Seat of the week: Grey

The seat which covers most of the geographical area of South Australia has typified Labor’s decline in regional areas by transforming from safe Labor to safe Liberal status since the early 1990s.

Red and blue numbers respectively indicate booths with two-party majorities for Liberal and Labor. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room.

The electorate of Grey has covered the bulk of South Australia’s land mass since the state was first divided into electorates in 1903, and it currently encompasses much the same territory as it did on its creation. The state’s eastern regions north of the Riverland were at times accommodated by Wakefield, but Grey has at all times accommodated the state’s west together with the “iron triangle” cities of Whyalla, Port Augusta and Port Pirie. Labor-voting Whyalla is the electorate’s largest centre with a population of around 22,000, while increasingly marginal Port Augusta and Port Pirie together with strongly conservative Port Lincoln on the lower Eyre Peninsula each have populations of slightly over 13,000. About 60 per cent of the electorate’s population is scattered through the remainder, the strongest concentration being in the rural conservative Yorke Peninsula. The latter area was added to the electorate from Wakefield when South Australia’s representation was reduced from 12 seats to 11 in 2004.

Grey’s industrial centres once made it a reliable seat for Labor, but their decline over recent decades has effected a decisive shift to the Liberals. Labor held the seat for all but one term between 1943 and 1993, the exception being after the landslide defeat of 1966. Laurie Wallis recovered the seat for Labor in 1969 and retained it by margins of 563 votes in 1975 and 65 votes in 1977, surviving on the latter occasion in the face of an unfavourable redistribution, and bequeathed the seat to Lloyd O’Neil in 1983. The turning point arrived in 1993, when the addition of the Clare Valley (since transferred to Wakefield) and the retirement of O’Neil opened the way for Barry Wakelin to win the seat for the Liberals on the back of a 4.3% swing. The Liberals’ position has been strengthening ever since, helping Wakelin to achieve swings of 6.4% in 1996, 1.9% in 2001 and 3.2% in 2004, with a correction of only 0.5% to Labor in 1998. Wakelin’s retirement in 2007 combined with the overall swing to Labor cut the margin that year from 13.8% to 4.4%, but the Liberal ascendancy has since been firmly re-established by successive swings of 6.7% and 2.4% in 2010 and 2013. The member since 2007 has been Rowan Ramsey, who runs a farming property at Buckleboo on the Eyre Peninsula.

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.

1,234 comments on “Seat of the week: Grey”

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  2. zoomster

    Speaking of body parts great news about the stem cell kidney.

    My mother died last week due to inevitable complications of a donor kidney after several years of quality living.

    Good to see some science fiction starting its way to becoming science fact.

  3. Abbott Govt relying on new pamphlet after ditching the one they used in the election.

    The printing industry will do well from this Govt.

  6. It seems that while we wondering where our Leaders were, they were hiding in Peta’s office, creating their 100 days pamphlet. Abbott is now pamphlet-bombing the media.

  7. guytaur

    my mother is currently on the waiting list for a cornea. This will be her third corneal transplant.

    As a result, I’ve grown up valuing the idea of organ donation — but will be delighted to see it replaced by something a little more reliable!

    Knowing you’re waiting for someone to die so that your loved one can benefit isn’t the most comfortable of feelings.

    So sorry to hear about your mother – but at least she had that extra seven years. I know you and yours would have liked it to have been a lot longer.

  8. lizzie

    do you think – when it gets to 200 days – they’ll have to drop the pamphlets into cities from the sky, to try and get their message into enemy territory?

  10. Sheridan has an article in today’s ‘The Australian’ that is interesting.

    …

    [Dr Yudhoyono’s comments are the most positive statement he has made about the relationship since it emerged last month that in 2009 Australian agencies spied on Indonesian targets, including the President, his wife and senior advisers.

    And they were prompted by reports in The Weekend Australian on Saturday that revealed the reason agencies had tapped the phone of Dr Yudhoyono’s wife, Kristiani Herawati.]

    …

    [Since the ABC and The Guardian Australia published intelligence documents last month, stolen by US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden and revealing Australia’s Defence Signals Directorate spying on Indonesia, there has been a crisis in the relationship.

    In response, Dr Yudhoyono and his government demanded a full explanation and suspended many areas of government-to-government co-operation, including help in tackling people-smuggling.

    The decision to monitor the first lady, known in Indonesia as Ibu Ani, has been the most controversial part of the spy scandal.

    On Saturday, The Weekend Australian revealed that DSD, which has since been renamed the Australian Signals Directorate, targeted her because she had become the President’s most important adviser, was assuming an important role in government decisions and was playing a broader role in Indonesian politics.

    There was also speculation she could become a presidential candidate herself as part of a plan to create a family dynasty.

    A secret cable written by the US embassy in Jakarta in late 2007 said: “Indonesia’s first lady had expanded her influence with the palace and emerged as the President’s undisputed top adviser.”

