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All 47 seats in the South Australian House of Assembly 24 seats are needed for a majority 11 (of the 22) seats in the South Australian Legislative Council | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The left side map shows the first party preference by electorate. The right side map shows the final two-party preferred vote result by electorate. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 2014 South Australian state election elected members to the 53rd Parliament of South Australia on 15 March 2014, to fill all 47 seats in the House of Assembly (lower house) and 11 of 22 seats in the Legislative Council (upper house). The 12-year-incumbent Australian Labor Party (SA) government, led by Premier Jay Weatherill, won its fourth consecutive four-year term in government, a record 16 years of Labor government, defeating the opposition Liberal Party of Australia (SA), led by Opposition Leader Steven Marshall.
The election resulted in a hung parliament with 23 seats for Labor and 22 for the Liberals. The balance of power rested with the two crossbench independents, Bob Such and Geoff Brock. Such did not indicate whom he would support in a minority government before he went on medical leave for a brain tumour, diagnosed one week after the election. University of Adelaide Professor and Political Commentator Clem McIntyre said the absence of Such virtually guaranteed that Brock would back Labor – with 24 seats required to govern, Brock duly provided support to the incumbent Labor government, allowing Weatherill to continue in office as head of a minority government. McIntyre said: [1]
If Geoff Brock had gone with the Liberals, then the Parliament would have effectively been tied 23 to 23, so once Bob Such became ill and stepped away then Geoff Brock, I think had no choice but to side with Labor.
It is Labor's longest-serving South Australian government and the second longest-serving South Australian government behind the Playmander-assisted Liberal and Country League government of 1933-1965, which served first under Richard Layton Butler and then Thomas Playford IV. It is also the third time that any party has won four consecutive election victories in South Australia, after the LCL's 10 consecutive victories from 1933 to 1965 (the last eight under Playford) and Labor's four consecutive victories between 1970 and 1977 under Don Dunstan.
Recent hung parliaments occurred when Labor came to government in 2002 and prior to that when the state Liberal retained government in 1997 which saw the South Australian Division of the Liberal Party of Australia, created in 1974, win re-election for the first time.
The Liberals were reduced to 21 seats in May 2014 when Martin Hamilton-Smith became an independent and entered cabinet with Brock. Both Hamilton-Smith and Brock agreed to support the Labor government on confidence and supply while retaining the right to otherwise vote on conscience. Labor went from minority to majority government when Nat Cook won the 2014 Fisher by-election by five votes from a 7.3 percent two-party swing which was triggered by the death of Such. Despite this, the Jay Weatherill Labor government kept Brock and Hamilton-Smith in cabinet, giving the government a 26 to 21 parliamentary majority.
Like federal elections, South Australia has compulsory voting, uses full-preference instant-runoff voting in the lower house and single transferable vote group voting tickets in the proportionally represented upper house. The election was conducted by the Electoral Commission of South Australia (ECSA), an independent body answerable to Parliament.
The Liberals took three seats from Labor resulting in a hung parliament with 23 seats for Labor and 22 for the Liberals. [2] The balance of power rested with the two crossbench independents, Bob Such and Geoff Brock. [3] Such did not indicate who he would support in a minority government before he went on medical leave for a brain tumour, diagnosed one week after the election. University of Adelaide Professor and Political Commentator Clem McIntyre said the absence of Such virtually guaranteed that Brock would back Labor – with 24 seats required to govern, Brock duly provided support to the incumbent Labor government, allowing Premier Jay Weatherill to continue in office as head of a minority government. McIntyre said: [1]
If Geoff Brock had gone with the Liberals, then the Parliament would have effectively been tied 23 to 23, so once Bob Such became ill and stepped away then Geoff Brock, I think had no choice but to side with Labor.
