ALP 3.3%
Incumbent MP
Louise Miller-Frost, since 2022.
Geography
Southern Adelaide. Boothby stretches from the coast to the bottom of the Adelaide Hills. The seat covers suburbs such as Brighton and Marion in the western part of the seat, Blackwood, Aberfoyle Park and Flagstaff Hill in the south-east and Hawthorn in the north-east.
History
Boothby has almost always been held by conservative parties, with a few exceptions in periods of Labor dominance. The ALP held the seat for most of the first decade-and-a-half following federation, as well as during the depression years, but in both cases lost the seat through a defection to a new conservative party. The ALP also held the seat for six years in the 1940s, with the seat remaining in Liberal hands for over seventy years until Labor won the seat in 2022.
The electorate of Boothby was created for the 1903 election. The seat was first held by the ALP’s Lee Batchelor, who served as Minister for Home Affairs in the Watson government and Minister for External Affairs in the first two Fisher governments. He took responsibility for the Northern Territory when it was ceded to the federal government in 1911 and died in office the same year.
While the ALP lost the seat to the new Commonwealth Liberal Party in the 1911 by-election, the seat was won back in 1913 by George Dankel, who joined the new Nationalist Party in 1916. He retired in 1917 and was replaced by William Story, a Senator and another former ALP member in the Nationalist Party.
Story lost his seat in 1922 to John Duncan-Hughes of the newly-formed Liberal Party, made up of Nationalists disenchanted with Billy Hughes’ leadership, and Duncan-Hughes entered the Nationalist fold upon Hughes’ retirement as Prime Minister and held the seat until 1928.
John Price won the seat for the ALP in 1928, was re-elected in 1929 and then followed Joe Lyons across the floor in 1931 to join the newly founded United Australia Party. He held the seat until his death in 1941, when Grenfell Price won the seat and held onto it for one term.
The ALP won the seat in 1943 at the depths of the UAP’s ill-fortunes and held it for six years until the 1949 election, when the seat was won by the Liberal Party’s John McLeay. The ALP did not regain the seat until 2022.
McLeay served as Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1956 until his retirement in 1966, and still holds the record for the longest-serving Speaker. He was succeeded by his son John McLeay Jr in 1966. McLeay junior held the seat until 1981, and served as a minister in the first two terms of the Fraser government.
McLeay junior’s resignation in 1981 saw the seat won at a by-election by former South Australian Premier Steele Hall. Hall had been Premier from 1968 to 1970, when he lost office. He had resigned from the Liberal and Country League in 1972 to form the progressive Liberal Movement, and was elected as a crossbench senator in 1974 and 1975 before rejoining the Liberal Party in 1976 and resigning from the Senate in 1977.
Hall held the seat until his retirement in 1996, when Andrew Southcott defeated Liberal Senate leader Robert Hill in a preselection contest. Southcott held the seat for the next twenty years.
The seat has trended away from the Liberal Party over the last two decades. While the Liberals maintained a majority of the primary vote and a two-party-preferred vote of approximately 60% from 1984 until 1996, the 1998 election saw them fall below 50% for the first time. They remained steady in 2001, before Southcott suffered another swing against the national trend in 2004, falling to 55.4% of the two-party-preferred vote.
In 2007 the ALP preselected “star candidate” Nicole Cornes, who was generally considered to have performed poorly by the media and the ALP, but still managed a swing of another 2.5%, reducing Southcott’s margin to 2.9%.
In 2010, despite a national swing to the Coalition, Southcott’s margin was reduced further to 0.75%. In 2013, Southcott finally gained a swing back to the Liberal Party, with his vote increasing by 6.5%.
Southcott retired in 2016, and was succeeded by Liberal candidate Nicolle Flint. Flint was re-elected in 2019.
Flint retired in 2022, and Labor’s Louise Miller-Frost won.
