Ralph Desmond Clarke (born 4 October 1951) is a former
Australian politician. He was a
Labor Party member of the
South Australian House of Assembly
The House of Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of South Australia. The other is the Legislative Council. It sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Adelaide.
Overview
The House of Assembly was crea ...
between 1993 and 2002, representing the electorate of
Ross Smith. He was the deputy leader of the State Parliamentary Labor Party, and thus the deputy opposition leader,
until he was deposed in factional infighting.
Ross Smith was abolished ahead of the
2002 state election, and Clarke tried to follow most of his constituents into the recreated seat of
Enfield
Enfield may refer to:
Places Australia
* Enfield, New South Wales
* Enfield, South Australia
** Electoral district of Enfield, a state electoral district in South Australia, corresponding to the suburb
** Enfield High School (South Australia) ...
. Despite a secret ballot showing 60 of the 74 of the members of de-stacked local branches threw their support behind Clarke for 2002 preselection,
the state executive intervened to install
John Rau, a former colleague of Clarke's in the Centre Left faction who had made the switch to the Right.
Clarke ran as an independent and did very well on 23.1%, however with the ALP vote of 39.5% and Liberal vote of 24.1%, he did not get into the two party preferred race for election.
Clarke contested an upper house seat under a banner of "Buy back
ETSA" at the
2006 election
The following elections occurred in the year 2006.
* Elections in 2006
* Electoral calendar 2006
* 2006 Acehnese regional election
* 2006 American Samoan legislative election
* 2006 Bahraini parliamentary election
* 2006 Costa Rican presidential ...
but failed with only 0.1% of the vote, only 1115 votes.
Prior to entering parliament, Clarke was Secretary of the
Federated Clerks' Union (FCU), and later involved with the
Australian Services Union
The Australian Services Union (registered as the Australian Municipal, Administrative, Clerical and Services Union) is a trade union representing workers in a variety of industries.
The ASU is affiliated with the Australian Council of Trade ...
.
In October 2007 Clarke was elected as an Area Councillor for the
City of Adelaide
The City of Adelaide, also known as the Corporation of the City of Adelaide and Adelaide City Council is a local government area in the metropolitan area of greater Adelaide, South Australia and is legally defined as the capital city of Sout ...
.
References
External links
Ralph Clarke and Edith Pringle controversy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clarke, Ralph
Members of the South Australian House of Assembly
1951 births
Living people
Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of South Australia
Independent members of the Parliament of South Australia
21st-century Australian politicians