Seat of the week: Port Adelaide

Keeping things focused on South Australia as the state election looms into view, the latest instalment of Seat of the Week takes us to the state’s safest Labor seat.

Numbers indicate size of two-party preferred booth majority for Labor. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room.

The electorate of Port Adelaide includes Port Adelaide itself and the adjacent Le Fevre Peninsula, including the suburbs around Sempahore and Largs Bay, along with Woodville and its surrounds to the north of the city and, some distance to the north-east, a stretch of suburbs from Parfield Gardens north to Salisbury North, which are separated from the rest of the electorate by the Dry Creek industrial area. A very safe seat for Labor, its margin after the 2013 election was 14.0%, pared back from a redistribution-adjusted 20.9% by a 6.9% swing to the Liberals.

Port Adelaide was created with the expansion of parliament in 1949 from an area that had previously made Hindmarsh a safe seat for Labor. Such was Labor’s strength that the Liberals did not field candidates in 1954 and 1955, when the only competition for Labor came from the Communist Party. Rod Sawford assumed the seat at a by-election in 1988 upon the resignation of the rather more high-profile Mick Young, who had been the member since 1974. With Sawford’s retirement at the 2007 election the seat passed on to Mark Butler, the state secretary of the Left faction Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union and a descendant of two conservative state premiers: his great- and great-great-grandfathers, both of whom were called Sir Richard Butler.

Butler quietly established himself as a rising star over Labor’s two terms in government, winning promotion to parliamentary secretary in June 2009 and then to the junior ministry portfolios of mental health and ageing after the 2010 election. The latter promotion came despite his noted hesitancy in jumping aboard the Julia Gillard bandwagon during the June 2010 leadership coup. Butler was elevated to cabinet in December 2011 when social inclusion was added to his existing responsibilities, and he further gained housing and homeless in the February 2013 reshuffle which followed the departure of Nicola Roxon and Chris Evans. He remained solidly behind Gillard when Kevin Rudd challenged her for the leadership in February 2012, but emerged among the decisive defectors to the Rudd camp ahead of his successful leadership bid in June 2013. The subsequent reshuffle saw him promoted to environment and climate change, which he retained in the shadow ministry following the election defeat.

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.

581 comments on “Seat of the week: Port Adelaide”

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  1. [
    leon
    Posted Sunday, January 26, 2014 at 4:47 pm | Permalink

    Sadly Victoria the Australian flag is now identical to the Boganian flag.
    ]
    But, can Australia have it back one day of the year.

  2. A reminder for non Sandgropers of earlier anti Emperor protests over his shark policy held in his heartland.

    [Thousands of Western Australians gathered at Cottesloe Beach on Saturday morning to protest the state government’s controversial shark mitigation program.

    The crowd, estimated to be more than 4000, braved the windy conditions to condemn the program, which will see baited drum lines placed one kilometre offshore at Ocean Reef and Mullaloo, Trigg and Scarborough, Floreat and City Beach, Cottesloe and North Cottesloe and Port and Leighton beaches.]

    http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/thousands-gather-at-cottesloe-beach-to-protest-shark-kill-policy-20140104-30amo.html

  3. himi:

    I don’t get it either. Gillard always looked professional and presentable, which is all that can be asked of any public figure.

    What people were arguing this morning was really personal preferences, which are always going to be diverse, and quite frankly, irrelevant.

  4. I actually don’t think the WW photoshoot mattered. It was actually pretty innocuous and, under normal circumstances, nobody (except the usual suspects) would care if a leader posed for such a thing. It just happened to be that Gillard was in complete freefall, losing control of her leadership and losing supporters everywhere, that everything she did (including the photoshoot) was reacted to with disapproval and disgust.

