Your Say SA 2020: Premier Steven Marshall’s big problem
Premier Steven Marshall’s popularity has slumped, according to more than 4000 polled South Australians. But what are his chances of re-election at the next state election?
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YOUR SAY SA 2020 VISION
- It’s time for South Australia be bold
- You little beauty: The inside word on SA
- South Aussie pollies aren’t listening to the people
Premier Steven Marshall will go to the halfway point of his first term with some concerning polling numbers.
In 12 months the Premier has gone from having 38.6 per cent of Your Say SA respondents saying his State Government was doing a good or very good job to just 22.3 per cent.
Mr Marshall has himself seen a sharp increase in the number of people that think he is doing a poor or very poor job – from a combined total of 21.4 per cent in 2018 to 37.4 per cent in 2019.
Adelaide’s eastern suburbs, long regarded as Liberal heartland, has lived up to its reputation. Voters there were more likely to rate Mr Marshall’s performance as good or excellent.
But the polling shows he still has significant work to do in the northern suburbs.
Mr Marshall may however take comfort in that the survey was taken during one of the most tumultuous periods for the State Government since being elected.
A controversial land tax deal was still to be struck and even Liberal MPs were not supporting a Mining Bill in State Parliament.
The land tax deal, until passed, had drawn huge criticism from some of the Liberals traditional supporter base.
The survey found support in regional SA for the State Government had dropped significantly from a year earlier on the back of the Mining Bill, which many farmers believed gave mining companies too much power of their land.
Mr Marshall’s political opponent, Labor leader Peter Malinauskas has seen little movement in his numbers.
The number of South Australians that believe he is doing an excellent job has grown from 3.5 per cent to 4.2 per cent.
During the same period, the number of people that believe he is doing a good job has grown from 15.5 per cent to 16.8 per cent.
DO YOU TRUST POLITICIANS?
More than half of the respondents to the Your Say SA survey have low levels of trust in federal and state governments, a result one expert blames on bad behaviour.
University of South Australia senior lecturer in public relations Collette Snowden said politicians “need to behave better and be accountable”.
“But while people accept dishonesty, misrepresentation of facts, personal attacks on their opponents, and even nepotism and cronyism as normal they do not need to change,” Dr Snowden said.
She said many politicians treat their positions as entitlements and power as a personal achievement, rather than as held on behalf of their constituents.
“Ultimately, politicians can only do what people let them get away with,” she said.
“At the moment they seem to get away with almost anything because people believe that politicians are inherently untrustworthy.
“That’s a toxic environment for trust.”
Dr Snowden said the fix could be for people to demand higher standards and use the power they have at the ballot box.
“They have to be less passive, and stop treating politics as a spectator sport and get actively involved,” she said.
The survey showed more than six in ten people believe the two most scrutinised levels of government lack transparency.
That sentiment was strongest among people aged 50 to 64. Females were more likely to believe the State Government had low levels of transparency.
Seven out of ten South Australians do not believe governments do enough to protect whistleblowers.
Oakden whistleblower Stewart Johnston agrees. His late mother, Helen, spent three weeks as an outpatient at the now closed scandal-plagued facility back in 2008 – leaving her traumatised from the experience until her death in 2014.
Mr Johnston said being a whistleblower was a “a lonely isolating road” that came with “huge personal ramifications along the way”.
“We need to provide real protection for whistleblowers,” he said.
“I’ve had so many ramifications since blowing the whistle it would make people’s hair curl.”