We will presumably be seeing a Newspoll this evening, which will be the third test of the poll’s form since the YouGov takeover and the industry-wide failure in 2019. Apart from that, I have devoted a few idle hours this week to fleshing out and prettying up my state election guide, so do take a look if you haven’t already, or another look if you have, and perhaps throw some pennies in the tip jar if you like what you see.
Late news:
• David Penberthy in The Australian reports the Liberals remain hopeful, if not confident, that strong local campaigns may yet get them over the line in the four seats the party holds by margins of 2.0% or less: Newland (0.2%), Adelaide (0.8%), King (0.8%) and Elder (although Penberthy also writes in The Advertiser today that “it looks like Steven Marshall is gone”). Conversely, Michael McGuire in The Advertiser says “both sides expect Adelaide to fall to Labor”, and the view in media-land is that the Liberals are vulnerable in such seemingly safe seats as Davenport (8.4%), Black (9.3%), Gibson (9.9%) and Steven Marshall’s seat of Dunstan (8.1%).
• Peter Malinauskas scored an unusually clear win among the 98 undecided voters subjected to the Advertiser-Sky News leaders’ debate on Wednesday, 66 of whom emerged saying they would vote Labor compared with 21 for Liberal and 11 remaining undecided. Some measure of the clarity of Malinauskas’s dominance is provided by the fact that conservative commentator Chris Kenny of Sky News rated that it was “obvious” Malinauskas had won, and that he’d “never seen a better political performance in one of these forums, state or federal”.
• Troy Bell, the once Liberal and now independent member for Mount Gambier, wrote a letter to the SE Voice newspaper earlier this week castigating the Liberal Party for making only $2.7 million in promises for the electorate, and suggesting the party would not have his support to form a government if it did not offer more in the final days of the campaign.
• If the Marshall government does lose tomorrow, it will become the fourth Australian state government to have been voted out after one term since 1990 out of 22 starters, the others being Campbell Newman’s Liberal National Party government in Queensland in 2015, Denis Napthine’s Coalition government in Victoria in 2014 and Rob Borbidge’s Coalition government in Queensland in 1998. All these governments have been conservative, though perhaps the more salient fact is that governments of the same stripe were in power federally at the time. Nine of the 18 re-elected first-term governments increased their shares of the two-party vote, none of which were so encumbered.
Rob Borbidge’s Coalition government in Queensland didn’t even run a full term.
The 1995 election had returned the Goss Labor government, with a majority of just one. However, the result in Mundingburra (which Labor won by just 12 votes) was voided by the court, and the Liberals took the seat in the subsequent by-election.
Independent Liz Cunningham cast her lot with the Coalition, and Borbidge became premier 7 months into the term.
Exciting times. Fingers crossed for a nice win for Labor.
Will be watching LC results with interest too.
Warning: the following editorial should not be read with a mouthful of weetbix:
“ Most liveable South Australia flirts with rejection of capable leader”
(Editorial from the Australian)
“There is no sensible economic argument for the removal of the Marshall Liberal government in South Australia. The past four years in the state have been marked by recovery and renewal. The city of Adelaide itself tells the story. Long derided as a dull country town, Adelaide now has a liveliness and liveability that makes it the envy of Australia’s more congested cities. As the city has changed, so too has the state, shedding its heavy manufacturing heritage and finding new industries in tech, cyber, space, defence and renewables. The number of new tech jobs alone created in the past four years stands at about 7000 – more people than were employed by Holden and Mitsubishi when the carmakers met their demise.
There is one person who deserves the bulk of the credit for this and it is Premier Steven Marshall. The Liberals reduced payroll and land tax, cut the emergency services levy, lowered water bills and achieved the fastest economic growth figures of any state in Australia. SA’s energy supply – the butt of jokes in the dying days of Labor’s 16-year rule – finally has been stabilised and bills have gone down.
This new ease and optimism in the state was underscored when The Economist named Adelaide Australia’s most liveable city and the third most liveable in the world. In a case of people voting with their feet, the population figures confirm the accolade, with SA finally reversing its brain drain and scoring net positive population growth. For a state that has long fretted about the continuing exodus of its brightest to the eastern states, this stands in a symbolic sense as Mr Marshall’s greatest achievement.
