SA Election 2022: Former prime minister John Howard enters state campaign

Former prime minister John Howard, who will enter the state election campaign within days, says it would be “quite an achievement” for the Liberals to be re-elected.

Former prime minister John Howard is declaring the Liberals face a historically challenging task to win ­another term in office and warns South Australians not to risk slipping back into an economic slow lane.

The Liberal luminary, who will campaign in Adelaide on Tuesday and Wednesday, ­declared elections were usually close, citing his own narrow victory in 1998 after his first term as PM.

But he reminded voters Labor held power for most of the past 50 years, declaring “it would be quite an achievement” for Premier Steven Marshall to be re-elected.

Mr Howard scoffed when told some conservatives privately considered Mr Marshall more Green-Left than Liberal, then endorsed the Premier’s comments to The Advertiser that he wanted better factional balance ­within cabinet.

Former PM John Howard having coffee with Steven Marshall in 2014.

Australia’s second-longest serving prime minister, Mr Howard said SA had been ­regarded as “limping along economically under Labor”.

Mr Howard said his message to South Australia was “that it must not take the risk of slipping back into a slow economic lane again, where it was stuck for years and years and years”.

“That has changed under Marshall and there’s a danger that it will slip back,” Mr Howard said. “Whatever nice things might be said about the (Labor) alternative, the truth was that, in government, South Australia was in the slow economic lane.”

Asked why a close result loomed despite Mr Marshall’s performance, Mr Howard said: “Elections are usually close. The first election I had after I’d won (in 1996) was close. 1998 was very close. I had a big majority and I lost a lot of seats but I still won – and I went on to win twice more.

Former PM John Howard and Liberal leader Steven Marshall walk across the River Torrens in 2018. Picture: AAP Image

“Every election is tight and, given the electoral history of South Australia, it would be quite an achievement for a Liberal government to be elected two times in a row.”

Just after the 2018 Liberal victory, Mr Howard told The Advertiser the new premier’s biggest challenge was to generate sufficient business opportunities to stop the flow of young people out of the state.

“I think he deserves re-election on the strength of his record,” Mr Howard said.

“He has lifted South Australia out of the economic doldrums and that was the problem – everybody knew South Australia was in the slow lane economically.”