SA Libs set to lose all Adelaide seats; One Nation on brink of taking last senate spot

The shattered South Australian Liberals risk not holding a single seat across suburban Adelaide, and being reduced to a rural rump with just two of the state’s 10 electorates.

ALP Boothby candidate Louise Miller-Frost celebrating at Kenilworth Football Club with South Ausjtralian Premier Peter Malinauskas. Picture: Simon Cross

The shattered South Australian Liberals risk not holding a single seat across the entirety of suburban Adelaide, and being ­reduced to a rural rump with just two of the state’s 10 electorates.

The devastation of the party at the March 19 state election was mirrored in Saturday’s federal ­result, with retiring MP Nicolle Flint’s inner-southern seat of Boothby falling to Labor for the first time since Robert Menzies was prime minister.

The former Liberal stronghold of Sturt, for years the bastion of moderate leader Christopher Pyne, is now a seesawing battle with the lead switching between James Stevens and Labor’s Sonja Baram by a few dozen votes.

Federal Labor benefited from the continuing honeymoon for new Labor Premier Peter Malinauskas, with SA giving Labor its highest two-party-preferred vote of any state at 56.4 per cent.

As The Australian predicted, the SA Senate battle saw the ­return of Labor’s Penny Wong and Don Farrell, Liberals Simon Birmingham and Andrew McLachlan, the election of Green Barbara Pocock and the end of Nick Xenophon as a political force.

In a boost for One Nation, which risks being without its ­leader in Pauline Hanson, its candidate, Jennifer Game, looks set to win the sixth Senate spot.

The Liberals were also rebuffed again in the Adelaide Hills electorate of Mayo; where independent Rebekah Sharkie held Alexander Downer’s former seat for the third time.

If Sturt falls, it will be the first time in 50 years that Labor has held the seat and will leave the Liberals without a suburban presence anywhere between the ­Adelaide Hills and the western beaches, and nothing in the city’s north and south.

The results reflect a dismal campaign by the SA Liberals division, which was plagued by ­morale issues just 10 weeks after the Marshall government was turfed after one term.

The branch struggled to muster volunteers and did not even bother to preselect candidates in the once-marginal seats of Hindmarsh and Kingston until the campaign started. Both were held easily by Mark Butler and Amanda Rishworth, who will be ministers in the Albanese government.

Senator Birmingham, a moderate leader, made it clear he felt the party’s conservatism had hampered the vote in SA. Yet in a sign of factional brawls ahead, his fellow Liberal senator, conservative Alex Antic, said it was the result of moderate influence on policy.

It could take several days to know whether Mr Stevens can hold Sturt. While he remains confident he can win on postal votes, he told supporters on Saturday the broader result was a disaster.

“We are going to have to have a very deep reflection in the Liberal Party about what has happened to us tonight,” he said.