David Penberthy: Steven Marshall’s win in SA election proves major parties are back after third party falters

THIS election loomed as the death knell for establishment politics, but at the end, the major takeout is that the major parties are back in town, writes David Penberthy.

• SA’s new Premier — and what he’s promising
• How the result is shaping up in your electorate

WHAT a difference three months makes. This election loomed as the death knell for establishment politics, with a much-loved third candidate smashing all comers in the pre-Christmas polls, both as preferred premier and in the primary vote. At the end of the campaign, the major takeout is that the major parties are back in town.

The Liberals appear a sure thing to win majority government and to rule in their own right. It is a remarkable achievement given the nature of the threat they faced. Vincent Tarzia’s name will live on in Liberal folklore. Steven Marshall deserves credit for sticking to his guns by flat-out refusing outright to deal with Nick Xenophon to cobble together a co-opted minority regime.

After 16 years, Labor is gone from office but in no way gone as a political force.

After the 1993 State Bank rout, Labor was left with just 10 of 47 seats, spawning the famous gag, what’s got more seats than the ALP? A Tarago van.

In holding at least 18 seats this time, the ALP has a very roadworthy campaign bus on standby for the 2022 election poll. It also protected its future leadership group spearheaded by Peter Malinauskas and Stephen Mulligan.

The great opportunity for the Liberals is to hit the ground fast, to implement an agenda that results in a better, cheaper life for put-upon South Australians. The negative backdrop to this campaign was framed by job insecurity and punishingly high power bills. The Libs have argued that payroll tax relief and more traineeships and apprenticeships will kick-start the job market. They also argue that an agnostic energy policy, without all the fleeced stylings of a heroic 75 per cent energy target, will result in cheaper power. If both these things happen - more jobs, and cheaper, more reliable power - it will be happy days for the public, and happy days for the Libs as they prepare their re-election bid.

SA Liberal leader Steven Marshall after his victory in the state election with Matt Cowdrey (left) and Richard Harvey (right) at Henley Beach.

What of the Xenophon experiment? Despite polling a truly pathetic 13.7 per cent of the primary vote, SA Best still did some damage to the major parties. The Libs bore the brunt, with a 7.4 swing against their 2014 effort, pretty much all courtesy of Nick. Labor suffered too, with a 1.9 per cent swing against. But this time, the Libs ran such a targeted campaign aimed at winning about five key seats, and Labor deftly hung on to almost everything it had, meaning the Xenophon impact was minimal in terms of seats lost.

There were two major turning points in this campaign, one of which destroyed Labor, the other SA Best.

The first was the Oakden inquiry, the political equivalent of a nuclear bomb going off in the midst of the campaign, robbing Labor of any oxygen for a full 72 hours and reminding voters of their past sins.

The second was the increasingly stark failure of SA Best to come up with a clear policy agenda, the vacuum becoming apparent with Nick Xenophon’s inferior efforts in the leaders’ debates, or hapless performances by his candidates in explaining where they stood on bread-and-butter issues such as industrial relations.

The criticism of the Liberal campaign throughout was that it was lacklustre, and that Steven Marshall failed to excite. This election reminded us that in politics it is better to be workmanlike than an excitement machine. John Howard has been mentoring Marshall for several years. As prime minister, Howard was pretty grey. He stuck to a narrow script, repeating the same message over and over, a low-tax, pro-families mantra, nothing in the way of razzle-dazzle. In hindsight you can see the Howard influence on this campaign, where he also played a significant cameo role on the hustings in the seat of Colton, where the Liberals ran a brilliant targeted campaign with Matt Cowdrey becoming the first Lib to seize this pivotal seat since former Lord Mayor Steve Condous held it after the 1993 landslide.

What happened Saturday is an important reminder in this post-Trump era that voters remain really smart, and really focused. They don’t mind polls with personality but there has got to be some meat on the bones. They can see through gimmicks and theatrics, and ultimately want maturity and policy from the people who deign to rule their lives. It’s why Steven Marshall got there so easily in the end, and it is also why Labor wasn’t destroyed.

Aside from delivering on his jobs and cost of living agenda, the challenge for Steven Marshall will be to ensure that the Liberals can avoid the kind of factional infighting that plagued them before in office. On that front, the signs are good. One of Marshall’s biggest achievements in opposition was to draw a line under the nonsensical brawling that marred the Brown-Olsen era, and continued through a series of turnstile opposition leaders up to Marshall’s elevation to the top job five years ago. In hindsight, it appears the Libs were done a huge favour last term with the defection of their former leader Martin Hamilton-Smith to serve as a minister in the Weatherill Government. At the time it looked like a coup for Labor, and it certainly helped them numerically with their narrow parliamentary margin. But for the Libs, losing Hamilton-Smith did them two tremendous favours, in ridding them of a man who had been implicated in many of the party’s byzantine factional feuds, while also outraging and disgusting the conservative voters in Waite so spectacularly that the seat returned to the Liberal fold in record time on Saturday night.

Labor is also likely to avoid any internal rancour given the common sense and grace shown by Weatherill in light of the loss. He deserves credit for his early concession speech, his crisp announcement yesterday that he would be stepping down, but still serving as a quiet backbencher for four years, sparing the people of Cheltenham (and the taxpayers) a by-election. It seems a sure thing that the former boss of the SDA retail workers union, Right Faction supremo and former health minister Peter Malinauskas, will ease into the position unopposed. He will lead Labor effectively, especially against a government that has the deregulation of trading hours as starred item on its to-do list.

Oddly, the only place where the finger-pointing and blame-shifting will be on in earnest is within SA Best.

Already there are questions about whether candidates will be repaid the $20,000 they stumped up to nominate, with none of them enjoying any success. These candidates include mayors who put their careers on hold, they include respected conservatives from local government and business who shredded any chance of a future career in Liberal politics, all of them joining Nick Xenophon as he drove his Fiat Bambino straight over the edge of a political cliff.

The end result of the 2018 SA poll? A strong and united government and a viable opposition. Who would have thunk it.