Paul Starick: State election results and polling shows Liberals face SA ruin at federal election
The Liberals were already humiliated at the SA election – but things could get much worse after the federal poll, writes Paul Starick.
Opinion
Don't miss out on the headlines from Opinion. Followed categories will be added to My News.
A state bloodbath and disastrous polling have the Liberals facing the prospect of holding just one South Australian seat after the May 21 federal election.
The SA battlefield has widened considerably, beyond the southwestern Adelaide marginal seat of Boothby, to envelop Sturt, in eastern Adelaide – and, potentially, the vast seat of Grey.
The last-minute entrance of maverick Nick Xenophon into the Senate race has pitted him against his former staffer, Rex Patrick, for an upper-house spot that might otherwise be snared by One Nation.
A sudden and large reversal of fortune would be required for the Liberals to hold Boothby – their fourth-most marginal seat in the country.
Boothby contains four of the seven seats lost by the Liberals to Labor at the March 19 state election landslide: Elder, Waite, Davenport and Gibson.
Liberal incumbent Nicolle Flint is retiring at the election and the party’s candidate, Dr Rachel Swift, is defending a slim 1.4 per cent margin.
Opinion polling, which is back in vogue after accurately forecasting the state election result, is dire for the Liberals.
A Roy Morgan Poll released on April 5 found two-party preferred support for the ALP in SA of 56 per cent, ahead of the Liberals’ 44 per cent.
Polls commissioned by The Australia Institute and published on April 5 found Labor ahead 57-43 in Boothby and 52-48 in Sturt.
Coupling this with huge swings against the Liberals in eastern Adelaide at the state election, first-term Sturt MP James Stevens is in some trouble, despite a 6.9 per cent margin.
The swings to the ALP were 6.9 per cent in former premier Steven Marshall’s seat of Dunstan; 8.8 per cent in former deputy premier Vickie Chapman’s seat of Bragg and 8 per cent in former education minister John Gardner’s seat of Morialta. All the electorates are in Sturt and all the MPs are from Mr Stevens’ Moderate faction.
The Liberals will be hoping the latest Newspoll, showing support falling for Labor after the big-spending March 29 federal budget, signals a continuing trend in their favour.
Given the rise of independents in the regions, Liberal Rowan Ramsey is vulnerable in his vast northwestern seat of Grey. This spans northern SA and Eyre and Yorke peninsulas.
At the state poll, the Liberals suffered a swing against them of more than 23 per cent in the Eyre Peninsula seat of Flinders, where independent Liz Habermann lost by 1263 votes.
Mr Ramsey was shown to be vulnerable in 2016, when Xenophon Team candidate Andrea Broadfoot secured 48 per cent of the two-party preferred vote.
If his seat fell, the Liberals would be left with only the eastern SA stronghold of Barker, held by Tony Pasin with an 18.9 per cent margin.
Labor safely holds five SA seats, although Spence MP Nick Champion resigned from the northern Adelaide electorate in late February to take a state seat, so union organiser Matt Burnell is the ALP candidate.
Mr Xenophon is seeking to recover from his 2018 state election implosion and retrieve a Senate spot he held for a decade until late 2017.
His chief rival will be Senator Patrick, who has yet to face voters after being chosen by Mr Xenophon’s former Centre Alliance party to replace him when he quit in October, 2017. Senator Patrick, a former submariner, quit Centre Alliance in August, 2020, and flirted with contesting Grey as an independent before recommitting to seek re-election in the upper house.
Goers: It’s an outrage this star isn’t in TV’s Hall of Fame
As a kid I loved watching her on TV and I still do as she celebrates 80 years, most of them spent as a South Australian icon, writes Peter Goers.
Cornes: Big detail fans have wrong on Crows list of failures
At Port it’s Ken Hinkley who endures the wrath of the disenchanted and impatient supporters. At Adelaide it’s the list management team, writes Graham Cornes.