In a joint press conference with Weatherill, Brock said Such's absence prompted him to make his decision a week sooner than planned. [4] The new government was sworn in on 26 March, with Brock in cabinet as Minister for Regional Development and Local Government. [2] The Liberals were reduced to 21 seats in May 2014 when Martin Hamilton-Smith became an independent and entered cabinet as Minister for Investment and Trade, Defence Industries and Veterans Affairs. Both Hamilton-Smith and Brock agreed to support the Labor government on confidence and supply while retaining the right to otherwise vote on conscience. [5] [6] Labor achieved majority government when Nat Cook won the 2014 Fisher by-election by five votes from a 7.3 percent two-party swing which was triggered by the death of Such. Despite this, the Jay Weatherill Labor government kept Brock and Hamilton-Smith in cabinet, giving the government a 26 to 21 parliamentary majority. [7]
Party | Votes | % | +/– | Seats | +/– | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Liberal | 455,797 | 44.78 | 3.13 | 22 | 4 | |
Labor | 364,420 | 35.80 | 1.67 | 23 | 3 | |
Greens | 88,600 | 8.70 | 0.59 | 0 | 0 | |
Family First Party | 63,575 | 6.25 | 0.87 | 0 | 0 | |
Independents | 37,955 | 3.73 | 0.97 | 2 | 1 | |
Dignity Party | 5,934 | 0.58 | 0.45 | 0 | 0 | |
National | 1,328 | 0.13 | 0.92 | 0 | 0 | |
FREE Australia | 247 | 0.02 | 0.13 | 0 | 0 | |
Total | 1,017,856 | 100.00 | – | 47 | – | |
Valid votes | 1,017,856 | 96.91 | ||||
Invalid/blank votes | 32,503 | 3.09 | 0.24 | |||
Total votes | 1,050,359 | 100.00 | – | |||
Registered voters/turnout | 1,142,419 | 91.94 | 0.84 | |||
Source: [8] | ||||||
Two-party-preferred vote | ||||||
Liberal | 539,495 | 53.00 | 1.39 | |||
Labor | 478,361 | 47.00 | 1.39 | |||
Total | 1,017,856 | 100.00 | – |
Independents: Bob Such, Geoff Brock
Although the state-wide two-party vote (2PP) was 47.0% Labor v 53.0% Liberal, the Adelaide metropolitan area containing over 75% of South Australia's population and 72% of seats (34 of 47) recorded a 2PP of 51.5% Labor v 48.5% Liberal. [9]
The following seats changed hands: [10]
Seat | Pre-2014 | Swing | Post-2014 | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Party | Member | Margin | Margin | Member | Party | ||||
Bright | Labor | Chloë Fox | 0.5 | 3.7 | 3.3 | David Speirs | Liberal | ||
Hartley | Labor | Grace Portolesi | 0.1 | 2.6 | 2.4 | Vincent Tarzia | Liberal | ||
Mitchell | Labor | Alan Sibbons | 2.4 | 3.6 | 1.2 | Corey Wingard | Liberal | ||
Mount Gambier | Independent | Don Pegler | 0.5 | 7.7 | 7.2 | Troy Bell | Liberal |
The following Mackerras pendulum works by lining up all of the seats according to the percentage point margin on a two candidate preferred basis based on the 2014 results. [11] [12] "Safe" seats require a swing of over 10 per cent to change, "fairly safe" seats require a swing of between 6 and 10 per cent, while "marginal" seats require a swing of less than 6 per cent. [13]
Labor seats (23) | |||
Marginal | |||
Newland | Tom Kenyon | ALP | 1.4% |
Colton | Paul Caica | ALP | 1.5% |
Elder | Annabel Digance | ALP | 1.8% |
Ashford | Steph Key | ALP | 1.9% |
Florey | Frances Bedford | ALP | 2.5% |
Light | Tony Piccolo | ALP | 2.8% |
Wright | Jennifer Rankine | ALP | 3.0% |
Torrens | Dana Wortley | ALP | 3.5% |
Lee | Stephen Mullighan | ALP | 4.5% |
Mawson | Leon Bignell | ALP | 5.6% |
Fairly safe | |||
Giles | Eddie Hughes | ALP | 7.0% |
Little Para | Lee Odenwalder | ALP | 7.4% |
Kaurna | Chris Picton | ALP | 7.7% |
Enfield | John Rau | ALP | 8.1% |
Napier | Jon Gee | ALP | 9.1% |
Reynell | Katrine Hildyard | ALP | 10.0% |
Safe | |||
Port Adelaide | Susan Close | ALP | 10.6% |
West Torrens | Tom Koutsantonis | ALP | 10.8% |
Taylor | Leesa Vlahos | ALP | 11.6% |
Playford | Jack Snelling | ALP | 12.6% |
Cheltenham | Jay Weatherill | ALP | 14.3% |
Ramsay | Zoe Bettison | ALP | 18.4% |
Croydon | Michael Atkinson | ALP | 18.9% |
Liberal seats (22) | |||
