South Australian state election, 2014

South Australian state election, 2014

2010 ← 15 March 2014

Leader Jay Weatherill Steven Marshall Party Labor Liberal Leader since 21 October 2011 4 February 2013 Leader's seat Cheltenham Norwood Last election 26 seats 18 seats Seats needed 2 6 TPP @ 2010 48.4% 51.6% TPP polling 46% 54% BP polling 42% 27%

Incumbent Premier Jay Weatherill Labor

The 2014 South Australian state election will elect members to the 53rd Parliament of South Australia on 15 March 2014. All seats in the House of Assembly or lower house, whose current members were elected at the 2010 election, and half the seats in the Legislative Council or upper house, last filled at the 2006 election, will become vacant. The 12-year incumbent Australian Labor Party, currently led by Premier Jay Weatherill, will be challenged by the opposition Liberal Party of Australia, currently led by Opposition Leader Steven Marshall.

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 will be conducted by the Electoral Commission of South Australia (ECSA), an independent body answerable to Parliament.

Date

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.

The election campaign must run for a minimum of 25 days or a maximum of 55 days. Between 7 and 10 days after the writs are issued, the electoral roll is closed, which gives voters a final opportunity to enrol or to notify the Electoral Commission of South Australia of any changes in their place of residence. Candidates wishing to stand for election can nominate between the issue of the writs and no more than 14 days after the close of rolls for a deposit of $450.

Current parliament

See also: Full results of the South Australian state election, 2010

The centre-left Labor Party, currently led by Premier Jay Weatherill, and the centre-right Liberal Party, currently 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 hold 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 holds eight seats, the Liberal Party holds seven seats, the SA Greens, the Family First Party, and No Pokies all hold two seats each, and Dignity for Disability holds one seat.

A Port Adelaide by-election and a Ramsay by-election occurred on 11 February 2012, Labor retained both seats.

Retiring MPs

Labor

• Patrick Conlon MHA (Elder)
• John Hill MHA (Kaurna)

2012 redistribution

To produce 'fair' boundaries, which has a history going back to the mid-1900s Playmander, the Electoral Commission of South Australia has been required to re-draw boundaries after each election with two-party electoral outcomes in mind since 1989.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Antony Green had expected the government's majority to be redistributed away as a result. However, the draft redistribution altering 36 of 47 seats nominally gave 26 Labor seats and 21 Liberal seats on a two-party basis. Frome was proposed to be moved from Labor to Liberal on a two-party basis and Norwood was proposed to be renamed to Dunstan.

The Commission stated it is of the view that the 2010 election boundaries "were fair. 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".

The Liberal Party disagreed with this, and submitted that Hartley, Elder and Bright should be moved from Labor to Liberal.

The final redistribution was released in August 2012, which in addition to the Frome two-party margin change and the renaming of Norwood to Dunstan, also changed Bright from a 0.4 percent Labor seat to a 0.1 percent notionally Liberal seat.

Pendulum

The following Mackerras Pendulum works by lining up all of the seats according to the percentage point margin on a two candidate preferred basis. This is also known as the swing required for the seat to change hands. Given a uniform swing to the opposition or government parties, the number of seats that change hands can be predicted. Margins have been adjusted as per the 2012 redistribution.

• As Bright is notionally Liberal, the margin appears as a negative.

LABOR SEATS
Marginal
Bright*	Chloë Fox	ALP	-0.1%
Hartley	Grace Portolesi	ALP	0.5%
Ashford	Stephanie Key	ALP	1.5%
Elder	Pat Conlon	ALP	1.7%
Mitchell	Alan Sibbons	ALP	2.4%
Newland	Tom Kenyon	ALP	2.7%
Florey	Frances Bedford	ALP	3.6%
Colton	Paul Caica	ALP	3.9%
Light	Tony Piccolo	ALP	4.2%
Wright	Jennifer Rankine	ALP	4.7%
Mawson	Leon Bignell	ALP	4.9%
Fairly safe
Lee	Michael Wright	ALP	7.9%
Torrens	Robyn Geraghty	ALP	8.1%
Kaurna	John Hill	ALP	8.7%
West Torrens	Tom Koutsantonis	ALP	9.8%
Safe
Enfield	John Rau	ALP	10.2%
Reynell	Gay Thompson	ALP	10.6%
Little Para	Lee Odenwalder	ALP	10.9%
Giles	Lyn Breuer	ALP	11.5%
Taylor	Leesa Vlahos	ALP	12.1%
Port Adelaide	Susan Close	ALP	12.4%
Croydon	Michael Atkinson	ALP	15.1%
Napier	Michael O'Brien	ALP	15.1%
Playford	Jack Snelling	ALP	15.5%
Cheltenham	Jay Weatherill	ALP	15.9%
Ramsay	Zoe Bettison	ALP	17.8%
Very safe

