Seat of the week: Makin

Labor enjoyed blowout majorities in traditionally marginal Adelaide seats at the 2010 election, but the Liberals are expressing optimism that what went up might be about to come down.

The north-eastern Adelaide seat of Makin extends from Pooraka near the city to Tea Tree Gully and Greenwith at the limits of the metropolitan area. Labor is especially strong in the areas nearer the city, from Walkley Heights north to Salibsury East, beyond which are generally newer suburbs with more mortgage payers and families, who have helped keep the Liberals competitive or better for most of the seat’s history. The redistribution has added around 6000 voters from Port Adelaide in the west, including a newly developed Liberal-leaning area around the University of South Australia campus at Mawson Lakes along with strongly Labor Salisbury further north. The combined effect has been to shave the Labor margin from 12.2% to 11.8%.

Makin is one of three seats which went from being Liberal seats in the final term of the Howard government to Labor seats with double-digit margins after the 2010 election, together with Kingston in the south of the city and Wakefield in its outer north. It was created with the expansion of parliament in 1984 from an area that had mostly formed the southern end of safe Labor Bonython, the majority of which was in turn absorbed by Wakefield when it was abolished in 2004. Makin was held for Labor by uncomfortable margins from 1984 to 1996 by Peter Duncan, a former Attorney-General in Don Dunstan’s state government. A 4.8% swing put Duncan on the Keating government casualty list in 1996, and he returned to the headlines in 2007 after being charged with fraudulently obtaining government grants for his plastics recycling company.

Duncan’s Liberal successor was former nurse Trish Draper, who emerged as a prime ministerial favourite after strong performances at the next two elections. The swing against Draper at the 1998 election was just 0.2% compared with a statewide swing to Labor of 4.2%, and in 2001 she bettered her 1996 margin after picking up a swing of 3.0%. Draper went on to hit serious trouble in the lead-up to the 2004 election when it emerged she had taken a boyfriend on a study trip to Europe at taxpayers’ expense, in breach of rules limiting the benefit to spouses. She nonetheless survived by 0.9% at the 2004 election, despite suffering a swing which was not reflected in neighbouring seats. Draper retired at the 2007 election citing an illness in the family, before unsuccessfully attempting a comeback in the state seat of Newland at the March 2010 election.

Tony Zappia won Makin for Labor on his second attempt in 2007, and handsomely increased his margin to 12.2% in 2010. He had been the mayor of Salisbury since 1997, a councillor for many years beforehand, and at one time a weightlifting champion. Zappia was widely reckoned to have been victim of his own factional non-alignment when the Right’s Julie Woodman defeated him for preselection in 2001, and a repeat performance appeared on the cards when a factional deal ahead of the 2004 election reserved the seat for Dana Wortley of the “hard Left”. The arrangement displeased local branches as well as party hard-heads concerned that a crucial marginal seat should be contested by the most appealing candidate, and Premier Mike Rann prevailed upon Wortley’s backers to throw their weight behind Zappia.

The move appeared a dead end for Zappia in the short term, as he was unable to win the seat in 2004 whereas Wortley was elected from the Senate position she was offered as consolation. However, he performed considerably better with the electoral breeze at his back in 2007, demolishing the 0.9% Liberal margin with a swing of 8.6%. This was achieved in the face of a high-impact publicity campaign by Liberal candidate Bob Day, housing tycoon and national president of the Housing Industry Association who has since run for election with Family First.

The once non-aligned Zappia is now a member of the Left, and is believed to have backed Kevin Rudd during his February 2012 leadership challenge. His Liberal opponent is Sue Lawrie, who has variously run flower sales businesses and worked on the staff of various Liberal MPs. Lawrie has run several times at state level, most recently as an independent Liberal at the Port Adelaide by-election of February 2012.

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.

1,401 comments on “Seat of the week: Makin”

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  1. And so it’s now off to the flatlands. I wonder what the focus will be on in QT today. Will Abbott’s impeccable judgement (peodophile priest) get a run?
    Have a good day!

  4. Morning all

    Fairfax crisis as journos quit
    BY:NICK LEYS From: The Australian February 11, 2013 12:00AM
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    FAIRFAX’S Canberra bureau is on the verge of crisis following the resignation of senior political journalists Lenore Taylor and Katharine Murphy, who have both been hired by The Guardian for its soon-to-be-launched Australian operation.

    Diary confirmed last night they decided to leave the joint Age, Sydney Morning Herald and Canberra Times bureau, unhappy with Fairfax management. In one week, Fairfax has lost The Age’s political editor, Michelle Grattan, and now Taylor, the Walkley-winning chief political correspondent for SMH, and Murphy, national affairs correspondent for The Age.

  5. shell

    I hope the case wins in court. The MSM has been very gung ho in some high profile legal cases in its reporting. Losing some money might make them think a bit more about such things as innocent until proven guilty and the concept of a fair trial.

  7. victoria

    Wow!! Fairfax loss our gain. Guardian Australia looking a lot more firm with confirmation those two Journos are joining them.

  11. victoria

    Taylor and Murphy have also shown their intelligence in assessment. The Guardian media model seems to be more robust than the Fairfax one for future employment prospects.

