2022 South Australian state election

2022 South Australian state election

← 2018 19 March 2022 2026 →
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
Opinion polls
Leader Steven Marshall Peter Malinauskas Party Liberal Labor Leader since 4 February 2013 9 April 2018 Leader's seat Dunstan Croydon Last election 25 seats 19 seats Current seats 22 seats 19 seats Seats needed 2 5 TPP @ 2018 51.9% 48.1%
Incumbent Premier Steven Marshall Liberal

The 2022 South Australian state election will elect members to the 55th Parliament of South Australia on 19 March 2022. All seats in the House of Assembly or lower house, whose current members were elected at the 2018 election, and half the seats in the Legislative Council or upper house, last filled at the 2014 election, will become vacant.

Like federal elections, South Australia has compulsory voting, uses full-preference instant-runoff voting for single-member electorates in the lower house and optional preference single transferable voting 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.

Background[]

House of Assembly[]

In the House of Assembly at the 2018 election, the Liberal opposition formed a two-seat majority government with 25 of 47 seats, after retaining three of the four redistributed notionally Liberal seats won by Labor at the 2014 election (Colton, Elder and Newland) and winning the newly-created notionally ultra marginal Labor seat of King. The former 16-year four-term Labor government went in to opposition with 19 seats. The crossbench was represented by 3 independents: Frances Bedford, Troy Bell and Geoff Brock. Despite the change of government, there was actually a statewide two-party-preferred swing away from the Liberals toward Labor.^[1][2][3][4]

Government loses its majority (2021)[]

The Liberal Party's already slender majority was further reduced when in February 2020, Sam Duluk, the member for Waite, had his Liberal membership suspended due to his personal conduct at a 2019 Christmas party which led to him being charged with assault by police.^[5][6] Duluk was found not guilty in the Adelaide Magistrates Court in August 2021, though he remained on the crossbench as an independent.^[7]

In February 2021, Fraser Ellis, the Liberal member for Narungga, was charged by the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption (ICAC) with 23 counts of deception, relating to 78 fraudulent claims over the alleged misuse of a travel allowance totalling more than $18,000. ICAC's charge led to Ellis resigning from the Liberal Party and moving to the crossbench as an independent, which officially transitioned the Liberals into a minority government.^[8] Later that year Dan Cregan, the Liberal member for Kavel, resigned from the party to sit as an independent, citing the government's failure to manage population growth in the Adelaide Hills.^[9] Several days after his departure from the party, Cregan was elected as Speaker of the House of Assembly, via a ballot in which the government's preferred candidate, lacked sufficient support in the Assembly.^[10]

Though in minority, the government cannot fall unless it loses a vote on confidence or supply. Ellis stated that he would continue to support the Marshall government on such matters.^[11]

Legislative Council[]

In the Legislative Council at the 2018 election, the 11 of 22 seats up for election were 4 Liberal, 4 Labor, 1 Green, 1 Conservative and 1 Dignity. The final outcome was 4 Liberal, 4 Labor, 2 SA Best and 1 Green.^[3][12][13] Conservative MLC Dennis Hood, who had been elected as a Family First MLC in 2014, defected to the Liberals nine days after the 2018 state election.^[14][15] The 22 seat upper house composition is therefore 9 Liberal on the government benches, 8 Labor on the opposition benches, and 5 to minor parties on the crossbench, consisting of 2 SA Best, 2 Green, and 1 Advance SA.^[3] The government therefore requires at least three additional non-government members to form a majority and carry votes on the floor.^[16]

Pendulum[]

LIBERAL SEATS (25) Marginal Newland Richard Harvey LIB 0.1% King Paula Luethen LIB 0.6% Adelaide Rachel Sanderson LIB 1.0% Elder Carolyn Power LIB 2.0% Fairly safe Colton Matt Cowdrey LIB 6.1% Hartley Vincent Tarzia LIB 6.7% Waite Sam Duluk[a] IND 7.4% Dunstan Steven Marshall LIB 7.4% Davenport Steve Murray LIB 8.1% Chaffey Tim Whetstone LIB 8.6% Morialta John Gardner LIB 9.3% Black David Speirs LIB 9.4% Safe Gibson Corey Wingard LIB 10.0% Morphett Stephen Patterson LIB 11.0% Unley David Pisoni LIB 11.5% Stuart Dan van Holst Pellekaan LIB 11.7% Finniss David Basham LIB 14.5% Kavel Dan Cregan[a] IND 14.5% Schubert Stephan Knoll LIB 15.6% Narungga Fraser Ellis[a] IND 16.9% Hammond Adrian Pederick LIB 16.9% Bragg Vickie Chapman LIB 16.9% Chaffey Tim Whetstone LIB 18.0% Very safe MacKillop Nick McBride LIB 25.2% Flinders Peter Treloar LIB 26.1%

