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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-02-04 Daily Xml
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LIBERAL PARTY

Mr KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (15:38): What a difference a by-election makes! I was reading the paper on the weekend, and I have always thought this about the way in which The Advertiser does its stories. If The Advertiser ever shows a picture of you looking glum and six of your colleagues smiling, apparently happy, you are in serious trouble. We all know the history of the member for Waite and how he rose to his present position. Some say that fortune favours the brave. However, another saying is that those who live by the sword die by the sword. I have always understood the second saying to be more true than the first one.

The history of the Leader of the Opposition is this. Prior to the 2006 election he challenged the then Leader of the Opposition (Hon. Rob Kerin) for the leadership about eight weeks before the election and started doing the ring around. He released a series of recorded file footage of him in the SAS and said that he was ready to lead. It was an active challenge. The Hon. Rob Lucas in the other place did a ring around, held a press conference and said, 'I have rung everyone in the parliamentary Liberal Party and I cannot find a single person who would vote for this guy,' and the challenge died. The Liberal Party went on to suffer the worst defeat in its history.

In 2006, after its worst defeat, members of the Liberal Party turned to what they thought was their best talent. As a political observer, I have to say that at the time I thought it was their best choice, as well. It was the Hon. Iain Evans; he gets it after the worst defeat in history. How long did they give him? Did they give him two years, did they give him three? Did they give him time to formulate a plan of attack—remembering that they have come off their worst election loss in history? No; they did not. Two or three bad polls and they panic; they knife him, and get the guy who is good in parliament.

This reminds me a bit of why they chose John Olsen over Dean Brown. Dean Brown was hopeless in parliament but he was excellent out there in the community, and the punters loved him. But John Olsen was very good in the parliament, so they chose on parliamentary performance—and, of course, that led to 1997 when they lost 10 seats in one election. He went on to resign in disgrace, and they lost in 2002. So history repeats itself, because what did they do? They chose on parliamentary performance. They chose more aggression, they chose the guy who takes the fight to the government.

That did not work, and it has come out in the Frome by-election. I am not trying to show any hubris here; I am trying to say that every seat that the Liberal Party won at the last election was a safe Liberal seat. Labor achieved the best result in its history at the last state election, and every seat we did not win is probably a safe Liberal one—other than Unley, and you could say that there were a range of local factors there as well. So, excluding Unley—which I think we have a chance of winning one day—I think that most seats the Liberal Party holds today are safe, and I included Frome in that category. Now, if we had come second by those 22 or 23 votes, we would still have had a swing to us as a government. That is unheard of. Kevin Rudd was getting 10 per cent swings against him with Brendan Nelson as leader of the opposition, in his honeymoon! After seven years we got a swing to us in Frome; however, the Independent won, getting a larger swing.

The Liberal Party is in chaos. It cannot formulate an argument to win, and those men and women who have been demoted under the leadership of the Colonel are now seeing the folly of their colleagues' choice. I say to them: for the good of the state sort out your differences immediately, have a swift execution, and put in someone who can lead you to the next election because the state needs stability. Liberal Party members cannot have this bickering amongst themselves for 12 months. The people of South Australia deserve a choice, and deserve to have a viable opposition. So my advice—which is free, although I am happy to consult in private as well—is: do the execution quickly, take him out the back and execute him yourselves, and choose a new leader.

Time expired.

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