As ballots are counted in South Australia's state election, it is clear that while the Liberal party is not politically dead, it is currently unalive. The headline result is that Labor, led by Peter Malinauskas, delivered a heavy defeat to the Liberals, but other storylines are emerging.
One Nation's statewide primary vote has punched through 20%, several points higher than the Liberal party's. The Liberals are projected to finish with between four and seven seats, while One Nation might pick up only one seat, Hammond, although it could also take MacKillop and Ngadjuri. The non-major party vote is at a record high of 42%, compared to about 19% in the 2006 SA election.
These voting patterns are similar nationwide. In the latest Australian Financial Review/Redbridge/Accent Research federal poll, the non-major party vote was 49%. The Liberal party suffered near-extinction in urban seats, winning only the metropolitan Adelaide seat of Bragg, in Christopher Pyne's former federal electorate of Sturt. There is an outside chance the party might hold Morphett, but with a 20% primary vote swing against the incumbent Liberal, the message is unmistakable – the Liberal party is not just uncompetitive in urban centres, it is not even in the conversation.
After the last federal election, the party holds just nine out of 88 urban electorates. In Queensland, where the Liberal National party won 17 seats in 2024 to clinch government, only two of those seats were in Brisbane. The problem for the Liberal party is that while about half the Queensland voting population are enrolled in the regions, the rest of the country is highly urbanised.
The SA election is also evidence that political discontent now organises faster. Polling from RedBridge Group and Accent Research shows 55% of Australian voters believe the country is heading in the wrong direction, and 55% think the next generation will have a worse life. Voters are frustrated and angry, and negative sentiment fuels the emergence of more political disruptors, especially populist threats.
There are also lessons for Labor. In heartland seats like Mawson, Cheltenham and Elizabeth, Labor's vote has collapsed, with One Nation the partial beneficiary. In Mawson, with nearly 60% of the vote counted, Labor has had a double-digit swing against it, and the One Nation candidate has a primary vote of 26%. In Elizabeth, Labor's primary vote has absorbed a swing against it of about 15%, while One Nation has enjoyed a 23% swing in its favour and is polling a primary vote of 32%. The risk is that One Nation's conversion of early polling support into actual votes provides a permission structure for other Pauline Hanson-curious voters across Australia.
