Christopher Pyne: Covid is the X-factor when it comes to the numbers crunch for the coming state election

Labor has to win five seats to win government from Steven Marshall’s Liberals in the coming state election. Christopher Pyne crunches some numbers to see how this might fall out.

Last Thursday was 100 days from the next South Australian state election.

It’s too early to say who will win. One hundred days is a long time. In fact, it is likely to be only just before election day, maybe a week out, before firm predictions can be made.

We know that Premier Steven Marshall will lead the blue team and Peter Malinauskas will lead the red team. Labor has 19 seats and needs five to get to the magic number of 24 to govern in its own right in a House of Assembly of 47.

The Liberal government’s seats are more fluid. While it notionally has 27 seats, that number has been whittled down to 23.

The member for Kavel, Dan Cregan, was not facing any legal hurdles or embroiled in any controversy, but chose to leave the Liberal Party, depose the Speaker Josh Teague and take the position for himself.

Sam Duluk, Troy Bell and Fraser Ellis were all elected as Liberals and now sit as independents for various reasons.

Former Liberal, now speaker, Dan Cregan. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Kelly Barnes

Mount Gambier MP Troy Bell, former Liberal.

There are two other independents – Geoff Brock in Frome and Frances Bedford in Florey. Labor can expect to pick up Bedford’s seat of Florey. That gets them to 20 seats.

The new Deputy Premier, Dan van Holst Pellekaan, and Brock are facing off in the seat of Stuart because of a redistribution and it’s likely DVHP will win.

As the Liberals will also win Brock’s old seat of Frome with their stellar candidate, Penny Pratt, the Liberals get back to 24 seats.

It’s hard to say what will happen with the other Liberal independents’ seats.

If Bell, Ellis and Duluk all run and win, then they will almost certainly support a Marshall government being returned.

If they don’t run, then their seats will be likely to be won by the Liberals and so the status quo pertains.

From a Labor perspective, they will be seeking to drive a wedge between those MPs and the Liberal Party in order to try to pick them off after the election if they need their votes to form a Labor minority government.

Labor won’t work too hard to win seats that are outside their grasp. They never do.

If all those predictions are true, that leaves Labor needing to win four seats to win the election.

The Liberals need to stop them doing so and win enough seats between themselves and their likely allies to not have to rely on Cregan.

Former Liberal MP Sam Duluk Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Mariuz

Former Liberal MP Fraser Ellis. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Mariuz

The election will primarily be fought in Adelaide’s northeast and southwest. The seats that will be hand-to-hand combat between Liberal and Labor are likely to be Newland, King, Adelaide, Elder, Badcoe and Mawson. Four are held by the government and two by the opposition.

While Bedford has created a diversion in Newland by choosing to run there, realistically she is unlikely to win. The most she can do is deliver the seat to Labor through preferences.

The incumbent MPs in Newland, King, Adelaide, Elder and Mawson are all strong local campaigners and well liked in their constituencies.

The traditional issues will decide the contest.

In state elections they are the delivery of services such as health, the state of the economy and particularly growth and jobs, the cost of living and the competence of the government.

There are intangibles, too. If voters are feeling relaxed and comfortable, they may be of a mind to stick with the government.

Alternatively, they have been known to change the government when they feel relaxed and comfortable and the government is perceived to have been in power too long.

In the case of SA, the government hasn’t been in power for even four years yet, and Labor was in power for 16 years before that.

The X factor in this election is not Nick Xenophon. He isn’t running.

The X factor is the coronavirus pandemic. Certainly, the Marshall government is credited with bringing SA through it relatively unscathed.

Our economy is the fastest growing in the nation, we have low infection rates and very low mortality. But people are over Covid.

They want to get on with their lives and because of the successful rolling-out of the vaccination program, they are ready to do so.

Yet the government will want to make haste slowly, given the possibility for the good situation we have now to turn septic very quickly.

How that will be played out in the election remains to be seen.

Then there are the outlier political quirks that make every election unpredictable. For me, two such quirks are immediately apparent.

The arts community is usually barracking for Labor or even the Greens, yet Marshall is well liked by the people who make up our considerable arts sector in South Australia.

The other is that the Australian Hotels Association was a persistent critic of the Rann and Weatherill governments and now finds itself routinely at odds with the Marshall government over the pace of opening up in the Covid world that we live in presently.

Regardless, for political junkies the next 100 days are going to be a political rollercoaster, so strap yourself in and enjoy the ride!

Steven Marshall casts his vote on March 6, 2018 for the election which put him into office as Premier. Picture: Matt Loxton