Vincent Tarzia can learn from SA Liberals’ long history of meltdowns | Michael McGuire

Vincent Tarzia joins a long list of recent Liberal leaders – but he’ll be on a very short one if he actually wins, writes Michael McGuire.

Far be it from me, humble hack, to offer advice to new Liberal leader Vincent Tarzia about how he should go about his business, but maybe it’s OK to point out a few lessons from history.

To have a quick squizz at some of his predecessors in the job and see if there are any guardrails the neophyte leader could put in place to avoid some of the mistakes of the past.

With Labor holding power for 18 of the last 22 years, Tarzia follows a long list of opposition leaders.

Rob Kerin, Iain Evans, Martin Hamilton-Smith, Isobel Redmond, Steven Marshall and David Speirs.

Only one in Steven Marshall made it to government.

The position of Liberal opposition leader sounds good, like a promotion even, but it’s usually a career-ending move.

What can we take from Rob Kerin’s reign?

Former Premier Rob Kerin.

Iain Evans.

You can be too nice. Kero was well-liked by just about everyone. Nice guy. People took advantage of that, particularly Labor. And Kero also never seemed like the wanted the job.

And if you don’t want the job, you are unlikely to convince anyone else you should have it. One other thing.

If somebody asks you ‘Why do you want to be premier?’ Have a good answer.

Then we came to Iain Evans.

Even if you think you are the smartest guy in the room, it’s probably better to try to disguise that feeling.

Ego and a sense of entitlement can often get in the way. Evans lasted a year before Martin Hamilton-Smith came along.

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Hamilton-Smith certainly had the ego as well but managed to keep it more or less hidden under a blizzard of near-constant activity that annoyed Labor no end, but ending up impressing them so much they would later ask him to join their Cabinet.

Hamilton-Smith was shameless in his publicity seeking, but also, and this is crucial, had something to say.

He actually proposed policy that changed the public debate, such as building a sport stadium in the CBD.

Labor had to be dragged kicking and screaming to rebuild Adelaide Oval.

Their initial plan was to give the SANFL a barrow load of money to renovate Footy Park. A genuinely horrible idea.

Martin Hamilton-Smith eventually made it into government – but in a Labor cabinet. Picture Dean Martin

Hamilton-Smith’s downfall was that he was a bit reckless.

So when a brown paper envelope arrived in his office containing documents showing the Scientologists were donating to Labor he thought he had political dynamite.

Instead, with a nod to those Road Runner cartoons, they blew up in his face. They were fake. Beep. Beep.

Isobel Redmond was next to the plate. picture: Bianca De Marchi

Only Steven Marshall has made it to the winner’s circle. Picture: Roy VanDerVegt

Isobel Redmond was next. Redmond started well.

A bit of an anti-politician, the comparison with the slick but tiring Mike Rann appealed.

But it didn’t last. Not helped by Redmond’s obvious disdain for the media.

Now, Vincent, hating the media is fine, we are mainly terrible people after all, but you have to disguise it better than Isobel.

We will get to David Speirs, but that was also a problem for him as well.

Then there was Steven Marshall.

Marshall being a rarity in that he actually transformed from being opposition leader to actual premier. The only one on the list to manage that feat.

Marshall did this even after telling voters to ‘vote Labor’ before one election.

He was quite popular for some time and did well during Covid, but partly came unstuck because the Liberal Party is an unruly beast and he didn’t pay enough attention to managing it.

Former Opposition leader David Speirs. Picture: Keryn Stevens

New opposition leader Vincent Tarzia. Picture: NewsWire / Ben Clark

It wasn’t his fault that so many of his MPs and cabinet ministers had to quit but, as he would later admit, he didn’t handle the factional tensions within the party well.

He sidelined the right faction, they started to grumble and leak and all that contributed to the 2022 election loss.

The Libs started to look like a party more interested in themselves than the wider population.

Now here they are. Again fighting over the spoils of opposition.

And then there was David Speirs.

The lesson there is don’t leave town on Budget Day. Everyone, absolutely everyone, will think you are weird.

So, to sum up. Be likeable, but not too much, keep the ego in check, work hard, but don’t lose your judgement, at least pretend to like the media, keep the party united and stay in the country on the big days.

Got all that?