Karlene Maywald

Karlene Maywald
Member of the South Australian Parliament for Chaffey
In office 11 October 1997 – 20 March 2010
Preceded by	Kent Andrew
Succeeded by	Tim Whetstone
Personal details
Nationality	Australian
Political party	The Nationals
Occupation	Small Businessperson

Karlene Ann Maywald (born 26 May 1961) is an Australian National Party politician who represented the seat of Chaffey in the South Australian House of Assembly from October 1997 until March 2010. During her tenure, from 2004 until 2010, she was the Minister for the River Murray and Minister for Water Security in the Rann Labor government. She is currently the Chair of the National Water Commission and a Director of SA Water, as well as Managing Director of Maywald Consultants Pty Ltd.

A small businessperson before entering Parliament, Maywald was first elected to parliament at the 1997 state election on a margin of 2.6 percent. In contrast to federal politics and in some other states, the Nationals do not have a coalition agreement with the Liberal Party in South Australia. She thus sat as a crossbencher during the term of the Liberal Government, voting against the privatisation of ETSA. In 1998, during her first term in Parliament, Maywald became the first member of parliament to give birth to a child while in office when her daughter Tilly Rose was born.

Winning an increased majority at the 2002 state election on a 14 percent two-candidate preferred margin, Maywald voted for a Kerin Liberal government over a Rann Labor Government and later voted against the state government's industrial relations package. In 2004, however, Maywald was convinced to become a minister in the Labor government, but signed a comprehensive agreement with Labor reserving her right to vote against any government initiative which affected her electorate or the business community. This informal ALP-NAT alliance or "agreement" as distinct from a formal coalition, caused uproar. In October 2013 Karlene Maywald during a conversation about this period with political scientist, Dr Haydon Manning from Flinders University, stressed that it is erroneous, as some have argued, to refer her acceptance of a ministry with the Rann Government as representing a 'coalition' with Labor. The South Australian Branch of the National Party temporarily split from the federal organization after branch President John Venus offered to ‘voluntarily withdraw’ until at least after the federal election. Venus stressed that the state branch was not in ‘coalition’ with Labor. Maywald conceded the Labor Party had ‘most definitely been very clever’ in shoring up its parliamentary support, but said ‘it works both ways’. ‘They wouldn't offer me a position if they didn't think I was capable of doing it,’ she said. ‘The issue is not about the money, the issue is the River Murray - I wouldn't have taken any other portfolio.’ She was still ‘very supportive of (federal leader) John Anderson’ and hoped the Howard Coalition would win the federal election. Upset by the move Federal Liberal MP for Sturt Christopher Pyne labelling Ms Maywald's ‘a disgrace’ and that he considered her ‘extremely naive if she thinks that Mike Rann hasn't played her like a violin in order to shut the Liberal Party out.’

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