With few marginal electorates, SA may not see any pork-barrel love at the next federal election
SOUTH Australia is facing a federal Election with very few marginal seats like Bootby to entice love from the major parties. Our analysis helps to explain why this may be so.
SOUTH Australia is facing a federal Election with very few marginal seats to entice love from the major parties.
After a shake up of electoral boundaries around the country, including SA losing the seat of Port Adelaide, new margins show dozens of seats around the country are expected to be the focus of election campaigns — before SA.
Analysis, undertaken by the ABC’s polling expert Antony Green, shows SA has just one seat in the nation’s 25 most marginal electorates.
Boothby, taking in a number of Adelaide’s southern suburbs, is the most marginal seat in SA on a margin of 2.8 per cent, followed by recently contested Mayo (5.5 per cent) and Federal Minister Christopher Pyne’s seat of Sturt (5.8 per cent).
Mr Green said it was likely the other states would receive closer attention than SA.
“South Australia is not going to attract the attention of West Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria or even Tasmania,” Mr Green said.
“The election will not be decided in South Australia.”
But despite only three seats needing less than a 6 per cent swing to change hands, Opposition leader Bill Shorten and Turnbull Government minister, South Australian Senator Simon Birmingham, have promised a spirited battle.
ANALYSIS BY ANTONY GREEN
Senator Birmingham said the Government would keep focused on delivering for SA.
“The scale of investment the Turnbull Government is making in South Australian shipbuilding, infrastructure and job creation is the envy of many of other states,” Senator Birmingham said.
“Alongside all of my SA Liberal colleagues we’ll be working to earn the votes both in the House in every local seat, and in the Senate where we have our eye set on boosting our numbers.”
Mr Shorten said he could not disagree more with any sentiment that SA would be ignored.
“Labor has just announced we’ll deliver a new MRI licence to the Mt Barker region,” Mr Shorten said.
“We’re not expecting to win a lot of votes there, but it’s the right thing to do. We’ve got policies to reverse Turnbull’s cuts to schools and hospitals, reverse cuts to penalty rates, increase small business investment and grow the advanced manufacturing industry in SA.”
A spokesman from Prime Minister Turnbull’s office said the Turnbull Government was committed to SA and working with the Marshall Government to create a stronger economy.