With less than three weeks to go before the formal campaign period, the pace is picking up ahead of the March 21 South Australian election, including one particularly notable development overnight:
• One Nation announced yesterday that its Legislative Council ticket will be led by Cory Bernardi, who held a South Australian Senate seat from 2006 to 2020. Bernardi served as a Liberal until 2017, when he quit to form the short-lived Australian Conservatives. The party was abolished after its failure at the 2019 election, and he quit the Senate in January 2020. He has since maintained a profile as a conservative pundit and Sky News presenter. Bernardi’s elevation requires the demotion of the existing candidates on the ticket, which was to be headed by Victor Harbor councillor Carlos Quaremba. The party says it will field candidates in all 47 seats: its website currently records 31 lower candidates, together with three (soon to be four) for the upper house.
• Labor’s new candidate for the safe inner northern Adelaide seat of Enfield is Lawrence Ben, principal economic adviser to Peter Malinauskas. Ben fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Andrea Michaels, the Labor member since 2019, who last week announced she wished to return to her legal career. Michaels has served in the ministry since 2022 in consumer and business affairs, small and family business and the arts, the latter placing her at the centre at the recent imbroglio around the removal of Randa Abdel-Fattah from the Writers Week event at the Adelaide Festival.
• The Advertiser reports on a poll of the seat of Mount Gambier, which has been vacant since independent member Troy Bell resigned in September after the failure of his appeal against a fraud conviction. The poll records 23.1% support for independent Travis Fatchen, an electorate officer to Bell who is running as an independent. This is presumably exclusive of a 22% undecided component, which would effectively put Fatchen at 30%. A “hypothetical preference distribution” records Fatchen with a two-candidate preferred lead of 61.7-38.3 over Liberal candidate Lamorna Alexander. We are further told Labor is on 17% and that “conservative support was split between the Liberals, One Nation and independent Cody Scholes”, presumably suggesting each is on around 12% or 13%. Also included was a preferred premier question showing Peter Malinauskas with a 49.6-13.8 lead over Ashton Hurn.
• Other notable independent candidates include Port Lincoln business owner Meghan Petherick in Flinders, whose prospects have been rated highly by Aden Hill of The Advertiser; Matt Schultz, director of international recruitment at Flinders University and president of the Mount Barker Football Club, in Kavel, where he has the endorsement of outgoing independent member Dan Cregan; Airlie Keen, manager of Dan Cregan’s electorate office, who will run again in Hammond, where she polled 15.7% in 2022 and fell 306 short of reducing Labor to third place; and Claire Boan, mayor of Port Adelaide Enfield, in Port Adelaide, which will be vacated with the retirement of Susan Close.
• Former One Nation MLC Sarah Game’s Fair Go for Australians party has changed its lead upper house candidate for a second time. The ticket will now be led by Chris McDermott, the inaugural captain of the Adelaide Crows who played 138 AFL games with the club from 1991 to 1998, who was announced amid great fanfare as the party’s candidate for Dunstan a fortnight ago. He replaces Jake Hall-Evans, managing director of a signage and graphic business and the Liberals’ federal candidate for Hindmarsh in 2019, who will now run in the lower house seat of Colton. The originally named lead candidate was Henry Davis, Adelaide councillor and former Liberal preselection aspirant Henry Davis, who was replaced by Hall-Evans in December, which he claims he first heard of upon reading it in The Advertiser. At around the same time, Davis convened a meeting of the party’s incorporated association, at which he was the only member present, and declared that Game and her key allies were no longer members due to non-payment of their fees.
• The Nationals have announced as their lead upper house candidate Rikki Lambert, a former chief-of-staff to Victorian federal MP Anne Webster and Bob Day during his time as a Family First Senator. Lambert has run as an Australian Conservatives candidate at both federal and state elections. Port Lincoln councillor Dylan Cowley will run for the party in Flinders, while party state president Jonathan Pietzch is the candidate for MacKillop.
Can we please keep this thread for discussion of South Australian state politics. The open thread for general discussion is here.
Less than 3 months to go? True I guess
It should be an interesting test of where One Nation support is actually at although they haven’t got much time to prepare
I’m hoping they flop
Would be great to see the Greens win a lower house seat or two, hopefully the can
Overall though, a Labor landslide on the way
Three months should be three weeks.
Wonder when Cory Bernardi joined One Nation? And how long he will stay?
If Cory Bernardi is the most talented candidate One Nation can attract in SA I don’t think they will scare Labor much. The rise of ON looks like a conservative political civil war, not a change in the overall balance between left and right.
Recruitments like Bernardi only further weaken Ashton Hurn’s ability to gain media time and voter recognition.
