South Australian election: Steven Marshall in danger of one-and-done

In a rare and alarming result for a serving premier, Labor’s Peter Malinauskas is trouncing Steven Marshall as preferred leader.

Labor leader Peter Malinauskas is trouncing Steven Marshall as preferred premier. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Naomi Jellicoe

Steven Marshall is in real danger of becoming a one-term premier as South Australian voters flock behind his opponent ahead of the March 19 state election.

In a rare and alarming result for a serving premier, Labor leader Peter Malinauskas is trouncing Mr Marshall as preferred premier, leading him by a hefty 46 to 39 per cent margin. Mr Marshall also ­has a much higher dissatisfaction rating than his opponent at 47 per cent compared to 31 per cent for Mr Malinauskas.

The collapsing support for Mr Marshall is reflected in a two-party-preferred vote of 53 per cent for Labor and 47 per cent for the Liberals, which if replicated uniformly on polling day would be enough for the election of a Malinauskas government in its own right. Such a result would have ramifications federally as a curtain-raiser for the national poll as well as stripping Prime Minister Scott Morrison of one of his only allies in national cabinet.

Mr Marshall must defy News­poll history to win from here, as with the exception of Labor premier Mike Rann in 2010, no other premier has held on against an ­opponent with a superior better-premier rating on the eve of an election.

Mr Marshall heads a minority government after the defection of three ex-Liberal MPs to the crossbench last year; Labor needs to gain four seats to govern with the support of one independent and five seats to govern in its own right.

The findings are contained in an explosive Newspoll commissioned exclusively for The Weekend Australian, which shows the SA Liberals must urgently reboot their flagging campaign to avoid a humiliating defeat. The Liberals were elected in 2018 after Labor ruled uninterrupted for 16 years.

However, the poll shows Labor and the Greens are benefiting strongly from the return of the one-fifth of South Australian voters who supported former senator Nick Xenophon’s headline-grabbing SA Best campaign in 2018.

The vote for “others” stood at 22.5 per cent in 2018, almost all of it going to Xenophon candidates, who ran in all 47 seats.

SA's primary pote and Premier Marshall's performance.

The “others” vote has now fallen to 14 per cent and Labor’s primary has jumped from 32.8 per cent in 2018 to 39 per cent, with the Greens also rising from 6.7 per cent to 10 per cent. In contrast, the Liberal vote has slid from 38 per cent at the 2018 poll to 37 per cent.

In terms of Covid, the most ­illustrative part of the poll is Mr Marshall’s approval/disapproval rating being almost line ball at 48 per cent satisfied and 47 per cent dissatisfied. Strategists attribute this to the huge public ­debate around his decision to reopen state borders on November 23, a decision that has been labelled both courageous and reckless in equal measure by voters in SA.

Hospitality businesses have been hugely critical of the decision, saying SA should have waited until after the Christmas-New Year period to allow unfettered activity at peak season before letting Omicron into the state. Mr Marshall also faced criticism over the past two years for being too hands-off in his Covid management and standing behind Police Commissioner Grant Stevens and chief medical officer Professor Nicola Spurrier as they called the shots.

SA had recorded only four deaths prior to reopening the borders but the death toll topped 100 early this month as cases surged.

The poll vindicates Labor’s decision to run a presidential-style campaign in which Peter Malinauskas features in around half of all election posters. Picture: Michael Marschall

“If the election had been held last year it would have been a walkover but the problem Steven might have is the times no longer suit him,” one senior Liberal told The Weekend Australian.

The SA Liberals have been desperate to link Mr Malinauskas back to the previous era as a former health minister in the Weatherill government but the YouGov poll suggests the tactic is failing.

Even with that pedigree, the former shop workers union boss and Right faction leader has successfully shifted the focus away from Mr Marshall’s preferred turf of economic management and on to the health system.

Labor is running an aggressive campaign against the proposed $663m Adelaide Entertainment Centre, with attack ads and posters denouncing it as nothing more than a basketball stadium, and promising to redirect all those funds back to the health system. Its health focus has been aided by the ambulance ramping crisis in the public hospital system, intensified by a two-year ambulance workers union campaign in which vehicles have been “chalked” with anti-government messages.

Mr Malinauskas has made a health announcement every day this week, whereas the Premier has been trying to craft an economic message around his government’s strong record on lowering taxes, creating jobs in new hi-tech industries, stabilising the energy market and ending the brain drain of South Australians to the eastern states.

The most alarming feature of the poll for the Liberals is that it vindicates Labor’s decision to run a presidential-style campaign in which Mr Malinauskas features in around half of all election posters and, with his wife and children, presenting himself as a knockabout family man.