Category Archives: South Australian politics

One Nation wins at least one SA seat as Liberals consider ‘sobering lessons’ from election defeat

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Labor’s Peter Malinauskas secures at least 32 seats while Pauline Hanson’s party outpolls Liberals and could become de facto opposition

One Nation will win at least one South Australian lower house seat, and is leading in a handful of others, as the Liberals consider “sobering lessons” from Saturday’s thumping election loss to Labor.

One Nation’s electoral success came as federal MP Barnaby Joyce downplayed racism and bigotry accusations against the party before likening a ban on migration from Muslim countries to buying cattle “that just don’t work”.

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Liberals have ‘a lot of work to do’ after SA wipeout, Anne Ruston says – As it happened

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Australia not ‘contemplating’ fuel rationing but state and federal governments have powers, Bowen says

State governments also had fuel rationing powers, Chris Bowen said.

When I was a kid … in the 80s in Sydney, I remember petrol rationing was done by state governments – the state governments do have powers there.

Yes, the Commonwealth government, under the fuel emergency act, has powers.

It’s not designed to be invoked lightly. It really has powers primarily around defence and health, in the first instance, to ensure that those key areas are getting diesel that they need, but also other forms of fuel.

I would need to be satisfied that there’s a real shortage and that the powers under that act are useful.

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Bernardi vows to pay for flights taken with Hanson on Rinehart’s plane amid confusion about SA’s donations ban

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World-leading laws to be tested before South Australian election, complicated by Hanson and Bernardi’s political status

Cory Bernardi says he will pay for multiple flights with Pauline Hanson in a plane registered to Gina Rinehart’s company amid confusion about whether the trips may contravene South Australia’s new laws banning political donations.

Saturday’s SA election is the first since the new laws came into effect. There are a range of exemptions to the ban, but it is not clear if any of them apply to One Nation as parties, candidates and the electoral commission work through the “world-leading” laws for the first time.

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SA Liberals dump candidate who said homosexuality ‘opens up demonic realms’ after initially standing by him

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Party leader Ashton Hurn confirms Carston Woodhouse will not run for Liberals in SA’s state election, but says ‘people are entitled to have their views’

A Liberal candidate in South Australia’s upcoming state election has been dumped after his “shocking and extreme” views on abortion, same-sex marriage, gender transitioning and feminism were aired by his Labor rival.

The leader of the SA Liberals, Ashton Hurn, on Wednesday stood by Carston Woodhouse, who had been running for the seat of Wright in Adelaide’s north, after his appearances on the evangelical Christian podcast ElijahFire surfaced.

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SA Liberals dump candidate who said homosexuality ‘opens up demonic realms’ after initially standing by him

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Party leader Ashton Hurn confirms Carston Woodhouse will not run for Liberals in SA’s state election, but says ‘people are entitled to have their views’

A Liberal candidate in South Australia’s upcoming state election has been dumped after his “shocking and extreme” views on abortion, same-sex marriage, gender transitioning and feminism were aired by his Labor rival.

The leader of the SA Liberals, Ashton Hurn, on Wednesday stood by Carston Woodhouse, who had been running for the seat of Wright in Adelaide’s north, after his appearances on the evangelical Christian podcast ElijahFire surfaced.

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SA Liberals stand by candidate who said homosexuality opens up ‘demonic realms’

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Carston Woodhouse, running for Wright in Adelaide’s north, also claimed gender transitioning is an ‘illusion’

The South Australian Liberal party is standing by an election candidate who said same-sex marriage is not real, homosexuality can open up “demonic realms” and gender transitioning is an “illusion”.

Carston Woodhouse is running for the seat of Wright in Adelaide’s north in the state’s upcoming elections, with early voting beginning on Saturday.

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Tesla wins council approval for new factory in South Australia despite vocal anti-Musk sentiment

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Marion council votes to seek state government approval for battery factory in Adelaide despite hundreds of submissions opposing it

Elon Musk’s Tesla is one step closer to opening a factory in an Adelaide suburb despite overwhelming community opposition from “anti-Tesla and anti-Elon Musk sentiment”.

On Tuesday night the City of Marion council voted to seek state government approval to sell the site to a developer who will build the factory.

