Iain Frederick Evans (born 18 April 1959) is a former Australian politician. He was leader of the
South Australian Division of the Liberal Party of Australia from 2006 to 2007.
Early life
Evans attended Heathfield Primary and subsequently Heathfield High School. He later gained a bachelor's degree for Building Technology from the SA Institute of Technology (now part of the
University of South Australia
The University of South Australia (UniSA) is a public research university in the Australian state of South Australia. It is a founding member of the Australian Technology Network of universities, and is the largest university in South Australi ...
). Prior to entering politics he managed a family-owned building and retailing business.
Parliament
He was elected in the 1993
election landslide for the safe conservative seat of
Davenport (following the retirement of his father,
Stan Evans). Evans held various portfolios in the
Olsen and
Kerin governments, including Correctional Services,
Environment & Heritage, Racing and Volunteers. He gained the Deputy Leadership in November 2005 and with the resignation of Kerin after the
electoral defeat of 2006 became Leader of the South Australian Liberal Party in a joint leadership ticket with factional rival
Vickie Chapman
Vickie Ann Chapman is a former Australian politician, representing the South Australian House of Assembly seat of Bragg for the South Australian Division of the Liberal Party of Australia between the 2002 election and May 2022. Chapman served ...
.
The following is a quote from pollbludger.com:
:''Evans Senior decided to pull the pin altogether and make way for his son at the 1993 election. Evans Junior arrived just in time for a Liberal government and quickly established himself, making it to cabinet in December 1997. He has served in the police, industry, trade and environment portfolios in government, and in planning and industrial relations in opposition. Widely rated as the Liberal Party's best performer in parliament, Evans was discussed as a potential successor when John Olsen was obliged to resign over the
Motorola affair
The Motorola affair was an incident that resulted in the resignation of South Australian Premier John Olsen on 22 October 2001. Olsen's resignation came after the release of the Clayton Report, which stated that he had given "misleading, inaccurat ...
in October 2001. It rarely escapes notice that his factional rival to succeed Rob Kerin as leader is Vickie Chapman, daughter of the aforementioned Ted Chapman – perpetuating a rivalry which now spans three decades. Evans achieved a major victory when he defeated Chapman in the deputy leadership vote after Dean Brown's resignation in November 2005, by 15 votes to five.''
By February 2007, financial woes within the state Liberal party as well as contests between the party president and opposition leadership had come to a head. At a meeting in Norwood, Evans reportedly commented that "when we lose the federal election at the end of the year, the Liberal Party will be in dire straits and we have got to plan to deal with that". The alleged gaffe drew a rebuke from one federal Liberal MP who labelled Evans and his state parliamentary team "hopeless". Party president Christopher Moriarty accused Evans of being "piss-weak and gutless" for not backing a business plan aimed at assisting the party out of its parlous financial situation.
High-ranking party members were canvassing support for an urgent no-confidence motion in Mr Moriarty, with one senior figure quoted as saying that "Moriarty is to the Liberal Party what Mark Latham was to Labor",
[ but others counselled Evans against challenging Moriarty due to the high chance of failure. By late February, speculation over the opposition leader's future was being reported in the media, although he was expected to survive in the short term due to lack of options with 15 MPs remaining in the lower house. Initial reports suggested previous aspirant ]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. First elected as a candidate ...
might challenge for the position, with Isobel Redmond
Isobel Mary Redmond (born 8 April 1953) is a former Australian politician who was the member for the electoral district of Heysen in the House of Assembly from 2002 to 2018. She was the parliamentary leader of the South Australian Division of t ...
as deputy.
In early April, Hamilton-Smith announced his leadership intentions to challenge Evans. Former Liberal Premier Kerin offered his opinion that Hamilton-Smith should and would fail, however on 11 April 2007, Hamilton-Smith defeated Evans on 13 votes to 10, becoming the new Liberal opposition leader after deputy leader Vickie Chapman offered her support to him.
