South Australia July to December 2023

South Australian State politics in the second half of 2023 was often overshadowed by the national Voice to Parliament referendum debate in which the state had been expected to play a pivotal role. Other important events included the defection of a rural MP from the Liberal Party, the proposed merger of two of the state's universities representing a triumph for the Premier while irrevocably splitting a minor party, and perennial issues such as health management, domestic and family violence and urban development continuing their prominence on the media and policy agenda.

South Australia had been viewed as a key ‘swing state’, to borrow American terminology, throughout the national Voice to Parliament campaign. The state received a high degree of attention from both the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ camps with multiple visits from luminaries on both sides. The ‘Yes’ campaign placed such a degree of emphasis on carrying the state that it launched its national campaign in Elizabeth in Adelaide's northern suburbs.

Premier Malinauskas, a prominent speaker at the event, appeared to outshine other attending politicians including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (The Advertiser, 2 September 2023). In his speech Malinauskas evoked the ‘ethos of egalitarianism’ underscoring Australian history, arguing that as past generations had accepted immigrants and had granted Indigenous citizenship and land rights, current generations were more than capable of saying yes to an ‘advisory body’ to open up possibilities for a brighter future for Indigenous Australians (The Australian, 30 August 2023). Malinauskas' performance rekindled speculation over whether a shift to Canberra was in his political future. Whilst the Premier's abilities as a strong communicator and his astute political antennae would likely be a boon to the Federal ALP, he is likely to remain firmly entrenched in state politics for the foreseeable future.

The state also hosted several ‘No’ campaign rallies. One such event featured the prominent ‘No’-affiliated Indigenous luminaries Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Nyunggai Warren Mundine and SA Liberal Senator Kerrynne Liddle. Price characterised the Voice Referendum as the ‘biggest gaslighting event our nation has ever experienced’. These ‘No’ campaign events attracted verbal stoushes with anti-‘No’ protesters. Price blamed Prime Minister Albanese for what she claimed was the divisive nature of the referendum campaign, which instigated these public tensions (MailOnline 19 September 2023).

Like all the other states and territories except for the ACT, South Australia delivered a firm majority ‘No’ vote in the referendum. Its decisive 64.2 per cent ‘No’ vote was a margin only exceeded in Queensland, a state that had long been expected to favour the ‘No’ campaign. South Australia's tally was unique among the states in one respect: as evident in Table 1, it was the only state where no Federal electorate recorded a Yes vote (a distinction only shared with the Northern Territory).

The inner-metropolitan electorate of Adelaide came closest (at 49.3% Yes) to a Yes majority (AEC 2023). This was the type of inner-city electorate which managed Yes majorities in other states; its failure to do so is reflective of the ‘Yes’ campaign's particularly poor result in the state.

Whilst the national Voice to Parliament was soundly rejected, the Malinauskas Government re-committed to delivering its state-based legislated voice to Parliament. The introduction of this body had been delayed by the national debate to ‘avoid confusion’ despite earlier hopes from that state government that it would provide a ‘positive example to the country’ (ABC News, 30 June 2023).

Elections to each of these regional bodies and the subsequent selection of delegates to the statewide advisory body are to take place in March 2024.

The State Liberal Party had voted against the First Nations Voice Act 2023. Liberal leader David Speirs was further emboldened by the overwhelming SA ‘No” vote in the federal referendum. Speirs suggested that suburbanites were ‘pushing back against the woke agenda’ and committed to reviewing and heavily amending or scrapping the state body entirely if the Liberals win the next State election scheduled for 2026 (InDaily, 20 October 2023). For its part, the Malinauskas government reaffirmed its commitment to the state body as a step towards ‘achieving treaty and truth-telling’, claiming a mandate for the policy from its 2022 State election platform (The Advertiser, 22 October 2023).

The Liberal Party's long-standing difficulties with retaining rural MPs continued with Nick McBride, the Member for Mackillop, defecting to sit on the crossbench. McBride attributed his departure to the ‘dark forces’ involved in the ‘membership’ and to party factions. It is likely that his lack of firm factional support and concerns about a possible pre-selection challenge influenced his decision (The Advertiser, 5 July 2023).

McBride joins an array of other disaffected former Liberals on the crossbench, including House of Assembly Speaker Dan Cregan and the independent MPs Fraser Ellis and Troy Bell. Each of these MPs hold rural seats with conservative leanings in which Labor is uncompetitive in two-party terms but which are vital to the Liberal Party's prospects for forming government. Journalist Paul Starick captured the Liberals' problematic situation well, remarking that ‘throughout its modern history of almost 50 years, the South Australian Liberal Party has managed a remarkable record of underachievement’ but that ‘even by their own dismal standards … the Liberals are at a historic low ebb’ – a nadir of 15 seats in the House of Assembly (The Advertiser, 7 July 2023).

