A familiar face has ‘maintained the rage’ in Florey
Just when the Malinaukas Government looked home and hosed for another voter blitz, the election needle may be wavering.
Unfactored circumstances are now looming as unwanted distractions, including a familiar face who’s been cooling her heels out of the political limelight for three years.
Fast-talking stalwart and former Labor Party faithful, turned Independent, Frances Bedford is making a comeback attempt in the seat she holds close to her heart.
She’ll nominate again in her beloved patch of Florey for next year’s state election.
Bedford has revealed exclusively to InDaily she’s “maintained the rage” after dodging many obstacles and a raw-deal boundary change along the way.
Bedford, 71, was an MP from 1997 until 2022, quitting the party in 2017 to go Independent.
It’s been a long and winding road.
In 2018, her personal popularity arguably saw her send former Labor Treasurer Jack Snelling packing, not wanting to engage her in a contest which she won.
But her political luck ran out four years later in Newland after she swapped seats and came in third.
Bedford before leaving Labor. Photo: Tony Lewis / InDaily
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The former longtime Labor true believer, who got sick and tired of the faceless party men, now believes her time has come again.
She says voters, who can put her back in business, think she’s still in office anyway.
Bedford works the electorate as if she’d never left parliament and has pet projects that she’s willing, ready and able to kickstart.
Her desire to give people a choice at the next state election is a sideways backhander towards incumbent Michael Brown.
Bedford chooses her words carefully but points out that many in the Labor Party honestly believe they’re born to rule.
Brown has just been elevated to the new ministerial position of Assistant Minister for Artificial Intelligence and the Digital Economy, whatever that means.
He’s a former State Secretary of the party and has followed a conga line of Labor brethren who’ve been effectively parachuted into relatively safe seats.
Bedford’s credentials are of public record.
She rose to the position of Deputy Speaker of the House of Assembly for four years, so was no slouch in running a tight ship.
She’s constantly pounded the pavement and beat the drum on a range of issues from Modbury Hospital to the Muriel Matters Society which recognises SA’s rich significance in the suffragette movement which helped give women a political voice and vote.
Bedford fears traditional grassroots Labor members have been largely forgotten.
“Labor used to be a bottom-up party, now it’s top-down,” she says.
“The principles have always been working in the community, the parliament and on future legislation in that order.”
Reading between the lines you get the feeling she thinks Brown and others simply don’t put in and assume the next election is there for their taking.
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Not if she has her way on issues such as the east-west bus link which she left unfinished, universal ambulance cover and a greening project for Dry Creek.
She might be half a chance, even facing Labor’s very comfortable 12.8% buffer margin in Florey.
Here’s why.
Another former Labor powerbroker recently told me of growing discomfort.
They claimed Peter Malinauskas has faced almost no pressure, just adulation for three years.
Now there’s a rising tide of nervous Nellies watching Whyalla devolve, thanks to a debt-laden Sanjeev Gupta, and the omnipresent threat of ambulance ramping and blockage in hospitals.
Then comes unintended consequences in other seats Labor surely couldn’t lose.
Take, for instance, Badcoe in the inner south-west.
Jayne Stinson has been tireless in her pursuits, and like any good former journalist, knows how to knock on doors and press the punter flesh.
She holds a commanding 14.8 per cent margin for Labor and is now in her second term.
But with compulsory property acquisition for the Torrens to Darlington (T2D) project cutting through the guts of her patch, there’s already simmering voter anger in some quarters.
Work starts this year followed by long-term disruption, kicking off at the southern end.
That’s a daily traffic chore for thousands of Badcoe voters over the next six years.
Just days ago, a popular childcare centre in Stinson’s electorate dumped the news on unsuspecting parents that it will close next month, and they’ll have to find another facility for their kids.
That’s also the result of the government’s South Road upgrade, but panicked parents mightn’t see any good news for them and vote in protest.
Then there’s the lurking shadow of “Mali for Canberra”.
The Premier fiercely argues that he’s staying put in SA but some others, even within his own party, are saying “watch this space”.
We all know that a week is a long time in politics, and with the Labor Government facing economic challenges it has never faced before, the Premier must be currently thinking that every hour seems like an eternity.
Mike Smithson is weekend presenter and political analyst for 7news