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Adelaide’s first skyscraper criticised as ‘profound mistake’ and ‘hugely questionable’ by opponents

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Critics say ‘phallic’ 38-storey commercial tower next to state parliament is ‘the wrong building in the wrong place’

Adelaide’s first skyscraper will be a “phallic” construction overshadowing the birthplace of women’s suffrage, critics say.

The Walker Corporation has begun work on a 38-storey commercial building next to Parliament House on North Terrace, which is known as the city’s cultural boulevard.

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Anti-abortion advocate Joanna Howe banned from South Australia’s upper house for alleged ‘threatening’ tactics towards politicians

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Upper house president Terry Stephens says of ‘highest concern’ is suggestion Howe attempted to ‘improperly influence the free performance’ of MLCs’ duties

The anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe has been banned from South Australia’s upper house after its president revealed in parliament that he had received several complaints from MLCs alleging she had used “insults and threatening and intimidating tactics” towards politicians during a debate about the state’s controversial “forced birth” legislation.

The legislation, if passed, would have meant any South Australian seeking an abortion after 27 weeks and six days, would instead be induced, give birth, then either keep or adopt out the child.

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Australians must keep up the fight for abortion rights, Jacinta Allan warns

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Exclusive: Conservative forces pose ‘genuine threats to the protections women have fought for and won’, Victoria’s premier says

Jacinta Allan is warning that the battle for abortion rights must continue as conservative forces pose “real and genuine threats to the protections women have fought for and won” amid “frightening” debate in South Australia and Queensland.

Victoria’s Labor premier made her strongest comments to date on abortion in an interview with Guardian Australia, just days before Queenslanders go to the polls in an election that has become dominated by the issue.

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Labor on brink of historic win in SA byelection to snatch former Liberal premier’s seat

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Cressida O’Hanlon has significant lead in Dunstan though there are many early votes yet to be counted

Labor’s Cressida O’Hanlon is nervously waiting, hoping to be confirmed as the next member of South Australia’s House of Assembly.

The 51-year-old business mediator is on track to win the seat of Dunstan with a 2.9%, two-party-preferred lead over her Liberal rival Anna Finizio.

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Peter Dutton in standoff with state Liberal leaders over federal Coalition’s nuclear plan

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The federal opposition leader’s calls to include nuclear power in Australia’s energy mix has so far failed to win support from his state colleagues

The federal Coalition faces a battle with the states on its proposal for nuclear power stations at the sites of decommissioned coal power plants, with state premiers and opposition leaders alike largely against Peter Dutton’s proposal.

Labor governments and Coalition oppositions in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia are either outright opposed to the plan or have failed to endorse it.

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Snowtown ‘bodies-in-the-barrels’ accomplice Mark Ray Haydon due for release in May

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SA government seeks legal advice on whether new laws criminalising concealing or interfering with human remains could keep inmate in jail

A man imprisoned for his involvement the Snowtown murders, one of Australia’s most notorious crimes, could be free within months.

Mark Ray Haydon was convicted for his role in the so-called “bodies in the barrels” murders in Snowtown, South Australia, in the 1990s. Eight of the 11 people killed were found in barrels in a disused bank vault in the town, which is 150km north of Adelaide. A 12th death was linked to the killers.

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Union fury over Labor decision to split aged care pay rises – as it happened

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Crossbench say Australia needs to ‘get cracking’ on Cop15 commitments

More reactions are coming in after the close of the biodiversity Cop15 – which leading scientists have called “vastly more important” than the Cop27 climate meeting, because it decides the “fate of the living world”.

We need to get cracking on implementation to deliver on commitments.

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Anti-abortion group claims SA politicians pledged to ‘take forward’ bill reversing new medical laws

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Labor and Liberal members deny making any such agreement with Enid Lyons List, a group with stated aim of getting more ‘pro-life’ women into parliament

The anti-abortion group at the centre of a storm claims parliamentarians from both sides have promised to try to “turn this tide back” on South Australia’s new abortion laws.

Joanna Howe of Enid Lyons List said politicians have agreed to “take forward” a bill that her organisation is working on.

