The Advertiser today carries a poll of South Australian state voting intention from YouGov (no online report at the time of writing, but the site should have one by morning), crediting Peter Malinauskas’s Labor government with an extraordinary two-party lead of 67-33. This suggests a 12.5% swing which, if uniform, would reduce the Liberals to five seats out of 47. Labor is at 48% on the primary vote, up from 40.0% at the March 2022 election; Liberals are on 21%, down from 35.7%; the Greens are on 14%, up from 9.1%; and One Nation are on 7%, up from 2.6% from 19 seats contested. The poll was conducted May 15 to 28 from a sample of 903. UPDATE: The Advertiser’s report here.
UPDATE 2: Further results in the Sunday Mail show Malinauskas with 70% approval, 18% disapproval and a 72-14 lead over Liberal leader Vincent Tarzia as preferred premier, with Tarzia on 22% approval and 31% disapproval.
Further developments ahead of the state election scheduled for March 21 next year, most involving the cross-bench, the major parties having been diverted over recent months by the federal election:
• Labor last week announced candidates for five seats: James Agness, state government housing policy adviser, in the safe Gawler-based seat of Light, which is being vacated with incumbent Tony Piccolo’s bid to win the neighbouring seat of Ngadjuri from the Liberals; Aria Bulkus, solicitor and daughter of Hawke-Keating government minister Nick Bolkus, in Colton, which Matt Cowdrey holds for the Liberals on a post-redistribution margin of 5.0%; “senior lawyer” Alice Rolls in Unley, which has a Liberal margin of 2.6%, and will be vacated at the election with the retirement of David Pisoni; Marisa Bell, Onkaparinga councillor, intensive care nurse and recent federal candidate for Mayo, in Heysen (held for the Liberals by Josh Teague on a margin of 2.3%); and Toby Priest, St Thomas School teacher and Immanuel College boarding supervisor, in Morphett (held for the Liberals by Stephen Patterson on a margin of 4.6%).
• Greens co-leader Tammy Franks quit the party in mid-May and said she would serve out her term as an independent. Franks did not contest the party’s preselection last year, and now says she made way for parties motivated by “ambition and self-interest” – presumably referring to Adelaide Hills deputy mayor Melanie Selwood, who was chosen to head the party’s upper house ticket. Franks said at the time she would retire at the election, but now says she will consider running. A finding against Franks by the party’s misconduct committee was subsequently leaked to the media.
• A week later, One Nation’s sole member, Sarah Game, quit the party citing issues with “the way the One Nation brand is perceived” and saying she wished to advocate for all “regardless of their heritage or religious beliefs” (this week she applied to register the party name “Sarah Game Fair Go for Australians”). Pauline Hanson and her chief-of-staff, James Ashby, retorted that this came a week after Game’s mother, Jennifer Game, was denied her ambition to lead the party’s upper house ticket. The elder Game had been lined up to lead the ticket at the 2022 election, but instead opted for the first of two unsuccessful runs for the Senate, while her then little-known daughter won the state seat in her stead.
• Former Liberal MLC Jing Lee announced in May she would contest the election under the Jing Lee Better Community banner. Lee quit the party in January ahead of an anticipated preselection defeat, support for her reportedly having tanked after she unexpectedly failed to support changes to abortion laws.
Missed the news about Tony Piccolo. Why exactly is he contesting Ngadjuri?
Under the redistribution, areas north of Gawler River – including Ward Belt, Gawler River, Gawler Belt, Buchfelde and Hewett – have been shifted from Light into Ngadjuri. Mr Piccolo, who has represented Light since 2006, said his potential move has been prompted by the redraw. “I have, over time, represented up to a third of this new electorate,” he said. “Therefore, it is appropriate that I now take time to consider whether I should contest the new Light or the new seat of Ngadjuri at the 2026 state election.” Mr Piccolo’s departure would open the door for a new Labor candidate to take Light, which has a margin of nearly 20 per cent that escaped the redistribution unscathed.
That is one heck of a swing. I am not sure it will pulled off in real life but then again, WA has shown that massive margins are possible.
As for One Nation coming apart at the seams, the odds were going to be very short on that happening. I am not sure what the benefit to Hanson and Ashby is in having state representatives at all.
As for the Greens, it looks like they love dumping internal reports on members who have defected. It is almost like they prepare one on every representative in case they defect.
