‘Jay Weatherill threatens to quit if Don Farrell preselected’, The Guardian, (online edition), 31 January 2014, accessed 31 January 2014. The results show an enormous concentration of Liberal vote. The work cannot be adapted or modified in any way. ‘Labor makes pledge on neonatal unit’, The Australian, 21 February 2014, p. 2, accessed 3 March 2014. Source: SA Electoral Commission website, accessed 1 April 2014. [50]. With a cupboard bare of policy vision, the party is now focused on attacking the Liberals, helped by the missteps of the federal government on education reform and Holden's exit. This has activated an interest among Liberals in electoral reform, in terms which are predictably selective and tailored to its present difficulty. [74] But the Liberals’ campaign was knocked somewhat awry when The Advertiser ran a weekend, front-page, story about the Liberal candidate for the northern suburbs seat of Ramsay, Anthony Antoniadis, who had made derogatory comments about his would-be constituents in a series of Facebook posts. Independent Senator Xenophon had lodged a complaint about the poster, which had attacked Xenophon’s X-Team over its views on workers’ penalty rates. With the uncomfortable news for Labor that the state’s deficit had blown out still further to more than $1 billion—the highest in its history—Opposition Leader Marshall issued a media release highlighting ‘dangerously high debt approaching $14 billion’ and stating that ‘a Marshall Liberal Government will not build toll roads, will not impose tolls on motorists to use existing roads and will scrap Mr Weatherill’s toxic car park tax’. Opinion polls had pointed to a Liberal victory. [103], Weatherill announced a funding boost of $2 million over four years to enhance the state’s capacity to support defence industries, and $600,000 to transition The Heights School into a specialist training school for defence industry skills. Libs, short of government, test the boundaries’, Power of two as favoured independents have their day, Bignell’s joy as key seats go down to the wire’, South Australia election: key independent Geoff Brock indicates leaning toward Labor to form next government’, SA independent Bob Such battling cancer as state faces more turmoil’, SA election: Labor to form minority government with support of independent Geoff Brock’, Independent MP backs Labor to avoid SA election crisis’, Considering the Commission's current challenge: submission to the Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission in relation to the 2011-12 redistribution, 2014 South Australian post-election pendulum’, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia, House of Representatives chamber and business documents, Getting involved in Parliamentary Committees, Department of the House of Representatives, an upper house, the Legislative Council (LC), comprised of twenty-two councillors, half of whom—eleven—are elected at every general election. Source: ‘South Australian Election 2014’, ABC website, accessed 28 March 2014. Editorial, ‘Fresh face, fresh ideas, fresh start’, Sunday Mail Adelaide, 9 March 2014, p. 61, accessed 14 March 2014. Libs, short of government, test the boundaries’, Crikey, 17 March 2014, accessed 20 March 2014. [51] Subsequently, Business SA released its major pre-election policy document, 2014 Charter for a More Prosperous South Australia [52]with recommendations that included a review of the GST, biennial red-tape reduction reviews, establishing an independent statutory authority to advise state government on infrastructure priorities and leading the debate on a nuclear energy industry in South Australia to take advantage of the state’s significant uranium resources.[53]. [79]. The Australian Electoral Commission's annual donor returns showed that the Liberal Party received almost twice as much in donations and other payments than Labor in South Australia in the previous financial year—$3.96 million for the Liberals compared with $2.15 million for the ALP.[58]. [27] With the Liberals needing to win six additional seats to form government in their own right, polling showed them leading Labor 53–47 on a two-party preferred basis:[28]. … Beyond all the machinations and ifs and buts, one overarching question remains: how could Labor do this to itself after the years of pain inflicted by the federal disaster? [88], Subsequently, Electoral Commissioner, Kay Mousley, ordered the Liberal Party to ‘withdraw the ad and air a retraction’ because it made statements about Premier Jay Weatherill that her office found were ‘misleading and inaccurate’. [133], With a closer than expected result looming, the focus in the election outcome turned quickly to the two independents who seemed likely to determine who would ultimately govern South Australia—Bob Such (Fisher) and Geoff Brock (Frome). [96]. 