But in the washup, it’s the polling company and not the former Port Pirie mayor turned unlikely political phenomenon that will be reflecting on their performance, with Brock easily accounting for now-ex-Deputy Premier Dan van Holst Pellekaan in his Liberal stronghold.
Indeed, Brock snared more than 50 per cent of the primary vote, winning key booths in not just his Pirie base whose shift into Stuart via a boundary redraw prompted his tilt at the seat, but also Port Augusta.
And now Brock is also back in cabinet – a left-field move that at once suggests the Malinauskas Government isn’t following the script – even if it is following a familiar storyline.
For Labor has been here before – as has Brock.
It was his vote, infamously delivered over a Hawaiian pizza to then-Premier Jay Weatherill, that guaranteed the ALP a final four years in office after the indecisive 2014 election.
That guarantee also gave Brock a seat at the Weatherill cabinet table, as minister for Regional Development, along with State and Government Local Relations.
His rise continued a modern SA Labor tradition of sorts: since Mount Gambier conservative Rory McEwen first agreed to join the Rann Government in late 2002 – a government later bolstered by fellow crossbencher Karlene Maywald – the party has only governed for four of its 16 years in office without at least one rural independent in the ministry.
That includes a four-year period after the 2006 Rannslide, when their vote was no longer needed for stability but McEwen and Maywald retained their portfolios regardless.
So while Brock’s ministerial comeback today – revealed this morning by – fits neatly within recent Labor practice, it’s nonetheless clearly a left-field move.
Malinauskas doesn’t need Brock’s vote to govern, and can easily fill his portfolios of Local Government, Regional Roads and Veterans’ Affairs without the Stuart MP’s input.
But it’s a canny political move – an insurance policy for future elections in a parliament that has seen more than its fair share of legislative gridlock.
It also continues a theme Malinauskas promoted yesterday when he visited Mount Gambier among his first orders of government business – that unlike Labor administrations past, and unlike the outgoing Marshall government, he intends to take the regions seriously.
The Liberals talked a good game on regional representation but – as evidenced by massive swings against them in heartland such as Flinders, Hammond and Finniss, ceding seats such as Narungga, Mount Gambier and the Hills seat of Kavel to ex-Liberal independents and Brock’s own triumph in Stuart – they pointedly failed to back it up with action.
Labor are moving early to rebuild credibility in those seats – not with a view to ever winning them, but certainly with an outside eye on ensuring they’re as likely to fall to credible indepexjmtzywndents in future than they are to return to being Liberal strongholds.
There are danger signs lurking for Brock and Labor too, of course: both Maywald and McEwen lost their seats in 2010 having been tarred with the stain of drought-induced water restrictions and the forestry industry sale for which Malinauskas yesterday expressed regret – which the new Premier followed by appointing Port Macdonnell-based MLC Clare Scriven to the forestry portfolio today.