“ I am not sure what the benefit to Hanson and Ashby is in having state representatives at all.”
$$$$$$$$$$
One nation is a money making scheme. Throw out the odd “populist” scrap, dump on non Middle Aged Balding White Men, and pick up a couple of dollars per vote. Make the candidates pay for their own campaigns, and gazinga, you’re rich.
SAs tilt towards Labor is historic and probably a Harbinger for other states. Labor has caught the middle ground in a political system that irons out the extremes unlike the UK or USA. The LNP has become unelectable due to the pig headedness of its policy framework which will not acknowledge reality and increasingly sees it’s reason for existence as creating tax shelters for the financially well endowed and entrenching privilege whilst seeing existential crisis like climate change as an impediment to exploiting the world’s resources on the path to doomsday. The influence of our extreme right wing media is now a washout and the murdochracy has been proven to be impotent like an old fellow who remembers once being a bully but now cowers in a dark room. The LNP is in a woeful situation and they’ve earnt it.
This poll may be a bit high for Labor but there are many reasons for it. Malinauskas is a competent manager of the SA economy and a good communicator.
But the main reason is the SA Liberals are a rabble. Four MPs from the former Marshal government have been charged with various crimes. The remainder of the party is now dominated by a far right Pentecostal Christian faction that is promoted by the Adelaide equivalent of Hillsong. Their only policy interest seems to be regressive moves like rolling back abortion laws. They are unelectable.
This is hardly a huge surprise. If Albo et al can ALMOST make a clean sweep of every federal polling booth in metropolitan Adelaide, then the sky is the limit for the SA State Labor government. It’s not exactly a controversial statement to say that the SA state Labor govt is more popular than the federal one. Heck, when your Thatcherite baby boomer father says things like “Malinauskus is great for SA”, you know the liberals have a huge problem.
My view from a safe country Liberal seat… Shocking I know. The Liberal’s are a wreck, the government should be taking skin on the ramping issue which was the big issue that Malinauskus won office on and has failed to address but the opposition are non existent. Look this is not at the high end of the scale at all, the Liberals are a mess and just aren’t getting a coherent message out to the community despite having a very friendly news agency in the Advertiser at their disposal. The liberals just have to hope and pray they don’t lose Ashton Hurns seat because she is the only semblance of hope now. As a country liver this Labor government has largely ignored us but they can get away with that because most of the country seats are now held by conservative independents. Look the liberals have to rewin the city to retake office and I can’t see that happening for decades currently.
Nice news to start the day with. Jolly good show!
I am sure Labor’s thinking about Tony Piccolo is to achieve 2 things. First, the need for generational change, with James Agness being 30 years younger and a Gawler local. The second reason is that Penny Pratt holds Ngadjuri on a post redistribution margin of 3.3%. A third of the voters have moved across from Piccolo’s stronghold in Light. Labor will never have a better chance to pick this up and Piccolo is the perfect candidate.
It’s funny, I was about to make a post about the state of play in SA heading to next year’s election and I was worried I was being a bit too bullish for Labor, maybe I wasn’t bullish enough!
With the caveat that it’s still nine months away and it just takes one bad (or good, depending on your perspective) week to change everything, I will say it’s looking apocolyptic for the Liberal Party in SA right now.
I am going to remain skeptical that Labor’s 2PP support is that high but it doesn’t shock me to see polling numbers like this, nor would it totally shock me if the election result looks like this.
The Liberal Party has been absolutely useless as an opposition. Outside of people who are highly engaged, nobody could tell you who the Opposition Leader is. Sure, the maxim about governments losing elections, rather than oppositions winning them is especially true when talking about state politics but they’re just completely catatonic. Nobody wants to step up and try something, they’re just waiting for a moment. Ambitious frontbenchers are playing the long game and then there’s the factional games going on behind the scenes which have reached boiling point (and we haven’t even yet seen the full effect of the insurgency of the hard right.)
We recently had our state budget (the last before the election) and they barely said a peep.
As for the Opposition Leader, his name is Vincent Tarzia (don’t worry, you’ll forget it by the time you finish reading this sentence) and he makes Matthew Guy look like Bob Menzies. He is such a non-entity, it’s especially absurd as you remember he actually won the leadership in a challenge a little while ago. Funnily enough, Labor are in a strong enough position right now (not just this poll but based on recent electoral history) that he might well lose his seat.