  14. I doubt Katherine Murphy is worth the coin but Lenore Taylor is a quality gain for the Guardian. It will be interesting to see what she has to say.

    The Gardian, it seems, is actually going to have a go.

    Uncle Rupert will be unhappy about this.

  15. [I wonder what the focus will be on in QT today. Will Abbott’s impeccable judgement (peodophile priest) get a run?]

    Doubt it BK, Howards support for Hollingsworth and refusal to call a RC were not an issue.

    Gillards calling of a RC is an issue though, seen as:
    political diversion from a struggling unpopular government
    aimed at Abbott and
    done by an atheist who hates christians.

    Seeing the same pattern with the sports doping inquiry starting this morning with breakfast tv where they stated it was a beat up by labor government to divert attention away from its problems.

  16. “@lenoretaylor: Excited to be Guardian Australia’s new political editor. Leaving for new opportunities, not – as Oz claims – due to Fairfax management”

  17. watching breakfast tv this morning reminded me why i stopped watching it, turning into redneck radio on tv with every whackjob who has a beef about the govt allowed to let fly unchallenged.

    i heard they are bringing kev back with joe on fridays.

    won’t that be great, real balanced tv.

    joe saying how bad labor is kev saying what a great deputy pm bishop will make.

    joe saying how there is still time for kev to make a challenge, kev saying he is not seeking the job but will be drafted.

    joe talking about the unity of the coalition, kev saying he is ready to be drafted, he supports gillard, but if the job comes up, party is united, but if the call comes.

    joe praising the talent on the coalition front bench, kev praising the talent on the coalition front bench.

  18. [Will Abbott’s impeccable judgement (peodophile priest) get a run?]

    How about that? Just like every media outlet in the country I’d forgotten that Abbott praised Nastor as a “beacon of humanity”.

  21. “@kjob85: Canberra press gallery spinning further out of control. Judgement of its leaders in question. Who will be next to desert the sinking ship?”

  23. A KEY witness in the Australian Workers Union scandal has told police of being approached by a builder seeking payment for renovations on a home then owned by Julia Gillard.

    This is such old news.

    Are we going to get the same beat up when he tells the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker?

    What an insidious way of doing things. Each time one of these “witnesses” tells what he thinks he knows to someone new we’re treated to a full rehash of the entire story.

    But I did like this paragraph:

    With the Coalition vowing to keep the heat on Ms Gillard in parliament, police have compiled a ‘wish list’ of dozens of witnesses into the fraud that saw up to $1 million of funds allegedly misappropriated.

    Kinda gives the REAL game away, doesn’t it?

    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/witness-says-he-was-approached-by-a-builder-over-payment-for-reno/story-fncynkc6-1226574905765

  28. Morning All

    Very interesting move by the Guardian headhunting Taylor and Murphy – my concern is it will take them time to switch from the OM meme to a new one. We only have 7 months.

    No surprise to see The Age reporting that 7 clubs are at risk of having illicit drug problems – the 3 strikes policy has to go

    http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/seven-clubs-vulnerable-on-drugs-20130210-2e6oe.html

    Kennett on RN talking the issue and focusing on gambling saying the federal government must act – ignores the fact totally, and not picked up by Fran, that the government has drafted legislative changes that address most of the problems. Abbott said No – the blame needs to go where it lies imo

    Noting that calls to ban gambling will only make things worse by pushing it underground – regulation, licensing, account based betting is the answer.

    Good on the Greens for calling out Labor for suggestion toothless changes to the industrial relations laws. I understand Labor is trying to out Abbott on IR but you need to be fair dinkum about it

  29. womble

    You must have missed the meme, according to many in the msm including BOF, the drugs in sport is a political ploy by the govt to divert attention away from “its problems”

  31. victoria @ 1129

    I agree, the government should be navel gazing! How dare they go around doing guvmint stuff and not stick to the ‘guvmint paralysed by chaos’ narrative?

  37. FAIRFAX’S Canberra bureau is in crisis following the resignation Lenore Taylor and Katharine Murphy – only #FanBoi No: 1 Hartcher left

  38. Quite happy about Lenore Taylor joining The Guardian, she was onto Tony Abbott at NPC when the “dramatic” Craig T arrest saved him. K Murphy will do as she is told I would say, she is a lightweight

  41. “@AboutTheHouse: Tomorrow the House will sit from 12pm and Fed Chamber will sit from 4pm – 10pm in addition to usual hours.”

  42. One good sign is that over the last week or two I have read articles by probaly half a dozen journos wondering the the same thing. With luck there will be many more and the message will slowly sink in.

    [Australia is prosperous and well governed. Yet voters are anxious and eager for change.

    If you read or listen to media coverage of Canberra, it’s as though the country is being suffocated by a crisis of political leadership.

    Which is where reality should enter the picture. If this is what a crisis of government looks like, we’re not faring too badly as a result. Australia, after all, is in a prolonged patch of prosperity.

    There is a paradox at the heart of Labor’s current woes. It may be politically weak, but Labor in fact has a solid case for re-election. On any objective measure, the Rudd-Gillard governments have been good governments]

    http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/the-big-paradox-of-2013-20130210-2e6g6.html#ixzz2KXEETpen

  46. Found this on Twitter and thought it very apt for PB.

    [A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject. – Winston Churchill]

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