2014 SA election; South Australian politics; Related articles. Originally from the Northern Territory, Habib attended St Phillips College before completing a Bachelor of Health Science, Health Management at Flinders University. Opinion polls had consistently indicated that, after a long period in office—under Premier Mike Rann and his successor Jay Weatherill—the electorate had tired of Labor. Digance holds a number of degrees including a Masters in Health Service Management, and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. During the period 1901 to 2014, there have been 44 general elections for the House of Representatives and 42 Senate elections. Mr Brock, the MP for Frome, will take up the roles of Minister for Regional Development and the Minister for State and Government Local Relations in the new Labor government. Wind back to the 1857 General Election, which was the first South Australian election in which all positions were popularly elected, and which established our bicameral Parliament. The controversy had little chance of abating under such circumstances. D Wills, ‘Labor fires the starting gun for state election’, Adelaide Advertiser, 6 January 2014, p. 11, accessed 17 January 2014. [119]. [41] But there was a range of other issues playing into the pre-election dynamics: Two state elections on the same day, and unfortunately for the incumbent Labor governments, they will be held in the two states with the highest level of unemployment. [69] Palmer considered the recent changes to the SA electoral laws—especially the rise in nomination fees from $450 to $3,000—were tantamount to the election being ‘rigged’. The same was true for Marshall as Liberal leader. The enduring lesson from the 2014 South Australian election will be that nothing in politics can be taken for granted. blank . In Mount Gambier I predict the Liberal candidate, Troy Bell, will take the seat from Don Pegler, the incumbent independent. As at 30 June 2013 there were 15 122 State only electors and 25 048 federal only electors enrolled in South Australia …[8], In South Australia, a Continuous Roll Update (CRU) program—where information obtained from Transport SA, Australia Post and Centrelink identified those who may have moved house without updating their electoral enrolment details—saw a total of 182,868 roll review letters mailed out by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) in 2012–13. [43]. Labor supporters with long memories may be contemplating with some amusement Liberal complaints about an electoral ‘gerrymander’, given how long it suffered under the real thing prior to the electoral reforms of the 1970s. The election may be over but the politics of the next South Australian election are only just beginning.[163]. [89], Motor sport has been a feature of Adelaide’s high-profile events for several years, and the main parties were keen to appeal to race enthusiasts. L Novak, ‘Harder job ahead for Upper House’, Adelaide Advertiser, 20 March 2014, p. 10, accessed 20 March 2014. [18]. [80], In a tit-for-tat argument about parties’ connections to developers, Weatherill faced questions after it emerged that ‘CIC Australia Limited, which has won preferred tender status for an 11-hectare housing development on Tonsley’s former Mitsubishi site’, had hosted a Labor fundraiser in January. L Mannix, 'The day democracy died: how SA killed micro-party dissent’, op. Friday's events were a matter of faction politics, faction warfare, and factional and personal ambitions. a late afternoon ‘private briefing’ with Mr Marshall and Liberal Party figure Michael Kroger and. [35], Education policy had emerged early as an issue that would be hotly contested by the parties. South Australian Regional Organisation of Councils South Australian Regional Organisation of Councils expand. cit., p. 27. There were 1,142,419 South Australians enrolled to vote in the March 15 poll.[130]. The overall swing to the Liberal Party was clear and relatively uniform, but the biggest swings were all in seats that the Liberal Party already held. [6] The Australian Parliament enacted legislation in 2012 to provide for automatic enrolment of eligible electors. [141] The seat of Light had remained too close to call on election night. "The circumstances arising from [Saturday] morning gave me the opportunity to look at it. [24]. It had been the second successive election in which the Liberals failed to win government despite winning a majority of the two-party vote. After the election there were 12 in the Assembly (25.5 per cent). There were 63 candidates in total, and 27 voting tickets. Two sitting Labor members were defeated—Chloe Fox in Bright and Grace Portolesi in Hartley. two tickets to a $500 a head garden party hosted by Mr Hickenbotham. [111], Law-and-order issues had not been prominent in the election campaign, but Labor said it would introduce mandatory imprisonment laws ‘to ensure serious violent offenders served some time in prison’. D Wills, ‘Libs vow $14m for mental health’, Sunday Mail (Adelaide), 2 March 2014, p. 16, accessed 7 March 2014. On 31 January, a row erupted within the state Labor Party when it emerged that outgoing Labor senator, Don Farrell, was possibly in pursuit of a safe state seat. ‘A win-win for Hills traffic’, Adelaide Advertiser, 19 February 2014, p. 9, accessed 20 February 2014. The possibility of skewed results is a function of parties’ campaigns, which target marginal districts because those districts might be won with the most effective use of resources. The