Peter Malinauskas has won a strong second term as South Australian Premier. But the night’s biggest story was a stunning One Nation surge that has crushed the Liberal Party’s primary vote and changed the shape of South Australian politics.
South Australians voted on Saturday and the night produced two very different results. Labor was returned to power easily, with a bigger majority in the lower house.
But a nearly 19% swing to One Nation wiped out the Liberals’ primary vote, putting the minor party ahead of its conservative rival on first preferences for the first time.
By Sunday morning, Labor was on track to win at least 32 of South Australia’s 47 lower house seats, up from its previous count of 29. The Liberals were likely to hold just four seats, with a handful more too close to call.
Labor took around 39.1% of the primary vote. One Nation came second on 21.6%. The Liberals trailed in third on 18.7%.
The ABC’s chief election analyst Casey Briggs described the result as an “earthquake” that would have consequences around the country.
Speaking outside his home before heading to Labor’s official function, Malinauskas told reporters he was “humbled” by the result, calling it “an extraordinary privilege.”
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One Nation’s Breakthrough
One Nation looks set to win at least two upper house seats. Cory Bernardi has been confirmed as one of those members. The former Liberal senator, who now leads One Nation in the state, spoke to a jubilant crowd at a Kent Town hotel.
He declared that “an earthquake has rattled the foundations of uni-party politics in South Australia.” Bernardi said his party would “never shirk an issue” and would “stand up and speak up for every South Australian without fear or favour.”
One Nation candidates were leading the primary vote in the lower house seats of Hammond, Mackillop and Ngadjuri. Preference flows are yet to decide those results.
National leader Pauline Hanson was quick to frame the result as a broader movement. She pointed to Bernardi’s upper house win and said the party would push hard at November’s Victorian state election. “There’s a movement, there’s an undercurrent,” she told Sky News. “We want our country back. We want to have a voice.”
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Liberals Face Reckoning
The result has thrown the Liberal Party into crisis. Liberal leader Ashton Hurn held her seat of Schubert in the Barossa Valley and will stay on as leader. But the scale of the loss has triggered immediate calls for the party to take stock.
Federal Liberal senator Anne Ruston said the party had received a clear and “sobering” message. She said it could not win by trying to shift further to the right or left. “The Liberal Party has got a lot of work to do to rebuild the trust of Australians,” she said.
Adelaide University emeritus professor of politics Clem Macintyre said the rise of One Nation could mark a turning point in Australian politics and signal the end of two-party dominance at the federal level.
Saturday’s election drew a record field of 436 candidates across both houses, the most in the state’s history. A record 454,862 South Australians, or 34.5% of eligible voters, voted early before election day.
Full results, including preference distributions in closely fought regional seats, are expected over the coming days as postal and absentee votes continue to be counted.
