,

    A question if I may from a outsider looking in.

    What do you think the SA labor party branch would think about Albo from NSW putting his nose into their states party dealings ?

    Cheers.

  38. Doyley @ 1850

    Thank you for those courteous and thoughtful comments.

    As I recall it, you referenced friends of yours who had had some association with Rudd at some time or other, and their opinion of him was, well, not very flattering. That may well be so.

    I’m not suggesting, and have never suggested, that ALP membership gives you superiority over others when expressing views.

    What it gives me is knowledge of how the party operates, how policy is made, and how these bloody factions are doing untold harm to the party. Good men and women are being denied preselection as they don’t belong to factions.

    I am a decent, real Labor supporter and will always be.

    So suck that up, grub!

  42. spur:

    Interesting that I asked you for a link to the article you cited and you refusede.

    Now that I’ve read the article in its entirety you move the goal posts to the book.

    Unsurprisement.

    But remember this: in the lead up to carbon pricing being implemented OM ran its hardest against it, with Ruddstoration at a premium. If Cameron’s comments come from this time, then it’s no wonder he raises blue collar SBEs as the latest anti Gillard attack.

  43. I was further out than Yarrawonga at the social event.

    The first 8 country folk in a row I asked did not think AGW was real. The 9th said, wtte, ‘So what if it is?’ and The 10th wanted to know how the scientists knew that a deus ex machina would not arrive and destroy their scientific theory, so why do anything?

    Brand government, btw, has been thoroughly trashed.

    It struck while listening to all this that the UK Government might actually be paying for having trashed brand government so thoroughly while in opposition.

    Trashing brand government may well have some systemic blow back for all parties.

  45. [And for those who say “that was six months ago” in regards to what I posted from Rod Cameron, I suggest you look at what happened yesterday with Farrell and Wong. This is a systemic problem with the party, not just some issue as to who should lead the party to the next election]

    FFS these are the arguments you have in oppostion, not govt! What part of united, looks like an adult govt are you not getting?

  50. frednk@1885


    feeney
    Posted Sunday, October 28, 2012 at 8:43 pm | Permalink
    …
    I am a loyal member of the ALP
    …


    Seems to be the standard line of those hanging sh** on the current leadership group.

    Still no answer to my question asked more than 3 hours ago and repeated several times.
    “How many members do you get along to your branch meetings?”

Comments Page 38 of 41
1 … 37 38 39 … 41

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *