Christopher Pyne: Malinauskas will look immature if he fails to give credit where credit is due

Australia is one of the world’s outstanding economic performers coming out of the pandemic and that sets the ground rules for SA’s election, writes Christopher Pyne.

The runners for the next South Australian state election are a long way from the starting gate or even the racetrack, but this week there was an important event that indicates the hopefuls are competing in the qualifiers to prove their race fitness.

On Friday last week, the SA Press Club hosted the Leader’s Debate. It was held before a large crowd at the Convention Centre, introduced by Press Club president Mike Smithson and refereed by a doyen of the SA press pack, Tory Shepherd.

The contenders were our Premier, Steven Marshall, and the leader of the Labor Party, Peter Malinauskas.

They both presented as expected. The Premier was articulate, relaxed, and knowledgeable. Malinauskas was eager, well presented and critical.

Given we are a year from the election, so there is another entire quarter of the term to run, the debate threw up no surprises.

Labor won’t release any serious policy until very close to the election.

Premier Steven Marshall and opposition leader Peter Malinauskas shake hands before the SA Press Club debate. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Morgan Sette

They will resist doing so because, if they do, several things might happen – if the idea is any good, it will be ­borrowed by the government; or, the ­policy might be forgotten by election day if it is released too early; or, if the ­policy has hairs on it, they will be ­uncovered by the government and exploited to show that the Opposition isn’t ready for government.

The government doesn’t have that luxury. It has to get on with governing. It will keep doing so right up to when caretaker mode kicks in a few weeks from election day in March 2022.

Hence, the week before last, we saw the announcement of the Riverbank Arena and Convention Centre extension. Last week, the government continued to relax measures put in place to counter the coronavirus pandemic, making South Australia the state with the lightest restrictions in Australia.

What we did learn from the Leader’s Debate was the issues around which the next state election will be fought. The election will hinge on the economy and who is best able to ­manage the most effective economic recovery following the coronavirus pandemic.

Astoundingly, there are more South Australians in jobs, more entering the workforce and in higher paid roles today than there were before the coronavirus pandemic started just over a year ago! That would surprise most people.

That story is replicated nation wide. It is one of the reasons the ­Australian Government has ended the JobKeeper payment. It has done its job.

Australia is one of the outstanding economic performers in the world coming out of the pandemic. While particular industries are still doing it tough, overall the economy has proven to be extremely resilient and agile.

Labor will claim that South Australia isn’t doing well enough. They’ve got to say that. They can hardly ask voters to change the government without a reason. But it will be hard for Labor to criticise the Marshall Government over employment.

In the last four years of the previous Labor government, unemployment remained stubbornly above the current rate of 6.8 per cent for 70 per cent of those four years. Labor will want the election to be about services, particularly health services.

Health is a constant in state elections. Despite the fact anyone you speak to will tell you that they would rather be ill in Australia than any other country in the world because of the services we receive here, for those who are sick, it is an unhappy time and there will always be a media-worthy story upon which the Opposition will seize. But health is an interesting issue at the coming electoral contest.

It is the Marshall Government that has managed the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Malinauskas will look immature if he fails to give credit where credit is due.

Early in 2020, his spear throwers were eagerly tweeting about what a mess the government was making of the response to the coronavirus pandemic, until they were criticised by commentators and experts as simply not understanding the science and they retreated into their shells.

Since then, they have been largely silent. That was a rookie error.

Labor has jumped all over the so-called ramping issue at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. But it is their hospital!

The former Labor government created the new RAH and approved its designs and specifications.

The Royal Adelaide Hospital was designed and approved by Labor in government, then criticised from Opposition. Picture: Matt Loxton

It has been left to Health Minister Stephen Wade and the Liberal Government to make it work.

That won’t stop Labor health spokesman Chris Picton constantly criticising it, but voters don’t have memories that short.

The next election will be a tough contest for the Liberals to win. If they do, it will be the first time a Liberal government has won two majorities in subsequent elections since 1959.

No, that isn’t a typo! Labor has a locked-in 20 seats out of 47 in this state and only need to win four more to form a government.

Malinauskas will claim to be the underdog in the fight. He isn’t.

Labor expects to win the election after only four years out of government.

But Marshall has done a solid job with the economy and, unlike previous Liberal governments, has maintained a united team.

There is a long way to go until March 2022. This week didn’t even see the horses at the starting gate, but the next year is going to see a lot more interest in state politics than the past three.