A little less than six weeks out from the state election, The Advertiser today carries a South Australian state poll from Fox & Hedgehog that shows One Nation matching the Liberals on the primary vote while leaving Labor’s overwhelming dominance intact. The poll has Labor on 40% of the primary vote, down one on an earlier Fox & Hedgehog poll conducted immediately before Vincent Tarzia’s resignation as Liberal leader in early December, with the Liberals down two to 19%, One Nation up seven to 20% and the Greens steady on 12%. Labor’s two-party preferred lead over the Liberals is unchanged at 61-39.
Peter Malinauskas’s net approval rating is plus 31, down a point on December, while Liberal leader Ashton Hurn debuts at plus seven, compared with minus eight for Tarzia in the last poll (UPDATE: Malinauskas is up one on positive to 52%, down three on neutral to 22% and up two on negative to 21%, while Hurn is respectively at 20%, 37% and 13%). Malinauskas leads 54-22 on preferred premier, little different from the 54-18 lead he recorded over Tarzia. The poll also inquired about Carlos Quaremba, who at the time the poll was commissioned was lined up for the top position on One Nation’s upper house ticket, but has now been bumped to second to make way for Cory Bernardi. Quaremba recorded 6% approval and 9% disapproval, with 57% admitting to never having heard of him.
Personal ratings are also provided for several federal political figures, with Pauline Hanson scoring a remarkably strong 44% approval rating with disapproval at 34%. Anthony Albanese is at 35% approval and 44% disapproval, with Sussan Ley at 17% and 32%, Angus Taylor at 13% and 20%, Andrew Hastie at 15% and 17%, and Alex Antic at 7% and 14%. Entertainingly, the questionnaire included a fictitious name in John Morsett, presumably to serve as a benchmark for the worth of results such as those for Carlos Quaremba, and it duly produced very similar results, finding 5% thinking well of him and 9% poorly. The poll was conducted January 31 to February 8 from a sample of 904.
UPDATE: The full report has been published on the pollster’s website, with its now customary depth of detail. It finds Labor leading One Nation 63-37 on two-party preferred and Liberal leading One Nation 53-47, with a three-party preferred figure having it at Labor 54%, One Nation 25% and Liberal on 21%. Cory Bernardi records personal ratings of 15% positive, 29% neutral and 29% negative.
Can we please keep this thread for discussion of South Australian politics. The open thread for general discussion is here.
Looks like a WA style wipeout remains on the cards for SA Libs.
The upper house contest on the right will be pretty interesting to watch.
Fun name for a polling outfit
Hang on they got a new leader right ?
Went labor lite.Poison for libs.
Another woman the biggest winner Pauline.
Needs to be one nation compared to labor comp.
The CV is a err umm little light on…
https://saliberal.org.au/team/ashton-hurn
John Morsett for PM!
Obviously the Writer’s week faux pas has not damaged Malinauskus as much as the Liberals have damaged themselves.
If the Liberals urban seats are lost to Labor (likely based on Federal results less bad than this) and ON takes their rural seats, what is left of the SA Liberals?
A few Upper House MPs not up for reelection?
On thouse votes I get
4 Labor (4.8) , 2 Liberal ( 2.28), 2 ON ( 2.4) , 1 Green( 1.44) for the upper house
Labor .8 , Green 0.44, ON .4, Liberal .28 ,0.08 other for the final two seats.
One Nation vote in this election will be interesting to watch. There will be other options on the ballot and we will actually see how much of the support in polling is because One Nation is included in the read outs.
Including the fictitious answer as a control is a great idea, kudos to the pollster.
Socrates
All ado about nothing.
It appears people want they want right-wing Labor party or Teals in power.
Catprog
Thanks for those Upper house seat calculations. The SA Liberals party caucus meeting might be held in a very small room after this election.
Fun name for a polling outfit.
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I am sure that was the name of one of the local pubs when I lived in the inner burbs.
Or maybe the name of someone I met at the Taxi Club.
Soc – smallest room in the house?
I dont agree that the Writers Week thing has had no effect. It might not be noticeable in polling. But it took some of the Teflon off.
In addition to the 2022 results.
My guess for the upper house is :
5 + 5 Labor = 10
4 +2 Liberals = 6
1 + (3 or 2) One Nation = 4 or 3
1 + (1 or 2 )Greens = 2 or 3
12 or 13 Labor + Green
10 or 9 Liberal + One Nation
Looking at the raw 61% figure for the ALP vs Liberal 2PP, it would appear, if realised, that the ALP could increase its majority by a further nine seats.
