Click here for full display of South Australian election results.
Some very general observations on the result before diving into specifics. As expected, Labor appears to have won every seat in Adelaide except Bragg, where Liberal member Jack Batty achieved a surprisingly normal-looking result. That involved unseating the Liberals in Colton, Hartley and Morialta, which Labor had held at various points during its previous time in government, together with Morphett and Unley, which it hadn’t. In a great many other seats in Adelaide, the Liberals have been reduced to minor party status, in many places running fourth and in one place even fifth. My system is calling four seats for the Liberals and has them leading in a fifth, making them likely but not certain to retain opposition status ahead of One Nation, who are being called in three and ahead in a fourth.
Labor may not be entirely spared the One Nation lash though, which needless to say has been the other big story of the election. My own preference estimates suggest a knife-edge result in Light, which the long-serving and highly popular incumbent Tony Piccolo abandoned for an unsuccessful run in Ngadjuri, presumably to help Labor win both seats but in fact putting them at the risk of winning neither. The ABC’s preference estimates give Labor a slightly more comfortable margin of 2.0%, but we really won’t know until we get a fresh two-candidate count, which hopefully ECSA will conduct over the coming days. Also in northern Adelaide, Elizabeth and Taylor have also gone from being safe Labor seats against Liberal to marginal ones against One Nation.
My system is calling three and very nearly four regional seats for One Nation, though none are being given away by the ABC. However, it’s difficult to see the Liberals closing their substantial primary vote deficits in MacKillop and Narungga, and in neither case is the independent incumbent competitive. I’m a little less confident about my system’s call of Ngadjuri for One Nation, but Liberal incumbent Penny Pratt will undoubtedly have a difficult time overcoming Labor to make the final count, as she’s effectively tied with them on the primary vote at present and the minor parties whose preferences will decide the issue are mostly of the left. If she can’t manage it, my system is undoubtedly correct in projecting that her preferences will give the seat to One Nation over Labor.
I am just about giving Hammond to One Nation, where Liberal member Adrian Pederick has fallen to a fairly distant third, with his preferences set to decide the result for One Nation over Labor, each of whom have about 27% on the primary vote. Neither my system nor the ABC’s are writing off One Nation’s chances of deposing independent Geoff Brock in Stuart, where we’re both estimating margins for Brock of 4.5% and applying very conservative error margins due to the complications involved in projecting an independent-held seat that has gained territory in a redistribution. Brock would have to be rated a pretty clear favourite though.
There are two other seats that my system rates as in doubt. Heysen is rated a three-way contest between Liberal, Labor and the Greens: the latter would have to close a small deficit against Labor to make the final count, but my system gives them a solid chance mostly by giving them more preferences than Labor from One Nation, based on observation of preference distributions from the federal election. It’s a close run thing though, and should they fall short, ECSA’s notional two-candidate count shows Labor leading Liberal in two-candidate terms by all of two votes, although late counting will presumably favour the Liberals.
Kavel looks fiendishly complicated, with no candidate polling higher than 23.9%. That candidate is Labor’s, who my system is rating the favourite, but its preference assumptions wouldn’t need to be too far wrong to overturn this. ECSA’s two-candidate count shows independent Matt Schultz will win if he faces off against Labor in the final count, but to do that he will have to get ahead of One Nation, who he slightly leads on the primary vote. However, my system assumes Liberal will drop out before all of the above, which I think very likely, and has more of their preferences going to One Nation than to Schultz, which is little more than a guess.
Those who were following my results late last night may notice some changes to the projections, which are due not to late counting but my reconfigurations of who the last three candidates are likely to be and changes to preference estimates. The system has been dealing with combinations of candidates that hadn’t previously been encountered, and in some cases was splitting preferences evenly where it had no defaults to fall back on. I haven’t been keeping score, but I believe my system had been calling Kavel to Matt Schultz on this basis, and I’m certain it wasn’t calling Finniss for independent Lou Nicholson, as it’s now doing. It’s more than possible that I’ll unearth another anomaly or two when I review the matter in the morning, or more likely afternoon.
