Colton – SA 2026

Labor has announced Aria Bolkus, a local lawyer, as their candidate for Colton in 2026.

@James any Liberal candidates or is the SA Liberal Party lagging behind?

Nether Portal,
Liberal Party candidates can be found at this address:
https://saliberal.org.au/team/state/state-candidates
There is only one so far.

Labor candidate announcement was here: https://www.premier.sa.gov.au/media-releases/news-items/labor-unveils-candidates-for-five-key-seats
Labor candidates will eventually appear here:
https://sa.alp.org.au/our-team/

@NP – Liberals have to my knowledge announced candidates for Morialta and Unley (retiring MPs) and Kavel. No clue about any others, I’ll update you when possible.

They’ve also chosen Anna Finizio again in Dunstan. They also have a candidate in Gibson, Jane Fleming. I’d presume all their current MPs who haven’t announced retirement will also run.

@James thanks, still not many.

Matt Cowdrey has announced he will retire next election.

Labor gain.

(I’ll post here as there is a recent conversation on it.) The SA Liberals have announced a new bunch of candidates recently (unless they only decided to put them up on their website).
– Julian Amato – Adelaide
– Trent Burnard – Davenport
– Amanda Hendry – King
– Leon Stephens – Stuart
– Shawn van Groesen – Elder

@James, of those all were Labor gains in 2022 except for Stuart which is Geoff Brock’s seat but is now a notional Liberal seat.

@NP – astute observations. I don’t think any of these candidates will win based on the current polling.

@James not a chance. Even if polling turns around a bit it’ll just be like the Queensland state election (i.e the party ahead in the polls for a long time (in Queensland’s case the LNP opposition led for two years, in SA’s case the Labor government has led for four) wins but not in a landslide like expected).

Stuart is notionally Labor.
Now consists of Port Pirie and Port Augusta largely 80% approx…. hard for a liberal candidate to win there

@Mick not impossible though as working-class industrial cities like Broken Hill, Port Augusta, Port Pirie and Whyalla are trending away from Labor as Labor’s focus is now more on voters in and around the major cities.

If a seat was dominated by Broken Hill then it would be Labor… but the surrounding Territory would be at least 60/40 non Labor this reverses the sums.
To make it non Labor…fed seat safe nat
State seat is fairly safe sff

@ NP
You need to remember Labor never campaigns in those working class industrial cities like Whyalla and Port Augusta at a federal level as they are in unwinnable seats. At a state level Whyalla is in a Safe Labor seat and labor will not give that up without a fight.

@Nimalan true, but long term seats like Giles are trending away from Labor. There’s not really too much Labor can do about it unless they change Whyalla to make it like Newcastle or Geelong.

Giles also includes a lot of Aboriginal communities where the vote is complex and swings don’t always reflect the nationwide or statewide sentiment. These communities traditionally vote Labor but are becoming friendlier to the Coalition and if one of the local candidates is Pitjantjatjara he or she might win many Pitjantjatjara-speaking booths.

@ NP
I am not sure Giles is trending away form Labor. Have a look at Antony Green’s guide from 2022. Labor vote in Giles is always stronger than the statewide result signficantly. Maybe you can calculate Cook PVI over the years. I agree whyalla will not become like Newcastle, Wollongong and Geelong. It is further away from Adelaide and does not have quick road/rail access to gentify.
If Libs want to win this seat they need a wedge issue.
1. In South Australia Labor has already won the climate wars due to the immsense progress that has been made. Already 75% Renewable electricity and 54% reduction in emissions from 2005 despite population and economic growth
2. This seat is not religious so talking about LGBT issues, Abortion etc is a waste of time
3. Maybe the Libs can start a culture war on State Voice, Treaty etc but that will backfire in the Eastern Suburbs and Adelaide Hills

https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/sa/2022/guide/gile

“Colton has existed since the 1993 election, and is the only seat to have always been held by the sitting government since that time.”
@Ben, did you mean to say it’s a bellwether? The sitting government doesn’t hold this.

It was a bellwether until 2022. I sometimes miss out-of-date references earlier in the history, since I mostly look at the end of the history section to make changes.

Yep. The bellwether status ended in 2022.

The swing against the Liberals was well below average in 2022. It might have been a testament to Matt Cowdrey’s personal vote.

@Nimalan around the culture war on Indigenous Issues like Welcome to Country and Indigenous Flags, the election results has proven these issues are a waste of time as it didn’t see a mass of Labor/Labor-preferenced voters going to Liberal/Liberal Preferenced and most likely have backfired on Moderates and CALD Communities. This is why Conservative Media have been wasting time by having large amount of negative coverage on Welcome to Country and have overblown the issue.