I have already factored into my analysis that both Dunstan & Black are retained by the government.
All LNP seats with a margin less than 6%,could fall to the ALP.
These seats would be: Morialta, Heysen, Unley, Ngadjura, Kavel, Hartley, Morphett, Colton and Hammond.
Interesting that they included a 3PP figure that puts the Libs further in third (Labor-Liberal-ONP: 54-21-25).
Liberals are also in third in regional SA (41-27-32), so they might even be locked out of the final contest in their safest seats.
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Team Katichsays:
Tuesday, February 10, 2026 at 9:29 am
I dont agree that the Writers Week thing has had no effect. It might not be noticeable in polling. But it took some of the Teflon off.
”
If not for Writers week thingie, the 2PP could have be 67-33. 🙂
The Writers Week thing didn’t have anything to do with cost of living or immigration or people’s daily lives. I doubt it had much impact on votes at all in reality. The people who cared most are probably largely within that unchanged Greens vote. And in the end, they’re not going to preference One Nation, are they?
Very hard to see any Lib metro seats after this.
The only opposition will be the media and they tend to be pretty compliant when one party has all the news.
Not good for democracy. We are already seeing signs of arrogance and complacency from Labor.
Arky,
definitely a lot of Greens voters who wont be happy about Mali and Writers week. But it isnt as black and white as that. Or as Green and red. Plenty of non-Greens voters are less impressed with Malinauskus this month than they were two months ago. From lefties to centrists and even right leaning traditional Liberal voters. When a Teflon frypan gets scratched, subsequent high temp cooking will not be as non-stick.
A primary of 40% is solid but not without some risks. There are a lot of Greens candidates and they are well backed. And if the media portrays this as a cert big win for the ALP, people may have some fun with their vote. The lack of teal and centrist independents are certainly good news for the ALP.
All over .Red rover
Looks like you are going to have fun with your vote. 🙂
Be very interested in where ON gets their vote and how voter preferences them. Won’t get much from Labor but interested what preferences they get from the LNP.
This polling shows more evidence that pandering to pro-Hamas Greens voices isn’t accepted by the wider community. The Greens Political Party voters here told us that the sky was falling, that how dare Mali “CENSOR” a woman who cheered a massacre and that the raft of virtue signalling writers quitting their far-left love-in would ruin him!
Turns out it’s made people sickened by One Nation’s outright racism, and the incompetent Liberals to shift their vote to Labor in enough numbers to counter-act any supposed “flight to the Greens”.
“Fun name for a polling outfit”.
They pulled the name out of a box of “names for barber shops/restaurants that sell $30 burgers with no chips included.”
This is a pretty predictable outcome – the Writers Week mess has taken some of the shine off him (the latest polls I had seen had Labor on 66-67% of 2PP) – but the Antic-dominated Liberals are still such a farcical rabble that it’s not like anyone’s putting up a fight against Malinauskas.
Still in for a thumping victory, just down from McGowan 2021 heights.
The One Nation vote suggests that we’re in for some interesting times on the right. I still have great difficulty believing that personalities like Bernardi and Hanson are capable of working together for much longer than twenty minutes and would bet on the odds of a Qld 1998-style implosion.
There’s a chance that based on this poll One Nation could realistically win at least Hammond. The Greens also have a chance in Heysen as well.
I won’t be impressed until the SA lower house Lib’s commute is “bicycle and handlebars”
》Ghost Of Whitlam says:
》Tuesday, February 10, 2026 at 3:11 pm
》Turns out it’s made people sickened by One Nation’s outright racism, and the incompetent Liberals to shift their vote to Labor in enough numbers to counter-act any supposed “flight to the Greens”.
2022 Labor primary 40
2022 Green primary 9.1
Poll Labor 40, Green 12
Somehow this poll shows the Greens not gaining?
》Thomas Brian Mutter says:
Tuesday, February 10, 2026 at 3:22 pm
》There’s a chance that based on this poll One Nation could realistically win at least Hammond. The Greens also have a chance in Heysen as well.
I don’t see the Greens getting ahead of Labor so while I can see a Labor vs Green TPP I can’t see the Greens winning
Labor are on the same primary, so any gains the Greens might be making are being made irrelevant by Labor winning votes in the sensible centre.
