The Poll Bludger - Australian State and Federal Elections

UNLEY Liberal 2.4%
Region: Inner Southern Suburbs Federal divisions: Adelaide/Sturt/Boothby
	NIKKI MORTIER Greens DAVID PISONI Liberal (top) VANESSA VARTTO Labor (bottom) LUKE SMOLUCHA Family First

Electoral District Boundaries Commission map

Unley is a normally safe Liberal seat in affluent suburbs south of the city, extending from Goodwood (where Labor generally has the edge) eastwards to Glenunga and Myrtle Bank, with Cross Road as the southern boundary. The redistribution has chopped off its north-western and south-western corners, sending parts of Wayville and Kings Park to Ashford, while in the north-east it absorbs the suburb of Glenside from Bragg. Labor held the seat from 1962 to 1993, but it was clear well before time that it would fall at the 1993 election. It thus presented competing Liberal factions with a chance to extend their empires, which fuelled an energetic preselection battle between Mark Brindal, who had won the abolished seat of Hayward from Labor in 1989, and John Cummins, the preferred candidate of moderate powerbrokers Robert and Di Hill. Brindal prevailed and Cummins had to settle for the lesser prospect of Norwood, which he won in 1993 and lost in 1997. The battle lines drawn in this conflict spilled over to the preselection for the federal seat of Boothby when veteran Steele Hall retired at the 1996 election. Robert Hill saw this as an opportunity to parachute from the Senate to the House, in pursuit of ambitions which extended to the prime ministership. Brindal exercised his influence in local branches to thwart him, and the seat instead went to young hopeful Andrew Southcott.

Despite serving in the ministry in the Olsen/Kerin government's second term, Brindal found his position locally in danger from David Pisoni, party sub-branch president and furniture manufacturer. Pisoni made his first attempt to topple Brindal before the 1997 election, which was scotched when the then Premier Dean Brown intervened on Brindal's behalf despite being factionally opposed to him. Brindal did not let that stop him backing John Olsen's successful challenge to Brown's leadership four months later. Pisoni's influence continued to grow in the following term as local branches came under the control of moderates associated with Sturt MP Christopher Pyne, and he launched a second preselection challenge ahead of the 2002 election. This proved even more bitter than the first, the stakes having been raised by a redistribution that added 4.7 per cent to the Liberal margin. Highlights included a defamation suit by Pisoni against Brindal and enough branch stacking from both sides (including more than 60 membership applications to the Brindal-controlled Kings Park branch from Echuca in Victoria) to prompt changes to be made to the party constitution.

Brindal survived for a second time, but his star waned after the Liberals entered opposition and he was dumped from the front bench in the April 2004. A few months earlier, The Advertiser anonymously received a statement from one of Brindal's school students from the late 1960s who alleged he used to hit pupils with a yardstick, prompting Brindal to threaten those circulating it with criminal defamation action. He ultimately decided to jump from Unley rather than be pushed, later saying he had hoped a compromise candidate would emerge to thwart Pisoni. Such a candidate did emerge in the person of Chris Kenny, a former journalist and media adviser to Alexander Downer who came highly praised by Brindal, but he only managed 19 preselection votes to Pisoni's 36. Brindal at first threatened to run as an independent, but he was persuaded to accept Liberal endorsement for the much less attractive prospect of Adelaide. He withdrew from politics altogether in August 2005 after outing himself as a bisexual and admitting to an affair with a 24-year-old man whose financial affairs were administered by the public trustee due to “mental incapacity”. Brindal said he had been compelled to go public because the man's foster father was trying to extort him. With Unley mayor Michael Keenan (not to be confused with the Liberal member for the federal seat of Stirling in Perth) running for Labor, Pisoni survived an 8.0 per cent swing with a margin of 1.1 per cent.

Pisoni's first term in parliament has been marked by quick progress through the Liberal ranks. He is reported to have voted for Martin Hamilton-Smith in his successful April 2007 challenge against Iain Evans, and was subsequently promoted to the front bench with the consumer affairs, volunteers, youth and small business portfolios. A further reshuffle in February 2008 punished Evans and rewarded Pisoni by granting the latter the former's education and children's services portfolios, with Pisoni relinquishing consumers affairs and volunteers. In September 2008 he gained employment, training and further education, and exchanged small business for tourism. It was Pisoni who received the forged documents purporting to reveal the government had traded donations for favours with an organisation linked to the Church of Scientology, and who raised the first question about the matter in parliament in April 2009. The affair was largely responsible for Hamilton-Smith's downfall three months later. In the reshuffle that followed, Pisoni lost tourism and gained early childhood development.

PREDICTION: Liberal retain