page_title: Michael Atkinson (politician)
section_title: Parliamentary career
hierarchical_section_title: Michael Atkinson (politician) / Parliamentary career
caption_attribution_description: Michael Atkinson
context_page_description: Michael John Atkinson, a former Australian politician in the South Australian Branch of the Australian Labor Party, was a member of the Parliament of South Australia from 1989 to 2018.
  Atkinson was the 34th Speaker of the South Australian House of Assembly in the Jay Weatherill government from 2013 to 2018. Before this post, he was the 46th Attorney-General of South Australia, Minister for Justice, Minister for Veterans' Affairs, and Minister for Multicultural Affairs in the Mike Rann Labor Government. A day after the 2010 election, he stepped down as Attorney-General and resigned from the Cabinet. Atkinson represented the South Australian House of Assembly seat of Croydon from the seat's creation in 2002 until 2018, and previously Spence from 1989 until the seat was abolished and replaced by Croydon in 2002.
  He was a member of the Australian Journalists Association whilst working for the Adelaide Advertiser. He is currently a member of the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association.
context_section_description: A founding member of the Labor Right faction, Atkinson was first elected to Parliament at the 1989 election. Following the 1993 election, he was shadow minister in a range of portfolios until Labor won government at the 2002 election. He subsequently became Attorney-General, Minister for Justice, Minister for Consumer Affairs and Minister for Multicultural Affairs in the Rann cabinet. In a minor cabinet reshuffle in 2004, Atkinson lost his portfolio of Consumer Affairs. He became Minister for Correctional Services in 2006.
  He was re-elected at the 2006 election landslide in his seat of Croydon with a 76 percent two-party vote from a 6.9 percent two-party swing toward him. At the 2010 election Atkinson was again re-elected, but with a 12 percent two-party swing against him, significantly higher than the statewide 8.4 percent two-party swing. Following his re-election, he announced he would resign from the Rann ministry but remain on the backbench. Atkinson was re-elected at the 2014 election where he picked up a 3.5 percent two-party swing toward him.
  On 5 February 2013 Atkinson replaced Lyn Breuer as Speaker of the South Australian House of Assembly.
  In September 2016, Peter Malinauskas moved house and into Atkinson's electorate of Croydon. He said of Atkinson: "Mick [Atkinson] knows the movements of every single one of his constituents – I suspect I’m no exception.”
  Atkinson announced in February 2017 that he would be retiring from parliament as of the 2018 election.
caption: Atkinson earlier in his political career.
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