The Advertiser has a YouGov poll of state voting intention in South Australia showing Steven Marshall’s Liberal government opening up a 53-47 lead, reversing the result of another such poll six months ago, although it does not radically improve on their roughly 52-48 winning margin in 2018. The primary votes are Liberal 46% (39% in the last poll, 38.0% at the election), Labor 35% (38% and 32.8%) and Greens 10% (11% and 6.7%). The improvement for all concerned reflects the evaporation of SA Best, which polled 14.1% at the last election and is now at 5%, down two from the last poll. Marshall has shot to a 54-26 lead over Labor’s Peter Malinauskas as preferred premier, out from 38-36 in March.
Reflecting a broader COVID-19 era trend, Marshall records dramatically improved personal ratings of 68% satisfied and 16% dissatisfied, compared with 37% and 41% in March. Malinauskas is little changed at 44% satisifed and 22% dissatisfied, respectively steady and down four. The poll was conducted from last Thursday to this Wednesday from a sample of 810.
Considering that pre-COVID it was the reverse (assuming both polls are accurate), SA jumping to highest unemployment rate in the country and the state government sneakily privatising the trains for pocket change (and still no vision to fix the state’s woes), not to mention its internal disfunction, I’d be highly skeptical of the Government carrying this lead all the way to March 2022.
But it does serve as a good wake-up call to Malinauskas and Labor that they have work to do and they can’t just do a small-target sleep-walk into power at the next election – they need their own defining alternative vision (but keep up the grassroots retail politics that you’re doing so far – that is definitely a good thing.)
Marahall has just announced farming iut the management of SA’s public transort netork to a mob of overseas buffoons, so the next poll might not be so favourable to the Liebrals.
Before the last election it was, ‘we have no plans to…’
Coukd not lie straight in bed if the were bound to a broomstick.
Unfortunately public transport in Adelaide is not as big an issue as it is in eastern capitals. The mode share for PT to the city is only 25%, down to 6% in the suburbs, so it won’t register with most people. Former transport minister Stephen Knowl (yes the alleged expense rorter) was hopeless, but his replacement allows some of his policy mis-steps to be corrected.
A bigger issue has been all the expense scandals, but I suspect Marshall will have scored some brownie points for tossing the alleged rorters out of cabinet. Covid has been managed well in SA, and Marshall is no doubt gaining points from that. Ironically he has probably become more popular by ignoring his Liberal PM’s demands to open borders too soon.
The unemployment situation is pretty bad here, and that is where Malinauskas must focus attention.