Election 2022: Last-minute SA Liberals confirm key candidates

Two weeks into the federal election campaign and the punch-drunk SA Liberal Party has only now confirmed its candidates in three key federal seats.

Kingston Liberal candidate Kathleen Bourne. Picture: Tricia Watkinson

Two weeks into the federal election campaign and the punch-drunk South Australian Liberal Party has only now confirmed its candidates in three key federal seats as it continues to reel from March’s state election disaster.

In a sign of the post-election malaise gripping the SA division, Liberal candidates were announ­ced on Thursday for the major suburban seats of Spence, Hindmarsh and Kingston.

As state Liberals continue to lick their wounds from the obliteration of Steven Marshall’s one-term government, the SA branch has been struggling to find volunteers – and candidates – five weeks after the March 19 defeat.

With SA’s population almost entirely concentrated in suburban Adelaide, the entire north, south and west of the city is devoid of any Liberal presence, with Labor’s Mark Butler in Hindmarsh and Amanda Rishworth in Kingston having had an extended free run to promote themselves in the absence of a Liberal opponent.

The Australian has obtained an internal SA Liberal Party memorandum dated April 19 and sent to members on Wednesday advising that due to “special circumstances”, a state executive meeting had endorsed Anna Finizio for Hindmarsh, Shawn Lock for Spence and Kathleen Bourne for Kingston.

None of them has any public profile and each has four weeks to campaign from a standing start.

The lack of any Liberal campaign is made worse by the fact that Mr Butler is opposition health spokesman and Ms Rishworth opposition spokeswoman for early childhood education, with both enjoying an already high profile as long-serving MPs.

Some Liberal insiders say the party has just “given up” and is concentrating purely on a defensive strategy in retiring MP Nicolle Flint’s seat of Boothby and Christopher Pyne’s old seat of Sturt, now held by James Stevens, who shouldered much of the blame for the SA election rout.

Sources inside SA Liberal headquarters counter that Labor is not bothering to run candidates in the rural seats of Grey, the vast northern bush electorate held by Rowan Ramsay, and the southeast seat of Barker held by Tony Pasin.

Yet other Liberals say the absence of any presence across those seats is an embarrassment for the party, especially as both seats were held by Liberals in recent history.

“It’s not like we didn’t know the election was coming,” one Liberal told The Australian.

“I mean, we’re the government, we called the thing. To not have had anyone preselected in any of those city seats is a complete embarrassment.”

The seat of Hindmarsh is held by Mr Butler with a 6 per cent margin and the failure of the Liberals to campaign hard locally will make it even safer for the ALP.

“We were surprised that they didn’t have anyone in Hindmarsh at least – it’s not like us in Grey or Barker, which are massive Liberal strongholds,” a senior Labor strategist told The Australian. “If they let Hindmarsh blow out to 10 per cent, it will be two terms before they can have a crack at it. ”

Labor’s decision not to field a candidate in the northern rural seat of Grey may yet prove tactical, with speculation an independent candidate who almost won the overlapping state seat at the poll may on Friday announce her campaign. Bakery manager Liz Habermann secured a 23.1 per cent swing at the state election in the Eyre Peninsula seat of Flinders, losing by just 1263 votes.