Paul Starick: Premier Peter Malinauskas faces vote-pulling test at Bragg by-election

The vote-pulling power of Premier Peter Malinauskas will be tested as voters in a Liberal stronghold head to the polls yet again on Saturday, writes Paul Starick.

The vote-pulling power of Premier Peter Malinauskas will be tested for the first time since March at Saturday’s by-election in a blue-ribbon Liberal seat.

Voters in the southeastern Adelaide seat of Bragg will go to the polls for the third time in little more than three months for a by-election triggered by former deputy premier Vickie Chapman’s resignation.

Ms Chapman stunned her party a month after the March 19 state election, when, on the day David Speirs was installed as Liberal leader, she announced that she would quit politics.

Liberal candidate Jack Batty is the favourite, given the party has held the seat since it was formed in 1970 and its three MPs have been either premier (David Tonkin) or deputy premiers (Ms Chapman and Graham Ingerson).

But Labor has seized on the opportunity opened by Mr Batty’s preselection ahead of a female candidate, who was preferred by leader David Speirs, to nominate Alice Rolls. Like Ms Chapman, Ms Rolls is a lawyer.

Labor’s Bragg election posters feature Mr Malinauskas alongside Ms Rolls, while Mr Batty touts himself as a “new-generation Liberal”.

Labor Bragg candidate Alice Rolls, left, with Liberal candidate Jack Batty campaigning outside Burnside Village on June 17.

This positions the by-election as the Malinauskas government’s first electoral test, particularly since its gloss has started to wear off after the June 2 state budget and the continuing crisis in the health system.

Labor could snare a surprise victory, as it did in the neighbouring former Liberal stronghold of Waite at the March 19 state election – and almost did in another adjacent electorate, Unley.

Ms Chapman suffered an 8.8 per cent swing to Labor at the March 19 state election, yet retained the seat with a 58.2-41.8 per cent of the two-party preferred vote.

A surging Green vote in the southeastern suburbs at the May 21 federal election prompted Greens state co-leader Robert Simms to declare his party could win Bragg.

Alice Rolls, Labor candidate for Bragg.

Jack Batty, Liberal candidate for Bragg.

Jim Bastiras, Greens candidate for Bragg, with wife Tsun Wu and daughter Artemis, 3.

The opportunity for Labor and the Greens is demonstrated by the state election result in Unley, where Liberal David Pisoni was pushed to preferences in a three-candidate race against the ALP and Greens. He eventually won by little more than 1000 votes.

In Bragg, Labor and the Greens are hoping they can drag Mr Batty below 50 per cent of first preferences, then sweep up sufficient preferences themselves to topple the Liberals.

There are six candidates in the Bragg by-election, the same number as in Waite, where Liberal candidate Alexander Hyde was facing voters for the first time, like Mr Batty.

But in Waite, the Liberal vote was dragged down by two high-profile independents: Mitcham Mayor Heather Holmes-Ross and former Liberal incumbent Sam Duluk.

Mr Batty’s victory prospects will rest on the seat’s traditional Liberal voting pattern and the lack of high-profile independents, which is likely to be enough to secure a win.