In his final submission to the panel charged with drawing up South Australia’s new electoral map, the one-time Liberal leader turned Weatherill Government minister has sought to have key hills booths incorporated into his southern suburbs seat, including Stirling, Crafers and Aldgate.

It’s territory that was recently claimed federally in an upset win over Liberal incumbent Jamie Briggs by Nick Xenophon Team candidate Rebekha Sharkie – for whom Hamilton-Smith handed out How To Vote cards on polling day.

You’re chasing a rainbow, and the rainbow moves every four years

If successful, the incursion could strengthen his prospects for an unlikely re-election – while at the same time clouding the fate of Heysen, whose incumbent Redmond replaced Hamilton-Smith as Liberal leader in 2009, thwarted his comeback as her deputy and narrowly survived his subsequent leadership challenge.

But Hamilton-Smith insists his request is based on the two seats having common “communities of interest”, arguing that the commission’s draft report published last month “pushes the seat of Waite too far south into parts of the former seat of Davenport [previously held by another former leader and long-time nemesis, Iain Evans] which have little community of interest with the remainder of the seat of Waite”.

“There is a much closer community of interest between the heart of the existing seat of Waite, centred around the Mitcham Shopping Centre, and the communities of Crafers, Stirling and Aldgate,” Hamilton-Smith wrote in his submission, published on the boundaries’ commission website.

Hamilton-Smith told InDaily he was “a bit sceptical about the whole process” of realigning electoral boundaries.

“I think it’s been a spectacular failure, evidenced by the fact that on repeated occasions it’s failed to deliver its objective,” he said.

“The commission’s been given an almost impossible task of trying to ‘guesstimate’ what people will do at the next election compared to what they did at the last election.”

He said the continued instability “added to the disengagement by the community from local representation”, and warned “a massive number of MPs don’t live in their electorate any more”.

“You’re chasing a rainbow, and the rainbow moves every four years,” said Hamilton-Smith, who himself moved out of Waite in 2014 and now lives in the Adelaide Hills.

“It’s making it very difficult.”

He insisted he would gain no electoral advantage from his proposal, saying he was “quite happy to have those [Davenport] booths” of Blackwood central, Coromandel Valley East and Cherry Gardens, which he said had a strong track record of voting for independent candidates.

And he denied there was any malice intended to Redmond, saying: “I don’t think in that way, frankly… I’ve sort of moved on.”

Hamilton-Smith said he would run as an independent Liberal, and not under the Xenophon banner.

“I think Rebekha Sharkie’s great… I’m a great supporter of Nick, I think he’s doing a lot of good things,” he said.

“But I’m not a member of Nick’s party.”

Xenophon himself told InDaily: “I expect Martin will be running as an independent.

“He won’t be running for NXT; there’s been no discussions about that.”

Looking over her shoulder: Isobel Redmond. Photo: Nat Rogers / InDaily

As it happened, Redmond made her own submission to the commission, arguing to retain the hub booths of Stirling and Aldgate within her Heysen electorate.

The draft report suggested shifting them into neighbouring Liberal seat Kavel, in a swap of territory that would see Mt Barker and its surrounds usurped by Heysen.

Redmond and Kavel MP Mark Goldsworthy made a joint submission, albeit signed by Redmond on behalf of both with the added note that “he approved but was not available to sign”.

“It has always been the case that the township of Mt Barker and its surrounds has been the main population centre [for Kavel] and the townships of Stirling, Aldgate, Bridgewater and their surrounds have been the main population centre for the Member of Heysen,” they argued.

“It is unnecessarily disruptive and serves no purpose to ‘swap’ Mt Barker and Stirling from one electorate to the other.”

Redmond, now a backbencher, is yet to announce her intentions for 2018, but it has been suggested any incursion by Hamilton-Smith would strengthen her resolve to stand again.