Two developments in state politics from South Australian, which continues to go unserviced by opinion polls. The first is a change in management in the Liberal Party, with Vincent Tarzia winner Monday’s leadership ballot by eighteen votes to four over Shadow Attorney-General Josh Teague. This followed the resignation last Thursday of David Speirs, who said he lacked the motivation for what he appeared to acknowledge would be a “fight” for the leadership, while also faulting “the papers and the Twitter-sphere” for reporting “speculation based on speculation based on nothing”.
Vincent Tarzia served as Speaker and later Police Minister during the Liberals’ term in office from 2018 to 2022 and has racked up an impressive electoral record in his eastern suburbs seat of Hartley: he gained it from Labor in 2014, saw off the highest-profile of challengers in Nick Xenophon in 2018, and retained it in the face of the government’s defeat in 2022. Both he and Josh Teague are factional moderates, but Tarzia reportedly won the favour of the conservatives, who constituted a “disciplined” block of nine votes. Remaining as deputy is another moderate, John Gardner, who chose not to contest after canvassing support over the weekend, after some initial reports rated him the front-runner. Also not a contender was Shadow Health Minister Ashton Hurn, who has been touted as the parliamentary party’s most promising prospect, but is presently on maternity leave and focused on other priorities.
Speirs did not not attend the party room meeting to choose his successor, and told FIVEaa radio he would “find it difficult to remain in the Liberal Party” if the “two or three people” who undermined him were elected to leadership positions. Labor enforcer Tom Koutsantonis said it was “pretty clear” that Tarzia was among those he had in mind, and Paul Starick of The Advertiser rated it “more than a fair bet” that he was right. The latter further cited a view among “many Liberals” that Speirs would soon quit the party.
Moving right along, the Electoral Boundaries Commission of South Australia today published the draft report for the redistribution that is conducted roughly in the middle of each term. A feature of South Australia’s redistributions is that the commission goes to the trouble of calculating revised two-party margins, a hangover from the days when it was legally obliged to take into account the elusive notion of “electoral fairness”.
The biggest proposed change is to place Port Augusta, which is divided between Giles in the west and Stuart in the east, entirely within Giles. Stuart is to be compensated through a gain of interior territory from Giles and, closer to the orbit of Adelaide, the northern end of Frome, which in turn is to gain the northern edge of Gawler from Light. This turns Stuart from having a Labor margin of 1.8% in two-party terms to a Liberal one of 1.5%, though it is in fact held by independent Geoff Brock. Brock says he will contest the next election despite the fact that he will then be 75, and resigned his cabinet position in April citing health reasons. Frome’s gains at Gawler make it less safe for the Liberals, reducing their margin from 8.2% to 3.3%, while Giles and Light remain safe for Labor.
Electorally consequential changes are proposed for two marginal seats in Adelaide, both favourable to Labor. One is David Speirs’ southern coastal seat of Black, which is to lose territory in the north to Gibson and gain it in the south from Reynell, cutting his margin from 2.8% to 1.0%. The other is in the northern suburbs seat of King, which Rhiannon Pearce gained for Labor in 2022 with a margin of 2.9%. That now becomes 5.7% with the proposed gain of Craigmore from the Labor stronghold of Elizabeth, balanced by the loss of Salisbury East to Wright in the south.
Can we please keep this thread for discussion of South Australia. The main thread for general discussion is here.
I think it’s fair to say that Speirs was politically a dead man walking after losing the Dunstan by-election in March. As marginal as it was, and the swing was small, opposition leaders who lose seats to the government become vulnerable, especially if there’s ambitious alternatives such as Tarzia (allegedly) undermining them.
Poor Josh. What should I say next I see him? “There there”?
Kirk
He was dead before then. He never wanted the job and acted like it.
Ashton Hurn is their best bet. But only after they lose the next election.
Mali will put Picton out if his misery about 6 months before the election and talk about a new start and fresh ideas.
SA Liberal party changes its leader due to alleged undermining by the MP, who was later elected leader of Liberal party. In NSW, astonishingly did not nominate its people in many councils for coming Council elections. But Liberal party is in good shape apparently.
Ven
Have to wonder if Speirs will quit the party when he returns from Scotland
I met Tarzia in 2018 when I was ‘helping’ Nick X with his il-fated campaign. He didn’t strike me as the most ambitious character, even on his own campaign team! Good luck to him.
Ambulance ramping in South Australia is as bad as the Covid period says Abc article online today.
A view from a South Aussie here. This SA Liberal branch gives the Victorian branch a look of competence compared to this rabble. We talk about disunity in SA but this mob has been disunified since Dean Brown was knifed by John Olsen. Really local circumstances of ramping and cost of living should have the libs competitive here but the lack of visibility and unity by the libs has made them unelectable. The Dunstan loss was a blow but really the death knell for Speirs was skipping the budget in reply speech to go to Scotland. As for Speirs future I fully expect him to go to the cross bench now and probably end up accepting a Ministry position down the line. The other problem for the libs is that they are being attacked from both sides. In metro Adelaide it’s Labor while in the country it’s independents and former liberals.
