Seat of the week: Boothby

Another trip through a South Australian federal electorate to mark the looming state election – this time the southern coastal suburbs seat of Boothby, a nut Labor is never quite able to crack.

Blue and red 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 southern Adelaide electorate of Boothby covers coastal suburbs from Brighton south to Marino, extending inland to the edge of the coastal plain at Myrtle Bank and the hills at Belair, Eden Hills, Bellevue Heights and Flagstaff Hill. The seat’s Liberal lean is softened by the area around the defunct Tonsley Park Mitsubishi plant, the only part of the electorate with below average incomes and above average ethnic diversity. It has existed without interruption since South Australia was first divided into electorates in 1903, at which time it was landlocked and extended north into the eastern suburbs. Coastal areas were acquired when the neighbouring electorate of Hawker was abolished in 1993.

Boothby was held by Labor for the first eight years of its existence, and it remained a contested seat until the Menzies government came to power in 1949. This began a long-term trend to the Liberals which peaked in the 1970s, when margins were consistently in double digits. The seat’s member from 1981 until 1996 was Steele Hall, former Premier and figurehead of the early 1970s breakaway Liberal Movement. A trend to Labor became evident after the election of the Howard government in 1996, with successive swings recorded over the next five elections. The swing that occurred amid the otherwise poor result of the 2004 election was particularly encouraging for Labor, and raised their hopes at both the 2007 and 2010 elections. On the former occasion, Right powerbrokers recruited what they imagined to be a star candidate in Nicole Cornes, a minor Adelaide celebrity and wife of local football legend Graham Cornes. However, Cornes was damaged by a series of disastrous and heavily publicised media performances, and was only able to manage a swing of 2.4% compared with a statewide result of 6.8%. Perhaps reflecting a suppressed vote for Labor, the seat swung 2.2% in their favour at the 2010 election, compared with a statewide result of 0.8%. However, that still Labor 0.8% short of a win they had desperately hoped for to buttress losses in Queensland and New South Wales. With the seat off Labor’s target list in 2013, Southcott enjoyed a comfortable victory on the back of a 6.5% swing, which was 1.0% above the statewide par. Labor’s candidate in both 2010 and 2013 was Annabel Digance, who is now running in the seat of Elder for the March 15 state election.

Boothby has been held since 1996 by Andrew Southcott, who first won preselection at the age of 26 ahead of Robert Hill, the leading factional moderate in the Senate. The Right had reportedly built up strength in local branches with a view to unseating its bitter rival Steele Hall, and turned its guns on Hill as a “surrogate” when denied by Hall’s retirement. Unlike Hill, who went on to become government leader in the Senate, Southcott has led a fairly low-key parliamentary career, taking until after the 2007 election defeat to win promotion to Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, Apprenticeships and Training. After standing by Malcolm Turnbull in the December 2009 leadership vote, Southcott was demoted by a victorious Tony Abbott to parliamentary secretary, a position he has retained in government. Southcott’s preselection at the 2010 election was challenged by former state party president Chris Moriarty, following disquiet in the party over his fundraising record. However, Moriarty was heavily defeated, his challenge reported losing steam when Kevin Rudd’s first bid to return to the Labor leadership came to a head in 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.

1,687 comments on “Seat of the week: Boothby”

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  2. Broadbent and other allegedly moderate Liberals have never walked their talk. That is why they are a disappearing species in the Liberal Party room. Voters can smell dissembling BS artists a mile away.

  3. confessions

    Abbott met with Napthine during week, and an annoucement will be made in next week or so re assistance and proposed jobs etc. i suspect it will centre around the proposed tunnel roads in Melbourne. The feds already promised 1.5 billion at election. Probably going to kick in more funding for that.
    You know what I will say to that? Whoopdeebloodydo………

  6. The govt is mute on what it intends to do to create jobs.

    From everything he has said I think it is apparent that Hockey has seized on “infrastructure” as the only answer he has.

    It’s not a bad answer as far as it goes, although his dear leader has made his job a lot harder by preemptively ruling out a lot of good infrastructure in public transport projects and going on about roads and more roads.

    Regardless, I expect Hockey to slash the recurrent budget fairly severely in May, but outline a couple of grand infrastructure projects to replace the drag on growth of the budget cuts. Infrastructure projects probably include Badgerys Creek and … lots of roads, maybe some dams (lol) that can be put “off budget” a la the NBN.

    For roads to be “off budget” they would have to be classifiable as an investment … that probably means toll roads that could be sold off.

  8. Himi

    [I don’t know – proportional representation always seems to me to be somewhat dependant on having a nice big sample size, and having enough seats to apportion representation widely. It might work at a national level, but at a state level it seems like it’d be pulling from a little too small a pool.]

