Joan Hall
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Joan Hall (née Bullock) is a former member of the South Australian House of Assembly.
The wife of former Premier, Liberal Movement leader, and Australian Senator Steele Hall, she met Hall while working as his parliamentary secretary during the 1960s and 70s. Later, she was a staffer to Premier Dean Brown before entering parliament as the member for the Adelaide hills electoral district of Coles at the 1993 election.
Initially a moderate like her husband, Hall surprisingly defected to the conservative wing of the Liberal Party in November 1996, giving factional leader John Olsen the numbers to successfully challenge Brown for the Premiership. Under Olsen, she was Minister for Youth and Employment from December 1997, then Minister for Tourism from October 1998.
As Tourism Minister, Hall was instrumental in bringing the Tour Down Under, the Clipsal 500, The Le Mans Race of 1000 years, the National Wine Centre and the 2007 Police and Fire Games to South Australia, leading many tourism industry figures to claim that she was "the best Tourism Minister South Australia has ever had".
In October 2001, she resigned from the ministry due to a conflict of interest in her handling of the Hindmarsh Soccer Stadium redevelopment. [1]
Hall easily retained her seat in 1998 after a redistribution which saw her represent the new Electoral district of Morialta and with overwhelming support from her Liberal Party Branches, won party pre-selections in 2002 and 2006 against what was seen as machinations against her by factional opponent Christopher Pyne, the federal member for Sturt. [2]
Hall suffered a 12% swing at the 2006 election, which saw her lose to her Australian Labor Party opponent Lindsay Simmons.
