South Australian election minus nine days

An overview of what the various parties are recommending on their how-to-vote cards.

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.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

160 thoughts on “South Australian election minus nine days”

  1. Mabwn

    This is Labor people telling me SA won’t become like Victoria!!

    Just give us back the GP. Mali mentioned in an interview that when we lost it, the wind went out of our sails. If anyone can get it back, he can.

    It was like a Kennedy assassination moment.

    I know Labor are centrists. Mali literally came out at the debate and said he led a Centrist government. No one is arguing with that. I’m a centrist!!

    I just wish he’d drop the spin when things go wrong and be a bit more honest.

  2. I’m guessing sometimes you just have to drill it in to some voters’ minds (mainly those who vote Greens and One Nation). I’m a centre-left voter myself who puts Labor #1 on my ballot paper so I completely understand how moderate the Malinauskas Labor government has been.

  3. One of the things I like about early voting is the chance to meet the candidates in person. And so it was today.

    I was supposed to be in Sweden today but being grounded meant that I could actually vote. My postal papers didn’t arrive in time for my intended travel dates.

  6. Interesting that you apparently don’t need a reason for voting early in this election, just rock up and do it

    It’ll be interesting to see how big the prepoll vote ends up being

  7. Yeah, I wonder how many will be voting to just “get it out of the way”, especially in what frankly has easily been the most non-eventful election campaign in my life time. If it weren’t for the fact the older relative I live with prefers to go on election day (and I will go with him), I’d probably get it out of the way early too. I know how I’m going to vote and, barring some major game changing event happening in the final days (that could also happen after the election when nobody can do anything about it), nothing will change that.

    And it’s good they’ve dropped the pretense of having a “reason”, if people want to vote early, let them vote early. At least they’re voting. And early votes are getting counted on election night now, so it’s not going to cause limbo. And I do not care that it undermines any political strategy from parties to drop last minute bribe announcements in the final days of the campaign.

  8. The change to only 1 week for “early” voting with no reason required is a good compromise to maximise voting.

    The changes also discourage postal voting to some extent. That’s ok I think because that is one way in which ballot secrecy can be compromised. But there should be option for early voting for people with proof of travelling overseas.

  9. Will it be like in 2025 where the Liberals use the early vote as a coping device before they accept reality?

  10. If one side badly under-performs (at least vs. expectations), they might cling to that one. (Remember a big reason the Coalition people were so rattled that night was they were certain they were going to clean up at that election and recent opinion polling was just underestimating their “actual” support, like they had been accustomed to believing it always does.)

    Actually, I think the spin, regardless of how many seats won, is going to be WTTE of “Look, we all knew going in we weren’t going to win and we were probably going to lose seats, and Ashton already had the unenviable task of taking the reins so late and having to steer things back in the right direction. However, all that considered, I think we actually have performed better than expected this election and there’s room for us to rebuild, so we can hold this Labor government to account and win the next election.” etc.

  11. Mabwn

    “ Diogenes, you can have the bloody GP. And the super bikes. They are all yours. Please take them.”

    I’ll write up the contract ( using Claude) and send it to you.

  12. The thing that interests me the most about this election will be the preference flows between Liberal and One Nation. At least 20 seats should provide Labor v. One Nation 2pp figures, while another 20 should remain as Labor v. Liberal contests.

    I’m guessing their preferences will be roughly 60-75% toward each other. Not quite the level that Labor-Greens preferences go at about 75-90%, but we’ll have to find out next Saturday.

  14. PP:

    Perhaps if Tarzia was less of a coward and instead had the balls to stick it out until the election, your lot wouldn’t have had to go with a first-term MP in their mid-thirties instead. He wasn’t rolled like Battin was, he chose to resign, and its not like the SA Liberals have a whole lot of other leadership options in their tiny caucus. (And there was nothing stopping someone like, say, Josh Teague running for the leadership when Tarzia stepped down.)

    And its Hurn’s age and especially her lack of experience that is the issue her, not that she doesn’t possess the thick, veiny penis you apparently desire in your political leaders.

    You can get away with being a thirty-something opposition leader at the state level when you can boast a decent amount of ministerial or at least parliamentary experience, like Dan Andrews did. And you can get away with being a newbie to parliament when you have already had a significant profile and experience in other areas of public life, like Bob Hawke and Campbell Newman did.

