South Australian Politics – Page 12

ReachTEL: 55-45 to Liberal in South Australia

A new ReachTEL poll for the March 15 South Australian state election provides the exact same two-party preferred result as last week’s Galaxy poll.

GhostWhoVotes relates that a ReachTEL automated phone poll, which I’m guessing was conducted for Channel Seven, concurs with the recent Galaxy poll in having the Liberals with an election-winning lead of 55-45. Primary votes are 31.3% for Labor, 42.3% for Liberal, 18.4% for “others” including the Greens and 8% for undecided, which taking the latter out of the equation results in 34%, 46% and 20%. Steven Marshall leads Jay Weatherill as preferred premier 58.5-41.5, but ReachTEL’s findings on personal ratings can be a bit unusual owing to the absence of an undecided option.

UPDATE: Full results here.

Galaxy: 55-45 to Liberal in South Australia

The first poll of a South Australian election year shows the Liberals with a decisive lead in the wake of Labor’s recent travails.

The Advertiser reports a Galaxy poll of 849 respondents conducted last night and the night before has the Liberals with a 55-45 lead on two-party preferred, a small but very handy gain on the 54-46 it recorded from Galaxy in November, and the 53-47 from Newspoll’s quarterly October-to-December result. Galaxy puts the Liberals on 46% of the primary vote, compared with 35% for Labor and 7% for the Greens.

The accompanying report by Daniel Wills further relates that the Liberals are feeling “bullish” about the Whyalla-based seat of Giles, which Labor holds by 11.9% but faces the retirement of sitting member Lyn Breuer, and Mount Gambier, a naturally conservative seat which passed from one independent to another in 2010. Conversely, Labor is said to be hopeful of recovering the seat of Adelaide, where it presumably believes the decisive 14.5% Liberal swing in 2010 was driven by one-off local issues.

South Australian election guide: March 15

Introducing the Poll Bludger’s comprehensive seat-by-seat guide to South Australia’s March 15 state election.

The Poll Bludger’s guide to the South Australian state election is open for business, offering comprehensive overviews of each of the state’s 47 lower house electoral districts including, in most cases, booth result maps (with an upper house guide to follow when I can find time). Labor goes into the election with 26 seats against 18 for the Liberals, with three independents. The numbers are unchanged from the 2010 election, there having been no party resignations or defeats for incumbent parties at by-elections.

Labor did remarkably well to secure the above score line at the 2010 election, given that they were outpolled 51.6-48.4 on two-party preferred. The margins listed on the election guide entry page tell the story, with Labor holding 11 of their 26 seats by 5% or less compared with only three for the Liberals, and the Liberals holding five seats on margins equal to or greater than Labor’s safest seat. This may point to a difficulty for a one-vote one-value regime in delivering balanced party representation when conservative support is strongly concentrated outside the city, Labor’s only substantial basis of support outside Adelaide being in the declining “iron triangle” cities. Of these, only Whyalla continues to furnish Labor with a reliable seat in Giles, with Port Augusta and Port Pirie respectively subsumed in the conservative seats of Stuart and Frome. By contrast, Adelaide is home to swathe of marginal seats which appear, on the basis of the 2010 result, to have a slight natural lean to Labor.

A provision in the state’s constitution requiring that an effort be made to achieve “electoral fairness” has for most of the past two decades resulted in redistributions after each election which have specifically aimed to even up any biases, the target being to guarantee victory to the party that exceeds 50% in the event of a uniform swing. That assumption was seriously confounded by the 2010 result, at which the only two swings to Labor in the whole state happened to be in their two most marginal seats (Light and Mawson, at Adelaide’s northern top and southern tail). Elsewhere, a combined 9.4% swing in Adelaide deflated Labor margins in a brace of seats where blowouts had occurred in their favour in 2010, but only Adelaide, Morialta and Norwood switched to the Liberal column (Norwood, its name now changed to Dunstan, was won from Labor by none other than Steven Marshall, who took less than three years to rise from marginal seat challenger to Opposition Leader).