    The Australian agencies were also interested in the linkages between the Indonesian government and important Islamic movements within Indonesia at a time when three Australians had been killed in the twin hotel bombings in Jakarta in July 2009 and notorious bomber Noordin Mohammad Top was still on the run.

    The diplomatic cables and other sources cited in The Weekend Australian did not disclose any improper or worrying actions by Indonesia’s first lady.

    Dr Yudhoyono read The Weekend Australian’s coverage on Saturday in Tokyo, where he was at a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian nations.

    The Indonesian ambassador to the US, Dino Djalal, who was also a target of the DSD phone intercepts in 2009 and is a close confidant of the President, was also in Tokyo for the meeting.

    Dr Yudhoyono instructed Dr Djalal to ring me to convey the President’s personal reaction to the stories. Dr Djalal checked with Dr Yudhoyono that these remarks could be publicly attributed to the President. The President said he found elements of The Weekend Australian’s coverage showed balance and that there were some positive aspects of the coverage.

    Dr Yudhoyono also pointed out that it was he, as President in 2005, who first moved to elevate the Indonesia-Australia relationship to the higher plane it has existed on in recent years. Since that time, he said, he had worked consistently to improve the relationship between the two countries.

    He said the dispute over the spying story had hurt him personally. The President said he was determined to repair the relationship and would work towards a solution. This needs to happen through the steps the two nations had agreed on. It also needed to happen in a way that satisfied his domestic needs.

    Dr Yudhoyono, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term in the presidential elections in July, said he was a committed democrat and was determined to leave a positive, democratic legacy for Indonesia.

    The President’s personal intervention, in the wake of The Weekend Australian’s reports, is extremely unusual and indicates that he is continuing to give high-level and sustained attention to the relationship.

    It is also significant that he used his ambassador to the US to convey his message to The Australian. Dr Djalal was the presidential spokesman for six years until 2010, when he became ambassador in Washington.

    He has remained extremely close to the President and is returning to Jakarta full-time in January to run for the presidential nomination in the President’s Democratic Party. The President has not endorsed a candidate in that party primary.

    The positive tone of his remarks also indicates that Dr Yudhoyono, within the constraints of Indonesian politics, remains a committed friend of Australia, and sees the intimate relationship as an important part of his legacy.

    Tony Abbott has frequently described Dr Yudhoyono as a “great president of Indonesia” and “a great friend of Australia”.

    The next step in the repair of the relationship will come when the Abbott government sends to Jakarta this week a proposed text for the “joint understanding” Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and her Indonesian counterpart, Marty Natalegawa, agreed to negotiate.

    The Indonesians proposed a six-step process to recover the relationship, starting with a meeting of the foreign ministers, who would then prepare a report for the two leaders.

    The third step involves drafting a joint understanding likely to reprise the mutual commitments the nations made to each other under the Lombok Treaty on mutual security.

    It will also contain agreements on co-operation on intelligence and cyber-security matters, and a commitment that the two nations will not use their resources to harm each other.

    After this has been finalised, the next steps involve the two leaders formally agreeing to it and probably signing it.

    Then relations can be fully normalised again.]

    Some points:

    (1) ‘The Australian’ and Sheridan as heroes. But they have yet to explain how the Australian came to be in possession of intelligence secrets which are normally covered by several Acts of Parliament. Publication of same is normally speaking, criminal behaviour. I look forward to Brandis annoucing a formal enquiry into what looks to have been a deliberate crime. He is usually quick off the mark on ordering AFP investigations into Australian spooks who offend the sensibilities of people like Downer in relation to the Liberal use of government facilities to engage in commercial spying.

    Failing that, perhaps the Senate might care to instigate a Senate enquiry into the matter.

    (2) Was publication of this information an attempt to blackmail SBY? In other words, was the publication intended to demonstrate that DSD/ASD, the Abbott Government knows stuff that SBY and his wife would not want to make public?

    (3) Why does Sheridan continue to fail to acknowledge that the behaviour of Abbott, Bishop and Morrison was a major contribution to the way in which the spy scandal went from being difficult to being a shocker?

    (4) Why does Sheridan continue to deny that Abbott Government policies represented a direct and real threat to Indonesian sovereignty?

    (4) Since the events in this story, Abbott has made his ‘unhelpful’ intervention. There are two possible scenarios. The first is that, despite what would have to be the PMO co-ordinating the leaks of state secrets Abbott has yet again jumped off the rails. The second, possibly more likely if there is a bit of international blackmail going on, is that Abbott is upping the pressure on SBY.

    (5) Despite repeated assertions that the Abbott Government does not discuss intelligence matters, the Abbott Government has now, at the very least condoned, and almost certainly co-ordinated the release of detailed intelligence material that confirms that Australia did spy on SBY and his wife. Tellingly, there are no calls from the AG to pursue the ‘villains’ from ASD who have released these details.

  12. Surprise No 48. Despite repeated assertions that the Abbott Government does not discuss intelligence matters, the Abbott Government has now, at the very least condoned, and almost certainly co-ordinated the release of detailed intelligence material through ‘The Australian’ that confirms that Australia did spy on SBY and his wife. Tellingly, there are no calls from the AG to pursue the ‘villains’ from ASD who have released these details.

