Notwithstanding a headline in today’s Advertiser reading “candidate runs food truck without council approvals”, the biggest development of the South Australian campaign has probably been a scandal surrounding Health Minister Chris Picton (brother of Tim Picton, the former Labor WA state secretary who died in January after an assault outside a Perth nightclub), whose staff botched a bad job in seeking to discredit patients and their relatives who have complained about ambulance ramping. Yesterday brought the news that former AFL player Chris McDermott, star candidate and upper house ticket leader for the Sarah Game Fair Go for Australians party, had quit the party due to “irreconcilable differences” with Game, but the party’s prospects were likely remote in any case.
The remainder of this post will focus on how-to-vote cards, which can be found neatly displayed on the Electoral Commission website. These are of greater account than in other contexts due to the state’s distinctive practice of displaying them in polling booths, giving those of smaller parties a coverage they normally lack in the absence of the large volunteer base needed to disseminate them.
In considering the preferences of major parties, it is important to remember that their preferences are only distributed where they fail to run first or second, which is applying to an ever-increasing number of seats. However, in the case of Labor at the current election, it’s likely to happen only in country seats and perhaps a few places on the urban periphery where the final count could come down to Liberal and an independent. Labor’s cards notably have the Liberals ahead of a number of competitive or incumbent independents: Nick McBride and Fraser Ellis are last in MacKillop and Narungga, and Airlie Keen is behind the Liberal (though not One Nation) in Hammond. The point is almost certainly academic in Florey, but it’s nonetheless interesting to note that the Liberal candidate has been put ahead of one-time Labor MP Frances Bedford.
The Liberals have in all cases put One Nation ahead of Labor without the requirement of a “deal”, since One Nation is not directing preferences in any lower house seat, and in the upper house recommends preferences only to the two “family” parties. One Nation have also been placed ahead of competitive independents in Finniss (Lou Nicholson), Flinders (Meghan Petherick) and MacKillop (Nick McBride, who has been put last), though not Narungga (Fraser Ellis), Kavel (Matt Schultz), Mount Gambier (Travis Fatchen) and Port Adelaide (Claire Boan). As is usual for the Liberals these days, the Greens have mostly been put last and Labor second last.
The Greens have Labor ahead of Frances Bedford in Florey, despite what seems to me to be her progressive record as a former MP, along with the other independents previously noted in Narungga, MacKillop, Kavel and Hammond. However, the independents have been placed higher in Finniss, where Labor could conceivably make the final count, and Flinders, where it seems unlikely. The party has for some reason opted not to offer a recommendation in the seat of Adelaide.
Family First, the Australian Family Party and Fair Go for Australians all have conventionally right-wing tickets, with the first favouring One Nation over Liberal and the others largely vice-versa. The latter has been consistently favourable to independents, the others variable. The Nationals, who are running in three seats, have Meghan Petherick in Flinders ahead of both the Liberals and One Nation, and Liberal only fifth on an upper house order that favours small conservative parties. United Voice Australia has a consistently right-wing ordering of One Nation, Liberal, Labor, Greens, but has favoured independents over all of the above in all relevant cases, namely Florey, Port Adelaide and Narungga.
Animal Justice consistently has a conventionally left-wing ordering of Greens, Labor, Liberal, One Nation, but has favoured independents over all of them in relevant cases where the party is running, namely Finniss, Kavel and Stuart. Legalise Cannabis and Stephen Pallaras Real Change are all over the shop: the former seems to favour right-wing preference ordering in country seats and left-wing in the city, and has Labor ahead of the Greens in the upper house; the latter is consistent only in having One Nation last.
TBM: the Greens have had their own problems, so I’m not surprised they’ve got their eye off the ball. They lost Tammy Franks last year, and some members followed her out (including one who’s running in Adelaide as an independent), so their #1 priority is just getting that upper house seat back. Heysen has been a pipe dream for a while, but with seemingly no other lower house possibilities they’ve gotta play the hand they’ve got.
