Category: SA Election 2018

The Advertiser has YouGov Galaxy polls targeting the three seats held by independents, which show Geoff Brock and Frances Bedford headed for re-election in Frome and Florey, but Duncan McFetridge struggling in Morphett. In Frome, the Liberals lead the primary vote 44% to Geoff Brock’s 36%, which almost exactly reverses the result in 2014, but preferences from Labor on 15% and the Greens on 3% boost him to a 52-48 lead. Frances Bedford leads in Florey by 36% to 31% and 57-43 on two-party preferred, with the Liberals on 21%, the Greens on 5% and others on 7%.

Morphett is more complex, with the Liberals’ 39% short of what would guarantee them victory, but with the rest of the vote shared by Labor on 22%, SA Best on 17% and Duncan McFetridge on 16%. The Advertiser provides a 55-45 two-party lead for the Liberals against Labor, but there would seem a strong chance that one out of SA Best and McFetridge could pass Labor with the other’s preferences, then defeat the Liberals on Labor preferences.

The polls also have preferred premier results that find Steven Marshall on 31%, Jay Weatherill on 24% and Nick Xenophon on 20% in Frome; Marshall 39%, Weatherill 29% and Xenophon 18% in Morphett; and Weatherill 28%, Xenophon 28% and Marshall 18% in Florey. The polls were conducted on Wednesday and Thursday, from samples of 513 in Frome, 525 in Morphett and 506 in Florey.

The Australian has a South Australian state Newspoll result that is headlined by a 21% reading for SA Best, compared with a 32% result at the last Newspoll in December. However, half of the drop is down to the fact that SA Best will only be contested 36 out of 47, and the option is no longer being made available to respondents in seats where the party isn’t running. The two major parties are both up three points, to 32% in the Liberals’ case and 30% in Labor’s. The Greens are up a point to 7%, while Australian Conservatives are on 6%.

Jay Weatherill is down a point on approval to 33%, and up one on disapproval to 54%, while Steven Marshall is up one to 28% and up four to 54%. Weatherill leads as preferred premier by 38-31, shifting from 37-32 last time. In a three-way contest, Xenophon has crashed from 46% to 29%, but remains one point ahead of Weatherill, who is up six points, and five ahead of Marshall, who is up five points.

The poll also finds the parties evenly matched on energy policy, with the Liberals favoured by 37% and Labor by 36%. Thirty-two per cent said they were more likely to vote Labor due to their 75% renewable energy target, 22% less likely, and 34% no difference.

The poll was conducted Tuesday to Thursday from a sample of 1078.

The Advertiser has another two seat polls from YouGov Galaxy – one from a Liberal seat and one from Labor, with the incumbent parties under pressure in both cases from SA Best. In the Adelaide Hills seat of Heysen, to be vacated with the retirement of former Liberal leader Isobel Redmond, the Liberals are on 39% of the primary vote compared with 22% for SA Best, 16% for the Greens, 15% for Labor and 8% others. That would leave SA Best in need of 72% of preferences, and the respondent-allocated two-party result has them not quite getting there, with the Liberals leading 51-49.

In the Whyalla-based seat of Giles, where Labor have been making life difficult for themselves recently, Labor incumbent Eddie Hughes is on 37% with SA Best on 31%, the Liberals on 23%, the Greens on 3% and others on 6%. With SA Best needing 60% of preferences, the poll calls it lineball on two-party preferred. The polls were conducted on Wednesday and Thursday, from samples of 501 in Heysen and 504 in Giles.

We’ve also had the declaration of nominations for the lower house today, and there turn out to be 264 candidates for an average of 5.6 per seat. Labor, Liberal and the Greens are contesting every seat, SA Best are contesting 36, the Conservatives 33, the Dignity Party 30, and there are nine from small minor parties and 15 independents. The upper house will be done tomorrow.

The Advertiser has two polls of Adelaide seats conducted by YouGov Galaxy, one from Labor-held Lee, the other from Liberal-held Morialta.