@Marh I agree, wedge issues and culture wars don’t work.

@Nimalan I think the way places like Broken Hill are trending it’ll happen to Whyalla too over time just naturally. 2025 was a setback due to Dutton.

@Nether Portal Broken Hill maybe but Whyalla is an interesting case. Labor’s very strong in Whyalla compared to the other iron triangle towns of Port Pirie and Port Augusta. There’s a big unionised workforce and the steelmaking industry amongst others makes it different from other industrialised ports which rely on energy productions which is why coal and fossil fuels aren’t even a thing in SA.

Labor’s pretty proactive in Whyalla too given their recent intervention with the steelworks administration fiasco and it’s never fallen for the Coalition even in the 1993 landslide so I don’t see how it will change in the same way other places will. It’s like Port Adelaide, always was and will be solidly red for the foreseeable future barring anything completely out of the blue.

this is one election i wont be speculating or being too invllved in pretty obvious outcome.
id expect the libs to lose Heysen, Morialta, Unley to labor at the least. possibly Finniss to an IND
Ngadjuri and Colton could also be possible losses. libs could possibly win back Dunstan.

@John if your projections hold Dunstan stays labor

@Nether Portal
I think Tommo9 is right. Some regional working class areas have declined for Labor that is more due to demographic change/deindustrialisation. Lithgow and La Trobe valley areas where Coal mining has declined so the areas are trending right. I hope Whyalla remains a manufacturing hub not for any partisan advantage but for Australia’s sake. At a Federal level, Labor no longer has any hope to win Grey so they dont put effort. In a nutshell effort=results. We have seen that in Aston/Knox council and the state seat of Bayswater has Labor has put effort we have seen Labor reap rewards eventhough until recently it was seen as the new heartland for Libs. I am not sure Broken Hill is trending right for any reason other than Labor can no longer win the seat of Parkes so the effort Labor puts in is minimal. Also Broken Hill is iron ore mining not Coal mining so Climate Wars dont have any impact. If Labor puts effort in i am sure there vote will be much higher. The issue is that Whyalla, Broken Hil do not have population growth so the electorates that contain them keep getting pushed into agricultural areas.

@ Marh
I think you are right but the issue is that to get people to vote against their economic interests you need wedge issues. It is in the economic interest of unionised blue collar workers in Whyalla to vote Labor.

On the topic of Whyalla, I had quick look at the federal election results in Grey. The 2PP seat swing was 5.43% to Labor. All booths in Whyalla had above-average swings and at most booths, including the prepoll booth, there were double-digit 2PP swings to Labor. Maybe it was an endorsement of the federal and state Labor rescue package for the Whyalla steelworks. It could also be because of a working-class repudiation of the federal Liberals.

Back to Colton, I looked at federal election swings in Hindmarsh where Colton is mainly situated in. Labor achieved 2PP swings of over 10% at most booths in overlapping suburbs as well as 9% to 9.5% swings at the nearest prepoll centres – West Lakes and Plympton Park.

Colton may be a bit different in that the Liberals will be sandbagging it, whereas Hindmarsh wasn’t even a target seat. Mark Butler was pretty much a shoo-in in Hindmarsh. What counters this is that the sitting Liberal MP for Colton will retire.

@Nimalan I think also because Barwon is unwinnable on the state level so therefore Labor doesn’t campaign there at all.

@ Nether Portal
Agree Barwon is unwinnable for Labor at a state level even if they get a thumping result in Broken Hill so they dont bother. This also occurs in super safe Left wing seats where the Libs dont campaign so the Liberal vote is probably deceptively low even if there pockets of strength.
For example
1. Abbotsbury in Fowler
2. Milperra when in Blaxland
3. Keilor
4. Pyrmont and Millers Point
5. East Freemantle
5. Haberfield- if this was moved to Reid the Libs may win the booth in a good election but while in Grayndler they will not try
6. Bundoora in Cooper
7. East Melbourne

Agree Nimalan and NP, how an area votes depends on what type of seat it is placed into. Yass and some of the Snowy Mountain towns like Tumut were competitive in 2PP terms when they were included in a swing seat (Eden-Monaro) but when they are placed into a safe conservative district (Hume or Riverina) then the Labor vote collapses as the party doesn’t see a need to win any areas in an uncompetitive seat.