Geoff Brock | |
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Minister for Regional Roads | |
In office 24 March 2022 –15 April 2024 | |
Premier | Peter Malinauskas |
Preceded by | Office established |
Succeeded by | Vacant |
Minister for Veterans Affairs | |
In office 24 March 2022 –15 April 2024 | |
Premier | Peter Malinauskas |
Preceded by | Steven Marshall |
Succeeded by | Joe Szakacs |
Minister for Local Government | |
In office 24 March 2022 –15 April 2024 | |
Premier | Peter Malinauskas |
Preceded by | Josh Teague (as Minister for Planning and Local Government) |
Succeeded by | Joe Szakacs |
In office 26 March 2014 –18 March 2018 | |
Premier | Jay Weatherill |
Preceded by | Gail Gago (as Minister for State / Local Government Relations) |
Succeeded by | Stephan Knoll (as Minister for Transport,Infrastructure and Local Government) |
Minister for Regional Development | |
In office 26 March 2014 –18 March 2018 | |
Premier | Jay Weatherill |
Preceded by | Gail Gago |
Succeeded by | Tim Whetstone (as Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development) |
Member of the South Australian Parliament for Stuart | |
Assumed office 19 March 2022 | |
Preceded by | Dan van Holst Pellekaan |
Member of the South Australian Parliament for Frome | |
In office 17 January 2009 – 19 March 2022 | |
Preceded by | Rob Kerin |
Succeeded by | Penny Pratt |
Mayor of Port Pirie | |
In office 12 May 2003 –January 2009 | |
Preceded by | Ken Madigan |
Councillor on the Port Pirie City Council | |
In office May 1989 –January 2009 | |
Personal details | |
Born | Geoffrey Graeme Brock 1950 (age 73–74) Frankston,Victoria,Australia |
Political party | Independent |
Website | geoffbrock.com.au |
Geoffrey Graeme Brock (born 1950) [1] is an Australian politician. He is an Independent member in the South Australian House of Assembly,representing the seat of Stuart since the 2022 South Australian state election. Prior to this,he represented the seat of Frome from the 2009 Frome by-election until a redistribution leading up to the 2022 state election.
Brock has previously served as the Minister for Local Government,Minister for Regional Roads and Minister for Veterans Affairs in the Malinauskas Labor cabinet from 2022 to 2024. Brock was previously the Minister for Regional Development and Minister for Local Government in the Weatherill Labor cabinet from 2014 until Labor's defeat at the 2018 election.
Brock had worked in Port Pirie's lead smelter,which was eventually acquired by Nyrstar,since arriving in the town in 1976. He was first elected to the Port Pirie Regional Council (at that time a City Council) in 1989,and served on numerous community committees before being elected mayor in May 2003,defeating sitting mayor Ken Madigan by 3,297 votes to 2,173. [2] [3] He retired from Nyrstar in September 2007,and he and his second wife Lyn have 12 grandchildren between them.
Brock had a shock win at the 2009 Frome state by-election,defeating the Liberal candidate Terry Boylan. [4] [5] He had a high local profile prior to the election,having served for almost six years as council mayor. Independent Senator Nick Xenophon also campaigned for Brock. [6] [7] [8]
On 23.6 percent of the primary vote and 51.7 percent of the two-candidate-preferred vote,Brock's election depended on preferences from Labor,Nationals SA,and the SA Greens,the former two having placed him second on their how-to-vote card. His own how-to-vote card saw him preference the Nationals,Labor,Liberal,Greens,and One Nation,in that order. [9] The by-election was closely contested,with the result being uncertain for over a week. Initial reports suggested a slight swing to the Liberal candidate Terry Boylan on the two-party-preferred count against Labor,with Brock close behind Labor. By 21 January 2009,both the ABC's Antony Green and the state electoral office were indicating a 2-point swing against the Liberals toward Labor on 51.4 percent,but not enough to lose the seat. [10] [11] [12] Liberal leader Martin Hamilton-Smith claimed victory on behalf of the party. [13] [14] [15]
However,the result hinged on the performance of Brock against Labor in the competition for second place. Brock won the primary vote in the Port Pirie area and picked up enough National and Green preferences to overtake the Labor candidate for second place by 30 votes. He then picked up enough Labor preferences to take the seat off the Liberals on a two-candidate-preferred vote of 51.7 percent (a majority of 665 votes),despite a slight improvement in the Liberal vote since the previous count. [16] [17]
At the 2010 election,Brock increased his primary vote to 37.7 percent and two-candidate vote to 57.5 percent. Labor won from the Liberals the two-party-preferred vote on 50.1 percent. At the 2014 election,Brock increased his primary vote to 45.2 percent and two-candidate vote to 58.8 percent. The election resulted in a hung parliament with 23 Labor seats,22 Liberal seats,and two independents. The balance of power was held by crossbench independents Brock and Bob Such. [18] Such did not indicate who he would support in a minority government before he was diagnosed and hospitalised with a brain tumour and took medical leave one week after the election. University of Adelaide Professor and political commentator Clem Macintyre said Such's situation virtually guaranteed Brock would side with Labor. With 24 seats required to govern,Brock backed Labor. Macintyre said: [19]
If Geoff Brock had gone with the Liberals,then the Parliament would have effectively been tied 23 to 23,so once Bob Such became ill and stepped away then Geoff Brock,I think had no choice but to side with Labor.
