SOUTH AUSTRALIAN ELECTION 2010

FLINDERS Liberal 10.1% versus Nationals*
Outgoing member: Liz Penfold (Liberal) Region: Western Coastal Federal division: Grey * Liberal 28.0% versus Labor
	FELICITY WRIGHT Greens PETER TRELOAR Liberal (top) WILBUR KLEIN Nationals (bottom) GRANT WILSON Family First TAUTO SANSBURY Labor
Electoral District Boundaries Commission map

Flinders extends from the southern half of the Eyre Peninsula all the way west to the Western Australian border, the dominant population centres being Port Lincoln and Ceduna. The redistribution before the last election had a substantial impact on the physical shape of the electorate by extending it through largely unpopulated territory across the entire coastline of the Great Australian Bight, where it formerly ended at Ceduna. The more recent redistribution has added Cowell and the surrounding District Council of Franklin Harbour from Giles at the far eastern end, partly reversing another change of the previous redistribution.

A seat bearing the name of Flinders has existed since self-government was established, and it has at no time been held by Labor. It changed hands from Nationals to Liberal in 1993 when Liz Penfold, a former teacher and public servant, unseated incumbent Peter Blacker, who for 20 years had been his party's only Country/National Party MP. Penfold was boosted by the Liberals' strong overall performance at that election, but ultimately owed her win to a redistribution that temporarily added distant Kangaroo Island at the expense of Finniss, to the displeasure of voters at both ends. Blacker attempted to recover the seat when this was reversed at the 1997 election, but he was soundly beaten, scoring 9.4 per cent to Penfold's 64.7 per cent.

Penfold remained on the back bench until after the 2006 election, when she was made Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Small Business and Consumer Affairs. She relinquished the position nine months later, simultaneously announcing she would not contest the next election. There were occasional suggestions she would or should go mid-term to allow for new blood at a by-election, the wisdom of which was called into question after the Liberals lost the January 2009 Frome by-election. In October 2008 the Liberals preselected Peter Treloar, who according to The Advertiser “works in a family partnership at Edilillie, north of Port Lincoln, growing wheat, barley, legumes and canola and running Merinos and cattle”. The Nationals have nominated a former state party president, Wilbur Klein. Their candidate in 2006, Hank Swalue, lifted the party's vote from 9.2 per cent to 24.3 per cent, polling particularly well in Port Lincoln where he was based as a police officer.

PREDICTION: Liberal retain