Rory John McEwen is a former Australian politician who was the independent member for the seats of Gordon and Mount Gambier in the South Australian House of Assembly. Before entering politics McEwen had been a TAFE Teacher/Administrator and much experience in local government including Chair of the Grant Council, Chair of the South-East Local Government Association, and Chair of the Greater Green TriangleRegional Development Association. At the 1997 election, when Liberal Party member for Mount Gambier Harold Allison retired, it was widely expected that McEwen would win the Liberal preselection for the seat. McEwen had also received positive write-ups by The Advertiser as an "experienced political operative." However, in a major upset, he lost to Scott Dixon, a self-employed sawmiller from Mount Gambier. McEwen ran as an independent and just nosed out the Labor candidate for second place. On the final count, a large flow of Labor preferences allowed him to sneak ahead of Dixon by 0.1 percent—a margin of just 53 votes—to win the seat. The election saw him and two other conservative independents holding the balance of power in the newly elected House of Assembly. McEwen made a formal pledge to support the Liberals on matters of confidence and supply, allowing John Olsen another term as premier. McEwen was comfortably re-elected in the 2002 election. He was initially highly critical of former Liberal Peter Lewis's support of a Labor minority government under Mike Rann. But later, McEwen struck a deal of his own with Labor when he accepted a specially created fourteenth cabinet post in November 2002, at various times being the Minister for Local Government, Forests, Industry, Trade, Regional Development, Small Business, Agriculture, and Food and Fisheries, with a promise that he would retain a cabinet position after the 2006 election. McEwen was involved in a media controversy leading up to the 2006 election. The following paragraph is a quote from the site pollbludgercom: There were fears of a voter backlash in the 2006 election due to McEwen siding with Labor, and he was presented with a strong challenge by Liberal candidate Peter Gandolfi. His primary vote dropped about 20 percent, however he finished 1.7 percent ahead of the Liberals on first preference and 6.2 percent on the two-party vote. Although Labor won a majority in its own right in this election, McEwen kept his cabinet seat as promised. In 2007, the Liberals placed the Rann government under pressure over the non-disclosure of donations and gifts given to McEwen of which he was not required to disclose. McEwen announced he would retire at the 2010 election, and resigned from cabinet in early 2009. It was expected the seat would revert to the Liberals, however independent candidateDon Pegler won the seat.