Voting for Labor just because LNP is in disarray is terrible (they are a UNIPARTY interested in continuing the status quo and not rocking the boat). Will lead to huge debt, hard times and voters scratching their head – yet they are voting for this. If Labor and LNP policies are both terrible why not put them last and not preference them
From open thread
TMB
As per my prediction
ALP: 36 seats
LIB: 4 seats
PHON: 4 seat
GRN: 0 seat
IND: 3 seats
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Malis Buddysays:
Tuesday, February 10, 2026 at 4:52 pm
Voting for Labor just because LNP is in disarray is terrible (they are a UNIPARTY interested in continuing the status quo and not rocking the boat). Will lead to huge debt, hard times and voters scratching their head – yet they are voting for this. If Labor and LNP policies are both terrible why not put them last and not preference them
”
Malis Buddy
You are not Mali’s buddy. 🙂
Which seats in SA are most at risk of falling to One Nation?
The 2 most at risk seats are Hammond and Ngadjuri.
The fact that this could be the first time that minor parties (SA Nationals excluded as the Nationals are a major party elsewhere across the country) are going to have representation in the House of Assembly is just remarkable considering how much South Australia was always mostly a 2 party state.
Looks like you are going to have fun with your vote.
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No bacon and egg rolls, not even a sausage, at the polling booth during the federal election here. So I might have to make my own fun. But I never tell anyone who I vote for. Even Mrs Katich is uncertain.
One of the candidates in my electorate is a family friend, a nice guy, a client…..and a Liberal.
There have been minor parties in the House of Assembly before.
The Liberal Movement held its two seats in 1975 (after splitting after the 1972 election), the Democrats had a seat from 1972 to 1983, and going back a lot further you had the three separate Labor Parties in the Great Depression (Lang, the executive and the caucus).
SA also has a particularly strong history of electing independents in recent decades compared to most places.
Anyone using the phrase “uniparty” is either an ON cooker or a greens political party voter.
Which one are you Malis Buddy?
If One Nation win Ngadjuri, will it be the first time that a member is elected who can’t pronounce the name of their own seat and won’t even try to learn?
Maybe.
If Taylor challenges and wins, I think some of the ON votes will come back to Libs. But they would want it to happen sooner than later.
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
@Arange I think it will take more than 3 Scott Morrison miracles to turn the election around at this point.
Link to the actual poll (not the article about it) here:
https://tinyurl.com/Feb2026SAPollFoxHedgehog
The regional SA figures are interesting: ALP 29, ON 26, Lib 24, Grn 9, Ind/other 12, for three separate 2cp figures all pretty lineball – the ALP/Lib one astonishingly has ALP up 51-49! That would suggest Labor winning the 2pp in seats like Hammond and Kavel, which are closer to Adelaide than they used to be and therefore more marginal. The Libs could get knocked into third, and then who knows. Ngadjuri is pretty marginal too (that’s partly due to an independent getting 16% in 2022). There’s several seats with independent MPs (Stuart, Narungga, MacKillop) or challengers (Mt Gambier, Finniss, Hammond, Flinders), so it obviously won’t be even. I can imagine indies picking a few of those up, with MacKillop a chance of a weird Lib/ON/Ind 3cp if Labor come fourth.
Best chances of One Nation winning a seat? Total guess… Chaffey. Labor can’t win it, there’s no major independent challenge, and ON got 10% last time to build on.
@GoW not sure if it’s horseshoe theory to say that cookers and angry Greens voters are two sides of the same baked coin?
Thomas Brian Muttersays:
Tuesday, February 10, 2026 at 11:02 pm
“I think it will take more than 3 Scott Morrison miracles to turn the election around at this point.”
Yes.
Based on the keys, there’s essentially no way for Labor to lose the 2PP vote.
If ONP wins more than 20% of the primary votes, that’s a single false key.
If for some reason the Trump Effect doesn’t appear at this election, that’s another 2 false keys.
If the Liberals come ahead of One Nation and their leader is appealing to moderate 2PP Labor voters, that’s another false key.
If all of that was somehow true, based on the keys, Labor would still win.
They would still need at least 3 more false keys to lose the 2PP vote.
Jiminy:
I get that they want more Aboriginal names (ECSA, not ON), but having Narungga and Ngadjuri is just asking for trouble. They’re both hard to spell and/or pronounce, similar to each other, and the seats are next door to each other. Compare to Kaurna and Morialta (the only two previous Aboriginal names) – you don’t have to wonder how to start a word with “ng”.
It looks like all the interesting contests are happening in regional areas, and the Adelaide metropolitan area is pretty much a sea of red except for maybe Bragg.
SA Liberals face wipeout not seen since state bank election: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-11/sa-liberals-face-wipeout-not-seen-since-state-bank-election/106325582