Marginal | |||
Mitchell | Corey Wingard | LIB | 1.2% |
Adelaide | Rachel Sanderson | LIB | 2.4% |
Hartley | Vincent Tarzia | LIB | 2.4% |
Dunstan | Steven Marshall | LIB | 3.1% |
Bright | David Speirs | LIB | 3.3% |
Fairly safe | |||
Mt Gambier | Troy Bell | LIB | 7.2% v IND |
Davenport | Iain Evans | LIB | 8.1% |
Unley | David Pisoni | LIB | 9.8% |
Morialta | John Gardner | LIB | 10.0% |
Safe | |||
Heysen | Isobel Redmond | LIB | 11.0% v GRN |
Waite | Martin Hamilton-Smith | LIB | 11.4% |
Goyder | Steven Griffiths | LIB | 12.9% |
Morphett | Duncan McFetridge | LIB | 12.9% |
Finniss | Michael Pengilly | LIB | 13.8% |
Kavel | Mark Goldsworthy | LIB | 14.0% |
Schubert | Stephan Knoll | LIB | 14.6% |
Hammond | Adrian Pederick | LIB | 14.6% |
Bragg | Vickie Chapman | LIB | 18.7% |
Stuart | Dan van Holst Pellekaan | LIB | 20.5% |
Chaffey | Tim Whetstone | LIB | 25.1% |
MacKillop | Mitch Williams | LIB | 26.7% |
Flinders | Peter Treloar | LIB | 29.2% |
Independent seats (2) | |||
Frome | Geoff Brock | IND | 8.8% v LIB |
Fisher | IND | 9.4% v LIB |
Party | Votes | % | +/– | Seats | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Not Up | Won | Total | +/- | ||||||
Liberal | 363,809 | 35.99 | 3.4 | 4 | 4 | 8 | 1 | ||
Labor | 312,944 | 30.96 | 6.3 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 1 | ||
Independent Xenophon Team | 130,289 | 12.89 | New | 0 | 1 | 1 | New | ||
Greens | 65,215 | 6.45 | 0.1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | ||
Independents | 44,185 | 4.37 | 0.4 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||
Family First Party | 44,015 | 4.35 | 0.1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | ||
Shooters and Fishers | 13,608 | 1.35 | 0.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
Dignity Party | 9,367 | 0.93 | 0.3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |||
Fishing and Lifestyle | 7,999 | 0.79 | 0.8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
Liberal Democrats | 6,091 | 0.60 | 0.6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
Stop Population Growth Now | 3,884 | 0.38 | 0.4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
FREE Australia | 2,831 | 0.28 | 0.1 | – | – | – | – | ||
National | 2,268 | 0.22 | 0.2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
Multicultural Progress Party | 1,560 | 0.15 | 0.2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
Katter's Australian | 1,503 | 0.15 | 0.1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
Fair Land Tax - Tax Party | 1,363 | 0.13 | 0.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
Total | 1,010,931 | 100.00 | – | 10 | 12 | 22 | – | ||
Valid votes | 1,010,931 | 96.06 | |||||||
Invalid/blank votes | 41,508 | 3.94 | 1.9 | ||||||
Total votes | 1,052,439 | 100.00 | – | ||||||
Registered voters/turnout | 1,142,419 | 92.12 | 0.8 | ||||||
Source: [15] |
Members of the South Australian Legislative Council | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Labor (8) | Liberal (8) | Green (2) | Family First (2) | Xenophon Team (1) | Dignity for Disability (1) |
elected 2014: | elected 2014: | elected 2014: | elected 2014: | elected 2014: | |
elected 2010: | elected 2010: | elected 2010: | elected 2010: | elected 2010: | |
1 Appointed by casual vacancy in 2011
2 Elected from Labor ticket, became independent in 2011
The last state election was held on 20 March 2010 to elect members for the House of Assembly and half of the members in the Legislative Council. In South Australia, section 28 of the Constitution Act 1934, as amended in 2001, directs that parliaments have fixed four-year terms, and elections must be held on the third Saturday in March every four years unless this date falls the day after Good Friday, occurs within the same month as a Commonwealth election, or the conduct of the election could be adversely affected by a state disaster. Section 28 also states that the Governor may also dissolve the Assembly and call an election for an earlier date if the Government has lost the confidence of the Assembly or a bill of special importance has been rejected by the Legislative Council. Section 41 states that both the Council and the Assembly may also be dissolved simultaneously if a deadlock occurs between them. [16]
