SOUTH AUSTRALIAN ELECTION 2010

PORT ADELAIDE Labor 25.5%
Region: North-Western Suburbs Federal division: Port Adelaide
	SUE LAWRIE Liberal (bottom) BRUCE HAMBOUR Family First MAX JAMES Independent KEVIN FOLEY Labor (top) MARIE BOLAND Greens
Electoral District Boundaries Commission map

The state electorate of Port Adelaide was recreated with the renaming of Hart in 2002, having earlier existed from 1938 to 1970 and previously as a multi-member electorate. It covers a large area for a metropolitan electorate, including Port Adelaide proper, Largs North on the tip of the Lefevre Peninsula to the west, and on the inland side of the Barker Inlet the rapidly growing Mawson Lakes plus a portion of Parafield Gardens. The redistribution has increased the latter area with the addition of 1165 voters at Paralowie along with largely unpopulated Bolivar and St Kilda opposite, while 2168 voters at Largs Bay on the peninsula have been transferred to Lee.

Kevin Foley secured the prized seat after impressing party elders in his 18 month tenure as chief-of-staff to Premier Lynn Arnold, and entered parliament at the 1993 election that obliterated Arnold's government. The election result also gutted the Centre Left faction of which Foley was a member, but he successfully integrated with the Right and began a quick climb up a much-shortened party ladder. Foley was made Shadow Treasurer in 1996 and reportedly knocked back an approach to run for the leadership when disaffection with Mike Rann developed in 2001. He was also rated Rann's most likely replacement if Labor failed to win power in 2002. He instead assumed the deputy leadership which had been vacated upon Annette Hurley's failure to win Light, and began his term as Treasurer just in time for a sustained period of economic growth.

Speculation emerged in late 2008 that Foley might be approached to depose Mike Rann, who had infuriated powerful up-and-comers with his failure to make significant changes at a long-awaited reshuffle in July. This received fever pitch following a much-discussed gathering of Labor MPs at the parliamentary members lounge, at which Foley allegedly told back-bench agitators he was “ready to lead”. Foley denied this, stating not only that he would “never be seeking leadership of the Labor Party”, but also that he had “a joint exit plan from politics after the next election”. In late 2009, Foley bared his soul in a profile piece in The Advertiser, in which he revealed he had been on medication for depression, said the break-up of a relationship in 2007 had left him in a “dark place”, and confessed to “an emptiness in my life that I haven't been able to fill”. When allegations of Mike Rann's affair with Michelle Chantelois emerged a month later, there was a consensus Foley's revelations would rule him out as a successor to Rann if worst came to worst.

PREDICTION: Labor retain