SOUTH AUSTRALIAN ELECTION 2010

ADELAIDE Labor 10.5%
Region: Central Adelaide Federal division: Adelaide
	RUBEN SEBBEN Save RAH LAURY BAIS Family First SHAUN McGRATH F.R.E.E. Australia Party TOM BIRDSEYE Gamers 4 Croydon NICK APOSTOLOU Fair Land Tax - Tax Party RACHEL SANDERSON Liberal (bottom) BRETT FERRIS Greens JANE LOMAX-SMITH Labor (top) SAM PAIOR Dignity for Disability
Electoral District Boundaries Commission map

The state electorate of Adelaide covers the central business district, North Adelaide and the parklands that surround them, along with an area to the north encompassing Prospect in the west and Walkerville in the east. It has not been affected by the redistribution. Incomes are above average throughout the electorate, particularly in North Adelaide and Walkerville. Walkerville and neighbouring Collinswood provide the Liberals with their greatest source of strength in the electorate, such that they continued to win the booths there even amid the 2006 debacle. Despite similar income levels, these areas consistently return a Liberal vote at least 5 per cent higher than North Adelaide. Labor generally scores majorities of 5 per cent to 10 per cent in the Adelaide and Prospect booths, which blew out well into the double digits in 2006. The ongoing increase in the number of people living in the CBD has underwritten a steady drift to Labor of about 5 per cent over the past two decades, despite concerns expressed in some party quarters that high-rise inner-city apartments were drawing Liberals into the electorate.

The seat's modern history began with the abolition of multi-member electorates at the 1938 election, when it was won by independent Labor member Douglas Bardolph. Labor held the seat for 45 years after Bardolph's retirement in 1944, until it finally fell to the Liberals when the Bannon government came close to defeat in 1989. Michael Armitage then held the seat until 2002, when a redistribution cut the Liberal margin by adding part of Prospect and removing part of Collinswood. Armitage instead sought preselection for Bragg, made vacant by the departure of the politically stricken Graham Ingerson. This met opposition from both Premier John Olsen, who naturally thought a sitting member in so crucial a seat should stand his ground, and the party's moderate faction, which had state party president Vickie Chapman lined up to succeed Ingerson. Chapman easily won the preselection, and Armitage exited the stage.

Labor scored a significant win in Adelaide at the 2002 election, picking up swings of 7.3 per cent on the primary vote and 4.0 per cent on two-party preferred. Amid an otherwise static statewide result, this was seen as a personal victory for their candidate Jane Lomax-Smith, then in her second term as Lord Mayor, over Liberal candidate Michael Harbison, the Deputy Lord Mayor. The seat swung a further 9.1 per cent to Labor in 2006, when Lomax-Smith may have been assisted by the withdrawal of Liberal candidate Mark Brindal, who had originally been defeated for preselection in his existing seat of Unley. Brindal had admitted to having an affair with a 24-year-old man who was reported to have had a “mental incapacity”, and alleged the man's foster father was attempting to blackmail him.

Lomax-Smith was immediately elevated to Mike Rann's first ministry after entering parliament, assuming the tourism, employment, small business and further education portfolios and winning promotion to education in March 2004. She was given the new City of Adelaide portfolio after the 2006 election, while retaining education and tourism. Despite her accumulation of new responsibilities, verdicts on Lomax-Smith's ministerial record have been varied: her loss of small business in May 2003 had the Liberals talking of her demotion, and there was speculation she might lose education in what proved to be an anti-climactic reshuffle in July 2008. She has reportedly retained the backing of Mike Rann, who like her is factionally unaligned.

The Liberals have nominated Rachel Sanderson, a former model and current model agency owner.

The adverse rumours surrounding Lomax-Smith's career prospects may well have originated in hostility from party colleagues. In October 2008, Michael McGuire of The Advertiser reported she was “increasingly on the outer with large swathes of her own party” due to the long lead she had been given to oppose a $55 million permanent grandstand at the Victoria Park racecourse, located in the south-eastern parklands. Intended to accommodate the Clipsal 500 V8 car race and horse-racing carnivals, opposition to the project became a cause célèbre for inner-city cognoscenti from novelist J.M. Coetzee to Chris Rann, public relations consultant and brother of Mike. There were reports of Lomax-Smith having a shouting match over the issue with Deputy Premier Kevin Foley, and of her threatening to quit cabinet if the project went ahead. Labor MPs subsequently informed Nick Henderson of The Advertiser she had “critically damaged any chance she had of becoming Premier”. Lomax-Smith eventually had her way when the government abandoned the plan in December 2007, prompting the South Australian Jockey Club to vacate the premises. The site will now be converted into an urban park accommodating walking and bike trails, sports fields and wetlands.

It has similarly been said that the electorate's sensitivity has prevented Barton Terrace at North Adelaide being re-opened to improve traffic flow from the north-western suburbs, which is championed by Attorney-General and Croydon MP Michael Atkinson in particular. Another ongoing issue is the city's only tram line, which runs from the city to Glenelg. An extension at the city end from Victoria Square through King William Street to North Terrace opened in October 2007, and a project to further extend it 2.8 kilometres to the Adelaide Entertainment Centre at Hindmarsh commenced in mid-2009. These measures have been vociferously decried as a waste of money by the Liberals, who supported the concept while in government.

During an interview with Antony Green on the Tuesday before polling day, David Bevan or Matthew Abraham of ABC Mornings quoted Labor sources saying they had “no idea” what was happening in Adelaide, except that the Liberals were throwing “everything they had at them”.

PREDICTION: Labor retain