THE POLL BLUDGER
South Australian House of Assembly Election 2006

WAITE
Liberal 12.1%

Waite is located about six kilometres south of the CBD, from Cumberland Park east into the Adelaide Hills at Brown Hill Creek. The redistribution has added a small number of voters in Belair from Heysen to the east. Either Waite or Heysen can be seen as the successor to Mitcham, the only lower house seat in any parliament to be held by the Australian Democrats. Robin Millhouse held Mitcham throughout the 1970s while his alignment changed from Liberal to Liberal Movement to Australian Democrats, and he was eventually offered a Supreme Court appointment in 1982 by a Tonkin Liberal government that hoped to win his seat back at a by-election. However, Heather Southcott retained it for the Democrats before losing to Liberal factional moderate Stephen Baker at the general election later that year.

Baker became Deputy Premier when Dean Brown led the Liberals to office in 1993, but was deposed in favour of Graham Ingerson as part of John Olsen's coup against Brown in November 1996. Baker announced his retirement an uncomfortable two months before the October 1997 election, which many interpreted as an act of revenge. The hastily conducted preselection resulted in a win for the Right, whose candidate Martin Hamilton-Smith (right) defeated moderate upper house MP Robert Lawson. This prompted Dean Brown to complain of meddling by federal Right MPs including Nick Minchin, Grant Chapman and Andrew Southcott. More recently, Baker was sacked as party treasurer in 2003 by new-broom state president Bob Randall to make way for Leigh Davis, whose lengthy career as a member of parliament was rather less distinguished than Baker's.

Although little known in political circles at the time, Martin Hamilton-Smith brought an interesting background to parliament. His 23-year career with the SAS included command in the late 1970s and early 1980s of what he now describes as Australia's first anti-terrorism squad. This unit's training regimen was so harsh that men under his command were variously "shot dead, gassed, blown up, drowned and seriously wounded" (Craig Clarke of the Sunday Mail reports that "a survey of 100 former SAS counter-terrorist squad members had found eight had died and 30 were on invalid pensions ... only four men were fit enough to work"). Hamilton-Smith found something of a change of pace in the late 1980s when he began operating a chain of childcare centres. He rose quickly up the ranks after entering parliament in 1997, serving as Tourism Minister in the Olsen/Kerin government and continuing as a senior front-bencher in opposition.

In October 2005 Hamilton-Smith made a puzzling decision to contest the leadership ahead of an apparently certain election defeat, despite having recently been on the ropes after the leak of a confidential report he had prepared for the party room. A "highly-placed MP" quoted in The Advertiser said Hamilton-Smith "was convinced to run by Nick Minchin, Alexander Downer and party vice-president Cory Bernardi – they thought he'd open the way for Iain Evans". Ultimately he backed out on the morning of his planned challenge because he had been unable to harness even enough support to initiate a spill. Significantly, Channel Seven reporter Mike Smithson wrote that the government held "no fears that he can outsmart them tactically", for all his "military-style leadership qualities".

In July 2004 Hamilton-Smith married Stavroula Raptis, who had been a preselection candidate to replace retiring federal MP Chris Gallus in Hindmarsh. Raptis ran third behind the Right's Cory Bernardi and the victor, moderate Simon Birmingham, who went on to lose the seat to Labor's Steve Georganas. She was also an unsuccessful candidate for preselection to Norwood at the 2002 state election. Raptis was among those blamed for Stephen Baker's sacking as state party treasurer in a dirt sheet quoted by Crikey.

Labor's candidate is local psychologist Dianna Gibbs-Ludbrook (left).

ASSESSMENT: Liberal retain

Martin Hamilton-Smith suffered an 8.1 per cent swing, enough to make his seat technically marginal. His primary vote was only down 6.0 per cent, but he suffered on preferences due to an exceptional performance from the Greens, whose vote more than doubled from 5.2 per cent to 10.6 per cent. After a clean Liberal sweep in 2002, Labor finished ahead in three booths, all located in the far west of the electorate.

OUTCOME: Liberal retain (4.0%)