Martin Hamilton Smith

Education

Graduated from Marion High School with a scholarship to attend the Royal Military College, Duntroon in 1971. Completed a Bachelor of Arts (University of NSW) while at Duntroon. Master of Arts (History) from the University of NSW in 1985 with a focus on Australia's relations with the United States of America and South East Asia. Graduated from Army Command and Staff College in 1988 (Graduate Diploma in Management Studies). Master of Business Administration (Advanced) at University of Adelaide in 2002 while serving as a Member of Parliament. Awarded the 1999 Baron Partner's Prize in Strategic Management.

Military service

Graduated from Royal Military College as an officer in the Australian Army in 1975. Served in 6th Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment and the Australian Special Air Service Regiment (SASR). He commanded Australia's first counter-terrorist assault force in the SAS in 1980. He saw service in Malaysia and as commanding officer of the 1st Commando Regiment based in Sydney. In 1993 he was posted as commanding officer of the Australian contingent in the 11 nation Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) in Sinai, Egypt, also serving as Assistant Chief of the 3,200 man force which monitors the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt from Gaza to the Gulf of Aqaba.

Business career

Hamilton-Smith left the Army in 1994 to build a property development, investment and private child care centre business which had been first established in 1989. The family business employed around 125 staff at six business sites in two states, South Australia and New South Wales, and involved the construction of new facilities and the trading operation of the enterprises. Hamilton-Smith became President of an South Australian-based childcare association and National Secretary of the Australian Confederation of Childcare and editor of the ACCC national magazine from 1995 to 1997. These bodies represented the small business sector of childcare before federal and state parliaments.

Parliament

Hamilton-Smith first won Waite in the 1997 election by six percent against the Democrats on a two-candidate basis. Ahead of the election, he ran for Liberal preselection in Waite as a non-factionally-aligned conservative, defeating both Robert Lawson from the moderate faction and Hugh Martin from the conservative faction. Previous Waite MP Stephen Baker, from the moderate faction, resigned two months prior to the election which was seen as a result of losing the deputy leadership after the coup of leader Dean Brown from the moderate faction, by John Olsen from the conservative faction. The preselection victory of Hamilton-Smith prompted Brown to complain of interference by federal conservative faction MPs Nick Minchin, Grant Chapman, and Andrew Southcott.

At the 2002 election when Rann Labor came to power, Hamilton-Smith retained his seat by twelve percent against Labor on 2PP, and by four percent at the 2006 election. Hamilton-Smith was promoted by Premier John Olsen into the position of Cabinet Secretary on 5 October 2001 and was later elevated into Cabinet as the Innovation and Tourism minister in the Kerin Liberal government from December 2001 to March 2002.

Liberal leader

In October 2005, he moved to challenge then Liberal leader Rob Kerin, but later withdrew his challenge. On 11 April 2007, Hamilton-Smith formally challenged then Liberal leader Iain Evans, and was successful with 13 votes to 10 for the Liberal leadership. On 19 April 2007, he announced a re-shuffle of the opposition front bench.

Under his leadership, polling by Newspoll saw the Liberals go from 29 to 40 per cent on the primary vote, and from 39 to 50 per cent on the two party preferred vote. The Preferred Premier rating saw Hamilton-Smith start on 21 per cent, seven points higher than his predecessor, to a high of 30 per cent, with Rann falling from a high of 64, to 48 per cent. However, Newspoll saw Labor back in a winning position on 54 to 46 in late 2008, and then 56 to 44 in early 2009 along with a widening gap in the Preferred Premier rating. During the 50-50 polling, The Sunday Mail polling suggested that whilst there had been large swings away from the government in country areas, support was holding relatively firm at 2006 election levels in the metropolitan areas. However, this did not play out at the 2009 Frome state by-election sparked by the parliamentary resignation of former Premier Rob Kerin, which saw a rare two-party swing from the opposition to the government, and resulted in independent Geoff Brock taking the seat from the Liberals on preferences. It was the first time an opposition had lost a seat at a by-election in South Australia. Hamilton-Smith had actually declared a Liberal victory while counting was underway, and the announcement that Brock had won came as an embarrassment.

2009 leadership spill

Hamilton-Smith accused Labor of accepting split donations from the Church of Scientology based on information sent to the Liberal Opposition that was subsequently found to have been forged. This controversy coupled with the Frome by-election and continued poor polling, saw Liberal MPs openly talk of a leadership change, with a high chance of a leadership spill likely, prior to the 2010 state election. Opposition Frontbencher Mitch Williams quit the Hamilton-Smith Shadow Cabinet in protest of his leadership on 28 July 2009, after The Sunday Mail revealed Labor was leading 64–36 in metropolitan Adelaide. Two days later, Hamilton-Smith announced a spill of the leadership and deputy leadership, with a ballot taking place on Saturday 4 July 2009. Williams, Isobel Redmond, and Iain Evans ruled out contesting the ballot, with Hamilton-Smith and his moderate deputy Vickie Chapman the only contenders. Hamilton-Smith defeated Chapman in the leadership spill, 11 votes to 10, with one MP abstaining. At first, Hamilton-Smith immediately announced he would stand down, which would have delivered the leadership to Chapman. Hamilton-Smith announced a second leadership ballot to be held on Wednesday 8 July. On Monday 6 July, Hamilton-Smith confirmed he would not be running for the leadership. Contenders for the leadership were Chapman, Redmond, and Williams. Hamilton-Smith and his supporters backed Redmond. Redmond won the leadership spill on 8 July 2009, 13 votes to 9 against Chapman.

