State Election 2018: SA Best reveals eight new female candidates, taking total to crucial 24 seats

THE rapidly expanding SA Best party has hit the magic number of candidates to potentially hold government, revealing another eight political hopefuls today.

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THE rapidly expanding SA Best party has hit the crucial number of candidates to potentially hold government, revealing another eight political hopefuls today.

The latest all-female batch brings the number of SA Best contenders for Lower House seats to 24, the minimum number a party needs to hold government in its own right in a 47-seat chamber.

Six of the eight seats are currently held by Labor MPs, confirming SA Best Leader Nick Xenophon’s aim to target seats held by both major parties so that “both Labor and Liberal parties hate me in equal measure.”

One of those six Labor seats, Colton in the western suburbs, was predicted to turn Liberal following the electoral boundary redistribution.

With seats from both parties targetted, Mr Xenophon has not ruled out becoming Premier if his party wins enough seats to form government without Labor or the Liberals. He said each of his candidates “has a good chance of causing an upset in the seats they’re running in”.

Reaching 24 candidates “sends a signal to the major parties that we are out to break the duopoly” of Labor and Liberal, he said.

SA Best leader Nick Xenophon with his latest candidates: Carolyn Martin (seat of Enfield), Karen Hockley (Davenport), Tarnia George (Ramsay), Jassmine Wood (Colton), Kate Bickford (Badcoe), Helen Szuty (Playford) and Sonja Taylor (Taylor). AAP/ Keryn Stevens

Among the candidates revealed today are former ACT MP Helen Szuty who is running for the northern suburbs seat of Playford, currently held by outgoing Labor MP and former Health Minister Jack Snelling. Ms Szuty moved to South Australia in 1999 after serving four years in the ACT Legislative Assembly as an independent.

Charles Sturt councillor Jassmine Wood will take on Paralympian and Liberal candidate Matt Cowdrey and teacher Labor’s Angela Vaughan in the beachside electorate of Colton.

The other candidates are:

COMMERCIAL lawyer Kate Bickford, running in the newly drawn and notionally Labor seat of Badcoe, in the inner south.

BUSINESS administrator Sonja Taylor, running in the Labor electorate of Taylor.

EX-STAFFER to former SA Best Senator Sky Kakoschke-Moore, Tarnia George, running in Labor-held northern seat of Ramsay.

MENINGIE resident and River Murray advocate Tracy Hill, vying for the South-East Liberal seat of MacKillop.

MITCHAM councillor and accountant Karen Hockley, running in the Liberal-held electorate of Davenport.

BLAIR Athol resident Carolyn Martin, a volunteer who was awarded an OAM in yesterday’s Australia Day honours, running in the Labor-held northern seat of Enfield.

The women intend to focus on issues including unemployment and underemployment, homelessness, planning reforms and the health of the River Murray.

SA Best has previously announced three female Lower House candidates, alongside 13 men, and two Upper House female candidates alongside three men.

Mr Xenophon said the Parliament “would be a better place, making better decisions, if we’ve got that balance of women and men”.