Before entering federal politics, she was member of the South Australian House of Assembly for the safe Labor seat of Napier in Adelaide's northern suburbs from 1993 to 2002, and was Deputy Leader of the Opposition 1997–2002.
[2] At the 2002 South Australian state election, she decided to stand in Light, a previously safe Liberal seat that had been made marginal in a redistribution.
Had Hurley won Light, she would have delivered her party majority government and become South Australia's first female Deputy Premier.
In June 2005, before even taking her seat in the Senate, Hurley was elected to the Opposition front bench and appointed Shadow Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs.
Her promotion to the federal frontbench was a reward for taking the political risks which saw the end of her career in the South Australian Parliament and stopped her from becoming the state's Deputy Premier rather than the misperception that it was solely because of a factional arrangement.