Davenport – SA 2018

LIB 8.9%

Incumbent MP
Sam Duluk, since 2015.

Geography
Southern Adelaide. Davenport covers Bellevue Heights, Flagstaff Hill, and parts of Bedford Park, O’Halloran Hill, Panorama and St Marys.

Redistribution
Davenport shifted south, losing Coromandel Valley, Eden Hills, Blackwood, Craigburn Farm, Hawthorndene and Glenalta to Waite, and gaining Aberfoyle Park and Chandlers Hill from Fisher. These changes increased the Liberal margin from 8.1% to 8.9%.

History
The electorate of Davenport has existed since the 1970 election, and has always been won by the Liberal Party.

The seat was first held in 1970 by Liberal and Country League MP Joyce Steele. Steele had been elected as the first woman in the House of Assembly in 1959, winning the seat of Burnside. She served as Minister for Education from 1968 to 1969, and shifted to the new seat of Davenport in 1970.

In 1973, Steele announced her retirement in the face of an impending preselection threat from Dean Brown. Brown won the seat.

Brown held Davenport throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, until the 1985 election. Brown served as a minister from 1979 to 1982, and in 1982 was unsuccessful in a bid to serve as Liberal leader after the party lost power, losing to John Olsen.

Prior to the 1985 election, the neighbouring seat of Fisher shifted, and the member for Fisher, Stan Evans, challenged Brown for preselection in Davenport. Brown won preselection, but lost the election to Evans, running as an independent.

Brown returned to politics at the 1992 Alexandra by-election, in a bid by the Liberal Party to bring both himself and his rival Olsen back into the state parliament. Brown was elected Liberal leader shortly afterwards, and led the Liberal Party to victory in 1993, winning the new seat of Finniss.

Brown served as Premier from 1993 until his deposition by Olsen in 1996. He later served as Deputy Premier from 2001 to 2002, and then as Deputy Leader of the Opposition until 2005, retiring in 2006.

Stan Evans rejoined the Liberal Party shortly after the 1985 election, and won re-election in 1989. He retired in 1993.

Stan Evans was succeeded in 1993 by his son, Iain Evans. Evans served as a minister in the Olsen and Kerin governments from 1997 to 2002. He then served as deputy leader of the opposition from 2005 until the 2006 state election. He was elected Liberal leader following the party’s landslide defeat in 2006, but barely lasted a year before losing the job in April 2007.

Evans was re-elected in 2010, after a failed bid to win preselection for the federal seat of Mayo for the 2008 by-election. He was re-elected again in 2014, and retired in late 2014.

The Liberal Party’s Sam Duluk won the 2015 by-election.

Candidates
Sitting Liberal MP Sam Duluk is running for the neighbouring seat of Waite.

• John Photakis (Greens)
• Dan Golding (Independent)
• Karen Hockley (SA Best)
• Steve Murray (Liberal)
• Jonette Thorsteinsen (Labor)

Assessment
Davenport is not under threat from Labor, but Nick Xenophon’s SA Best party could do well here. The Nick Xenophon Team polled 29.5% here at the 2016 Senate election – higher than all but twelve other state seats.

2014 election result

2014 two-party-preferred result

2015 by-election result

2015 by-election two-party-preferred result

2014 election booth breakdown

Booths in Davenport have been divided into three areas: east, north and south-west.

The Liberal Party’s primary vote ranged from 34.1% in the south-west to just over 53% in the other two areas. The Labor vote ranged from 17% in the south-west to 29% in the north. The vote for independents (primarily Such) was 40.6% in the south-west and much lower or zero in the other regions.

2015 by-election breakdown

Booths at the Davenport by-election were divided into north-east, south and west.

The Liberal two-party-preferred vote ranged from 50.8% in the north-east to 54.9% in the south.

The Greens vote ranged from 9.4% in the south to 14.5% in the north-east.

Election results in Davenport at the 2014 SA state election
Click on the ‘visible layers’ box to toggle between primary votes between Liberal, Labor and independent Bob Such.

Election results at the 2015 Davenport by-election
Click on the ‘visible layers’ box to toggle between two-party-preferred votes and Greens primary votes.

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