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| Red and blue numbers respectively indicate booths with two-party majorities for Labor and Liberal. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room. |
Wakefield extends from outer northern Adelaide to rural territory as far as Clare 100 kilometres to the north, with overwhelming Labor strength around Elizabeth and Salisbury partly balanced by support for the Liberals in the Clare Valley. It has existed in name since South Australia was first divided into electorates in 1903, but its complexion changed dramatically when its southern neighbour Bonython was abolished when the state’s representation was reduced from 12 seats to 11 in 2004. Previously a conservative rural and outskirts seat encompassing the Murray Valley and Yorke Peninsula, it came to absorb the outer suburban industrial centre of Elizabeth while retaining the satellite town of Gawler, the Clare Valley wine-growing district, and the Gulf St Vincent coast from Two Wells north to Port Wakefield.
Prior to 2004, Wakefield was won by the major conservative party of the day at every election except 1938 and 1943, when it was won by Labor, and 1928, when it was won by the Country Party. The Liberal member from 1983 to 2004 was Neil Andrew, who spent the last six years of his parliamentary career serving as Speaker. Andrew at first considered challenging Patrick Secker for preselection in Barker after the 2004 redistribution turned Wakefield’s 14.7% margin into a notional Labor margin of 1.5%, but instead opted to retire. Wakefield was nonetheless retained for the Liberals at the ensuing election by David Fawcett, who picked up a 2.2% swing off a subdued Labor vote around Elizabeth to unseat Martyn Evans, who had held Bonython for Labor since 1994. Fawcett’s slender margin was demolished by a 7.3% swing in 2007, but he would return to parliament as a Senator after the 2010 election.
Wakefield has since been held for Labor by Nick Champion, a former state party president, Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association official and staffer for state Industrial Relations Minister Michael Wright. The SDA link identifies him with the potentate of the South Australian Right, outgoing Senator Don Farrell. He nonetheless went against Farrell by coming out in support of Kevin Rudd in the days before his unsuccessful February 2012 leadership challenge, resigning as caucus secretary to do so. As with Labor’s other South Australian newcomers from the 2007 election, Champion had no trouble retaining his seat at the 2010 election, a 5.4% swing boosting his margin to 12.0%. However, the seat has since returned to the marginal zone following a redistribution in which it traded an area around Salisbury for Lydoch and Williamstown east of Gawler, reducing the margin to 10.3%, and a 7.1% swing to the Liberals at the 2013 election, which has left it at 3.4%.
Rex
[Lots of donations coming into WA Libs coffers from the WA tourism industry no doubt ?]
Do you think shark haters are a big ‘demographic’?
Surely with criminal charges against Grocon for Industrial manslaughter Abbott will condemn them in Parliament.
Swamprat – are you a deep green or a light green or an entryist?
Abbott’s PPL will be financed by a 1.5% ‘levy’ on big companies. Now isn’t that a great big new tax on everything? Won’t this be passed on by the companies affected? We know from the sound and fury that accompanied the introduction if the Carbon price and mining tax that big companies will trash the country rather than take a cut in profits, so won’t this be an economy-wide wrecking ball? Won’t medium sized country towns be wiped off the map? Won’t the CPI surge by an unimaginable amount? Won’t there be sovereign risk, with big miners buggering off to somewhere like Zimbabwe where they won’t have to pay the extra tax?
I had a great time today.
At a course put on by the local RSL.
‘Ask Not What Your Country Can Do.’
Today we had Foraging for Seniors.
I just cooked up some nettles and wild onion soup. At least I think they are.
Next week, Edible Insects.
How to prepare in the style of NOMA.
Recommended as tweeted by Tony on his earlier trip, NOMA at Claridges.
Good to see G.G posting again! The healing!
Everything
[Hypocracy could be a synonym for anarchism based on the derivations hypo (too little) and cracy (government).]
I realise i am a hypocrast!!!!
Edwina SJ
I am a hypocrast. Ask Everything.
Steve 777
It’s the ‘Trickle Down Levy.’
After the last page or so of comments, I have just one question for Edwina St John…
…
…
…
…Are you high?
crikey
[Today we had Foraging for Seniors.]
Is that the new Liberal Party work requirements for the pension?
Hockey was actually saying before the election that with the 1.5% levy, the state and federal govt handing over the money they pay for PPL, and private companies contributing to the PPL “pool”, the Govt would have a billion dollars a year left over.
Rex D:
The shark cull was incredibly divisive here. If, as it appears from media reports, the results of the trial have wiped egg across Barnett’s face, then I’d imagine that division to intensify.
I recall seeing comments from several tourism operators in the media opposed to the shark cull. What this means in a broader sense, people can make what they want of it.
Its curious how many people here are still smarting about the fall of the Gillardine and how Abbott won.
It has been 7 months – time to get over it comrades!
It would be a lovely touch of irony, if right now, or within the next two weeks, a couple of “boats” turn up off the coast. Or, perhaps a riot/death at some holding camp?
Would make it a totally damaging period for both the confidence and the appearance of this very poor Federal government we have at the moment.
As an aside, Paul Murray on 6PR had Saul Eslake on his program in which Eslake somehow concocted that with the PPL scheme, by the time the big companies picked up at least half the coast and all existing PPL schemes were rolled into one, that by the second year of the programme it would actually “make money” for the government.
Murray, with his usual Liberal megaphone on, then claimed “the rest of the press have largely ignored this story”.
@2714
Your own post about is in the stage of conflict.
[Its curious how many people here are still smarting about the fall of the Gillardine and how Abbott won.]