As I wrote in Crikey last week, this caused the boundaries commissioners to put the uniform swing objective into the too-hard basket, and they proceeded with an unambitious redistribution that contented itself with clipping Labor’s wings in marginal seats where the opportunity presented itself. Consequently, a Liberal Party that starts from a 2010 election base of 51.6% needs to gain still more to win office, so long as the uniform swing assumption holds. Three pieces of low-hanging fruit are available in the form of Hartley (0.1%), Bright (0.5%) and Ashford (0.6%), but beyond that point the Liberals run into the problem of the three independents, all from naturally conservative seats – Don Pegler in Mount Gambier, which was last held by Labor in 1975; Geoff Brock in Frome, where Labor’s base of support in Port Pirie is more outweighed by surrounding country territory; and the naturally conservative seat of Fisher in foothills suburbs in southern Adelaide, which former Liberal MP Bob Such has held as an independent since quitting the party in 2000.

The Liberals have talked up their chances in all three, but Bob Such in particular will surely be very hard to shake loose, having won by 16.6% in 2010. However, a trend against independents around the country over recent years suggests Geoff Brock can take nothing for granted in Frome, which he won narrowly at a by-election in 2009 and retained by 7.5% at the general election the following year. Mount Gambier is hard to predict, as sitting member Don Pegler won by a hair’s breadth in 2010 upon the retirement of another independent, Rory McEwen. Independents generally perform well after they have had a term to entrench themselves, but a mood for majority government might make this time an exception. There appears an outside prospect of independents poaching metropolitan seats from Labor in Lee, where popular local mayor Gary Johanson is targeting a seat where the Labor member is retiring, and Mitchell, where Labor-turned-independent MP Kris Hanna is trying again after retaining the seat as an independent in 2006, then falling short in 2010. There are no major independent threats in Liberal seats that I am aware of; the Nationals lost their only seat to the Liberals in 2010, and do not seem likely to make a comeback this time.

Should Pegler, Brock and Such remain where they are, that leaves the Liberals needing another three seats if they are to go all the way, which the pendulum suggests is likely if they achieve a swing of 3%. That doesn’t seem a particularly high mountain to climb for an opposition facing a 12-year-old government, but it requires a two-party preferred win of beyond 54-46, which is not something the polls have been crediting them with with any consistency. Failing that though, as the 2010 result makes clear, it’s by no means impossible that a smaller swing can give them what they need provided it’s fortuitously distributed.

If one South Australian election guide isn’t enough for you, Ben Raue’s typically thorough effort is available here, and I gather Antony Green’s should be along any day now.

UPDATE (31/1): A fairly comprehensive update to my entry for the seat of Napier will shortly be required following gobsmacking developments, in which a) member Michael O’Brien announced he would make way in the seat for Don Farrell, the principal powerbroker of his Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association faction and a soon-to-be former Senator and powerbroker, b) Jay Weatherill threatened in an ABC Radio to quit politics if this proceeded, invoking Farrell’s involvement in the 2010 coup against Kevin Rudd and agreeing voters might perceive a possibility that Farrell would move against him after the election, and and c) Farrell backed down and announced he would make no further efforts to pursue a career in politics when his Senate term expires in the middle of the year.

Newspoll: 53-47 to Liberal in SA

Three months out from the election, the latest figures from Newspoll continue to credit South Australia’s Liberals with a decisive lead, but by a narrower margin than they would like and with the trend running against them.

The year’s final quarterly Newspoll survey of state voting intention in South Australia, where an election looms on March 15, finds the Liberals on track for what by recent historical standards is a modest victory. The poll has the Liberals leading 53-47 on two-party preferred, which compares with 56-44 for the last poll covering the April-June period (couldn’t tell you why there was no July-September result, but perhaps interference from the federal election had something to do with it). On the primary vote, Labor is up one point to 33% and the Liberals are down four to 40%. Last time there was an extra 1% for the Nationals – I’m not sure if they have troubled the scorers on this occasion (UPDATE: GhostWhoVotes relates in comments that they have not). The Greens are steady on 10%, with “others” up four to 17%.