    Its the combination of both factors that makes it difficult to be taken seriously as an alternate Premier.

    Despite all of that, I think Hurn has actually performed better than Spiers or Tarzia ever did, and the SA Liberals were in an absolutely dismal position long before she took over as leader. I seriously doubt she has any hope of winning on Saturday, but I wouldn’t be surprised if things end up closer than we would have expected based on the recent polling.

  15. I just feel like it’s been forever without an election. We had a little flurry early-to-mid 2025 with federal, tas and wa but nothing since. It’s been a nice break but now I’m really looking forward to this one!

  16. “ And its Hurn’s age and especially her lack of experience that is the issue her, not that she doesn’t possess the thick, veiny penis you apparently desire in your political leaders.”

    Asha, thanks so much for this. Best smack down I’ve seen on PB in years.

  17. The thing that I like the most out of Labor’s campaign so far is the fact that it’s not all just negative campaigning. They actually have a positive ad showing their own track record, and having a positive outlook into the future. That type of campaign ad is getting harder and harder to find these days, and it shows that South Australia wants to get back to a normal era where you can work across the aisle, and actually treat other people with respect rather than putting people down for their political choice, or the fact that they belong to a specific demographic group.

  19. I don’t think Hurn’s gender, age or level of experience is a problem for her chances. If anything, being a youthful, moderate woman has probably given the Liberals a boost. The problem the Liberals face is an existential fight from both flanks, their lazy, disorganised attitude and their inability to cut through politically. While I didn’t think that this Labor Government was ever destined to be a single term government, a more effective opposition would still have a presence and still present a bit of a challenge and, campaigning well, might do well enough to put themselves in a good position for 2032 and make the LC tricky for legislation over the next term, instead of facing eradication.

    I do agree with the sentiment that Vincent Tarzia is a coward. It was under him and Speirs that they got to this position and he was so desperate to mount a mid-term challenge to get the leadership and then do nothing to change anything. He should be the one to face the music, not Hurn. What is worse is he has the audacity to run for re-election as an MP. Thankfully he’ll likely lose his seat.

    On a different tangent, what we’re seeing with PP’s rhetoric, Hurn being thrown in front of an unwinnable election, Michaels being thrown under the bus to protect the career of Malinauskas and countless other recent political examples around the world, is that for all the self-congratulation about electing women to office, all too often their job is to just be the sacrifice to save the reputation of a man, be the scapegoat for an inevitable loss, or to be a punching bag for others to direct their anger at.

  20. I feel a participation medal coming for the leader of most likely the worst loss in SA lib history.
    Had every chance to make inroads had nothing to lose.Who knows maybe gets the sympathy vote ?

  21. PP

    Perhaps if the imbeciles in the LNP federally hadn’t been acting like children fighting, the Libs in SA might not be losing to One Nation.

  22. I noticed that according to the Newspoll if you applied a broad swing of 11% ALP vs LIB and 12% ALP vs PHON (LIB vs PHON was averaged to be 52%-48% in favour of the Liberals based on the time frame of the poll), then the result would be:

    ALP: 40 seats
    LIB: 2 seats
    PHON: 1 seat
    GRN: 0 seats
    IND: 4 seats
    OTH: 0 seats

    Of the 40 seats that Labor would hold under the Newpoll 28 are on a safe margin.

    Actual Newspoll (11/02/2026-17/02/2026): ALP: 44% LIB: 14% PHON: 24% GRN: 12% OTH: 6%

  23. Just over 70,000 votes cast on day 1 of pre-poll.

    Interesting that the seat with the highest first day vote is Mount Gambier. The seat which hasn’t had an MP for months….

    Good to see the Electoral Commission also posting The First Nations Voice vote numbers as well.

  25. Most people I’ve been talking to were actively avoiding voting on Saturday because the lines were going to be huge, which in the morning some were.

    Numbers from today and beyond will be interesting.

  26. The more impressive number would be the over 100,000 postal vote applications overall that had been requested.

  30. Still. For the modern era of having a huge chunk of the vote be early vote, this is abysmal for any spin, or narrative around people avoiding Election Day.

  31. Palmer’s yellow ink on the front page of the Tiser this morning. I’m struggling to understand the strategy.

    “SA has an election coming up in March. Shall we run some candidates?”
    “Nah, just put ads in the paper”.

