Matthew Abraham: The SA election pendulum that reveals the true picture — sort of
IF you take the ailing SA-Best party out of the equation, just how do the Libs and Labor stack up after the March election? Check out the Corduroy Pendulum, says Matthew Abraham.
Opinion
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PENDULUMS swing like pendulums do, but few pendulums swing as wonkily as this one.
This political pendulum is a snapshot of how we all voted on March 17. It didn’t swing much, but it didn’t need to.
It bumped out a tired 16-year Labor Government, gonged in a worryingly inexperienced Liberal team and called time on Nick Xenophon as a Lower House political force — permanently.
The pendulum is both accurate and misleading.
It accurately reflects the havoc the Xenophon lunge for glory generated during the election campaign, all for nought.
The asterisks show the seven Liberal and two ALP seats where SA-Best candidates finished second. Let’s call these the “asterisk seats”, then.
Note that Hartley has no asterisk. Nick Xenophon not only lost to the new Liberal Speaker Vincent Tarzia, he also lost to the ALP’s Grace Portolesi who, after losing Hartley in 2014, polled strongly to shove Xenophon into third place. She did as much as Tarzia to slay the dragon.
Xenophon’s SA-Best party only came close to winning one seat — the Adelaide Hills trouble spot of Heysen, where the Birkenstocks-and-socks brigade pump up the protest vote.
The margins to lose or win these asterisk seats in future are somewhat misleading and this is why.
Because Xenophon ran candidates in so many seats, the SA Electoral Commission has had to produce “two-candidate preferred” figures rather than the “two-party preferred” numbers which are the norm after a normal federal or state election. But, as we know, this was no normal election.
By the time the next election rolls around in 2022, SA-Best will have vanished up its own clacker.
The asterisk seats will almost certainly revert to traditional Liberal-Labor party lines and some will be safer than they now look.
So, for example, while the asterisk seat of Heysen looks tenuous for the Liberals on just under two per cent, with the Xenophon factor gone it will move back to higher ground. That’s the theory anyway.
One thing will not change, however, and that is the four seats Labor needs to win in 2022 — King, Adelaide, Newland and Elder.
That’s if you place Florey won by independent Frances Bedford in the ALP ledger and Mt Gambier’s independent Troy Bell in the Liberal book. What happens to Frome if independent Geoff Brock retires is anyone’s guess.
Simple, isn’t it?
One veteran Labor scrutineer observed during the week that, with the exception of the Bignell miracle in Mawson, the sweeping redraw of seats by the Electoral Boundaries Commission was spot on.
Booth by booth, the new boundaries delivered government to the party that secured more than 50 per cent of the statewide vote, as demanded by South Australia’s constitution.
By law, in two years they must start toying with the boundaries all over again. It’s like being stuck on the Britannia Roundabout.
Despite a small swing against them, Steven Marshall’s Liberals are in office with just over 52 per cent of the popular vote. That’s what is supposed to happen and it finally did.
Oh, and if you gave your first vote to a Xenophon candidate, how did you dole out your preferences down the ticket?
Tasmanian political analyst and blogger Kevin Bonham calculates the statewide split of SA-Best preferences was “remarkably close to 50-50 Lib vs ALP”. Well, well, well. So we disliked both parties pretty equally, then?
Pendulums do more than decide the fate of politicians, they keep swinging after an election through the vast apparatus of government.
Since winning office a fortnight ago, Premier Marshall has started cleaning out Public Service chiefs. He needs a bulldozer, not a broom.
But the civilised exit of SA Health CEO Vickie Kaminski, who will stay in the role before heading back to Canada for Christmas, will be a loss to our state.
She proved to be a rare find by the Weatherill Government because she is a formidable administrator who answers media questions clearly and honestly.
When she rang during the week to keep a promise to let me know first when she called it quits, I thanked her for that honesty.
“I learned a long time ago you don’t get into too much trouble by telling the truth,” she said.
It’s a shame you didn’t dodge the pendulum, Vickie. We may not see your likes again.