Jay Weatherill is still in net positive territory on personal ratings, which is pretty good work for the head of a 12-year-old government, although he’s down four on approval to 43% and up two on disapproval to 37%. Steven Marshall is holding up even better, his approval rating up two to 43% and disapproval up one to 21%. Weatherill holds a 40-29 lead as preferred premier, which is hardly changed on the previous 41-30. The sample for the poll was 874. Hat tip to James J in comments.

Galaxy: 54-46 to Liberal in South Australia

Four months out from the next state election, a Galaxy poll shows South Australia’s Liberals with a decisive 54-46 lead over the 12-year-old Labor government.

The Advertiser reports a Galaxy poll of state voting intention of South Australia, covering 860 respondents, shows the Liberals with a two-party preferred lead of 54-46. An election will be held in South Australia on March 15. From The Advertiser’s report:

Statewide, Labor’s primary vote has dipped from 37.5 per cent at the 2010 election to 36 per cent today. In the same period, the Liberal primary vote has increased from 41.6 to 44 per cent.

The Greens vote is steady at 8 per cent and 12 per cent of people intend to back minor parties.

The last Advertiser poll, published in March, showed the Liberals with a crushing 59-41 statewide lead and ahead of Labor 56-44 in metropolitan Adelaide.

Labor’s primary vote has improved six percentage points, from 30, since that poll.

The Liberal vote has declined 10 percentage points to 44 per cent since March.

It should be observed that this compares an in-house Advertiser poll with one conducted by Galaxy, where I suggest the latter would be more authoritative.

UPDATE: The poll also finds tepid personal ratings for the formerly popular Jay Weatherill, whose performance is rated good by 17%, fair by 51% and poor by 26%, while the respective numbers for Steven Marshall are 18%, 48% and 18%. Weatherill’s lead as preferred premier is just 39-38. Respondents also rate rate the Liberals the party with the better economic plan by 41-34, and the best vision for the state by 41-38. The poll was conducted November 12-13 from a sample of 860.

Newspoll: 56-44 to Liberal in South Australia

Eight months out from the election, the latest state Newspoll result for South Australia suggests the tide is going out on the Labor government, despite the popularity of the Premier.

James J relates that Newspoll’s April-June quarter result of state voting intention in South Australia has the Liberals’ two-party lead up from 54-46 to 56-44, from primary votes of 32% for Labor, 44% for the Liberals (plus 1% for the Nationals) and 10% for the Greens. Jay Weatherill is up a point on both approval and disapproval to 47% and 35%, while Steven Marshall is up four to 41% and up one to 20%. Weatherill’s lead as preferred premier shifts from 42-27 to 41-30.

UPDATE: Tables from GhostWhoVotes.

Newspoll: 54-46 to Liberal in South Australia

The first SA state Newspoll published since Steven Marshall deposed Isobel Redmond as Liberal leader has the party gaining three points on two-party preferred. Also featured: a review of preselection action since October.

James J in comments relates Newspoll’s first quarterly South Australian state voting intention result since Steven Marshall assumed the Liberal leadership shows the Liberal lead increasing from 51-49 to 54-46, from primary votes of 33% for Labor (down four), 44% for the Coalition (up three) and 10% for the Greens (up one). Jay Weatherill’s personal ratings show his approval down three to 46% and disapproval up two to 34%. Steven Marshall’s debut figures are 37% approve and 19% disapprove. Weatherill leads as preferred premier 42-27. The sample was an unusually small 586, for an unusually high margin of error of around 4%, presumably because only polling conducted since Marshall became leader on February 4 has been included.

The Liberals have been busy with preselections over the past few months, selecting the following candidates:

• Stephan Knoll, manager of Barossa Fine Foods, in the safe Liberal Barossa Valley seat of Schubert, to be vacated by the retirement of Ivan Venning. It was earlier reported the preselection was being delayed to keep an option open for Alexander Downer, but such talk has faded since Steven Marshall assumed the leadership.

