THE POLL BLUDGER
South Australian House of Assembly Election 2006

WRIGHT
Labor 3.2%

Northern suburbs seat made up largely of new housing estates, extending from Salisbury East eastwards to Golden Grove, the former area being more comfortable for Labor than the latter. The redistribution has moved 680 voters in finely poised Wynn Vale to Florey in the south. Wright was created at the 1993 election when it contributed to the Liberal landslide, with Scott Ashenden defeating Labor candidate Trish White. White made it to parliament the following year at the by-election held after Lynn Arnold's departure from Taylor.

Jennifer Rankine (left) won the seat for Labor in 1997 and was given a parliamentary secretary position in 2004. She forced her party into damage control during the 2002 campaign when she said South Australia had survived the State Bank collapse because the Bannon government was "very fiscally responsible". This provoked ridicule from interviewers Chris Dittmar and John Pemberton of 5AA and a rebuttal from Mike Rann. Liberal candidate Stephen Ernst (right) is a training co-ordinator and former police officer who ran for the Liberals at the Torrens by-election in 1994, which Robyn Geraghty won for Labor. A Sunday Mail poll of 500 voters on November 7 suggests he has his work cut out for him this time as well – Labor was ahead 51 per cent to 31 per cent on the primary vote and 60-40 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 retain

Another formerly marginal seat where Labor now enjoys a huge buffer, after double-digit shifts in the Labor and Liberal primary vote and a 12.1 per cent two-party swing. The result was otherwise noteworthy for a weak performance by the Greens, who only managed 3.9 per cent.

OUTCOME: Labor retain (15.3%)