Martin Hamilton-Smith

Martin Leslie James Hamilton-Smith (born 1 December 1953) 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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

Hamilton-Smith left the Army in 1995 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 a 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.

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.

Awarded the 1999 Baron Partner's Prize in Strategic Management.

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.

Master of Business Administration (Advanced) at University of Adelaide in 2002 while serving as a Member of Parliament.

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.

In October 2005, he moved to challenge then Liberal leader Rob Kerin, but later withdrew his challenge.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

He became an independent two months after the 2014 election.

He served as the Minister for Investment and Trade, Minister for Defence Industries and Minister for Veterans' Affairs in the Weatherill Labor cabinet from May 2014 until January 2018 and Minister for Space Industries and Minister for Health Industries from September 2017 until January 2018.

Hamilton-Smith announced on 6 January 2018 that he would not seek re-election in the 2018 election.