THE POLL BLUDGER
South Australian House of Assembly Election 2006

MITCHELL
Labor 4.8%

Mitchell is located in Adelaide's southern suburbs and consists of two distinct parts separated by the unpopulated O'Halloran Hill area in the centre. The north takes in the suburbs around Seacombe Gardens, while the smaller southern area includes Sheidow Park and Old Reynella. Labor held Mitchell for more than two decades after its creation in 1970, but like so many other seats it fell to the Liberals when Labor was left without a seat south of the Torrens in 1993. Equally typically, it was recovered by Labor in 1997 when Kris Hanna (right) defeated one-term Liberal member Colin Caudell.

Hanna briefly won fame beyond state borders when he quit the Labor Party in January 2003 to become South Australia's first-ever Greens MP at either federal or state level. His stated reasons included the Rann government's policies on law and order and workers' compensation and the broader party's position on Iraq and refugees, but he was reportedly also aggrieved by the elevation to cabinet of independent Mount Gambier MP Rory McEwen at his own expense in November 2002. The move led to the usual arguments over whether MPs have the right to abandon the party that gets them elected, with then-federal Opposition Leader Simon Crean among those calling on him to quit and re-contest his seat. It also returned the government to a minority position it had shaken off with McEwen's appointment to cabinet, which it continued to suffer until Chaffey MP Karlene Maywald came on board in July 2004.

Hanna was an injury litigation and criminal defence lawyer before entering politics, and he has kept himself familiar with the inside of a courtroom through a drink driving charge and a successful defamation action against Wayne Matthew, the Liberal member for the neighbouring electorate of Bright. Matthew had published press releases and letters to the editor in mid-2000 which accused Hanna of "walking away" from a local school council, saying this was consistent with a pattern of opposing educational opportunities. This formed part of a counter-attack against Hanna's claim to parliament that the government had favoured a Liberal donor by paying too much for land to expand Woodend Primary School. The Olsen government made a contentious decision to indemnify Matthew when the action was launched, despite receiving advice that this would normally happen only if it related to a ministerial rather than an electoral matter.

If Hanna hoped his abandonment of Labor would make him a hero figure in the South Australian Greens he was seriously disappointed. His nomination to head the ticket for the Legislative Council was knocked back, and he failed to win favour among ideological purists in local party branches. Five weeks out from the election Hanna parted company with a party for the second time in one term when he announced he would run as an independent. Mitchell has an ageing demographic and is hardly natural territory for the Greens, and it seems likely that former Brighton mayor Rosemary Clancy (left) will recover the seat for Labor. Initial Liberal candidate Winton Ankor betrayed the party's lack of confidence when he withdrew in October 2005, citing concern over the leadership tensions that were then boiling over. His replacement is Jack Gaffey (right), a Cumberland Park dentist who at 29 is slightly older than he looks.

Voters of an environmentalist persuasion have a smorgasbord of options available to them – Kris Hanna, the only person ever to sit as a South Australian Greens MP; Travis Gilbert, disaffected local party member running under the banner of "True Green for Mitchell"; and the actual Greens candidate, Jeffrey Williams, a former WorkCover manager and current private work safety consultant. Not bad for an electorate the Greens did not even bother to contest at the 2002 election.

ASSESSMENT: Labor retain

The one seat which defied the predictions of every punter I know of – with the solitary exception of Poll Bludger commenter Dave S. Searching retrospectively for explanations, most observers marked it down as a side-effect of the election's other great surprise, namely Nick Xenophon's sensational performance in the upper house. Immediately after the election, The Advertiser reported that Hanna had nailed his colours to Xenophon's mast throughout the campaign, having him appear at the press conference at which he announced he was quitting the Greens and pooling campaign resources within the electorate – all of which was news to me. Hanna owes his victory not only to the surprising strength of his own 24.6 per cent primary vote, but also to the Liberals' slump from 38.1 per cent to 20.7 per cent. Having edged ahead of the Liberals, Hanna received more than three-quarters of Liberal and minor party preferences to overcome Labor's Rosemary Clancy by 228 votes.

OUTCOME: INDEPENDENT GAIN (0.5%)