    I don’t see that it would. You could still have single-member electorates and 89 seats — or whatever the number currently is. You could have a threshold for entry of, say 3% of the total division — here QLD — for party status. And you could still allow scope for popular locals, Indies and regionals by the use of the rounding and the threshold and our existing preferential system.

    The primaries in this system would determine the allocation to those achieving the 3%. So Party A gets 36.2% of the primaries and 36.2% of the seats rounded down to the nearest integer. Party B gets 29.7% of the vote and gets the same deal, and so forth. Candidates are ranked by primaries in their seats and the one with the highest primary support is declared the winner of each seat until their party has their quota. Then the next highest on primaries is allocated the seat unless their party has all of its quota. When all parties at 3%+ have their quotas, the rest of the seats are allocated by the OPV method. A governing party might improve its position, or an Indie might well win.

    The advantage of this system is that most members would have to reckon seriously with spoiler candidates, because although their party as a whole couldn’t be harmed, they personally might be. They’d have an incentive to pitch at preferences from their rivals, which would complicate campaigning.

    In this system one’s preferences wouldn’t necessarily end up with a governing party so one could cast them in the hope that they helped elect some plausible Indie. Everyone who voted for a party that got 3% would have at least two representatives — so there would be few wasted votes.

    I’d say this was a definite improvement.

  9. DN: I gave up a long time ago having any sort of discussion with Mod Lib. It doesn’t matter what you do it always degenerates into shifting goal posts and tricky debating points (like the old “but you said ‘always’/’never’, and here’s a single case that disproves what you said so you’re wrong nah nah nah nah you delusional ALP hack”). He/she is a complete waste of time and a bandwidth thief.

    I’m assuming Zoomster et al are avoiding mowing the lawn or going to the dentist or something else unpleasant to find it worth engaging Mod Lib this morning.

  10. vic,

    It was reported as funding support for the second half of the East West transport link.

    One of the turning moments in Kennett’s ascendancy was the night he helped launch Crown Casino all decked out in his white suit and talking sweet nothings to the big end of town.

    It demonstrated to the rest of Victoria that his Government was focussed on Melbourne to the detriment of rural and regional areas.

    History shows that Labor won the 1999 election off the back of rural dissatisfaction.

    So, the point is, funding huge infrastructure projects in Melbourne may not be the huge vote winner for the Libs that they are hoping.

  12. ModLib

    [No they haven’t. How have they condemned ALP policy?]

    What? So you were given a list of dissenting MPs, and you haven’t even bothered to check? Are you afraid that you’ll find out you’re wrong?

    Talk about denial.

  13. GG

    The east west runnel is not entirely being embraced by Melburnians judging from the feedback on talkback radio etc.
    Because the Napthine govt wont release the business plan, and reports suggest that he may not actually alleviate the traffic problems in light of the huge cost to build, there is doubt as to its suitability.

  15. ML

    [Labor has agreed with every Liberal policy, whereas, the Liberal party still doesn’t support rendition.]

    Astonishing. Breathtaking. Well it ought to be.

    Shakes head …

  16. Jackol

    I’m always worried some reader out there might take ModLib seriously for five seconds. I know it’s unlikely, but anything’s possible…

  18. Oh, and while Abbott might not have the vision to see anything “infrastructure” beyond roads, I don’t think even the Libs are brazen enough to claim that toll roads are “productivity enhancing”.

    In order to be able to talk about productivity they’re going to need to be investing in something actually useful … maybe some port facilities or freight rail (because they can’t invest in metro public transport rail thanks to Abbott) or water infrastructure of some sort. Maybe something to do with the mythical “food bowl of Asia” in Northern Australia. Maybe a big canal from North to South…

  19. zoomster:

    You aren’t responsible for Mod Lib’s ignorance or attempted goalpost shifting. And besides, you know that s/he is just yanking your chain trying to get to you respond to meaningless irrelevancies?

  20. The Federal Budget is going to be interesting indeed. The LNP wants to do savage cuts. Dismantle Medicare etc.

    However business has publicly warned against deep cuts and it looks like the WA Senate vote earliest will be may.

    How far is desire going to override reality?

  21. zoom, Jackol
    It’s my policy to take everyone seriously, or at least give them the benefit of the doubt. A deliberate choice. Being fooled on an internet forum is not of such significance that I will change my mind.

  24. confessions

    At this stage, i am unsure if State Labor can retain power here in Vic come November.
    I know the seats are evenly balanced at present, and the polls favour Labor, , but having Napthine in charge appears to have stemmed the tide.
    This is despite all the job losses, and the drama surrounding Mr Shaw.

