South Australian general election, 1997

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State election major party leaders
< 1993 1997 2002 >
Liberal John Olsen Premier Parliament: 18 years Leader since: 1996 Division: Kavel
Labor Mike Rann Opposition Leader Parliament: 12 years Leader since: 1994 Division: Ramsay

State elections were held in Australia on October 11, 1997. All 47 seats in the South Australian House of Assembly were up for election. The incumbent Liberal Party of Australia led by Premier of South Australia John Olsen defeated the Australian Labor Party led by Mike Rann.

Following the 1993 landslide to the Liberal Party, the Labor Party, led by Mike Rann held just 11 seats in the House of Assembly. The Liberals held 36 seats and there were no independent or minor party members in the House of Assembly. (They had held a record 37, but lost one in a by-election in 1994). However the Liberals had internal tensions, and John Olsen had successfully challenged Dean Brown for the leadership of the Liberal Party in 1996 and had been Premier of South Australia for around 12 months on election day. The margin of 25 seats was seen as insurmountable for the Labor Party despite the Liberal leadership change.

The election was held just after the end of the football season (when the state had been captivated by the Adelaide Crows unexpectedly winning the AFL premiership), leaving only one week for campaigning uninterrupted by football. This was expected to work in the government's favour, though it seems it had the opposite effect.

To the surprise of most observers, the Labor Party polled exceptionally well, gaining 10 seats and coming within a couple of seats of winning government. The Liberals lost a massive 13 seats; 10 to Labor, one to the Nationals and two to conservative independents.

[edit] Post-election Pendulum

LABOR SEATS (21)
Marginal
Norwood	Vini Ciccarello	ALP	0.8%
Mitchell	Kris Hanna	ALP	0.9%
Florey	Frances Bedford	ALP	1.3%
Elder	Pat Conlon	ALP	2.6%
Wright	Jennifer Rankine	ALP	3.1%
Reynell	Gay Thompson	ALP	3.7%
Hanson	Stephanie Key	ALP	5.6%
Kaurna	John Hill	ALP	5.8%
Fairly safe
Peake	Tom Koutsantonis	ALP	7.0%
Lee	Michael Wright	ALP	7.1%
Napier	Annette Hurley	ALP	9.5% v AD
Safe
Torrens	Robyn Geraghty	ALP	10.1%
Giles	Lyn Breuer	ALP	11.4%
Playford	Jack Snelling	ALP	12.9%
Elizabeth	Lea Stevens	ALP	14.3%
Ross Smith	Ralph Clarke	ALP	14.8%
Ramsay	Mike Rann	ALP	18.2%
Very safe
Taylor	Trish White	ALP	22.2%
Hart	Kevin Foley	ALP	22.7%
Spence	Michael Atkinson	ALP	23.3%
Price	Murray De-Laine	ALP	24.4%

LIBERAL SEATS (26)
Marginal
Gordon	Rory McEwen	IND	0.1% v LIB
Hartley	Joe Scalzi	LIB	0.7%
Stuart	Graham Gunn	LIB	1.5%
Heysen	David Wotton	LIB	1.9% v AD
Chaffey	Karlene Maywald	NAT	2.6% v LIB
Frome	Rob Kerin	LIB	2.9%
Colton	Steve Condous	LIB	4.0%
Davenport	Iain Evans	LIB	4.3% v AD
Unley	Mark Brindal	LIB	4.5%
Mawson	Robert Brokenshire	LIB	4.7%
Adelaide	Michael Armitage	LIB	5.4%
Waite	Martin Hamilton-Smith	LIB	5.9% v AD
Fairly safe
Bright	Wayne Matthew	LIB	6.2%
Light	Malcolm Buckby	LIB	6.3%
Kavel	John Olsen	LIB	6.3% v AD
Finniss	Dean Brown	LIB	7.3% v AD
Coles	Joan Hall	LIB	7.8%
MacKillop	Mitch Williams	IND	7.9% v LIB
Newland	Dorothy Kotz	LIB	8.0%
Schubert	Ivan Venning	LIB	8.7% v AD
Fisher	Bob Such	LIB	9.8%
Flinders	Liz Penfold	LIB	10.0% v NAT
Safe
Morphett	John Oswald	LIB	13.0%
Hammond	Peter Lewis	LIB	14.7%
Goyder	John Meier	LIB	17.2%
Bragg	Graham Ingerson	LIB	18.8%
Very safe

Metro SA: ALP in red, Liberal in blue. Please note that these boundaries are based on the latest electoral redistribution - click here for 1997 boundaries.

Rural SA: ALP in red, Liberal in blue, Independents in white, Nationals in green. Please note that these boundaries are based on the latest electoral redistribution - click here for 1997 boundaries.

[edit] Legislative Council Results

In the Legislative Council, voter disquiet was reflected in the fact that 3 of the 11 candidates were from minor parties, with the Australian Democrats having two MLCs elected for the first time. Elected were 4 Liberal, 4 Labor, 2 Australian Democrats, and No Pokies candidate Nick Xenophon. Carrying over from the 1993 election were 6 Liberal, 4 Labor, 1 Democrat; leaving the numbers at: 10 Liberal, 8 Labor, 3 Democrats, 1 No Pokies.

Both on 1.72%, the HEMP Legalise Marijuana party received 15432 votes and the SA Greens received 15377 votes.

[edit] Legacy

The 1997 result put Labor within striking distance of winning government at the next election in 2002. John Olsen was left with internal disquiet over the leadership challenge and poor election result while his opponent, Mike Rann was seen to have 'won' the campaign despite losing the election.

On February 6, 2007, Mike Rann told parliament that some in the Liberal party had leaked information to him before and during the election campaign. The following quote by Rann is from Hansard on 6/2/2007[1]:

You asked me a question and I will give you a 55-minute answer, because you will remem­ber one day when I came into this place and I had, I think, 880 pages of cabinet and other documents... I remember being telephoned and told to go to a certain cafe, not in a white car but in a taxi, and then to walk in a zigzag fashion through the streets of a suburb, where I was to be handed cabinet documents. So much for their cabinet solidarity and cabinet confidentiality! There was a queue on the telephone telling us what had happened the day before. It was the same during the 1997 election campaign. People thought, `How does this guy (the leader of the opposition at the time) know intuitively exactly what John Olsen is doing the next day?' It was because I was being phoned and told! So, do not talk to me about cabinet solidari­ty lest I come in here and start naming names, which will set off another generation of disputation on the other side of the house. Anyway, cabinet approved, among other things, on 20 December 2006 minister Lomax-Smith's proposed statement and approved her to announce publicly that she opposed the proposal in cabinet. She did so because we agreed that she should be able to do so. Somehow I do not think that John Olsen agreed to what happened when I was getting the phone call at 6 o'clock in the morning and at midnight, and walking in a zigzag pattern through suburbs to be handed a cabinet bag and cabinet documents. We have a different approach. We agreed to it. It was a cabinet decision to agree to it. So, please, ask me some more questions, because there were two different camps involved in this leaking to the then poor unpopular leader of the opposition, and I am more than happy to name names.

[edit] References

• State Electoral Office - 1997 results
• Background leading up to the election/Liberals in power. Crikey. Archived from the original on 2005-12-13.

Political Parties

• Australian Labor Party
• Liberal Party of Australia
• Australian Greens
• Australian Democrats
• The Nationals