A fairly knowledgeable bloke with an engineering degree asked me today if voting is compulsory. He reckons Mali has been there long enough and has to go.
++++++++++++
That’s been one of the complaints about allowing local government voting to be optional – that it pollutes the minds of Australians who need to be reminded that federal and state elections are compulsory.
I just noticed something about Schubert – the One Nation candidate is Bruce Preece, who ran there for the Nats last time. He came last with 2.1%, while ON got 6.8%. The spiel from the 2022 PB guide:
Easy to see how he ended up in One Nation.
Schubert’s on my rather short list of “they couldn’t possibly lose that, could they?” seats, but let’s run the numbers anyway. Last time was Lib 51.4, ALP 22.7, Grn 10.2, far-right (ON, FF, that Nat) 12.7, ex-Labor ind 2.9. Adding Grn and Ind to ALP for a real hack job of a fake 3cp, that’s Lib 51.4 ALP 35.9 ON 12.7. A 20% swing straight from Lib to ON makes that ALP 35.9 ON 32.7 Lib 31.4, which would be a ON win on Lib prefs. If there’s a swing that huge but even 2% of it goes to Labor instead, ON get stuck in third and the Libs presumably hold the seat unless something strange happens with ON prefs. It’s not impossible, but pretty damn unlikely.
BoP
I’ll give you 10 to 1 on Hurn not holding Schubert. She will have one of the smallest swings against her of any seat.
The good thing about this time in the 2020s is that Labor is actually winning the popular vote this time. It’s not like the 2002 election, or the 2010s where the Liberals won the popular vote, but Labor got narrowly bailed out by Northern Adelaide. When it’s faithful and ethical victories like this that is what makes a democracy amazing.
TBM
I think it happened 3 times
@TBM and @Diogenes
It also happened in 1989, when Labor under John Bannon won a third term, hanging on in minority and supported by 2 ex-Labor independents, despite losing the statewide 2PP.
Speaking to a few people, it seems many died in the wool former Liberals love Malinauskas, while some former Labor voters are dismayed at his autocratic tendencies. Interesting opinion article out today:
https://www.indailysa.com.au/news/opinion/2026/03/12/matthew-abraham-sa-risks-stumbling-toward-zombie-democracy
I’d be interested to see what happens in the seat of Adelaide, many aren’t happy about the LIV golf/MotoGp changes to the parklands and Kieran Snape, an Adelaide City Councillor is running as an Independent. The Labor member, Lucy Hood was recently criticised about the way she handled the algal bloom as Environment Minister amid claims scientists were told to shut down investigations into the cause until after the election. I’ll be interested to see if anything new comes up in Four Corners.
Releasing patients’ medical details to the media for political point scoring is just despicable. As is defending the release of a second person’s medication history as “It was entirely appropriate for the media to ask these questions, and entirely appropriate for the government to answer them.”.
https://www.indailysa.com.au/news/just-in/2026/03/10/second-labor-govt-patient-information-leak-liberals-claim
Labor didn’t get “bailed out” by northern Adelaide in 2010 – that area swung harder to the Libs than the average. They have Tony Piccolo and Leon Bignell to thank for that win (Bright, Hartley and Newland also helped). The Libs got big swings to them almost everywhere, with the painful exception of where they actually needed them. That’s single-member elections for ya – nothing “unfaithful” or “unethical” about it.
Hurn’s family is well-known in the Barossa, I doubt she’ll lose her seat.
One thing worth pointing out is that SA Health have managed to lose the last two elections for the government with ramping and Transforming Health.
They have tried again this term and seem determined to go out in a flurry.
Mali wouldn’t have had to lift a finger if it wasn’t for them.
Bird of paradox @ #59 Thursday, March 12th, 2026 – 11:12 pm
Yeah, unethical would be changing the rules so rural voters get twice as many seats as metropolitan voters, despite being in the minority in order to keep one side in power. And, while not unethical, silly would be maintaining a single member system but having a provision that purposely shaped electorates to give the underperforming side a boost, rather than just expecting them to adapt.