Farrell-Weatherill stoush continued to prompt press comment about the inevitability of a Labor defeat, along with advice about the need for party reform: The focus must now turn to what the Labor Party can do to ensure that, sometime in a future election, it will again be seen an as alternative government. B Cassidy, ‘Adding to the pile of disposable state premiers’, The Drum, ABC website, 14 March 2014, accessed 14 March 2014. [11]. [97], Maybe, like milk, governments just have a natural expiry date. The Commissioner had intended to declare that the poster was not misleading, and she said that the context of her letter would have conveyed that opinion. The actual Legislative Council result (by seats) was: (Note: John Darley is a Nick Xenophon Group Independent) D Wills, ‘Firm stand on tender’, Adelaide Advertiser, 25 February 2014, p. 12, accessed 6 March 2014. The largest district is Lee with 25,971 voters and the smallest is Giles with 22,712. Steven Marshall (above) is the Liberal Premier of South Australia. A result seemed likely to remain unsettled for many days, and a hung parliament seemed the most likely outcome. South Australian Protective Security Framework When a general election is announced, the Premier will have asked the Governor to dissolve the House of Assembly and issue writs for the election pursuant to section 47 of the Electoral Act 1985 . Senator Farrell told the ABC he was not interested in the leadership of the SA ALP… But Weatherill said he did see the senator as a threat to him, which was the "very last impression" the Labor party wanted to give electorate [sic].… If the senator was preselected, Weatherill said he would consider resigning before the 15 March election.[44]. In late January the political situation worsened for Weatherill when, barely seven weeks after an earlier budget review, he revealed new figures showing that the government's projected budget deficit for 2014–15 had substantially increased: The projected deficit for 2014-15 has risen by $63 million to $574 million, while projected surpluses in 2015–16 and 2016–17 have been shaved by $110 million and $147 million … The impact of Holden's closure on the budget is forecast to be $14.2 million in 2016-17. However, the directive that boundaries should deliver majorities to the more strongly supported party unavoidably includes the qualification that this should only apply ‘as far as practicable’. [12]. Tuesday, 16 December 2014. Covers the inner southern suburbs of Park Holme, Ascot Park, Marion, Mitchell Park, Clovelly Park and parts of Melrose Park, Daw Park, Colonel Light Gardens, Plympton Park, South Plympton, Edwardstown, Warradale and Oaklands Park. Moreover, there were swings to Labor in some seats. [90]. Libs, short of government, test the boundaries’, Crikey, 17 March 2014, accessed 18 March 2014. S Brooks, ‘$2m incentive for defence work’, Adelaide Advertiser, 4 March 2014, p. 8, accessed 13 March 2014. Party faithful went to bed last night harbouring outside hopes of an election victory in the SA election on March 15. [63]. D Wills, ‘Premier meets for jobs plan backing’, Adelaide Advertiser, 5 February 2014, p. 3, accessed 5 February 2014. Jenni Newton-Farrelly—an election specialist in the South Australian Parliament’s research service—draws a useful distinction between ‘skewed’ and ‘biased’ outcomes in describing electoral effects: The fairness criterion is understood as requiring the Commission to do whatever is practicable to produce a set of districts which will generate a fair election outcome, where either party could win a majority of seats – and government – if it won the support of a majority of voters. (Note: The Xenophon Group’s John Darley was successful.). For a comprehensive discussion of these issues see J Newton-Farrelly, Why did South Australia adopt the fairness clause?, op. The areas added to Elder are more Liberal voting than the continuing parts of Elder, resulting in the Labor margin declining from 3.6% to an estimated 2.0%. It is impossible to comprehend. March!2014! The official Facebook page of Electoral Commission of South Australia. [133]. [72]. The swing in 2014 has been relatively uniform, though the biggest swings were all in seats the Liberal Party already held. [132]. A timeline of the whole affair has been published by the South Australian Association of State School Organisations. Voting tickets are the party-approved distribution of preferences that are formally lodged with the Electoral Commission that voters may use to assist them in supporting the party of their choice when they cast their ballot by voting ‘above the line’. A Mann, ‘South Australia election: key independent Geoff Brock indicates leaning toward Labor to form next government’, ABC News, 20 March 2014, accessed 20 March 2014. [151]. L Mannix, 'The day democracy died: how SA killed micro-party dissent’, Crikey, 19 February 2014, accessed 3 March 2014. For promises to be credible, they need to be fully and believably costed.[31]. Late in 2013—with news of Holden’s departure from the vehicle manufacturing scene having caused enormous consternation—veteran South Australian political reporter, Rex Jory, wrote that the Labor Government was ‘nervous, even pessimistic about the likely outcome of the March 15 state election. And Marshall has been in Parliament for just three years. 