My analysis of the 2022 South Australian state election

 In the run-up to the next Australian federal election, which must take place this autumn, South Australia held its 2022 state election. which resulted in the Liberal-led government of Steve Marshall enduring a resounding defeat by Labor, led in South Australia by Peter Malinauskas. 

Labor increased their seat total to 26, giving them a 5-seat majority; whilst this is not a particularly high majority numerically it must also be noted that there are only 47 seats in the South Australian House of Assembly, and in terms of "two-party preferred" votes achieved a 7.1% swing against the Liberals. Healthcare proved to be a key issue in this election, especially with half of Mr Marshall's term having been overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic, and a decision to build a new stadium at a time when greater healthcare investment was definitely needed was a blunder on the Liberal government's part, and its lapse into minority status following criminal charges against two South Australian Liberal MPs (Sam Duluk, who was siubsequently acquitted of assault, and Fraser Ellis, where corruption accusations are still pending at this time of writing) only exacerbated this. As a direct result, the Liberals dropped to 11 seats, their lowest ever in South Australian history, partly because two former Liberal MPs (the aforementioned Fraser Ellis, and also Dan Cregan) won re-election in their state electorates as Independents. Furthermore, Geoff Brock, who had sat for the Frome electorate until South Australia's most recent redistribution moved his key political base into the electorate of Stuart, won the latter electorate from sitting Liberal MP Dan van Holst Pellekaan convincingly, even though both electorates were otherwise not altered significantly. In total, Independents won 5 seats, the highest total seen in any Australian state parliament.

The South Australian Greens achieved their best ever result in 1st preference votes, 9.3%, but it still was not enough to win any seats or even make it to the final round in any electorate; once again their best result was in the wealthy Adelaide suburb of Heysen, which in 2018 was also the electorate that SA-BEST came closest to winning, and in 2014 the Greens did make it the "two candidate preferred" count. They did however easily re-elect Robert Simms to the Legislative Council, South Australia's upper house. SA-BEST (formerly the Nick Xenophon Group, once seen as a potential successor to the Australian Democrats) only fielded one candidate in this election, Tom Antonio, in the electorate of Giles; Mr Antonio still polled 10.9% although this was less than half the SA-BEST vote of 2018. Their Legislative Council vote also collapsed, to just 1.1%. Of the other parties who contested this election, only Advance South Australia's loss of their Legislative Council seat is significant, and notably they also got the wooden spoon in this election in terms of Legislative Council results (the libertarian Liberal Democrats of Australia got the wooden spoon in terms of Assembly results).

With South Australia almost entirely consisting of Liberal-Labor battles at both state and federal level, and Labor ahead of the Liberal/National coalition in current Australian opinion polls, this election can be considered a useful precursor to what will happen in this year's Australian federal election. Whether the Independent group of the South Australia House of Assembly, having overall supported the Liberals from 2018-2022, will support Mr Malinauskas is another story.

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