SA election 2022: Steven Marshall prepares for tough fight 10 days out from poll
The polls are tight less than two weeks out from election day, and Premier Steven Marshall has opened up to The Advertiser about politics, the state and family.
SA News
Don't miss out on the headlines from SA News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Steven Marshall’s sisters don’t mind tormenting him, his mum worries about him and they are happy to show the world their closeness by holding hands for photos.
To an outsider, you wouldn’t know this is a Premier in the fight of his political life. It’s even-steven, the man named perfectly for the saying even-steven freely admits.
As he bares all – not quite as his rival Peter Malinauskas did at the Adelaide Aquatic Centre – Mr Marshall said political life was brutal. There had been death threats and also a global pandemic to contend with.
But he is fighting hard to try to retain the state’s top job, and he has cleared up any doubt over who led the state’s Covid-19 response.
It was a team effort, he says, before declaring: “I chair the Covid-ready committee, I chair the cabinet which provided all the resources.”
The economy is strong, more South Australians are employed than ever before and when other states were paralysed by lockdowns, kids were going to school and most adults went to work as normal for most of the pandemic.
SA has a burgeoning space industry, companies are moving hi-tech jobs to Adelaide without subsidy.
SA is no longer “the handout state”, the Premier says. Electricity and water prices are down.
If Mr Marshall was a CEO, his shareholders would have reasons to be very happy.
But as Premier, he has appeared to struggle to get the politics of his job on form.
CONSERVATIVE COMPROMISE
His first concession, in an interview with The Advertiser, is a big one.
Mr Marshall says he will include conservative Liberals in any future ministry, having spent most of his premiership keeping them out of senior positions.
Dangling the prospect of big jobs would play well should Mr Marshall find the election delivers a hung parliament – and the rabble of former colleagues who became independents for various reasons, both principled and via scandal, would need to be his new best friends.
“I think it’s always good to have balance in a cabinet room. We haven’t achieved that in the last 12 to 18 months. That’s something that would need to be addressed in the future,” Mr Marshall said from one of his sisters’ beachside home with them, his mother and his daughter gathered around.
“I think there’s many talented people from right across the (internal Liberal) political spectrum and we’ll just look to make sure that future Cabinets are representative of the entire base of the party.”
But he insisted former deputy premier Vickie Chapman eventually would be welcomed back into cabinet, if the Liberals secured government after the March 19 election and she was cleared by an ongoing Ombudsman’s inquiry.
Mr Marshall denied suggestions conservative former Liberal crossbenchers had signalled they would refuse support in a hung parliament without a guarantee Ms Chapman would be consigned to sitting on the backbench.
TOO CLOSE TO CALL
In a wide-ranging interview, Mr Marshall said the election was “too close to call” but warned concerning levels of voter disengagement were “a worry for our state” at “one of those forks in the road” of history.
“That’s why people really do need to think about the risk associated with transferring to a new government,” he said.
“What we’ve demonstrated over the last four years is where South Australia can be the fastest growing economy, record investment, more people employed than any time in the history of the state.
“But, most importantly, I think it’s about the state feeling confident. I think under Labor we were often derided as being a backwater.”
He points to about a dozen hi-tech, big national firms bringing jobs to South Australia, starting with Accenture and getting the space headquarters for Adelaide, something he says he was initially told to lower his expectations about.
“I’ve never lowered my expectations. I went to Ethelton Primary,” he joked.
His sunny disposition and relentless optimism have been credited by Prime Minister Scott Morrison as an attribute on the national stage, delivering ship building and eventually the nuclear-powered subs program to Adelaide.
Lamenting the dramatic erosion of Playford’s economic legacy after the 1991 State Bank financial disaster and the state’s decades-long decline, Mr Marshall declared South Australia was “no longer the handout state which needs somebody else to bail them out every single day of the week”.
“We’re a proud state. We’ve performed extraordinarily well. We are now regarded on the national and the international stage as the place to invest and that’s something every South Australian should feel very proud about,” he said.
If Mr Marshall is returned there will be plenty of cows that can breathe a big sigh of relief because he will redouble efforts to grow South Australia’s plant-based protein industry. The state put in $65m for the $378m venture announced last week which is expected to create $5.2bn in wealth.