  8. [ deblonay

    Posted Sunday, January 26, 2014 at 5:17 pm | Permalink

    Poroti/Boerwar
    _______________

    You’r both right re a Gulf War
    ]

    ——————————————————-

    Just watched an excellent documentary by war news watcher Danny Schechter exposing the media’s complicity with the US military in its reporting of the Gulf War

    It was enitled “WMD -Weapons of Mass Deception” as part of a 3DVD package “War On Iraq” ( other 2 parts – Truth,Lies and Intelligence ( lots on Andrew Wilkies ‘whistlelblowing’ – and Outfoxed – Rupert Murdochs use of his news empire as a propaganda machine for the Bush admin. )

    ….. I had to laugh when the original code-name for the attack was *Operation Iraqi Liberation* till someone realised that could be reduced to OIL …. so it was changed to *Operation Iraqi Freedom* ……

  9. Leon

    Good to hear you have looking after the Maggies. I have a few loving around the park near my house, fascinating birds to watch with their antics.

    this is about the first time this summer I have had the cricket on for any length of time. I decided early in the Teat series that the Channel nine crew were too much and that lead into not taking much notice of the one dayers. I watched the end of the tour down under and left the TV on.
    Not really that interested beyond noticing that Michael Slater is as silly today as he was on day one of the first test back in November.

  10. badcat

    [Rupert Murdochs use of his news empire as a propaganda machine for the Bush admin.]
    Ya mean 170 odd ,totally independent, Murdoch editors around the globe on the eve of the war declaring it was all good was not a coincidence ? 😆

  11. I’ll never forget Colin Powell’s remote sensing ‘proof’ of WMDs. I was with a small group of remote sensing experts when it was broadcast.

    They called ‘bullshit’ straight away.

  13. Boerwar

    I too remember powell’s WMD presentation. I doubt he has that one on a DVD for when he is mulling over great moments in his career.

  14. [Hard to tell but my guess is that it mirrors the “locals” reaction in the NT when the regular as clockwork calls for culling crocs pop up. Real click bait stuff up there. The locals are very much against it.]

    Until the crocs start turning up on the local beaches. 😉

  15. poroti@97

    himi

    Numbers have built up a lot in the NT , crocs and peoples, in recent years.I was up there for a few years from the mid 2000′s . Any attack/death inevitably resulted in such calls. It was a big surprise to me that the local radio callers , NT News comments sections and the people I worked with were heavily on the croc’s side.

    I left to study down south in ’99 – it’s great to know that the numbers are up, and that there’s plenty of support for them to stay up. Not so great for the people taken (I imagine still mostly young Aboriginals from communities, sadly), but it’s definitely the same scenario as the sharks – it’s their territory, if someone makes the mistake of entering it they may have to wear the consequences.

    The acceptance of crocs as a fact of life had become a mark of being a Territorian. It was those bloody namby pamby Southerners who wanted to cull them.

    heh – as it should be 😉

    himi

  16. Reminds me of the old Roper River Classic.

    A group of Aborigines are fishing from the bank of the Roper and a Down Souther comes along. He wants to go swimming so he asks the locals whether there are any salties about.

    ‘No mate, not salties around here.’

    So he goes for a swim. As he splashing around, one of the locals says,

    ‘Hey mate you want to be careful of the sharks.’

  18. The US acted very quickly to go to war with Iraq.

    Hans Blix was on the verge of declaring Iraq WMDs free. He requested just two more weeks to make it all official.

    Of course they didn’t give him the two weeks, the matter was far too urgent, urgent to go to war.

    I get the impression Blair probably regrets it but Howard would never lose any sleep over it.

  21. Boerwar

    It was when I lost faith in the 4th estate and started to believe in the 5th . Every “proof” offered up by Shrub, Blah and the Rodent, all faithfully reported in Mordor Media, for WMD’s was shot down within a day or even hours on the internet. Niger yellow cake, ,mobile biological weapon trucks , aluminium centrifuge tubes etc etc.

    It is why I believe, Bush , Howard , Murdoch and Blair should be tried as war criminals. Their claims that they relied on “intelligence reports” is shite to the max. FMD the Niger yellowcake bullshit claim was shown within hours to be plagiarised from an Italian student’s essay. But did it stop Howard , Bush and Blair repeating the bullshit ? Shit no they kept on repeating such bullshit and Murdoch’s minions kept reporting it uncritically.

  22. Boerwar@116

    Reminds me of the old Roper River Classic.

    A group of Aborigines are fishing from the bank of the Roper and a Down Souther comes along. He wants to go swimming so he asks the locals whether there are any salties about.

    ‘No mate, not salties around here.’

    So he goes for a swim. As he splashing around, one of the locals says,

    ‘Hey mate you want to be careful of the sharks.’

    A reversal of the one I heard at Weipa where the Southerner inquires if there are any sharks in the water and gets a reply in the negative.

