THE POLL BLUDGER
South Australian House of Assembly Election 2006

ADELAIDE
Labor 1.1%

The central business district is located at the far southern end of the electorate of Adelaide, which is centred on North Adelaide and extends north to include most of Prospect. The latter area and the city itself lean substantially towards Labor, but they are almost cancelled out by Liberal majorities in North Adelaide and Collinswood to the north-east. Labor predictably objected when the redistribution sent 1148 voters in Prospect to Enfield, adding to existing concerns that high-rise inner-city apartments are drawing Liberals into the electorate (although the Boundaries Commission calculates that the redistribution itself had little impact on the margin).

Labor gained the seat at the 2002 election after a 7.3 per cent increase in the primary vote (assisted by the collapse of the Democrats from 17.0 per cent to 5.5 per cent) and a two-party swing of 4.0 per cent. Amid an otherwise static statewide result, this was seen as a personal victory for Labor's Jane Lomax-Smith (left), then in her second term as lord mayor, over Liberal candidate Michael Harbison, the deputy mayor. The outgoing Liberal member was Michael Armitage, whose win at the 1989 election was the party's first here in almost 50 years. Armitage baled out when a redistribution added some of Prospect and removed some of Collinswood, cutting his margin from 5.4 per cent to 2.2 per cent. He instead chose to contest preselection for the safer seat of Bragg, made vacant by the departure of the politically stricken Graham Ingerson. This met with the opposition of both Premier John Olsen, who naturally thought a sitting member in so crucial a seat should stand his ground and fight, and the party's moderate faction, which threw its support behind state party president Vickie Chapman. Chapman won easily and Armitage exited the stage.

Lomax-Smith went straight into Mike Rann's first ministry in the tourism, employment, small business and further education portfolios, and won promotion to education at a reshuffle in March 2004. Verdicts on her ministerial record have been mixed, and the removal of small business from her lengthy list of portfolios in May 2003 had the Liberals talking up her "demotion". For much of 2005 her nominated Liberal opponent was Unley MP Mark Brindal, who had resigned himself to preselection defeat in the safe seat he had held since 1993. Brindal was compelled to stand aside in August after he admitted to an affair with a 24-year-old man, reported to have had a "mental incapacity", whose foster father he alleged was attempting to blackmail him.

For a short time Brindal kept open the option of contesting Adelaide as an independent, despite an Advertiser poll on September 9 showing only 49 per cent of Liberal voters would definitely have stuck with the party if Brindal had remained the candidate. The poll otherwise had the Liberals in a competitive position, leading 44 per cent to 43 per cent after distribution of the non-responsive 7 per cent and trailing 47-53 on two-party preferred. A more recent Advertiser poll of 473 voters published on January 20 showed an entirely different result, with Labor leading 47 per cent to 35 per cent on primary and 60-40 on two-party. The Liberal preselection conducted after Brindal's withdrawal went to Diana Carroll (right), a former president of the Public Relations Institute of Australia, who was unopposed following the withdrawal of mortgage banker Derek Robertson.

The government is spending $21 million extending the state's only tram line, which runs from the city to Glenelg. This will extend the line by 1.2 kilometres at the city end, from its current terminus at Victoria Square through King William Street to Adelaide train station. The government has also floated the possibility of further extensions to North Adelaide, or even Port Adelaide. The opposition has announced it will scrap even the current extension, a policy which does not strike the Poll Bludger as being much of a vote-winner. Paul Starick of The Advertiser reports that this runs against Liberal policies at the past three elections, which urged either "a tramline extension along King William St or the replacement of ageing 'rattler' trams".

ASSESSMENT: Labor retain

During the redistribution process, Labor protested that the SEO's estimated 1.1 per cent margin flattered them and failed to take into account demographic changes benefiting the Liberals. The outcome tends to favour the SEO's side of the argument, as Labor's 9.1 per cent swing was just 0.1 per cent off the Adelaide average. However, Labor's 7.4 per cent primary vote increase compared with 9.9 per cent across Adelaide, the final outcome being boosted by a 4.1 per cent rise in the Greens vote which neatly matched the amount haemorrhaged by the Democrats. The Liberals still managed to win two booths in the Collinswood area, which were also notable for a Greens vote about 3 per cent off the 9.3 per cent total.

OUTCOME: Labor retain (10.2%)