Liberals had a golden chance to take the shine off Labor but fumbled | David Penberthy

Malinauskas has played a key role in plenty of rubbish but the self-destructing opposition still can't capitalise, writes David Penberthy.

When you think about it, it really is an indictment that in the past two years the South Australian Liberals have been unable to land a solitary solid punch against the Malinauskas Government.

Earlier this year the Liberals had a golden chance to send a message to a government that so far has failed to deliver on its key promise to fix hospital ramping.

Instead the Libs became the first opposition to lose one of their own seats to a government at an SA by-election in 116 years, with former premier Steven Marshall’s electorate of Dunstan returning to Labor hands.

The key problem for the Liberals of course is Malinauskas himself.

I’ve lost count of the number of blokes I know who vote Liberal but rave about Mali, especially when the footy or the golf is on and we are all feeling great about life in SA. Women like him too, some for lascivious reasons, such as the lady who rang in on radio this week likening him to George Clooney.

George Clooney might be handsome but he’s also starred in a couple of crappy films. Mali might be easy on the eye too, but like George Clooney he’s the star of some genuine rubbish.

Premier Peter Malinauskas celebrates Gather Round 2024. Picture: Dean Martin

George Clooney on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Picture: Randy Holmes via Getty Images

Like ramping.

Like the protracted cancellation of elective surgery. Like the GP crisis forcing people to pay through the nose for a service that was once completely free. Which in turn is forcing poorer South Aussies into emergency departments, further undermining the Premier’s crazy-brave 2022 promise to “fix the ramping crisis”.

When faced against a charismatic and popular leader, the challenge for the opposition is to make people focus on matters of substance.

It is also the job of opposition to target government failure and provide alternatives.

For the past two years the opposition shirked that challenge and failed that job.

Tactically, the targeting of government failure is the most important part of the opposition’s role.

Providing alternatives can come later.

An effective opposition operates like a whiny mosquito buzzing in your ear.

Even if they risk alienating some voters with their perceived negativity, they have to be annoying and over-the-top to get their point across.

Like those notorious “Where Do You Get It?” advertisements, oppositions need to become an ear worm in voters’ heads, forcing them to conclude even subliminally that maybe the government is stuffing everything up after all.

Bob Carr pulled off a political miracle on becoming NSW Labor premier by beating the man in John Fahey who had just done nothing less than help mastermind the 2000 Sydney Olympics bid.

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Carr had a prodigious work ethic and a team of maniac staff, and once joked that a good opposition needed “to act with the ethics and energy of a news crew from A Current Affair”.

The SA Liberals have shown none of this energy.

They have become infected with two things, one new and one old. The new thing is despondency in the face of Peter Malinauskas.

The old thing is their time-honoured capacity for factional self-absorption, best evidenced by the absurd brawl over the top Senate spot on the eve of the Dunstan by-election.

David Speirs might feel like a victim but he’s the victim of one thing and one thing only. His own indolence, coupled with the party’s aforementioned sense of despondency.

There was no media conspiracy to destroy David Speirs.

Many of us would have been surprised and delighted if he ever rang with a story idea. He just sort of sat it out.

It’s a pity he did as he is a genuinely smart person.

He read the room on the Voice result better than anyone last year, accurately predicting the huge No vote from his perfect vantage point of the Hallett Cove shops in the midst of a cost of living crisis.

But all his observations about politics were sought by journalists, not offered by him.

He seemed to have no motivation, perhaps understandably give the scale of the task ahead.

As for the white-anting he endured, this was as nothing compared to genuine full-blown political treachery we have seen on the national stage – Howard v Peacock, Hawke v Keating, Rudd v Gillard.

Speirs by and large had a team which was behind him, albeit less out of respect than exhaustion.

I didn’t hear Liberal MPs running him down. Maybe they did to others.

I can honestly say that not one person in the current parliamentary party – including Vincent Tarzia – ever spoke to me running him down or briefing against him.

Rather, all the stories about his defeatism and absenteeism came from traditional party supporters and people in business who were marvelling at how rudderless the Liberals had become, and how ascendant was Malinauskas.

New Leader of the Liberal party in South Australia Vincent Tarzia in Paradise. 12 August 2024. Picture Dean Martin

Former Leader of the opposition David Speirs has just stepped down from his position. Picture: Keryn Stevens

It was this that underscored the sense of despair which even Speirs himself succumbed to in the end.

Vincent Tarzia doesn’t just say the Liberals can win the next election.

He says they will win the next election. Some would regard this as one of the silliest things they’ve ever heard a politician say.

Maybe deep down Vincent Tarzia doesn’t believe it either.

But it’s an important thing to say, as absurd as it might sound on the numbers, as it the first time in a long time the SA Liberals have displayed anything resembling optimism.

And as I said up top, it’s not like there’s an absence of policy issues to target.

Following the news, being at work early and dare I say it actually being in the country for the state budget, give the new bloke a few extra qualities the Liberals have been lacking.

And if you believe – rightly – that you only get good government with effective opposition, the change should be better for the state overall.