LIB 18.9%
Incumbent MP
Tony Pasin, since 2013.
Geography
Barker covers southeastern parts of South Australia. It stretches from Mount Gambier in the southeastern corner of the state up to the Murray River and the Barossa Valley.
History
The seat of Barker was first created for the 1903 election, and has been a seat that has consistently voted for Conservative parties. Apart from two terms of the Country Party, the seat has been held by the main non-Labor party since its creation.
It was first won in 1903 by John Langdon Bonython, a Protectionist MP first elected as a member for South Australia at-large in 1901. Bonython retired in 1906 and was replaced by Anti-Socialist candidate John Livingston. Livingston held the seat as a member of the Liberal Party and Nationalist Party before his retirement in 1922.
The seat was won in 1922 by Malcolm Cameron, who was elected as a member of the breakaway Liberal Party, who opposed the leadership of Billy Hughes, but returned to the Nationalists after Hughes deposition. He held the seat until 1934.
The seat was won in 1934 by the Country Party’s Archie Cameron. He served as a minister in the Lyons government from 1937 until Lyons’ death in 1939. After Earle Page refused to serve in government with Robert Menzies, the Country Party replaced Page with Cameron as their leader, and Cameron led the party back into government.
Cameron, however, was replaced by Arthur Fadden as Country Party leader in 1940, and Cameron resigned from the Country Party and joined the United Australia Party. Cameron joined Menzies’ new Liberal Party in 1945 and was elected Speaker of the House in 1949. Cameron remained Speaker and Member for Barker until his death in 1956.
The ensuing by-election was won by Liberal candidate Jim Forbes. He served as a minister in the Liberal government from 1963 until the election of the Whitlam government in 1972.
Forbes retired at the 1975 election, and was replaced by James Porter, who held the seat for fifteen years. He was replaced in 1990 by Ian McLachlan, a former president of the National Farmers Federation. McLachlan served as Minister for Defence for the first term of the Howard government, retiring in 1998.
The seat was won in 1998 by the Liberal Party’s Patrick Secker. He held Barker for the next five terms, retiring in 2013.
Liberal candidate Tony Pasin won Barker in 2013, and was re-elected in 2016 and 2019.
- Jonathan Pietzsch (Nationals)
- Carlos Quaremba (One Nation)
- Vince Pannell (Independent)
- Maddy Fry (Independent)
- Rosa Hillam (Greens)
- Tony Pasin (Liberal)
- David Swiggs (United Australia)
- Mark Braes (Labor)
- Kym Hanton (Federation)
Assessment
Barker is a safe Liberal seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Tony Pasin | Liberal | 61,155 | 57.9 | +12.4 |
| Mat O’Brien | Labor | 22,205 | 21.0 | +4.7 |
| Rosa Hillam | Greens | 7,229 | 6.8 | +3.2 |
| Bert Bacher | United Australia Party | 6,259 | 5.9 | +5.9 |
| Kelly Gladigau | Centre Alliance | 3,082 | 2.9 | -25.7 |
| Karen Eckermann | Animal Justice | 2,940 | 2.8 | +2.8 |
| Miles Hannemann | Nationals | 2,796 | 2.6 | +2.7 |
| Informal | 6,227 | 5.6 | +1.3 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Tony Pasin | Liberal | 72,851 | 68.9 | +5.1 |
| Mat O’Brien | Labor | 32,815 | 31.1 | -5.1 |
Booths have been divided into five areas. Polling places in the southern city of Mount Gambier have been grouped together. The remainder of the seat has been split into four strips that stretch across the electorate. From north to south, these are North, Murray Mallee, Upper South East and Lower South East.
The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all five areas, ranging from 62.2% in Mount Gambier to 79.8% in the upper south-east.
| Voter group | LIB 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| North | 65.4 | 31,319 | 29.6 |
| Lower South-East | 70.2 | 9,088 | 8.6 |
| Murray Mallee | 68.7 | 8,959 | 8.5 |
| Upper South-East | 79.8 | 7,478 | 7.1 |
| Mount Gambier | 62.2 | 6,980 | 6.6 |
| Pre-poll | 70.4 | 28,933 | 27.4 |
| Other votes | 70.8 | 12,909 | 12.2 |
Election results in Barker at the 2019 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party and Labor.