Liberal leader David Speirs argued that McBride had been a long-term malcontent with most of his grievances dating back to the term of the party's previous leader Steven Marshall. For Speirs, McBride's actions reflected his inability to play a team role within the party (The Advertiser, 6 July 2023). Regardless, McBride's defection fits into the Liberal Party's persistent difficulties in managing its rural members and its toxic relations with defectors. Whether or not the Liberal Party can maintain cordial relations with McBride and the bloc of ex-Liberal independents could determine how long the party spends on the Opposition benches, noting that similar independents had been key to the past Rann and Weatherill Labor Governments coming to power and remaining entrenched in office.

There is some evidence that Speirs appreciates the importance of renewing the Liberals' parliamentary ranks and his degree of success in rejuvenating the party's talent and prospects will likely define his leadership (ABC News, 17 September 2022).

As both universities are exist as statutory bodies under the University of Adelaide Act 1971 and University of South Australia 1990 respectively, the merger proposal requires not only university consent but also legislative change. This merger proposal attracted calls for a parliamentary enquiry from the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) and Greens MLC Rob Simms. A Joint Committee on the Establishment of Adelaide University was subsequently formed to inquire into and review the merger process. This committee comprised ten MPs – four representing the government, two from the opposition and four crossbench members – Connie Bonaros from SA-Best, Robert Simms from the Greens, Sarah Game from One Nation and Independent Dan Cregan as chair.

The majority report of the committee made recommendations which were broadly supportive of the merger, finding that ‘on the balance of probabilities…the proposal to establish Adelaide University will advance the economic and social interests of South Australia’, but that measures must be taken to ‘monitor, evaluate and sufficiently invest’ in risk management regarding the merger. Potential risks were deemed to be outweighed by the risk of inaction in ‘the increasingly competitive environment for universities generally and the risk to the State's interests in taking no steps to reform the University sector’ (Joint Committee on the Establishment of Adelaide University, 2023 p. 48).

A minority report authored by Liberal members John Gardner and Jing Lee was more circumspect and equivocal, concluding that ‘the proposal [was] not objectively good or bad’ and that ‘economic and social interests of the state…might be advanced by the proposed amalgamation’ but that there are ‘a number of considerable risks.’ (JCEAU Minority Report, 2023, p.2). Further minority comments from Greens MLC, Robert Simms called for transparency and the realise of ‘the full business case’, as well as its being ‘subject to an independent review’ before a bill was put to parliament (Minority Report from Robert Simms MLC, 2023).

Overall, the successful legislation of the University merger represents a win for the Malinauskas government and progresses an initiative which has stalled multiple times in the pass. Whether this merger proves to invigorate research and teaching performance and draw more students into the state will be the fundamental test of its efficacy.

The university merger inquiry process provided the impetus for a split in the minor party SA-BEST. As the name suggests, SA-BEST is a uniquely South Australian minor party. It had been formed by former SA Senator and former Member of the Legislative Council, Nick Xenophon, as a vehicle to support his 2018 State Election campaign. In this campaign Xenophon expanded his electoral target from crossbench positions in the Legislative Council to running candidates in every lower house seat. Whilst SA-BEST achieved statewide votes of 14.2% and 19.35%, in the House of Assembly and Legislative Council respectively, Xenophon failed to win the Assembly seat of Hartley he had contested, and no other lower house candidates were successful, the party did elect two members to the Legislative Council: Connie Bonaros and Frank Pangallo (The Advertiser, 1 December 2023).

Pangallo initially indicated that he was undecided on the university merger proposal – but later cited Bonaros' lack of consultation with him on the committee recommendations as the ‘final straw’ in their relationship and that the pair ‘no longer shared once aligned ideologies’ (The Advertiser, December 1 2023). Bonaros attributed this difference of opinion to Pangallo's ‘lack of exposure to the committee process’ (InDaily, 18 October 2023). With Pangallo's departure from SA-BEST, pathways to a legislative majority in the Legislative Council are altered.