  13. The Oz world according to Tony.
    “It’s the ABC’s fault.”
    “Bloody Indonesians”.
    “It was the ALP wot dunnit”.

    Will the public buy it?

  14. Zoomster

    Yes of course I realise that owning the intellectual property can bring in lots of cash but:

    1. Australia has historically been bloody awful at this (black box anyone, and it will be a very brave person who sees this as our future.
    2. Sale of intellectual property is wealth generating FOR A FEW and is a little like the entertainment industry – a select few get fabulously wealthy and to the extent it “trickles down” it is in low paid service jobs – cleaning and food preparation, not middle income jobs. This is not any any real sense a replacement for high end manufacturing.

    3. I truly doubt the idea that sale of intellectual property brings in more LONG term than production. What this sort of thinking does is to ignore the costs on the consumer of import etc, as well as the revenue to government from taxes etc.

  15. Vic

    [The Napthine government has blocked a Senate order to produce documents on the multibillion-dollar east-west tunnel project, saying it would damage federal-state relations.]

    Someone’s lips are moving.

  16. Daretotread.

    I agree with your take from the Gittins article.

    When I read it the other day I kept thinking there must be something edited out, like the bit where he tells us where this cornucopia of jobs for retrenched manufacturing workers is coming from.

    Maybe they can all work at drop-in centres for GM employees put on the scrap heap? Or perhaps get jobs at Centrelink?

    Exciting times ahead for them.

  17. The pamphlet drop over cities will come at the 200 day mark, after the ‘Government’ discovers that the 100 days brochure didn’t work. It will probably say something like “Repent ye sinners! Tony is the Son of God.”

  20. Will the public buy it? Not everyone but many will. Abbott will have the support and protection of the Murdoch empire, so he is probably banking that 50% + x will buy it.

  22. Boerwar

    It could very well be a blackmail of sorts. Ie. start cooperating, or we will divulge more information relating to the whys and wherefore of the bugging operation. Although, i can well see this course of action backfiring. If anything,it could fracture the relationship between the countries further, and the only way it will get back on track is when Abbott and his flunkies leave the field.

  25. BB

    They can get job as letter box delivers: that $350,000 Paean of Bullshit for the Dear Leader has to get into letter boxes somehow.

    Speaking of Dear Leaders, Abbott’s Uncle had better watch out.

  28. Guytaur

    So sorry to hear of your mother, but at least she and the family were given extra time together

    My friend who had the liver transplant may have to go back onto the program unfortunately.

  33. Further daretoread’s comments.
    Australia is woeful at turning intellectual property into production. As well as the black box flight recorder those same Australian engineers developed the twin tail crop duster used everywhere, we developed solar panel technology then have effectively banned its use to protect the revenues of coal fired power stations.

    I think CSL and Cochlear will be vulnerable to the TPP arrangements, as I think US firms want to break into CSL’s plasma business. The factory workers at the CSL plant all have PhDs in microbiology and they must shower and change before they start work, and afterwards if they want.

    I can’t see big burly boofhead factory workers being readily retrained in service industries. However the pictures in the plant of workers guiding robotic arms to position heavy bits of car into place means that there has been no place for burly boofheads in manufacturing for quite a while.

    Maybe the factory workers can retrain as Personal Care Assistants.
    http://www.open.edu.au/careers/community-service—not-for-profit/personal-care-assistants

  38. Bushfire

    I have long thought that Greg Sheridan has a rather wider role than publicly acknowledged. He has a wide and very “foreign affairs” network, just so long as it is in the anti communist sphere, especially the USA and all things Catholic church. I am NOT suggesting he is a spy or any such but rather is a recognised mouthpiece for the USA government and by default the Liberals.

  40. Boerwar

    [Vic

    The Napthine government has blocked a Senate order to produce documents on the multibillion-dollar east-west tunnel project, saying it would damage federal-state relations.

    Someone’s lips are moving.]

    As socrates has been saying, there is something very smelly about the east west tunnel

  45. My mother’s last corneal transplant was nearly thirty years ago, and restored her sight fully (at least for a decade or so). She was able to get a driver’s licence for the first time.

    However, she unnerved me somewhat the first time I visited her after the operation, saying, “Oh, so you are pretty. I thought you must be.”

    I’d spent most of my life relying on her for advice on how I looked!!

  46. Billie

    I assume you are being ironical.

    I have several friends who are personal assistants and feel fairly sure the work would not suit MOST ex factory workers especially the males. Obviously many older women needing care will be reluctant to have a strange male wash their privates and even a lot of old guys will be less than keen. The Personal assistant needs to be able to cook a meal, and clean bums as well as doing general cleaning and assisting in medication and transport.

  48. victoria:

    I laughed at this from NSD:

    [“(Foreign Minister Julie Bishop) has made it clear that she wants gender equality and empowerment to be a strong priority.”]

    JBishop should start with her own government, seeing as she’s a lone female voice in Cabinet.

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