Labor’s Claire Clutterham claims historic victory in Adelaide seat of Sturt

The Liberal Party no longer holds a single metropolitan seat in South Australia after a history-making disaster for the opposition on Saturday.

Cheering supporters formed a guard of honour for their rock star Labor candidate Claire Clutterham after she managed to take the Sturt Liberal stronghold for the first time in 53 years.

Through a sea of pink and red, Ms Clutterham arrived with her husband, Ben Pudney, to take to the stage to declare her historic win.

Cheers filled the Altavilla Club in Beulah Park as the election was called for Labor with a major swing supporting Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s team.

“It is incredibly humbling to be standing before you as the member for Sturt,” Ms Clutterham told supporters.

“What I wanted to do on Sunday morning was to wake up and know I gave it my all.”

Sitting Liberal member James Stevens’ ultra-slim 0.5 per cent margin was lampooned by the Labor candidate as Liberal seats fell across the country.

At 10.30pm the two-party preferred vote was 58.32 per cent for Labor and 41.68 per cent for Liberals.

It was a hard-fought campaign with Ms Clutterhamfirst hitting doors in the inner-city electorate in June last year with a sound 10,000 homes under her belt.

“We spread the message of what Labor does for the community and now, in majority government, we are going to do that again,” Ms Clutterham said.

Ms Clutterham was flanked on stage by Premier Peter Malinauskas, Federal Trade and Tourism Minister Don Farrell and federal senator Marielle Smith with the Premier declaring the win was backed by Australians wanting “diversity and inclusivity”.

Victorious Labor candidate Claire Clutterham arrives with Senator Marielle Smith and South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas after winning the seat of Sturt. Picture: Kelly Barnes

Camilla Howard-Luck with Labor supporters at the Altavilla club in Norwood Picture: Kelly Barnes

The lawyer and former Norwood, Payneham and St Peters councillor was joined by Premier Peter Malinauskas at St Francis of Assisi School at Newton to snare last-minute votes in the morning saying she was feeling “excited” after “campaigning hard”.

She cast a vote surrounded by supporters and Mr Pudney at Magill school in the morning.

Hundreds of supporters celebrated in The Parade sporting club last night with growing numbers of jubilant state and federal Labor MPs filing in to hear from Ms Clutterham.

State Labor MP Lucy Hood walked through the double doors just as news hit the big screen fronting the hall with pundits calling the win for her federal counterparts.

“I was just walking through the door, I’ve been on the booths in Adelaide and the afternoon in Sturt, what a moment,” she said.

It’s also a huge moment for the Joslin local taking Sturt, she grew up in the Riverland and attended Henley High School before studying commercial law.

Ms Clutterham has lived in the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong before returning to live in the Sturt electorate in Joslin.

Newly elected Labor member for Sturt Claire Clutterham casting her vote. Picture: Roy VanDerVegt

The electorate covers Adelaide’s eastern and northeastern suburbs with 200,000 residents reaching across seven local councils and eight state electorates.

Mr Stevens conceded at around 8.30pm.

He acknowledged the results were a major blow to the Liberal Party.

He told of feeling “enormous pressure” to hold onto the blue-ribbon seat earlier in the week as polls increasingly showed voters across the country turning against his party.

A devastated Mr Stevens promised at the Robin Hood Hotel in Norwood that “until the day that I die I will work for the best fortunes of the Liberal Party” but the party needed to “seriously talk about how we can to find ourselves in this position”.

“I think there was a time when the Liberal Party felt that we were unsuccessful in state elections but permanently successful in federal campaigns but it feels that we have had possibly the worst federal election result since 1972 tonight,” he said.

Sturt has been a Liberal stronghold seat since 1972 and at the last election, it took four to five days for a result with about 1000 votes deciding the winner.

Former Liberal member for Sturt James Stevens casts his vote. Picture: Roy VanDerVegt

Before Mr Stevens won Sturt in 2019, it was held by another high-profile Liberal, Christopher Pyne, from 1993.

Mr Stevens, the Liberal Party’s shadow assistant minister for government waste reduction, was former premier Steven Marshall’s chief of staff, and lives in the electorate with his partner, Alex May.

A parade of high-profile Liberals have campaigned in the prized electorate, including Liberal leader Peter Dutton twice, deputy leader Sussan Ley, Treasury spokesman Angus Taylor, ex-minister Mr Pyne, former leader Alexander Downer, and state Opposition Leader Vincent Tarzia.

Ms Clutterham was also backed by serious political clout in her campaign. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has campaigned in the electorate three times, while Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong, Health Minister Mark Butler, former prime minister Julia Gillard and Premier Peter Malinauskas have been handing out how-to-vote cards.