Anthony Albanese can wait: victory coffee first for Peter Malinauskas

When Anthony Albanese’s name scrolled across the phone screen, Peter Malinauskas slowly raised his eyes. He could wait.

South Australian premier-elect Peter Malinauskas. Picture: Kelly Barnes

The mobile phone rang at 9.43am as Peter Malinauskas was wedged on a coffee table in the once-marginal seat of Adelaide, surrounded by women.

Anthony Albanese’s name scrolled across the screen and Malinauskas slowly raised his eyes. Albo could wait.

The South Australian premier-elect’s career probably peaked off Prospect Rd on Sunday; it’s hardly likely to get any better after Labor was swept into power after just one term in opposition and with the rich symbolism of five young women entering parliament.

Depending on how the swings go this week, there are potentially three more Labor women waiting to be taken out of election purgatory and invited to make their way on to the green seats on North Terrace.

“It represents everything modern Australia looks like,” Malinauskas remarked.

It didn’t take long, though, under the large red umbrellas at  Cibo Espresso, for the Labor leader to make it clear to the Malinauskas Five that once the shouting was all over, voters expected the real work to begin.

Celebrate, sure, but “Then its straight back (to work)”.

Lucy Hood, the Labor candidate for Adelaide, picked up a two-party-preferred swing of 8 per cent to defeat her Liberal ­opponent, and it was an awkward call at midnight when she rang her brother Ben in the state’s southeast.

Ben had run for the Liberal Party in the seat of Mount Gambier and unfortunately for him, he didn’t get across the line.

“There were a few tears,” Lucy Hood said.

It’s hard to say how much the personal vote was for Malinauskas across the metropolitan area but it is likely to have been significant, the electorate having warmed to his central campaign themes of fixing the ambulance and health systems and to the sense of energy that surrounded Labor.

The swing in the southern seat of Davenport was a significant 12.2 per cent, reflecting the extent of the mood for change in the ­suburbs – and potential for a big whack for the Liberal Party in the once-safe federal seat of Boothby.

Given where she lives, Labor’s Erin Thompson was probably never going to have a sad ending.

“She lives in Happy Valley,” the campaign material spruiked, “with her husband Adam and her children, Lara and Liam, and their two dogs. Lara is a frequent visitor to Minkarra Skate Park and Liam laces up during football season for the Happy Valley Vikings.”

In many ways, Thompson personifies the story of new Labor: one eye on the prize, the other on a ­relentless campaign on issues that matter to locals.

As mayor, she worked to ­deliver fortnightly green-bin ­collection and record-low rate increases, and waive rates for clubs during Covid-19.

So did she think Scott Morrison was an issue? “No.”

The new member for the marginal seat of Elder, Nadia Clancy, was – like Thompson – unconvinced that federal factors played much of a role.

Generally speaking, she said, “people knew the difference”.

When the TV cameras were returned to their station wagons, Malinauskas’s eye caught Labor’s member for Mawson, the former journalist turned politician Leon Bignell, who has quietly turned the southern interface seat that takes in Kangaroo Island from a 4.2 per cent notionally Liberal electorate after the 2018 redistribution to 14.5 per cent Labor.

In political terms, Bignell has waved an 18.7 per cent magic wand.

In truth, it’s been a 16-year ­campaign of text book marginal seat campaigning based on the love of the seat and a genuine ­interest in the progress of its ­people.

When fires ripped through Kangaroo Island in 2019-20, ­Bignell adopted a kelpie pup that, in a canine miracle, survived when it should have perished.

That dog has become symbolic of Labor’s broader South Australian campaign, featuring in its own short movie and having its own beer, Dusty Draught, brewed by Pirate Life as a fundraiser for fire victims.

“All I ever try and do is wear my heart on my sleeve, show the love, give the love to the people,” Bignell said.

“If you work hard and you ­listen to your community and get out there and do what the people want you to do, democracy is a pretty simple thing.

“Of the people, for the people. Just get out there and do what they want.”

It sounds simple enough.