ALP 9.9%
Incumbent MP
Lee Odenwalder, since 2010.
Geography
Northern fringe of Adelaide. Most of the population lies in the Elizabeth area, along with the suburbs of Hillbank, Salisbury Park, Surrey Downs, Fairview Park, Yatala Vale and Upper Hermitage and parts of Salisbury Heights, Greenwith and Golden Grove.
Redistribution
Elizabeth replaced the seat of Little Para. The seat took in the westernmost part of Little Para (Elizabeth, Elizabeth East, Elizabeth Grove, Elizabeth South, Elizabeth Vale and Elizabeth Park) as well as parts of Napier (Blakeview, Craigmore and Elizabeth Downs). The remainder of Little Para, including Salisbury Park, Salisbury Heights and Hillbank, was moved to King. These changes increased the Labor margin from 7.4% to 9.9%.
History
The electorate of Little Para was a renaming of the former electorate of Elizabeth in 2006, which had existed since 1970. The electorate has mostly been won by Labor MPs, apart from a period of independent rule in the 1980s.
John Clark won the seat in 1970, and then the ALP’s Peter Duncan won Elizabeth in 1973.
Duncan served as Attorney-General from 1975 to 1979, and resigned from Elizabeth in 1984 to run for the federal seat of Makin. He served as a federal minister from 1987 to 1990, and held Makin until 1996.
The 1984 by-election was won by Elizabeth mayor Martyn Evans, running as an independent Labor candidate. He was re-elected as an independent at the 1985 and 1989 elections, and rejoined the ALP in 1993. He served as a minister in the dying days of the Labor government in 1992 and 1993.
Evans resigned from Elizabeth in 1994 to run for the federal Bonython by-election. Evans went on to serve as a Labor frontbencher from 1996 to 2001. At the 2004 election, Bonython was abolished and Evans ran unsuccessfully for the federal seat of Wakefield.
Lea Stevens was elected at the 1994 by-election. She won re-election in 1997, 2002 and in 2006 for the renamed electorate of Little Para. She served as a minister in the Rann government from 2002 to 2005.
Stevens retired in 2010, and Little Para was won by the ALP’s Lee Odenwalder. Odenwalder was re-elected in 2014.
Candidates
- Lee Odenwalder (Labor)
- John Mathiesen (Conservatives)
- Sharka Byrne (Liberal)
- Phil Gallasch (SA Best)
- Wendy Morgan (Greens)
Assessment
Elizabeth is a reasonably safe Labor seat.
2014 election result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Lee Odenwalder | Labor | 10,300 | 47.0 | -4.2 | 49.2 |
| Damien Pilkington | Liberal | 7,201 | 32.9 | +2.9 | 30.0 |
| Lloyd Rowlands | Family First | 1,997 | 9.1 | -1.8 | 10.8 |
| Samantha Blake | Greens | 1,459 | 6.7 | -0.3 | 7.4 |
| Scott Whelan | Dignity for Disability | 954 | 4.4 | +4.4 | 2.6 |
| Informal | 997 | 4.4 |
2014 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Lee Odenwalder | Labor | 12,573 | 57.4 | -3.9 | 59.9 |
| Damien Pilkington | Liberal | 9,338 | 42.6 | +3.9 | 40.1 |
Booth breakdown
Booths in Elizabeth have been divided into three areas: central, north-east, and south-west.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, with just over 60% in the centre and north-east and 64.6% in the south-west.
The Family First vote ranged from 8.5% in the centre to 12% in the north-east.
| Voter group | FF prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| North-East | 12.0 | 60.4 | 9,825 | 40.7 |
| Central | 8.5 | 60.5 | 4,950 | 20.5 |
| South-West | 9.4 | 64.6 | 4,338 | 18.0 |
| Other votes | 12.1 | 55.2 | 5,026 | 20.8 |
Election results in Elizabeth at the 2014 SA state election
Click on the ‘visible layers’ box to toggle between two-party-preferred votes and Family First primary votes.
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Why do you focus on ALP and Family First (now Conservatives) only? How did the Liberal vote compare last time by comparing booths within the new boundaries?
As the electorate is flooded with posters for Lee Odenwalder and Phil Gallasch, with hardly any other posters at all (I have not seen a Liberal one yet, just a few Conservatives with no candidate or punchline), how do you think Gallasch might go?
The northern part has quite a bit of Defence Housing that may not have been occupied four years ago. Will that skew the result differently?
Scott, you can determine the Liberal 2PP vote by subtracting the ALP 2PP from 100. It’d be a waste of space to include the 2PP twice. The Liberal Party did not win any booths in Elizabeth. Otherwise you’d see them on the map in blue.
My standard practice is to include the 2PP/2CP figure in every seat guide (both in the map and the table) and then include any other parties who won a sizeable vote separately.
How do you think Wendy Morgan (Greens) will go, will she gain back some ground that Greens lost in 2014 (0.7%) or will she lose more votes for The Greens? Who do you believe will perform better, Phil Gallasch or Wendy Morgan? This area is strong Labor, and voters generally don’t trust Liberal here. What do you think of Lee Odenwalder’s campaigning?
Thanks.
My prediction: Labor hold.