THE POLL BLUDGER
South Australian House of Assembly Election 2006

MOUNT GAMBIER
Independent 26.6% vs Liberal

The electorate of Mount Gambier contains the city of that name in the south-eastern corner of the state, which includes three-quarters of its voters, plus about 3000 square kilometres in all directions beyond. Unhelpfully, it was known as Gordon between 1993 and 2002. The seat was traditionally held by Labor in the past but fell to the Liberals at the 1975 election, at which a Whitlam-induced backlash imperilled the Dunstan government. The victor, Harold Allison, consolidated his hold over the years and the seat long ago ceased to be considered winnable for Labor.

Allison retired at the 1997 election and it was generally expected that the Liberal nomination would go to Grant District Council chairman Rory McEwen (left), described by The Advertiser as an "experienced political operative", but he somehow lost to Scott Dixon, a self-employed Mount Gambier sawmiller. McEwen contested as an independent and won the narrowest of victories, finishing a few votes ahead of Labor to take second place and then squeaking ahead of Dixon on Labor preferences. That left him among three members holding the balance of power in John Olsen's post-election minority government. He formally pledged to support the Liberals on matters of confidence and supply and was reckoned to be a less troublesome cross-bencher for the government than Hammond MP Peter Lewis or Fisher MP Bob Such.

McEwen continued to hold a balance of power position after another indecisive election result in 2002, but this was made redundant by Peter Lewis's backing of Labor. In November McEwen became the next of the independents to be drawn into the government's orbit when he accepted a specially created fourteenth cabinet post in November 2002, becoming Minister for Local Government, Forests, Industry, Trade, Regional Development and Small Business. The deal included a promise that McEwen would retain a cabinet position after the next election, to the consternation of ambitious Labor members. The only precedent for this that Dean Jaensch of Flinders University could recall was the "Lib-Lab" cabinet of 1905 to 1909, formed when Labor leader Tom Price constructed a majority by enlisting a faction of the then-fragmented conservatives, although Lynn Arnold also formed a "coalition" with independent Labor members Martyn Evans and Terry Groom when he succeeded John Bannon as Premier in September 1992. Jaensch notes that national Labor Party rules specify that "in all parliaments, the parliamentary leadership, the ministry and shadow ministry shall be elected by the parliamentary Labor Party".

McEwen assumed the agriculture, food and fisheries portfolios in the April 2004 reshuffle, giving up industry, trade and regional development and small business. The Liberals have been busily promoting the idea that McEwen and other independents who have joined forces with the government will suffer a backlash from voters who see them as tainted by a city-centric government. A poll published by The Advertiser in early November 2005 provided at least some support for this proposition, putting the Liberals on 34 per cent, Labor on 26 per cent and McEwen on 23 per cent. This raises the possibility that McEwen might not keep ahead of Labor, whose preferences he would need to get ahead of Liberal. The Liberal candidate is Peter Gandolfi (left), who won preselection over Grant District Mayor Don Pegler. Some in the party expressed fears that Pegler, who appears to be close to MacKillop MP Mitch Williams, would join the fray as an independent. Labor candidate Brad Coates (right) is assistant state secretary of the CFMEU's forestry division.

In July 2005 Mount Gambier became the first provincial city to have its calls for a town bus service fully funded by the state government, with the announcement that the existing service would be funded until 2010. This is evidently a sensitive issue in the area – Greg Kelton of The Advertiser reported that it caused McEwen to be "booed as he entered Mt Gambier's Sir Robert Helpmann Theatre for the state's first regional setting of Parliament" in May.

Allan Scott, millionaire trucking magnate and publisher of the Border Watch newspaper, stood down editor Frank Morello in the final week of the campaign after the Border Watch ran a number of articles seen to be critical of the Liberal Party and its candidate. The move also prompted the sudden resignation of Lechelle Earl, the writer of the articles and the paper’s chief-of-staff. Craig Bildstein of The Advertiser that "everyone The Advertiser spoke to suspects millionaire businessman Allan Scott is the chief financier" of a local Liberal campaign that has been "flush with funds", with "widespread reports that the Liberals spent $50,000 on TV advertising between October and January". The paper later reported that it had "learned that Labor candidate Brad Coates last week threatened to withdraw $6000 worth of advertising from the Border Watch because of concerns that the paper was ‘too pro-Liberal’". Earlier in the campaign, the Border Watch conducted a "straw poll" of 100 local voters – presumably conducted at the Mount Gambier Arms just before closing time – which failed to get an answer out of 51 of them. Of the remainder, 23 backed Rory McEwen against 11 for Labor and 10 for Liberal. The accompanying article drew attention to this intriguing insight from Antony Green: "There are reports the CFMEU is putting considerable effort into Labor's campaign in this seat. This would be unlikely to elect a Labor MP, but it might be enough to defeat McEwen by squeezing his primary vote, as suggested by the Advertiser's opinion poll. Given Mike Rann has promised that McEwen can stay in Cabinet if Labor is re-elected, there will be a few Labor factional leaders who realise that one way of creating a cabinet vacancy is to defeat McEwen. If there is a vigorous Labor campaign in Mount Gambier, it is more about internal Labor politics in the formation of the next cabinet than realistic hopes of Labor winning Mount Gambier".

ASSESSMENT: LIBERAL GAIN

The Poll Bludger made three wrong calls in this election, two of which (Mitchell and Stuart) were line-ball results for which I may readily be forgiven. The exception was Rory McEwen's success in holding Mount Gambier, for which I and many other observers were suckered in by partisan local newspaper reporting and a big-money Liberal advertising campaign (Haydon Manning of Flinders University was an honourable exception). For all that, McEwen had to survive a hefty swing. His primary vote was down from 58.4 per cent to 35.6 per cent, and his two-party margin over the Liberals was slashed from 26.6 per cent to 6.2 per cent. But he still finished ahead of Liberal candidate Peter Gandolfi (33.9 per cent) on the primary vote, and Labor preferences did the rest. Aforementioned efforts by Labor factional interests to squeeze McEwen's primary vote apparently had little impact, as Labor's primary vote increase from 17.3 per cent to 22.2 per cent compared unfavourably with their overall performance – strange though it may seem that country voters should prove resistant to the wiles of the CFMEU.

OUTCOME: Independent retain (6.2%)