Smithson: Red-hot election targets as Labor jockeys for clean sweep
Despite polls showing a one-horse race, Labor is still reaching for the state election whip. Mike Smithson reveals the surprise seats being targeted by the Premier in a bid to crush a Liberal comeback over the next decade.
Labor has ramped up the political stakes and is making no secret of the Liberal seats it wants to seize at the upcoming state election.
With the result looming as a one-horse race, Labor’s jockeys are still reaching for the whip even with a lead of 10 lengths as they approach the home straight.
Three seats were given special attention over the weekend, with a Prime Ministerial visit thrown in for good measure.
As previously mentioned in InDaily, the newly named seat of Ngadjuri, formerly Frome, is a red-hot target.
The Mid North battleground is a mixture of outer metro and rural voters.
Liberal MP and shadow minister Penny Pratt is a proud rural member with a pedigree steeped in everything to do with the land, on both sides of her family.
She holds Ngadjuri by a slim 3.2 per cent.
If the Libs were on an upward trajectory headed toward next month’s acid test, she’d almost be home and hosed already.
But they’re not.
Labor stalwart Tony Piccolo has quit his safe adjoining seat of Light, which he’s held for 20 years and is locked in battle with Pratt.
It’s almost a bloodsport in this electorate.
Labor wants to take it simply because it can, if the anticipated swing is uniform across the state.
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Even conservative figures have a swing of six per cent.
There were no surprises when the Premier promised $90 million to create a safer Horrocks Highway, which by no coincidence, is a notorious stretch running through the heart of this electorate.
“By taking this targeted approach, we will improve safety and unlock greater productivity in the Mid North’s vibrant tourism and agricultural hub,” he said.
Piccolo says the number one thing people of Ngadjuri raise to him is the state of the highway.
Pratt says it’s hardly breaking news, as she’s been raising the same story of concern across her four years in office.
She accuses Labor of now re-announcing old projects as new, with the Liberals also promising to invest $1billion in road maintenance.
“Country motorists know the cost of Labor’s neglect,” she says.
A neighbouring electorate was also the weekend backdrop for a major national housing announcement from the Prime Minister.
South Australia was chosen as a launch pad for the big spend, with the politics also blatantly obvious.
Election fever is blowing across the dusty northern plains.
It includes a $300 million concessional loan for water infrastructure in the northern suburbs to help deliver 4,000 new homes.
As SA’s urban housing sprawl heads north and south, it’s a Labor tactic to lock in the vote of young families for another generation.
Heavy campaigning in or near marginal seats is the real “targeted approach” to which the Premier refers.
The following day, he was in Liberal-held Morialta, which sits on a slim 1.4 per cent margin in the eastern foothills.
He appeased the local Magill Matters community group with a sympathetic housing development blueprint for the former UniSA campus, preserving green space which many feared would be plundered by rampant housing development.
Exact details were sketchy, but it had to be released before the election, according to Peter Malinauskas.
It’s another example of eyeing off a prize that isn’t crucial to Labor retaining government.
Morialta is within comfortable reach, if the federal election result in Sturt is any indication.
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Labor’s Claire Clutterham stormed to victory there and a similar result in Morialta is easily achievable if the federal map is overlayed across the state boundary.
The other targeted seats, which would crush a Liberal comeback over the next decade, include Unley, Hartley, Morphett and Colton, to name a few.
They all fall within a marginal range of 2.2 to 4.8 per cent.
Malinauskas is keen to see success in what many consider his captain’s picks in some of these electorates.
Alice Rolls is a rolled-gold favourite of the Premier in her quest to win Unley, vacated by retiring Liberal heavy hitter David Pisoni.
The Premier denies she’s his golden child pick, so to speak, but he’s given her his ringing endorsement.
That’s at the expense of former Labor candidate Ryan Harrison who was so miffed at being overlooked that he’s now running against her as an independent in Unley.
Colton is another seat for the taking after the departure of Liberal Matt Cowdrey next month.
First-time candidate Aria Bolkus carries a famous Labor pedigree.
Her recently departed father, Nick, will be keenly ‘looking down’ on that result.
Labor wants Hartley just to rub salt into the wound of another former Liberal leader in Vincent Tarzia.
Labor’s apples rarely fall far from the tree, as seen in the safe territory of Enfield.
The ink was barely dry on Andrea Michaels’ resignation letter as she steps down next month, before Mali advisor Lawrence Ben was pre-selected.
He’s considered a smart practitioner who’s been given the full Malinauskas blessing.
Ben’s also a product of the all-powerful shoppies union and, usefully for him, is the new son-in-law of Labor’s long-time Godfather and kingmaker, Senator Don Farrell.
So, if Malinauskas eventually heads to Canberra, which he still strenuously denies he will, who will be the Godfather’s next ordained state leader?
And in signing off, my thanks to astute readers who picked my gaffe last week by incorrectly saying Jay Weatherill contested the 2010 state election against Isobel Redmond.
To quote Maxwell Smart, I missed it by that much (19 months to be precise) as Mike Rann led Labor to victory in that election.
There will be a modest prize for the first reader to pick next week’s fumble!
Mike Smithson is weekend newsreader and political analyst for 7News.