But really, it doesn’t matter who’s at the top of the party, they’re just so broken right now, I don’t think anybody could steer the ship in a better direction right now – not even the much lauded Hurn. Unless something radically changes in the next nine months, they just need to take their medicine and hope there’s something to build from. Although, I have a feeling that, based on their rise in the ranks, the Labor Right might want to see a total cleanout, so they can refill seats held by moderates and liberals with their own.
And, also, credit where credit is due, the Malinauskas Labor Government have done well to this point. I do have some issues with them and Malinauskas himself but I can’t deny they’ve managed things well and that things are looking optimistic under them. I also can’t deny the superb political acumen of Malinauskas, a conservative shoppie, who has successfully downplayed his own conservative politics and, unlike some other centrist governments of late, manages to still give enough to the Left to keep them onside (rather than just stubbornly gatekeeping) as well as maintain a good working relationship with the Greens.
Among people I talk to, be they centrist, left-wing or even mildly conservative, or just not really ideologically aligned, I don’t really hear a bad word said about the state government or Malinauskas. Albanese and federal Labor, yes, but not the state government.
This bubble will burst one day and the Liberals will find a new wind but I don’t see that any time soon. Then again, if you had asked me in late 2009, I’d have said the same about the Rann Government and the Liberal opposition at the time and that didn’t take long to change (yes I know that Labor won two subsequent elections but that was due to successful sandbagging of marginals – their popular vote had tanked and looked nothing like their pre-2010 polling) but I guess the one difference is, even in the doldrums of Kerin-Evans-MHS, they still were visible and vocal. Even if their attacks didn’t land, they still happened. Now, there’s nothing from this “opposition.”
Also, with the acknowledgement that predicting upper house results can be a bit of a fool’s game, I did some calculating of what the LC results would be if the SA Senate vote in this year’s federal election was replicated for the LC (I did it before this poll dropped) and, while it is very back-of-the-envelope, there was a good chance it would look like this:
ALP: 5
Lib: 3
Green: 2
ONP: 1
If the numbers look like they do in this poll, it’s quite possible that the change to the above could be the Liberals dropping to 2 and Labor rising to 6. Of course, as with all upper house votes, assumptions are made and there’s no way of truly knowing what the respective votes will be or how well the preferences flow, so take this all with a grain of salt.
The Saturday Paper has a good piece on Alex Antic, part of which supports Socrates’ previous (8:26 am) point:
“Behind the scenes in South Australia, however, Antic has built a formidable power base, aided mainly by an influx of conservative and Pentecostal-aligned members who party insiders say are driving moderates out of local branches and taking control of the state party machinery. This shift in the state branch is giving Antic an outsized influence over candidate selection and internal policy debates.
It’s a pattern Liberal moderates say is repeating across the country – making the party unelectable in the ACT and near-unelectable in Victoria.
In the bruised aftermath of the party’s May 3 election rout, Antic has emerged as a symbol of what the Liberals could become if the party follows his right-wing populist instincts: combative, anti-establishment, unbothered by the political centre, and completely irrelevant when it comes to winning elections.”
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2025/06/21/very-dangerous-man-how-alex-antic-shaping-the-liberals
Reading The Saturday Paper’s article on Alex Antic and his control of the SA Liberals this polling is no surprise.
I don’t hear a bad word about ‘Mali’ from ANYONE. As the above poll indicates, he is universally liked if not admired. Things seem to always be happening in ‘sleepy’ old Adelaide…..an epithet that is well and truly past its use by date. As is that other piece of absolute inaccurate BS, “The City of Churches”….most of which have been repurposed into something actually useful. The economy is doing well, and is far from being the laggard within the Aust system. SA remains very, very livable and pleasant as always. So with zero drag, so far, from a Federal Labor Government, and an extremely competent State Labor administration, led by a charismatic, popular and politically savvy Mali 67-33 is about where I would have guessed….a 2PP with a 7 in front would not be beyond the realms of possibility.
The opposition?….what opposition, they are utterly irrelevant.
Oh dear, they are in trouble for decades to come.
Ashton Hurn is rated as some sort of messiah for the Libs. She is not. She is definitely competent and would make a good Minister, but she would get eaten alive if she had to go toe to toe with the Premier and his front bench on a day to day basis.
