THE POLL BLUDGER
South Australian House of Assembly Election 2006

GILES
Labor 5.3%

Giles covers the entire western half of South Australia minus a narrow band of Great Australian Bight coastal territory that includes the Eyre Highway, which the redistribution has shifted to Flinders. Its major population centre is the industrial town of Whyalla, whose blue-collar voters make it the only non-metropolitan seat held by Labor. Whyalla was an electorate in its own right until 1993 when population decline required the addition of vast outback areas, making the existing name inappropriate. The seat had a long history as a Labor stronghold and was held by Deputy Premier Frank Blevins at the time it was abolished. Blevins narrowly held Giles in the face of the 1993 election landslide, and Labor easily held the seat when he retired at the 1997 election. Population decline has continued all the while, and the seat went into the recent redistribution with the lowest enrolment in the state. Almost 3000 voters have been added in strongly Liberal-leaning areas, garnishing Labor's margin by a considerable 4.5 per cent. The electorate's share of the Spencer Gulf coastline has been extended to include Franklin Harbour District Council and Kimba District Council (formerly in Flinders), and the Shire of Flinders Ranges just north of Port Augusta has been assumed from Stuart. The countervailing transfer of the Eyre Highway coast west of Ceduna to Flinders looks significant on the map, but only affects 297 voters.

Labor's member since 1997 has been Lyn Breuer (left), a former TAFE lecturer in women's studies (for which you wouldn't think there would be much demand in Whyalla) with links to the SA Education Union. Her effortless combination of country-style straight-talking with inner-city political views was best demonstrated during a parliamentary debate on the definition of marriage in May 2004, in which she asked members to spare her "this bullshit about sanctity of marriage". Breuer argued that many people (including "a dozen in this place now") did not take their marriage vows seriously and were "rooting as hard as they can go wherever they can and as often as they can". Isobel Redmond, member for Heysen and unofficial Liberal Party "minister for fun", called a point of order complaining of language "highly inappropriate in a parliamentary context". Remarkably, this failed to win the support of the Acting Speaker, bottom-pinching Norwood MP Vini Ciccarello. Breuer also went against the grain over asylum seekers, a locally important issue given that the electorate was home to the now-defunct Woomera detention centre. Her brave call for detainees to be moved from Woomera to Whyalla in 2002 provoked a strong reaction from locals including Whyalla mayor John Smith, who had run against her as an independent three months previously and polled a disappointing 8.1 per cent.

The Liberals have nominated Tina Wakelin (right), whose husband Barry Wakelin is the low-profile member for the corresponding federal seat of Grey. Breuer's characterisation of Wakelin as "a recycled wife of a politician" elicited a slightly overheated response from the Liberal camp.

The electorate's usefulness as a high-grade nuclear waste dump and not much else (cue death threats from the Iron Knob Progress Association) continues to shape local politics, despite the federal government ruling out Woomera as a possible site for a proposed radioactive waste facility in 2003. That's not enough for locals and the state government, who want waste being held on a temporary basis at Woomera returned to the state of origin - mostly New South Wales, it being home to Lucas Heights. In August 2005 the government made a timely decision to fully subsidise Whyalla's bus service for the next two years, making it the second regional city to be thus subsidised after Mount Gambier. Earlier in the year, councils represented on the Provincial Cities Association had cut funding to the services amid grumbling that the government was fully subsidising metropolitan bus services and extending tram lines in the city.

ASSESSMENT: Labor retain

Despite expectations that the coming Labor landslide would be a largely Adelaide affair, the state's second biggest and emptiest electorate came on board with a 9.1 per cent two-party swing. This point of comparison makes Graham Gunn's achievement in holding neighbouring Stuart seem all the more impressive. The swing was particularly strong in the Labor stronghold of Whyalla, perhaps indicating a recovery of votes lost in 2002 due to Lyn Breuer's stand on the housing of Woomera detainees. For some reason, Coober Pedy bucked the trend to swing 0.8 per cent to the Liberals.

OUTCOME: Labor retain (14.4%)