SOUTH AUSTRALIAN ELECTION 2010

BRAGG Liberal 11.8%
Region: Eastern Suburbs Federal divisions: Sturt/Mayo/Adelaide
	BRENDAN FITZGERALD Greens VICKIE CHAPMAN Liberal (top) NICK ZOLLO Family First BEN DINEEN Labor (bottom)
Electoral District Boundaries Commission map

Bragg covers affluent suburbs immediately to the south-east of the city centre, from Rose Park east to Stonyfell and south to Glen Osmond. The redistribution has extended the electorate south-eastwards into the hills as far as Uraidla and Crafers. It has also added the Kensington Gardens area from Hartley to the north, while transferring nearby Kensington to Norwood and Glenside to Unley further west. The seat has been held by the Liberals since its creation in 1970, the inaugural member being David Tonkin who served as Premier from 1979 to 1982. Tonkin quit the year after the defeat of his government and was succeeded by Graham Ingerson, who briefly held the deputy leadership in 1992 and was made Tourism Minister when Dean Brown's government was elected the following year. Ingerson went on to play a key role in the 1996 leadership coup when he switched his support from Brown to John Olsen in a deal that made him deputy leader and Minister for Infrastructure, Police, Emergency Services and Racing. He was compelled to stand down from these positions in August 1998 amid the first of a series of controversies that dogged him through the government's second term, and he retired at the 2002 election.

There followed a hotly contested preselection in which state party president Vickie Chapman, the daughter of recently deceased Tonkin government minister and member for Alexandrina (now Finniss) Ted Chapman, prevailed over Michael Armitage, whose was attempting to switch from Adelaide to a safer seat with the backing of the Right (although John Olsen was reportedly opposed, presumably because he felt Armitage should fight it out in Adelaide). Senator Grant Chapman of the Right publicly accused the moderates, in particular federal Sturt MP Christopher Pyne, of stacking branches to influence both the preselection and ballots for party administrative positions. Christian Kerr of Crikey, who was himself once a moderate-aligned president of the local party branch, reported that Armitage was defeated by “some 50 votes to over 100”.

Chapman's success perpetuated the long-running family feuds that characterise the state Liberal Party, and she subsequently emerged as the moderates' favoured leadership candidate in opposition to the Right's Iain Evans, the son of former factional stalwart Stan Evans. Her rise continued when she assumed the shadow education portfolio three months after the election, but more than one observer was subsequently heard expressing disappointment with her performance in parliament. When she nominated for the deputy leadership following Dean Brown's resignation in November 2005, Chapman managed a disappointing five votes to Evans' 15. It had earlier been reported that some of Chapman's supporters had accepted the idea of a joint ticket in which Evans would replace Rob Kerin and Chapman would serve as deputy, but Evans' supporters were not so keen. The ticket finally became reality in the wake of the 2006 election defeat under a deal brokered by the factions' respective federal figureheads, Christopher Pyne and Nick Minchin. A number of MPs were hostile to the arrangement, notably conservative MacKillop MP Mitch Williams, who complained that “the last person you want as deputy is someone who wants to be leader”. However, when Evans was usurped in April 2007 it was by Waite MP Martin Hamilton-Smith, who secured the numbers by reaching a deal with Chapman in which she would remain deputy.

As Hamilton-Smith's leadership entered its terminal phase in the wake of the leaked emails scandal in June 2009, Chapman pointedly refused to rule out challenging at a press conference from which she made an awkward summary exit, stumbling over camera tripods on the way. Mitch Williams' subsequent resignation from shadow cabinet caused Hamilton-Smith to call a spill, the surprise result of which was that Williams did not challenge but Chapman did. Chapman did better than expected in losing the ballot 11 votes to 10 (with one member abstaining), but her defeat compelled her to stand aside as deputy in place of Heysen MP Isobel Redmond. Hamilton-Smith called another spill to clear the air, but when Redmond said she would put her name forward he announced he would stand aside. The result was a three-way tussle between Redmond, Chapman and Williams, in which Redmond defeated Chapman by 13 votes to nine after Williams was excluded in the first round.

Labor's candidate is Ben Dineen, a 25-year-old official with the Right faction Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association.

PREDICTION: Liberal retain