Brock accepted the cabinet positions of Minister for Regional Development and Minister for Local Government in the Weatherill Ministry. [20] In return,Brock agreed to support the Labor government on confidence and supply while retaining the right to otherwise vote on conscience. [21] A few months later,Labor achieved majority government when Nat Cook won the 2014 Fisher by-election which was triggered by the death of Such. Despite this,Weatherill kept Brock and another independent minister Martin Hamilton-Smith in cabinet,giving the government a 26 to 21 parliamentary majority. [22]
Brock held the ministerial portfolios until Labor lost government in the 2018 election. He retained the seat of Frome with a small increase in his primary vote.
A redistribution in 2020 transferred parts of seat of Frome to the seat of Stuart. In the areas transferred from Frome to Stuart,including Port Pirie where Brock was based in,Brock had polled 65% of the first preference vote and 75% after preferences in the 2018 election,while the rest of Frome was dominantly Liberal Party voting. [23] It was no longer feasible for Brock to contest Frome with the new boundaries,so instead,he decided to contest for the seat of Stuart at the 2022 election. [24] Brock was successful in his transfer,defeating incumbent member and Deputy Premier Dan van Holst Pellekaan. [25]
Labor won a majority government at this election. Despite this,Brock was appointed to the Malinauskas Labor ministry as the Minister for Local Government for the second time,as well as Minister for Regional Roads and Minister for Veterans Affairs. [26] He said he had not expected a ministerial position,and the offer by new Premier Peter Malinauskas two days before the swearing-in ceremony came as "a heck of a shock". He emphasised that "he was not a Labor minister,but would vote with cabinet on decisions made by it",and Malinauskas said that Brock's independent would be "maintained and utterly respected". Brock was one of the two regional cabinet ministers,the other being Clare Scriven.
In April 2024,Brock resigned from Cabinet,citing health reasons. He remains the member for Stuart,and announced his intention to contest the next state election in 2026. [27] [28]
Jay Wilson Weatherill is a former Australian politician who was the 45th premier of South Australia,serving from 21 October 2011 until 19 March 2018. Weatherill represented the House of Assembly seat of Cheltenham as a member of the South Australian Labor Party from the 2002 election to 17 December 2018,when he retired.
Frome is a single-member electoral district for the South Australian House of Assembly. It is named after Edward Charles Frome,the third surveyor-general of South Australia. The electorate stretches north-eastwards from the Gawler River and Gulf St Vincent in the south,and includes many of the agricultural areas of the Clare and Gilbert Valleys. It covers a total of 12,921 km2 (4,989 sq mi) and takes in the towns of Auburn,Clare,Mintaro,Port Broughton,Saddleworth,Snowtown and Riverton. Prior to the 2020 redistribution,its main population centre was Port Pirie,since transferred to Stuart.
The term swing refers to the extent of change in voter support,typically from one election or opinion poll to another,expressed as a positive or negative percentage point. For the Australian House of Representatives and the lower or unicameral houses of the parliaments of all the states and territories except Tasmania and the ACT,as well as Tasmania's upper house,Australia employs preferential voting in single-member constituencies. Under the full-preference instant-runoff voting system,in each seat the candidate with the lowest vote is eliminated and their preferences are distributed,which is repeated until only two candidates remain. While every seat has a two-candidate preferred (TCP) result,seats where the major parties have come first and second are commonly referred to as having a two-party-preferred (TPP) result. The concept of "swing" in Australian elections is not simply a function of the difference between the votes of the two leading candidates,as it is in Britain. To know the majority of any seat,and therefore the swing necessary for it to change hands,it is necessary to know the preferences of all the voters,regardless of their first preference votes. It is not uncommon in Australia for candidates who have comfortable leads on the first count to fail to win the seat,because "preference flows" go against them.
Stuart is a single-member electoral district for the South Australian House of Assembly. At 323,131 km²,it is a vast country district extending from the Spencer Gulf as far as the Northern Territory border in the north and the Queensland and New South Wales borders in the east. The district includes pastoral lease and unincorporated Crown Lands,Lake Eyre and part of the Simpson Desert in the far north. Its main population centres since the 2020 boundaries redistribution are the industrial towns of Port Pirie and Port Augusta.
Robert Bruce Such was a South Australian politician. He was the member for the seat of Fisher in the South Australian House of Assembly from 1989 until his death in 2014. He defeated Labor MP Philip Tyler at the 1989 election and was a member of the Liberals until 2000 when he became an independent. Such was Minister for Employment,Training and Further Education,and Minister for Youth Affairs,in the Brown Liberal government from 1993 to 1996. He served as Speaker of the South Australian House of Assembly for the Rann Labor government from 2005 to 2006. Such was joint Father of the House with Michael Atkinson from 2012.
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Martin Leslie James Hamilton-Smith is a former Australian politician who represented the South Australian House of Assembly seat of Waite from the 1997 election until his retirement in 2018. First elected as a candidate for the Liberal Party,Hamilton-Smith was the state parliamentary leader of the Liberal Party and the Leader of the Opposition in South Australia from 2007 to 2009,and a Minister in the Kerin Liberal government from 2001 to 2002.
In Australian politics,the two-party-preferred vote is the result of an election or opinion poll after preferences have been distributed to the highest two candidates,who in some cases can be independents. For the purposes of TPP,the Liberal/National Coalition is usually considered a single party,with Labor being the other major party. Typically the TPP is expressed as the percentages of votes attracted by each of the two major parties,e.g. "Coalition 50%,Labor 50%",where the values include both primary votes and preferences. The TPP is an indicator of how much swing has been attained/is required to change the result,taking into consideration preferences,which may have a significant effect on the result.
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