Kavel is named after
Lutheran pastor
August Kavel who migrated with approximately 250 people to South Australia from Germany in 1838, two years after the
colony of South Australia was founded, seeking freedom from religious persecution. They, and later German immigrants and their descendants, have made a significant contribution to South Australia's development and culture. Kavel has been held by the
Liberal Party and its predecessor, the
Liberal and Country League, for most of its existence. Like most seats in the Adelaide Hills, it has usually been reasonably safe for that party, and has been held by only four members. The first member,
Roger Goldsworthy, served as
Deputy Premier of South Australia from 1979 to 1982 under
David Tonkin. Goldsworthy retired in 1992 to allow former state Liberal leader
John Olsen to transfer from the
Australian Senate back to state politics. Olsen went on to become
Premier of South Australia after a 1996 party-room coup against Premier
Dean Brown. Olsen was forced to retire from politics after being caught
misleading the House, and was succeeded by
Mark Goldsworthy, son of Roger. Mark held the seat until handing it to current member
Dan Cregan in 2018. Cregan was elected as a Liberal member, but resigned from the party in October 2021 to sit as an
independent. At the
2022 election, he was re-elected as an independent in a landslide. Cregan's
two-candidate-preferred vote of 75.4 percent was the highest of any candidate, making Kavel the safest seat in the state. The strong
Family First Party vote of 15.7 percent at the
2006 election, the highest in the state, was due in part to their prominent local candidate, church minister
Thomas "Tom" Playford V, son of former Premier
Sir Thomas Playford, who had represented
Gumeracha decades earlier. Tom Playford V had also run as an independent in the
2002 election, achieving a primary vote of 19.4 percent. ==Members for Kavel==