SOUTH AUSTRALIAN ELECTION 2010

CHAFFEY Nationals 17.2% versus Liberal*
Region: Riverland Federal division: Barker * Liberal 21.9% versus Labor
	DAVID PEAKE Independent JAMES JORDAN Greens KARLENE MAYWALD Nationals (top) TIM WHETSTONE Liberal (bottom) ROLY TELFER Labor JACK PAPAGEORGIOU Family First
Electoral District Boundaries Commission map

Chaffey covers the area immediately west of the border with New South Wales and Victoria, including the Riverland towns of Waikerie, Loxton, Berri and Renmark. Created in 1938, it was in conservative hands until Arthur Curran won it for Labor in 1962, depriving Sir Tom Playford (then in his twenty-fourth year as Premier) of the constitutional majority he needed to rig the electoral boundaries one last time. Curran held the seat when Labor finally struggled to power at the 1965 election, but his loss to Liberal candidate Peter Arnold at the 1968 election was enough to send Labor under Don Dunstan back into opposition, despite their 52.0 per cent of the statewide primary vote. The new Liberal Premier, Steele Hall (whose wife Joan Hall was member for Morialta until 2006), brought in highly principled electoral reform that put his government out of business at the 1970 election, when Arthur Curran recovered his old seat under new boundaries. The seat was lost to Labor for good when Peter Arnold won it back in 1973; he would eventually be succeeded by Kent Andrew in 1993.

Andrew lost his seat at the 1997 election to Nationals candidate Karlene Maywald, a maltster and brewer who came to prominence through her campaign against the Keating government's beer tax regime. Maywald campaigned against the state Liberal government over its reluctance to proceed with a private sector greyhound racetrack in Waikerie. Backed by New South Wales firm Teletrak, this promised to be the first in a series of country tracks making a packet out of international internet gambling. One critic of the plan was former Liberal Gaming Minister Graham Ingerson, who described it as a “scam” run by “crooks”. Maywald went on to poll 37.1 per cent at the 1997 election against Andrew's 41.7 per cent, ultimately prevailing by 2.6 per cent after distribution of Labor preferences. Maywald entered parliament as one of three conservative cross-benchers propping up a Liberal government that had been reduced to minority status after a disastrous first-term election result. She used her position to ensure passage of Teletrak legislation, support the sale of TAB and the Ports Corporation, oppose the sale of ETSA, and support establishment of the Motorola inquiry that would eventually bring down Premier John Olsen.

Kent Andrew attempted to win the seat back from Maywald at the 2002 election, but Maywald predictably widened the gap with a 13.1 per cent increase on the primary vote and a 12.8 per cent two-party (Nationals versus Liberal) swing. She was reportedly emboldened to consider trying her hand at the federal seat of Barker in 2004, after Liberal member Patrick Secker made himself unpopular through his position on River Murray water flows. This prospect did not please the Rann government, which had formed a good relationship with Maywald and did not relish the prospect of her seat returning to the Liberal Party at a by-election. Mike Rann constructed a creative solution by offering her a cabinet post in July 2004, with responsibilities including a new River Murray portfolio along with regional development, small business and consumer affairs. Her acceptance put an end to the minority status the government had suffered since Mitchell MP Kris Hanna defected from Labor to the Greens.

Maywald was re-elected in 2006 without having to go to preferences, polling 53.2 per cent on the primary vote to 28.2 per cent for the Liberal candidate. She subsequently retained her position in cabinet under a deal with Rann which greatly annoyed aspirational Labor MPs. Her responsibilities have twice been garnished in the current term: she lost consumer affairs immediately after the election, and regional development and small business in July 2008. She exchanged science and information economy for water security in February 2007, and retained River Murray throughout. Maywald has at times been uncomfortably placed defending the government's position on water issues to her home constituents, and has also had to contend with hostile coverage from The Advertiser. In August 2008 the paper ran a widely derided opinion poll of 460 Chaffey voters which had Maywald on 11 per cent of the primary vote, but it clearly erred in asking which party rather than which candidate voters proposed to support.

The Liberals preselected SA Murray Irrigators Association chair Tim Whetstone in November 2008, ahead of Citrus Growers of SA president Mark Chown and businessman Brian Barnett.

Two days before the beginning of the formal four-week campaign period, The Advertiser published a poll of 571 respondents which appeared not to repeat the mistake of its poll of August 2008. It showed an effective dead heat in two-party terms between Karlene Maywald and Tim Whetstone, with the former on 50.5 per cent. Primary vote figures after distribution of the undecided were 40 per cent for Whetstone, 30 per cent for Maywald, 14 per cent for Labor, 11 per cent for Family First and 3 per cent for the Greens. The margin of error on the poll was around 4 per cent. When asked who Maywald should support in the event of a minority government, 53 per cent said Liberal and 33 per cent Labor.

In the final week of the campaign, a timely “in-principle agreement” between the South Australian, New South Wales and Queensland governments promised to deliver South Australia 400 gigalitres in Murray River flows, courtesy of recent flooding in Queensland. However, Shadow Water Minister Mitch Williams said Mike Rann was claiming credit for being granted water that New South Wales “physically cannot keep”. The announcement came shortly after irrigators had their allocations increased to their highest level since October 2006 on the back of earlier flooding in New South Wales. Meanwhile, Tony Abbott has promised to hold a referendum on referring powers over the Murray-Darling Basin to the federal government if the states don't agree to refer the powers voluntarily.

PREDICTION: LIBERAL GAIN