Upon former Liberal leader Alexander Downer
Alexander John Gosse Downer (born 9 September 1951) is an Australian former politician and diplomat who was leader of the Liberal Party from 1994 to 1995, Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1996 to 2007, and High Commissioner to the United King ...
's retirement from federal politics, Evans announced his nomination for Liberal preselection in the 2008 Mayo by-election. The preselection plebiscite was held to be held on 22 July, but was brought forward to 20 July, with former Howard
Howard is an English-language given name originating from Old French Huard (or Houard) from a Germanic source similar to Old High German ''*Hugihard'' "heart-brave", or ''*Hoh-ward'', literally "high defender; chief guardian". It is also probabl ...
staffer chiefly for WorkChoices
WorkChoices was the name given to changes made to the federal industrial relations laws in Australia by the Howard Government in 2005, being amendments to the ''Workplace Relations Act 1996'' by the ''Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices ...
, Jamie Briggs
Jamie Edward Briggs (born 9 June 1977) is a former Australian politician, who represented the House of Representatives seat of Mayo for the Liberal Party of Australia from the 2008 Mayo by-election to the 2 July 2016 federal election. Briggs ...
, winning preselection, with Evans coming second. Bob Day, who held membership of the Liberal Party for 20 years, and the endorsed Liberal candidate for Makin in 2007, quit the party after failing in his bid to win Mayo preselection, citing a "manipulated" preselection process. Evans agreed to some extent.
Remarkably on 30 March 2010 exactly four years after he had been elected Liberal leader, Evans stood for the deputy's job but was defeated by the man who toppled him for the leadership in 2007, Hamilton-Smith. Evans was once again defeated by Hamilton-Smith for a leadership position in a rematch between the two former leaders. Evans was overlooked for the deputy's job despite getting the support of Redmond. Redmond had made it known that Hamilton-Smith was not her preferred deputy and a party room meeting was called for 6 April to reconsider the deputy's job. Hamilton-Smith stood aside but Evans did not renominate for the job and it went instead to Mitch Williams.
On 31 January 2013 Redmond resigned as leader. Steven Marshall, who had by this point replaced Williams as deputy leader, became acting leader and formally appointed leader on 4 February. Evans, once again contested the now vacant deputy's job but was defeated by his former deputy Vickie Chapman.
Evans suffered a 2.8-point two-party
A two-party system is a political party system in which two major political parties consistently dominate the political landscape. At any point in time, one of the two parties typically holds a majority in the legislature and is usually referr ...
swing against him, reduced to a margin of 8.1 points in Davenport at the 2014 state election, with two-party swings against him of up to 8 points in some booths, including the traditionally Liberal-voting booth of Belair which Labor won by three votes. On 6 June 2014 he announced he would stand down from the shadow ministry and parliament within a year and before the next election. There was speculation that Evans was asked to delay his resignation and the by-election for a year due to federal Liberal government budget cuts and that there could be a "super Saturday" of by-elections in up to five Liberal-held seats.
Evans resigned from parliament on 30 October 2014. A 2015 Davenport by-election occurred.
Post-Parliamentary career
Evans is a political lobbyist active in South Australia. As of April 2018 he is lobbying on behalf of Leigh Creek Energy
Leigh Creek Energy is an Australian company which is developing an in-situ coal gasification (ISG) project at Leigh Creek, South Australia. It was renamed from Marathon Resources in September 2015.
Leigh Creek Energy Project
Leigh Creek Energy h ...
. He also lobbies for Kangaroo Island Plantation Timbers, which has proposed to construct an international port on the north coast of Kangaroo Island.
References
External links
*
Stateline (ABC TV) 24-Mar-2006: Can Liberals heal rifts?
, -
, -
{{DEFAULTSORT:Evans, Iain
1959 births
Living people
Liberal Party of Australia members of the Parliament of South Australia
Members of the South Australian House of Assembly
University of South Australia alumni
Leaders of the Opposition in South Australia
21st-century Australian politicians