South Australian Parliamentary Elections Thread (March 15, 2014)

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

T-minus 90 minutes until the polls close.

Will be watching this race closer than Tasmania.

Well Tasmania is just a matter of scale.

I'm going to stick with my prediction... but equally, I think the Libs can get the 24th seat they need.

[Wake Me Up When The Hard Border Ends]

Figures are beginning to come in, one booth has been counted in Hartley, with a 5.5% swing to Labor.

Also, one booth counted in Enfield, with a 17.2% swing to the Liberals!!!!

Not much movement in Florey from early returns there, and Johanson is polling 12.3% in Lee from early returns there.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

The swings, as expected, are completely without uniformity. Although it does seem the ALP is over-performing where they need to to make it respectable... the Libs are going to have to fight tooth and nail to get there.

[Wake Me Up When The Hard Border Ends]

Looks like I was WAY off - got Florey, Newland, Colton, Elder, Mitchell, Mawson and Light wrong!

Obviously a tad optimistic on my side of things.

[Hifly]

We're in hung parliament territory.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Looks like I was WAY off - got Florey, Newland, Colton, Elder, Mitchell, Mawson and Light wrong!

Obviously a tad optimistic on my side of things.

...again

Don't feel so stupid predicting a hung-parliament now

If the ABC numbers hold on, the ALP could actually form a Government....

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

While there are a lot of pre-polls and postals to come, I'd only expect the results to be impacted in Mitchell... and that could push the ALP to a majority, probably with an Indy (probably Brock) as Speaker.

It does seem the difference between 23 and 24 seats.

I thought a hung parliament was likely ... but this I was NOT expecting.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

It seems likely the Independents will side with the ALP... I never, ever thought this would be the outcome.

Putting Marshall up there was a sign of hubris on the part of the Libs. The guy was an empty suit and they assumed that SA would fall the same way as QLD and NSW did… relying on a small-target strategy and the unpopularity of the government to drag them over the line.

When push came to shove, as the election got closer… there was no wave, there was no sense of momentum, it became a race. The big problem was that the Libs were cornered and Marshall was exposed as the relative political weakling he was. Who’d have thunk the ALP would get swings TO them in ANY of their marginals?

It should be noted that Marshall got a 2.7% swing against him in his own seat, which drags him down to a 2.1% margin.

[Wake Me Up When The Hard Border Ends]

While there are a lot of pre-polls and postals to come, I'd only expect the results to be impacted in Mitchell... and that could push the ALP to a majority, probably with an Indy (probably Brock) as Speaker.

It does seem the difference between 23 and 24 seats.

I thought a hung parliament was likely ... but this I was NOT expecting.

It seems likely the Independents will side with the ALP... I never, ever thought this would be the outcome.

Putting Marshall up there was a sign of hubris on the part of the Libs. The guy was an empty suit and they assumed that SA would fall the same way as QLD and NSW did… relying on a small-target strategy and the unpopularity of the government to drag them over the line.

When push came to shove, as the election got closer… there was no wave, there was no sense of momentum, it became a race. The big problem was that the Libs were cornered and Marshall was exposed as the relative political weakling he was. Who’d have thunk the ALP would get swings TO them in ANY of their marginals?

It should be noted that Marshall got a 2.7% swing against him in his own seat, which drags him down to a 2.1% margin.

Neither was I, and it looks like I got Ashford wrong too. On a plus note, I may have got Mitchell right after all.

I can definitely say one thing though - the South Australian Liberal Party needs to sort out their factional warfare problems big time. Also, installing a freshman MP as leader was always going to be high-risk, although Marshall polled quite well in polls as preferred Premier...

Federal government issues? Abbott may have had some effect on tonight's election in SA, along with the Holden closure (which was going to happen regardless of who was in power). Also, people could be skeptical of giving one party too much power.

If you look at last year's federal results, Labor held on fairly comfortably in the following three seats, with marginal state seats highlighted:
Makin (Wright/Florey/Newland)
Wakefield (Light)
Kingston (Mawson)

In my opinion, the old saying of "State elections are fought on state issues" holds true tonight, for South Australia and Tasmania alike.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I think the state issues saying is fair and usually reasonable. I DO think that Abbott did not help their SA colleagues. In fact, my Lib friends were horrified when Abbott showed up in South Australia last week "Oh God, that's the last bloody visual we need in the marginals"

While the bleating over the 2PP v seat issue from the Libs is going to be the line, what is important for the Libs to realise is that if they hadn't wasted their swings in their and Labor safe seats, and actually focused better on the marginal seats, they'd have won.

