SOUTH AUSTRALIAN ELECTION 2010

TORRENS Labor 19.2%
Region: Inner Eastern Suburbs Federal divisions: Sturt/Adelaide
	OWEN HOOD Family First ROBYN GERAGHTY Labor (top) PETER FIEBIG Greens STUART LOMAX Liberal (bottom)
Electoral District Boundaries Commission map

Torrens covers inner suburbs north-east of the city, reaching from Greenacres and Klemzig in the west to Hope Valley in the east, and is bounded to the south by the river that bears its name. The Liberals are relatively strong at Dernancourt in the east, where they continued to win the booths in 1997 and 2002. However, the remainder of the electorate usually gives Labor a two-party vote in the sixties, in most cases making the seventies in 2006. Torrens was created in its modern form at the 1993 election, when Labor's performance was sufficiently disastrous that they could not carry even this naturally safe seat. The death the following year of the successful Liberal candidate, Joe Tiernan, required a by-election in the immediate aftermath of the Dean Brown government's unpopular first budget, at which Robyn Geraghty won the seat for Labor with an 8.6 per cent swing. Geraghty's margin increased a further 7.7 per cent at the 1997 election, and the seat was one of ten to deliver Labor a double-digit swing in 2006. However, the pendulum swung 2.9 per cent the other way at the intervening election in 2002. Geraghty has been party whip since 2001, but has otherwise not been promoted. She was originally associated with the Progressive Left Alliance, a Left sub-faction with its origins in the old Peter Duncan grouping, but defected to the Right shortly after the 2006 election. The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and the Communications Electrical Plumbing Union moved from Left to Right at around the same time, the state secretary of the latter being Geraghty's husband Bob.

PREDICTION: Labor retain