My guess is that Picton’s future hangs on the internal polling – if email-gate is not damaging Labor’s numbers, Mali won’t act before the election, but Picton cannot stay on in health after this fiasco.
Once election day is out of the way, there will be a new focus, especially if things turn out as badly for the Libs as the polls indicate. The final outcome for the Libs depends a lot on their ability to regain seats held by conservative independents and with the electorate in its current mood I don’t see it happening – I expect there will be more independents elected, not fewer. We shall see! 8 days to go.
Based on some of these comments on this thread I had a news article title in my head reading “Labor won 35/47 seats and their base is pissed off about it”.
TBM
Gather Round is on soon. All will be forgiven.
As the polls indicate a big win to Labor in SA’s election, I wonder if Sky will have Peta Credlin giving her comments in their election night coverage?
Or, if she will be “otherwise disposed”? (cough, cough)
I know, malicious thought on my behalf. Naughty me.
Former South Australian One Nation leader Jennifer Game, who is now Sarah Game Fair Go for Australians’ candidate in Black and the party’s registered officer, admitted she was unlikely to win the seat. “I don’t think that I’m going to win – there’d have to be something catastrophic that happens to the other candidates,” she said. “I want to introduce the party to the electorate, and I want to show people that there are alternative ways of looking at the future,” she said.
Game, who has a tax law and science degree, threw her support behind controversial former Liberal leader David Speirs, whom she has put second on her how-to-vote card. She said he is “an outstanding local representative”, saying, “I believe in giving people a second chance”.
https://www.indailysa.com.au/news/just-in/2026/03/13/former-one-nation-leader-backs-speirs-in-black-despite-running-against-him
In my short local travels in my humble Northern suburbs working class area today, I spotted no fewer than six corflutes in people’s yards for the local One Nation candidate. Haven’t seen this for any other parties. While, like all anecdotal data, this should be taken with a grain of salt and it could be less representative of a wave of support and more a vocal minority, it still feels me with dread to see these pop up around the place on people’s properties. Like seeing cockroaches starting to appear in your house.
I saw those as well. I also saw some Greens corflutes in the inner northern suburbs, so It’s not just the far-right with their megaphone out.
New poll a week out from SA election around leadership.
Nothing major on parties in the poll.
It’s a useless poll, as it was well before the election timeline; “ In South Australia, 1070 voters were surveyed on their views between January 31, 2026, and February 16, 2026, with an effective margin of error of +/3.6.”
Why release it now, is interesting; it also shows that writers week didn’t have to much effect.
https://www.indailysa.com.au/news/just-in/2026/03/13/where-does-mali-stand-results-in-on-australias-most-popular-premier?fbclid=IwVERFWAQgXXBleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEeIQepJDjOtzxEX6zC87krZo61vV4oGU2BaNz3UD4LtZ5mSLTenL-ZgE8gB6w_aem_vLK00Gtgu3yOJblQmp7DSQ
Hurn asked Mali during the debate whether he knew which class of drug Picton had told the media the woman, who complained about her elective surgery being cancelled, was taking.
Mali claimed not to know. I think he is going to be told.
I think Ashton Hurn performed rather well in the debate today. I think despite the audience declaring Malinauskas the winner he was quite defensive and evasive. Now I’m going to vote Labor in the upcoming election because the Liberal party as a whole is unelectable and the Parties rightward drift under Antic is something I can’t support. If Hurn isn’t torn down by the far right then I think she could make a great Premier. I’m not happy about the direction this state is heading in if you don’t live in the CBD.
A leader who can’t win a debate as the opposition shouldn’t be running the state (or country). They should have a suite of costed detailed policies to “fix” what they claim the current leadership is doing badly.