• Joe Barry, a police officer aligned with Christopher Pyne’s moderate faction, for the western suburbs seat of Colton, held by Labor’s Paul Caica on a margin of 3.9%. Barry was chosen at the expense of Jassmine Wood, who ran for the federal seat of Hindmarsh in 2010 and was initially rated as the front-runner. Her fortunes changed in November when a motion moved by Pyne at state executive resolved to reopen nominations to allow Barry to run. Wood lodged an appeal against her eventual defeat, complaining she had earlier lobbied Barry confidentially without knowing she would be facing him as an opponent.

• Carolyn Habib, a 32-year-old Marion councillor, for the inner southern Adelaide seat of Elder. The seat is held for Labor on a margin of 1.7% by former senior minister Patrick Conlon, who quit cabinet in January and will bow out at the election. Conlon has attracted considerable criticism of late for taking up a three-day-a-week position with law firm Minter Ellison while continuing to serve in parliament. Labor is yet to choose his successor, but government adviser Mary-Lou Corcoran and lawyer Adrian Tisato have been mentioned as possible contenders.

• Corey Wingard, former presenter of a football program on Channel Ten, for the southern suburbs seat of Mitchell, where Labor’s Alan Sibbons unseated Labor-turned-Greens-turned-independent member Kris Hanna at the 2010 election, and holds a post-redistribution two-party preferred margin of 2.4%. Earlier reports suggested the nomination might again go to the candidate from 2010, chartered accountant Peta McCance.

• Kendall Jackson, former ABC rural reporter who left last year to manage the Flinders Rest Hotel in Warnertown, to run against independent Geoff Brock in the Port Pirie and Clare Valley seat of Frome.

• Local earth-moving business owner Cosie Costa to again run in the Gawler area seat of Light, despite a disappointing showing in 2010 when Labor member Tony Piccolo added 3.2% to his margin. The Labor margin after the redistribution is 4.2%.

• Norwood, Payneham and St Peters councillor Vincent Tarzia to run in the eastern Adelaide seat of Hartley, held for Labor by Grace Portolesi on a diminished post-redistribution margin of 0.5%. Associated with Christopher Pyne and the moderate faction, Tarzia easily won an October preselection with 79 votes against 11 for Campbelltown councillor Marijka Ryan and 10 for Joe Scalzi, who held the seat from 1993 until his defeat in 2006 and again ran unsuccessfully in 2010.

• Marion deputy mayor David Speirs for Bright, after winning an October preselection vote at the expense of Maria Kourtesis, the narrowly unsuccessful candidate in 2010, by 38 votes to 34. Bright covers coastal suburbs immediately south of Glenelg and is held for Labor by Chloe Fox. The redistribution has turned Fox’s 0.4% margin into a notional Liberal margin of 0.1%.

• Scott Roberts, a 32-year-old banker and Prospect councillor, for the inner northern Adelaide seat of Enfield, held for Labor by John Rau on a margin of 10.2%.

Labor preselection news:

• Stephen Mullighan, deputy chief-of-staff to the Premier and member of the Right, has been chosen to replace the retiring Michael Wright in the northern Adelaide seat of Lee, where the margin is 7.9%.

• Australian Services Union state secretary Katrine Hildyard has been preselected to succeed the retiring Gay Thompson in Reynell, a southern suburbs seat with a margin of 10.6%.

• Daniel Wills of The Advertiser reports the activities of Frances Bedford, which included joining a protest rally against the government’s awarding of stationery contracts to multinational rather than local companies, have resulted in pressure to have her dumped in her north-eastern Adelaide seat of Florey. Her mooted replacement is Justin Hanson, an industrial officer for the Australian Workers Union and the son of the union’s state secretary Wayne Hanson. However, “many Labor insiders are fearful Ms Bedford would run as an independent”.

Advertiser poll: 59-41 to Liberal in SA

A small-sample in-house poll by The Advertiser detects a big bounce for the Liberal Party under its new leader Steven Marshall.

A small-sample in-house poll by The Advertiser (412 respondents, margin of error around 5%) has the Liberals opening up a 59-41 lead under their new leader Steven Marshall, from primary votes of 30% for Labor, 54% for Liberal and 6% for the Greens. Jay Weatherill retains a narrow 36-33 lead as preferred Premier and is rated as doing a good or fair job by 72%, against 49% for Marshall.