Assessment
Boothby is a very marginal seat and the Liberal Party won’t have given up on it just one term after losing the seat. Miller-Frost should benefit from a new personal vote previously unavailable.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Rachel Swift | Liberal | 43,196 | 38.0 | -7.2 |
| Louise Miller-Frost | Labor | 36,746 | 32.3 | -2.3 |
| Jeremy Carter | Greens | 17,285 | 15.2 | +3.2 |
| Jo Dyer | Independent | 7,441 | 6.5 | +6.5 |
| Graeme Clark | United Australia | 2,520 | 2.2 | +0.3 |
| Bob Couch | One Nation | 2,320 | 2.0 | +2.0 |
| Frankie Bray | Animal Justice | 1,358 | 1.2 | -1.2 |
| Aleksandra Nikolic | Liberal Democrats | 1,250 | 1.1 | +1.1 |
| Paul Busuttil | Independent | 1,048 | 0.9 | +0.9 |
| Peter Harris | Federation Party | 543 | 0.5 | +0.5 |
| Informal | 5,289 | 4.4 | -0.3 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Louise Miller-Frost | Labor | 60,579 | 53.3 | +4.7 |
| Rachel Swift | Liberal | 53,128 | 46.7 | -4.7 |
Booths have been divided into three parts. The “east” covers the Mitcham and Unley council areas. The “west” covers the Holdfast Bay council area and a small part of the Marion council area in the south-western corner of the seat. The “central” area covers the remainder of the Marion council area.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in every area, ranging from 50.2% in the west to 60.2% in the centre, and a narrow 50.7% majority in the pre-poll vote.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 14.9% in the west to 18.2% in the east.
| Voter group | GRN prim | ALP 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| East | 18.2 | 56.8 | 24,852 | 21.9 |
| Central | 17.0 | 60.2 | 17,471 | 15.4 |
| West | 14.9 | 50.2 | 15,171 | 13.3 |
| Pre-poll | 13.6 | 50.7 | 31,170 | 27.4 |
| Other votes | 13.2 | 50.0 | 25,043 | 22.0 |
Election results in Boothby at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and the Greens.
@nether portal as with every bellwhetherit will eventually fall. just like lindsay and eden-monaro.
@Nimalan – exactly, if Abbott was the MP for Cook or Hughes after being PM, he would still be the MP to this day.
@ James,
Agree and this my point. I am not trying to be disrespectful to anyone we need to understand that seats vary in demographics so no one needs to get offended. If Peter Khalil was running for the neighboring seat of Maribiyrong then for example the issue of his more right wing foreign policy (Pro AUKUS and Pro-Israel) will not make a difference as it is a less diverse seat and a more centrist seat.
if Abbott was the MP for Cook or Hughes after being PM, he would still be the MP to this day.
Doubtful.
Even if he could be preselected, Tony Abbott’s problem was no one knew what he really stood for, because he couldn’t maintain a position on anything if he was under pressure.
Credit to him since he left Parliament, he’s never taken any cheap shots at the Liberal Party..
@nimalan why didnt he run for it once Shorten retired? then labor could put in a left wing candidate for Wills
@ John
Good question. I have posted in the Maribryrong thread for us to continue the chat there,
@Np labor barely hold this seat. I’m willing to say that I believe the Libs can win all 3 of Robertson, Chisholm and Boothby with returning members.
The first two maybe.
Not this seat.
Labor are simply too strong in SA at the moment, they need to defend Sturt.
i guess we will see at the next election. it will be fought on federal issues like CoL and albos problems that may hurt labor enough for people to want to change the govt
@Darth Vader, Robertson maybe, Chisholm possibly (depends on the redistribution) but Boothby no.
@NP, not saying she isn’t popular, but against a popular incumbent indie, in that neck of the woods, the whole ICAC hearing debacle will hang like a millstone around her neck.
Happy to be wrong though.
@MLV I still think she’d win, her profile is very high. Polling shows that most people in NSW didn’t think Gladys did anything wrong.
@NP the redistribution is final in Chisholm . I also wouldn’t write off Boothby if labor only barely hold the seat now the CoL crisis May help her win it back. Labor is only doing well in SA because the Libs are prolly the worst division in the country. Even the Vic liberals are looking pretty decent by comparison.
This one will be close, sophomore swing practically doesn’t exist as Miller-Frost is going up against the previous MP who didn’t lose but resigned due to “health reasons + harassment” Outcome will rely on state fed swing. Slim Lib gain early call.
