TheFederal FederalElection: Election: The WORDS BY SEBASTIAN ANDREWS A Labor landslide in Western Australia. Revolt against the Liberals from Independents in suburban Melbourne and Sydney. A fight between the parties for the crucial battlegrounds of Tasmania and Queensland. Much of the discussion around the upcoming May election revolves around every state, BUT South Australia. It’s understandable. We’re only 6.6% of the House of Representatives. Most of our electorates are uncompetitive. And despite being home to one of the nation’s most marginal electorates, typically, federal elections are not won or lost in South Australia. But as South Australians reading this, I believe it is still important for us to be aware of how the federal election will play out in our own state. It may not be as interesting as, for example, 2016 when the Nick Xenophon Team (NXT) made SA’s state elections a genuine three-way contest, but there are a few competitive seats that are worth looking at.
BOOTHBY
HELD BY: LIBERAL PARTY (1.4%) Boothby is one of the nation’s most marginal seats, and one Labor MUST flip if it hopes to win government. This seat covers Adelaide’s southern suburbs, from Mitcham and Clarence Gardens to Blackwood and Bedford Park, and along the southern coast from Glenelg to Kingston Park. While historically a guarantee for the Liberals since redistribution in 1949 (minus a few occasions), this safe seat has become marginal in the last few decades, with Labor having come close to flipping it on numerous occasions. After experiencing a swing but falling short in 2019, Labor is confident that Vinnies CEO Louise Miller-Frost will finally flip it.
The seat was held for two terms by MP Nicolle Flint, who announced her resignation early last year. The Liberals would hope that their replacement candidate, healthcare consultant and volunteer Rachel Swift, is seen as less controversial than capital ‘C’ conservative Flint and will be able to retain the seat. But if polls are to be believed (and they should be, I talk about this in my Issue 2 article), the Liberals plan seemingly isn’t working. Labor holds a strong lead in the TPP vote in the state as well as in seat polls, meaning that not even the seat’s historically Liberal lean, and a fresh, noncontroversial candidate will necessarily protect it from a potential flip. To win, Labor likely needs to flip Liberal-tilting areas in the south such as Oaklands Park, Brighton South, and Bellevue Heights, while cutting into smaller Liberal leads in the west and along the coast.
The seat of Sturt covers Adelaide’s suburbs between the CBD and the Adelaide Hills, south to Beaumont, north to Giles Plains and Holden Hill. This Eastern suburbs seat was once held by the machiavellian Christopher Pyne. With Pyne’s retirement in 2019, it was retained by Liberal candidate and Steven Marshall’s former chief of staff, James Stevens, with a small swing in the Liberals’ favour.
STURT
HELD BY: LIBERAL
In contrast to his predecessor, Stevens has generally kept a low PARTY (6.9%) profile and is relatively unknown outside of the electorate. His biggest national claim to fame was falling asleep during a voting marathon and nearly derailing Scott Morrison’s religious discrimination legislation. None of which has stuck with him, meaning that this maintained low profile could strengthen his re-election chances, 54