For all this, the reality is that on Saturday there is a strong chance Mr Marshall may become a one-term premier. The simple reason is that he has proved himself better at policy than politics. A latecomer to politics from business, Mr Marshall has struggled to maintain good relationships with key constituencies. His land tax reforms alienated many in his base. He mishandled the internal politics of the fractious SA Liberal Party, disaffecting conservatives by running a hugely moderate-dominated cabinet, doing nothing as the state branch hounded Christian conservatives who had the apparent temerity to join a party that should be their natural home.
Most of all, he appeared to hand over the reins of government to his health chief and police commissioner throughout the pandemic. He took such a back-seat role – even amid laughable health edicts involving deadly pizza boxes and contagious footballs – that people in SA business circles regarded him as expendable.
We have not seen enough from Labor to believe it is ready to govern, especially so soon after the party’s defeat just four years ago after a lengthy and undistinguished 16 years in power. When Labor governs well it does so from the centre, and Peter Malinauskas has promised to honour the legacy of his idol, Bob Hawke, in running an Accord-inspired government where business and labour work in partnership. But we have seen little in the way of Hawke-inspired belt-tightening from the Opposition Leader – rather, a recklessness towards spending and, through the pursuit of a hydrogen plant, a baseless belief that governments can provide services that surely would be run by the private sector if the business case stacked up. While a breathless daily press conference about ambulance ramping might be a way to win government, it is not a vision for government. South Australians should reflect on what has changed economically in four years, then think hard about whether political change is warranted or deserved.“
Opinion piece in the ’tiser
“How did it go so wrong so fast for Marshall’s Liberals.
Without a major scandal to their name, Marshall’s team look destined to become the latest in a long line of one-term Liberal governments.”
No major scandals? Just some major mismanagement, both for the State and within the Liberal party then.
It does seem from this piece, and the previous post, the the Murdochipocrisy are solemnly saluting a sinking ship.
I don’t live in SA so cannot comment on this ABC article:
“A Labor election advertisement about ambulance ramping in South Australia has been found to have breached the state’s Electoral Act because it is “inaccurate and misleading”.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-18/sa-labor-told-to-drop-ramping-claim-in-election-ad/100919850
From the ABC
“A Labor election advertisement about ambulance ramping in South Australia has been found to have breached the state’s Electoral Act because it is “inaccurate and misleading.
Key points:
South Australian Liberals referred the claim that “ramping is worse than ever” to the Electoral Commissioner
After considering SA Health data, the Electoral Commissioner found the claim was inaccurate
Labor has been ordered to withdraw the advertisement and to issue corrections.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-18/sa-labor-told-to-drop-ramping-claim-in-election-ad/100919850
This is a sloppy error. The claim “ramping is worse than ever” would have been true in November, but is not true now. The central tenet that ramping is “bad” is still true of course. Running an advertisement with this statement is inherently flawed, as this is only ever going to be true at a single time point!
“ Without a major scandal to their name, Marshall’s team look destined to become the latest in a long line of one-term Liberal governments.”
Scandal free? How many MPs had to resign over expense rorts? Cabinet ministers forced to resign. Two former Liberal MPs facing charges now. Vickie Chapman stood aside as Deputy pending investigation of KI conflict of interest….
Marshall himself has been a cleanskin but his government, no way.
Yes, apparently half a dozen minor scandals in a four year term is nothing-to-see.
Sykesie
This begs the obvious question of the Australian then, why do South Australians look like throwing the Libs out? Any chance it is the Oz that is out of touch?
As reported by the Adelaide Indaily. Strangely predictable that a Lib claim of a Lab costing error would surface on the very eve of an election.
“Costing allegation looms on eve of election
The Marshall Government has seized on Labor’s election-eve costings release to accuse the Opposition of a “rookie error” in its budget modelling.
Shadow Treasurer Stephen Mullighan yesterday released Labor’s long-awaited costings summary – with non-essential public sector savings initiatives helping offset a $3.118 billion election splurge.