In the absence of a strong Independent challenger then this is a Liberal hold.
Troy Bell would make this interesting if he jumped ship to federal politics.
Obviously a Liberal retain but I wonder if the nonexistent SA Nats can improve their vote share even a minuscule amount. The history of the relationship between the Liberals and Nationals in each state has always interested me quite a bit.
Can someone bring me up to speed on the Federation Party? I have no awareness of the history or set up.
Federation are the former group known as “Country Alliance” aren’t they?
@LNP Insider
The AFP is an agrarianist and developmentalist party, formerly the Country Alliance. Most active in Victoria I believe.
Jonathan Pietzsch polled 4.7.% for the Nationals in the corresponding state seat of MacKillop in the SA state election just over a month ago. Will be interesting to see if he can build on that performance in Barker.
“ Liberal MP Tony Pasin won a preselection ballot for his South Australian seat of Barker with 284 votes against 58 for Katherine McBride, who owns grazing property with husband Nick McBride, the state member for MacKillop.”
Why was a pre-selection ballot held 2 years out from an election? Also Troy Bell should seriously consider running here because Pasin has been (along with my MP) some of the most prominent Dutton backers and support the party drifting further to the right.
They also interject an abnormally high number of times during question time (Yes I watch question time)
MP’s like Pasin, Howarth, Goodenough, Hastie, McIntosh, Pearce and a few others, are the exact reason the party cannot move forward in a more moderate and electable direction. The only reason these MP’s get re-elected is because they are active in their local communities and it tends to be local politics that wins them, as well as the branches strongly backing them.
Um, because the earliest a federal election can be held is actually August 2024… and half the chatter is that Albanese will go early! So the Liberals need to be ready! Hopefully if Labor does go next year, it is not until November, after the QLD election.
Troy Bell’s fraud charges are still before the courts and I don’t think he was exactly considered a moderate before them.
While I can see how he got reelected (voters hate being told who they can and can’t vote for and SA electorates are small), I don’t see how he builds a positive profile in the other parts of Barker.
On the other hand this was a decent seat for the Nick Xenophon Team in 2016. Pasin was never truly at risk (unlike Rowan Ramsey in Grey, who only held on in 2016 because Labor ran open tickets). But these rural SA seats have an independent streak as seen at other tiers. You’d need a candidate who gets both Labor/Green and PHON preferences, which isn’t unheard of.
I wouldn’t rule out a complete lower house Liberal lockout in SA. Labor smells blood in Sturt (and I think Greens are trying there too).
If the coalition were to lose this (even to independents), this would mean they are probably looking at a seat tally in the teens, maybe low 20s. The LIBS/NATS (and predecessors) haven’t ever lost this seat (except that single term of Liberal Union in 1922) and this is quite a socially conservative seat (52-48 yes in SSM survey).
@John
When I read your description of “a candidate who gets both Labor/Green and PHON preferences”, I immediately thought only someone batsh*t crazy can do this (and not the usual batsh*t crazy right-wing minor parties). Then I remembered Katter existed. I am reasonably sure at least Labor and PHON (most like Greens too) preferences him over at least the LNP!
@Leon Nick Xenophon Team were somewhat able to do that – they sat somewhere between the LNP and Labor but have that populist fervor and were good on the issues where Labor and Liberal vote together against the Greens to pick up that vote. SA Best seemed like an actual threat which lost them the Liberal, Labor and Green HTVs.
In Grey, Geoff Brock would be able to pull it off easily. Liz Habermann still picked up half of the preferences after PHON was eliminated (more than Ramsey, though at this point he was too far ahead). Less clear in Barker but I think it can be done. All of this will be harder, but not impossible, when Labor is holding government.
Liberals won 4/10 seats in SA 2016 and won majority at that election, but we weren’t particularly far off a total SA lockout if NXT did a little better, getting over exclusion order issues in Boothby and Sturt, and getting strong preference flows from Labor through a favourable HTV. That election also saw Liberals locked out of Tasmania which I don’t think will happen again for a long time.