Grievance Debate

Black Electorate

Mr SPEIRS (Bright) (15:07): Of all the surprises that came with the radical adjustment in electoral boundaries for the 2018 election, the arrival of an electorate named Black might stand out as one of the most significant. Black, named for artist Dorrit Black, is the new name for a seat which is largely formed out of the existing seats of Bright and Mitchell, with small components coming from Fisher and Davenport. It will include the suburbs of Hallett Cove, Sheidow Park, Trott Park, O'Halloran Hill, Darlington, Seacombe Heights, Seaview Downs, Seacliff Park, Seacliff, Marino and Kingston Park.

Dorothea (Dorrit) Black, presumably an artistic hero of one of the electoral boundaries commissioners, was born in Burnside on 23 December 1891. Wikipedia tells me she was a pioneer of the modernist technique and that she established the Modern Art Centre in Margaret Street, Sydney, in 1931—the first gallery in Australia to devote itself to modernism. She attended the South Australian School of Arts and Crafts in about 1909, working in watercolours and attended Julian Ashton's Sydney Art School in 1915, concentrating on working in oils. In 1927, she attended the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in London and then moved on to Paris where she studied cubism. In 1935, she returned to Australia and continued her pioneering work until her tragic death as the result of a car accident in 1951 at the age of 59.

Now at this point, I know the chamber is expecting me to say that when she returned to Adelaide, she settled in Hallett Cove and continued to ply her artistic trade on the southern beaches of Adelaide. But alas, no, she did not. In fact, there is no connection whatsoever between Dorrit Black and the new electorate that is to bear her name. When the commission handed down its name for the seat, I asked our excellent parliamentary library to prepare a research paper on Dorrit Black, with specific reference to her connection with the communities now falling into the seat named for her.

They were unable to find any, and that is what I have the issue with. I mean no disrespect to the talented Ms Black, but I strongly disagree that she should have any electorate named after her. It is my view that by and large geographical names should be used for state electorates or, if this is not possible due to a clustering of unrelated communities, a local identity or icon of significance would be a better choice.

I note this is a view shared by the Speaker of the House of Assembly, the member for Croydon, who, in an excellent submission to the Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission, outlined with aplomb the need to avoid names that commemorate individuals and instead focus on geographical names. He pointed out a rare example of this happening well with Badcoe, a new electorate which includes the Keswick Barracks, which is being named for a South Australian Victoria Cross winner.

In relation to the seat of Black, the Speaker’s submission wisely asks whether it is named after the colonist William Edwin Black, or the adjudicator of Pick-a-Box, George Black, or the child actress and diplomat, Shirley Temple Black, or perhaps The Rolling Stones' hit song Paint it Black, or even the 562 'Blacks' on the South Australian electoral role. I could add to the Speaker’s list with the Liverpudlian singer Cilla Black or the Black Douglas, the name of the legendary Scottish warrior and invincible scourge of northern England, who lived between 1289 and 1330 AD in the southern Scottish district I hail from, or perhaps it could be for the whiskey The Black Douglas, which is named after the aforementioned Black Douglas. The list goes on and on.

In my view, and also clearly in the view of the much-respected Speaker, it is absolutely not the role of the Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission to indulge in educating the South Australian public about obscure figures, such as educationalist Gladys Gibson and Cubist artist Dorrit Black, and I wish it was now not for me to explain to everyone on the doorstep or in the shopping centre who Dorrit Black was and what she did.

While there are many jokes that could be made of this new name, the impact of renaming any seat is a serious matter. It should not be undertaken whimsically or on the hunch or excitement of an electoral boundaries commissioner. Some seats have had much greater change but have retained their names; for instance the seats of Elder, Waite and Davenport have lost massive proportions of their previous electors but their names have stayed intact. Surely if names are to be changed, it would be better to have them as geographical or iconic monikers rather than changing names so dramatically.

The change is simply bad for democracy. At a time when it is increasingly difficult to engage people with democracy and systems of government, we should be looking at doing all we can to enhance connections between people and the electorates they reside in. While considering this, and as I conclude, I am left searching for a new slogan for the upcoming election campaign, and I wonder if I could get away with, 'David is the new Black'.