Ngadjuri – SA 2026

LIB 3.4%

Incumbent MP
Penny Pratt, member for Frome since 2022.

Geography
Rural areas north of Adelaide. Ngadjuri covers the Adelaide Plains and Clare and Gilbert Valleys council areas, as well as parts of the Goyder, Light and Wakefield council areas. The major towns are Clare, Two Wells and Kapunda, and the seat runs close to Gawler.

Redistribution
Ngadjuri is a new name for the seat of Frome. The seat shifted south, taking in part of the Gawler area from Light and losing Balaklava to Narungga and Spalding, Jamestown and Burra to Stuart. These changes reduced the Liberal margin from 8.1% to 3.4%.

History
Ngadjuri is a new name, replacing the name “Frome” as of 2026. Frome had existed in three incarnations, the first as a two-member district from 1884 to 1902, and then from 1938 to 1977 and from 1993 until 2026. The seat was Labor from 1938 to 1970, and Liberal from 1970 until 2008.

When Frome was restored in 1993, it was won by the Liberal Party’s Rob Kerin.

Kerin served as a minister in the Brown and Olsen ministries from 1995 to 2001, and in 2001 became Liberal leader and Premier six months before the 2002 election.

The 2002 election produced a hung parliament, and Kerin was unsuccessful in forming a majority.

Kerin continued to lead the Liberal Party in opposition, and led them to a landslide defeat at the 2006 state election. Kerin resigned as Liberal leader shortly after the election. He announced his retirement in 2007, and resigned early in late 2008, triggering the 2009 Frome by-election.

Port Pirie mayor Geoff Brock ran as an independent at the by-election, the main rival to Liberal candidate Terry Boylan.

Boylan topped the primary vote, with 39.2%, with the ALP’s John Rohde second on 26.1%. Brock was third on 23.6%.

While such a result would have made it impossible in most cases for a third-placed candidate to win, Brock received strong preferences from minor candidates, and overtook the ALP by 30 votes, allowing him to win comfortably on Labor preferences.

Brock represented Frome from 2009 until 2022, when a redistribution shifted Port Pirie into Stuart. Brock switched to Stuart and won that seat, while Liberal candidate Penny Pratt won Frome.

Candidates

Assessment
Ngadjuri is a very marginal Liberal seat and Labor would be hoping to pick up the seat.

2022 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Penny Pratt Liberal 10,573 45.0 -10.1 41.2
Ashton Charvetto Labor 6,002 25.6 +5.5 30.7
Cate Hunter Independent 3,908 16.6 +16.6 14.6
Caterina Johnston One Nation 2,588 11.0 +11.0 11.1
Loma Silsbury Nationals 410 1.7 +1.7 1.5
Others 1.0
Informal 900 3.7

2022 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Penny Pratt Liberal 13,644 58.1 -10.0 53.4
Ashton Charvetto Labor 9,837 41.9 +10.0 46.6

Booth breakdown

Booths have been divided into three parts: north, south-east and west.

The Liberal Party won the two-party-preferred vote in two areas, with 51.6% in the west and 64.5% in the north. Labor polled 54.6% in the south-east.

The independent vote for Cate Hunter ranged from 12.5% in the south-east to 18.9% in the north, although the south-east includes some areas redistributed into the seat where she could not gain vote.

Voter group IND prim LIB 2PP Total votes % of votes
South-East 12.5 45.4 6,320 29.2
North 18.9 64.5 4,421 20.4
West 14.4 51.6 3,968 18.3
Other votes 13.8 54.5 6,953 32.1

Election results in Ngadjuri at the 2022 South Australian state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor, independent candidates and One Nation.

Become a Patron!

16 COMMENTS

  2. Feels like SA Labor is jumping the gun a little bit. Just because the electorate’s much more marginal than last election doesn’t necessarily mean Labor’s going to win it. And Piccolo’s vote base is mostly in Gawler which is in Light and they risk losing that seat too if they move Piccolo to a newer, less friendly electorate.

  3. Agree Tommo, although I think Light is safe even without Piccolos personal vote. The seat is now solely Gawler whereas in previous elections (especially in 2006 when Piccolo won it for the first time) it contained some surrounding rural areas.

    The margin is currently over 10% and considered a safe seat unlike previous elections where it was marginal.

  5. Why is Piccolo moving here? His base in Gawler (strong for Labor) is a far cry from the Clare Valley here in Ngadjuri. In addition the seat is still notionally-Liberal and I doubt it would flip even with a pretty terrible state party.

  6. I’d say to try and overcome the small liberal margin and win them an extra seat. This could backfire and cost them a 20year mp.

  7. James, reading the announcement from Piccolo I understand he is contesting the seat because he grew up in that area (similar to ex Wakefield and Spence MP Nick champion who was born in Kapunda). Although how much residual support he can still get is unknown and I think he should just stay put in Light.

  8. Surely the odds of Labor winning Ngadjuri with Piccolo are much greater than the odds of Labor losing Light without him, thus from the perspective of Labor winning seats, his decision is a net positive. Maybe he has plans if he loses. He’s been around a long time. Perhaps he sees it as that he’ll either be a hero or get to retire.

  9. I think this might be close. Labor’s position in the polls since the 2022 state election has improved. Unfortunately for the libs sa is dominated by seats in Adelaide which labor overwhelmingly controls. And the libs have lost half a dozen seats to inds in the regions. Theoretically there could be more inds the liberals at the next election. Would they then be the opposition or?

  10. John – even if the independents happen to outnumber the Liberals if they lose badly, it could be similar to NT post the 2016 landslide where the CLP still formed the Opposition even though they had only 2 seats compared to 5 independents.

  11. @yoh right i suppose because the inds arent a party and are just 6 indivisuals. as opposed to the 2 people from on epraty

  12. @Yoh An – makes sense, but I still feel he has that name base in Light that I’m sceptical him contesting here will pay off. Yes SA Labor is doing good in polls right now but there’s no guarantee that by 2026 they will be doing enough to gain new seats, especially in Ngadjuri which is a pretty conservative seat.

  13. After the federal election results, I did an attempt at calculating the results here based on the overlapping booths in Grey, Barker, and a small part of Spence. I also used all the declaration votes cast in Frome in 2022, and the Gawler PPVC in Spence.

    Obviously this isn’t perfect, but the results I calculated:
    Noti
    Total Votes: 23533
    LIB: 12624 (53.6%)
    ALP: 10909 (46.4%)
    Margin: 3.6% LIB
    LIB Swing: +0.4

    I will say I don’t know if these results are necessarily reliable for 2026, considering Labor is running an incumbent MP from another seat and are polling very highly at the moment. However in 2022 in Frome an independent polled 16.6%. If she doesn’t run, the Liberals could pick up some of those votes. In addition Penny Pratt being a first term MP means there is a slim chance because of the current political environment she might be able to gain back some votes.

    Here is also a results map I created using polling place data on Adobe Illustrator. Again this is my first time so obviously won’t be perfect but I still have gut feeling it is mostly accurate.
    Link: https://jumpshare.com/v/r3tbUeS0v1KGWXzF9Adv

  15. @Tommo9
    I think it is actually a good idea for Tony Piccolo to move to this seat. Piccolo is a great MP but i think Light is now Safe Labor due to demographic change and it will be able to have renewal in that seat. I think Light may even one day be a Labor Hearland seat as it moves from country town to Working class outer suburb.

  16. With the polls as they are Piccolo looks a fairly sure thing here, unless something catastrophic comes out for Labor. His gambit seems like it will pay off. Wonder if he’s looking for a promotion for his trouble?