A $243 million increase in already-record debt and a deep draw down into $2 billion in uncommitted capital reserves would also pay for Labor’s list of pledges, he said.
But outgoing Treasurer Rob Lucas seized on the document to accuse Mullighan of “rookie errors”, saying he had misunderstood Treasury advice delivered during last year’s budget estimates about the size of the contingency fund – which he said was earmarked only for transport-related projects that would be co-funded by the Commonwealth.
“Transport-related projects are in many cases 80 per cent federal funded [whereas] health and hydrogen projects have to be 100 per cent state funded,” Lucas told reporters.
“That’s just blown completely the investing capital works projects out of the water… the only way $3 to $4 billion of promises can be funded is through a massive increase in revenue: taxes, charges, levies, the removal of exemptions and the like.
“These are rookie errors by a rookie leader and a rookie shadow treasurer.”
PaulTu
Yes, didn’t Marshall lose 5 MPs? Seems like a major scandal to me from outside SA.
Cronus – the Australian editorial might be better titled “An alternative and not especially accurate recent political history of South Australia”.
@PaulTu
There are definitely some rookie errors alright.
The fund is ‘earmarked’ for transport projects.
Who earmarked it? The South Australian Cabinet.
Who would be able to un-earmark it for transport and earmark it for another purpose? The South Australian Cabinet.
Labors commitments are only intended to be valid if they win the election (like all election costings), in which case they will be the ones making up Cabinet, in which case they can use that money for whatever they want.
I’m pretty sick of politicians lying to voters about how the budget works. Fuel Excise doesn’t fund roads. All taxes, levies and excises go to consolidated revenue. All government projects are funded by a combination of consolidated revenue and debt.
The LRP can’t keep their act together at all.
The funny thing about that piece from The Australian is that they’re painting SA as this Utopia when things are not really any better than they were four years ago, back when the same writer would have written about how the state is collapsing and it’s necessary and urgent to change government before it’s too late.
Looks like the cistern button is about to pushed in SA.
As William said in the main post above, we should expect an election eve Newspoll. While I know the recent poll got many excited, don’t be surprised if tonight’s showed closer numbers – even if there hasn’t actually been any real movement of intent among the population. 56-44 was a bit high (although not impossible of course.) A narrower result isn’t necessarily evidence of a “narrowing” or the Liberals winning back the public in the final week. It can just be a course correction (although Newspoll and YouGov are two different outlets.)
With Murdoch hacks and ABC throwing everything including proverbial kitchen sink (like KKitching death) don’t be surprised if there is rude awakening for SA Labor on election night.
Anywhere between 52-48 and 56-44 gets pretty much the same result. There are too few marginal seats – makes it all a bit boring for mine.
The state Liberals really are terrible campaigners. Why on earth would you challenge that ramping ad!? It looks like a desperate campaign clinging to any technicality it can.
All it has done is given Labor the ammunition to say- if you think it is terrible now, it was even worse back in October just when they said the health system was all set to open up to covid…
To bring that in to focus a couple of days out from an election is incomprehensibly stupid.
Maxxy agreed. “Akshually, it was even worse a couple of months ago.” isn’t exactly a great counterpoint. Although, to be fair, a few Liberals I have seen have just tried to push it as the entire thing being a lie, rather than it being technically incorrect.
As far as I can see, almost all the policy successes for which The Australian attributes 100% credit to Marshall were in fact initiatives of the previous Labor Government. Marshall has been the beneficiary, not the instigator, of those policies.
There are 2 problems that lie at the core of Marshall’s current political difficulties. The first is the disunity and chaos within the SA Liberals, yet again. It’s always been political death, and it remains so. But the second is the Government’s curious inertia. Marshall may be a moderate but to the extent the Government has executed on its initiatives, it’s been unpopular eg, privatising rail service delivery. It has few achievements to claim in its own right.
”
Maxxysays:
Friday, March 18, 2022 at 10:05 am
The state Liberals really are terrible campaigners. Why on earth would you challenge that ramping ad!? It looks like a desperate campaign clinging to any technicality it can.
All it has done is given Labor the ammunition to say- if you think it is terrible now, it was even worse back in October just when they said the health system was all set to open up to covid…
To bring that in to focus a couple of days out from an election is incomprehensibly stupid.