In Lee, Labor front-bencher Stephen Mullighan trails the Liberal candidate by 39% to 34% on the primary vote, with everything depending on preferences from SA Best, who are a distant third on 18%. Galaxy estimates that this translates into a two-party result of 50-50, but this would seem to be highly speculative.

The Morialta poll has SA Best clearing the first hurdle, outscoring Labor by 25% to 21% on the primary vote, unless preferences from the Greens on 6% closed the gap. However, Liberal incumbent John Gardner is estimated to emerge 52-48 in front, from a primary vote of 40%. The SA Best result is consistent with a statewide vote more in line with the 24.9% it recorded for the Senate in 2016 than the 30% plus figures that were coming through in earlier Galaxy polling.

A better premier question has Jay Weatherill on 31%, Steven Marshall on 25% and Nick Xenophon on 22% in Lee; in Morialta it’s all but a three-way tie, with Xenophon 28% and Weatherill and Marshall on 27% each. The polls were conducted last Wednesday and Thursday from samples of 520 in Lee and 505 in Morialta.

The South Australian election campaign is now officially on, with the Premier visiting the Governor yesterday to advise the issuing of the writs. Here are some doings since this blog’s last South Australian instalment:

• Thursday’s Advertiser had two ReachTEL polls from the electorates of Mount Gambier and MacKillop in the state’s south-eastern corner. The Mount Gambier poll turned up a remarkably strong result for Troy Bell, who won the seat for the Liberals from an independent in 2014, then became an independent himself when charges of mishandling public funds were laid against him in August. Bell was credited with 36.3% of the primary vote, well clear of Liberal candidate Craig Marsh on 28.5%, with Labor on 13.3%, a then-unspecified SA Best candidate on 11.3%, others on 5.8%, and 4.7% undecided. According to Daniel Wills of The Advertiser, the result matches up with “steady rumblings coming from Mount Gambier for some time”. The poll was conducted on Tuesday from a sample of 665.

• In MacKillop, which is being vacated by the retirement of Liberal member Mitch Williams, ReachTEL had Liberal candidate Nick McBride on 56.7%, with SA Best on 15.8% and Labor on 12.1%. The sample for the MacKillop poll was 615; it too was conducted on Tuesday.

Continue reading “South Australian election minus four weeks”

Polling conducted for corporate clients by YouGov Galaxy (as it’s now called) has found not only that Nick Xenophon will succeed in Hartley, but that SA Best candidates are poised to win Hurtle Vale and Mawson on Adelaide’s southern fringe. While the samples are only around 350 per electorate, the results are impressive in their consistency. Xenophon was on 37% of the primary vote in Hartley, compared with 32% for Liberal incumbent Vincent Tarzia and 21% for former Labor member Grace Portolesi, and led the Liberals 57-43 on two-party preferred. In Mawson, SA Best candidate Helen Wainwright was on 38%, to 25% for Liberal candidate Andy Gilfillan and 22% for Labor member Leon Bignell. In Hurtle Vale, SA Best candidate Michael O’Brien was on 33%, with Labor member Nat Cook on 29% and Liberal candidate Aaron Duff on 23%.

Meanwhile, Xenophon continues to play the media like a harp with a series of high-impact announcements of new candidates:

Continue reading “The Nick Xenophon gazette”

The Poll Bludger’s guide to the South Australian election on March 17 is now open for business. It features detailed guides for each of the forty-seven House of Assembly seats; a guide to the Legislative Council election, which will elect half the chamber’s twenty-two members; a detailed overview; and a poll tracker feature that will be promptly updated as new data becomes available. My next task is to craft a similar effort for the Tasmanian election that will either be on March 3 or March 17, which in the latter case will set up a clash with South Australia for the third time in a row. However, there is increasing chatter that the former date is being favoured, with Premier Will Hodgman potentially to fire the starter’s gun as early as Sunday.

If any of this strikes you as entertaining or useful, you might care to show your appreciation by tipping some coins into the PressPatron donations facility at the top of the page and the bottom of this post. If you have any to spare afterwards, you are encouraged to do the same for the similarly donation-dependent InDaily, whose coverage of South Australian politics has been of the greatest value to me in putting this together.