Premier Peter Malinauskas and Opposition Leader David Speirs facing big challenges

Premier Peter Malinauskas has dropped from his stratospheric standing during the 2022 election campaign. But, as Paul Starick writes, David Speirs’ challenges are greater.

Chickens are coming home to roost for both Premier Peter Malinauskas and his opponent, David Speirs.

The honeymoon is long over for Mr Malinauskas. The heady days of early 2022, when he was thrust pop-star-like into the spotlight during an election campaign, have ebbed away.

Back then, Mr Malinauskas was a fresh face, able to promise to fix ambulance ramping and present lofty plans for the future, to an electorate enjoying an influx of government funds and the tail end of years of low interest rates.

Now voters are being hammered by the cost of paying down their mortgages and buying basic household items, including electricity and groceries.

The Malinauskas government has been injecting an extra $4.4bn in operating funding into the health system, yet ambulance ramping has worsened. Voters are being asked to take on trust that the government will solve the problem it was elected to fix.

If Labor’s ramping effort was subject to market scrutiny, though, the share price would have plunged. There’s been substantial investment that has, at least thus far, not shifted the dial.

Premier Peter Malinauskas spent a night with paramedics in an ambulance on June 4, 2022. PHOTO: Brenton Edwards

Mr Malinauskas has been propounding the virtues of a market-based economy and boosting productivity as he shifts focus to his more natural ideological ground – growing prosperity and living standards.

During last week’s State Prosperity Project tour of the Upper Spencer Gulf, he championed the government-owned and operated $593m Whyalla hydrogen power plant as underpinning a reindustrialisation of the Upper Spencer Gulf.

Mr Malinauskas is a fine orator and makes a convincing case that SA is well-positioned to capitalise on the global decarbonisation of industry and deliver “thousands of jobs, well paid, secure, highly remunerated jobs”.

But the hydrogen plant’s costings have remained fixed at $593m since The Advertiser in March, 2021, broke the story about the flagship Labor election policy. This must be the only inflation-proof item on the planet.

Mr Malinauskas, once again, is asking voters to take him on trust. He must have at least some doubt about whether spending $593m of taxpayers’ money on this Whyalla plant is reckless adventurism or a wise investment.

The world's biggest hydrogen production facility, power plant and storage planned for Whyalla

Unusually, his opponent, Mr Speirs, seems to be more attuned to the public mood by pushing zero-emission nuclear energy, to capitalise on SA’s abundance of uranium.

“There’s no doubt that there is a place for hydrogen as a fuel of the future, the trouble is that we don’t know what this will look like or when in the future it will happen,” Mr Speirs told The Advertiser.

But he has problems of his own. Some outraged Liberals are accusing him of needlessly offending big business in a speech at a February 29 launch for Future SA, the party’s fundraising arm, at the Kent Town Hotel.

This has again stirred rumblings about his leadership, although even detractors note an absence of replacements, other than perhaps Vincent Tarzia.

Opposition Leader David Speirs with Dunstan Liberal candidate Anna Finizio. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Morgan Sette

Health spokeswoman Ashton Hurn is not interested, yet, and has a baby due soon. Former Boothby MP Nicolle Flint appears to have effectively ruled out a tilt at MacKillop, a South East seat in which her family has farmed for generations.

Intriguingly, though, Liberal sources say she has been telling associates that “my heart is in Boothby”, opening the prospect of her standing again in the southwestern Adelaide marginal federal seat.

This might be a great potential boost for the federal Liberals but it would remove a strong state leadership candidate from the chess board.

Both Mr Malinauskas and Mr Speirs are dealing with these issues ahead of a crucial test – the Dunstan by-election on March 23, being held to replace the former Liberal premier Steven Marshall.

The outcome will be lead in one of their saddlebags at the midpoint of the election cycle. For his own future, though, Mr Speirs needs to hang on to Dunstan much more than Mr Malinauskas needs to capture it.

Originally published as Premier Peter Malinauskas and Opposition Leader David Speirs facing big challenges