Where’s their specific policy to fix ramping? It’s non-existent. Their health policy is 250 aged medical care beds that are privatised, which is 1000 less than Labor’s policy and will result in awful service levels done by untrained recruitment agency workers.
That’s the key big policy whinge from the Liberals and they haven’t done a thing to set out a policy to sort it out. Just complain about Labor.
There is this weird left of centre type that like SA Lib leader. Probably deluded types that also thought Turnbull was the man.
Meanwhile she is preferencing One Nation.
The result of the debate was nearly 64%-36% in favour of Peter Malinauskas. For being only just over a week before the election that’s a ringing endorsement even from the 5% who actually still cares about leaders’ debates.
“ Their health policy is 250 aged medical care beds that are privatised, which is 1000 less than Labor’s policy and will result in awful service levels done by untrained recruitment agency workers.”
Umm, no it’s not. That’s Labors policy. The Libs are transitional care beds and removing the GP payroll tax.
Both sides are putting those beds in the old WCH which will be at least 5 years away so both are doing nothing really. Neither will fix ramping.
80,000 patients left EDs in NSW before completing treatment last year so they make us look good.
The debate was 37-36 (they had a score out of 50 from the media)
And the “voting” was 67/33 to Hurn. .
I bet the idiot who’d seen witches melt was one of Antic’s nutters. Mali said Antic wanted him to stay as candidate.
“Umm, no it’s not. That’s Labors policy. ”
I read it on the LNP website.
https://brightersa.com.au/policies/establishing-five-transition-care-centres
“Hurn Liberal Government will roll out 250 beds.”
“with the operational costs to be shared in a public-private partnership”
Their page on the WCH says it’s 300 beds unrelated to the above policy.
Dio:
You don’t need to rely on Mali’s word, Antic himself said that in parliament the other day.
Antic also said in parliament that he hadn’t read anything of what the (ex) candidate had said, but if. . . etc. (so he both exposed the Libs to attack from opponents and left himself / them a fair bit of wiggle room to defend/pivot as desired).
Just waiting for Antic to defect to One Nation where he belongs. He had a meeting with Cory Bernardi a couple of weeks in a very public place where he knew they’d be seen together. Clearly the evangelical nutter was his pick.
“This is the party in this country which apparently stands for freedom of thought, worship, speech and association,” (Antic) told the Senate.
“If this guy is disendorsed or if he feels compelled to leave, we might as well shut the doors on this election with one week to go.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-13/labors-email-blunder-and-liberal-candidate-comments/106450750
I do think Hurn performed very well at the debate, and was the better communicator out of the two.
I’m not saying that she would necessarily make a great premier and I certainly don’t support that party or that side of politics, but they might be wise not to scapegoat her with responsibility for an election loss, as sometimes happens in the poison chalice scenario.
Ghost
Those Lib beds are transitional care beds, which are very different to aged care beds. The old WCH would also be used as a health precinct. TCC are sort of stepdown beds, not home but not acute tertiary hospital. Ideally a few days to couple weeks. Labor has them already at the Pullman hotel and they are using another small hospital soon (60 beds or something)
Labor’s are aged care.
If it wasn’t for the extremely politically engaged people on here posting about it, I wouldn’t have even known that there was a leader’s debate.
All this thread shows is that a few supposedly progressive left people hate Mali with a passion, and they’d probably prefer a Liberal/One Nation Coalition Government in SA.
That’s true if you’re an idiot.
DS
I imagine that also refers to me. Labor will do a much better job than Libs for the next four years.
To find Mali shallow, all PR and lacking much substance just means you have been paying attention.
Hurn is a better person and might be a better Premier but her team suck!
Hurn is so much better than Mali, she is even preferencing proto fascist One Nation.
Mali is preferencing the Greens who want to economically bankrupt the state by pulling out of building the subs.
If we lose them, we are stuffed. We’d become another Victoria. And we don’t want that.
