THE POLL BLUDGER
South Australian House of Assembly Election 2006

NEWLAND
Liberal 5.5%

Newland covers outer north-eastern Adelaide suburbs including Tea Tree Gully, Banksia Park and St Agnes. Retiring Liberal member Dorothy Kotz had held the seat since winning it from Labor in 1989, and was best known early in her career for campaigning to have the death penalty restored. Kotz was promoted to the front bench when John Olsen became premier in 1996, taking on the environment portfolio, but was demoted to the outer ministry in 2002. She was ultimately dropped from the shadow ministry in the April 2004 reshuffle and nearly lost preselection to Nurses Board manager Trevor Johnson soon afterwards. Kotz expressed bitterness over this while making her surprise retirement announcement in September 2005, complaining Johnson's challenge had been organised by a "bunch of opportunists".

The ensuing Liberal preselection was won by Mark Osterstock (left), a police officer, Tea Tree Gully councillor and candidate for Wright in 2002, who prevailed over three rival candidates, none of whom was Trevor Johnson. Crikey reported in March 2004 that Osterstock was being promoted within the party by Kotz and her newly adopted ally, Morialta MP Joan Hall. Labor's candidate is Tom Kenyon (right), an adviser to state Industry Minister Paul Holloway who was endorsed to stand against Alexander Downer in Mayo at the 2004 federal election, but withdrew saying he had anticipated an earlier election date. Kenyon's support base is said to be in the Right faction Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association.

On December 12, The Advertiser published an electorate poll under a front page headline reading "SICK LIBS - Kotz' key seat to fall to Labor". The poll surveyed 409 voters and had Labor leading 43 per cent to 34 per cent on the primary vote and 55-45 on two-party preferred.

Labor has promised to take back control of Modbury Hospital (located in neighbouring Florey), 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 GAIN

The Poll Bludger must confess to having prevaricated in his predicted outcome for this seat, which ended up being a thumping Labor win from a 12.3 per cent two-party swing. There is not much variation among the booths in this electorate – Labor won all nine booths this time around after losing all but one in 2002. On the aggregate primary vote, there were double-digit switches for both Labor and Liberal; the Greens polled 5.3 per cent after not contesting in 2002; the Family First vote was roughly stable on 7.1 per cent; the Democrats suffered a fairly typical collapse from 10.3 per cent to 3.2 per cent; One Nation were down from 2.4 per cent to 1.5 per cent despite benefiting from the donkey vote; and the two single-issue candidates both failed to crack 2 per cent.

OUTCOME: LABOR GAIN (6.8%)