That is the consequence though of Antic being allowed to take over the party. There is no new talent coming through and too much gets placed upon too few who could probably perform ok at a lower level, but really aren’t up to the task of turning a sinking ship like this one around.
”
Socratessays:
Saturday, June 21, 2025 at 8:26 am
This poll may be a bit high for Labor but there are many reasons for it. Malinauskas is a competent manager of the SA economy and a good communicator.
But the main reason is the SA Liberals are a rabble. Four MPs from the former Marshal government have been charged with various crimes. The remainder of the party is now dominated by a far right Pentecostal Christian faction that is promoted by the Adelaide equivalent of Hillsong. Their only policy interest seems to be regressive moves like rolling back abortion laws. They are unelectable.
”
SA Libs lost all their leaders seats after the leader resigned for one reason or other, which I extraordinary.
Supporters of Libs don’t seem to understand that their nihilistic, retrograde policies are destroying Liberal party in general and states units in particular.
People like Antic, Credlin, Abbott and Dutton have destroyed Liberal party.
This is existential crisis for Liberal party. They are not backing from their stated position in fear of murdocracy.
Either Antic or Liberal party should be destroyed. Take your pick Liberal party.
If Liberal party needs to survive, the Antics, the Deemings need to go
I’d be fine with Antic and the Liberal Party being destroyed.
Conservatives are poison to national polity.
Ghost of Whitlam
“ I’d be fine with Antic and the Liberal Party being destroyed.”
+1 The Liberals have abandoned every principle their own party was founded on.
What good do they serve the nation?
Wow, the numbers in that poll sure are out there, yet also believable. That Saturday Paper article on Antic shed the reason why on it, South Australians don’t seem to be liking the attempts led by him to Trumpify the Liberal Party.
Honestly, as a Schubert voter, I HOPE Ashtons’ seat is at risk of being swapped, because at the moment it’s pretty secure, meaning that (at least until this poll) anyone blue could walk in and get elected. Yes, it’d be nice to see a few things done here (we do need a serious modernisation of our hospitals) but realistically nothing will happen unless the seat becomes marginal. Same applies to a lot of the regional/rural seats that are safe.
On the day Malinauskas Labor won the election, Credlin was all praise for Malinauskas, praising him to be true Labor leader.
The only criticisms about Malinauskas are from nath and Diogenes.
nath doesn’t like because he belonged to SDA union
Diogenes doesn’t like him because Diogenes thinks Malinauskas Labor government did a bad job.
Almost certainly a Majority Labor gov. Labor is ahead outside the margin of error in every indicator I’m aware of (the keys, the polls, various economic indicators, and a handful of things I won’t bother mentioning)
The Albonatorsays:
Saturday, June 21, 2025 at 10:26 am
Things seem to always be happening in ‘sleepy’ old Adelaide…..an epithet that is well and truly past its use by date. As is that other piece of absolute inaccurate BS, “The City of Churches”….most of which have been repurposed into something actually useful.
__________________
I visited Adelaide for the first time mid-last year, around the time of the Illuminate festival. Really enjoyed the visit and the place in general, felt more Melbourne-like than Sydney (Sydney being the only Australian capital I can definitive say I don’t like).
It was a short visit and there was a bookshop across the road from the casino that deserves a deeper exploration.
“It’s a pattern Liberal moderates say is repeating across the country – making the party unelectable in the ACT and near-unelectable in Victoria.”
Is the Liberal Party really near-unelectable in Victoria? Current polling has the Allan government on track to lose when the next Victorian election is held in 17 months’ time. Goodbye Suburban Rail Loop, hello East-West link!
The last polling of 49-51 in VIC a few months ago isn’t having them “on track to lose”. They are likely to remain the government under such numbers by a pendulum which gives them a good number of seats which are just outside reach of Liberals. Then one has to consider that the Liberals haven’t had a good last month or two since the Federal election which those numbers aren’t covering.
So here we go again with the “vic ALP on track to lose”. It’s just not true. Seven, the Costello network, 10, the Age, Murdoch and Sky keep telling us that, but Moira and co keep demonstrating why it is a fantasy.
Dan was on track to lose too according to those same sources.
This thread is on SA polling…..
I made the mistake of watching the channel nine news tonight! Struth, they interviewed a member of the Canberra young liberals, for dog’s sake. No mention of the imploding state opposition. They’re not even pretending to be neutral. And yet the polls are level pegging. That is not how you win 19 seats…..
