LIB 1.4%
Incumbent MP
John Gardner, since 2010.
Geography
Eastern fringe of Adelaide. Morialta covers the suburbs of Athelstone, Auldana, Castambul, Cherryville, Highbury, Newton, Rostrevor, Woodforde, Vista, and parts of Magill. Most of the electorate lies in the Campbelltown and Tea Tree Gully local government areas, along with a small part of the Adelaide Hills.
History
Morialta was created in 2002 as a renaming of the former electorate of Coles, which had existed since 1970. Coles was a Labor seat until 1977. Since 1977, the Liberal Party has won Coles/Morialta at all but one election.
Coles was first won in 1970 by the ALP’s Len King, who served as a minister in the Dunstan government. He held the seat until 1975. After leaving Parliament he was appointed to the Supreme Court of South Australia in 1975, and served as Chief Justice from 1978 to 1995.
King was succeeded by Des Corcoran, who had held the seat of Millicent since 1962 and had served as Deputy Premier since 1970.
Corcoran only served one term in Coles, moving to the new seat of Hartley in 1977. Corcoran went on to serve as Premier for seven months in 1979, and retired from Hartley in 1982.
Jennifer Cashmore won Coles for the Liberal Party in 1977. She served in the seat for sixteen years, retiring in 1993. Cashmore was succeeded by Joan Hall, also a Liberal. Hall is the wife of former Liberal Premier Steele Hall, who went on to serve as a crossbench Senator and a Liberal member of the House of Representatives. Joan Hall held the seat for thirteen years, including serving as a minister from 1997 to 2001.
Hall was re-elected in 1997 and 2002, when Coles was renamed as Morialta. Hall lost in 2006 with a 12% swing to the ALP’s Lindsay Simmons.
There was an 11% swing back to the Liberal Party in 2010, and Simmons lost to the Liberal Party’s John Gardner. Gardner has been re-elected three times.
Candidates
Sitting Liberal MP John Gardner is not running for re-election.
- Scott Kennedy (Liberal)
- Matthew Marozzi (Labor)
- Jenn Tranter (Greens)
Assessment
Morialta is a very marginal Liberal seat. With no sitting MP defending the seat and very poor polling, the Liberal Party would be lucky to hold on here.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| John Gardner | Liberal | 10,935 | 46.2 | +1.9 |
| Matthew Marozzi | Labor | 8,545 | 36.1 | +11.7 |
| Alex Dinovitser | Greens | 2,441 | 10.3 | +4.8 |
| Nick Zollo | Family First | 1,763 | 7.4 | +7.4 |
| Informal | 756 | 3.1 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| John Gardner | Liberal | 12,165 | 51.4 | -8.0 |
| Matthew Marozzi | Labor | 11,519 | 48.6 | +8.0 |
Booths have been divided into three parts: central, north and south.
The Liberal Party won the two-party-preferred vote in two areas, with 50.6% in the south and 51.9% in the north. Labor polled 50.3% in the centre.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 9.2% in the centre to 13.6% in the south.
| Voter group | GRN prim | LIB 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| Central | 9.2 | 49.7 | 6,405 | 27.0 |
| South | 13.6 | 50.6 | 4,502 | 19.0 |
| North | 10.5 | 51.9 | 3,470 | 14.7 |
| Other votes | 9.4 | 52.7 | 9,307 | 39.3 |
Election results in Morialta at the 2022 South Australian state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor and the Greens.
Liberals have announced Scott Kennedy, a CFS volunteer and data analytics professional, as their candidate here to succeed John Gardner.
Considering it’s around a year until the state election, the Liberals do seem quite nervous about their prospects.
Labor has announced 2022 candidate Matthew Marozzi as their candidate for Morialta in 2026.
Stick a fork in this seat, Labor gain. I cannot see the Liberals hanging on whatsoever.
Labor announced their candidate back in Feb 2025. This indicates their confidence and eagerness to win this.
@Votante – thanks for the clarification. I only found out about it today, so I presumed it was recent.
@James I live next door to Morialta (in Hartley, Vincent Tarzia’s seat no less). I’d say both of them are as good as gone. Morialta’s on a 2% margin and Hartley on 3% and Tarzia’s been completely incompetent apart from the usual annual obligatory calendar and bulletin every now and then.
Liberals are going to get wiped in eastern Adelaide, particularly if the Sturt results reflect on the state election next year.
@Tommo9 – absolutely agreed. I feel that both Unley and Morialta are dust for the Liberals with retiring MPs and Labor candidates already announced. I agree with you on the sentiment that Tarzia is an underperforming MP, even despite beating Nick Xenophon in 2018 and hanging on in 2022. He is toast as well.
Wouldn’t even be remotely shocked if Labor snagged Colton, Morphett, maybe even Bragg.
Agree Tommo and James, unless the Liberal Party recover in the 9 or so months between now and the next election – it is looking like it will be a repeat of previous major landslide/wipeout elections such as WA 2021, NT 2016 or Queensland 2012 that saw once ultra safe seats fall for the first time in history.