Recent SA decisions on boosting local housing supply were a good idea. Malinauskus is much better campaigning on this issue than writer’s week culture wars, which he should avoid.
Anne Webster is a member of the House of Representatives, not a senator.
It seems like at this point South Australia could might as well be a one-party state. As long as the state remains just as progressive as it is now I don’t mind. The Liberals had their own forever government, it’s time for Labor to have one as well.
What happened to SA Best? Any remnants of that party left in the state?
SA Best elected two upper house members in 2018 – one has since quit and joined the Liberals and will be running for a lower house seat this time.
Given the anticipated dominance of SA Labor, I don’t think the Greens will make many inroads – they will probably just recover Tammy Franks’ upper house seat.
The Legislative Council will be a mess.
In addition to the major parties and a new Greens candidate, you’ve got:
Cory Bernardi for One Nation,
Chris McDermott for A Fair Go (or whatever the Sarah Game Party now is),
former Lib, now Independent, Jing Lee,
SA Best’s Connie Bonaros,
possibly Henry Davis from the former Sarah Game Party.
Along with Agriculture Minister Claire Scriven trying to hold on from fifth spot on the Labor ticket.
If Cory Bernardi is the most talented candidate One Nation can attract in SA I don’t think they will scare Labor much. The rise of ON looks like a conservative political civil war, not a change in the overall balance between left and right.
Also, where are the young dynamic recruits for ON? So far, Pauline seems to be concentrating on former pollies with name recognition to boost her stocks and get ON over the line. Also to appeal to the Boomers and conservative Gen X men who seem to be her base.
I wonder if the Teal independent that ran in Flinders (SA House of Assembly) last time would run again?
Nevermind it’s a different one. If she ends up being elected it would be the first successful Teal elected to any level of government in South Australia.
Chris McDermott is the Fair Go candidate for Dunstan. Jake Hall-Evans is the lead upper house candidate.
8.3% quota means lots of people fancy their chances.
Eric, they announced a swap yesterday. Jake Hall-Evans has gone back to being their candidate for Colton and Chris McDermott has been moved to the Legislative Council ticket after Ms Game said she’d been flooded by calls from people around the state wanting to vote for him.
@Thomas Brian Mutter says: Tuesday, February 3, 2026 at 12:32 pm
“I wonder if the Teal independent that ran in Flinders (SA House of Assembly) last time would run again?”
~~~
Liz Habermann has kept a low profile since her attempt at Flinders (SA) and Grey (Federal) electorates in 2022 and it doesn’t seem like she’ll return to politics. There is another independent, a Port Lincoln businesswoman called Meghan Petherick who is contesting Flinders but idk whether she has links to Habermann or Climate 200.
That being said though, I’ve heard there’s been a lot of independent candidates running in Liberal held seats (e.g., Kavel, Mount Gambier, MacKillop) and I’m interested to see a Kevin Bonham-esque categorisation of them (like he did with the 2025 election) since I’m aware they’re not necessarily Teal/Climate 200 supported and could potentially hold a somewhat significant role in the next SA Legislative Assembly given the current state of the Liberals.
Key update:
Definitely True 13
Probably True 1
Probably False 0
Definitely False 0
7 false keys for opposition 2PP win.
If it was today:
Definitely True 13
Probably True 1
Probably False 0
Definitely False 0
Are there any chances of the Liberals changing their leader again the day of the Election? XD
Key definition reminder:
Key 1: Polls show the gov with a swing towards it in the 2PP at the half-way point of the term
Key 2: No close leadership spill in the incumbent party
Key 3: Incumbent party leader is the same as the last election
Key 4: No third party with 20% or more of the primary votes
Key 5: The economy is not in recession/people don’t feel like they are in a recession
Key 6: Real per capita gdp growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms
Key 7: Major Policy Change
Key 8: No major, violent, widespread social unrest
Key 9: No major scandal recognised by both sides of politics
Key 10: No security failure
Key 11: Major security success, like winning a war (or reducing crime rates)
Key 12: The incumbent party leader is appealing to moderate voters of the challenging party
Key 13: The leader of the challenging party is not appealing to moderate voters of the incumbent party
Key 14: True if there’s something triggering a ‘Rally around the flag effect’
7 false keys for opposition 2PP win.
“ The party says it will field candidates in all 47 seats: its website currently records 31 lower candidates,”
You can just imagine the quality of the yet to be announced 16. I bet at least 4 ON candidates get scrapped before the election.
I hear Mali is very autocratic/presidential and doesn’t make life fun for his team, hence Michaels’ rather belated and unexpected resignation.
Still, a strong leader is a good thing as long as they do good things.
I’ve added an item on this to the post.