    After he enters the water it is followed by: Naaah mate, the crocs got them all.

  23. Centre

    If Blair has any regrets if is probably only because of the odium he is copping still all these years after. Howard just flies under the radar.
    I remember thinking (hoping) at the time that Blair was too smart to get sucked in by the neocons and would act as some sort of brake on Bush’s ambitions. How wrong i was.

  24. The great WA public is split on the shark cull.

    The government hates the word ‘cull’ and have tried to avoid it by giving it some silly title like ‘shark amelioration program’ or some such like.

    It is generally admitted, with the West newspaper leading the way, that this is a political fix for a political problem. Something along the lines of “We should do something. This is the best we can come up with for the time being.”

    It seems generally accepted that the whole policy is rushed, poorly executed and with no guarantee of success.

    A picture of The Emperor with a big hook in his hand a week or two ago has been viewed with derision.

    Don’t think there was anything in this for Labor only adding to the perception, even such a short time after the election, with over three years to go, that Barnett, if not his government, is probably terminal.

  25. 68

    Section 25 does not actually authorise the states to racially discriminate with voting. It actually punishes them for doing so because it removes the people denied the vote from the states population count for determining how many seats the state gets.

    It is a watered down version of the second section of 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution which is designed to stop states in the USA (mainly in the South) from having representatives for (mainly African-American) voters they are blocking from voting.

    It has been obsolete since 1962 when the last race based election laws disappeared from the statue books in Australia.

    In 1967 the voters rejected the proposal that included removing section 25.

    The best way to get rid of the current section 25 is to switch from population to enrolment for dividing the seats among the states, probably with a right to vote grantee in there as well. This removes the racial wording of section 25 but keeps the protection and expends it to all other categories of person. States with more children and/or non-citizens will no longer get more representation, per voter, than those with fewer.

  27. Carey Moore #104: WW photoshoot was done almost immediately JG became prime minister, not when she was ïn “complete freefall” as you have it. To the contrary, it was done when she was at the height of favourable interest.

    But instead of presenting herself as a leader/woman/authority figure of substance of substance she chose to go the airhead, 30 something makeover look – never recovered from that impression. Kept up the pearls for the whole duration of her tenure as PM.

  28. Just Me@114

    Hard to tell but my guess is that it mirrors the “locals” reaction in the NT when the regular as clockwork calls for culling crocs pop up. Real click bait stuff up there. The locals are very much against it.


    Until the crocs start turning up on the local beaches.

    No one goes swimming in the ocean! It’s either too bloody cold (for values of cold that make me laugh nowadays, living around Canberra as I do now) or too full of box jellyfish. If you want to swim, you go to the pool, Howard Springs, Berry Springs, or possibly out to Litchfield if you want to bother with the longer drive. The beach is for having the odd barbecue, walking, flying kites, and setting off firecrackers on the 1st of July. Occasionally you might try fishing, but they tend to be so flat that beach fishing would be problematic.

    Most of the croc attacks happen in estuarine rivers well away from Darwin – without checking the last fifteen years worth of stats I can’t say with 100% certainty, but it always used to be the case that it was Aboriginals in remote communities, generally either kids or an occasional incautious/unlucky adult who are taken. Occasionally a dumb tourist would ignore the croc warning signs and swim somewhere they shouldn’t or set up camp too close to the river. Even more occasionally a fisherman would get pissed as a newt and do something dumb enough to attract the attention of a croc – evolution in action.

    Far more common are dogs and cattle being taken when they come down to the river for a drink.

    himi

  31. Boerwar/Poroti

    On Murdoch’s support for the Iraq war, I recall reading somewhere that when asked for his reasons for supporting the war he said “how about oil at 25 dollars a barrel?” That worked out well.

  32. rossmsg

    I wonder if Blair was in a position where he could not jeopardise the UK/USA partnership.

    Still, he should have put Bush in his place and told him to pull his head in.

    poroti

    Yes of course, Bush, Blair and Howard should be tries for war crimes.

    They are mass murderers in my opinion.

  33. I get the impression Blair probably regrets it

    That’s not the impression I get. It’s been more than a decade and whenever he is asked on the subject, even though he is no longer in the rough and tumble of politics, all he does is defend his decision. No indication of regrets or mistakes made etc.

