The 2018 South Australian state election to elect members to the 54th Parliament of South Australia was held on 17 March 2018. All 47 seats in the House of Assembly or lower house, whose members were elected at the 2014 election, and 11 of 22 seats in the Legislative Council or upper house, last filled at the 2010 election, were contested. The record-16-year-incumbent Australian Labor Party (SA) government led by Premier Jay Weatherill was seeking a fifth four-year term, but was defeated by the opposition Liberal Party of Australia (SA), led by Opposition Leader Steven Marshall. Nick Xenophon's new SA Best party unsuccessfully sought to obtain the balance of power.
Like federal elections, South Australia has compulsory voting, uses full-preference instant-runoff voting for single-member electorates in the lower house and optional preference single transferable voting in the proportionally represented upper house. The election was conducted by the Electoral Commission of South Australia (ECSA), an independent body answerable to Parliament.
Results.
House of Assembly.
Party-redistributed seats.
The seats of Colton, Elder, Mawson and Newland were won by Labor at the previous election, but the 2016 redistribution made them notionally Liberal seats. Colton, Elder and Newland were won by the Liberals; Mawson was retained by Labor.
Aftermath.
Four hours after the close of polls, at approximately 10pm ACDT, incumbent Premier Jay Weatherill telephoned Steven Marshall and conceded defeat. Weatherill subsequently publicly announced that he had conceded, saying, "I'm sorry I couldn't bring home another victory, but I do feel like one of those horses that has won four Melbourne Cups and I think the handicap has caught up with us on this occasion." Marshall claimed victory saying, "A massive thank you to the people of South Australia who have put their trust, their faith in me and the Liberal team for a new dawn, a new dawn for South Australia!" After the SA Best party failed to win a seat in the lower house, Nick Xenophon ruled out a return to federal politics.
Following the election outcome, Weatherill resigned as state Labor leader and returned to the backbench. Outgoing Minister for Health Peter Malinauskas became Leader of the Opposition, with outgoing Education Minister Susan Close as deputy, following a Labor caucus meeting on 9 April 2018.
Notably, the Liberals won 16 of the 33 metropolitan seats, their best showing in the Adelaide area since their landslide victory in 1993, when they took all but nine seats in the capital. Labor had spent all but 12 of the 48 years since the end of the Playmander in government due to its traditional dominance of Adelaide. South Australia is one of the most centralised states in Australia; Adelaide is home to over three-quarters of the state's population. To a greater extent than other state capitals, Adelaide is decisive in deciding state election outcomes. Since the end of the Playmander, most elections have seen Labor win most of the metropolitan seats, with most of the Liberal vote locked up in safe rural seats. In 2010, for instance, the Liberals won 51 percent of the two-party vote on a swing that should have been large enough to deliver them government. However, they only won nine seats in Adelaide, allowing Labor to eke out a two-seat majority. In 2014, while picking up a two percent two-party swing, the Liberals were only able to win an additional three seats in Adelaide.
New Parties - Australian Conservatives and SA Best.
Two Federal Senators from South Australia, Cory Bernardi and Nick Xenophon formed new political parties which would contest the State Election.
In April 2017 Cory Bernardi's new party Australian Conservatives merged with Family First Party and its two state incumbents Dennis Hood and Robert Brokenshire joined the party. The Australian Conservatives at its first election would not win any seats. At the election, the Australian Conservatives suffered a 3.2% swing in the South Australian House of Assembly (from a Family First vote of 6.2% in 2014) for a primary vote of 3.0%. It stood 33 candidates for the lower house, none of whom came close to being elected. It suffered a swing of 0.9% swing in the Legislative Council (from a Family First vote of 4.4% in 2014) for a primary vote of 3.5%.
Nick Xenophon announced a few SA Best lower house candidates. Polls had included Xenophon's party as one of the four parties they monitored explicitly since February 2016. Originally, SA Best planned to only contest 12 seats. This was increased to 20. On 27 January, a landmark was passed when Xenophon announced eight new candidates, making a total of 24. This was the minimum number to be theoretically capable of forming majority government in the 47-seat house. On 1 February, Xenophon said it was likely the total number of SA Best lower house candidates would be around 30.
During the election Xenophon and his SA Best party pushed for a law that Ice users in South Australia will be forced into drug rehabilitation.
After early opinion polls indicated that SA Best could outperform the two main incumbent parties, the party ultimately contested 36 seats in the House of Assembly and put forward four candidates for the upper house. Opinion polling indicated a strong performance for the party was possible in at least 10 seats.
Key seats for SA Best.
The table lists, according to The Poll Bludger website and based on the Nick Xenophon Team's Senate vote performance at the 2016 federal election, the strongest SA Best seats.
Though most of the listed seats are safe Liberal seats, a third party or candidate with a substantial vote was believed to be more likely to be successful in a traditionally safe seat than a marginal seat due to it being easier to out-poll the comparatively low primary vote of the seat's traditionally uncompetitive major party, usually before but occasionally after the distribution of preferences (see 2009 Frome state by-election). If the third party attracts enough first preference votes away from the dominant party, then it is possible that the preferences of voters for the second traditional party will assist the new party's candidate to overtake and therefore defeat the incumbent on the two-candidate-preferred vote (rather than the normally pivotal two-party-preferred vote). According to "The Poll Bludger", Nick Xenophon's SA Best candidates "will stand an excellent chance in any seat where they are able to outpoll one or other major party, whose voters will overwhelmingly place them higher than the candidate of the rival major party. In that circumstance, the more strongly performing major party candidate will be in serious trouble unless their own primary vote approaches 50%, which will be difficult to achieve in circumstances where approaching a quarter of the vote has gone to SA Best."