The Electoral (Miscellaneous) Amendment Act 2013 introduced set dates for writs for General elections in South Australia. The writ sets the dates for the close of the electoral roll and the close of nominations for an election. The Electoral Act 1985 requires that, for a general election, the writ be issued 28 days before the date fixed for polling (S47(2a)) and the electoral roll be closed at 12 noon, 6 days after the issue of the writ (S48(3(a)(i). The close of nominations will be at 12 noon 3 days after the close of rolls (Electoral Act 1985 S48(4)(a) and S4(1)). Since the previous election, five new parties had registered: Fishing and Lifestyle Party, Liberal Democratic Party, Multicultural Progress Party, Stop Population Growth Now, and Katter's Australian Party. Six were no longer registered: The Democrats, Save the RAH, Gamers 4 Croydon, Democratic Labor Party, One Nation, and United Party. [17]
Polling Day for the 2014 South Australian State election was Saturday 15 March 2014 from 8am until 6pm. The Issue of Writ for the 2014 South Australian State election was Saturday 15 February 2014. The Electoral Roll closed at 12 noon, Friday 21 February 2014. Nominations for candidates wishing to stand for election closed at 12 noon, Monday 24 February 2014, [18] with the ballot order for both houses drawn and released shortly after, [19] [20] followed by close and release of upper house above-the-line preference tickets. [20] Lower house how-to-vote card lodgements closed at 12 noon, 7 March 2014. [21]
The 2014 Tasmanian state election occurred on the same day. [22]
The centre-left Australian Labor Party, led by Premier Jay Weatherill, and the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia, led by Leader of the Opposition Steven Marshall, are the two main parties in South Australia. In the 2010 state election, of 47 seats total, the Labor Party won 26 seats and the Liberal Party won 18 seats. Three seats were won by independents, Bob Such (Fisher), Geoff Brock (Frome), and Don Pegler (Mount Gambier). Smaller parties which held no seats in the lower House but achieved significant votes in 2010 include the SA Greens and the Family First Party. In the upper house, the Labor Party held eight seats, the Liberal Party held seven seats, the SA Greens, the Family First Party, and No Pokies all held two seats each, and Dignity for Disability held one seat.
A Port Adelaide by-election and a Ramsay by-election occurred on 11 February 2012, Labor retained both seats.
To produce 'fair' boundaries, which has a history going back to the mid-1900s Playmander, the Electoral Commission of South Australia has been required following the 1989 election to redraw boundaries after each election through a "fairness" provision with the objective that the party which receives over 50 percent of the statewide two-party vote at the forthcoming election should win the two-party vote in a majority of seats. [32]
Labor's success in South Australia since the end of the Playmander has been based in part on the strength of its dominance in Adelaide. South Australia is the most centralised state in Australia; while 1.7 million people live in South Australia, 1.3 million of them live in Adelaide − uniquely, over 75 percent of the state's population and 72 percent of seats (34 of 47) are located in the metropolitan area alongside a lack of comparatively-sized rural population centres. Therefore, to a far greater extent than is the case in the rest of Australia, the metropolitan area tends to decide election outcomes. Under normal conditions, Labor wins the most seats in Adelaide, with the Liberal vote locked up in ultra-safe rural seats.
