Morialta – SA 2014

LIB 2.8%

Incumbent MP
John Gardner, since 2010.

Geography
Eastern fringe of Adelaide. Morialta covers the suburbs of Athelstone, Castambul, Cherryville, Montacute, Newton, Paradise, Rostrevor, Teringie, Woodforde, and parts of Basket Range, Marble Hill, Norton Summit and Teringie. Most of the electorate lies in the Campbelltown and Tea Tree Gully local government areas, as well as parts of the Adelaide Hills.

Redistribution
Morialta lost areas in the southwestern corner of the seat, including Skye, Rosslyn Park, Wattle Park and Magill. Morialta shifted north into the Tea Tree Gully council area and further north into the Adelaide Hills, but these areas don’t include large populations. This reduced the Liberal Party’s margin from 4.1% to 2.8%.

History
Morialta was created in 2002 as a renaming of the former electorate of Coles, which had existed since 1970. Coles was a Labor seat until 1977. Since 1977, the Liberal Party has won Coles/Morialta at all but one election.

Coles was first won in 1970 by the ALP’s Len King, who served as a minister in the Dunstan government. He held the seat until 1975. After leaving Parliament he was appointed to the Supreme Court of South Australia in 1975, and served as Chief Justice from 1978 to 1995.

King was succeeded by Des Corcoran, who had held the seat of Millicent since 1962 and had served as Deputy Premier since 1970.

Corcoran only served one term in Coles, moving to the new seat of Hartley in 1977. Corcoran went on to serve as Premier for seven months in 1979, and retired from Hartley in 1982.

Jennifer Cashmore won Coles for the Liberal Party in 1977. She served in the seat for sixteen years, retiring in 1993. Cashmore was succeeded by Joan Hall, also a Liberal. Hall is the wife of former Liberal Premier Steele Hall, who went on to serve as a crossbench Senator and a Liberal member of the House of Representatives. Joan Hall held the seat for thirteen years, including serving as a minister from 1997 to 2001.

Hall was re-elected in 1997 and 2002, when Coles was renamed as Morialta. Hall lost in 2006 with a 12% swing to the ALP’s Lindsay Simmons.

There was an 11% swing back to the Liberal Party in 2010, and Simmons lost to the Liberal Party’s John Gardner.

Candidates
Sitting Liberal MP John Gardner is running for re-election. The ALP is running Clare Scriven. The Greens are running Scott Andrews. Family First are running Sue Neal.

• John Gardner (Liberal)
• Clare Scriven (Labor)
• Scott Andrews (Greens)
• Sue Neal (Family First)

Assessment
Morialta is a very marginal seat, but in current circumstances should be retained by the Liberal Party.

2010 result

2010 two-party-preferred result

Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into three areas: east, north-east and north-west. The east covers the booths in the sparsely-populated Adelaide Hills parts of the seat. Most of the population lies at the western end of the seat, and this area was split between north and south.

The Liberal Party won a majority of the vote in the north-west (51.1%) and the south-west (51.5%). The ALP won a 52.7% in the east.

The Greens came third, polling 6.8% in the western parts of the seat. The Greens performed much better, with 14.5%, in the east of the seat.