Paul Starick analysis: Why some Liberals are getting nervous about Premier Steven Marshall’s state election chances

Confidence in Premier Steven Marshall’s ability to win the March 19 election is waning among some entrenched Liberal backers, writes Paul Starick. Here’s why.

Some of the state’s most entrenched Liberal backers are losing confidence in Premier Steven Marshall’s ability to pull off a historic election victory within weeks.

The breadth and depth of this concern, both among some well-regarded party figures and rank-and-file members, should not yet alarm the Premier.

But there are some aspects of his electioneering game in which Mr Marshall will need to lift if he is to propel his party to its first successive state election victory since 1997.

Chief among these is successfully weaving a public narrative beyond Covid-19 to highlight the state’s economic transition from heavy manufacturing to hi-tech industry – a continuing trend in which his government can claim some success. He also needs to sharpen his responses to Labor attacks, rather than just professing ignorance of them at press conferences.

Those Liberal supporters who are frustrated often express a genuinely held fear that Mr Marshall lacks the innate skill to play and win the brutal political contests that are a critical part of electioneering. They worry about his ability to manage his own party and spearhead the defeat of a ruthless Labor election machine that underpinned the party holding power for 16 years.

Premier Steven Marshall poses at the SA Museum on February 6 with a promotional poster for the Thin Ice VR movie about Sir Ernest Shackleton. Picture: South Australian Museum/Facebook.

As evidence, these internal critics point to the unravelling of the Liberal majority after the 2018 election, which resulted in the party being plunged into minority government last February and, ultimately, last November triggered the inglorious departure of Vickie Chapman as his deputy.

Rather than being positioned as an overwhelming favourite for a second term in office, Mr Marshall’s critics contend, the Liberals are locked in a scrap with a resurgent Labor ahead of the March 19 election.

These critics range from those at the top end of town to party members who had hoped to be enjoying years of Liberal rule.

By his own admission, Mr Marshall is not a career politician or a creature of the Liberal Party. Rather, his ideology was shaped by his late father’s entrepreneurship in rising from working-class Port Adelaide roots to build and run successful family businesses, along with his own executive roles in the furniture manufacturing firm created by his father and prominent wool exporter Michell.

But he has been Liberal leader since February 2013 – an extraordinary time to head a state party that had been more renowned for instability and ineptitude than election victories.

Some of Mr Marshall’s internal critics might just be a throwback to the losing mentality that marked much of the Liberals’ ignominious years in opposition. For decades, the SA Liberals certainly have not enjoyed the confidence and bombast of Donald Trump, who vowed during his first presidential campaign that: “We’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning.”

Premier Steven Marshall at flood-affected Glendambo on February 2. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Kelly Barnes Pool via NCA NewsPix

Mr Marshall is a key figure in the Liberal Moderate faction, which has been dominant in SA since the Right unravelled after the departure from federal parliament of one of Australia’s foremost political strategists, former SA senator and finance minister Nick Minchin (now a federal party vice-president). But Mr Marshall has upset some within the Right by loading his cabinet with Moderates, even if some leading conservatives shot themselves in the foot with self-inflicted career blows. Even if the Liberals are united in the aim of winning state and federal elections, factional enmity is deep-seated in the SA party.

Jobs, cost of living and public safety (including health and defence) are the issues that have been the major deciding factors in elections, state and federal, for some time. The Covid-19 pandemic makes the agenda unpredictable and open to wild change, mainly because of the direct impact on voters’ everyday lives.

One leading Adelaide business figure this week privately argued voters were exhausted by inconsistent and incoherent Covid-19 restrictions, the detail of which they had tired of informing themselves and following precisely. The health system had not collapsed, the business figure argued, and voters just wanted to get on with their lives.

This is a reasonable supposition, which authorities are recognising by easing restrictions. The timetable is convenient for Mr Marshall, even if Police Commissioner Grant Stevens is right to be believed when he says he is not influenced by political considerations.

In these turbulent times, Mr Marshall’s upbeat demeanour – likened to a quokka by Prime Minister Scott Morrison – might just appeal to voters weary of political conflict. But the Premier needs to demonstrate his ability to take up the political cudgels to cut through opponents’ attacks and weave a narrative that can resonate with voters.