Australia votes 2019: Despite huge promises, voters of marginal seat Boothby aren’t convinced

Boothby residents have been showered with promises totalling $400 million but SA’s most marginal seat is a microcosm for a nation of voters, whose faith is low and cynicism is high.

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Can we take Boothby as the pulse of the nation at the end of this exhausting, elongated, frustrating election campaign? After all, it’s seats such as Boothby all over the nation that will on Saturday decide Australia’s next government.

Boothby is South Australia’s most marginal seat. The NSW equivalent is seats such as Gilmore and Lindsay. In Victoria, it’s Corangamite and Macnamara. Queensland has Herbert and Capricornia.

Boothby voter Rochelle Smith and dog Snickers at Seacliff Beach. Picture: Tom Huntley

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the man who would take his job, Bill Shorten, have made multiple trips to Boothby to back candidates Nicolle Flint and Nadia Clancy.

Between them, both parties have promised to tip in almost $400 million to various projects in Boothby.

Activist group GetUp! also earmarked Boothby as a seat to attack, focusing on Flint and her backing of prime ministerial aspirant Peter Dutton. In what many are tipping to be a close election, every seat has the potential to be vital.

Boothby may be in play but it’s also worth remembering it’s been a solid Liberal seat since its last Labor representative, Thomas Sheehy, was defeated in 1949.

Boothby voter Christian Lucas at his family's book store Shakespeare's Books in Blackwood. Picture: Tom Huntley

The significance of Boothby, and the seeming fragility of Flint’s hold on the seat, has not gone unnoticed.

On the seafront at Seacliff, Derek and Karen Wright are on an afternoon walk. Derek describes himself as traditionally a Liberal voter but is still weighing up his options this time around.

He wasn’t impressed by the Liberal shenanigans that saw Morrison replace previous PM Malcolm Turnbull or how former foreign minister Julie Bishop was treated by the party.

“An issue for me as a long-term Liberal is that they shot themselves in the foot with all that carry-on,’’ he says.

Derek also has worries about Flint backing unpopular Queenslander Dutton as Turnbull’s replacement.

“That lost a bit of support for her because I certainly don’t like Peter Dutton,’’ he says. Still, as he decides, he knows how important it could be.

Boothby voters Anthony and Judy Miller enjoying their coffee on Jetty Road in Brighton. Picture: Tom Huntley

“It might come down to me making a decision one way or the other,’’ he says.

Derek is not alone with his indecision. Many other Boothby voters are also reluctant to offer a definitive opinion on whether they will back Flint or Clancy, Morrison or Shorten.

After three weeks walking the streets of Boothby, Mayo and Sturt, this is not too surprising.

Most people in all those electorates said they would wait until the last minute before deciding which way to mark their ballot.

In Boothby, this was the case, even though a poll in The Advertiser this week had Flint ahead of Clancy 53-47, on a two-party preferred basis.

Boothby is a varied electorate, taking in solid Liberal and Labor areas. Along the coast, it stretches from Marino to Glenelg. Moving inland, it covers Clarence Park to O’Halloran Hill. Marion to Belair and Crafers West. As an electorate, it is older than the Australian average and has more couples without children. It has fewer renters and more people who own their home outright. It has more professionals but fewer tradies and more people who have finished Year 12.

If there is a theme that connects the three electorates of Boothby, Mayo and Sturt, it’s a loss of faith in the system, particularly when it comes to the major parties of Labor and Liberal. In Mayo, another long-held Liberal seat, this has manifested itself in the election and expected re-election of Centre Alliance MP Rebekha Sharkie.

Boothby voter Melanie Urwin and daughter Marnie at Marion Shopping Centre. Picture: Tom Huntley

In Sturt and Boothby, the dissatisfaction radiates in all directions.

Still in Seacliff, a “detectorist’’, a bloke scanning the beach with a metal detector, says it’s been a few elections since he voted (and isn’t keen to give his name as a result) and has no intention of voting this time either.

“What’s the point?’’ he asks. “Doesn’t matter who we vote for, they will put in who they want.’’

He’s talking about the decade of chaos. The Rudd/Gillard/Rudd years of Labor. The triumvirate of Tony Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison promoted by the Liberals to be prime minister.

The natural cynicism Australians always directed towards their politicians has been amplified by this behaviour. It has hollowed out whatever faith people previously had in the system, possibly permanently.

Brighton resident Rochelle Smith, a 32-year-old nurse, was another in the undecided camp. Walking along the foreshore with dog Snickers, she says she worries about health care and describes herself as “not rich rich and not poor poor’’. Just someone trying to figure out which party is best suited to her needs.

But there is a caveat.

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“They don’t do what they say they will do, anyway,’’ she says. It’s a view echoed by Dean Shepherd, a retired 60-year-old who worked at the steelworks in Whyalla. He has backed Labor, with a hope its policy to end the franking credit subsidy will be defeated in the Senate.

“People are fed up with the two parties,’’ he says. “They make promises to get votes, they don’t make promises because that is what they believe.’’

People are still interested in the issues, particularly those that affect them directly but are increasingly unclear about who has the best solutions. On this trek through Boothby, Mayo and Sturt, the most commonly raised issues are who is best placed to manage the economy, climate change and renewable energy. Older people were worried about the Labor policy to remove the franking credits, while younger people were more likely to raise climate, but not exclusively.

In Blackwood, 21-year-old Christian Lucas, working in the family business Shakespeare’s Bookshop, says “energy, definitely energy’’ when asked what is the issue most likely to move his vote. As a result, he is contemplating voting Labor or Green. Outside a nearby bakery, 23-year-old Emily has been starting to study her choices through social media, with a focus on climate change.

“I have not looked into it too much, but online the Liberals are not too good,” she says. “On Facebook they are poor with that kind of thing but I will do my research.’’

On Jetty Rd at Brighton, Anthony and Judy Miller are having a coffee at Alimentary and confirm they are Liberal voters. Both are 58.

Anthony owns a corporate cleaning business that employs about 100 people and for him who is best placed to run the economy is the most important issue.

He says the Liberals are “the best money managers’’ but is also worried there will be no clear-cut result.

“The unfortunate thing is that it will be a hung parliament and the independents will hold sway and nothing will get done,’’ he says. But he also reflects on the state of politics and expresses dissatisfaction at the constant state of war that exists between Liberal and Labor.

“I don’t like the way how everyone bags the other,” he says. It’s all so negative.’’

Judy Miller is a pharmacist and also wants more done to improve the health system, especially when it comes to preventive health care and nutrition.

“Good food should not be as expensive as it is,’’ she says.

Below all the big policy debates, there is another level of issue that also motivates people, which makes predicting elections outcomes a fraught process.

In Westfield Marion shopping centre, an older couple don’t want to give their names. Appropriately enough, they are on their way to see a film called Long Shot, which centres around a presidential election.

The man is 90 and the woman is 85. She believes there are good policies on both sides and Flint has worked very hard.

But they are still in their own home and are naturally worried about eventually moving to aged care. And not just the cost of it.

“There is always something in the news about ill treatment in nursing homes,’’ she says.

At the other end of the vast centre, Melanie Urwin is watching her two-year-old daughter Marnie running around on play equipment.

Urwin is an English migrant who moved with her husband to work on constructing wind farms.

Urwin is leaning towards Labor because of its migration policies. She says they it’s become too hard to move to Australia, especially when it comes to family members.

“I’m voting for Labor for migration purposes,’’ she says.

“It’s migration and keeping families together.’’

In a seat such as Boothby, where every vote could turn out to be vital, it could yet be the old saying that all politics is personal that decides the outcome, and possibly even the election itself.