If you look at the swings in the marginals... in half of the ALPs 10 most marginal seats, the swing against them at the moment is at 1% or less, and they received swings to them in two seats in that list of 10.

For the record... I do think it's ridiculous that the Libs can win the 2PP so convincingly and still lose... but considering the tiny swings they needed to pick up those few seats... it was a dreadful performance from the Libs.

[You kip if you want to...]

Brilliant result for the ALP, considering the polls.

[Hifly]

I think any chance of replacing Weatherill with Snelling or Koutsantonis is possibly out of the question if the independents get behind Labor.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I think any chance of replacing Weatherill with Snelling or Koutsantonis is possibly out of the question if the independents get behind Labor.

At the moment, Wetherill is a hero to the party ... he's safe for now. And yes, if there's written agreements with the Independents, any moves for the life of the next next parliament will be much harder.

[Hifly]

I think any chance of replacing Weatherill with Snelling or Koutsantonis is possibly out of the question if the independents get behind Labor.

At the moment, Wetherill is a hero to the party ... he's safe for now. And yes, if there's written agreements with the Independents, any moves for the life of the next next parliament will be much harder.

"Safe" is certainly the wrong word to use because the Christian Right easily has the numbers and power to remove him whenever suits them but certainly any deal with independents would ensure this probably won't happen.

[Platypus]

SA was never going to elect a Liberal government this year. THe question now is whether the ALP gets the Independents, or even 24 seats.

[Frodo]

Labor: 21
Liberals: 19
Other: 2

With 69% of the vote counted.  

[MaxQue]

Embarassing for Liberals. I'm pretty sure everyone expected them to win.

[You kip if you want to...]

Embarassing for Liberals. I'm pretty sure everyone expected them to win.

The voters, even more than the media, expected it.

Have to wonder, had she stayed, if Redmond would've done better.

[Hatman 🍁]

On Facebook, Smid mentioned this has more to do with the electorate boundaries than anything else. Labor is getting trounced in the popular vote.

[DC Al Fine]

On Facebook, Smid mentioned this has more to do with the electorate boundaries than anything else. Labor is getting trounced in the popular vote.

Just checked the wikipedia page. Almost half of the Labor caucus had margins <5% in 2010, while only 3 Liberals did. Guess the Liberals didn't quite manage to hit the tipping point

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

On Facebook, Smid mentioned this has more to do with the electorate boundaries than anything else. Labor is getting trounced in the popular vote.

On one side I agree with Smid that it's a ridiculous situation, however, this is not US style Gerrymandering. But the other side of this is that the ALP ran a much better marginal seat campaign than the Libs. It would have taken 1000 votes across three seats to change this result. This is not like it was a foregone conclusion.

Again, while the point Smid and other Liberals have been making is valid, it also isn't relevant now and risks making the Libs look like sore losers.

So this was partly due to boundaries, but you simply cannot ignore the weaknesses of the Liberal campaign.

[International Brotherhood of Bernard]

So it looks like Weatherill gets another term then, yes?

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

So it looks like Weatherill gets another term then, yes?

It's not set in stone, but you'd rather be in his shoes than Marshall's

[Wake Me Up When The Hard Border Ends]

Embarassing for Liberals. I'm pretty sure everyone expected them to win.

The voters, even more than the media, expected it.

Have to wonder, had she stayed, if Redmond would've done better.

I wonder the same thing myself regarding Redmond.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Embarassing for Liberals. I'm pretty sure everyone expected them to win.

The voters, even more than the media, expected it.

Have to wonder, had she stayed, if Redmond would've done better.

I wonder the same thing myself regarding Redmond.

While I certainly get the logic of having a fresh-face... the basic fact was that Marshall just seemed to be out-matched by Wetherill and one has to wonder that if someone more experienced would have performed better.

If I remember correctly, Redmond has the Libs ahead when she was removed? But I could be wrong. I just vaguely remember that there was some kind of "wtf" moment when Redmond was removed... that it was more about internal dramas.