I’m not exactly sure what can be expected today in the way of counting, but around half of the early voting centres were evidently unable to complete their primary vote counts by the end of last night, and only a few reported two-candidate numbers. There has been a fair bit of talk about the impact of South Australia’s unique savings provisions that cause ballots that have not been fully numbered to be deemed to conform with preference tickets pre-registered by the parties in question. This is of particular interest due to One Nation how-to-vote cards that show only a number one for the One Nation box and advise voters to fill out the rest in order of preference, which some may have misinterpreted as meaning a single number constituted a valid vote for One Nation.
However, the effect of this in late counting will be minor. One Nation lodged multiple registered tickets with the effect that its saved preferences will divide evenly between Labor and Liberal. Only in the four seats where it was included in the notional two-candidate count (Chaffey, Giles, Schubert and Wright) are its own soon-to-be-saved votes currently withheld from a published count, and none of these are in doubt. Furthermore, the differences in the number of votes reported on the primary vote and two-candidate counts is not all that dramatic, so the number of votes should in any case not be over-estimated.
Before I finally turn in for the evening, my first look at the Legislative Council result. Only 219,769 first preference votes have been counted, which is barely a third of the lower house count total, so this must be considered highly preliminary. It currently looks very much like Labor four, One Nation three, Liberal two and Greens one, with one more seat in doubt. With Labor on 4.4 quotas and the Greens on 1.4, one would think their collective surplus of 0.8 quotas would mean a further seat for one or the other. That would add up to nine or ten seats for Labor in the new parliament along with two or three for the Greens, for a combined total of 12 out of 22. The Liberals would have six, and One Nation’s new cohort of three would be supplemented by former party member Sarah Game, whose Fair Go for Australians party was one of a number of right-of-centre concerns that accomplished very little at this election.
A few musings.
Clearly a good night for Labor although it will end up a couple of seats short of what looked likely early in the campaign.
Also a good night for One Nation although again perhaps a little short of some of the more optimistic projections in late polling. (The AI poll was a dud!)
A disaster for the Libs any way you look at it, with the one consolation being that it’s more likely than not to be the Opposition. The combined total of Liberal MPs (both Federal and State) in SA will now be around 17 out of 91, which has a knock on effect on resourcing for future campaigns.
Postal votes will be an important factor in days to come in settling close contests. It will be interesting to see how ON fares and the extent (if any) to which its postal vote share is short of its polling place performance. Conventional wisdom has been that a party’s organisational capacity has a significant bearing on postal votes performance and that this has been a strength for the Liberals. We will know by early next week if this still holds true whilst also noting that ON has very little by way of parry infrastructure in SA.
Also interesting to see will be how strong Liberal to ON preference flows are. I think Labor has probably done just enough to retain Light but we won’t really know (as William has observed) until ECSA redoes its 2CP count. Lib to ON preference flows will also be a factor in Ngadjuri, where I don’t think Tony Piccolo is quite as dead as William believes and he should make the final 2CP contest with ON. What’s left of the SA Liberals may come to rue their decision to preference ON, especially if (as remains possible) it leads to ON becoming the Opposition. For the Liberals, the political difference between allowing Labor to gain an extra seat or two compared with gifting Opposition status to ON is enormous. Its another sign of a party that is in disarray.
All will be reviewed in due course.
Donald, always ready with a kind word about…oh wait…this is Robert Mueller we’re talking about here so…
https://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/us-politics/good-im-glad-trump-celebrates-former-fbi-director-robert-muellers-death/news-story/a0429b24907cce07afbba4935d94c42d
Quite surprisingly this has turned out to be the Greens’ best SA state election result by quite a considerable margin; albeit their previous best result was 9% last time but still, they’d be fairly well pleased with the spine-bracer after a year of bad results.
I hadn’t seen much of Antic before last night…but what a piece of ….
When they put it to him the party needed more women, and the Liberal leader is a moderate he basically said the ladies, including Hurn could go off and form a new party!
