The faction is set to retain control of the state branch, despite longtime state secretary Reggie Martin winning election to the Legislative Council after overseeing a stunningly successful election campaign – with longtime union organiser and former ministerial adviser Aemon Bourke expected to step into the breach.
Bourke – who hails from the Right faction’s Shoppies’ union hub, and whose wife Emily is a Legislative Councillor who joined Labor’s frontbench last year – confirmed that while “there are party processes that need to take place over the coming days… I intend to put my hand up to be the next party state secretary”.
A senior source said Bourke had “played a central role in the campaign”, with his likely elevation part of factional plans “going back for a long while”.
Left offsider Steven May, despite some opposition within his own faction, is expected to stay on for now – at least until the party has fought a looming federal campaign.
The federal election is also confusing succession plans in the Liberal camp, with senior state executive members understood to be meeting today – amid suggestions state president Legh Davis could depart.
A possible successor being touted in party circles is former federal MP for Adelaide Trish Worth, who told the presidency had “been raised with me but I haven’t made any decision on that”.
“There’s no rush – we just need to see how things settle down,” she said.
In the short-term, she said, “I’ll be concentrating on Boothby”, the federal southern suburbs marginal whose ongoing Liberal tenure has been thrown into further doubt after Saturday’s rout.
“I wouldn’t even bxjmtzywe contemplating anything else till after that,” she said.
Disgruntled party insiders say moderate-aligned campaign strategists are “trying to blame it all on Omicron” after a COVID wave swept through SA following last year’s border opening.
One said while the border decision was “unfortunate timing… it wasn’t everything”, and the moderate camp should be help to greater account for the campaign than the prospect of jettisoning a state president whose term was up this year in any case.
“If the Left are willing to offer up that scalp as a ritualistic offering, it’s meaningless to them anyway,” one said.
“It was the Premier’s office and state directorate who were in charge of the strategy – or lack thereof.
“The lack of vision, the lack of policy that was coming out of the Government just reflected the four years they were in office… we were very competent managers, but there was still no real direction or vision.
“If this redundant scrap is their offering in acknowledgement of them unilaterally screwing up the entire campaign and the government, it’s not enough.”