LIBERAL SEATS
Marginal
Morialta	John Gardner	LIB	2.9%
Adelaide	Rachel Sanderson	LIB	3.9%
Norwood	Steven Marshall	LIB	4.9%
Fairly safe
Stuart	Dan van Holst Pellekaan	LIB	7.4%
Morphett	Duncan McFetridge	LIB	9.9%
Safe
Davenport	Iain Evans	LIB	11.1%
Finniss	Michael Pengilly	LIB	11.3%
Waite	Martin Hamilton-Smith	LIB	11.4%
Unley	David Pisoni	LIB	11.9%
Goyder	Steven Griffiths	LIB	15.5%
Kavel	Mark Goldsworthy	LIB	15.8%
Heysen	Isobel Redmond	LIB	16.6%
Schubert	Ivan Venning	LIB	17.8%
Hammond	Adrian Pederick	LIB	17.8%
Very safe
Bragg	Vickie Chapman	LIB	20.0%
MacKillop	Mitch Williams	LIB	24.8%
Flinders	Peter Treloar	LIB	25.9%
Chaffey	Tim Whetstone	LIB	28.1%
INDEPENDENT SEATS
Mt Gambier	Don Pegler	IND	0.4% v LIB
Frome	Geoff Brock	IND	7.5% v LIB
Fisher	Bob Such	IND	16.6% v LIB

Metropolitan seats

Rural seats

Polling

Polling conducted by Newspoll and published in The Australian is conducted via random telephone number selection in city and country areas. Sampling sizes usually consist of over 800 electors. The declared margin of error at this sample size is ±3.5 percent. Two-party preferred figures are calculated based on preference flows at the previous state election.

House of Assembly (lower house) polling

	Primary vote					TPP vote
	ALP	Lib	Nat	Grn	Oth	ALP	Lib
Mar 2013	33%	43%	1%	10%	13%	46%	54%
Oct–Dec 2012	37%	40%	1%	9%	13%	49%	51%
Jul–Sep 2012	28%	43%	1%	11%	17%	43%	57%
Jan–Mar 2012	34%	40%	< .5%	11%	15%	48%	52%
Nov–Dec 2011	34%	40%	2%	9%	15%	48%	52%
Apr–Jun 2011	30%	40%	1%	14%	15%	46%	54%
25 Feb–6 Mar 2011	29%	42%	1%	14%	14%	44%	56%
20 Mar 2010 election	37.5%	41.7%	1.0%	8.1%	11.7%	48.4%	51.6%
14–18 Mar 2010	35.3%	42.5%	< .5%	9.3%	12.3%	48%	52%
Polling conducted by Newspoll and published in The Australian.

Better Premier and satisfaction polling^

	Better Premier			Weatherill		Marshall
	Weatherill	Marshall		Satisfied	Dissatisfied	Satisfied	Dissatisfied
Mar 2013	42%	27%		46%	34%	37%	19%
Oct–Dec 2012	47%	27%3		49%	32%	40%3	40%3
Jul–Sep 2012	40%	27%3		42%	33%	40%3	36%3
Jan–Mar 2012	46%	23%3		47%	23%	43%3	34%3
Nov–Dec 2011	45%	29%3		51%	14%	49%3	30%3
Apr–Jun 2011	34%1	45%3		31%1	59%1	51%3	29%3
25 Feb–6 Mar 2011	32%1	50%3		30%1	59%1	52%3	25%3
20 Mar 2010 election	–	–		–	–	–	–
14–18 Mar 2010	43%1	45%3		43%1	48%1	59%3	23%3
Polling conducted by Newspoll and published in The Australian. ^ Remainder were "uncommitted" to either leader. 1 Mike Rann. 2 Martin Hamilton-Smith. 3 Isobel Redmond.

See also

• South Australian state election, 2010

External links

• Electoral Commission of South Australia