State South Australia Abolished 2002 Founded 1970 | Created 1970 Demographic Metropolitan Date dissolved 2002 | |
Coles was an electoral district of the House of Assembly in the Australian state of South Australia from 1970 to 2002. The district was based in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide.
Coles was first contested at the 1970 election and was won by Labor as a marginal seat, peaking at a fairly safe 9.2 percent two-party margin at the 1973 election, before reverting to a marginal Labor seat at the 1975 election. A boundary redistribution ahead of the 1977 election erased Labor's 4.2 percent two-party margin by pushing the seat into Liberal-friendly territory in the Adelaide Hills. On these boundaries, the Liberals now held it with a margin of 3.8 percent. Believing this made Coles impossible to hold, sitting MP Des Corcoran moved to the newly created neighbouring seat of Hartley. Liberal candidate Jennifer Adamson won the seat for the Liberals at the 1977 election.
Adamson picked up a large swing in the 1979 election as the Liberals won government, but was nearly defeated at the 1982 election. A boundary redistribution ahead of the 1985 election consolidated the Liberal hold on the seat by pushing it further into the Adelaide Hills, increasing the Liberal two-party margin from a marginal 1.3 percent to a safe 9 percent. Adamson, who was later known as Jennifer Cashmore, held the seat without serious difficulty until handing it to Joan Hall, wife of former premier Steele Hall, in 1993.
Coles was abolished and renamed Morialta ahead of the 2002 election.