SOUTH AUSTRALIAN ELECTION 2010

SCHUBERT Liberal 7.0%
Region: Rural Central Districts Federal divisions: Barker/Mayo/Wakefield
	JAMES TROUP Family First WILLIAM SMIDMORE Independent JASEMIN ROSE Greens IVAN VENNING Liberal (top) LYNDA HOPGOOD Country Labor (bottom)
Electoral District Boundaries Commission map

Schubert includes the Barossa Valley and its population centres Nuriootpa, Tanunda and Angaston, plus further territory to the south and east. The south includes the towns of Mount Pleasant and Springton on the B10, and the east extends through Angas Valley to the Murray River at Marks Landing and Walker Flat. The redistribution has stripped it of areas on the north-eastern fringe of Adelaide – Concordia and Kaleeba from Light, Yattalunga and Sampson Flat from Napier, Millbrook and Cudlee Creek from Newland, Birdwood and Gumeracha from Kavel – while also adding Freeling in the northern part of Light. The seat is held for the Liberals by Ivan Venning, who was also member of the predecessor seat Custance from 1990 until Schubert was created in 1997. Venning is the son of Howard Venning, the Liberal member for Rocky River from 1968 to 1979, and is seen as part of the Right faction. After 19 years in parliament he finally achieved a shadow ministry position when Isobel Redmond became leader in July 2009, taking the ageing and population portfolios. He did not let his lack of ministerial experience stop him making a pitch for the leadership in April 2005 which, according to an unidentified Liberal MP quoted in The Advertiser, “lasted about 20 seconds”.

Late in the second week of the campaign, Isobel Redmond promised to spend $35 million on a new 55-bed hospital at Tanunda, on which the Liberals promised to spend $12 million during their unsuccessful bid for re-election in 2002. This would replace existing hospitals at Angaston and Tanunda (47 beds between them), which would respectively be demolished and converted into an aged care facility. Health Minister John Hill complained the funding came from the $1 billion the Liberals said they would save by rebuilding Royal Adelaide Hospital, a figure hotly disputed by the government.

PREDICTION: Liberal retain