“In the last four years what we’ve seen happen really talks to the potential for our state. We’ve already been able to deliver the (nation’s) fastest growing economy, significant investment, most importantly, stopping that exodus of capital, companies and young people out of our state – each one of those has turned around,” Mr Marshall said.
“I think that there’s still so much opportunity to seed new and exciting industries in South Australia – space and cyber are already off and running. Plant protein is going to be absolutely massive for our state.”
IN PARLIAMENT FOR THE LONG HAUL
Mr Marshall vowed to continue for a full term as Dunstan MP if the Liberals lost the election and said, if they formed government, he wanted to serve as leader for as long as the party wanted him.
Contenders for Rob Lucas’ job as Treasurer, should Marshall be returned, include ministers John Gardner, David Speirs and Dan van Holst Pellekaan.
The 47-seat lower house means elections are decided “by one or two seats”, Mr Marshall said.
He said is not worried about a repeat of the 2014 election loss when the Liberals won the statewide 2PP vote by 53 per cent to 47 per cent.
Mr Marshall insisted his was the most stable Liberal leadership since Sir Thomas Playford’s 26-year reign as premier ended in 1965.
“People often reflect on party harmony. I put this to you that this is my tenth year as the leader of the parliamentary Liberal Party – only one other person has done 10 years and that is Sir Thomas Playford,” he said.
BRUTAL TROLLS TARGET MARSHALL FAMILY
A crackdown on anonymous social media accounts has been backed by Premier Steven Marshall, who revealed his adult children have been abused repeatedly by online trolls.
Strongly endorsing a national plan to force people to pass identification checks before opening social media accounts, Mr Marshall also told of death threats issued to Liberal ministers.
In an interview with The Advertiser, the Premier described the “brutal” impact of political life on his family.
“It think it’s been extremely difficult but I prepared them,” Mr Marshall said.
“They know that politics is brutal. But, ultimately, you need to stand up – you cannot cower, you cannot be intimidated.
“I’m sure they are not very happy about seeing some of the slogans, the posters, the constant attacks on all social media.”
Mr Marshall said some of his cabinet ministers were “routinely threatened with death”, and that regular threats to political offices likely also were commonplace under the former Labor government.
Asked if he backed a federal parliamentary inquiry’s recommendation last April for 100-point identification checks before establishing or maintaining any social media account, Mr Marshall declared: “I strongly support that.”
This would stamp out the proliferation of fake social media accounts, he said, singling out bogus Liberal profiles.
“But just from a kid safety perspective, there’s a lot that happens in that ether which is quite sinister,” Mr Marshall said.
Insisting federal Communications Minister Paul Fletcher had identified online issues needing to be rectified, Mr Marshall lamented that “the bad guys always work out new and interesting ways to attack the victim”.
Mr Marshall said rising online security threats had spurred last July’s opening of the Adelaide-based Australian Cyber Collaboration Centre at Lot Fourteen and tens of millions of dollars of investment into strengthening the state’s cybersecurity.
“We’re going to create thousands of jobs, we’re going to create incredible investment, because cyber is both a threat and an opportunity,” he said.
A man accused of threatening to kill Mr Marshall in two “angry” and “abusive” phone calls to his electorate office was found not guilty in February last year of threatening a public officer.
The Advertiser interviewed Mr Marshall at his sister’s house, posing for pictures with his sisters, daughter Georgie and mother, Barbara.
His mother said she had struggled with the impact of her son’s political life when he was first elected in 2010, revealing it was “one of the worst times” and opponents were “pretty brutal to him”, but was thankful for the support of her late husband, Tony.
But she also described the family’s pride at Mr Marshall being elected as Premier in 2018 and at his subsequent performance in the state’s top job.
“I’m more proud of him now, because I think the whole Liberal team has done such a wonderful job,” Mrs Marshall said. “They’ve helped one another, they’ve been there for one another.
“And he’s just orchestrated that and hasn’t been out wanting to take all the glory. That’s Steve.”
More Coverage
Originally published as SA election 2022: Steven Marshall prepares for tough fight 10 days out from poll
Driver rushed to hospital after serious Hills crash, road closed
A driver has been rushed to hospital and a Hills road is closed after a two-car crash in Meadows.
‘Knives in each hand’: Teen stabbed in shopping centre brawl
Three boys have been arrested after a teenager was stabbed in the torso at of Adelaide’s busiest shopping centres – with staff barricaded in their shops after witnessing the brawl.