Every chance this seat bucks the national trend and either stays mostly stagnant or actually swings to Labor, does Flint have a strong personal following locally?
@Maxim I agree. Labor is doing well in SA, and the sophomore surge will help Miller-Frost. From my view, Flint appears to be from the hard-right of the Liberals, which I don’t think is overly representative of Boothby. That being said, I haven’t been to SA in almost 7 years and I wasn’t politically obsessed when I was there
@Maxim – Reposting my comment from a few months ago.
I don’t have personal criticism for Nicolle Flint, but she will be a lemon in an electorate with growing progressive values. She would be a great candidate for Barker or Grey, but Boothby definitely has a tealish disposition, definitely a small-L Liberal seat.
Adding on, Miller-Frost is active, progressive, and quite popular here. Combine that with a mega-popular state government and Premier, a pretty duddish opposition in the SA Liberals, Dutton probably to be seen negatively here, and Flint possessing out-of-touch views, I predict Labor to hold, with a swing to them, especially in the east (Belair, Blackwood). Flint will not be liked there.
There has been huge change and it all labors way here. This is not the same seat Steele- Hall won.
@Mick but it’s still not good for the Liberals that they won’t be able to pick it back up given this was a seat they held for so long. Christopher Pyne’s old seat of Sturt is now on a knife’s edge and if it’s lost the federal Liberals will be wiped out in Adelaide.
@Nick G would it not be said that Miller-Frost’s sophomore effect might be canceled out by the return of the former MP? She doesn’t benefit from running against an unknown candidate attempting to sell Liberal messaging to the electorate. This suggests the seat would predominantly rely on the federal statewide swing.
im saying labor hold but m not writing off Nicoel Flint
Cr Joanna Wells, Boorman Ward, City of Mitcham, announced as Greens candidate
Can confirm that Flint is not liked in the Mitcham Hills and that there’s an ever growing group that will work hard to make sure that she stays out of Boothby. She is not wanted here.
The mrp seems to suggest she will win.
If I had to guess, I’d say Labor retain with a swing against of maybe about 1-2% then quite probable Liberal gain by 2028
@Nick G & Greg, you guys are right on the money!
I’d say this will go down to postals and absentees.
This is the type of seat that should have firmed up considerably for Labor over the past month.
How popular was Flint really? – bringing her back seems a mistake. The Liberals had a fairly good candidate here last time, one who probably limited further damage to the margin.
If Flint was popular enough she wouldn’t have lost a considerable part of her margin every time she contested the seat. If she contested in 2022 it’s arguable that she would’ve lost. Rachel Swift was a decent talent and actually had a higher first preference vote but she’s been overlooked this time for Flint who’s probably more suitable for Barker as she’s a staunch conservative whilst the liberal shade in Boothby’s probably closer to Teal.
Labor hold.
Yea can’t see libs wining this. Labor hold
I read that the Libs are close to giving up and shifting towards sandbagging Sturt.
I read the same. I think that boothby was always gonna be a bit hard given the popularity of the sa premier.
I mentioned earlier i think it was Labor retain Of all the seats Labor picked up in 2022 i think Boothby, Swan and Reid are not in play and even if Albo is defeated Labor will retain all three seats. I think only seat in SA in play is Sturt.
Agreed nimalan Reid is probly the weakest of the 3. Swan wont flip
The last SA state opposition leader represented Black, which overlaps with the southern part of Boothby. He got into trouble (I won’t comment further) and then resigned. SA Labor won it at a by-election with a 12% swing.
It’s a perfect storm. There’s a popular Labor premier and the SA Liberals are in trouble at the moment.
This will be fought on federal issues not state issues. But will be a Labor retain
Exit poll published this morning is estimating a 11% FP swing to Labor, and 5% FP swing to LIB. Bear in mind no IND and less congested local race this time round.
I see Labor retaining but I take the exit poll with a grain of salt.
No independent and no left-wing minor parties other than the Greens. This potentially means less vote-splitting from the left. There’s three right-wing minor parties giving the right-wing voters options.
@John, yes, fought on federal issues but the past 12 to 18 months highlights some issues within the local Liberal branches.