SOUTH AUSTRALIAN ELECTION 2010

BRIGHT Labor 6.9%
Region: South-Western Suburbs Federal divisions: Boothby/Kingston
	MEREDITH STOCK Save RAH SHANE ROOS Independent CHLOE FOX Labor (top) NICK KALOGIANNIS Fair Land Tax - Tax Party GRAHAM GOSS Greens MARIA KOURTESIS Liberal (bottom) KEVIN CRAMP Family First
Electoral District Boundaries Commission map

Bright covers the Adelaide coast south of Glenelg, from Brighton to Hallett Cove inclusive. The Marino Conservation Park breaks the electorate into two distinct areas: Brighton, Seacliff and Marino in the north, which usually lean Liberal but were won by Labor in 2006, and Hallett Cove in the south, where the two-party swing against the Liberals was 17 per cent swing from a base of about 55 per cent at the previous election. A strong source of Labor support at O'Sullivans Beach and Christie Downs south beyond the Port Stanvac industrial area has been removed in the redistribution, an example of the perverse impact of the “electoral fairness” rule in punishing strongly performing candidates for their personal votes.

Bright was created at the 1985 election in place of Brighton, which the Liberals held during the single term of David Tonkin's 1979-82 government but was otherwise a Labor seat from its creation in 1970. Derek Robertson held Bright for the first term of its existence, but in 1989 it fell to Liberal candidate Wayne Matthew, who consolidated with a 16.6 per cent swing in the 1993 landslide. When Matthew retired in 2006, upper house member and senior opposition figure Angus Redford sought to use the vacancy to move downstairs, a project with a fraught history in South Australia. Compounding the challenge was Labor's nomination of Chloe Fox, a school teacher, former Advertiser journalist and daughter of popular children's author Mem Fox.

Fox had demonstrated her potential as candidate for Boothby at the 2004 federal election, when she increased the Labor primary vote by 9.9 per cent in the context of a poor national result. She performed even better in winning Bright at the state election: against stiff competition, the seat gave Labor its best performance in the state with a two-party swing of 14.0 per cent. Labor's primary vote was up no less than 16.9 per cent, resulting in two-party majorities in every booth. Christian Kerr noted in Crikey before the election that Fox was “supported by the unmatched (Michael) Atkinson campaign machine”, and her fortunes remain associated with the Right faction. Her failure to win promotion was one of the most widely criticised aspects of Mike Rann's cautious June 2008 reshuffle, but she finally achieved the status of parliamentary secretary to the Premier when the next reshuffle was held in March 2009. This was believed to signify her position as heir apparent to the Right's next vacancy in cabinet. Writing in the Sunday Mail in December 2009, Christian Kerr wrote that his Liberal sources were “obsessed” with the idea that Fox would run in Boothby at the federal election if defeated in Bright. Fox prematurely gave birth in January to a baby that had been due at around the time of the election, and declined to publicly name the father.

The Liberals have nominated Maria Kourtesis, head of the nursing agency Prime Medical Placements. Kourtesis was fourth on the Liberals' Senate ticket at the 2004 election, and was in contention to fill fellow moderate Amanda Vanstone's Senate vacancy in May 2007. After her narrow defeat for that position at the hands of Right candidate Mary Jo Fisher, Kourtesis unsuccessfully challenged the result through the party's internal dispute procedures, reportedly blaming her loss on “a vicious campaign aimed at her Greek heritage”. The dispute erupted afresh as Kourtesis sought preselection for Bright in mid-2008, where she faced opposition from Holdfast Bay councillor Rowan Beh. Michael Owen of The Advertiser reported the two “sent each other legal letters threatening defamation action over campaign material”, with the dispute “understood to involve campaign material about Ms Kourtesis' appeal last year”.

Late in the second last week of the campaign, The Advertiser’s published a poll which found Chloe Fox set to be easily re-elected against a Liberal swing of 2 per cent. After distribution of the 4 per cent undecided, the primary votes were 44 per cent for Labor, 41 per cent for Liberal, 9 per cent for the Greens, 2 per cent each for Family First and Save RAH, and 1 per cent for the Fair Land Tax Party. Nonetheless, Isobel Redmond was found to lead Mike Rann in the electorate as preferred premier by 47 per cent to 45 per cent. Interestingly, the poll found Fox trailing among women voters, although the margin of error on the gender breakdowns was around 5.5 per cent. The margin of error overall was around 4 per cent.

PREDICTION: Labor retain