    I think he regrets the fact it wasn’t the triumphal, quick, success they pumped each other into believing it would be (the locals will throw flowers at our soldiers’ feet!), and Blair’s “legacy”, whatever that might be, is now overshadowed by the Iraq misadventure.

  35. Damn HTML! Stop confusing me with your crazy angled brackets and forward slashes and stuff!

    (as a programmer, occasional web developer and systems administrator I have no excuse. Sorry everyone.)

    himi

  37. [Jackol
    Posted Sunday, January 26, 2014 at 6:21 pm | Permalink

    I get the impression Blair probably regrets it]

    Not half as much as he would regret it if the people of Fallujah could get hold of him.

  38. [Far more common are dogs and cattle being taken when they come down to the river for a drink.

    himi]

    And, when I lived on Victoria River Downs, the horses.

  40. There were certain well-known risk assessment procedures in the Territory.

    To check for crocs, throw in your neighbour’s dogs.
    To check for cigatuera poisoning, feed some of the fish to your neighbour’s cat.
    To check for poisonous snakes on a foot track after dark, ‘After you, sir.’

    And so on and so forth.

  41. I for one am very pleased Saddam Hussein is a goner and remain unimpressed by the anti-war ‘left’. If Tony Blair and George W. Bush (and John Howard for that matter) don’t regret throwing that evil megalomaniac out of power then good for them.

  42. [73
    rossmcg

    The mystery of the shark cull….

    the shark caught today was a Tiger shark. My son, who takes an interest in these things tells me that the last fatal attack involving a tiger shark in WA was 70 years ago or something.]

    There’s no point trying to hunt tiger sharks. Though they occur all along the WA coast, they are most numerous in the warmer waters of northern WA, where they feed on Spanish mackerel, turtles and sea snakes. They are really not interested in humans at all. If they were, there would be plenty of opportunity for them among the divers working in the pearling and gas industries in waters from Onslow to Broome or along any swimming or surfing beach around the SW.

    If the Queensland experience is anything to go by, about 50 tiger sharks will be killed for every Great White that might also be taken. Significant numbers of other larger species will also be killed, even though they are very rarely associated with attacks on humans. While the Whites do attack humans, essentially they prey on the seals, sea lions and whales which are again becoming numerous along the WA coast. If they occur at all along our coast, it is because they are traveling to or from the Kangaroo Island nursery, and not because they are prowling our favourite beaches looking for a feed.

    As long as there is a breeding population of Great Whites at all, and an attractive in-shore food supply, transient adults will be found along the WA littoral. We don’t really know how many of these ocean-going, pelagic travelers traverse our waters each year. The number may be as low as a few dozen or possibly even less. Setting out to kill them when we know so little about them really puts brutality and fear of the unknown ahead of reason, inquiry and practicality.

    In the event, the WA Government will probably kill one White every month or so and up to 70 other non-threatening animals in what can only be described as the indiscriminate and pointless destruction of rare wildlife, all of which plays in an important part in the marine ecosystem.

  43. [A picture of The Emperor with a big hook in his hand a week or two ago has been viewed with derision.]

    And widely used as well.

  44. rossmcg

    [Just weeks before the invasion, he declared: “The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy would be $20 a barrel for oil. That’s bigger than any tax-cut in any country.”]

  46. [ Boerwar

    I get the impression Blair probably regrets it

    Not half as much as he would regret it if the people of Fallujah could get hold of him
    ]

    ———————————————–

    Not sure of the ‘impariality’ of the source but in todays Pravda :

    Fallujah: US Marines – Further Allegations of War Crimes Surface
    26.01.2014

    http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/26-01-2014/126680-fallujah_marines-0/

    As usual do your ***OWN*** research to verify/disregard whats being reported here ….

  47. Abbott could not look at that women wearing the burka around her head in the eye when he was handing out the Australia Day awards.

    We all know here that I do not like Abbott. Abbott was my most disliked pollie even before he was elected to lead his party by a nose ahead of Peter Reith with Howard third.

    But I believe Abbott truly detests women. I’d like to hear the opinions of body language experts on Abbott’s disposition around women.

  49. briefly:

    In my view the shark cull is just a knee jerk populist response to give the appearance of doing something. Anything.

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