THE POLL BLUDGER
South Australian House of Assembly Election 2006

FLOREY
Labor 3.6%

Florey is a suburban electorate located north-east of the city and dominated by the suburb of Modbury. A negligible change in the redistribution has added 680 new voters in Wynn Vale from Wright. The seat was created in 1970 and was only ever won by the Liberals in the 1993 landslide, when Sam Bass ousted Labor's Bob Gregory. Bass was dumped by a 12.3 per cent swing in 1997 after a lively contest that led him to sue two Labor campaigners for defamation over claims he was partial to overseas junkets. An initial award of $100,000 in damages was overturned by the High Court in a ruling with important implications for defamation law and implied constitutional freedom of political communication.

Frances Bedford (left) came to parliament through what was then known as the Duncan Left faction, so named after leading figure Peter Duncan, a Dunstan government Attorney-General and later federal minister in the Hawke/Keating government. This grouping of Left elements was distinct from that dominated by factional chieftain and recently-retired Senator Nick Bolkus, and has reasserted itself as the Progressive Labor Alliance since Duncan fled to Indonesia in 2002 to escape creditors. The often fluid nature of factional alignments was illustrated in 2004 when Bedford nominated for preselection to Duncan's old federal seat of Makin, in opposition to factional colleague Dana Wortley. This greatly displeased the Premier who did not relish the prospect of a by-election in Florey if she succeeded, although Rebecca DiGirolamo of The Australian reported that her nomination was merely a "tactical move" to influence the outcome in favour of eventual victor Tony Zappia. Ironically, Zappia failed to dislodge Liberal MP Trish Draper at the election, while Wortley's consolation prize of third place on the Senate ticket proved a surprise winner.

Bedford has made good on her Left credentials in government by successfully introducing a bill to extend superannuation benefits to same-sex couples, and threatening at one point to follow Kris Hanna's example and quit the Labor Party in protest against tough law-and-order policies (at least according to Crikey). She came under heavy fire in 2001 when the Liberals branded her a "workplace bully" after disputes with two former employees, and was incidentally involved in the Ashbourne affair by virtue of having employed Gary Lockwood, who once upon a time had been state president of the DLP. Lockwood told a parliamentary inquiry in late 2005 that he heard former deputy leader Ralph Clarke say board appointments were offered to him on the understanding that he drop a defamation action against Attorney-General Michael Atkinson. He also accused Atkinson of trying to secure his dismissal by bullying both Bedford and his other part-time employer, Torrens MP Robyn Geraghty.

A poll of 440 voters published in The Advertiser on December 12 showed Bedford had little to worry about, with Labor ahead 42 per cent to 32 per cent on the primary vote and 57-43 on two-party preferred. The apparently struggling Liberal candidate is Pat Trainor (right), a member and former pastor with Paradise Assemblies of God church. Trainor was also general manager of Coonawarra Gold Facilities Pty Ltd, which was wound up by creditors in December 2005. On Christmas Day, the Sunday Mail reported that the federal government granted the company $433,000 to pursue a grapeseed oil venture despite the fact that the Australian Taxation Office was pursuing it over unpaid taxes and superannuation contributions. The grant was made available through the Regional Partnerships Program, which the federal opposition has persistently attacked as a vehicle for marginal seat pork-barrelling.

Labor has promised to take back control of Modbury Hospital (located in the electorate), which was sold to private operator Healthscope by Dean Brown’s Liberal government in 1995. An anti-privatisation assessment of the hospital’s history under Healthscope can be found on the University of Wollongong website. Concerns about standards at the hospital have been widely reported in recent weeks, with the Sunday Mail talking of "GPs earning at least $2400 a shift" to "supervise foreign interns at Modbury Hospital after staff complaints of potential risks to patients". The Liberals have put the cost to the government of Labor’s promise at $5 million a year.

ASSESSMENT: Labor retain

The result in Florey was fairly typical for traditionally marginal Adelaide seats, with an 8.5 per cent two-party swing moving it from marginal to safe seat territory. The primary vote swings and minor party outcomes were also pretty normal, with Labor up 9.7 per cent and the Liberals down 5.8 per cent.

OUTCOME: Labor retain (12.1%)