Chris, is there a takeover bid by religious groups like we see in WA?
Yes right wing religeous people recruited by Alex Antic and others are taking over Liberal Party in SA. That will not help them recover from recent big losses.
Chris, is there a takeover bid by religious groups like we see in WA?
As the above commented yes there is, Alex Antic has done a widescale branch stacking exercise of a number of safe state electorates and also Grey and Mayo Federally. It’s interesting SA Libs have long had the inner city more moderates lead the state party ala Marshall and Chris Pyne but losing Pyne has left a power vacuum in SA that Antic has happily filled. I live in a safe as nails Liberal seat but I know that the country areas are ripe for fresh ideas and that has been offered by Antic
Some thoughts:
1) I genuinely don’t envy someone who is state Opposition Leader right now. It’s a thankless job, you struggle to be visible, you have to contend with ambitious backstabbers, while spinning the plates of competing factions and ideologies.
2) That said, Speirs never had “it.” He’s unremarkable and, while youth can be a benefit, he always seems like one of those candidates a party puts in a seat they have no chance of winning, so they just get one of the members of their “Young” branch to be the candidate. Even if the Malinauskas Government erred enough to be vulnerable, I didn’t see him making it to the election – if that were the scenario, he’d be knifed by a more ambitious member with better appeal.
3) Tarzia doesn’t have “it” either. We’re sort of in the Liberal doldrums, similar to how they were c. 2006. First terms are hard to be in Opposition. They at least don’t have the same problem as they did last time where they had the same stale holdovers from the previous government years and didn’t rally behind a dull former Premier as their leader because they mistakenly believed people would be angry about the previous election.
4) As well as the maternity stuff, Hurn is keeping her powder dry until they actually have a chance to strike the government. She has a lot of the same appeal as Marshall did TBH. And that’s the kind of Liberal leader who wins elections in SA. That said, with the Right taking further control of the party, she might have a difficult time managing it herself, come her time, even if she sings to their song sheet as much as possible, it still might not be enough for them (similar to Turnbull.)
5) On that whole RW takeover of the party, it’s not that there’s behind the scenes factional takeovers that can hurt them with voters (to most, that stuff is basically ‘insider baseball’) or how conservative they are (most voters don’t care about political spectrums), it’s that people like Antic are wearing their hard conservatism on their sleeve when they speak publicly, using very ideological and identitarian terms. It makes them come across and out of touch, and more interested in abstract political battles than issues that matter to voters (It’s the economy and management of the state that matters to swing voters, not conservative bugbears.)
6) That said, if they do go a more conservative direction, they should take a two-step approach to first taking back their lost ground in rural seats and consolidate their base, then they can focus on middle class marginals in outer and mid metro Adelaide, offering a conservative “back to basics” approach, similar to Howard at his political peak. But that kind of building will take a while and I don’t know if they have the patience for it.
Agree with all the above. Tarzia is a dud and won because his is sucking up to the nutter Right the most.
Ramping and health is truly disgraceful and that is what they were elected on. That and Mali in the pool. Ashton Hurn can compete with that, but she won’t until after the next election.
A few health policies from the Libs wouldn’t hurt either.
I know I’ve said it a million times already but I would really like some SA state opinion polling please.
Interesting if Mr Brock.retires then .Labor will win Gillies. And have good chances in Frome and Stuart
Tarzia moving to stamp his authority on the Party by demoting Matt Cowdrey from Treasury and promoting more right-wing MPs like Ben Hood.
https://www.indaily.com.au/news/politics/2024/08/19/new-liberal-leader-reveals-reshuffle
@BMann it may not fit the narrative you are trying to push, however, you might also note that Tarzia has also promoted Jack Batty (making him Manager of Opposition Business as well as a Shadow Minister) – a known Moderate.
In fact, majority of the Shadow Cabinet are from the Moderate wing of the Liberal Party.
I would be amazed if David Speirs is a Liberal by the end of the month after the shadow cabinet reshuffle today. I would say that the ramping issue continues to be a real issue as an article notes all hospitals are at capacity this evening.
@shakka-san The Advertiser has Ben Hood, Sam Telfer and Jack Batty as winners, with Matt Cowdrey as a loser. Not exactly the moderate faction in ascendence.
@BMann – a Moderate Leader, Moderate Deputy Leader, Moderate Shadow Attorney-General, Moderate Manager of Opposition Business, Moderate Opposition Whip – that looks like an ascendency to me!
Just looking at the Shadow Cabinet list, it looks like it is 10 Moderates to 5 Conservatives. Pretty clear majority there.