2022 [145]. W Bowe, ‘An SA gerrymander? the Liberals had announced $15 million for the Murray Bridge Racing Club Gifford Hill development and said the current racetrack could be used for new housing, Labor had promised an extra $4 million for monitoring and surveying activities in the new marine park network and $8.9 million for metropolitan parks and reserves, the Liberals had promised $4 million a year to lure more major events to Adelaide, $6.8 million for a science centre at Henley High School and $600,000 for Greek classes in primary schools and committed $3 million towards a new basketball stadium planned for the southern suburbs. The term ‘biased’ is reserved for situations where votes translate into seats differently for the parties because one party is disadvantaged by the geographic concentration of its support. M McGuire, ‘Libs zero in on red tape costs’, Adelaide Advertiser, 3 March 2014, p. 15, accessed 7 March 2014. [127]. [163]. [154]. The ‘fairness clause’ had emerged from a 1989 select committee inquiry: The select committee recommended the insertion of a new criterion into the Constitution Act, which would require that: [i]n making an electoral redistribution the Commission must ensure, as far as practicable that the electoral redistribution is fair to candidates and groups of candidates so that if candidates of a particular group attract more than 50 per cent of the popular vote (determined by aggregating votes cast throughout the State and allocating preferences to the necessary extent), they will be elected in sufficient numbers to enable a government to be formed. [59]. South Australia 2014 Welcome to the Tally Room guide to the 2014 South Australian state election. To make a comment or suggest a change to the Election Guide, please contact us. [65], Both Labor and Liberal confirmed that they would commit $8 million to construct a second freeway in the Adelaide Hills. SA Electoral Commissioner, Kay Mousley, said the average number of electors per district was 24,307. Whatever the state-wide vote, the key factor that will decide the 2014 election is whether the the [sic] Liberal Party can dislodge Labor members in key marginal seats. In the House of Assembly the final distribution of seats was as follows: Source: SA Electoral Commission website, accessed 22 April 2014. cit. Electoral Act 1985 (SA), accessed 4 June 2014. Parliamentary Library staff are available to discuss the contents of publications with Senators and Members and their staff. Making life harder for the Liberal Party is that it goes into the 2014 election with only 18 seats. the Liberals had to win six seats to govern in their own right, the regions could also play a significant role, with two seats to watch—Mt Gambier and Giles (centred on the town of Whyalla), that in some key seats the local Labor candidate ‘has the goods to defy a statewide swing’. [107]. (For an ABC Factcheck on the leaders’ claims about the SA economy see ‘Did the SA economy go backwards last year?’, ‘Factcheck’, ABC website, 27 February 2014, accessed 3 March 2014.). In November 2013, Premier Weatherill had committed to build a second Adelaide High campus with capacity for an extra 1,000 students by 2019. The committee chair is former Liberal minister and now upper house Legislative Council member, Robert Brokenshire. the number of elector signatures required for nomination of a single candidate, not endorsed by a registered political party, increased to: the lodging of voting tickets for the Legislative Council is restricted to groups of two or more candidates, thereby removing voting ticket squares for individual candidates (either party or independent). [145] Meanwhile, news emerged that independent Bob Such was to take leave from Parliament to undergo treatment for a brain tumour—raising the prospect of an eventual by-election in his seat of Fisher. [123] It was later reported that divisions were appearing in ALP ranks about Labor’s attacks on Xenophon, who had called for a national review of the penalty rates system. This fact and the more uniform swing in 2014 will give the Liberal Party a stronger case for there having been a fundamental change in geographic voting patterns in the state. accessed 22 January 2014. Labor’s win—in the context of the contrast between the votes won by the Liberals and their actual number of seats—resurrected a familiar argument about ‘fairness’ in South Australia’s electoral system. Once again Elder has had its boundaries modified on all sides. [118]. The 15 March election would see not only the Labor and Liberal parties pursuing voters’ support, but also the Greens, Dignity4Disability, Family First, as well as other small parties and independents—including two endorsed by Clive Palmer but not registered as PUP candidates. [137]. [107] Another major Liberal promise would see land tax slashed from 2016–17 at a cost about $53 million dollars. [67] The Liberal Party indicated it would match the pledge ‘as it was budgeted for in the forward estimates’. Three ALP sitting