Federal Election 2016: Key to winning is here, in SA

MALCOLM Turnbull had to drive up Adelaide Avenue to get to Government House to get this election started. Apt, really — whoever wins will have to navigate SA politics. And Nick Xenophon.

• Threat of Mr X makes SA a key election battleground
• Risk of calling an eight-week campaign
• The policy issues that will win — and lose — votes

PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull had to drive up Adelaide Avenue to get to Government House to get this election palaver underway.

Rather apt, really.

Whichever party wins the July 2 double dissolution election will have to navigate South Australian politics.

Some of the biggest characters in Parliament — Industry Minister Christopher Pyne and Education Minister Simon Birmingham, Labor Senator Penny Wong and Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young — are ours.

The $50 billion Future Submarines deal to build the boats in Adelaide, on top of other shipbuilding announcements, provide a sweet talking point for the Government. It will be a centrepiece of their talk of agile, hi-tech jobs.

But in turn that will get the other states agitated, ensuring that local MPs have to reassure their electorates that it’s not all about SA, that all states will get a bite of the underwater cherry.

During this protracted campaign, the visage of SA Independent Senator Nick Xenophon will loom large.

For much of the eight weeks, he is set to play the parties against each other. If he gets anything near the 25 per cent of votes in the election that he did in the 2013 Senate race, his as-yet-undecided preferences truly make him a kingmaker.

He and Labor could then knock off Christopher Pyne, which would deal a severe blow to the Coalition and a boon to Labor.

That, too, turns other states’ attention to the South. Now that Senator Xenophon is heading the Nick Xenophon Team, he is a disruptive influence across the nation.

And of course there’s a fair to middling chance that the South Australian senator will hold the balance of power in the Senate.

Either side could find themselves dealing with a hung Senate, and even a hung House of Representatives, having to deal with the shamelessly parochial Senator Xenophon.

That is one of the reasons yesterday’s Galaxy Poll, revealed in the Sunday Mail, is just one part of the story.

It put Labor and the Coalition neck-and-neck at 50 per cent, two-party preferred, but there are other horses in that race, and the marathon campaign will test the fitness of all of them.

Polls also don’t show the higgledy piggledy way the votes fall. The swing is never uniform and in this election there are more than 20 MPs retiring, to be replaced with unknowns. Then there are fascinating contests such as the popular independent Tony Windsor taking on Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce in New England.

They also use the preference flows from the previous election, which brings us back to the Xenophon factor.

There are myriad moving parts to this journey, and the long campaign means there is more opportunity for the wheels to fall right off.

Originally published as Federal Election 2016: Key to winning is here, in SA