Marshall and Malinauskas need to ask if they actually trying to win the next election, writes Matthew Abraham

We need to ask the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition a cruel question, writes Matthew Abraham. Just what are you doing?

John Olsen is busy right now trying to find the Adelaide Crows a cheap new home on free public land, so he may not remember a cruel question he faced on a special Sunday morning 23 years ago.

Even if it’s lost in the mists of time, he surely won’t have forgotten the date – October 12, 1997.

It was the morning after the night before when, as Liberal premier, he led his rabble of a party to an inglorious, humiliating election victory.

Olsen began the campaign with a whopping majority inherited from Dean Brown, who he rolled as premier, holding 36 seats in a 47-seat parliament. He ended it as a minority government of 23 seats. Oops.

Labor’s Mike Rann, who led the so-called “Tarago Opposition” of 11 MPs, pulled off a bizarre swing of almost 10 per cent to grasp 21 seats.

Australian politics has seen very few results quite like it. That election proved catastrophic for the SA Liberals, mixing the cement for Rann’s 2002 victory and 16 years of unbroken Labor rule.

On that October Sunday morning, a bleary mixed assortment of political journos gathered for what should have been Premier Olsen’s all-singing, all-dancing victory press conference.

Instead, the Premier looked a beaten man, which he very nearly was, doing his best to explain the inexplicable.

So I asked him whether he’d considered the fact that people just didn’t like him. How else could you explain it?

Cruel? It was like slapping a labradoodle.

Asking cruel questions isn’t a barrel of fun, but someone has to do it.

Former Labor PM Paul Keating once said if you want a friend in politics get a dog, and the same could be said of journalism.

Was it a fair question? I still think so, because polls showed voters didn’t like Olsen much. Voters didn’t like Rann much, either, but he had less to lose. It was proof voters can be cruel but fortunately there’s no law against cruelty to dumb politics.

Roll the tape forward almost a quarter of a century and let’s direct a cruel question to Premier Steven Marshall and Labor Leader Peter Malinauskas:

Are you trying to lose the next election?

Premier Steven Marshall during Question time. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Kelly Barnes

Leader of the Opposition Peter Malinauskas speaks in Parliament. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Kelly Barnes

Last weekend, Premier Marshall found himself suddenly leading a minority government after MP Fraser Ellis revealed he’d quit the Liberal Party and would sit as an independent after being charged with rorting $18,000 in accommodation allowances. He’s flagged he’ll vigorously fight the charges.

Three former Liberal MPs are now facing criminal charges and are sitting as independents – Ellis, Sam Duluk and Troy Bell.

While all three have resigned from the party room and the party, it really looks like they’ve been booted out.

Mr Marshall has emphasised they’re not Liberals and the party will field candidates against them in next year’s March election. Until the law decides their fate, all three are innocent. Why rub their noses in it?

This is the same fatal political mistake made by the Olsen forces, who merrily drove disenchanted Liberal MPs into the welcoming arms of Mike Rann.

Contrast it with the kid-gloves approach Prime Minister Scott Morrison adopts with rebel conservatives such as Bob Katter and the latest Liberal defector, Craig Kelly.

And what message does it send to those SA voters who naively thought they’d elected Liberal MPs?

Last Sunday, Mr Malinauskas found himself with a freshly-minted minority government at his media mercy. What a rolled-gold gift for any Opposition leader. What did he do? He launched Labor’s policy to “ban puppy factories with the strongest laws in the nation”.

“If elected, we will end large-scale and inhumane breeding facilities for dogs and cats,” he announced.

Sure, everybody loves fluffy puppies and kittens and wishes only great happiness for them until they crap on our front lawn. But couldn’t this have waited for a quiet news day?

How often does an Opposition get the chance to kick a government when it’s on its knees?

Instead, over the past week, it’s barely mentioned the M-word. It could be tagging the Liberal leader as Minority Marshall at every opportunity.

It’s possible Labor is running a brilliant new and untried lovey-dovey strategy but from the outside it looks like it’s scared to get its hands dirty.

They say never bring a knife to a gunfight. Pardon the cruelty but it’s also not a good idea to bring a kitten to a dogfight.