Drama, diplomacy and decision-making: A 2002 State Election Retrospective
Calling all politics and history buffs: a special event run by South Australia’s History Festival will retell the 2002 South Australian State election in the House of Assembly.
Who better to set the backdrop and provide their first-hand accounts of the 2002 South Australian state election than the former Premiers themselves?
Rob Kerin and Mike Rann will be joined by veteran ABC Radio presenter David Bevan on May 7 to provide valuable political insights into the storied election and take questions from the audience.
Sitting in the House of Assembly, the three hosts will take the audience back in time and set the scene of South Australia’s political landscape in 2002.
In October 2001, three months before the election, then-Premier John Olsen was forced to resign following controversy around a Motorola software deal for the State Government.
When Rob Kerin succeeded Olsen for the Premier position, “suddenly, with just a few months to stabilise the ship, Rob Kerin had greatness thrust upon him,” David Bevan told InDaily.
Held in February 2002, the SA State election saw Labor win 23 out of 47 seats. The paradoxical element of the election was that “after all of this turmoil, nothing happened. The two-party preferred vote stayed the same,” Bevan said.
Labor subsequently secured the crucial majority-granting seat by gaining the support of independent member Peter Lewis, allowing Labor to form Government.
The election of 2002 was “a culmination of perhaps the most dramatic decade in South Australian politics for at least a generation,” Bevan said.
“We are reminded that South Australia has lived through some pretty remarkable times,” he said.
“We saw Government change hands in this State because a group of people walked from one side of the chamber to another.
“Two men shook hands and wished each other the best of luck, and then we got on with it.”
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Those two men were Rob Kerin and Mike Rann.
The event is run as part of South Australia’s History Festival. This year, the theme of the festival is history as decisions; some that maintain the status quo and others that forge new pathways.
The Festival is running over 550 events across 16 of South Australia’s regions.
The 2002 State Election: A Retrospective is a free event and will be held at 6:30pm Wednesday May 7 in the House of Assembly Chamber in Parliament on North Terrace.
