The book will be launched on March 18 – the one-year anniversary of the state election which saw the Malinauskas Labor Government tip the Marshall Liberal Government out of office after just one term.

Described as a cross between a history book and memoir, Seven Leaders in Camelot charts 30 years of South Australian politics, focussing on the rise and exit of seven yet-to-be-disclosed Liberal and Labor leaders between 1993 and 2023.

The book is four years in the making, with Hamilton-Smith telling InDaily ahead of its release that he aimed to present a “fairly frank” account of his experience in politics, as well as the achievements and missteps of both major parties.

“I’ve had a unique view, so I’ve had a look at both sides,” he said.

“I know the Liberal Party and the characters inside-out, including Marshall and the Marshall Government and all the people in it, but I also got to work with the Labor Party and I got to know them too.

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“One of the good things about not being in politics is you can say whatever you like, you can be completely frank, so I’ll ruffle a few feathers – not only in the political camp, but some journalists won’t be happy.”

When he retired from politics just two months out from the 2018 state election, Hamilton-Smith left a legacy as a political outsider, who claims credit for spearheading the launch of the state’s space industry and fighting to secure the naval shipbuilding industry in SA.

The former army commander entered politics as a 44-year-old Liberal MP for Waite in 1997 and, one decade later, rose to become opposition leader after challenging incumbent Iain Evans.

But he stepped down as leader in 2009 after the “dodgy documents” affair and poor polling, leading to a prolonged period of Liberal leadership tensions and spills.

In 2014, Hamilton-Smith controversially split from the Liberal Party and became an independent to help Labor’s Jay Weatherill secure government – a move which ultimately saw him rewarded with the investment, trade, defence industries and veterans’ affairs ministerial portfolios.

Hamilton-Smith describes his book as a “history of statesmanship, honour and duty, high ideals, aspiration and of outstanding political success”.

He also describes it as a “story of failure, dashed hopes, betrayal, scheming and skulduggery”.

“Anyone who thinks state politics is boring hasn’t really drilled down into it,” he said.

“It’s got all the cut and thrust and all the political bloodshed and all the laughter and tears. It’s got all the heroes and villains and really, if the story I’d written about had occurred in London or Washington, it’d be a Netflix bloody drama. It would have it all.”

One of Hamilton-Smith’s arguments in the book is that South Australians have harshly judged the Liberal Party, as evidenced by the party’s struggle to win consecutive terms of government.

He said the Marshall Government was the “least electorally-successful conservative state government since the Second World War”, having retained just 16 seats at last year’s election.

“I think the people of South Australia made a judgement and they delivered the worst, most crushing defeat since World War II,” he said.

“I think the Marshall Government turned out to be the sort of government I anticipated they would be and they were judged very harshly by the South Australian people at the election.

“I think it’s fair to say it wasn’t a very successful government. I think it was a dysfunctional government. It lost quite a few of its members during the four-year period – from the current speaker (Dan Cregan), to (former Waite MP) Sam Duluk and the Member for Mount Gambier (Troy Bell) – it lost its majority in parliament.

“What was the legacy of the Marshall Government? I know COVID came along and knocked things around a little bit, but that was halfway through

“The question now is, will it be another 16 years in opposition (for the Liberal Party)? It’s a question that Liberal supporters and party members deserve an answer to.”

As for the Malinauskas Government, Hamilton-Smith said it was “a bit too early to be judging” how it was going just one year into its first term.

But he said his experience in the Weatherill cabinet was “really uplifting”.

“Most of the principal characters in the Malinauskas Government were colleagues of mine around the cabinet table, so I do talk about them (in the book),” he said.

“I found the characters and relationships to be far less destructive than I’d seen in the Liberal Party.

“I think it (the Weatherill Government) was a good government, but no government is perfect.”

Seven Leaders in Camelot, published by Wakefield Press, will be available on Saturday, March 18, with Hamilton-Smith saying it would be of interest to politicians, journalists, students, political staffers, public servants and political enthusiasts.

“I think there are some fundamental things that have gone wrong in the way politics works not just in Australia, but South Australia, and we as a state need to understand and try to fix that if we’re going to go forward into a brighter future,” he said.