In 2010, for instance, the Liberals picked up a swing of 8.4 percent, more than the uniform 6.9 percent swing that the Boundaries Commission envisaged as being enough for a Liberal win. However, most of that swing came in seats that would have stayed in Labor hands in any event; while 22 seats saw double-digit swings, Labor sat on insurmountably safe margins in 16 of them. [33] Additionally, while the Liberals took three Adelaide-area seats off Labor, it only won six additional seats in the capital. While six of the Liberals' 13 safe two-party seats were urban, all but one of their four marginal seats were urban. As a result, while the Liberals won 51.6 percent of the two-party vote, Labor only suffered an overall three-seat swing, allowing it to hold onto a two-seat majority.
The 2014 election saw more of the same. While the state-wide two-party vote (2PP) was 47.0% Labor v 53.0% Liberal, the metropolitan area recorded a 2PP of 51.5% Labor v 48.5% Liberal. [9] The Liberals only won 12 of the 34 metropolitan seats; while only four of their 14 safe two-party seats were urban, all eight non-safe (<10 percent) seats were urban. Overall, the election resulted in a hung parliament with 23 seats for Labor and 22 for the Liberals. The balance of power rested with the two crossbench independents, Bob Such and Geoff Brock. Their seats, Fisher and Frome, both returned clear Liberal two-party votes but elected independents. 24 seats had returned a Liberal two-party vote, 23 seats returned a Labor two-party vote, therefore the "fairness" provision was met.
One element of the Playmander remains to this day − the House of Assembly is still elected using single-member seats. Prior to the Playmander, the House of Assembly had always been elected using multi-member seats since the inaugural 1857 election.
Each Labor period of government since the end of the Playmander had at least one comprehensive win, allowing often-Liberal seats to be won by Labor candidates who then built up incumbency and personal popularity. Examples in 2014 were Mawson, Newland and Light, and additionally in 2010, Bright and Hartley – all gained at the 2006 election landslide. Mawson in fact swung toward Labor in 2010 and 2014 despite the statewide trend. The bellwether seat of Colton was retained by Labor. Furthermore, all but two of the nine Liberal-held metropolitan seats saw swings against the Liberals.
In 2014, referring to the 1989 fairness legislation, Premier Jay Weatherill said "Complaining about the rules when you designed the rules I think sits ill on the mouth of the Liberal Party", while Electoral Commissioner Kay Mousley said it was an "impossible" task for the Boundaries Commission to achieve the legislated requirement, stating "It is a constitutional requirement, and until the constitution gets changed, I must say I find it a very inexact science". [34] Additionally, she had previously stated in 2010 "Had the Liberal Party achieved a uniform swing it would have formed Government. The Commission has no control over, and can accept no responsibility for, the quality of the candidates, policies and campaigns." [35] University of Adelaide Professor of Politics Clem Macintyre stated after the 2014 election that fair electoral boundaries are an "impossible challenge". [36]
The Liberal Party disagreed with that assessment, and submitted that Hartley, Elder and Bright should be moved from Labor to Liberal. [37]
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's election expert Antony Green expected that the Labor government's parliamentary majority from the 2010 election would be redistributed away. [38] [39] However, the draft redistribution, which altered the boundaries of 36 of 47 seats, nominally gave Labor 26 seats and the Liberals 21 seats on a two-party basis. Although held by an independent member, Frome was proposed to be moved from Labor to Liberal on a two-party basis. It was also proposed that the Norwood be renamed Dunstan. [40]
The final redistribution was released in August 2012. The renaming of the seat of Norwood to Dunstan occurred. On Antony Green's calculations, the notional two-party margin in Frome went from 0.1 percent Labor to 1.7 percent Liberal, Ashford went from 4.8 percent to 0.6 percent for Labor, Hartley went from 2.3 percent to 0.1 percent for Labor, Elder went from 3.6 percent to 2.0 percent for Labor and Light went from 5.3 percent to 2.8 percent for Labor, amongst other boundary and margin reductions and increases. All redistribution figures and swings used are based on Antony Green's booth-based declaration vote calculations rather than the electoral commission's seat-based declaration vote calculations. [41] [42] [43] [44]
Polling conducted by Newspoll and published in The Australian was conducted via random telephone number selection in city and country areas. Sampling sizes usually consisted of over 800 electors, while the 10–13 March 2014 poll consisted of 1602 electors. The declared margin of errors at these sample sizes were ±3.5 percent and ±2.5 percent respectively. Two-party preferred figures were calculated based on preference flows at the 2010 state election.
