Patrick, Moran link up to unseat Team Adelaide in council polls

A picture already has emerged of the plan to unseat the so-called Team Adelaide with a new faction entering an unprecedented election contest.

Adelaide City Council is about to be pitched into an unprecedented political battle between members of its dominant faction and challengers from North Adelaide.

While nominations for the November council elections remain confidential until they close on Tuesday, a picture already has emerged of a concerted attempt to unseat the so-called Team Adelaide.

Leading the charge appears to former submariner and senator Rex Patrick, who looks like teaming up with North Adelaide-based councillors Anne Moran and Phil Martin.

Mr Patrick has denied he has made any formal alliances but Ms Moran and Mr Martin are backing his bid and have enlisted other North Adelaide residents to support Mr Patrick in his bid to replace Sandy Verschoor as Lord Mayor.

Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor. Picture: Kelly Barnes

They include retired animator Robert Farnan and heritage consultant Sandy Wilkinson – both staunch opponents of the council’s joint venture to redevelop the former Le Cornu site on O’Connell St.

Mr Farnan runs a residents’ group, Vital North Adelaide, which unsuccessfully challenged the $250m project in the Environment, Resources Development Court.

The various North Adelaide candidates are backed by the North Adelaide Society, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary with an article on how the issues it formed in 1970 to fight for were “just as relevant today”.

The society published another article devoted to Ms Moran – a city councillor for 27 years – describing her as one of its biggest and most active supporters.

Mr Martin, Ms Moran and another councillor, Greens member Keiran Snape, have made no secret of their determination to remove the five members of what they have dubbed “Team Adelaide” – Alexander Hyde, Mary Couros, Franz Knoll, Simon Hou and Arman Abrahimzadeh.

Another councillor who became aligned to the group, Jessy Khera, has decided not to seek re-election to look after a terminally ill relative.

Also not standing again is staunchly independent councillor, psychologist and cycling advocate Helen Donovan, who was deeply disappointed when the council voted against spending $3m on a new East-West city bikeway.

Another cycling advocate and state government staffer, David Elliott, has announced he is standing along with former high-profile union leader Janet Giles, Greens member Sean Cullen-Macaskill, business consultant and Liberal Party member Gagan Sharma, flower retailer Kimberlee Brown, former Kangaroo Island District Council chief executive Carmel Noon and Hutt Street Traders’ Association chairwoman Colette Slight.

Former Senator Rex Patrick at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: Kym Smith

Veteran North Adelaide councillor Anne Moran. Picture: Dean Martin

Also rumoured to have expressed interest in running have been Ida Llewellyn-Smith, the wife of former Adelaide town clerk Michael Llewellyn-Smith and Fiona Hui, a businesswoman and wife of West Torrens mayor Michael Coxon.

Among the more interesting campaign announcements made by candidates was a media statement issued by Burnside councillor Henry Davis, who said he wanted to set up a new faction in Adelaide Town Hall called “One Adelaide”.

“The media and other people kept asking me which of the two factions I was in – Team Adelaide or Not Team Adelaide,” he said.

“When I explained I wasn’t in either faction they didn’t understand how someone could be independent and think for themselves.”

Mr Davis said what was “particularly confusing to some people was how I could be a former Liberal Party member and not be completely controlled by someone else who is a current Liberal Party member (Mr Hyde).

“So, I decided to start my own faction to make things clearer.”