It’s curious how many Liberal shills continue to snipe about Gillard in an attempt to ignore the many and varied failures of the incumbent PM, who clearly isn’t up to the job.
It’s been nearly 12 months since Gillard was PM. Time to get over it spivs!
[2668
Everything
Its not welfare, it is a workplace entitlement.]
It’s neither. It’s a fertility bonus to be paid to selected females inversely with their means. Those who are the most fertile and most need a grant will get nothing. Those who are the least fertile and need a grant the least will get the most.
swamprat
[
Do you think shark haters are a big ‘demographic’?]
These pictures in the Emperor’s electorate iconic beach anti shark cull protest suggest not.
ESJ
[Swamprat – are you a deep green or a light green or an entryist?]
You must know, deep down, understand (or at least have a little unease) that current policies and settings to: endlessly pillage the environment and resources, to convert community owned assets to the hands of the few, the indifferent destruction of most other species on earth, policies to massively move wealth and power to a smaller group of elite and powerful people, and the endless vacuous ‘drug’ of the population which is the MSM, is really unsustainable (doomed).
Surely you must have some unease about it? Or not?
Aha! AA @ 2712 must have seen/heard something similar.
At no point did Murray think that the Big End of Town as just going to take it. The deal is a 2% decrease in company tax, offset by the 1.5% PPL levy and the rest made up from the paper shuffling from existing schemes into the new one.
As Eslake pointed out, small companies will get the 2% and not have to contribute to the scheme and somehow the States save money as well.
Of course, that the money would be better spend on supporting parents directly with child care costs was seen by Murray and Eslake as “another argument”.
It would be safe to say, that not one of Murray’s 6PR Red Neck listeners understood any of this.
poroti
[These pictures in the Emperor’s electorate iconic beach anti shark cull protest suggest not.]
wow, i thought WA’ers were like Qld’ers. Sorry i was wrong.
Cheerleaders from all 3 major parties tend to ignore their teams glaring failures…
Al Dente – funny.
I’d be frightened to be high or otherwise on Pollbludger. AA would be the green lizard king, deblonay would be the nasty fairy and swamprat would be the talking stuffed toy!
Now if this were Labor, the meme would be something along the lines of, “The Liberals just can’t seem to sell their policies”. How often did we here the Tory critics (and those so-say Labor supporters) hammer Labor on this very issue when they were in power?
As an independent swampy, I hold no candle for organised politics, I am only interested in moi.
poroti
Here is a wee song from Yew Choob.
http://munguinsrepublic.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/we-didnt-start-union.html
ESJ
[I am only interested in moi.]
Ahh the Moi Party. Famous for their altruism!!
Tony Abbott’s PPL Scheme, like much Coalition policy, seems to take inspiration from the following Bible verse:
Of course replace ‘him’ with ‘her’ in the case of PPL.
Well swampy as Paul Keating used to say – always back the horse called self-interest at least you know its trying.
I hope that ‘foraging for seniors’ course included the perils of the death cap mushrooms that grow so prolifically in the ACT.
What are you going to do next Steve, quote the verse about stoning the sodomites?
On the other hand, foraging for toxic mushrooms could solve Joe’s problem of too many useless pensioners.
@ESJ – 2714… it’s hardly our fault that this Government has been one self-inflicted cock-up after another.
Never mind about worrying about the Labor regime just passed.
Some conservatives go back to Gough Whitlam to blame everything that they see wrong in the country to his relatively short tenure.
In the meantime, the once-upon-a-time-conservative-hero, Malcolm Frazer, is now an embarrassment to these self-same Tories.
Rooster for 8 years, feather duster to them now.
Meanwhile, Tony Abbott has started out 8 months ago, as a feather duster.
[How often did we hear the Tory critics (and those so-say Labor supporters) hammer Labor on this very issue when they were in power?]
And it was put as proof Labor didn’t deserve to be in government.
Classic rule by Press Gallery groupthink.
EDJ in spin mode!
Steve777
One of my always remembered quotes, except for the funny Protestant turn of phrase…. 🙂
[For to everyone who has will be given more, and he will have more than enough; but anyone who has not, will be deprived even of what he has.]
“Let her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of My burial. “For you always have the poor with you, but you do not always have Me.”John 12:8
Is this biblical proof that wealth redistribution policies dont work?
Swamprat and Helen Sykes
crikey
Today we had Foraging for Seniors.
Is that the new Liberal Party work requirements for the pension?
It isn’t yet, but we are READY!
Anyway, it’s only until we are 70.
Plus we picked up any litter and rubbish, hoping to demonstrate our worth as future supervisors of The Young Green Army.
[Is this biblical proof that wealth redistribution policies dont work?]
Wealth redistribution policies of (War Criminal) Howard have worked handsomely to make the rich, richer and the poor, poorer.
So what are you whinging about ESJ?
swamprat
That was most excellent .
Helen Sykes.
I am in Adelaide.
We only have Magic Mushrooms!
yes, it is, thanks poroti 🙂
A new low point/high point tonight when we get have to resort to quotes from the Bible to support economics.
I wonder if a Cost/Effective analysis was carried out by Noah?
I wonder what the fish and bread vendors thought of the Feeding of the 5000 for gratis?
The wine industry/wedding industry would be pretty dark about all this ‘water into wine’ stuff at Jewish weddings.
The Almighty surely has a sense of humour though maybe economics was not his main concern?
Well, Jesus said that tax should be paid, so I don’t think ESJ would have much time for him…
@2746
Abbott promised us that anything over $100 million will be CBA’d….
Actually, come to think of it, the story of the three servants encourages investment…
I’ve invented a new word
I call it plagiarism