I wonder how long it take ON to try and officially claim that they are the Opposition and that Labor had better be careful or they will suffer the rage of the squeaking Guinea pigs.
ON’s best result since 1998! If only Malcolm Turnbull hadn’t called that ridiculous double dissolution and revived Poorleen’s career…
Paradox, from the previous thread re the swing in Waite, it’s your classic ‘doctor’s wives’ type seat straddling some of Adelaide’s more expensive suburbs and leafy middle class Adelaide Hills areas. So if there’s no moderate Liberal Party to speak of it’s not surprising the electorate would swing hard to Labor. It’s an area that’s vulnerable to a Teal at a federal level IMHO.
Torchbearer, I gather at uni he was a full on vegan type super progressive. So you have to wonder about the sincerity of the current views.
I’m hoping William’s estimates are out and One Nation doesn’t get over the line in that many seats, or to 3 in upper house although they’re very close, let’s see how the counting plays out from here
Still hopeful the Greens can get there in Heysen, there’s a bit to play out still and according to Kevin Bonham they’ll get the benefit of the donkey vote via the Independent. It’ll come down to One Nation preferences in the end though, did they put the Greens last in big numbers?
2 in the upper house would be awesome if they can get there. Pulling their best result despite facing internal issues is definitely a positive
Overall, a big night for Labor. Congratulations. A horrible night for the Liberals although I was glad Ashton Hurn won well. Can she save the party? Independents didn’t do as well as hoped although some more will hopefully get over the line
The polling was pretty accurate, the One Nation thing is sadly real and not imagined
Geez, one would almost want the Greens and Labor to lose in Heysen to shore up Liberal numbers to maintain opposition status if ON pull through and win 4 or 5 seats.
OOh, what a wonderful result for South Australia.
The One Nation preferencing has worked out well for the Liberals.
It may have allowed Ngadjuri to be taken from the ALP, but has more likely cost it a number of their own seats.
One would hope that senior Libs & Counts are watching closely and re-considering their future preference strategy in the upcoming Victoria & New State Elections.
I am yet to be convinced that most senior Libs are scared of One Nation, as opposed to jealous.
@teh_drewski In politics, jealousy and fear go hand in hand!
Torchbearer
Antic might be a born again type. His dad is a chest physician and his brother was also a doctor who died in at about 30 of a brain tumour. His brother was a nice guy.
“His dad is a chest physician”
Dr Ral Antic was a go to expert for asbestos claims in SA (which are common) along with the late Jack Alpers.
Is the ABC scared to call seats for One Nation or what?
Shannon Hurn was a premiership winner.
Unlike her brother, Ashton is another Premier-ship loser.
(Thanks Bob, for this information).
“ON’s best result since 1998! If only Malcolm Turnbull hadn’t called that ridiculous double dissolution and revived Poorleen’s career”
Centrists are the great enablers of reactionaries, so to be expected.
Does anyone know if there is to be any further counting in the South Australian election today? Approximately half of the seats did not have any prepolls counted at the close of counting last night and I had understood this counting was to be done on election night. I assume the reason why the count was not completed was the large number of candidates in so many electorates.
https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2026/03/south-australia-2026-postcount-summary.html
South Australia 2026 Postcount Summary. Links Hub And Basic 2CP Contests (includes postcount for Light)
Heysen also got a thread last night as a reward for fast counting https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2026/03/sa-2026-postcount-heysen.html
By doctor’s wives of course you mean smart, educated, capable women able to think for themselves.
@anne-marie
Gender segregation in temples is a feature of every major religion. The Catholics only got rid of it in the mid 1900s and many eastern Christians still do it. I remember my dad telling me that men are supposed to sit on the right in Greek Orthodox church, but only old people like my grandparents cared about those things and it wasn’t strictly adhered to by the younger generations. I’m not aware of the rules in Hinduism, but after visiting a few temples the only thing I know is that I know nothing about Hinduism.
FFS
My wife hates the term. It’s very derogatory if you think about it. Esp if you are a doctor’s wife. It’s also sexist. Why not doctor’s husbands?