Chris McD is a straight, very good guy who a lot of South Australians have time for. He carried the Crows and was booted before their flags.
He ran a very successful children’s charity under extraordinary circumstances given the problems with his partner in it and the fallout.
Name recognition will be high.
The interesting thing in Australia is that unlike in America, where there is nominally still a modicum of balance amongst media as a whole (so it’s not just Fox News), the mainstream media in Australia is entirely in the service of the Right. Pauline Hanson never gets called out for her views that many might think is out of touch with most of society, especially the under-50’s.
If the Liberals and Nationals do permanently implode, and One Nation becomes the official opposition, I would expect the mainstream media to fall meekly into line with whatever policies One Nation put up and attempt to wreck Labor at all costs. It is quite sad to watch. I don’t even use my TV anymore.
I look at the plus side of One Nation ‘hoovering up’ the leftovers such as Cory Bernardi, Alex Antic and Barnaby Joyce – it means all these people will never be in a state or federal government again. They may be a constant annoying presence in various parliaments, like their current federal leader, but they will never pass one piece of legislation. The more they recruit the better : a bit like using maggots on necrotic ulcers to take away all the dead tissue. (And save the patient!)
Just looking at the keys:
1. False now, true until about two months ago.
2, 3. True
4. Now false, although needs to be adapted for preferential voting.
5. True
6. Don’t know
7. Arguable. Albanese Government has been very cautious.
8. True
9, 10. Scandals and security failures, or at least the perception of them, can be manufactured pretty much at will by hostile media, as we’ve seen in the last two months. They will continue. Assume false.
11. False
12, 13. Arguably true
14. False. A Hostile media makes this difficult.
Another for the independent list: Lou Nicholson is running again in Finniss.
Assuming the wiki article is current (and correctly sourced), there’s 14 seats that don’t have a Liberal candidate yet – almost a third. Most of them are safe Labor, but one of them is Black, not just a seat they won last time but their former leader’s seat! Meanwhile, One Nation have candidates just about everywhere – only missing Bragg and Dunstan. Labor still TBC in Chaffey, Finniss, Flinders and Narungga.
SA Best still exist, and have one guy running in Flinders… good luck with that.
David Speirs might be running as an independent in Black, depending on whether he’s eligible to. The drug offence he was convicted of would have removed him from parliament if he had been an MP at the time of the conviction, so now some lawyers get have fun parsing the difference between the words “is” and “has been”.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-29/david-speirs-pathway-to-election-amid-eligibility-questions/106281982
Isn’t it interesting how the perennial LNP / ON / FF / Australian conservatives ‘independent’ and cooker candidates rotate around the parties on the right.
This election will be fun!
Apologies – please ignore my post @10:33. Wrong thread. My interpretation of the keys refers to the Federal Government.
Steve777says:
Tuesday, February 3, 2026 at 11:02 pm
“Apologies – please ignore my post @10:33. Wrong thread. My interpretation of the keys refers to the Federal Government.”
Ok.
Is Cory Bernardi generally viewed positively or negatively by the public at large in SA?
C@t
Negatively. Very.
Also destroying L+NP at state level helps destroy them at Federal level. Less staffing jobs, less admin budget, ‘good’ people (though bad in fact) people go elsewhere including avoiding politics.
I know a lot of people make mirth over Mali being a shoppie, but as I’ve argued elsewhere, having these Catholics like Minns and Mali is in the best Wranite tradition of a strong and focused state Labor leader.
I’d rather have Don Dunstan back from the grave, but I don’t think they make them like that any more.
Corleone – having witnessed the long term fallout from the DLP split especially here in Victoria (still echoing through my partner’s family 70 years later!!) I agree that Labor has to avoid that sort of thing happening again. You only have to see how the Coalition have gone since Howard’s pogrom against moderates, which continues today. It is not a path to long term electoral success, or good governance.
From open thread
C@tmomma DP
”
SA Liberals face three major threats in One Nation, a popular premier and independents
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-04/three-major-threats-facing-sa-liberals-in-state-election/106283356
”
SA LIBS FACE THREAT FROM POPULAR PREMIER. That is how ABC reports now. I don’t know what to say.
Diogenes – I had not appreciated until looking today that since Playford’s ‘Playmander’ premiership ended in 1965 there have been two one-term conservative governments (Hall and Tonkin) and one two-term one (Brown-Olsen-Kerin : the 1993-2002 span in my memory was 3 terms but I now do recall the 1997 election and also Kerin delaying the election as long as possible into 2002)
Since the Liberal-Country League days has there been any significant “Country Party/National Party” presence in South Australia? Because CP/NP is just so ingrained here in Victoria (our farming rural relatives are all pretty much rusted on!) I find it interesting that South Australia is very different.
