Joe Scalzi

Giuseppe "Joe" Scalzi (born 4 July 1951) is a former Australian politician. He was a Liberal Party member of the South Australian House of Assembly between 1993 and 2006, representing the electorate of Hartley.

Early life

Scalzi was a high school teacher before entering parliament.

Political career

In 1993, he was elected amidst the Liberal landslide victory that year,[1] which saw Dean Brown become Premier. Scalzi very narrowly retained his seat despite an 11.7 percent swing at the 1997 election reducing him to a margin of 0.7 percent.

Joe Scalzi was a member of the public works committee that in 2001, made the deeply unpopular decision to sell the Payneham Civic Centre to JPMorgan Chase[2] whereupon it was demolished and the land was used as the site for offices for financial services despite protests by residents.[3]

At the 2002 election, Scalzi had to defend the most marginal Liberal seat in the state,[4] but managed to increase his margin to 1.3 percent.[5]

Despite this Scalzi remained a "fairly low-key figure" only obtaining a position as a parliamentary secretary in April 2004 when he became secretary for training.[6]

He was also one of a small number of Liberals to support a bill the cut the number of pokies in South Australia by 20 percent.[7]

Scalzi lost his seat in the 2006 election landslide to the ALP,[1] giving his Labor opponent Grace Portolesi a 4.6 percent margin.[8] He failed to regain the seat at the 2010 election[9][10] and lost Liberal preselection in Hartley to Vincent Tarzia for the 2014 election.[11]

After politics

From 2006 Scalzi returned to work as a high school teacher, teaching History, SOSE and Italian at Valley View Secondary School and at Glenunga International High School.

His son, Joel Scalzi, was a contestant on the 2007 season of Big Brother.[12] When asked how far his son would make it on Big Brother he replied, in reference to his own short stature "I always knew my son would make it on to the shortlist".

References
  1. "Giuseppe (Joe) Scalzi". Former members of the Parliament of South Australia. Retrieved 12 December 2022.
  2. "J P Morgan Chase & Co regional hub building – stage one final report" (PDF). Parliament of South Australia. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 October 2009.
  3. ABC News December 2001
  4. Parker, Lachlan (11 February 2002). "SA election result still unknown". ABC AM.
  5. Green, Antony (20 April 2006). "SA Election 2006 - Hartley". ABC News.
  6. "Poll Bludger SA 2006 Hartley". Poll Bludger. Archived from the original on 10 April 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  7. "Festival of Light - Focus magazine article - September 2004". Archived from the original on 4 December 2008.
  8. "Labor 'flood' drowns Hartley MP". ABC News. 18 March 2006.
  9. Bowe, William (9 March 2010). "Rann's approval takes a caning as Libs firm in SA election market". Crikey.
  10. Green, Antony (29 March 2010). "Hartley - 2010 South Australian Election". ABC News.
  11. Nankervis, David (21 October 2012). "Redmond no-show at pre-selection vote for Hartley electorate". Adelaide Now.
  12. Forrest, Leith (21 April 2007). "Ex MP's son is BB hopeful". The Advertiser.
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