Electorate: Taylor
Margin: Labor 12.5%
Region: Outer Northern Suburbs
Federal: Wakefield/Port Adelaide
Click here for electoral boundaries map
The candidates
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ALEX HYDE Liberal (bottom) KIRSTEN WAHLSTROM LENNY JESSIMAN LEESA VLAHOS |
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Taylor covers Adelaide’s northern outskirts from the coast at Bolivar and Buckland Park through semi-rural Virginia to the fringe suburbs of Paralowie, Burton and Salisbury North in the south, and Andrews Farm in the east. The redistribution has shifted the electorate southwards along the coast, with 2000 voters in and around Two Wells going to Goyder and the area around the Bolivar sewerage treatment works acquired from Port Adelaide, adding 750 voters in Bolivar and Paralowie. The electorate also loses 1600 voters at Elizabeth South to Little Para and 1000 voters in Angle Vale to Light. The changes increase the Labor margin by 1.4%, the Two Wells booth having been the only one in the electorate won by the Liberals in 2010.
The inaugural member when the seat was created at the 1993 election was the defeated Premier, Lynn Arnold, whose existing seat of Ramsay had passed on to Mike Rann, previously the member for abolished Briggs. Arnold remained in the leadership after his election defeat on the understanding that it would be a temporary arrangement, and quit parliament in September 1994. The ensuing by-election was won by the Right-backed Trish White, who went on to serve as a minister for three years after the election of the Rann government in 2002. White bowed out at the 2010 election and was succeeded by Leesa Vlahos, a former state party assistant secretary and head of its fundraising arm SA Progressive Business. Vlahos reportedly enjoyed the backing of Don Farrell, potentate of the Right faction Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association and later a Senator. Vlahos was favoured by the Right for a promotion to cabinet in the January 2013 reshuffle, but Jay Weatherill instead the position go to Tony Piccolo, in part with a view to shoring him up in his marginal electorate of Light.
All post-redistribution margins are as calculated by Jenni Newton-Farrelly of the South Australian Parliamentary Library. Corrections, complaints and feedback to William Bowe at pollbludger-at-bigpond-dot-com. Read William’s blog, The Poll Bludger.