South Australian Election – Results Analysis

This post will be updated over the next few days with an analysis of the lower house election result.
For the moment I’ll just publish the final two-party preferred result and a new electoral pendulum.

First Preference Result

The summary first preference vote shares and change in vote since 2018 were –

• Labor, 40.0%, +7.2
• Liberal, 35.7%, -2.3
• Greens, 9.1%, +2.4
• Family First, 3.7%, +0.7
• Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, 2.6%, +2.6
• SA Best, 0.2%, -13.9
• Others, 8.7%, +3.3

The most noticeable feature of the result is the gain in support by Labor and the Greens with the disappearance of Nick Xenophon’s SA-Best. In 2018 SA Best preferences split relatively evenly between Labor and Liberal. The story in 2022 is not as simple as SA Best voters voting Labor or Green. Many may have gone back to the Liberal Party with a loss of other Liberal voters to Labor creating the strange shifts in first preference vote share.

Family First’s vote in the above table is compared to the Australian Conservatives in 2018. Family First polled 5.2% in the 34 seats it contested at the 2022 election, while One Nation polled 6.2% in the 19 seats it contested.

Labor won 27 seats, up eight on seats won at the 2019 election. The seats gained by Labor were –

• Florey after Independent Frances Bedford moved to contest Newland.
• Newland, Liberal margin 0.1%, swing to Labor 5.4
• King, Liberal margin 0.6%, swing to Labor 3.5
• Adelaide, Liberal margin 1.0%, swing to Labor 7.1
• Elder, Liberal margin 2.0%, swing to Labor 7.5
• Waite, Liberal margin 7.4%, swing to Labor 11.4. Liberal turned Independent MP Sam Duluk was defeated
• Davenport, Liberal margin 8.1%, swing to Labor 11.6
• Gibson, Liberal margin 10.0%, swing to Labor 12.5

The Liberal Party also lost Stuart to Independent Geoff Brock, Narungga to Liberal turned Independent Fraser Ellis, and Kavel to Liberal turned Independent Dan Cregan. The Liberal Party gained Frome after Independent Geoff Brock moved to contest Stuart.

The Liberal seats the Labor swing skipped over on the old electoral pendulum were Colton (6.1%), Hartley (6.7%), Dunstan (7.4%), Heysen (7.6%), Morialta (9.3%) and Black (9.4%).

Two-Party Preferred Result

The final two-party preferred results were

• Labor 595,663 votes, 54.6%
• Liberal 495,510, 45.4%
• the overall two-party swing to Labor was 6.5%
• 28 of the 47 seats recorded Labor two-party majorities, the 27 seats won by Labor plus Stuart won by Independent (and now cabinet minister) Geoff Brock.

Overall preferences flowed 60.0% to Labor and 40.0% to the Liberal Party. This compares to a 52.2% flow to Labor in 2018 when the large vote for Nick Xenophon’s SA Best split relatively evenly as preferences between the two major parties.

New Electoral Pendulum

The pendulum sets out the new margins for all 47 electoral districts. The four districts won by Independent are shown twice, once bottom right with their two-candidate preferred margin, but also in the Liberal and Labor columns with the two-party preferred margin. In Finniss and Flinders, both a two-party and two-candidate preferred Liberal margin are shown.

On the above pendulum, Labor would lose its majority with the loss of four seats on a uniform swing of 4%. A uniform swing of 6.2% would be needed for the Liberal Party to win eight seats for majority government, but that excludes prospects for defeating or luring back into the party some of the current Independents.

45 of the 47 seats recorded two-party preferred swings to Labor. The only two seats not to swing to Labor were Florey and Playford.

The largest two-party preferred swings to Labor were 13.1% in Mawson, 12.5% Gibson, 12.3% Stuart, 11.7% Hammond, 11.6% Davenport, 11.4% Waite, 11.1% Light and 10.0% in Badcoe and Frome.