Marginal Liberal 2.7%

Post-Election Margin: Liberal 1.4%

Nicolle Flint (Liberal) since 2016.

Boothby covers the southern suburbs of Adelaide, beginning on the coast between Glenelg and Marino and extending inland to include southern hillside suburbs. It includes the suburbs of Sturt, Marion, Ascot Park, Eden Hills, Torrens Park, Mitcham, Blackwood and Belair. Covers 115 sq.km. (Map)

Background

This electorate is named after William Boothby, the Returning Officer for South Australia at the first Federal election in 1901. He superintended every South Australian election from 1856 to 1903 and introduced many electoral innovations that these days are standard to the conduct of Australian elections.



Unlike other mainland states, the first federal election saw South Australian members elected at large. Electoral boundaries were not drawn in South Australia until the 1903 election, when this electorate was named in commemoration of Boothby.



Former members for Boothby include Sir John McLeay (1949-66, Speaker 1956-66, a record term), and his son John McLeay (1966-81), who was succeeded by Steele Hall (1981-96). Hall was Premier of South Australia 1968-70, and went on to lead the break-away Liberal Movement in the mid-1970s, for whom he served in the Senate 1974-77. He then re-joined the Liberal Party (many other Liberal Movement members became the core of the Australian Democrats) and served in Canberra as one of the Liberal Party's leading moderates. On his retirement, Liberal Senate Leader Robert Hill nominated to succeed him, but was defeated for pre-selection by Andrew Southcott in one of the factional battles for which the South Australian Liberal Party is famous.



The 2007 campaign in Boothby attracted considerable attention when Labor nominated Nicole Cornes, newspaper columnist and wife of local football legend Graham Cornes. This turned out not to be the political masterstroke some in the Labor Party thought it would be, Cornes not having nearly enough political experience to deal with a chasing and churlish Adelaide media pack.



As a result Boothby recorded the smallest swing to Labor of any South Australian seat on the election of the Rudd government in 2007, before there was a further 2.2% swing to Labor in 2010. A more normal Liberal margin was restored at the 2013 election with a 6.5% swing to the Liberal Party, but Boothby returned to being a marginal seat on Southcott's retirement in 2016.