Daniel Wills: Ex-Labor MP Frances Bedford could destabilise Weatherill Government at 2018 election
LABOR has again fallen into minority government, but its firm control over the two “independent” ministers in Cabinet and State Parliament means it will remain in charge.
LABOR has again fallen into minority government, but its firm control over the two “independent” ministers in Cabinet and State Parliament means it will remain in charge.
Now-independent MP Frances Bedford has flirted with the idea of divorcing from the Labor Party openly for months, and all signs are that she will be a headache at the next election.
Ms Bedford, aligned to the Labor Left faction headed by Premier Jay Weatherill, has been a strong local force in the northeastern suburbs for years and a good chance to hold on.
Her seat of Florey has suffered one of the biggest changes in the redistribution delivered late last year.
Much of Health Minister Jack Snelling’s seat of Playford, including his home suburb of Ingle Farm, have been moved into its borders and left new Florey looking little like the old.
In a factional carve up of the new battlemap, the party machine decided she was to be pushed out after 20 years in Parliament and replaced by Right faction heavyweight Mr Snelling.
Behind Ms Bedford’s move to jump to the crossbench are a series of complex divides within the Labor Party that have begun to bubble to the surface and receive public attention.
The clearest signs of a split before today had been the decision of Maritime Union secretary Jamie Newlyn to run unsuccessfully for a Left faction Upper House spot which had been promised to Australian Workers’ Union official Justin Hanson, who is now an MP.
There have also been suggestions that Ms Bedford had been seeking to use her possible defection as leverage to get a state seat for her close ally Matt Loader.
He was a candidate for Labor in last year’s federal election, and aided by the controversial One Community campaign.
On the face of it, Ms Bedford’s exit comes as an embarrassment to the Labor Party.
It is fracturing, and one of the party’s own has blasted “faceless men” on the way out.
In the short-term, very little will change for the Government or the people of SA.
Mr Weatherill commands 23 Labor votes in the House and needs just one of Ms Bedford or independent ministers Martin Hamilton-Smith and Geoff Brock to pass legislation.
Both men are effectively bound to the Labor Party line due to their positions in Cabinet.
But it is at the next election where Ms Bedford could play a destabilising role.
Polling obtained by The Advertiser this month, which was commissioned within the Labor Party but without the knowledge of head office, showed Ms Bedford an early favourite to hold the seat as an independent and with Mr Snelling running a distant fourth on primary votes.
Independent Senator Nick Xenophon has said he will do everything possible to help Ms Bedford get elected, even if she doesn’t formally sign up to run under the banner of his team.
For Mr Snelling, this creates an immediate problem.
As the Health Minister, he has been in charge of a major overhaul of the system that includes unpopular changes at the Modbury Hospital that services much of the new and old Florey electorate.
With a viable opponent in Florey, his attention and time will be torn between self-preservation and Transforming Health.
If this seat were to fall to an independent Ms Bedford at the state election next year, Labor would be forced to scramble elsewhere to get another from the Liberals to compensate.
On a redraw that gives the Liberals an immediate headstart, it’s a handicap the party can’t afford.