South Australian election guide

My seat-by-seat guide to the March 20 South Australian election is open for business. If you’re a Crikey subscriber, you can read my general overview of the situation in today’s daily email, which I’ll republish here at a later time. In the meantime, enjoy the following charts showing the electoral progress of South Australia since it entered the modern world with the introduction of one-vote one-value in 1970, the first showing vote share and the second the proportion of seats one by each party (so where the red dips below the line in the middle Labor had a majority; where the blue rises above it, the Liberals had one). Note that I’ve lumped the Liberal Movement, a feature of the 1975 election, together with the Australian Democrats on the vote share chart, rightly or wrongly. I’m afraid I can’t for the life of me work out how to rearrange the seat share chart the way I want it in Excel, hence the lack of a title.

savoteshare

saseatshare

UPDATE (12/1/10)

I’ve calculated results for marginal electorates from the equivalent booths at the last two federal elections, to give some sense of where Labor over- and under-performed in 2006.

FED 2004 SA 2006 FED 2007
LIGHT (Wakefield) 44.0% 52.4% 51.6%
MAWSON (Kingston) 48.5% 53.1% 52.5%
NORWOOD (Adelaide/Sturt) 49.3% 53.5% 54.0%
NEWLAND (Makin/Sturt) 42.4% 55.1% 48.8%
HARTLEY (Sturt) 47.0% 54.8% 52.3%
MORIALTA (Sturt) 44.0% 57.4% 49.9%
BRIGHT (Boothby/Kingston) 43.7% 56.4% 46.7%
ADELAIDE (Adelaide) 49.5% 60.5% 55.3%

And here’s my piece in yesterday’s Crikey Daily Mail:

With one federal and three state elections in the offing, 2010 looms as the most event-packed year on the electoral front in recent history. As far as timing is concerned, the only wild card in the deck is the federal election. Kevin Rudd could use the emissions trading scheme trigger to call a double dissolution election at any time, although doing so in the first half of the year would commit the government to a highly problematic half-Senate election no later than mid-2012. Less troublesome would be a double dissolution later in the year, which would have to be held no later than October 16. A normal House of Representatives and half-Senate election could be held at any time from August 7, and could legally be delayed until as late as April 2011 next year – although it most assuredly won’t be.

Barring extraordinary circumstances, no such uncertainty surrounds the state elections. Victoria’s fixed term legislation sets the date for the last Saturday in November, which will be the 27th. South Australia likewise has a fixed election date of March 20. Tasmania does not have fixed terms, but Premier David Bartlett has announced the date well in advance – annoyingly also for March 20, setting up a repeat of the two states’ simultaneous elections in March 2006.

Today’s lesson concerns South Australia, for which I have just published my seat-by-seat election guide. Mike Rann’s rise to power after the February 2002 election completed Labor’s clean sweep of state and territory governments, which remained intact until the Carpenter government’s defeat in Western Australia in September 2008. The Rann government’s electoral fortunes since have followed a familiar pattern. It came to power as a minority government when conservative independent Peter Lewis made a shock post-election decision to throw his lot in with Labor, after saying during the campaign that any talk he might do so was “sleazy nonsense”. Faced by a fracturing opposition under the indecisive leadership of Rob Kerin, Rann brought home the bacon at the 2006 election, picking up a 7.7 per cent swing and winning six seats from the Liberals.

The trajectory of first-term minority government to landslide re-election had earlier been followed by Labor in Queensland (elected 1998, re-elected 2001) and Victoria (1999 and 2002), and was partly reflected by NSW Labor’s experience in winning a one-seat majority in 1995 followed by a resounding win in 1999. In each case Labor went on to win only slightly less emphatic third victories. While the polls suggest the Rann government will be re-elected (the most recent Newspoll gave it a 53-47 two-party lead), it seems unlikely it will do so in quite as fine style as Bob Carr in 2003, Peter Beattie in 2004 or Steve Bracks in 2006.

While poll respondents have strongly indicated they will not let the Michelle Chantelois allegations influence their vote, the issue is an electoral negative if only because the looming court cases threaten to distract Rann in the early part of the next term. The issue is also feeding into perceptions he will not see out the next term, taking some of the shine off his personal vote-pulling power. With no clear heir apparent in place, it also raises the prospect that ministers’ energies will be diverted into jockeying for the succession. Most importantly, Rann will not enjoy the electoral gift of a long-serving and increasingly unpopular Coalition government in Canberra.

