Federal Election 2019: Power prices, climate change and the Murray Darling Basin are the most important issues for SA

What are the top issues that will sway your vote? Analysis from our election Policy Tracker has revealed the biggest worries for South Australians and how the parties promise to address them.

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Escalating power prices are the priority concern for South Australian voters.

An analysis of The Advertiser ’s policy tracker reveals policies about climate change and the Murray Darling Basin will also affect who South Australians vote for on May 18.

The tracker thrusts policies, not the politicians, to the centre of the election by allowing voters to view where the major parties stand on 20 critical policies.

Concerns over rising energy bills easily comes out on top according to the analysis.

South Australian Council of Social Service executive director Ross Womersley was not surprised cost of living pressures was such a dominant issue.

“Electricity prices in SA are still among the highest in the nation so on that basis people are rightly saying they want something done,” he said.

“Low-income households can only get ahead with extra help that enables them to install things such as solar which, in turn, protects them from having to use a whole lot of electricity.”

Mr Womersley said the lack of national energy policy had prevented consumers from getting better deals because energy companies didn’t have the certainty to invest.

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The Murray Darling Basin and climate change are seen as the second most important issues, while the Great Australian Bight is third.

Taxation and healthcare tied for fourth, with housing affordability and fast internet equal fifth. Aged care and superannuation tied for sixth.

Labor leader Bill Shorten and Prime Minister Scott Morrison during the third and final leaders’ debate on Wednesday night. Picture: Liam Kidston

Climate change has also been highlighted as important in new nationwide search data obtained by News Corp Australia from Google Australia.

A state-by-state analysis of searches over the past two weeks in SA revealed a variety of pensions topped issues being searched for by voters, followed by indigenous Australians, coal, employment, tax cuts, health care, climate change, Adani Group, housing and disability. A Google Trends comparison done for News Corp in the past week to May 7 has revealed across every state and territory, more people have been searching for the term ”How to vote Liberal”.

In SA, 63 per cent searched “How to vote Liberal”, 29 per cent searched “How to vote Labor” and 8 per cent searched “How to vote One Nation”.

Overall, Labor has attracted 27 per cent of all nationwide searches in the last week, ahead of the Liberal Party that has 21 per cent of the searches.