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SA hospitals under ‘extraordinary strain’; Perrottet asks MP to resign after charges – as it happened

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NSW MP Gareth Ward denies historic sexual abuse allegations; South Australian hospital system ‘under extraordinary strain’ new premier says, as at least 23 Covid deaths recorded nationally; Anthony Albanese proposes award in late Victorian senator Kimberley Kitching’s honour. This blog is now closed

Peter Malinauskas has promised to keep his shirt on from now on, after a photo of his muscled torso made quite a stir in the world of Australian politics.

ABC radio host Patricia Karvelas:

During the campaign, you were photographed shirtless in swimming shorts, and it caused a bit of a stir. I have to ask you ... the Australian’s Greg Sheridan said jokingly on [ABC] Insiders that you’re “far too good looking”. Which I thought was quite a statement. What have you made of the reaction to that picture?

Do you have any idea how much grief I’ve copped around the place as a result of that?

Have they told you just to buff to be premier?

They’ve piled it on, let me tell you. I haven’t stopped copping it, and I deserve every bit of it.

We were announcing a big investment at our major aquatics centre here in South Australia and a whole bunch of us jumped in for a swim in our boardies with our kids there. And, yeah, it got a bit more attention than I anticipated, fair to say.

So you’re going to keep your shirt on from now on?

Damn straight!

I think we’re about to see a federal election where a cost of living is a front and centre issue. And I think Australians get the price of petrol, but they can’t control the price of groceries.

The way we address cost of living as a nation is to start having an incomes policy focus on how we improve working in small businesses to improve the productivity of their labour, so they can earn a higher income. And that’s why education, training and skills is so important.

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South Australia election: Labor wins government as Liberal premier Steven Marshall concedes

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Peter Malinauskas to become state’s 47th premier as Liberal government deserted by voters after just one term

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Labor has won the South Australian election, with the premier, Steven Marshall, conceding defeat to the opposition leader, Peter Malinauskas, on Saturday night.

The Labor party was on track to win 25 seats and form a majority government after it recorded a 7.3% swing in its favour.

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‘Hard to read’: Labor is clear favourite in South Australia’s election – but local issues muddy the waters

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The opposition is ahead in the polls. Whether that translates into a win – and what it would mean for the federal election – isn’t certain

State elections are not always of great interest to people beyond the borders, but today’s South Australian poll is getting more attention than usual as it comes in the lead-up to the May federal election.

The latest poll shows Labor poised to tip out the Marshall government after just one term in power. It shows a swing of about 8%, putting Labor ahead 56 to 44 on a two-party preferred score.

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South Australian MP Sam Duluk a ‘drunken pest’ but not guilty of assault – magistrate

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Magistrate finds allegation he slapped fellow MP Connie Bonaros on the bottom not proven beyond a reasonable doubt

The South Australian MP Sam Duluk “behaved like a drunken pest” but has been acquitted of assault after allegedly slapping a fellow MP on the bottom at a parliament house Christmas party.

The accusation stemmed from Duluk’s conduct towards the SA-BEST upper house MP Connie Bonaros at the celebrations in December 2019.

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Australia Covid live update: Victoria premier Dan Andrews eases lockdown after 10 new cases; Gladys Berejiklian confirms 172 local cases in NSW

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SA to exit lockdown at midnight; NSW records 172 local Covid-19 cases overnight; Victoria lockdown to ease from midnight after state records 10 cases; Queensland records no new cases overnight. Follow all the day’s news

NSW press conference:

Inevitable Berejiklian is now being grill over Victoria’s sucsess which many are viewing as proof that NSW’s lockdown was too little, too late.

Victoria is now coming out of lockdown. Have they now shown us up? Should we have gone down harder and faster? They’ve done two weeks, we’re here in week five, and with no sign of things slowing down.

Oh look, I think it’s important to note that every state has had its own course during the pandemic.

Victoria is emerging out of its fifth lockdown, and I appreciate appreciate people want to make comparisons, but it’s also important to note that every state has had its own course. Every state has its own history of how they’re built with the pandemic.

Melbourne: schools, restaurants and bars open.
Sydney: 172 cases. Highest case number since the borders were shut and edging towards the 200 record.

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