Primary vote | TPP vote | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Lib | Nat | ALP | Grn | Oth | Lib | ALP | ||||
15 Mar 2014 election | 44.8% | 0.1% | 35.8% | 8.7% | 10.7% | 53.0% | 47.0% | |||
10–13 Mar 2014 | 41% | <.5% | 34% | 9% | 16% | 52.3% | 47.7% | |||
21–27 Feb 2014 | 44% | <.5% | 34% | 7% | 15% | 54% | 46% | |||
Oct–Dec 2013 | 40% | <.5% | 33% | 10% | 17% | 53% | 47% | |||
Apr–Jun 2013 | 44% | 1% | 32% | 10% | 13% | 56% | 44% | |||
Mar 2013 | 43% | 1% | 33% | 10% | 13% | 54% | 46% | |||
Oct–Dec 2012 | 40% | 1% | 37% | 9% | 13% | 51% | 49% | |||
Jul–Sep 2012 | 43% | 1% | 28% | 11% | 17% | 57% | 43% | |||
Jan–Mar 2012 | 40% | <.5% | 34% | 11% | 15% | 52% | 48% | |||
Nov–Dec 2011 | 40% | 2% | 34% | 9% | 15% | 52% | 48% | |||
Apr–Jun 2011 | 40% | 1% | 30% | 14% | 15% | 54% | 46% | |||
25 Feb–6 Mar 2011 | 42% | 1% | 29% | 14% | 14% | 56% | 44% | |||
20 Mar 2010 election | 41.7% | 1.0% | 37.5% | 8.1% | 11.7% | 51.6% | 48.4% | |||
14–18 Mar 2010 | 42.5% | < .5% | 35.3% | 9.3% | 12.3% | 52% | 48% | |||
Polling conducted by Newspoll and published in The Australian . |
Better Premier | Weatherill | Marshall | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Weatherill | Marshall | Satisfied | Dissatisfied | Satisfied | Dissatisfied | |||
15 Mar 2014 election | – | – | – | – | – | – | ||
10–13 Mar 2014 | 43% | 37% | 42% | 42% | 42% | 35% | ||
21–27 Feb 2014 | 40% | 39% | 43% | 44% | 45% | 29% | ||
Oct–Dec 2013 | 40% | 29% | 43% | 37% | 43% | 21% | ||
Apr–Jun 2013 | 41% | 30% | 47% | 35% | 41% | 20% | ||
Mar 2013 | 42% | 27% | 46% | 34% | 37% | 19% | ||
Oct–Dec 2012 | 47% | 27%2 | 49% | 32% | 40%2 | 40%2 | ||
Jul–Sep 2012 | 40% | 27%2 | 42% | 33% | 40%2 | 36%2 | ||
Jan–Mar 2012 | 46% | 23%2 | 47% | 23% | 43%2 | 34%2 | ||
Nov–Dec 2011 | 45% | 29%2 | 51% | 14% | 49%2 | 30%2 | ||
Apr–Jun 2011 | 34%1 | 45%2 | 31%1 | 59%1 | 51%2 | 29%2 | ||
25 Feb–6 Mar 2011 | 32%1 | 50%2 | 30%1 | 59%1 | 52%2 | 25%2 | ||
20 Mar 2010 election | – | – | – | – | – | – | ||
14–18 Mar 2010 | 43%1 | 45%2 | 43%1 | 48%1 | 59%2 | 23%2 | ||
Polling conducted by Newspoll and published in The Australian . ^ Remainder were "uncommitted" to either leader. 1 Mike Rann. 2 Isobel Redmond. |
The House of Assembly, or lower house; Is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of South Australia. The other is the Legislative Council. It sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Adelaide.
