FORMER Liberal leader Martin Hamilton-Smith has lifted the lid on decades of internal Liberal warfare in a new book that canvasses his involvement with the party over a 30-year span.

Mr Hamilton-Smith, who caused a sensation when he quit the Liberals in 2014 to sit as an independent conservative in the cabinet of Jay Weatherill’s Labor government, has written the book Seven Leaders in Camelot to give his side of the story.

The former Liberal leader says the book is not a square up but an attempt to tell the history of politics in South Australia going back 30 years.

“I’m not a person who carries grudges, I’m not a person who has ill will or carries ill will towards anyone,’’ he said. “I come away from almost 22 years in politics, very positive.’’

The story is told by examining the contribution of the premiers he saw close up including Dean Brown, John Olsen, Rob Kerin, Mike Rann, Jay Weatherill and Steven Marshall.

There is a chapter on his own experience as leader of the Liberals and another on the “dream team” of Iain Evans and Vickie Chapman, while stalwarts such as Rob Lucas and Christopher Pyne feature heavily.

Mr Hamilton-Smith does not paint a pretty picture, at one point writing “the most disappointing act I witnessed in 21 years’’ was when future premier Steven Marshall pulled out of a deal to run as his deputy when he unsuccessfully challenged Isobel Redmond for the leadership in 2012.

Mr Hamilton-Smith describes a party more interested in fighting factional enemies and indulging itself in historical personal animosities than in forming government.

It’s a story full of personal and political bastardry and Mr Hamilton-Smith acknowledges the book is necessarily “subjective’’.

A former Lieutenant Colonel in the Australian Army, Mr Hamilton-Smith does not spare himself from criticism.

Of the seven leaders he studies he refers to himself as the “least successful’’ as he didn’t serve as premier. Mr Hamilton-Smith says it was a mistake to vote for the sale of ETSA in 1999 and he also now believes he should have voted for Dean Brown instead of Rob Kerin after John Olsen quit as premier in 2001.

Mr Hamilton-Smith’s own spell as Liberal leader ended ignominiously in 2009 when he tried to use documents which purportedly showed the Church of Scientology had donated to the Labor Party – the so-called “dodgy documents” affair.

“The majority view was that the information was unreliable, but it was up to me to decide whether to use it and how,’’ he writes.

Mr Hamilton-Smith was going to hit Labor with the documents in question time, but before he could do so, then-Road Safety Minister Tom Koutsantonis rose and confessed to his driving fines.

Mr Hamilton-Smith says his mistake was to continue to pursue the Scientology allegations instead of immediately switching focus to concentrate on attacking Mr Koutsantonis.

Labor, under Mike Rann, seized on the use of what were clearly fabricated documents to turn the attack back on the Liberals.

“This had been made possible because of the mistakes I had made in preparing and executing question time and by Liberal leaking, disunity and undermining,’’ he writes.

A theme that runs through the book is Mr Hamilton-Smith comparing the discipline, unity and professionalism of Labor against what he saw as the division, chaos and incompetence of his own side.

Mr Hamilton-Smith also details the lead-up to his unsuccessful 2012 leadership challenge to a struggling Ms Redmond.

He says the impetus for the challenge started when the first-term MP Steven Marshall called him in his electorate office and asked to meet.

At a lunch at Café Buongiorno in Mitcham, Mr Marshall told him “Redmond was an embarrassment and had to go’’.

“It was the moderates’ view that she had to be challenged and they would back me as leader with him as deputy leader. Marshall was scathing of Redmond,’’ Mr Hamilton-Smith writes.

Mr Hamilton-Smith decided to challenge, although he first contacted former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer to ask if he was interested in the job. Mr Marshall was to be his deputy. Mr Hamilton-Smith says he even offered Mr Marshall a deal that if the Liberals won the 2014 and 2018 elections, he would step down in favour of his younger deputy by 2020. The duo put out a joint press release saying the challenge was on.

However, Mr Hamilton-Smith writes the night before the ballot that all changed.

“Marshall’s switch from me to Redmond the night before the vote left me feeling utterly betrayed,’’ he says.

“I had taken Steven at his word. It was the most disappointing act I had seen in my 21 years in politics.’’

Four months later, Mr Marshall replaced Ms Redmond, then would lose the 2014 election before winning in 2018 and losing again in 2022.

In her farewell speech to parliament in 2018, Ms Redmond had one last shot at Mr Hamilton-Smith.

“I realised that the member for Waite was not suitable to be the Premier of South Australia, because I knew that the member for Waite was doing what he was told,’’ she said.

Mr Hamilton-Smith would cause one of the greatest controversies in SA political history when he resigned from the Liberal Party in 2014 and join the Labor cabinet as an independent conservative. It caused a firestorm. He was labelled a “rat”, a “traitor” and a “turncoat”.

Federal minister Christopher Pyne compared him to Philby and Maclean, the British spies who defected to the Soviet Union.

Mr Marshall said this “disgraceful decision is unrivalled in its treachery and duplicity’’.

“With Mr Hamilton-Smith’s background, he should understand what loyalty means. Clearly he doesn’t have a clue about loyalty,’’ he said.

Mr Hamilton-Smith says after the Labor approach was made through Tom Kenyon he “searched for reasons to say no to Weatherill’’.

“The alternative: another miserable four years in Opposition trying to work with a long list of senior MPs and failed leaders, many of whom I had little respect for and were unpleasant to me,’’ he writes. “While the bulk of my fellow Liberal MPs were admirable people, the senior group had lost its way.

“This was a simple question of moral courage. I backed myself and chose to serve South Australia.’’

Mr Hamilton-Smith writes when he rang Mr Marshall to tell him of his decision, he tried to talk him out of it by claiming he was in talks with “three Labor MPs about defecting to the Liberal Party to ‘bring down’ the Weatherill government’’.

“He thought it fine for a Labor MP to come across to the Liberal Party and he was encouraging it, but it was not acceptable for a Liberal to go the other way.’’

Mr Hamilton-Smith was part of the Labor cabinet until he quit politics at the 2018 election, holding portfolios in trade, defence industries, veterans’ affairs and space industries.

In an interview in his Stirling home, he said he would like to be remembered as more than the bloke who jumped ship, but as someone who achieved results both in opposition and in government.

He points to starting the conversation about moving footy to the city when he was opposition leader, blowing the whistle on then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s decision to buy submarines from Japan instead of building them in Adelaide and leading the charge to bring the Australian Space Agency to SA.

Mr Hamilton-Smith, who said he voted Labor at the last state election for the first time since 1972, also said he hoped there are lessons for the future in the book.

He also said the Liberal Party should break with tradition and guarantee current leader David Speirs two elections to rebuild the party. There has already been speculation Mr Speirs could be challenged after less than a year in the job.

“I would not underestimate David Speirs. It was very clear to me when I met David when he first came into the parliament that he was the one MP in his cohort that was most likely to succeed. He’s smart. He’s measured. He listens,’’ Mr Hamilton Smith said.

“I’m deeply of the view if you don’t understand the past, you won’t be able to navigate your way through into the future.

“And if South Australians don’t fully understand the last 30 years of their political life, then the next 30 years are going to be difficult to manage.’’

Seven Leaders in Camelot published by Wakefield Press $39.95