”
ABC News is calling the ‘Ramping ad’ a Major embarassment to SA Labor on Election eve because SAEC asked Labor to withdraw it. And Rob Lucus thinks ‘Rampingad’ is central plank SA Labor. There you go. SA Liberals changed election outcome with a stroke of genius. 🙂
I was wrong about the Tiser. It ain’t rolling over. It’s toxic today.
Let’s hope the YouGov poll was about the mark, because there’s likely to be some late tightening in the vote. All the Lib urgers have their fingers (and other parts of the anatomy) crossed.
Luckily a lot of votes are already cast.
However, Iam still weary of SA Labor victory because of the background of Peter M. He doesn’t belong to the group of political leaders who span/ spanned Australian political landscape.
That can cause many people hesitant to vote for Labor.
The Toorak Toff_says:
Friday, March 18, 2022 at 10:27 am
“I was wrong about the Tiser. It ain’t rolling over. It’s toxic today.
Let’s hope the YouGov poll was about the mark, because there’s likely to be some late tightening in the vote. All the Lib urgers have their fingers (and other parts of the anatomy) crossed.
Luckily a lot of votes are already cast.”
It was always a last minute ploy.
I think the best they can hope for is to save a little “furniture”.
I believe that even if it is a hung parliament (which I doubt) it will end up with a minority Labor government.
Or, perhaps they are hoping to retain some sort of power in the upper house.
Ah The Australian, what can you say. Imagine the editorial if a labor government had lost as many members under alleged corruption clouds. And the hilarious thing is the one thing that people give Marshall most credit for (early pandemic response) is what the Australian criticised him for.
I often wonder if the Murdoch hacks and editors can keep a straight face when they wrote such partisan garbage.
Has always been right wing but I think the 2010 election was when The Australian really flipped out.
Ven @ #25 Friday, March 18th, 2022 – 10:01 am
He is one of the main reasons people are not hesitating to vote for the ALP. He performed v well in this mornings radio debate.
But, yeah, be wary. The ALP need to pick up a lot of seats (against a first term gov that arent awful like the Fed LNP) to win as a majority gov.
There is a suggestion the polls are reflecting anger at the Morrison LNP government – either by mistake or a pox on all the RW’ers. Not sure that will fully translate to election day – however WBs header on this thread suggests this may be a thing.
If Labor wins, I wonder how long it will take before those “Election now !”, and “we’re living in a dictatorship” people resurface ?
During the Rann / Weatherill Governments, those trite phrases were repeated ad nauseum.
It is rather one sided today. They normally try harder to be covert about it. Risky strategy for a one paper town. Advertiser by name and nature but those advert dollars demand high readership and hence fairly centrist reporting. It would be terrible if this sort of media electioneering gives competing media outlets (InDaily for eg) a boost at the expense of Advertiser readership. Just terrible.
”
Martinsays:
Friday, March 18, 2022 at 10:41 am
Ah The Australian, what can you say. Imagine the editorial if a labor government had lost as many members under alleged corruption clouds. And the hilarious thing is the one thing that people give Marshall most credit for (early pandemic response) is what the Australian criticised him for.
I often wonder if the Murdoch hacks and editors can keep a straight face when they wrote such partisan garbage.
Has always been right wing but I think the 2010 election was when The Australian really flipped out.
”
What can you expect from ‘The Australian ‘ when its editor is partner of Federal LNP Cabinet Minister and Leader of one LNP parties in Senate?
Look at another instance LNP being an arm of Murdoch empire. Alex Dore, who will be parachuted into a Federal LNP electorate in Sydney, is related to Editor of ‘The Daily Murdoch rag’ of NSW.
Indaily should consider a short, sharp paper copy. Ideally twice a week. Hard to do, expensive, risky – I know. But I am sick and tired of walking into a cafe or pub or barber and seeing the twin rags of thought control – sitting on benches staring at everyone trying to create and change and reinforce opinions. The Australian and the Advertiser. FFS. And the owners dont like it when irritated lefties (I wont name them) move the propaganda to a more deserving location.