The Liberals by contrast have stumbled almost by accident on a leader whose Newspoll approval rating for October-December was 51 per cent – the best result for a South Australian Opposition Leader in 17 years. As Antony Green demonstrates, voters don’t really get to know Opposition Leaders until an election campaign. If Isobel Redmond really is as saleable as her 33 per cent net positive rating makes her appear, and if she and her party can run a sufficiently tight ship, a lot of the 31 per cent who profess themselves undecided about her will break her way during the campaign – and many will jump on the Liberal bandwagon in doing so.

For all that, the odds remain stacked in Labor’s favour. It would take the loss of five seats to cost them their majority, and most likely six to cost them government given that one of the three cross-benchers is Labor-turned-Greens-turned-independent member Kris Hanna. In the context of South Australia’s compact 47-seat House of Assembly, that represents a considerable hurdle for the Liberals, who will need an overall swing of about 7 per cent.

The two pieces of low-hanging fruit are the seats of Light, based on Gawler just to the north of Adelaide, and Mawson, which consists of outer southern suburbs plus the McLaren Vale wine-growing area. Both are naturally conservative seats that are very likely to return to the fold.

Interestingly, the next four seats up the pendulum are the eastern suburbs neighbours of Norwood, Newland, Hartley and Morialta, which can brace themselves for some heavy duty pork-barrelling in the weeks to come. The 3.7 per cent margin in Norwood looks surmountable, but the seat recorded an unusually small swing to Labor in 2006 due to the popularity of the Liberal candidate, former Adelaide Crows star Nigel Smart. With a considerably lower profile entrant this time around, its natural margin would be at least 6 per cent.

Even more problematic is Newland (5.2 per cent), where the Liberals have scored an own goal by endorsing Trish Draper, the federal member for Makin from 1996 until her retirement in 2007. Draper continues to carry the baggage of an episode in 2004 when she was accompanied at taxpayers’ expense by her then boyfriend Derick Sands on a study trip to Europe. While she just managed to retain Makin at the 2004 election, she did so in the face of the biggest swing to Labor in the state – a woeful result for an electorate so heavily stacked with mortgage payers. Far from being forgotten, this episode made a return to the front pages last year, when Sands lost a defamation case he pursued against Channel Seven and the ABC over reports he had been identified as a suspect in a murder investigation.

In Hartley (5.6 per cent), the Liberals have made the less than inspiring decision to re-nominate Joe Scalzi, the long-term back-bencher who lost the seat to up-and-coming Labor member Grace Portolesi in 2006. Despite the relatively higher margin, the Liberals probably have more reason to be optimistic about Morialta (6.8 per cent), where incumbent Lindsay Simmons faces former Young Liberals president and Christopher Pyne staffer John Gardner. The only other seat with a margin that would normally be considered surmountable is Bright, located on the coast south of Glenelg around Brighton, where Labor member Chloe Fox has achieved an impressive electoral track record.

If the Liberals are to fall short in more than one of the seven aforementioned seats, they will need to make up for it with a freakish double-digit swing in Adelaide (10.5 per cent) or Florey (12.0 per cent). The government has been very mindful of the significance of the former seat in particular, making a number of contentious policy decisions relating to the city centre with a view to protecting its member, Jane Lomax-Smith.

Further up the pendulum are a number of Adelaide seats which normally lean moderately to Labor, where margins were engorged in 2006 by an Adelaide-wide swing of around 9 per cent. Even if the momentum the Liberals have been building in recent polling continues, they appear to be at considerable risk of achieving their biggest swings in these seats, where Labor can afford to take the hit.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

371 comments on “South Australian election guide”

Comments Page 4 of 8
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  1. Nick Xenophon was elected editor of the Adelaide Uni newspaper On Dit with the help of bodgie votes conjured up by fellow student Liberals. One of the conspirators was medical student Bill Cooper, now the boss of the Cooper’s beer empire. Bill Cooper tipped a bucket on the Rann Govt in The Advertiser today. What a surprise!

