SOUTH AUSTRALIAN ELECTION 2010

MITCHELL Independent 0.6% versus Labor*
Region: Southern Suburbs Federal divisions: Boothby/Kingston * Labor 14.4% versus Liberal
	PETA McCANCE Liberal (bottom) JEREMY MILLER Greens COLIN GIBSON Family First ALAN SIBBONS Labor (middle) KRIS HANNA Independent (top)
Electoral District Boundaries Commission map

Located in Adelaide's southern suburbs, Mitchell consists of two distinct parts separated by the unpopulated O'Halloran Hill in the centre: the suburbs around Seacombe Gardens in the north, and Sheidow Park and Old Reynella in the south. The redistribution has expanded the latter area with the addition of 3130 voters around Reynella from Reynell. In the north there has been a territory swap with Elder, adding parts of Oaklands Park and Marion while removing Mitchell Park and Clovelly Park further east. Labor held Mitchell for more than two decades after its creation in 1970, but like so many others it fell in 1993 when the party was left with no seats south of the Torrens. Equally typically, Labor recovered it in 1997 when injury litigation and criminal defence lawyer Kris Hanna defeated one-term Liberal member Colin Caudell.

Hanna gained attention beyond state borders when he quit the Labor Party in January 2003 to become South Australia's first ever Greens MP. His stated reasons included Rann government policies on crime and workers' compensation and the broader party's positions on Iraq and refugees, but he was reportedly also aggrieved that Mount Gambier independent Rory McEwen had been elevated to cabinet ahead of him in November 2002. This returned the government to the minority position it had shaken off with McEwen's appointment to cabinet, which it continued to suffer until Chaffey MP Karlene Maywald came on board in July 2004.

If Hanna hoped his abandonment of Labor would make him a hero figure in the South Australian Greens, he was to be disappointed. He failed in his endeavour to win top place on the party's Legislative Council ticket, having met resistance from purists in local branches. Five weeks out from the election he parted company with a party for the second time in a single term, announcing he would seek to retain Mitchell as an independent. Hanna received invaluable support in his campaign from Nick Xenophon, pooling resources and appearing with him at press conferences. As with Xenophon's effort in polling 20.5 of the statewide upper house vote and electing a second candidate, Hanna proved a surprise packet in Mitchell, polling 24.6 per cent of the primary vote to Labor's 38.1 per cent and the Liberals' 20.7 per cent. Having finished ahead of the Liberal candidate, Hanna edged ahead of Labor on Liberal preferences to win by 228 votes, a margin of 0.6 per cent.

Labor candidate Alan Sibbons is the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union's state organiser and a former employee at Mitsubishi's defunct Tonsley Park plant, now located just over the boundary in Elder to the north.

The formal announcement of the campaign came days after Mike Rann announced a plan to resolve Adelaide's signature infrastructure headache by duplicating the Southern Expressway. This presently runs one way towards the city in the morning before changing direction for the afternoon. The Liberals were trumped by Rann's surprise announcement, as they had planned to make a similar promise later in the day. Greg Kelton of The Advertiser reported Isobel Redmond had somehow “fluffed an opportunity to get in first” during a radio interview that morning, “despite prompting from her staff”. Labor's $445 million costing for the project included $75 million for an interchange in Darlington, located in Mitchell. This figure compelled the Liberals to recalculate their own sums, which had been based on an earlier government estimate in August of around $280 million. Shadow Finance Minister Rob Lucas was sent out to “take one for the party” (in the words of a Liberal source quoted by Greg Kelton) by announcing that while Labor's promise would be matched, further details would not be forthcoming until later in the campaign. Isobel Redmond was apparently unable to do so because of “other engagements”, while Shadow Treasurer Steven Griffiths was “believed to be in Maitland”.

When the Liberals did announce their policy three days out from polling day, they did so by discreetly placing it on the party website with no public announcement – and, it emerged, without having properly accounted for it in the party's costings. According to a report the day before the election in the Financial Review, Shadow Treasurer Steven Griffiths declined to comment when asked how a Liberal government would fund the project. The confusion in the Liberal camp let Labor off the hook over the disparity between their new figure and the one provided in August, which Transport Minister Patrick Conlon said at the time was more than the government could afford. Conlon further sought to concentrate the electoral advantage from the announcement by promising quotas on the employment of workers on the project, which would require that 750 out of 1500 come from the southern suburbs, and that another 200 workers be young or from “other disadvantaged groups”. However, he conceded this unwieldy sounding policy did not come with an “iron-clad guarantee”.

The day before polling day, The Advertiser ran a poll of 714 respondents which, after distribution of the 8 per cent undecided, had Labor on 36 per cent, Liberal on 29 per cent and Kris Hanna on 26 per cent. Family First were on 5 per cent and the Greens are on 3 per cent, which in each case is where they were in 2006 if rounding is taken into account (5.4 per cent and 3.4 per cent). The minor party preferences in 2006 broke 40.7 per cent to Hanna, 32.1 per cent to Labor and 27.1 per cent to the Liberals, which if applied to these poll figures would only see Hanna make up a small amount of ground on the Liberals and thus be excluded at the second last count. That being so, Kris Hanna's preferences would be distributed between the Labor and Liberal candidates. The Advertiser went to the trouble of asking his supporters where they would direct preferences, which ultimately found Labor set to take the seat with a 4 per cent margin. However, the usually more reliable method of using the results from the previous election makes it 7.4 per cent.

Speaking on ABC Mornings with David Bevan and Matthew Abraham in the second last week of the campaign, Kris Hanna said that in the event that he held a balance-of-power position, he would present the parties with “detailed policy imperatives” concerning water, democracy and pokies, and “projects for his community” including Glenthorne Farm and the Oaklands railway crossing.

PREDICTION: Independent retain