Former South Australian Labor MP Annabel Digance blames Labor Party for dirt sheet

It was one of the ugliest campaigns in South Australian politics: an anonymous, racist dirt sheet targeting a female Liberal candidate.

Former Labor MP Annabel Digance: ‘It was just wrong. It should never have happened’. Picture: Roy Van Der Vegt

It was one of the ugliest campaigns in South Australian politics: an anonymous, racist dirt sheet posted to 16,000 homes targeting a female Liberal candidate over her Arabic surname.

At the height of terror fears ­before the 2014 state election, Labor Party apparatchiks crafted a pamphlet that asked “CAN YOU TRUST HABIB”, designed to look like a wall from a Middle Eastern war zone.

The target of the smear was Carolyn Habib, who is half-Lebanese and who fell short of victory in the seat of Elder that year.

The woman who wore the blame for her treatment, the then Labor MP Annabel Digance, has gone public to express her disgust and remorse.

But her opponent remains so distressed about the incident that she has not accepted her statement of contrition.

Ms Digance told The Weekend Australian that SA Labor designed the pamphlet without her knowledge, then hung her out to dry as she faced a backlash from voters in Elder and was ­denounced as a bigot in the wider community.

The architect of the pamphlet was her campaign manager, Tim Picton, who has since risen through the party and worked for Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews before becoming Labor’s West Australian state secretary.

Ms Digance, now out of politics and living in the Adelaide Hills, broke down as she recounted the toll the campaign had taken on her and her family.

She blames a Labor “boy’s club” of party apparatchiks for cooking up the pamphlet, saying she would never have supported such a “horrible” tactic.

“I have carried this with me for so long it has caused me deep distress,” Ms Digance said. “It saddens me that what should have been a proud time for me being elected to serve the community has instead been overshadowed by something so horrible.

“I also feel bad that after I was told not to say anything about it that I stayed silent out of some misplaced sense of loyalty to the party. It was just wrong. It should never have happened.”

Carolyn Habib with the offending Labor leaflet.

Ms Digance said the first she heard of the pamphlet was when a friend rang her during the campaign saying she had been upset to find it in her letterbox.

“She told me what was in it and I simply couldn’t believe it,” Ms Digance said. “I didn’t even think at first that it was coming from the ALP, it was only when I raised it with party office that I was told that it was ours and that we were sticking with it.”

Ms Digance asked Labor’s head office to withdraw the pamphlet and told officials she wanted to ring Ms Habib to apologise. The request was refused. She was told that under no circumstances could she ring Ms Habib.

When the leaflet emerged, Ms Digance was set to appear with Jay Weatherill, the then premier, at a mosque in her electorate, which had been daubed with anti-Islamic graffiti. That visit was scrapped as Adelaide’s Arabic community was enraged by the slur against Ms Habib.

Despite growing outrage — including from federal Labor MP Ed Husic — SA Labor persisted with the slur. Mr Weatherill said critics were taking “fake offence”.

Ms Digance said the message from SA Labor and its MPs was clear: “Shut up”.

“Whenever I raised anything I was belittled and bullied by the Labor boy’s club and, in the end, I think they just came to regard me as an annoyance,” she said.

Ms Digance said the toughest part of the ordeal was that “it overshadowed everything I ever did as an MP”.

A registered nurse and midwife, Ms Digance championed the introduction of Gayle’s Law to make work safer for rural nurses after the 2016 murder of Gayle Woodford in the APY Lands.

Ms Digance won support from Adelaide craniofacial surgeon David David — a former South Australian of the Year who knows the Digances well as their eldest daughter was born with a bone condition and was a patient.

“Annabel has been an exemplary mother to her daughters and a wonderful ambassador for the Cranio Facial Society,” Professor David, whose father was Lebanese, said this week.

“To think she would have played any part in this I can’t think of anything further than the truth.”

Ms Digance has agonised about speaking about her former opponent but does not know how a call and apology would be ­received.

“I have thought often about doing it but the whole experience must have been so horrible for her that after all these years I am not sure how she would feel about even talking to me,” Ms Digance said.

Her trepidation is justified. Carolyn Habib — who now uses her husband’s surname, Power — ran again and defeated Ms ­Digance at the 2018 election in which the Liberals won office.

Ms Power told The Weekend Australian she remained deeply distressed by the experience and was unconvinced by Ms ­Digance’s contrition.

“She has had every opportunity in the past seven years to apologise to me privately or publicly for her appalling behaviour and the racist campaign run against me — but she hasn’t,” Ms Power said.

“We can’t rewrite history.

“It was deeply upsetting to me, and particularly to my family and dad, and it is still raw to talk about. More than that, it was offensive to anyone from a different culture, who loves Australia and has made it their home.

“The behaviour directed towards myself, my family and my volunteers during this hurtful Labor campaign I found absolutely abhorrent — including threats and intimidation.”

Mr Picton denied personal responsibility for the leaflet.

“The material in question was authorised, produced and distributed by the SA Labor Party,” he said.

“The allegations from Ms Digance are false and potentially defamatory.”