Election SA. Amid the Hanson hysteria, it’s business as usual
· Michael West
Amid headlines of ‘Hanson surge’, ‘Labor landslide’, and ‘Liberal bloodbath’, the reality of the South Australian election is not much will change. Recently anointed Croweater Kim Wingerei reports*.
As widely expected, Labor’s Peter Malinauskas will continue as Premier of South Australia for another four years.
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Labor will have at least five more seats in the new Parliament, with 37.8% of the primary vote, a swing against of 2.3%. Preference distributions will change as the remaining 35% of votes are counted (and in some electorates, likely to be recounted), but at this stage, election guru Anthony Green is giving Labor 57.8%, up by 3.2% from 2022, hardly a landslide.
Pauline Hanson One Nation (PHON) did indeed surge, with a massive 19.6% more primary votes compared to four years ago. However, in the seats PHON also contested in 2022, they are are up a more modest 6.6%. More of a big wave than a surge.
Spreading itself too thin and contesting every seat is one reason the team in orange will likely end up with fewer seats than the Liberals, who will still have at least four seats in the new Parliament. It had 16 last time around, and 25 under Peter Marshall’s reign.
The Liberals’ demise is, of course, the big story of the election, with a 16.6% swing against. Less than one in five South Australian voters put the Liberals first on their ballot, and in Metropolitan seats, it’s even worse, with a swing against of 18.2%.
A bloodbath by any other name, although Liberal leader Ashton Hurn’s remained optimistic, pronouncing on Saturday night, “we are going to come back stronger than ever”.
Legislative Council
The upper house will not be quite as straightforward for the Labor Party as it won’t have a clear majority.
Of the eleven members up for election this time around, Labor have won at least four and may pick up one more, giving it a maximum of ten in total, still leaving it short of an absolute majority in the 22-seat chamber.
The one seat in doubt is most likely to go to the Labor or the Greens. Either way, it will leave Labor with lots of options to negotiate with the Liberals’ six, One Nation’s likely three members, or the Greens/Independents’ block of three or four.
In short, South Australia is left with an (almost) all powerful Labor Party for the next four years, facing a fractured opposition. What it does with that power is anybody’s guess.
* Based on 65% of votes counted on Monday evening (March 23).