I’m interested in how the Opposition works. The Libs will have the second most between the two houses and prob most in the lower house. Is LOTO actually a legal thing? Is Opposition actually mentioned in Constitution etc. Will Lib and ON both cover all the portfolios with their meagre resources?
Many ‘Doctor’s Wives’ are in fact doctors themselves…
FFS, Diog, yes, obviously the term is not good but I’m using it as shorthand for what you describe, ie people who might have voted economically LNP but are not stupid/racist/desperate enough to vote for One Nation style policies.
I would be surprised if the Libs offered ON MPs the chance to join an opposition coalition.
More likely that careerist ON members get ambitions and leave Ms. Hanson to join the opposition mid-term – we must suspect from history that few people can tolerate a professional relationship with her for very long.
PR
I think “doctors wives” are basically Teals.
Iirc, Dr Kerryn Phelps’* wife is also a doctor.
* Former member for Wentworth.
Geez, one would almost want the Greens and Labor to lose in Heysen to shore up Liberal numbers to maintain opposition status if ON pull through and win 4 or 5 seats.
——————————
I’m gonna say it is one of the reasons Teague will/may hold his seat. Locals were aware of the situation.
I did a double take inside the cardboard box. Only thing that stopped me is knowing most of Teagues backers in the area are much further to the right of Teague and not unsympathetic to Hanson.
Wasn’t there a “Mosman Housewives” thing in Sydney wayback – similar to Doctors Wives cultural grouping?
Ofcourse, some of these can be utter Karens.
JM from Qld @ #24 Sunday, March 22nd, 2026 – 9:40 am
The majority of Australian medical graduates have been female since the early 1980s & we tend to hang out together. Fun fact: the Sydney University Med grad year 1979 (which I joined half-way through) was the first to have more women than men & also had the oldest average graduating age since WW2 – thanks Gough. Suck on that Wokeness, Children of The Orange Ones.
There’s nothing more satisfying than everyone ignoring the obvious intent of a statement to start rabbitting on about a minor question of terminology!
To go slightly against the grain here I find this result a little alarming. One Nation only needs to be another 5% up and Labor another 5% down and they are in play.
I read this as:
1. A decent chunk of the electorate perceives that the current (?) duopoly does not serve their interests. If you take the One Nation and Greens primary votes more than a third of voters seem to feel this way.
2. Of those disaffected voters 22% of the SA electorate are vulnerable to far right propaganda/racist dog whistling.
3. MAGA/Rinehart and their empty vessel stooge Hanson have been able to capture those voters. I have no doubt the extent of the money they have poured into online manipulation will gradually become apparent.
All of that says to be that there is a non-zero chance of a Trump style ‘protest vote gone horrible wrong’ outcome in Australia in the next couple of cycles.
The Klaxons and red lights have been going off for some time and so far I think it’s fair to say Labor has not done anything that has flowed through to the electorate. People can see housing getting ever further out of reach, cost of living getting worse and worse, yet there are also more high end Audis and Range Rovers cruising around than ever before. When people perceive that there’s a party and they ain’t invited they tend to want to wreck the system.
So my personal view is that with the Liberals in tatters and One Nation not yet in a position of strength Labor must, finally, grasp the nettle and start restoring the fairness that used to define this country. Tax resources and multinationals properly, stop the use of residential property as a means of generating wealth, stop pumping public money into private schools and hospitals, start reversing the misguided privatization of key public services, actually show working/lower middle class voters that the government genuinely wants to make sure they and their kids have a good life.
And while we’re at it Labor could do worse than to finally front up to the pedophile elephant in the room and make clear to these voters that a Labor government will not be sending their kids to die in Iran or Taiwan and will be redirecting hundreds of billions away from AUKUS and towards a sensible defensive posture which does not depend on the whims of a senile, psychopathic proto-dictator…
It’s also time that clowns like Minns stopped harassing protesters he should be supporting and started throwing the actual Nazis walking around the place in jail.