  32. Four Corners tonight about SA Government misleading the public about the toxicity of the algal bloom. A bit of the Malinauskas sheen coming off.

  33. Is it still a valid vote for the SA House of Assembly if you just put the figure 1 in one box?
    A voter who did that was given the preferences registered by the chosen candidate (though you were forbidden to publicize that).
    I don’t know if that has changed or if you are allowed to mention it.

  34. @Toorak Toff

    No, all boxes have to be numbered for it to count, otherwise it’s just “Informal”.

    (There might be exceptions though, like if all but 1 boxes are numbered, but best not try that out since you’d never know if your vote was counted as formal or informal).

  35. @The Toorak Toff You have to number all of the boxes on the House of Assembly ballot paper. Otherwise, it is considered informal.

  38. Four Corners tonight about SA Government misleading the public about the toxicity of the algal bloom. A bit of the Malinauskas sheen coming off.

    More gaslighting on the algal bloom by the Premier for sports but not science or arts
    “Alcohol is strictly, under the same way as brevetoxin is a toxin, alcohol is a toxin, and we don’t run around the country saying we’ve got a toxic beer crisis.”

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-16/sa-premier-doubles-down-on-health-messaging-on-algal-bloom/106459002

  39. The funniest result would be one where because of ON or Independents, on election night Ashton Hurn, having bought her party to ruination, has to resign as leader of the Liberal Party. Only for her to be the only Liberal left, making her the lower house Liberal Party leader by default.

  40. Toorak Toff

    The short answer to your question is provided by s93(2) of the SA Electoral Act which says that where (a) a voter marks a ballot paper by placing the number 1 in the square opposite the name of a particular candidate and indicates no further preference; and (b) there is 1 voting ticket registered for the purposes of the election in relation to that candidate, the ballot paper will be taken to have been marked in accordance with that voting ticket.

  42. So anyone who votes 1 One Nation and no more will have an informal vote because One Nation has not put up a HTV with full preferences?

  44. Spence

    A registered voting ticket is not necessarily the same as a how-to-vote-card. For instance ON may register a ticket and not distribute/display any how to vote cards or distribute HTVs that enable a voter to preference differently from the registered ticket. But if ON has not registered a ticket then a voter who merely puts a 1 next to a ON candidate on the House of Assembly ballot and does no more will not have cast a valid ballot (unless there are only two candidates).

  47. Honestly, what a shocking 4 corners. That program really has gone down the toilet. Nothing new or enlightening and if they really gave a stuff they would have reported on it 9 months ago. Talk about a hit job in the week of an election. Time to defund the ABC, they are beyond a joke.

  48. You know what? Yeah. I agree with Maxxy. The ABC acts as it does because it fears the Coalition more than Labor.

    Maybe Labor can do some moves to reverse that.

  49. At this point in time, unless anything drastic happens to SA Labor, it seems like they are on track to pick up most Liberal seats in Adelaide. One seat in particular which is of interest is Bragg. It’s a traditional safe Liberal seat in some of the most affluent parts of Adelaide and is held by a margin of 7.2%.

    On a uniform swing of around 4-6%, Labor could barely miss out on Bragg. However, Labor’s strongest performance comes from urban areas/major cities; especially since it seems like the white collar professional class (who I assume are a significant demographic group in Burnside) seems to be shifting towards Labor.

    Also off topic: Is it just me or has Labor’s votes been softening? Sure, they’re still headed for a landslide at around 59% in 2pp at worst. However, it looks Labor’s share of 2pp has declined from around 66-67% to around 59-61%. Could this be chocked up to Hurn regaining back disgruntled Liberal voters? Perhaps that DemosAU and YouGov poll in October and May 2025 are potential outliers?

  50. Just watched that Four Corners episode. The videos of the kangaroos staggering about remind me of cows suffering from mad cow disease. Did brevetoxins cause it and what are the implications for the long-term health of South Australians? People have said their dogs got sick and some died after walking through the foam on the beach. Will there be an increase in neurological diseases here in 5-10 years’ time? There’s been an ecosystem collapse off our coast and South Australians should have been given the facts as soon as they were known. Instead, the government was more concerned about the economy. And no one knows if the bloom will reappear this winter. We’ve been really let down by our public officials. I’m angry and scared at the same time.

    And as for calls to defund the ABC, well I’ve heard that before, just from different people wearing different political colours.

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