Black by-election threatens a humiliating new low for SA Liberals | David Penberthy

The media may have rolled its eyes at David Speirs’ white powder explanation but voters in the by-election battleground he just vacated didn’t, writes David Penberthy.

The day after this newspaper broke the story featuring former Liberal leader David Speirs appearing to inhale a white powder, FiveAA’s roving reporter Jade Robran headed to the Hallett Cove Shopping Centre to take the pulse of the people.

What did Mr Speirs’ constituents have to say about his apparent antics?

To a man and woman the response of those polled was identical.

Fake news.

The view of every local Jade found the day he was plastered over the front page was: Yep, that’s a deepfake alright.

While the rest of us rolled our eyes, shook our heads, sniggered, picked our jaws off the ground and fielded texts saying “David Speirs WTF!!!”, down in the seat of Black, the whole thing was being dismissed in Trumpian fashion as a vindictive fabrication.

It takes a special brand of loyalty to look at those photographs without at least wondering whether something untoward might be occurring.

David Speirs said the images were fake.

David Speirs said the images were fake.

But loyalty is a quality which David Speirs commanded in high degree in Hallett Cove, Sheidow Park, Marino, Trott Park, all those other mortgage belt southern suburbs where the now-retired local MP defied the much higher statewide swing against the Marshall Liberals at the last state election.

While Labor’s 2022 candidate Alex Dighton performed well in what had become a relative Liberal stronghold, the 6.5 per cent vote swing the Sacred Heart school teacher received was considerably lower than the gains made by Labor elsewhere.

The reason for that? The popular following that once existed for the spent political force that is David Speirs.

Whatever his other failings, Speirs related well to suburban punters and was an adept reader of the public mood.

He was the first politician to say that the Voice referendum would fail badly in SA.

He did so with great confidence, based on many chats with confused and disinterested voters in the aforementioned suburbs.

Former opposition leader David Speirs at the SA Mid Winter Charity Ball on August 2. Picture: Facebook

People who were more worried about paying for their own power bills or groceries, or keeping their businesses afloat, who felt the PM had his priorities wrong.

“I will put my house on it losing,” Speirs said months out from referendum day, showing a degree of chutzpah that is so rare as to be non-existent in politics these days.

Now that Speirs is gone, there are two categories of voter in the seat of Black who represent a threat to the Liberals and new leader Vincent Tarzia, and an opportunity for Labor and Peter Malinauskas, who as Premier appears to have been kissed on the bum by a rainbow with the free kicks his opponents keep awarding him.

The first problem for the Liberals is that group of people evidenced by the Hallett Cove vox pop who believe Speirs is the victim in all of this.

The second problem for the Liberals is the quieter and more sceptical voters in Black who would be questioning Mr Speirs’ behaviour and many absences, and who view the whole episode as an indulgent circus.

Fairly or unfairly, the past few weeks have painted the Liberals as a bit of a fiasco.

Now there is a real threat that what was regarded as their lowest ebb – the loss of former premier Steven Marshall’s seat at the Dunstan by-election in March – might be eclipsed by a greater humiliation.

That’s the loss of a second seat in the space of seven months, currently held by the man who succeeded Marshall as Liberal Leader and stuffed it all up in record time.

Remember, the Dunstan by-election was the first time a sitting government had taken a seat off an opposition at a by-election in SA since the 1910s.

To give you a sense of how long ago that was, it’s the decade in which the electric toaster was invented.

Labor's candidate for Black, Alex Dighton, has a second stab at wrestling the seat from the Liberals. Picture: Kelly Barnes

Opposition Vincent Tarzia making a statement about David Speirs. Picture : Roy VanDerVegt

The chances of a second result going the same way in the same year beggars belief, but here we are.

The events of this week have confirmed Labor’s tactical ruthlessness when it comes to the machinery of politics, versus the organisational hopelessness of the Liberal Party.

Nothing illustrated that better than the fact that, on Monday, just two days after Mr Speirs suddenly announced he was quitting with charges of supplying drugs pending – while vowing to clear his name of any allegations – Labor’s state executive held an emergency meeting to endorse Alex Dighton to run for Black again.

The Liberals meanwhile were scrambling around madly trying to find someone, anyone to run.

I have heard some generous souls trying to argue that Labor enjoyed the inside running on the candidacy question, given that Police Commissioner Grant Stevens made a courtesy call to the Police Minister and Premier advising them of the pending charges against David Speirs.

That fact does not excuse their sluggishness.

If the Libs had been paying attention they should have known that the Speirs controversy was a ticking political time bomb which could have gone off at any time, in any direction.

It had been several weeks since he did his hair-twirling interview with Stacey Lee where he mused that if Vincent Tarzia assumed the leadership he’d find it hard to stick around in the Liberal Party.

Then came the emergence of those photographs which, unless you’re in the Hallett Cove Shopping Centre deepfake camp, clearly raised at least the possibility of police involvement – even if the former leader never lodged a complaint with police about what he insisted was a fabrication.

The writing has been on the wall for weeks.

It’s not a specific knock on Tarzia, who is brand new to the role, nor even the new state director, Alex Hyde, who only recently stepped up to the plate when former director Alex May suddenly quit.

It’s more a sign of how rattled and listless this Liberal outfit has become, at the same time Labor is determined to maximise every moment of potential agony for its opponents.

It took 116 years for history to repeat itself with these by-elections. I’ve got a weird hunch it will take seven months for it to happen a third time.