Adelaide is a single-member electoral district for the South Australian House of Assembly. The 22.8 km² state seat of Adelaide currently consists of the Adelaide city centre including North Adelaide and suburbs to the inner north and inner north east: Collinswood, Fitzroy, Gilberton, Medindie, Medindie Gardens, Ovingham, Thorngate, Walkerville, most of Prospect, and part of Nailsworth. The federal division of Adelaide covers the state seat of Adelaide and additional suburbs in each direction.
Frome is a single-member electoral district for the South Australian House of Assembly. It is named after Edward Charles Frome, the third surveyor-general of South Australia. The electorate stretches north-eastwards from the Gawler River and Gulf St Vincent in the south, and includes many of the agricultural areas of the Clare and Gilbert Valleys. It covers a total of 12,921 km2 (4,989 sq mi) and takes in the towns of Auburn, Clare, Mintaro, Port Broughton, Saddleworth, Snowtown and Riverton. Prior to the 2020 redistribution, its main population centre was Port Pirie, since transferred to Stuart.
The term swing refers to the extent of change in voter support, typically from one election or opinion poll to another, expressed as a positive or negative percentage point. For the Australian House of Representatives and the lower or unicameral houses of the parliaments of all the states and territories except Tasmania and the ACT, as well as Tasmania's upper house, Australia employs preferential voting in single-member constituencies. Under the full-preference instant-runoff voting system, in each seat the candidate with the lowest vote is eliminated and their preferences are distributed, which is repeated until only two candidates remain. While every seat has a two-candidate preferred (TCP) result, seats where the major parties have come first and second are commonly referred to as having a two-party-preferred (TPP) result. The concept of "swing" in Australian elections is not simply a function of the difference between the votes of the two leading candidates, as it is in Britain. To know the majority of any seat, and therefore the swing necessary for it to change hands, it is necessary to know the preferences of all the voters, regardless of their first preference votes. It is not uncommon in Australia for candidates who have comfortable leads on the first count to fail to win the seat, because "preference flows" go against them.
Unley is a single-member electoral district for the South Australian House of Assembly. Named after the suburb of the same name, it is the state's smallest electorate by area at just 14.1 km2 (5.4 sq mi). It is a suburban electorate in Adelaide's inner south, taking in the suburbs of Eastwood, Frewville, Fullarton, Glenside, Glenunga, Goodwood, Highgate, Hyde Park, Kings Park, Malvern, Myrtle Bank, Parkside, Unley, Unley Park and Wayville, as well as parts of Glen Osmond and Millswood.
Robert Bruce Such was a South Australian politician. He was the member for the seat of Fisher in the South Australian House of Assembly from 1989 until his death in 2014. He defeated Labor MP Philip Tyler at the 1989 election and was a member of the Liberals until 2000 when he became an independent. Such was Minister for Employment, Training and Further Education, and Minister for Youth Affairs, in the Brown Liberal government from 1993 to 1996. He served as Speaker of the South Australian House of Assembly for the Rann Labor government from 2005 to 2006. Such was joint Father of the House with Michael Atkinson from 2012.
Martin Leslie James Hamilton-Smith is a former Australian politician who represented the South Australian House of Assembly seat of Waite from the 1997 election until his retirement in 2018. First elected as a candidate for the Liberal Party, Hamilton-Smith was the state parliamentary leader of the Liberal Party and the Leader of the Opposition in South Australia from 2007 to 2009, and a Minister in the Kerin Liberal government from 2001 to 2002.
The Playmander was a pro-rural electoral malapportionment in the Australian state of South Australia, which was introduced by the incumbent Liberal and Country League (LCL) government in 1936, and remained in place for 32 years until 1968.