Preferred Premier figures = +58 Mali (72 Mali, 14 Tarzia, 14 Undecided)
Mali Net Satisfaction = +52 (70-18-12 undecided)
Tarzia Net Satisfaction = -9 (22-31-47 undecided)
Other details from the Advertiser article:
“Mr Malinauskas enjoyed a 70 per cent or better rating across almost every age group, region, parental status and gender. Even in traditional Liberal bases, among the 65-plus age group and outside metropolitan Adelaide, Mr Malinauskas had preferred premier ratings of 72 per cent and 69 per cent respectively.
….
The YouGov poll, of 903 respondents conducted from May 15-28, showed Mr Malinauskas had a net satisfaction rating of 52 per cent, with 70 per cent satisfied with his leadership, 18 per cent dissatisfied and 12 per cent undecided.
In a similar result to preferred premier, at least two-thirds of respondents were satisfied with Mr Malinauskas’s leadership performance across every category.”
There is no good news for the SA Liberals there – very unlikely they will recover much in the next 9 months, especially with their factional infighting. Only reason Tarzia is safe from a challenge is that there are no better options.
If nothing changes, Malinauskas will likely be proclaimed Supreme Leader of the Proud & Democratic One-Party Labor State of South Australia after the election next March.
Long may he reign!
I am not really that enamoured with Ashton Hurn TBH. Nothing she has said or done over the last term has really indicated to me that she’s a Premier-in-waiting. I think of all the Liberal lower house MPs elected in 2022, she’s probably the best prospect and, on paper, she seems like the ideal state Liberal leader (young moderate woman who also happens to originally be from the country) but I don’t think she’s the secret weapon that some in the media/commentariat act like she is.
Who knows, maybe if she manages to survive this dark period for the party, she’ll climb to the top at the right time but I don’t think that she’s some sort of destined political figure.
“I am not really that enamoured with Ashton Hurn TBH. Nothing she has said or done over the last term has really indicated to me that she’s a Premier-in-waiting. I think of all the Liberal lower house MPs elected in 2022, she’s probably the best prospect and, on paper, she seems like the ideal state Liberal leader (young moderate woman who also happens to originally be from the country) but I don’t think she’s the secret weapon that some in the media/commentariat act like she is.”
I don’t know if the media are clutching at straws or just trying to keep things interesting but I completely agree.
I remember reading a column from Matthew Abraham a few years ago talking about the “Flint factor” and how Malinauskas’ worst nightmare would be if Nicolle Flint running were to run for state politics and contesting the leadership. Clearly South Australian ‘insiders’ are just as clueless as the national ones.
“Diogenes doesn’t like him because Diogenes thinks Malinauskas Labor government did a bad job.”
They have been terrible on delivering. Ramping is through the roof despite $8B being pissed up against the wall. The Bragg Centre is a $500m white elephant. The nWCH has gone back to the drawing board and will blow out even more than it has. The Indigenous art gallery isn’t going to happen. Homelessness is the highest ever. As are electricity prices. The hydrogen fantasy camp has died. And $48B in debt.
But we do have Gather Round, Drunk Golf, Katy Perry and a car race. Vroom vroom.
What we don’t have is an opposition. Ashton isnt going to challenge before the election. Trust me.
mabwm, I don’t want to cross thread, but the connection is Antic. This is who the liberals are now; Antic and Deeming.
Leave the theories of vic results to other threads, but that religious fervour thing is a thing, and I’m not sure the liberals know how to get a handle on it. I’m not even sure that ‘the liberals’ are anything but that now. This could be another alp/lib hammering on the cards, and they’re still pushing the anti-renewables messaging. The mind boggles. SA is the most advanced grid in the world. These choices are stark.
Maxxy, I vividly remember back when they were pushing for Alexander Downer to enter state politics and take over the leadership, convinced he would be unstoppable and overestimating how many people actually gave a shit about who he is.
Looking at numbers like those, one wonders whether a double-dissolution election is a potential play for Malinauskas here. If I recall correctly it’s a theoretical constitutional possibility in SA but has never been done before.
Probably not worth the risk of derailing what currently looks like a romp re-election but interesting to think about.