What about the upper house?
This is a lower house poll, but upper house vote shares are usually similar to the lower house, with some drop for the major parties. 11 of the 22 upper house seats will be elected by statewide proportional representation. A quota is one-twelfth of the vote, or 8.3%.
Optional preferential voting above the line is used, so a single “1” above the line will only count for the party it is cast for. To give preferences for more parties, voters must continue numbering “2”, “3”, etc above the line. Owing to optional preferential, many votes will exhaust and about half a quota (4.2%) is likely to be enough to win.
Labor’s vote in this poll is nearly enough for five quotas – the Liberals would win four quotas and the Greens one without enough surplus to be in the hunt for a second seat. The last seat would probably go to one of the Others, with One Nation or SA-Best most likely.
https://theconversation.com/labor-landslide-likely-in-south-australian-election-but-labor-greens-unlikely-to-control-upper-house-179376
I reckon this Malinauskas will win handsomely. SA certainly throws up some good ALP performer’s at state level. My position on the Murdoch press is that it has to be boycotted and then attacked and run down at every opportunity. It is a discredited and intensely biased news source. Here in Qld. it attacks the state ALP from its hard to miss front page nearly every day and closely echoes the talking points of the LNP. The Murdochcracy and its owner are an enemy of democracy. Anyway go SA Labor and start worrying Scomoe.
Listening to the ABC Adelaide interview/debate this morning really showed the contrast between the leaders. Marshall is not a good communicator and Malinauskas was able to turn most of the attack lines Marshall attempted back onto the Liberals. “Ramping has improved since October” is not a winning message when the news has been full of people dying while waiting too long for an ambulance.
Not sure how things will end up but am pretty confident of a Labor majority. Could be wrong but I just don’t think the Liberals have done enough to blunt the health message and their attacks on Mali have been weak.
Amazing how invisible most of the Liberal ministers have been other than Rob Lucas (but not surprising given their internal dramas and need to sandbag their own seats). It has allowed Mali to remain centre stage in a presidential campaign and make it seem Labor is renewed when a lot of the same Rann/Weatherill players are still in shadow cabinet. When you have a charismatic opposition leader, one of your best attacks is to shift focus to the people around him as much as possible and the Libs just haven’t done that.
The coverage in the Advertiser has been absolutely atrocious and a Labor majority on Saturday would highlight the increasing irrelevancy of Murdoch newspapers to influence public opinion. If anyone in SA bothers to read it, that editorial from the Australian will probably do more harm than good to Marshall as there is nothing people in SA hate more than someone in the eastern states criticising SA and telling us what to do.
If Marshall was a smarter politician, he would have been publicly been pushing back against Morrison about SA’s border closures and other decisions made throughout Covid (like McGowan, Andrews and, to a much lesser extent, Berejiklian before she resigned)
Billy
I thought Marshall did win quite a few brownie points when he did kick back at WoeMoe’s “open up” messages and kept our borders restricted – based on health advice.
Then, in late November, he popped his own bubble by wanting to be the first “non-Covid” state to open. Unfortunately, this coincided with Omicron and, despite health advice, our borders stayed open.
Any brownie points won by standing up to WoeMoe were well and truly lost.
State politicians, particularly those away from NSW/Vic, generally gain credibility by standing up to the Feds. WA, Qld, Tassie are other examples.
You are correct, Lucas is the only other Lib to have had some media presence – and he retires at this election.
Honestly – especially now, next to nothing in the final 24 hours of a campaign will actually change the outcome of an election. Short of something staggering…
One subtle aspect of the corruption of our media is the way that they pick up predictable and false claims about Labor’s costings and feel the need to publish them like a real story.
It would be one thing if a proper journalist looked closely at BOTH parties’ costings and wrote an article about any ACTUAL issues with them. But that’s not what is happening here. Instead, the “news” story is that the Liberal Party, with the most obvious bias and self-interest imaginable, SAY there’s a problem.
A real media organisation would consider that claim and not run a story unless it had some basis in reality. Instead, the ABC runs it as a major story on the basis of nothing other than the Liberal Party’s say so.
