Ex-Adelaide lord mayor Jane Lomax-Smith in comeback bid

Former Labor minister Jane Lomax-Smith has taken observers by surprise by announcing she wants her old job as lord mayor back.

Former Adelaide lord mayor and Labor minister Jane Lomax-Smith wants to make a comeback.

Ms Lomax-Smith was among four nominations for the lord mayoralty announced on Tuesday by the SA Electoral Commission at the Town Hall.

She first entered public office in 1991 and served as lord mayor from 1997 to 2000, before being elected to the House of Assembly for the seat of Adelaide in 2002. She had several ministerial roles between 2002 and 2010, and in 2020 was announced as the new chair of the Don Dunstan Foundation.

Her election bid – first reported by The Advertiser in July – took observers by surprise with many expecting a two-way contest between incumbent Sandy Verschoor and former senator Rex Patrick.

The other two candidates are Adelaide businessman Steven Kelly and Walkerville accountant Vivek Gupta.

Mr Patrick has spent most of the week publicly distancing himself from a group of candidates in North Adelaide led by councillors Phil Martin and Anne Moran.

Jane Lomax-Smith wants to make a comeback. Picture: Supplied

Cr Moran is a long-term acquaintance of Ms Lomax-Smith, with the pair recently attending protest rallies against the attempt to rezone part of the parklands along the River Torrens for commercial high-rise development.

Together with two other councillors – Jane Jose and Francene Connor – Ms Moran and Ms Lomax-Smith were part of a pro-heritage faction on council that fought throughout the late 1980s and ’90s to save various buildings, especially the House of Chow restaurant on Hutt St.

Among other candidates announced on Tuesday with North Adelaide allegiances were Mr Martin; Friends of North Adelaide residents’ group founder Valdis Dunas; two key opponents of the high-rise development of the former Le Cornu site on O’Connell St, Robert Farnan and Sandy Wilkinson; and Fiona Hui, the wife of West Torrens Council Mayor Michael Coxon.

Ms Lomax-Smith, 72, a medical forensic pathologist, former SA Museum chairwoman and current head of the SA Teachers Registration Board, is overseas and was unavailable for comment.