Deputy Leader

On Tuesday 30 March 2010, Hamilton-Smith was elected deputy leader of SA Liberals to replace Steven Griffiths in a party-room vote, defeating Iain Evans 10 votes to 8. He once again defeated Evans in a leadership position in a rematch between the two former leaders. Hamilton-Smith got to be in the reverse position being deputy to Isobel Redmond as Redmond had briefly served as Hamilton-Smith's deputy before his leadership demise. However Redmond had made it known that Hamilton-Smith was not her preferred deputy and he stood aside when a party room meeting was called for 6 April to reconsider the deputy's job and Mitch Williams was elected unopposed to replace Hamilton-Smith.

2012 leadership spill

Hamilton-Smith nominated for the position of South Australian Liberal parliamentary leader, with Steven Marshall as deputy leader after Hamilton-Smith declared a leadership spill against Isobel Redmond and Mitch Williams. A partyroom ballot occurred on 23 October 2012, Redmond retained the leadership by one vote, however Marshall was elected to the deputy leadership. Hamilton-Smith moved to the backbench and would not rule out challenging again.

Redmond resigned on 31 January 2013. Hamilton-Smith chose to support Steven Marshall who was elected leader unopposed. Hamilton-Smith was appointed Shadow Minister for Economic and Regional Development, Mineral Resources and Energy, Manufacturing, Industry and Trade, and Defence Industries in the subsequent reshuffle.

Independent Liberal in a Labor cabinet

The 2014 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 Geoff Brock and Bob Such. 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. With 24 seats required to govern, Brock backed Labor. He accepted the cabinet positions of Minister for Regional Development and Minister for State and Government Local Relations. Brock agreed to support the Labor government on confidence and supply while retaining the right to otherwise vote on conscience.

On 27 May 2014, more than two months after the election, Hamilton-Smith in a media conference with South Australian Labor Premier Jay Weatherill announced his decision to resign from the South Australian Liberal Party to become an "Independent Liberal" MP, and to join the Labor cabinet as the Minister for Trade, Defence Industries and Veterans' Affairs. Though his vote was not crucial to the government, he agreed to support the Labor minority government on confidence and supply while retaining the right to otherwise vote on conscience, stating that South Australian business needed a stable parliament.

An Advertiser poll of 350 Waite voters was conducted a few days after Hamilton-Smith's announcement. On the question of "should there be a by-election in Waite", 43 percent said no, 41 percent said yes. On the question of "do you feel betrayed by his decision", 46 percent said no, 42 percent said yes.

Hamilton-Smith had planned to back his own independent candidates at the 2014 Fisher and 2015 Davenport by-elections but this did not eventuate. Labor unexpectedly won the 2014 Fisher by-election by five votes from a 7.3 percent swing, giving them majority government. Despite this, the Jay Weatherill Labor government kept Brock and Hamilton-Smith in cabinet, giving the government a 26 to 21 parliamentary majority.

Hamilton-Smith pledged in July 2015 to campaign against the Liberals in South Australian seats at the 2016 federal election, accusing it of turning its back on South Australia's submarines. He will endorse "conservative independents" and/or Nick Xenophon Team candidates.

Current portfolios

Hamilton-Smith represents the following portfolios in the Cabinet of South Australia:

Interactions with the Liberal Party

Hamilton-Smith at the South Australian Press Club on 27 June 2014 stated "up until this point I have refrained from reflection on the state Liberals, even though I have been subject to the most extraordinary campaign of personal abuse from those who should know better". He claimed he knew the Liberals would lose the state election and blamed a small target strategy and big election spending in safe seats rather than key marginals, and claimed the Liberals had no policy platform. He also said the Liberals should have campaigned harder to save Holden, and claimed that several Liberal MPs had actively sought the car industry's demise. State Liberals boycotted the speech. Hamilton-Smith declared he would recontest Waite at the next election.

In response to parliamentary motions that he claimed were "clear and obvious attempts to target him", Hamilton-Smith stated in December 2015 that he had "stockpiled a dossier of dirt on a swag of Liberal MPs, and would be happy to make it public if they spoil for a fight". He told parliament: "If, for the next two and half years leading up to the next election, you want to have the newspapers and the media full of bad Liberal news stories, keep it up, because I will respond and it will be colourful". He saved the bulk of his vitriol for his one-time running mate in a failed leadership coup, current Liberal leader Steven Marshall: "I have a lot to say about the member for Dunstan and I have a lot to say about the leadership group opposite. I know the full history and I know about people’s performance, or lack thereof, so if you want to keep it up I will not only defend the point, I will be quite colourful and detailed in my explanations" and "Believe me, not only will I put up a big show, but if people want to throw a rock I will back up the truck and lift the tipper. It really is up to them".