Isobel Mary Redmond is a former Australian politician who was the member for the electoral district of Heysen in the House of Assembly from 2002 to 2018. She was the parliamentary leader of the South Australian Division of the Liberal Party of Australia and the Leader of the Opposition in the Parliament of South Australia between 2009 and 2013, and was the first female leader of a South Australian state major party. Under Redmond, the Liberals won 18 of 47 seats in the South Australian House of Assembly at the 2010 election, a gain of three from the 2006 election. She resigned as leader of the Liberal Party on 31 January 2013.
In Australian politics, the two-party-preferred vote is the result of an election or opinion poll after preferences have been distributed to the highest two candidates, who in some cases can be independents. For the purposes of TPP, the Liberal/National Coalition is usually considered a single party, with Labor being the other major party. Typically the TPP is expressed as the percentages of votes attracted by each of the two major parties, e.g. "Coalition 50%, Labor 50%", where the values include both primary votes and preferences. The TPP is an indicator of how much swing has been attained/is required to change the result, taking into consideration preferences, which may have a significant effect on the result.
The 2010 South Australian state election elected members to the 52nd Parliament of South Australia on 20 March 2010. All seats in the House of Assembly or lower house, whose current members were elected at the 2006 election, and half the seats in the Legislative Council or upper house, last filled at the 2002 election, became vacant.
A by-election was held for the South Australian House of Assembly seat of Frome on 17 January 2009. This was triggered by the resignation of former Premier and state Liberal MHA Rob Kerin. The seat had been retained by the Liberals at the 2006 state election on a 3.4 per cent margin, and at the 2002 state election on an 11.5 per cent margin.
Geoffrey Graeme Brock is an Australian politician. He is an Independent member in the South Australian House of Assembly, representing the seat of Stuart since the 2022 South Australian state election. Prior to this, he represented the seat of Frome from the 2009 Frome by-election until a redistribution leading up to the 2022 state election.
Steven Spence Marshall is a former Australian politician who served as the 46th premier of South Australia between 2018 and 2022. He was a member of the South Australian Division of the Liberal Party of Australia in the South Australian House of Assembly from 2010 until 2024, representing the electorate of Dunstan.
A by-election occurred in the South Australian House of Assembly seat of Port Adelaide on 11 February 2012. Labor's Susan Close won the seat on a 52.9 percent two-candidate-preferred (TCP) vote. The by-election was triggered by the resignation of former Deputy Premier, Treasurer and state Labor MHA Kevin Foley.
A by-election occurred in the South Australian House of Assembly seat of Ramsay on 11 February 2012. The seat was won by Labor candidate Zoe Bettison. The by-election was triggered by the resignation of former Premier and state Labor MHA Mike Rann.
The 2018 South Australian state election to elect members to the 54th Parliament of South Australia was held on 17 March 2018. All 47 seats in the House of Assembly or lower house, whose members were elected at the 2014 election, and 11 of 22 seats in the Legislative Council or upper house, last filled at the 2010 election, were contested. The record-16-year-incumbent Australian Labor Party (SA) government led by Premier Jay Weatherill was seeking a fifth four-year term, but was defeated by the opposition Liberal Party of Australia (SA), led by Opposition Leader Steven Marshall. Nick Xenophon's new SA Best party unsuccessfully sought to obtain the balance of power.
A by-election for the seat of Fisher in the South Australian House of Assembly was held on 6 December 2014. The by-election was triggered by the death of independent MP Bob Such on 11 October 2014. Originally elected to Fisher for the Liberal Party of Australia at the 1989 election, defeating the one-term Australian Labor Party MP Philip Tyler, Such left the party in 2000.
A by-election for the seat of Davenport in the South Australian House of Assembly was held on 31 January 2015. The by-election was triggered by the resignation of Liberal Party of Australia MP and former Liberal leader Iain Evans, who retained the seat at the 2014 election on a 58.1 (−2.8) percent two-party-preferred vote. Liberal Sam Duluk went on to win the seat despite a five-point two-party swing, turning the historically safe seat of Davenport in to a marginal for the first time.
The 2022 South Australian state election was held on 19 March 2022 to elect members to the 55th Parliament of South Australia. All 47 seats in the House of Assembly, and half the seats in the Legislative Council were up for re-election.