Paul Thomas @ #35 Monday, June 23rd, 2025 – 2:15 pm
Huh, you’re right, it is possible in theory for a DD election in South Australia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_dissolution#South_Australian_double_dissolutions
On these numbers, Labor could possibly get a majority of 12/22 seats in such a case, but since they’re probably on track for 10-11 seats anyway if they win 5 or 6 out of 11 in a normal election, it’s probably not worth the trouble, especially since they seem to be going just fine getting their agenda through the upper house at the moment.
I don’t think there are currently any triggers for a DD and legislation seems to pass through the Legislative Council pretty smoothly (especially contrasted to the Rann-Weatherill days, when there was a bitter fight with the chamber at times, nutcases like Ann Bressington holding the state hostage, leading to the Government threatening to abolish the chamber at one point), so I don’t really see the need to do such a drastic move, as it could definitely backfire (you’d need to establish some trigger legislation filled with poison pills that are unacceptable to both Liberals and the crossbench, which could reflect badly on the government, not to mention the whole messiness of the situation could cause the public to turn against the Government.
It’s also worth remembering that, unlike some eastern state counterparts, SA Labor and SA Greens actually have a decent working relationship that isn’t as bitter. I don’t think it’s worth jeopardising that with such a bad faith action either. Just continue to govern like adults and leave the immature bickering to their eastern state counterparts.
If there are indeed no available triggers, then there wouldn’t be much point in it; the time required to set up the DD would be such that you’d pretty much be on regular election time anyway. Still, an amusing construct.
Any government at any level going to an election early is courting disaster – it even backfired on Hawke in 1984. We love elections. The general public loathe them. They find voting once every couple of years onerous enough.
The Antic style forces in Victoria have done exactly the same thing as in SA. It has taken a while but the general public is on to it now – just ask Albo!
I met Vincent Tarzia a few years ago when he was first running. I was in SA during the last week of the election as a ‘civics’ project for my kids who were doing VCE politics at the time. Got them a close up look at the inner workings of an election campaign. He was a complete non-entity. It would appear he has failed to grow in to the job.
I think a DD would look arrogant. Mali gets everything passed anyway so there isn’t much point.
I bet he dumps Picton while ramping is at horrendous levels at the end of winter for Boyar and helps cut his losses in Health. Picton looks awful and he’s completely lost control of his department.
Sorry Diogenes, you do spruik some rubbish. The Gov’t has made major progress on Health and perhaps you might have another look at those polling numbers. Fair dinkum, you are a plonker.
@MABWM: Yes, there does seem to be a much stronger norm against early elections in Aus (and NZ, for that matter) than in other Westminster countries; e.g. it doesn’t appear that voters have punished recent early election calls in the UK or Canada, or at least not more so than they were inevitably destined to punish them anyway. That norm seems to contradict the purpose of the double-dissolution procedure, which is to prevent US-style deadlocks and provide an indirect method for the public to ensure the passage of bills that have majority support but are blocked by holdover members of the respective upper house. Perhaps a referendum system like that in place in NSW would better serve SA’s populace. But I am getting far afield into abstract constitutional theory.
The anti-early-election norm of course calls the question of what voters are likely to do with… whatever the heck is going on in Tasmania at present, where arguably both the Libs and Labor bear some responsibility. It would seem a consistent hypothesis that both major parties are cruising for a bruising there, but the only polling that I’ve seen since the election call is on the Macquarie Point stadium and not voting intention. Then again, since both major parties seem to have inexplicably nailed their colors to the mast on that issue, perhaps that poll is consistent with the “major party collapse” theory after all.
I missed this when it came out, but AEC has posted the final results in the federal election as well, including the remaining 2PP count in Bradfield, which went 54.95-45.05 to the Libs. The rather Scooby-Doo-villain-esque suggestions from certain quarters that Labor might actually have won that seat if it weren’t for those meddling Teal wine moms can finally be dispensed with, and my hat, which I promised to eat if the Bradfield 2PP went Labor’s way, is officially safe from consumption.
Looking at the preferences, of the total electorate, 13.28% had the final three ranked Boele-Kapterian-McCallum, while 8.32% had the preference order McCallum-Kapterian-Boele. The only thing we don’t know is exactly what percentage of the Kapterian-first group had McCallum ahead of Boele; we might be able to model that to get a hypothetical Labor-Teal heads-up estimate by looking at Fremantle and Bean.
Actually, scratch that– I’m now seeing that the AEC is NOT saying the Bradfield 2PP count is final; rather, it’s only mathematically modeled.
