SA Election 2022: Big questions for Steven Marshall and Peter Malinauskas ahead of campaign debate

Premier Steven Marshall and Labor Leader Peter Malinauskas face off in the campaign’s first debate on Thursday. Here’s some big questions SA needs answered.

Both aspiring state leaders should pose vital questions to one another when they face off on Thursday for the first state election campaign debate.

Labor Leader Peter Malinauskas is heading for an unlikely victory, if bookies and opinion polls are correct, yet has not answered how more than $2bn of election promises will be funded.

A gaping hole remains in the promise to divert $662m into health by scrapping the Liberals’ Riverbank Arena proposal. Just $78.9m has been set aside in the Budget until 2024-25 for this project. So where will the rest of the money come from?

Follow the debate live here on Advertiser.com.au from 1pm

Labor has saturated roadsides with posters decrying the $662m “basketball stadium”, yet Mr Malinauskas is too shrewd a politician not to realise that it is effectively an extension of the Adelaide Convention Centre, with court sports and concerts thrown in. Labor opened a $397m Convention Centre extension in 2017.

Mr Malinauskas must explain how Labor can be trusted to “repair” a health system whose centrepiece, the Royal Adelaide Hospital, was the signature project of its 16 years in government. He was health minister when the Repatriation General Hospital closed in late 2017, as Liberal attack ads hammer home. Mr Malinauskas counters this by arguing he was not even in parliament when the decision was made. But he wielded such influence more than six years before the closure that he in 2011, alongside future Transforming Health architect Jack Snelling, told Mike Rann his time was up as Labor premier. Why did Mr Malinauskas choose not to use this significant influence to save the Repat or stop Transforming Health downgrading some key hospitals?

Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas with the Premier Steven Marshall at The Advertiser’s Building a Bigger, Better South Australia event on March 4. Picture: Morgan Sette

Ambulance ramping has been a problem across the country. Has Labor over-egged for political purposes a legitimate union campaign for better resources?

On another key promise, is a $593m hydrogen power plant funded, owned and operated by the state a wise investment, given it appears not to have a business case?

Turning to Premier Steven Marshall, his muted campaign has centred on attacking Mr Malinauskas in a bid to convince voters he is an inexperienced union hack who cannot be trusted with the state’s resurgent economy.

Has Mr Marshall done enough to respond to problems in the health system? Is his vision for the future more of the same? Why has he struggled to sell the arena plan?

How does he plan to repay state debt hitting more than $33bn by 2025? How can he convincingly argue an economic vision when his Treasurer is retiring in less than a fortnight and no replacement has been named?

Hasn’t the Liberal campaign been more focused on tearing down Mr Malinauskas than spelling out plans for the future? Aren’t people tired of negativity?

How can Mr Marshall be trusted to run the state when he can’t manage senior Liberals who actively undermine him, particularly when so many Liberals joined the crossbench that his government was plunged into minority?