Kingston – Election 2010

ALP 4.4%

Incumbent MP
Amanda Rishworth, since 2007.

Geography
Kingston covers the southern fringe of Adelaide and semi-rural suburbs to the south of South Australia’s capital, such as Aldinga, Willunga, McLaren Vale and Noarlunga. The seat covers most of Onkaparinga LGA and part of Marion LGA.

History
Kingston was first created in 1949, and in its sixty year history has been a classical marginal seat regularly changing hands. The seat has been represented by ten MPs in the last sixty years, and every former Member for Kingston lost the seat at an election to the opposing major party.

The seat was first won in 1949 by former SANFL football player Jim Handby for the Liberal Party. Patrick Galvin of the ALP won the seat in 1951 off Handby and held it for the next fifteen years. Galvin was himself defeated by Kay Brownbill of the Liberal Party in 1966.

Brownbill was defeated in 1969 by Labor’s Richard Gun. The party of government held Kingston from the 1972 election until 1998, with Gun winning re-election in 1972 and 1974.

Grant Chapman won the seat off Gun in 1975, and held the seat for the entirety of the Fraser government. Following his defeat in 1983 he went on to become a Senator for South Australia from 1987 until 2007.

Chapman was defeated in 1983 by Gordon Bliney of the ALP, who went on to serve as a minister in the Hawke and Keating governments. The seat was home to a challenge by Democrats leader Janine Haines in 1990, when she attempted to move to the House of Representatives. She polled over a quarter of the vote but failed to outpoll either major party. Bliney was defeated by Susan Jeanes in 1996, and Jeanes herself was defeated in 1998 before seeking a career in state politics, where she challenged Bob Such for preselection in Fisher, and Such was re-elected as an independent.

David Cox won the seat for the ALP in 1998 and held it until 2004, during which time he served on the Opposition frontbench. He was defeated in 2004 by former police officer Kym Richardson. Richardson was defeated in 2007 by 30-year-old psychologist Amanda Rishworth.

Candidates

Political situation
Kingston will remain a marginal seat in the near future but a 4.4% swing should keep the seat safe at the next election.

2007 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Amanda Rishworth ALP 42,731 46.65 +4.36
Kym Richardson LIB 37,565 39.74 -3.85
Robert Brokenshire FF 5,806 5.71 +0.07
Bill Weller GRN 3,102 5.67 +0.37
Matthew Fowler DEM 1,064 0.95 -1.21
Barry Becker IND 327 0.56 +0.56
Alex Kusznir IND 327 0.42 +0.42
Lachlan Smith LDP 327 0.30 +0.30
ON 0 0.00 -1.03

2007 two-candidate-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Amanda Rishworth ALP 49,247 54.42 +4.49
Kym Richardson LIB 41,244 45.58 -4.49

Booth breakdown
I divided the booths into three regions: North (Reynella), Central (Hackham, Morphett Vale) and South (Aldinga Beach, Seaford). This breakdown is shown on the map below.

Polling booths in Kingston. Northern booths in red, central booths in blue and southern booths in green.
Polling booths in Kingston. Northern booths in red, central booths in blue and southern booths in green.

Northern and southern booths are slightly pro-Labor with an overall Labor two-party-preferred vote of about 52.5%. In contrast, booths in the centre of the electorate are much safer for Labor, with the ALP polling 59.5% in 2007.

Voter group FF % GRN % ALP 2CP % Total votes % of votes
North 5.17 4.55 52.47 32,843 36.29
Central 6.38 5.07 59.36 24,700 27.30
South 5.77 7.70 52.58 18,969 20.96
Other votes 5.72 6.61 52.78 13,979 15.45
Two party preferred vote by booth in Kingston
Two party preferred vote by booth in Kingston
Two party preferred vote by booth in northern Kingston
Two party preferred vote by booth in northern Kingston

8 COMMENTS

  1. The Family First candidate was an ex-state Liberal MP. I find it ironic that FF ran their highest profile candidate in the seat with the highest proportion of people claiming no religion (30% in the 2006 census).

    I always find it curious that Haines contested this seat, a marginal Liberal-Labor seat where it was always going to be more difficult to win, because more votes were needed to get ahead of one of the majors, rather than contesting one of the safe Liberal seats (and stronger Dem areas) like Mayo or Boothby, where she presumably would’ve easily outpolled Labor and then had a strong chance of winning on Labor prefs. Anyone know the history of why she chose Kingston?

  2. Alex Bond, a ’19-year-old, opera-singing criminology student and Optus call centre worker’ has nominated for the Liberal preselection.

  6. Labor ended up getting a 9.5% swing toward them which should not surprise too many people. The Liberal candidate was only pre selected a couple of days before the campaign and up against a high profile candidate in an electorate where the govt has pumped money in the last 3 years to sure it up. It has done that.

  8. Johann

    i think it has less to do with the Labor MPs performance and more to do with the fact that the SA Liberals pumped eall their resources into defending Sturt and Boothby. They clearly put in a token effort in Labor-held seats, which was reflected by big pro-Labor swings in Kingston, Makin and Wakefield.

Comments are closed.