    After that experience with the Liberals, Xenophon opted to be a political independent.

  2. [Nick Xenophon was elected editor of the Adelaide Uni newspaper On Dit with the help of bodgie votes conjured up by fellow student Liberals.]

    But yet today he’s considered left-of-centre. Times, parties, and ideologies change.

  5. Wow, I leave PB for what seems like about 2 months and return to see I’m being discussed.
    Finniss Firebomb, I dunno if I know you either.

    Anyway, Bob1234 is getting carried away – there is a tendency to overhype the Greens best chance at a lower house seat at every election. The Greens have a 0.5% chance in Heysen and a 0% chance everywhere else. The Greens have a fairly good chance at second place here though. Lyndon Vonow is a top bloke and there are a few surprises in the pipeline to spice up the campaign too…..

    There is no public $funding$ for SA state elections. So minor parties don’t concentrate as much on unwinnable lower house seats. A good vote is only good for propoganda purposes, not for a source of income. It’s all about the upper house because it is quite likely that the ALP will be returned with a reduced majority anyway.

  6. THM, I never said the Greens would win Heysen. I said and I continue to maintain that the Greens will finish higher than Labor, thus inherit their prefs and challenge Redmond. But on balance of probabilities I don’t think Lynton Vonow will win Heysen.

  9. [A GRASSROOTS coalition of community groups will field more than 15 candidates for the state election in March.

    The Community Voice Coalition will work together to fight for parliamentary seats to better represent their causes, which it says have been ignored by the State Government.

    The coalition – comprising such groups as Save St Clair Reserve Ratepayers Association, Save the RAH, Save Glenside, Dignity for the Disabled, Community Health and Open Spaces – will pool resources and share preferences in an attempt to install as many of its candidates as possible into both houses. ]

    http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,26613533-2682,00.html

  12. [AN angry Premier Mike Rann dismissed a proposal by South Australian football’s governing body for a new covered city sports stadium because it was too similar to a plan by the state Liberal Party, it has emerged. ]

    Are we surprised that Rann never considers anything other than votes?

    His lame half-arsed plan to waste $450M on Adelaide Oval was a joke and now we know why.

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/mike-rann-rejected-sanfls-liberal-stadium-proposal/story-e6frgczf-1225822284017

    BTW There will be a very big BAD NEWS story about eye doctors in the Sunday Mail which will reflect rather poorly on Modbury Hospital.

  13. I think the story will reveal itself in a few weeks, in fact their are many interesting stories being investigated, the election may have an interesting result.

    At least I didnt say no comment…hhmm I just did…:)

  14. At least it’s on hospitals where people consider Labor to be better than the LIberals which is mostly true.

    When was the last time a Labor government lost that had the economy anywhere near a triple-A rating…?

  15. bob

    [At least it’s on hospitals where people consider Labor to be better than the LIberals which is mostly true.]

    Actually that’s not true anymore. In the Qld and WA election, polls actually put Libs ahead of Labor in Health. I suppose anyone who has manged Health for a good number of years has had plenty of mud stick to them.

  16. SA health isn’t anywhere near as bad as others.

    I think people unrealistically expect perfection and for there never to be any human error.

    Go to Haiti.

    Go to the US.

    Go to the UK.

    Then you’ll come crawling back to Adelaide.

  18. I was making the point that we should be grateful that we’re not in a third world country, or even first world countries such as the US or UK.

    Replace Haiti with Ethiopia if you want.

  20. [You’re setting the bar so low that Labor are tripping over it.]

    So what should we have? The populist view that we should have the best hospitals in the world?

  22. bob

    We are declining rapidly.

    And I have to ask you a question. Why are you so much more supportive of Rann Labor than Rudd Labor? Rann would have to more regressive than Rudd and certainly less competent than Rudd. I don’t get it.

  23. I’m not particularly supportive of either, but definitely don’t want either to lose to the Liberals who are even worse.

    I vote Green-Labor-Liberal both state and federally.