members retired—Lyn Breuer (Giles), Robyn Geraghty (Torrens) and Gay Thompson (Reynell). C Russell, ‘Fence splits property spruik’, Adelaide Advertiser, 6 February 2014, p. 49, accessed 6 February 2014. [78]. Planning Minister John Rau recently put the brakes on Roseworthy, which can accommodate 40,000 homes, citing stronger than expected infill development, surplus city fringe land and the availability of less remote sites. When the election was barely a week away, The Sunday Mail and The Advertiser reiterated their strong advocacy for a change of government. Mr Marshall was quoted in the Bunyip Press saying that due process would need to be followed but the government would make the project a top priority. ‘The week that was: 5 minute guide’, Adelaide Advertiser, 8 March 2014, p. 40, accessed 13 March 2014. [153]. J Newton-Farrelly, ‘Considering the Commission's current challenge: submission to the Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission in relation to the 2011-12 redistribution’, op. S Martin, ‘Economic revival the key theme as leaders square off’, The Australian, 18 February 2014, p. 6, accessed 19 February 2014. M Owen, ‘Labor finished as voters opt for Marshall plan’, Weekend Australian, 1 March 2014, p. 6, accessed 7 March 2014. Given the widespread expectation of such a change, it was surprising to many that, a day or so after the election, the result was not readily apparent. In essence, you are free to copy and communicate this work in its current form for all non-commercial purposes, as long as you attribute the work to the author and abide by the other licence terms. D Washington, ‘Labor “fatally wounded” ahead of SA election in Farrell fracas’, Crikey, 31 January 2014, accessed 31 January 2014. [3]. Not long after becoming Premier in October 2011, Weatherill was hampered by controversies not entirely of his own making. [104], Opposition Leader Marshall promised an overhaul of the school curriculum ‘to equip students with the skills to become entrepreneurs’. Q&A: All you need to know about the South Australian electoral process. S Martin, ‘Voters clear on Weatherill: your time is up’, Weekend Australian, 1 March 2014, accessed 7 March 2014. Despite the changing boundaries, the electorate has continued to be several percentage points stronger for Labor than South Australia as a whole, though the most recent boundary changes narrow that gap ahead of the 2014 election. M Owen, ‘Premier Jay Weatherill at odds with commissioner's report on school abuse case’, The Australian, (online edition), 24 September 2013, accessed 21 January 2014. Ultimately, the Liberals succeeded in Mitchell; Kenyon retained Newland; and Light remained with Labor. [83]. Voters voting above the line allow the order of their preference to be determined by that party or group. Calone’s children attended the school where the rape of a student sparked the Debelle Royal Commission. [158], With 11 seats to be settled in the upper house at the 2014 election, Adelaide University’s Professor Clem Macintyre had predicted that the Liberals would win four seats, Labor three seats, the Greens, Family First and Nick Xenophon Group one seat each, and the final seat to be either a Liberal, Xenophon Group or to ‘whichever micro party wins the lottery’.[159]. [23]. [66]. Electoral Commission SA (ECSA), ‘Legislation’, State election fact sheet, 13, ECSA website, updated December 2013, accessed 5 February 2014. D Wills, ‘Private practice’, Sunday Mail, 23 February 2014, p. 1, accessed 6 March 2014. While South Australia's total population exceeds 1.7 million, Adelaide's population exceeds 1.3 million − uniquely highly centralised, over 75% of the state's population resides in the metropolitan area and has 72% of seats (34 of 47) alongside a lack of comparatively sized rural population centres, therefore the metropolitan area is crucial in deciding election outcomes. Elder donated large amounts of money to establish Adelaide University and the Adelaide Conservatorium. She has also been a company director, small businessperson and lecturer at university. The top 10 elections of 2014 . This paper contains a brief commentary on each election along with statistical summary information and results in each state and territory for each election. Apart from the overall concern about South Australia’s economy, the election campaign was largely animated by the traditional issues of healthcare, education and transport infrastructure. With the exception of the Commonwealth Coat of Arms, and to the extent that copyright subsists in a third party, this publication, its logo and front page design are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia licence. Content from this publication should be attributed in the following way: Author(s), Title of publication, Series Name and No, Publisher, Date. [120]. Antony has worked on every federal, state and territory election since his first election with the ABC in Queensland in 1989. How happy will Liberal members in seats like Finniss, Morphett, Unley and Waite if their margins are slashed to create more marginal Liberal seats? On!Saturday!15!March!2014!the!South!Australian!state!election!was!held.