SOUTH AUSTRALIAN ELECTION 2010

CROYDON Labor 26.1%
Region: Western Suburbs Federal divisions: Port Adelaide/Adelaide/Hindmarsh
	SHAUN YATES Australian Democrats ALEX TENNIKOFF Family First KAT NICHOLSON Gamers 4 Croydon MICHAEL ATKINSON Labor (top) MAX GALANTI Independent JAMES HICKEY Greens ZACK McLENNAN Liberal (bottom)
Electoral District Boundaries Commission map

Known as Spence prior to the 2002 election, Croydon is located to the immediate north-west of the city, from Flinders Park to Dudley Park with Croydon in between. Labor member Michael Atkinson is a practising Catholic with a power base in the Right faction Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association. A profile piece by Michael Owen of The Australian wrote of cabinet colleagues' annoyance at the amount of time he devotes to his electorate, and of his pride at the 26 per cent margin he has built up as member. Atkinson entered parliament in 1989 and rose to the role of Shadow Attorney-General by the 1997 election, at which time a plan to make him deputy was vetoed by the Left. He has maintained the portfolio ever since, despite speculation he might lose it at what proved to be a non-event of a reshuffle in July 2008.

Atkinson's first term in government was largely spent embroiled in the “Ashbourne affair”, so named in honour of Mike Rann's former media adviser Randall Ashbourne. This involved an alleged offer made by Ashbourne to former Labor deputy leader Ralph Clarke to settle defamation actions between Clarke and Atkinson, in exchange for lucrative statutory board positions for Clarke. Ashbourne was charged over the alleged offer and acquitted in June 2005, but the Director of Public Prosecutions concluded there was insufficient evidence against Atkinson. He also took heat when Justice Department chief executive Kate Lennon resigned in 2004 after being implicated in an artful accounting manoeuvre to prevent Treasury recovering an unspent $6 million. More recently, Democrats-turned-independent MLC David Winderlich raised allegations under parliamentary privilege that Atkinson had interfered in the activities of Charles Sturt council in pursuit of a locally unpopular land swap that will make a residential development of St Clair Reserve in Woodville.

PREDICTION: Labor retain