Daniel Wills: Opposition Leader Steven Marshall has Liberals’ destiny - and his own - in his hands

OPPOSITION Leader Steven Marshall has been delivered a half-tracker and should be able to belt this election out of the park. The final campaign fortnight is all about if Labor can break him again, or the wannabe-Premier shows he’s got the right stuff.

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OPPOSITION Leader Steven Marshall now has to close the deal. The first Liberal state election victory since Y2K is now there for the taking, and if they can’t win this one they never will.

The trends heading into this campaign were solid for the Liberals. The simple “it’s time” factor that comes with facing a 16-year-old government combined with a seat boundaries redraw that shifted four into Mr Marshall’s column and made him the on-paper favourite to become premier on March 17.

Throw into the pot a string of administrative disasters in the State Government that’s too long to repeat, and you have a witch’s brew for change.

Disrupting that equation for more than two years now has been the long shadow of SA Best Leader Nick Xenophon. Even before he had plans of entering State Parliament, an Advertiser-Galaxy poll in February 2016 showed the popular former senator’s party pulling down a quarter of the vote.

All of a sudden there were two options for change and doubts about Mr Marshall’s readiness about the job had many flirting with the idea of putting Mr Xenophon in charge of the show, or at least lobbing him into Parliament as a hand grenade that would blow it all up and teach everyone a lesson.

South Austalian Liberal Leader Steven Marshall and former Prime Minister John Howard at the West lakes shopping centre. Picture: AAP / David Mariuz

With the formal campaign now at its halfway point, the emerging trends are on face value even better for Mr Marshall. The X-factor is still strong, but apparently retreating, Especially warming for Liberals is that a series of Advertiser-Galaxy Mad Monday polls have shown the orange tide going out in blue seats that they thought could fall to SA Best.

At the same time, the equations in Labor heartland are getting increasingly complex. There’s an emerging threat that SA Best candidates will steal a march in working class areas and either take victory outright over Labor MPs or shred the vote in several directions and allow the Libs to come up the middle.

But anyone who’s been paying attention to recent political movements anywhere in the world, and arguably especially in SA, knows that volatility is the thread that brings it all together.

As the two-party system fractures and institutions right across society break down, there has never been a bigger number of voters willing to flip one way of the other and up for grabs.

Many will only truly narrow down on the choice before them in this final fortnight, as they decide whether Premier Jay Weatherill deserves another run, Mr Marshall is ready to lead, or Mr Xenophon is better than either of them.

The savage Independent Commission Against Corruption into the Oakden affair released this week is horrible reading for Labor. The human tale of abuse, cover-up and neglect is almost unspeakably horrible.

The political narrative is a nightmare.

Anyone who was dubious about Labor’s basic competency to govern, its focus on politics over people, preference for secrecy over transparency or general attention and focus on quality in the health service will have their biases confirmed.

So many of the criticisms made of Labor over the past 16 years are reaffirmed by the Oakden report, and the families of victims have become powerful advocates of the need for a nameless kind of change.

Oakden has also stopped any positive momentum Labor may have felt it was building over the past month with a cash splash on trams to everywhere, the elimination of level crossings and the promise of solar panel and battery handouts to households.

Key days it wanted to spend on talking about flash plans for the future were instead wasted on apologising for its record and trawling through messy detail.

Bruce Lander’s ICAC report has stripped momentum from Labor’s campaign. Picture: AAP / David Mariuz

But, in a three-way race, what’s bad for Labor isn’t necessarily good for the Liberals. If voters fall off the Labor Party, they could just as easily go to Mr Xenophon’s side as Mr Marshall’s. This will only boost SA Best’s hope of becoming kingmaker. To date, Mr Marshall’s ability to deliver a “strong plan for real change” has been viewed with deep scepticism. In the four Mad Monday polls taken so far, Mr Marshall came out as preferred premier in none. But it’s not because he is overwhelmingly disliked. It’s because no-one knows that much about him.

A December Newspoll showed both Mr Marshall and Mr Weatherill with significant negative ratings, but the Liberal leader with a much larger number of people who were unsure about him.

If he has the ability to prosecute a convincing case that his “strong plan for real change” is really what SA needs there is a potential to lift the Liberal vote and drag his party from the wilderness. Circumstance and timing has delivered him a rank half tracker. He needs to rock back and put it over the fence. It’s all about execution.

Artist impression of the Liberal Party plan for the old Royal Adelaide Hospital site, including an Aboriginal Art and Culture Gallery.

Already, the Liberals have tried to add some sizzle to a generally all-bran platform as they start to flirt with “the vision thing”. Mr Marshall’s indigenous art and culture gallery concept for the old Royal Adelaide Hospital has been well received and he’s hinted there’s a big infrastructure plan to come.

Labor will likely go heavily negative on Mr Marshall personally in this final stretch, to undermine any sense that he has what it takes for the top job.

It has broken him with campaign pressure before, and firmly believes it can again. No one said it was, or should be, easy.