Analysis in December 2017 from polling company Essential Research found SA Best preference flows of 60/40 to Liberal/Labor, indicating that the substantial third party presence of SA Best is eating in to the Liberal vote somewhat greater than the Labor vote.
Ultimately, the SA Best party failed to secure any lower house seats, although there was a close contest on preferences in the seat of Heysen, which is based in the Adelaide Hills, where the final two party result was Liberal 51.2% to SA Best 48.2%. SA Best party leader Xenophon failed to win the seat of Hartley after finishing second on first preferences with 24.9%. The seat was retained by the Liberals after Xenophon was eliminated from the 2 party count, after falling between the Labor candidate, due to the preference redistributions from the other 4 candidates which totalled about 10% of the vote. The party came second on primary votes in ten seats; the strongest results were in Chaffey, Finniss, Hartley, Heysen and Taylor where the party received over 24%. ;br ;
SA Best did, however, secure two upper house positions in the South Australian Legislative Council, with the successful election of Connie Bonaros, the campaign manager, and Frank Pangallo, Xenophon's former media advisor.
Following the election, NXT Senator Stirling Griff claimed that polling indicated a 5% drop in SA Best's vote as a direct result of negative advertisements by two major parties as well as the Australian Hotels Association (AHA). He also claimed paternity for an election ad that had been described as "wacky, cheesy" and that that ad actually led to a polling bump for SA Best.
Background.
Overview.
There were fourteen political parties registered with the Electoral Commission of South Australia at the time of the election, which were consequently eligible to field candidates for election. Aside from the major parties (Labor and Liberal parties), SA-Best, which polled higher figures than the major parties on occasion, ran in 36 seats, more than the 24 theoretically required to form government. The fourteen parties registered with the Commission were Advance SA, Animal Justice Party, Australian Conservatives, Child Protection Party, Danig Party of Australia, Dignity Party, the Australian Greens SA, Australian Labor Party (SA Branch) and Country Labor Party, Liberal Party of Australia (SA Division), Liberal Democratic Party, the National Party of Australia (SA) Inc, Nick Xenophon's SA-BEST, and Stop Population Growth Now. Since the previous election, six new parties had registered: Danig Party of Australia, Animal Justice Party, Nick Xenophon's SA-BEST, Australian Conservatives, Advance SA and the Child Protection Party. Four were no longer registered: FREE Australia Party, Fishing and Lifestyle Party, Multicultural Progress Party and the Family First Party.
Voting changes.
Like federal elections, South Australia has compulsory voting and uses full-preference instant-runoff voting for single-member electorates in the lower house. However, following similar Senate changes which took effect from the 2016 federal election, South Australia's single transferable vote in the proportionally represented upper house changed from group voting tickets to optional preferential voting − instructions for above the line votes were to mark '1' and then further preferences optional as opposed to preference flows from simply '1' above the line being determined by group voting tickets, while instructions for voters who instead opt to vote below the line were to provide at least twelve preferences as opposed to having to number all candidates, and with a savings provision to admit ballot papers which indicate at least six below-the-line preferences.
Previous election.
The 2014 election resulted in a hung parliament with 23 seats for Labor and 22 for the Liberals. The balance of power rested with the two crossbench independents, Bob Such and Geoff Brock. Such did not indicate who he would support in a minority government before he went on medical leave for a brain tumour, diagnosed one week after the election. University of Adelaide Professor and Political Commentator Clem Macintyre said the absence of Such virtually guaranteed that Brock would back Labor – with 24 seats required to govern, Brock duly provided support to the incumbent Labor government, allowing Premier Jay Weatherill to continue in office as head of a minority government. Macintyre said:
If Geoff Brock had gone with the Liberals, then the Parliament would have effectively been tied 23 to 23, so once Bob Such became ill and stepped away then Geoff Brock, I think had no choice but to side with Labor.
The Liberals were reduced to 21 seats in May 2014 when Martin Hamilton-Smith became an independent and entered cabinet with Brock. Both Hamilton-Smith and Brock agreed to support the government on confidence and supply while retaining the right to otherwise vote on conscience. It is Labor's longest-serving South Australian government and the second longest-serving South Australian government behind the Playmander-assisted Thomas Playford IV. Aside from Playford, it is the second time that any party has won four consecutive state elections in South Australia, the first occurred when Don Dunstan led Labor to four consecutive victories between 1970 and 1977. Recent hung parliaments occurred when Labor came to government at the 2002 election and prior to that at the 1997 election which saw the South Australian Division of the Liberal Party of Australia, created in 1974, win re-election for the first time. Following the 2014 election, Labor went from minority to majority government when Nat Cook won the 2014 Fisher by-election by five votes from a 7.3 percent two-party swing which was triggered by the death of Such. Despite this, the Jay Weatherill Labor government kept Brock and Hamilton-Smith in cabinet, giving the government a 26 to 21 parliamentary majority. Frances Bedford resigned from Labor and became an independent in March 2017 after minister Jack Snelling was endorsed for Florey pre-selection as a result of the major electoral