Annabel Faith Catford Digance is an Australian politician who represented the South Australian House of Assembly seat of

Elder An elder is someone with a degree of seniority or authority. Elder or elders may refer to: Positions Administrative * Elder (administrative title), a position of authority Cultural * North American Indigenous elder, a person who has and tr ...

for the Labor Party from the 2014 state election until her defeat at the 2018 state election. She was an independent candidate for the South Australian Legislative Council in the

2022 South Australian state election The 2022 South Australian state election was held on 19 March 2022 to elect members to the 55th Parliament of South Australia. All 47 seats in the House of Assembly (the lower house, whose members were elected at the 2018 election), and half th ...

and is awaiting trial on a charge of blackmail.

Before politics

Digance has been a healthcare professional, company director, small businessperson and university lecturer. Digance holds multiple degrees including a Masters in Health Service Management, and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Federal candidate

Digance contested the federal seat of Boothby for Labor at the

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

and

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fact ...

elections. She nearly won the traditionally fairly safe Liberal seat of Boothby in 2010 with a 49.25 percent two-party vote.

South Australian parliament

Digance was the Labor Party candidate for the state seat of

in the

2014 South Australian state election The 2014 South Australian state election elected members to the 53rd Parliament of South Australia on 15 March 2014, to fill all 47 seats in the House of Assembly (lower house) and 11 of 22 seats in the Legislative Council (upper house). The 12- ...

. The southern half of Elder overlapped with Boothby. Digance won the two-party-preferred vote with 51.8% of the votes. The Liberal candidate, Carolyn Habib, was targeted by a Labor Party flyer headlined "Can You Trust Habib?", which the Liberals described as a racist attack on her surname and Lebanese heritage. Seven years later, Digance apologised, saying that she did not know in advance about the flyer, and that she was also a victim. A redistribution ahead of the 2018 state election erased Digance's majority in Elder and gave the Liberals a notional 4.3 percent majority. Digance opted to stand for re-election and was defeated by Liberal Carolyn Habib.

After parliament

In 2019, Digance had been an associate professor in health administration at

Flinders University Flinders University is a public research university based in Adelaide, South Australia, with a footprint extending across 11 locations in South Australia and the Northern Territory. Founded in 1966, it was named in honour of British navigator ...

, with a focus on aged care and ethics. Annabel Digance and her husband Greg Digance were arrested on 14 April 2021 for allegedly blackmailing South Australian opposition leader, Peter Malinauskas. They are alleged to have threatened to make false accusations about Malinauskas if he did not orchestrate Digance's return to politics through a safe seat, a seat in the South Australian Legislative Council or the

Australian Senate The Senate is the upper house of the Bicameralism, bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives (Australia), House of Representatives. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Chapter ...

. They appeared in the Adelaide Magistrates Court and were released on bail later the same day. The couple were refused permission to travel interstate without seeking formal permission each time. In October, a lawyer for Annabel Digance said his client would not be entering a plea and sought to have the case thrown out, saying that the case was a malicious prosecution by Malinauskas. In December, magistrate Simon Smart determined that there is a case to answer. Both Annabel and Greg Digance pleaded not guilty, and their first appearance in the

District Court of South Australia The District Court of South Australia is South Australia's principal trial court. It was established as a court of record by the ''District Court Act 1991''. Prior to that the Court had existed since 1969 under the ''Local and District Crimina ...

was set for 11 March 2022, less than two weeks before the state election. Annabel and Greg Digance nominated as independent candidates for the Legislative Council under the label Independent Annabel Digance. They were unsuccessful, with a total of 2359 votes, the second-lowest of twenty groups on the ballot paper. On 11 March, both Annabel and Greg Digance pleaded not guilty to the charge and a trial date was set for May 2023, with ten days allowed to hear 23 witnesses. Following the brief court appearance, Annabel Digance read a two-page statement calling on voters to vote for her.

References

External links

Parliamentary Profile: SA Labor website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Digance, Annabel Members of the South Australian House of Assembly Living people 21st-century Australian politicians Women members of the South Australian House of Assembly Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of South Australia Year of birth missing (living people) Fellows of the Australian Institute of Company Directors 21st-century Australian women politicians