If I’m one of those voters now I see no sign of any of that federally… The property casino gets ever more out of control, public health and education continues to deteriorate, foreign policy is set by the US and Israel, yet I see others in the community getting rich and fat while I’m terrified about my next paycheck not covering rent for my shithole house owned by a ruthless landlord against whom I have no rights. Maybe I’ll vote One Nation as a big ‘fuck you’…
TL;DR, I think there’s cause for concern and Labor needs to respond to the rise of the far right.
“yet there are also more high end Audis and Range Rovers cruising around than ever before.”
It’s the Tesla’s that piss people off.
Albo will stop negative gearing for third plus investment homes
Labor got hammered by ON in outer northern suburbs. They had a big enough buffer to hold in Taylor but are at risk in Light
Reference the concern about whether it will be Libs or ON as the official opposition.
I hope it’s ON so the whole country can see that they are a disorganised rabble. As official opposition they should be able to present some rational policies, I doubt they can do that.
Apparently Antic has already said that female Libs should go and form their own party. I haven’t checked but I think any successful ON candidates will be blokes. All the ALP Government has to do is discuss policy like abortion and sexual preference rights, and support for trade unions and the true attitudes of the ON loons will be in public view.
Good post. I am at a loss to figure out how you would go about peeling off significant numbers of ON voters. I have spent some time with some of them and they are essentially inside closed loops.
Diog, surely if you’re prepared to buy a Nazi car in 2026 you’re probably a One Nation voter already? IMHO the “EVs are toys for the rich” meme died about 3 years ago.
“FFS, Diog, yes, obviously the term is not good but I’m using it as shorthand for what you describe, ie people who might have voted economically LNP but are not stupid/racist/desperate enough to vote for One Nation style policies.”
Teals would be a better term, as there are plenty of men married to professional women who act in exactly the same manner, that is to say socially and economically liberal.
Outsider
Yes but to what extent was that due to Tony Piccolo switching to Ngadjuri?
I think that decision was made when the polls were looking evecn stronger for Labor, who then went to win both seats. I think if Piccolo had stayed in Light, it would have been held.
@rhwombat
On my first day of med school, roughly a decade ago now, a few friends and I had to listen to a paediatrician (probably in their 60s – they still work where I work now) whinge about how there were “too many women in medicine now”. I don’t know the exact numbers for my graduating class but I think there was at least parity.
Light was Liberal in early 2000s and only moved to safe ALP after Piccolo started making it so around 2018. Him vacating to a different electorate hasn’t helped there.
But yeah, absolutely, the ALP have a challenge from PHON to hold some of these seats.
Outside: “Labor got hammered by ON”
They got ‘hammered’ into winning seven seats?
” I haven’t checked but I think any successful ON candidates will be blokes.”
Spot on. The upper house order is Male, Male, Female
Of the seven ON are in the running, 6 are male and 1 female.
Piccolo’s move may still have been successful if the Liberals decided to preference him. He should finish second over Pratt and be within shouting distance.
That Liberal preference decisions are a small chance of relegating them out of official opposition status is quite amusing to me. Still, at least Labor didn’t win two more seats, right Ashton and Alex?
I’ve read all the comments across last night and this morning.
I haven t seen one guesstimate of how much of the One Nation vote in SA is made up of voters who would have otherwise voted National if there were decent candidates available.
Don’t get me wrong, the shift to ON is watershed stuff, but I think it is naive to think the same will happen in Victoria if the Nats have decent candidates
Patrick Bateman
Well said, compounding the problem is the attitudes you get from Labor people to suggestions they are leaving people behind.
Landlord, perhaps you should be sharing such advice for your liberal people, cuz they look like they’re circling the drain. The advice from people such as you is how you got here.
Patrick Bateman, that is how I feel at every Labor election win and explains my usual sense of gradually increasing disappointment over the course of the subsequent four years.
I know the answer isn’t to throw the toys out of the cot, but how are the vested interests to be chased from the Labor agenda? I agree with everything you said and it reflects everything Labor could do at its very best
Pi
Patrick was talking about the Labor Party.
@MrSquiggle
The Nats traditonally haven’t been a thing in SA though, no?