{"id":619696,"date":"2026-02-27T10:31:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T10:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/619696\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T10:31:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T10:31:12","slug":"ex-sa-liberal-leader-david-speirs-says-he-will-contest-state-election-10-months-after-drug-conviction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/619696\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-SA Liberal leader David Speirs says he will contest state election, 10 months after drug conviction"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Australia’s former opposition leader David Speirs has confirmed he has nominated to run in his former seat of Black at the state election.<\/p>\n

Speirs, a former Liberal MP, quit parliament in 2024<\/a> after he was charged with drug offences<\/a>.<\/p>\n

David Speirs’s election eligibility questions<\/a><\/p>\n

Former South Australian Liberal leader David Speirs says there is a way he could stand for the upcoming state election despite the electoral commission declaring he is ineligible.<\/p>\n

He later pleaded guilty to two counts of supplying a controlled drug<\/a> and was convicted and fined $9,000<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His resignation triggered a by-election in his former seat of Black which was won by Labor candidate Alex Dighton with a 12.6 per swing in November 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speirs told ABC News he was drawn to re-nominating amid the state’s ongoing algal bloom crisis.<\/p>\n

“I’ve felt I’ve still got a lot to give my community, and one issue in particular drew me back into the fray and that was the government’s lack of response and the opposition’s lack of response to the catastrophe of the algal bloom,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I live in a coastal community, I used to represent a coastal community, I was South Australia’s environment minister and there is no plan for recovery around that disaster.<\/p>\n

“I have a plan and I want to put it to the people.”<\/p>\n

He said he was yet to seek legal advice about his nomination, “but my nomination was accepted by the electoral commission today so I guess that was enough for me to have the confidence to move forward”.<\/p>\n

“At the end of the day my view was, and the view of constitutional commentators was that the community, democracy should decide,” he said.<\/p>\n

“People shouldn’t be excluded indefinitely from election, that sort of pushes against constitutional rights in this nation.”<\/p>\n

Last month, the Electoral Commission of South Australia (ECSA) said Speirs would not be eligible for public campaign funding because “he would not [if applied for] fulfil the nomination requirements”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“If a person\/potential candidate has a conviction of an indictable offence they would be ineligible to nominate,” an ECSA spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

\"Former<\/p>\n

David Speirs after leaving court following his plea of guilt in relation to drug supply charges. (ABC News: Ashlin Blieschke)<\/p>\n

Following the statement Speirs said he believed there was a “pathway” for him to run.<\/p>\n

“Look, I think there’s definitely a pathway there for me if I wanted to push it along, but it just comes down to whether I have the appetite for that and to weigh into a public debate,” Speirs told Adelaide radio station FIVEAA last month.<\/p>\n

In a further statement, ECSA said it was unable to comment on nominations during the nomination process.<\/p>\n

“Candidates contesting the election will be publicly declared by the Electoral Commission on the second of March,” Commissioner Mick Sherry said.<\/p>\n

Your Say: Tell us what matters to you this SA election<\/a><\/p>\n

We want to know what issues matter most to you and what you want us to find out ahead of the March 21, SA election.<\/p>\n

Speirs was first elected to state parliament in 2014 in the seat of Bright and was re-elected in the newly-formed seat of Black at the 2018 election.<\/p>\n

He served as environment minister in the Marshall government before becoming Liberal leader in the wake of the party’s 2022 election loss.<\/p>\n

At the time he said the party represented “a fresh, diverse, unified team which will rebuild the Liberal Party, will cast an alternative vision for the state of South Australia, and will provide a fresh approach to what leadership looks like \u2014 not just in our party, but in our state”.<\/p>\n

On Friday after the announcement Speirs said he was hopeful he could reclaim the seat.<\/p>\n

“I made some big mistakes. I failed myself, I failed my community and second chances aren’t easily given, they’re earned,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I think I have gone out of my way to earn that second chance but it’ll be up to the community to have their judgement on me on the 21st of March.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t want to die wondering about this. I still have something to give. I do think I can win. I think there is a huge appetite for independents.<\/p>\n

“I think there is cynicism about the Labor government, disappointment in the Liberal opposition and space for an independent to come through the middle.<\/p>\n

“I’m well known in my electorate, I don’t need a long campaign. People either like David Speirs or they don’t and we’ll see how many people like and don’t on election day.”<\/p>\n

The SA Liberal Party has announced Rhees Bishop as its candidate for Black at the March 21 election.<\/p>\n

In a statement a spokesperson for the SA Liberal Party said it was “supporting its fantastic local candidate”.<\/p>\n

“Rhees is a local, a father and the only ambo running for a major party in this election,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Australia’s former opposition leader David Speirs has confirmed he has nominated to run in his former seat…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":619697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[265295,4740,265294,242095,265292,3957,17127,50,187179,265293],"class_list":{"0":"post-619696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-adelaides-south","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-black-electorate","11":"tag-david-speirs","12":"tag-former-leader","13":"tag-independent","14":"tag-liberal-party","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-sa-liberals","17":"tag-seat-of-black"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116142138072062519","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}