The Honourable Leon Bignell |
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Member of the South Australian Parliament for Mawson |
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Assumed office 18 March 2006 |
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Preceded by | Robert Brokenshire |
Personal details | |
Political party | Australian Labor Party (SA) |
Leon William Kennedy Bignell (born 1966), Australian politician, is the member for Mawson representing the South Australian Branch of the Australian Labor Party since the 2006 election.
Bignell was a high-profile ABC sports reporter and later a media adviser to Pat Conlon.
Bignell finished ahead of incumbent Liberal member Robert Brokenshire with a 52.2 percent two party preferred vote at the 2006 state election, delivering Mawson to Labor for the first time since it was lost in the 1993 election landslide. He increased his two-party-preferred vote to 54.4 percent at the 2010 election and to 55.6 percent at the 2014 election.
The 2016 draft redistribution ahead of the 2018 election proposes to redistribute Bignell's seat of Mawson from a 5.6 percent Labor seat to a notional 2.6 percent Liberal seat, taking in areas down the coast as Kangaroo Island.
Bignell is affectionately known as "Biggles" in media circles, and was once caught drawing caricatures of his opposition colleagues while in the chamber. Bignell was engaged to Labor colleague and former member for Bright Chloë Fox between March 2006 and March 2007.
He is aligned with Labor's left faction.