  24. Labors funding for disability, mental health and the like is the worst in the country, even with a 50% increase we would still lag behind, I met with several associations this week on the matter, and it is nothing but an absolute disgrace.
    Novita have endured funding cuts, while costs and demand have risen, how dare any supposedly compassionate governments put any infrastructure let alone “Stadiums” above the needs of disadvantaged children on critical waiting lists?
    Mental health for instance is lagging so far behind it is an embarrassment and when you talk about hospitals, we have dozens of empty wards through lack of funding and staff, so a new hospital will do bugger all to shorten waiting lists, nice place to hang a shiny brass plague.
    Labor have become a disgrace !

  25. [Labors funding for disability]

    [Labor have become a disgrace !]

    Don’t you realise that all the Liberals do in power is cut spending left right and centre? Do you really think the Libs would outspend Labor on any area of health?

  26. Its very easy to identify problems in this world, but much more difficult to provide solutions. If no solutions are provided – that is called whingeing. In the context of politics, even when solutions are found, money has to be found to fund them. Doesn’t mean we should give up and go home – but a dose of realism needs to be injected into the thought process.

  29. Some one I know is running 🙂

    As long as the electorate cast an informed vote, what more could we ask, other than true freedom of choice

  32. Credit where credit is due. The Libs have been saying they will put an ICU into Modbury Hospital which would be ridiculous. In the run-up to the election, they have actually dropped that promise, which is unusually responsible for them. I might add that the budget blow-out for CNAHS is about $80M this year.

    [Meanwhile, the Liberals have backed away from previous commitments to restore services at Modbury including an intensive care unit, low-risk birthing unit and more complex surgery, citing an expected budget blowout for the Central Northern Adelaide Health Service.

    “I’m not going to make promises I don’t know I can keep,” Shadow Health Minister Duncan McFetridge said. ]

    http://leader-messenger.whereilive.com.au/news/story/hospital-bleeding-internally-ama/

  33. [The Libs have been saying they will put an ICU into Modbury Hospital which would be ridiculous.]

    Pretty cynical considering they lost Newland, Morialta and Hartley at the last election…

  34. bob

    Well they’ve dropped it now. I saw the article on all the eye doctors resigning at the downgrading of the RAH Ophthalmology Department but it’s not on the web.

    Just watch John Hill cave yet again.

  35. Politics has always been about the lesser of two evils.

    Do you really honestly think the Liberals could do a better job on health? Just look at their track record. They’d much rather cut spending to get the budget surplus as large as possible to say oh look at the size of the budget surplus, which just sits there doing bugger all…

  38. Government priorities has become a disgrace, I have just finished meeting with several departments and service providers, I note on top of their lack of funding, they are scrapping their education subsidies for Teaching and Nursing?
    We have bloody empty wards due to lack of staff numbers already, what are they thinking?
    Novita for instance only receive 1/2 a mill for equipment supply for all of our disabled sector, no sight of increased funding, what a disgrace

  39. Just had a phone poll regarding view on SA election issues with Nationwide group. Does anyone know who they are polling for?

  40. mark

    Novita is an absolute shambles. It is meant to look after our disabled kids but seriously underperforms and has no funding or co-ordination. My daughter has mild cerebral palsy and they manage almost nothing. Fortunately I have enough money to be able to get what she needs without a problem but it must be very hard for most parents of disabled kids, and there are lots of them.

  41. Mark Aldridge

    Are you the Mark Aldridge, number one candidate for One Nation at the 2007 SA Senate election, and occasional ranter in letters to the editor of the Mount Barker Courier?

  42. THM – given the lack of response i’d say it’s a pretty safe bet, and goes some way to explaining his political outlook (or lack thereof).

  45. I am an occasional ranter full stop, One Nation???? Independent, but you would already know that.
    Putting forward my candidacy requires me to make my position on matters public, wouldnt want to gain votes based solely on my good looks 🙂

  46. I have other things to do than to check here every day, their are a lot of people and animals that need help, that is what I do, as for my stand on issues, I am sure you have all googled, I also acknowledge whom I am because I have nothing to hide 🙂

  47. I wonder who the “friend” was who gave Chantelois tickets to the gallery? Stand by for more coincidental encounters as the election approaches.

  49. A mate of mine got polled a few days ago:
    *He didn’t know which polling company
    *They asked about unrelated stuff and state polling but didn’t aske about federal issues.
    *They asked him about voting intetion, prefered premier and approval/disapproval of lots of pollies (not just Rann & Redmond).

    So another poll should be brewing.

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