  25. Oops … Just noticed that in my post on page 1 on El Hierro’s move to energy self-sufficiency, autocorrect “corrected” diesel to “dries” … Kind of amusing really.

  28. It’s bloody obvious. The Liberals’ right to dissent, which the meeja obligingly focuses on in the abstract when an anti ALP swipe’s required, is a lot like your Granny’s best china. Up there out of reach on the top shelf, to be pointed to & admired but never actually USED. It gets them by.

  34. Whew. So pleased to find that that idiot who used his present height as an analogy for climate change IS from the US. He also has a grand total of 45 followers.

  36. victoria:

    That is interesting. I would’ve thought Frankston voters would be champing at the bit to toss him after his behaviour.

  37. And of course if Hockey does kick off government funding of infrastructure projects I fully expect two things:
    * the media to scrutinize the projects for budget overruns, failure to meet deadlines, waste of any sort above about 6%, and give the government the full BER “school halls” treatment.

    * if, heaven forbid, anyone is injured or killed in the construction of any roads or airports or ports that the government is funding in any way, a royal commission will be called to find out what went wrong with government decision making and give the families closure.

    Hah. Who am I kidding?

  38. Jackol – Infrastructure Bonds is what they have been hinting at for sometime, probably with some kind of government guarantee attached for bond holders.

    Moral risk on dodgy projects?

    Sorry about that, ‘morals’ are nothing to this mob of tories.

  39. victoria@124

    confessions

    At this stage, i am unsure if State Labor can retain power here in Vic come November.
    I know the seats are evenly balanced at present, and the polls favour Labor, , but having Napthine in charge appears to have stemmed the tide.
    This is despite all the job losses, and the drama surrounding Mr Shaw.

    Labor does not have power to retain. It needs to win power.

    FWIW, I think Labor is on track to win and will win in November unless something dramatic and unforeseen happens.

  40. DN

    [There are worse things – to my mind – than suffering from being overly optimistic in my interactions with other people.]

    There certainly are. There’s a very long list. That doesn’t make it optimal of course.

    Maybe it’s an acceptable overhead for having an earnest exchange of views in which your optimism turns out to be well-founded, or at worst, allows you a conversation from which third parties who are more worthy than your partner in conversation can benefit. And of course, for those of us who see enlightened humanity as holding the keys to a world where people by and large understand what is entailed by the concept of “playing nicely with others” and make an insistent effort to do so, erring on the side of being overly optimistic is probably an unavoidable hazard.

    In each case, one has to make a judgement and risk being wrong in cost-benefit terms. Hopefully, one’s cavity to make these fine distinctions improves over time.

  42. victoria

    find that hard to believe, given his stance on abortion and Frankston.

    There may be a bit of ‘anti politics’ in that (remember how Assange was going to pick up seats throughout Australia, according to polling? Same kind of phenomenon).

  43. [ Jackol
    Posted Sunday, February 23, 2014 at 10:07 am | Permalink

    DN: I gave up a long time ago having any sort of discussion with Mod Lib. It doesn’t matter what you do it always degenerates into shifting goal posts and tricky debating points ]

    Yep it far easier to scroll – but someone always bites the dangling line…….

  44. Andrew Bolt;

    I find it hard to believe that whoever assured Morrison or his staff that most injuries were suffered outside the centre was not lying. It’s no longer possible to believe other assurances now, including claims there was no evidence of anyone having their throat cut.

    My confidence in the information given to date by the Government on this riot is now extremely low.

    Have I awoken in an alternative universe? Bolt being critical of his beloved right wing Liberal Govt.

  46. Will have to press pause…..back in the afternoon, something very pressing to do now I am afraid!

    Be nice….:)
    ======================================

    Cutting Abbott’s grass, foot stool for Abbott???

  47. I am sure that I heard on the news this morning in Sydney that the Government is paying something like $73,000 a week to house the guards offshore from Manus Island.

    Can anyone please confirm?

  49. dave –

    Infrastructure Bonds is what they have been hinting at for sometime

    Yup. I’d kind of forgotten that but you’re right, and it fits the picture perfectly.

    Hockey presumably has been trying to soften up the super funds to buy up these bonds with his recent jawboning.

    Of course it all depends on the projects actually having value from an investment point of view … we wait with bated breath.

  50. victoria@145

    bemused

    I know you excel at picking….

    See my 126

    Yes, read that later. I was a few posts behind and hadn’t refreshed my screen.

    I think public transport is a major issue in the suburbs. The Libs won seats on the back of a promise to fix it and not much has happened.

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