Ven – I think Labor will win but I see what Kos Samaras means : this could be like the 2021 WA election when Labor won 53/59 seats, the Liberals 2 and the Nationals 4 thus making the Nationals the official Opposition. Looking at the SA pendulum it looks pretty grim for the Liberals – half of their seats are on margins under 4%. I think the Liberals will lose seats to Labor and maybe a few independents – I will be very surprised if One Nation win any lower house seats.
So now it would not surprise me if Angus Taylor holds off on any Federal leadership challenge until after the SA election on March 21. Because that would loom as his first big electoral ‘test’ and if the Liberals crash and burn it wouldn’t help his start in the job. Instead he will let Sussan Ley take the fall, declare that this is as a result of the damage she has done to the Liberal ‘brand’ and ride in on his white horse to save the day.
Well done Angus!
Rocket
State govt is just service delivery and a bit of criminal law.
It matters that Labor is in power but as long as the leader is strong and can stare down the media like Andrews, McGowan, Minns and now Mali, you have the Wran formula. Even the Catholics seem to know to keep off abortion most of the time.
In Victoria we have the problem that Allan is not a strong leader. Won’t talk to the media like naughty children which they are.
May SA have a few terms of strong leadership
Advertiser senior journalist Paul Starick described Cory Bernardi as charismatic today.
Cory’s wife better words. Wtte that we get on very well because we are both in love with the same man.
Advertiser really getting excited about One Nation.
Of course, because the Advertiser is one of Rupert Murdoch’s main papers. I would be shocked if it didn’t drum up One Nation support.
The ABC has published its election guide, including this pendulum: https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/sa/2026/guide/pendulum
It is of note that Labor would gain 9 seats off a uniform swing of 5.1%*, which I suggest is not a wildly unrealistic prospect in the present circumstances (this excludes Finniss which is the most marginal Liberal seat – but the margin is v. an Independent).
*A 5.1% swing would see Labor with a 2PP of 59.5%.
Labor would end up holding 38 seats in a 47 member lower house.
Another matter of significant note is how Labor has gone about a process of renewal – with older (over-50s) sitting MPs being replaced with a slew of younger 30-something candidates.
It was only a matter of time before they did that. The average age for a state politician is much much younger than it is for a federal politician (34 compared to 52).
RR
“ Since the Liberal-Country League days has there been any significant “Country Party/National Party” presence in South Australia? ”
Nothing at all. I think Farmers have been happy with the Libs, although it’s hard to be happy with a party that’s never in power. Ashton Hurn’s family are farmers and she advocates for farmers a lot.
A couple of Nationals members in the South Australian Parliament were Karlene Maywald who held the seat of Chaffey from 1997 to 2010, and Peter Blacker who held the seat of Flinders from 1973 to 1993.
According to their website, the Nats are only fielding one candidate.
Renowned Liberal prime minister John Howard has carpeted former colleague Cory Bernardi’s defection to One Nation, branding him “desperate for recognition” and predicting he won’t “trouble the scorers” at March’s election.
In an exclusive interview with The Advertiser, Mr Howard attacked One Nation as “a grievance vehicle” rather than a “serious political movement”, winning support only because voters were “disgruntled with the Liberal and National parties”.
Acknowledging the Liberal Party nationally was “doing poorly at the moment”, Mr Howard insisted that could turn around and urged a swift return to federal Coalition.
Mr Howard labelled One Nation as “an accident of political history” and declared he was “pretty dismissive of Cory Bernardi as a political force”.
“I don’t think, to use the vernacular, he’s going to trouble the scorers,” Mr Howard said.
Mr Howard argued Mr Bernardi, a former Liberal senator and state president, had expected success after forming the Australian Conservatives in 2017 but had fallen “on his face”.
https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/state-election/john-howard-slams-cory-bernardi-as-desperate-for-recognition-in-one-nation-attack/news-story/94cd295aaceda998988ec6f61d1425e1?amp
Not sure if it was deliberate or not from Ashton Hurn when asked of she can save the furniture
I wouldn’t couch it in those terms….
Antic defecting to One Nation, if it happens, may help the SA Liberals
It is disappointing that there has been a lack of polling here.
B. S. Fairman @ #48 Wednesday, February 4th, 2026 – 9:03 pm
Writs get issued in 2 and a half weeks. I’d put money on some polling then. But yeah, I’d like to see some more polling, especially as the freshest state polling was before Hurn became leader and before a lot of the rise in support for One Nation across the country.
“I don’t think, to use the vernacular, he’s going to trouble the scorers,”
Uncommon for Howard to come up with a good line like that.
Politics is bad enough in SA without Corgi in the Upper house.