No-fuss Miller-Frost on keeping Boothby red
Boothby incumbent Louise Miller-Frost says she’s laser focused on Labor’s policies as she gears up to retain the marginal seat on May 3.
Labor MP for Boothby, Louise Miller-Frost, made history at the 2022 federal election when she won the seat for her party – the first to do so since Thomas Sheehy who held the southern suburbs electorate until 1949.
It was a close call at the time, with Miller-Frost winning the seat with 53.3 per cent of the votes after preferences were taken into account.
A major swing against the Liberals (-7.2 per cent) certainly helped her, as would have the 3.2 per cent swing towards the Greens and votes picked up by independent Jo Dyer. Labor even lost ground in 2022, with a 2.3 per cent swing away from the party.
In many ways, the stars aligned for Miller-Frost in 2022; Nicole Flint, who’d held the seat from 2016, had just retired, and the Labor party had renewed pep due to post-pandemic, anti-Scott Morrison sentiment.
She’s also a champion for social justice, and was previously chief executive of women’s homelessness service Catherine House and St Vincent de Paul Society SA.
Speaking to InDaily, she said that back in 2022 people were “very frustrated about the lack of action on climate change… on integrity and the anti-corruption commission, and they were very concerned about not only the way women were being treated in Parliament House, but what that meant for women in the broader community”.
“This was the time of Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins and Christine Holgate, and I think people were really looking for Labor to step in and show them that these were things that could be addressed and should be addressed,” she said.
Miller-Frost said this year “some of that’s still the same”.
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“Climate change is still there – I get to talk about it a lot when I’m out – and it’s very much mixed in with the energy transition,” she said.
“People have a very high uptake of solar panels in this electorate.
“I hear a lot about cost-of-living issues, access to healthcare – we are a slightly older than average population here and access to good, quality, affordable healthcare locally, when you need it, is a really important part about quality of life for people. It gives them a sense of security.”
With cost-of-living emerging as a key issue for younger voters in this election, Miller-Frost said her party can address that while also dealing with climate change.
She said Labor would “have a range of things that will address issues for people in different stages of life and stages of their situations”.
This includes the recalculation of HECS repayments, fee-free TAFE, cheaper child care, cheaper medicine, access to bulk billing and more.
“But increasingly, people who have kids at public schools, the idea that for the first time ever we will have public schools fully-funded makes a massive difference to what they see as the future for their children,” she said.
“I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time.”
Boothby MP Louise Miller-Frost after making her first speech in the House of Representatives. Photo: Mick Tsikas/AAP
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Asked whether recent tumultuary in the South Australian Liberals would be reflected onto the Federal division of the party, Miller-Frost shrugged off the threat of opposition.
“I work really closely with the state Labor government, because a lot of the major projects we’re undertaking are state and federally funded in partnership,” she said.
“I can’t say that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the Liberal Party.
“I’m focused on making sure that we can deliver some of those big projects for Boothby, working in partnership with the state government.”
She said the freight bypass was one priority, as will be the new Flinders HealthCARE Centre.
Announced as an election promise on 1 April, Labor said it would work with the state government on the $300 million state-of-the-art health service.
The state and Federal governments will fund half of the project; a 10-storey facility in the Flinders Health Precinct at Bedford Park.
Flinders University will match the remainder to fund the construction of the centre that will feature three floors of clinical space for 100 patients at a time.
“These are really major projects, and that’s really where I’ve been focused,” she said.
Similarly, she said that Nicole Flint taking another run at Boothby was not a problem.
“There was always going to be somebody running against me,” she said.
She’s also not fussed by the growing popularity of the Greens, which gained significant ground in 2022, and said policy was not influenced by the progressive party.
“The policies we’re putting out are actually focused on what we think people need in our community and what the future of Australia is,” she said.