Something tells me that if if the ALP asserted something equivalent about the Libs it wouldn’t get the same run…
The bookies are not persuaded that the last ditch propaganda spree by the media is going to bite, Libs still out at $4-5 which is about as bad as they can be without a total implosion. $4.50 in sport is what you get when the Crows play Melbourne.
$5 for Libs to be sworn in? Hmmmmm. Worth a lazy fiver?
From the Oz:
Most liveable SA flirts with rejection of capable leader
There is no sensible economic argument for the removal of the Marshall government. The past four years have been marked by recovery and renewal. But Steven Marshall has proved himself better at policy than politics.
What a shame. Another one of their heroes is going down.
Basically the polls are saying the South Australians are going to throw out a perfectly okay government after a single term. During a pandemic.
If they’re going to be so naive and stupid, then God isn’t going to bother saving them from Malino-Mask-us.
We can’t bet on politics in SA (I put a few hundred on Labor at $2.60 about 2 months ago and they accepted it (Sportsbet) and then it was rejected. I’m sure I could VPN to a pretend to be from another state but I’d probably stuff it up.
I gather about 30% of votes will be in by now (pre-poll or postal). I’m not sure how much that locks in a Labor win as it might be the rusted-ons from both sides rather than the swinging voters. My little health world is definitely saying a Labor win but health care workers hate the government/SA Health more than any group.
Nostradamus
“Basically the polls are saying the South Australians are going to throw out a perfectly okay government after a single term.”
Apart from Health (including Covid) I would say that’s fairly true. The party is a shambles though with lots of MPs leaving or getting booted out or sidelined like Chapman for a blatant conflict of interest and a very disgruntled right wing.
Basically, they are saying they only threw out the ALP last time because they had been in for so long. The Liberal party havent been really bad, but not good enough compared to peoples memory of the time under Weatherill. And they like Malinauskas while Marshall has been underwhelming; both in keeping his party united (and keeping the loonies out) and focussed on SA and in other matters (the opening up, Land tax, Health etc). He was underwhelming before he got elected so perhaps people should have expected that.
And….. the most liked and respected and senior liberal politician is retiring.
I note how the Advertiser has gone quite rogue today in a one-paper (Murdoch) city, a bit like Brisbane. Furthermore, it surprises me that despite Murdoch’s ongoing antipathy for the ALP, the voters remain unmoved and continue at a state level to re-elect ALP governments. If I apply that same logic, it should mean that Murdoch’s efforts and the ALP’s results at the national level should be repeated but obviously that isn’t so. Does anybody have a semi-scientific theory as to why this is the case?
Diogenes @ #45 Friday, March 18th, 2022 – 12:25 pm
“But aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, the play was pretty good.”
Cronus, nothing has changed from the media and it’s support of the Libs in S.A. in the last 50 years. But they already have all the voters they might sway. The Media is failing, look at hard copy sales, and digital is not working how they’d like. Social Media means people (can) get to hear the real news, free of RW influence, (to a degree). Federally, things have changed even since 2019, in regard to people’s mistrust of the media.
Cronus @ #47 Friday, March 18th, 2022 – 12:31 pm
I’d hazard a guess and say they’re not as influential as they once were, which is probably the reason they double down into their ideological leanings. As fewer read them, the remaining base tend to be the more older, traditional and more conservative of society, who are fine with being told more right wing stuff because it aligns more with their own views.
It’s sort of the same thing you see with something like Fox News which, in the late 90s/early 00s was seen as right-leaning but still giving fair coverage by the casual viewer (and a balance to what was seen as a liberal lean from other networks.) by the 10s, its mask was skipping (it failed to read the room on Obama) and was just seen as blatant right wing propaganda, losing casual viewers but gaining rusted-on Republicans. Now it’s just a network for hard-to-far right radicalisation because its viewers are now an ideological bubble. Not saying the Australian papers will end up in the same place, just drawing out the parallels.
As for why voters re-elect Coalition federal Governments. I don’t think that’s the media. I just think this is happening at a time when the Coalition happen to be in power. The Coalition won in 2019 because of good campaigning by Morrison and the Liberals, and a woeful misread of public sentiment by Labor.