My hat fears for its life again.
Kate Hulett (Fremantle) got 74.4% of Liberal 3CP preferences (note: this is not the same as her percentage of Liberal FIRST preferences). She managed to win at least 52.9% of every single losing party’s first preferences, which is actually kind of impressive considering that those parties were Socialist Alliance, Greens, One Nation, Family First and the Libs. It’s like a beautiful rainbow harmony of cranks and cookers.
Jessie Price (Bean) achieved an even more robust 79.8% of Liberal 3CP preferences.
Roughly splitting the difference between the two and using round numbers, we can estimate that Boele probably beats Labor about 72,000 to 40,000 or about 64-36 by percentage. Boele is thus the Condorcet winner of the three.
Wow… when WA threw the Libs into the bin in 2021 I thought I’d gotten a once-in-a-lifetime dose of schadenfreude – but it’s looking like I’ll get to gleefully watch it happen in my own state. Couldn’t happen to a nicer group of Libs.
This, along with the 3rd of May, are just snapshots of what the conservative forces in Australian politics have been sowing for decades now. Once the Australian public started to see the consequences of right-wing Thatcherite economic policies – including turbocharging inequality, gutting the public sector, selling off public assets en masse, and outsourcing services to for-profit corporations run by pollies’ mates, family and former colleagues – the kind of economics designed to leech the wealth of the the middle and working classes to fill the pockets of the upper class was seen by most Australians for what it is, and the conservatives began to follow a strategy of distracting the public with various other “issues”, either blown out of proportion or fabricated out of whole cloth by their media mates in order to continue getting elected. So we had the MV Tampa in 2001, the boats in 2013, or Laura Norder at countless state elections, as nauseam. Running out of ideas, they’ve more recently turned to a page taken out of their US mates’ playbook – culture wars, especially worrying about who pees in what loo, or whether one has to call Arthur Martha – things that 90% of the crop of Liberal MPs back in, say, 2004 could not have given a single flying fuck about. But catching a glimpse of electoral gain via hitching their wagon to the culture war horse, the Libs happily welcomed a handful of cookers in, starting in the mid-to-late-90s and accelerating over the past 15 years or so, to rile up low-information voters and keep them voting for the interests of the robber barons of late capitalism.
Problem is, the Libs have lost control over the cookers, who are devouring the party like a horde of piranhas devouring a fresh victim. The coolers can still win elections in the US, where you only really need to win over 20% of the electorate if you can dishearten your opponents’ supporters enough to stay at home on election day. That isn’t possible here. The Alex Antics, Eric Abetzes and, yes, Moira Deemings of the Australian right have been expectantly waiting for their buddies at the Murdoch rags to whip up bile at their local ALP governments until they collapse so they can sweep in and save the day from us gay, them-pronouned, unwashed godless communists.
But thankfully, Australians seem to see the Liberals of 2025 for what they are – a bunch of racist uncles ranting about Welcome to Country over Xmas lunch, with no plan for anything beyond demonising trans people and saying “war on woke” until their eyes start bleeding. They’re unelectable, and deservedly so, and every small-l Liberal who let these people in to win a few extra votes off Pauline and Clive only have themselves and their own craven actions to blame.
I for one look forward to the utter irrelevance of the Coalition across our wonderful country – nasty politics pushed by nasty, selfish, sociopathic people, which deserves to be buried along with the (non-Clive) UAP and Nationalist parties.
Don’t let the door hit you in the arse on the way out, Vincent.
Another general-election trivium (and WB, please feel free to tell me to put a sock in it if you wish; I just feel like neutral pseph stuff tends to get swallowed up in the Stalingrad-like Labor/Greens warring of the open threads): it appears Labor made the top 3 in 148 of 150 House districts. An impressive achievement, but can you guess the two outliers? One is fairly obvious if you know who the candidates were, the other is… not. In fact, it shocked me.
Paul Thomas @ #47 Tuesday, June 24th, 2025 – 2:53 pm
I can only find Calare as one of the outliers, what’s the other?
>Wow… when WA threw the Libs into the bin in 2021 I thought I’d gotten a once-in-a-lifetime dose of schadenfreude
Are you not counting the 2015 QLD election?
Sadly, it was Indi where Labor finished fourth. Pollbludger stalwart Zoomster was a competitive Labor candidate in Indi in the past.