2022 South Australian state election


The 2022 South Australian state election will elect members to the 55th Parliament of South Australia on 19 March 2022. All seats in the House of Assembly or lower house, whose current members were elected at the 2018 election, and half the seats in the Legislative Council or upper house, last filled at the 2014 election, will become vacant. The first term incumbent Liberal Party of Australia government, currently led by Premier Steven Marshall, will seek a second four-year term and will be challenged by the Australian Labor Party opposition, currently led by Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas.
Like federal elections, South Australia has compulsory voting, uses full-preference instant-runoff voting for single-member electorates in the lower house and optional preference single transferable voting in the proportionally represented upper house. The election will be conducted by the Electoral Commission of South Australia, an independent body answerable to Parliament.

Background

House of Assembly

In the House of Assembly at the 2018 election, the Liberal opposition formed a two-seat majority government with 25 of 47 seats, after retaining three of the four redistributed notionally Liberal seats won by Labor at the 2014 election and winning the newly-created notionally ultra marginal Labor seat of King. The former 16-year four-term Labor government went in to opposition with 19 seats. The crossbench was represented by 3 independents: Frances Bedford, Troy Bell and Geoff Brock. Despite the change of government, there was actually a statewide two-party-preferred swing away from the Liberals toward Labor.

Legislative Council

In the Legislative Council at the 2018 election, the 11 of 22 seats up for election were 4 Liberal, 4 Labor, 1 Green, 1 Conservative and 1 Dignity. The final outcome was 4 Liberal, 4 Labor, 2 SA Best and 1 Green. Conservative MLC Dennis Hood, who had been elected as a Family First MLC in 2014, defected to the Liberals nine days after the 2018 state election. The 22 seat upper house composition is therefore 9 Liberal on the government benches, 8 Labor on the opposition benches, and 5 to minor parties on the crossbench, consisting of 2 SA Best, 2 Green, and 1 Advance SA. The government therefore requires at least three additional non-government members to form a majority and carry votes on the floor.

Pendulum

Date

The last state election was held on 17 March 2018 to elect members for the House of Assembly and half of the members in the Legislative Council. In South Australia, section 28 of the Constitution Act 1934, as amended in 2001, directs that parliaments have fixed four-year terms, and elections must be held on the third Saturday in March every four years unless this date falls the day after Good Friday, occurs within the same month as a Commonwealth election, or the conduct of the election could be adversely affected by a state disaster. Section 28 also states that the Governor may also dissolve the Assembly and call an election for an earlier date if the Government has lost the confidence of the Assembly or a bill of special importance has been rejected by the Legislative Council. Section 41 states that both the Council and the Assembly may also be dissolved simultaneously if a deadlock occurs between them. This means that barring unforeseen events, the election will be held on 19 March 2022.
The Electoral Amendment Act 2013 introduced set dates for writs for general elections in South Australia. The writ sets the dates for the close of the electoral roll and the close of nominations for an election. The Electoral Act 1985 requires that, for a general election, the writ be issued 28 days before the date fixed for polling and the electoral roll be closed at 12 noon, 6 days after the issue of the writ. The close of nominations will be at 12 noon 3 days after the close of rolls and S4).

Polling