Labor seats (19) Marginal Mawson Leon Bignell ALP 0.7% Wright Blair Boyer ALP 3.1% Badcoe Jayne Stinson ALP 4.6% Lee Stephen Mullighan ALP 5.3% Torrens Dana Wortley ALP 5.7% Fairly safe Enfield Andrea Michaels ALP 6.2% Hurtle Vale Nat Cook ALP 8.4% Light Tony Piccolo ALP 8.4% Reynell Katrine Hildyard ALP 9.4% Safe Taylor Jon Gee ALP 11.9% West Torrens Tom Koutsantonis ALP 14.2% Giles Eddie Hughes ALP 14.9% Kaurna Chris Picton ALP 16.0% Cheltenham Joe Szakacs ALP 16.7% Port Adelaide Susan Close ALP 16.8% Elizabeth Lee Odenwalder ALP 17.2% Ramsay Zoe Bettison ALP 18.5% Playford Michael Brown ALP 18.6% Very safe Croydon Peter Malinauskas ALP 23.3% Independent seats (3) Florey Frances Bedford IND 6.1% v ALP Frome Geoff Brock IND 8.2% v LIB Mt Gambier Troy Bell IND 10.3% v LIB

Members of the South Australian Legislative Council, 2018–2022
Liberal (8)	Labor (8)	SA-BEST (2)	Green (2)	Advance SA (1)	Independent (1)
elected 2018: Stephen Wade Terry Stephens Jing Lee Heidi Girolamo ^ ^ Appointed to replace resigning David Ridgway in 2021	elected 2018: Emily Bourke Justin Hanson Irene Pnevmatikos Clare Scriven	elected 2018: Connie Bonaros Frank Pangallo	elected 2018: Tammy Franks
elected 2014: Rob Lucas Michelle Lensink   Nicola Centofanti ^ ^ Appointed to replace resigning Andrew McLachlan in 2020     Dennis Hood ^ ^ defected from AC/FFP after 2018 election	elected 2014: Russell Wortley Ian Hunter Tung Ngo Kyam Maher		elected 2014: Robert Simms ^ ^ Appointed to replace resigning Mark Parnell in 2021	elected 2014: John Darley	elected 2014:   John Dawkins ^ ^ expelled from the Liberal Party in 2020

Retiring MPs[]

Liberal[]

• Stephan Knoll MHA (Schubert) – announced 1 December 2020^[17]
• Peter Treloar MHA (Flinders) – announced 1 December 2020^[18]
• Rob Lucas MLC – announced 20 March 2018^[19]

Labor[]

• Jon Gee MHA (Taylor) – announced 27 January 2021^[20]
• Russell Wortley MLC – announced 7 September 2020^[21]

Date[]

The last state election was held on 17 March 2018 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.^[22] This means that barring unforeseen events, the election will be held on 19 March 2022.

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)).

Polling[]

This section needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (December 2021)

Graphical summary[]

Primary vote
Two-party-preferred

House of Assembly (lower house) polling

Date	Firm	Primary vote					2PP vote
		LIB	ALP	BST	GRN	OTH	LIB	ALP
15–29 July 2021	Dynata[23]	38%	34%	5%	10%	12%	51%	49%
24 Feb – 1 Mar 2021	YouGov[24]	43%	36%	6%	10%	5%	51%	49%
10–16 Sep 2020	YouGov[25]	46%	35%	5%	10%	4%	53%	47%
6–11 Mar 2020	YouGov[26]	39%	38%	7%	11%	5%	47%	53%
12–14 Mar 2019	YouGov–Galaxy[27]	42%	37%	7%	7%	10%	52%	48%
17 Mar 2018 election		38%	32.8%	14.2%	6.7%	8.4%	51.9%	48.1%

Better Premier and satisfaction polling^

Date	Firm	Better Premier			Marshall		Malinauskas
		Marshall	Malinauskas		Satisfied	Dissatisfied	Satisfied	Dissatisfied
24 Feb – 1 Mar 2021	YouGov[24]	50%	30%		60%	–	46%	–
10–16 Sep 2020	YouGov[25]	54%	26%		68%	16%	44%	22%
6–11 Mar 2020	YouGov[26]	38%	36%		37%	41%	44%	26%
12–14 Mar 2019	YouGov–Galaxy[27]	46%	26%
		Marshall	Weatherill		Marshall		Weatherill
17 Mar 2018 election		–	–		–	–	–	–
27 Feb–1 Mar 2018	Newspoll	31%	38%		28%	54%	33%	54%
13–15 Mar 2018	Newspoll	33%	38%		30%	50%	33%	53%
^ Remainder were "uncommitted" to either leader.

See also[]

• Candidates of the 2022 South Australian state election
• Members of the South Australian House of Assembly, 2018–2022
• Members of the South Australian Legislative Council, 2018–2022
• 2018 South Australian state election

References[]