Liberals fear South Australian state election rout could imperil Scott Morrison and boost Anthony Albanese

A landslide victory for Labor in South Australia has stoked Liberal fears that two vulnerable Adelaide seats could fall to Anthony Albanese at the federal election.

South Australian premier-elect Peter Malinauskas after his crushing win in Saturday’s election. Picture: Roy VanDerVegt

A landslide victory for Labor in South Australia has stoked Liberal fears that two vulnerable -Adelaide seats could fall to Anthony Albanese at the federal election, as the nation faces the prospect of wall-to-wall ALP governments on the mainland.

The crushing nature of Peter Malinauskas’s victory over first-term premier Steven Marshall – fuelled by an aggressive health campaign – sparked calls from Liberal MPs for Scott Morrison to appeal more to conservative voters and better counter the ALP’s scare campaigns.

The ALP believes that the marginal seat of Boothby held by retiring Liberal Nicolle Flint on a margin of 1.4 per cent, and Sturt (6.9 per cent), formerly held by defence minister Christopher Pyne, are both vulnerable, and will at the very least force the Liberals to divert resources to defend them against Labor attack.

Hear David Penberthy’s analysis of the SA election in our new weekday podcast

While the South Australian election was fought on state issues, the big increase in Labor’s primary vote and the soaring popularity of its leader mean only a small reflection of the vast pro-Labor sentiment at Saturday’s poll could see Boothby wrested from the Morrison government.

As predicted by Newspoll, the Labor vote surged delivering a statewide 5.6 per cent two-party-preferred swing. Labor gained at least six seats and is projected to win 28 to the Liberals 14, with five independents.

Steven Marshall resigned as Liberal leader on Sunday morning saying he took “full responsibility” for the result, and may yet lose his seat of Dunstan when counting resumes on Monday.

The Liberals’ defeat marked the first change of government at federal, state or territory level since the previous South Australian election in 2018.

The Prime Minister telephoned and congratulated Mr Malinauskas on Sunday morning but was quick to put distance between the premier-elect’s popularity and that of his federal opponent.

“There is a big difference between Anthony Albanese as the federal Labor leader and what we see in the performance of some of his state colleagues,” Mr Morrison said.

Losing two House of Representatives electorates in South Australia would make the Morrison government’s bid for re-election even harder, given the Prime Minister goes to the May poll with only 75 seats, following the defection of Craig Kelly and the abolition of Stirling in a redistribution. A minimum of 76 seats is required in the 151-seat House of Representatives.

The opposition goes into the next election with a notional 69 seats. Winning two South Australian seats would mean Mr Albanese would only need a net gain of another six seats from the Coalition to become prime minister.

Labor’s victory in South Australia means there are just two Liberal governments on the mainland, both struggling: the Prime Minister’s and that of Dominic Perrottet in NSW which faces an election next March.

Mr Malinauskas thanked Mr Morrison for his congratulations but signalled he would not have the same cosy relationship with the Prime Minister as Mr Marshall – Mr Morrison’s closest ally in national cabinet whom he nicknamed “quokka” on account of his cheery demeanour. “I will work collaboratively with any government of any persuasion that is willing to do the right thing by South Australia, plain and simple,” Mr Malinauskas said.

“But I’m not going to be ScoMo’s quokka either. If they do something I don’t agree with I will stand and fight for our interests.”

Mr Malinauskas said he would be barracking and campaigning for an Albanese victory in May.

“Naturally,” he said. “I sincerely hope it is Mr Albanese because we have common values, we understand the post pandemic opportunity and I will be doing everything I can to assist his efforts in getting elected.”

The centrepiece of SA Labor’s win was an aggressive campaign against ambulance ramping run in concert with the state’s ambulance union, with shock advertising reminiscent of federal Labor’s 2016 “Mediscare” campaign.

The Opposition Leader applauded that campaign while on the hustings in Adelaide last Friday and said federal Labor would also be running hard on health in the national campaign.

South Australian Liberal senator Simon Birmingham warned against any attempted repeat at the federal level of the Labor tactics used in the state election campaign. The Finance Minister blamed the Labor scare campaign and the unlucky timing of the Omicron Covid-19 variant for Mr Marshall’s loss. “We saw the Labor Party run a very targeted, very singularly focused ¬campaign around hospitals and ambulances,” Senator Birmingham told ABC’s Insiders.

“There were many misleading aspects to that campaign; the electoral commission found so in the last day or so. We can’t underscore the potential for Labor to run these types of scare campaigns, just like they did with Mediscare against us back in 2016 …”

Senator Birmingham said Covid-19 played a difficult role for Mr Marshall because he opened the states borders to the rest of the country a day before the World Health Organisation reported the Omicron variant as a concern.

His assessment was not shared by SA Liberal conservatives who are fearful that seats will be lost at a federal level and accused former Mr Marshall of taking the party too far to the left.

South Australian Liberal senator Alex Antic – who has refused to vote with the government in protest at vaccine mandates – said the Prime Minister should take the lesson of what happened when Coalition leaders moved too far to the left. He said it served as a timely reminder before the federal election that “you must, as (US) president (Ronald) Reagan famously said, ‘dance with the one who bring ya”, said Senator Antic, who does not have to seek re-election until the following election.

“The SA Liberal Party has spent the last four years trying to dance with Labor and Greens voters while the quiet South Australians were left on the sidelines wondering why they even bothered to turn up.”

Barker MP Tony Pasin, a fellow conservative, warned the federal party against a rerun of the 2016 campaign, when the centrist leader Malcolm Turnbull failed to rouse the base and lost 14 seats.

NSW Transport Minister David Elliott told The Daily Telegraph Labor’s win in SA was a warning to all MPs “interfering” with the government’s centre-right ideals.

“There are way too many woke issues that are seeping through ... my heart goes out to Dom (Perrottet) and Scott (Morrison) who are trying to manage parts of the Liberal Party who are interfering,” Mr Elliott said.

Panicked party officials want former premier Gladys Berejiklian to help in the federal campaign.

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Hear David Penberthy’s analysis on our new weekday podcast The Front, available under Podcasts in our app, at theaustralian.com.au/podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.