SOUTH AUSTRALIAN ELECTION 2010

HAMMOND Liberal 11.3%
Region: Rural South-East Federal divisions: Barker/Mayo
	ADRIAN PEDERICK Liberal (top) HANNAH MACLEOD Labor (bottom) JOANNE FOSDKIE Family First MARK BYRNE Greens
Electoral District Boundaries Commission map

Hammond includes the last 50 kilometres of the Murray River, an area to the west as far as the edge of Mount Barker, and a thinly populated eastwards expanse extending to the Victorian border. Its biggest population centre is rapidly growing Murray Bridge 80 kilometres south-east of Adelaide, where the population increased from 12,998 to 14,048 between the 2001 and 2006 censuses. The redistribution has extended the electorate to the mouth of the Murray River at Goolwa, adding 5000 voters from Finniss, and detached Strathalbyn and Monarto to the Adelaide hinterland seats of Heysen and Kavel, along with thinly populated farming area to Chaffey in the north. The seat has undergone frequent name changes, such that previous member Peter Lewis is variously listed as representing Mallee, Murray-Mallee, Ridley and Hammond. Lewis spent most of his parliamentary career as a Liberal, but developed a reputation as a maverick long before he formally parted company with the party in July 2000. He ran at the 2002 election under the quickly forgotten banner of the “Community Leadership Independence Coalition”, and succeeded in pulling ahead of the Labor candidate and winning the seat on their preferences. He was furiously courted by both parties following the indecisive election result, with both sides offering the Speaker's position he had long coveted, concessions to his electorate and a promise to hold a constitutional convention (which was duly held and quickly forgotten).

Lewis's shock announcement that he would support Labor followed an election campaign in which he said any suggestion he would do so was “sleazy nonsense”, a post-election statement that he would never do so, and a working agreement signed hours earlier with the Liberals. Lewis said he had reached his decision because a government relying on one independent was preferable to one relying on four. The Liberal Party launched a legal challenge against Lewis's election on the basis that he had misled voters, but this was predictably knocked back by the Supreme Court. During his time as Speaker, Lewis experienced business problems that threatened to bankrupt him, and brought with them related political embarrassments. His unorthodox approach to the job also attracted criticism from the media and growing discontent among Labor ranks. When volunteers in Lewis's office circulated unsubstantiated claims that a Labor MP, a Liberal MP and two senior police were involved in a paedophile ring, he was forced to resign pending a no-confidence motion. With polls showing Lewis in no position to retain his seat at the 2006 election, he abandoned Hammond and ran for the upper house, but made little impression.

The seat returned to the Liberal fold at the election, bringing to parliament Coomandook farmer Adrian Pederick. During the campaign Pederick faced the public revelation of a restraining order taken out against him by his mother in 1991, the existence of which was said by The Australian to have been “widely known within the farming district of Coomandook”. It was briefly suggested the Right faction would have Pederick dumped in favour of Chris Kenny, a former journalist and press secretary to Alexander Downer who had run for preselection in Unley. Pederick nonetheless went untroubled at the election and was promoted to the front bench in September 2008, in the River Murray, agriculture, food and fisheries and forests portfolios.

PREDICTION: Liberal retain