Peter Malinauskas is on track for a landslide victory in South Australia’s state election, with Labor easily securing a second term and an increased majority in Saturday’s poll, amid a surge in support for One Nation.
Labor’s primary vote was above 37% just after 9.30pm, local time (10pm AEDT), on Saturday, suggesting it would easily form government. The Liberal vote collapsed to about 19%, with the opposition likely to win only a handful of seats.
The results indicated One Nation’s recent polling surge was being replicated on the ground.
Hanson said she felt “vindicated” by a primary vote of more than 20%. Cory Bernardi, the former Liberal senator, looked likely to win an upper house seat as One Nation’s state leader.
“I think the rest of Australia is going to be watching what’s happening here tonight,” she said, pointing to the upcoming Farrer byelection and the Victorian election in November.
“This is the low tide. Once they really get to look at the votes they put … I believe that our vote will rise even more. So wait and see what happens next week.”
The opposition leader, the first-term MP Ashton Hurn, phoned Malinauskas to concede defeat before 9.30pm.
Amid the party’s wipeout, Hurn’s predecessor, Vincent Tarzia, lost his seat of Hartley.
“It’s a tough night for the Liberals,” Hurn said. “There’s absolutely no doubt about it, that things are tough.
“And lessons must be learnt. There are a lot of things that we need to reflect on.”
Luke Mansillo, a politcal scientist at the University of Sydney, said the results could signal a major shift in Australian politics, with One Nation close to the support it secured in the 1998 Queensland election, when the party won 11 seats.
“It’s unquestionably a potential realignment of Australian politics. We don’t know about its longevity,” he said.
“There are enough places that Labor has suffered losses to One Nation for the federal government to worry about. Peter Dutton’s strategy of outer urban and regional seat targeting is coming off for One Nation, who can peel off voters the Liberal party could not.”
One Nation blocked the ABC from attending its event in Adelaide, after the public broadcaster reported its candidate for the seat of Adelaide was the subject of an arrest warrant in the UK. The party disendorsed Aoi Baxter amid claims that he failed to attend a court date after being charged with an alleged sexual offence.
The federal Liberal MP Tony Pasin told Sky holding six to eight seats would be an acceptable result for the Liberals in the circumstances. The party held 13 going into Saturday’s election.
Labor entered the campaign the clear favourite to win re-election due to the Labor leader’s personal popularity and the chaos and scandal that plagued the Liberals for much of the term. It held 29 of the 47 state seats going into Saturday’s election, with five in the hands of independents.
More than 35% of the state voted before election day, a record result, and up from about 17% at the 2022 poll.
The Liberals turned to Hurn late last year after internal polling suggested the party was careering towards an election wipeout, making the 35-year-old the party’s fourth leader in four years.
Malinauskas now has a mandate to deliver a second-term agenda centered on building more homes, making public education free and keeping children away from screens.
The premier faced scrutiny during the campaign about the response to the algal bloom crisis. He conceded the government had failed to fix ambulance ramping at hospitals – his signature promise at the 2022 election.
Hanson spent much of the past week campaigning in regional seats with Bernardi.
Despite the Liberals directing supporters to put One Nation ahead of Labor, Hanson did not return the favour, opting instead to run open tickets on their how-to-vote cards in the state. The move could complicate results in some close-run seats, and slow down the final results.
One Nation’s state president, Carlos Quaremba, thanked volunteers, candidates, the executive at the party’s function. He also acknowledged the Sky News host Paul Murray, the anti-lockdown protester Monica Smit and the Maga-aligned Turning Point Australia.
He was cheered when he pointed out that the ABC had been shut out of the event.
“I don’t want to talk to them,” he said. “It’s bad enough I’ve got to pay their wages.”
The election was also the first under the state’s new electoral laws, which ban donations to political parties.
Federal Labor will be watching the results closely but the federal Coalition, including the opposition leader, Angus Taylor, and the new Nationals leader, Matt Canavan, will be even more intensely focused on Hanson’s results.
Counting will continue until 1am on Sunday morning.