LOL
She may be a good public communicator, but having dealt with her in a few health policy discussions she really isnt better and would make a disatrous Premier. She has previously campaigned for policies such as sending patients to a decommissioned hospital without any infrastructure to support them. She really is the epitome of a spin doctor making announcements on the fly without any proper policy analysis. God help us if she is given any form of responsibility for a government- it will be back to the days of the bereft Rob Lucas style of government, where it was all about counting pennies but not in a sensible way, and instead done in a manner that has no understanding of the need to invest or bring business to the state in order to grow the economy.
Mali may not be perfect, but the state has had enough of saving money on one way expressways that even the dumbest amongst us can see will end up costing everyone more in the long run. We don’t need more of that style of leadership from Hurn and thank goodness she will never be Premier.
Did an early vote today in traditionally blue ribbon Waite.
I have never voted Labor before. The thought of voting for a party whose ideological roots sit in socialism and collectivism has always made me feel slightly queasy.
But the Liberals have managed to empty themselves of even the faintest trace of what used to define them. Individual liberty and economic freedom. Instead it is endless culture war noise. Gay bashing, Muslim chasing and a fixation on fringe issues that have very little to do with governing a state.
Hurn may well be perfectly decent. But the party itself is firmly in the grip of the Antic Pentecostal faction and that seems to be where the real energy now sits.
So I voted for the incumbent Labor MP who, by most accounts, is well liked locally.
Consider it a temporary arrangement until the Liberal Party remembers what it used to stand for and turns itself back into something resembling a normal political party.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-14/mount-gambier-sa-election-travis-fathen-candidate-mount-gambier/106450450
Travis Fatchen looms large as Mount Gambier weighs up jailed MP’s replacement
By state political reporter Thomas Kelsall and Josh Brine and Samuel O’Brien
7h ago
In short:
The seat of Mount Gambier has been unrepresented in state parliament for the past six months after sitting MP Troy Bell was jailed for fraud, and no by-election was held.
His former staffer, independent candidate Travis Fatchen, is among 11 people trying to take his place.
What’s next?
Early voting opens today ahead of election day on March 21.
I’m not sure the LNP counter-attack over preferencing is gonna hit the way they think it will. At least in the places where it will matter.
“You preference One Nation even though their leader is a racist and is owned by Gina Rinehart.”
“You preference the Greens even though… uh.. aboriginals.. and uh.. they like trees.”
“The thought of voting for a party whose ideological roots sit in socialism and collectivism has always made me feel slightly queasy.”
Without socialism and collectivism we’d be working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.
“ She has previously campaigned for policies such as sending patients to a decommissioned hospital without any infrastructure to support them.”
Like the Pullman Hotel?
Or dying in the corridor at the RAH outside the kitchen?
Or choking to death in a ramped ambulance?
That kind of quality care.
Centrist
Mali is a centrist. He’s hardly socialism and collectivism (any more than Hurn is racist etc)
Hutchesson is meant to be nice and reasonable.
Diogenes says:
Saturday, March 14, 2026 at 11:42 am
Mali is preferencing the Greens who want to economically bankrupt the state by pulling out of building the subs.
If we lose them, we are stuffed. We’d become another Victoria. And we don’t want that.
——————.
Leave us out of it. Victoria is going great guns. Don’t believe what the media wing of the LNP tell you.
——————
The ALP are the centrists.
It seems like the problem now at least as far as a progressive’s mind process is concerned has shifted from the Liberals getting in to Labor being too electable because of the fact that they can’t be as controversial, and as much as a protest group as they otherwise would have liked and wanted to be.
Cory Bernardi saying he made a rookie error in responding to a recent question about his views on same sex marriage and bestiality. Said he should have refused to answer the question and only talked about current issues.
Sounds like a double rookie error.
Story on ABC news website.
and know he’s going to win easily so are voting tactically to make sure there is an opposition to keep him in check
See this opinion piece
https://www.indailysa.com.au/news/opinion/2026/03/12/matthew-abraham-sa-risks-stumbling-toward-zombie-democracy