With the presiding member of the chamber, Liberal Terry Stephens, only voting in the event of a tie, effectively reducing the Liberals' floor vote capacity from eight to seven, the Labor government has sufficient votes when combined with the Greens to pass legislation. Support could also be sought from a combination of any two of Bonaros, Pangallo and Game or the Liberal opposition. No longer in its own right offering the government a pathway to success in the upper house, SA-BEST's potential to exert policy influence and build a parliamentary record has declined. Both Bonaros – who retains the SA-BEST moniker – and the now independent Pangallo, are up for re-election in 2026.

While not changing the status of parties in the chamber, it should also be noted that Labor MLC Irene Pnevmatikos resigned in October, being replaced by Mira El Dannawi who makes history as the first Muslim MP to sit in state parliament (The Advertiser, 9 October 2023).

With its marquee 2022 election promise having been to ‘Fix the Ramping Crisis’, the Malinauskas Labor Government has faced pressure from the media and the Liberal opposition on its apparent failure to do so. The Liberals have argued that ramping (the queuing of emergency ambulances at hospital emergency departments) has been worse than ever. Malinauskas for his part is now offering a far more nuanced view on the state of SA's public health capacity than he had during the election campaign. He argues that, whilst the state government-funded ‘500 extra beds’ has been of benefit, the government effectively has ‘one hand tied behind our backs’ due to the dual problem of an exacerbated rate of hospital admissions due to insufficient GP access coupled with elderly patients taking up hospital beds due to insufficient access to appropriate aged care facilities. Malinauskas maintains that to address the current crises ‘The Commonwealth has to acknowledge its responsibility about how people end up in hospital and where they exit hospital to if you're an elderly person getting access to aged care bed’ (The Advertiser, 4 October 2023).

Opposition Leader Speirs accused Malinauskas of offering ‘excuses and shifting the goalposts’ rather than maintaining his clear, unequivocal promise to ‘fix the ramping crisis’. Whilst the Premier makes fair points about the need for federal-state cooperation to address health issues in a systemic way, the government needs to be seen to making progress or ‘fix the ramping crisis’ could become a promise it wishes it had never made (The Advertiser, 4 October 2023).

To help address another perennially ‘wicked’ policy area, the Malinauskas government announced the formation of a Royal Commission into domestic, sexual and family violence. Premier Malinauskas outlined that the purpose of the Commission would be to provide recommendations offering a clear ‘path and plan forward’ for relevant stakeholders to deliver effective policy change – whilst acknowledging that a Royal Commission alone would not achieve substantive policy improvements. The Commission is expected to have its terms of reference and commissioner finalised by mid-February 2024 and to operate for a delimited 12-month period in order to deliver timely recommendations (The Advertiser, 13 December 2023).

A key area of emphasis for the Malinauskas Government has been housing supply. The government has pursued opening up of ‘greenfields’ developments in areas such as Dry Creek and Riverlea in Adelaide's north, and continued land releases around Mount Barker in the eastern Hills. Excavations at the Riverlea site uncovered the remains of at least 27 Indigenous people. Despite protests from activist groups which argued for the preservation of the remains in place, the Kaurna Yerta Aboriginal Corporation reached an agreement with the state government to repatriate the remains to a nearby site (National Indigenous Times, 24 October 2023; ABC News, 24 October 23).

Aside from such concerns around Indigenous heritage, much new housing development in the state is suffering from more typical planning issues. One issue which captured government attention was Mt Barker's incomplete ring road intended to serve its new residential developments. Now dubbed the ‘Road to Nowhere’, the planned route had run afoul of state government regulations around the number of rail crossings permitted within a certain radius.

This led to a situation Premier Malinauskas labelled as ‘out of Utopia’ (a reference to the satirical ABC television series), where the much-needed road was interrupted for 80 metres by the little-used Steamranger tourist train line. The government stepped in with $2.5 Million in funds to be matched by the local council to address the issue (The Advertiser, 23 August 2023). A similar issue was caused by the collapse of local builder Felmeri Homes. This left unfinished homes at a prominent development in the suburb of O'Halloran Hill without basic road infrastructure. This effectively forced the state government to step in and build the necessary roads, the cost of which could exceed $1 Million (Premier.Gov 23 August 2023). Whilst these are small investments, it could be evident of a wider pattern that sees the government having to foot the bill for what should be private developer responsibilities. When combined with the government's pro-development strategies, this could signal an ongoing series of development failures which require government intervention into the future.

These policy challenges are ongoing in an environment of still persistent inflation projected at 4.75% in the 2023/24 financial year. The state's mid-year budget review revealed revenue challenges and opportunities – with a projected $229 m windfall in extra state taxation partly offset in a $206 m decline in the state's projected GST share, and projections for increases in both employment and GDP growth (InDaily, 21 Dec 23).