He also had preliminary discussions with the likes of SA Best and crossbench MLC John Darley.
“I wouldn’t have just gone to the Labor Party,” he insists.
“I was just sounding things out – what I was doing was investigating what options were around.
“I wasn’t suggesting that I’d be prepared to sign up with any particular party [but] I was disappointed I’d left the approach to the parties so late that there were no options available.
“I felt that I’d missed the boat with everybody… I wanted to know what the options were [and] there weren’t any, effectively.”
In the end, he opted to start his own party, Real Change SA, and “ultimately got there with five minutes to spare”.
A message Pallaras sent to a senior Labor adviser, obtained by , spells out his disappointment.
“Thanks to you and Peter for the time the other day,” it begins.
“I’m still amazed at my own stupidity at not knowing or realising that pre-selections would be over. It was extremely disappointing to find that out and that my ambitions to join up and contribute had suddenly come to nought.
“Anyway, enough of the spilt milk… Peter did say to keep in touch, especially in terms of policy.
“I could understand it that was out of politeness rather than any pressing desire to see what Pallaras thinks but in case I’m wrong, I recently wrote a short piece on the parole system.”
He then outlines his view that the parole system should be abolished and offers to send a more detailed explanation, “but I won’t be offended of there are more pressing issues”.
Pallaras has since put himself on the LegCo ballot paper, along with running mate Tony Tonkin, who was previously the founder of the Child Protection Party.
“He’s left Child Protection and joined Real Change as a candidate with me for the Upper House,” the former DPP tells .
He concedes his party put together a last-minute preference deal with the Liberals to run candidates in Newland, Elder, King and Adelaide in return for the Liberals’ first preference in the Upper House.
But he says he would have preferred to get the same deal done with Labor.
“The first party I went to was the Labor Party [because] probably if I put myself on the political spectrum I’d be much closer to the Labor Party than the Liberal Party,” he says.
However, he said the ALP “wasn’t interested” in doing preference deals with a party that, at that stage, wasn’t running in the Lower House.
“I left that meeting with nothing,” he says.
“But since then the strategy committee – which is basically our family – said ‘perhaps we should be looking at running people in the lower house’, the principal reason that it then relates to preferences we get back from those people we’re running in the lower house.”
He said Real Change then looked “for the best deal we could get coming back to us, and the best deal we could get was from the Liberals”.
“The Liberals put us at number two on every ticket in the state,” xjmtzywhe said.
“We think we’ve done the best deal available – for a small party like us we thought that’s too good to refuse.
“All we’re concerned about is getting the maximum opportunity to win a position in parliament.”
He concedes he was “struggling” with the concept of dealing with a party he is not particularly ideologically aligned with, “until I came to the point of saying ‘what’s the main goal here?’
“And the main goal here is to get into parliament.
“I’ll not be told by either Liberal or Labor how to vote if I get in – I took the view that the discomfort perhaps of those preferences arrangements [had to be weighed against] maximising our chances of getting in and being effective as an independent”.
“I understand I’ve got to do deals – I never thought this deal would eventuate, but it has,” he says.
“I don’t have second thoughts about it.”
SA Best MLC Frank Pangallo says the Liberals offered his party the same deal “and we rejected it”.
“They’re pretty desperate to sandbag those key marginals,” he said.
Friends in high places
Former Liberal up-and-comer turned Independent Speaker Dan Cregan got some local support recently from an unexpected quarter.
A letter in the local Mount Barker Courier that enthusiastically sung his praises was signed by former Labor Party veteran Murray de Laine.
“Dan Cregan’s decision to become an independent has created a real focus on the significant issues in our community,” de Laine enthused.
“We are now witnessing the major parties make commitments to improve local healthcare and transport needs… previous governments of both persuasions have largely ignored us.”
He said Cregan’s decision to quit the Libs “has put his community first” as “he will also have considerably more influence if he is re-elected as an independent”.
“I intend to vote for him,” said the former MP for what is now Cheltenham.
“As a former long-standing MP, I feel qualified to emphasise these points and their significance.”
Indeed – and de Laine has some experience himself about leaving a major party to run as an independent.
When he lost preselection in 2001 he contested the next election against the endorsed Labor candidate – one Jay Weatherill.
