State pollies prepare for a year-long battle
The upcoming federal election will be a yawn when compared to next year’s state election, according to Mike Smithson. He’s predicting “corpses littering the electoral map”, whatever the result.
Mark my words, this week will provide a clear indication of where both parties stand exactly a year out from the 2026 state election.
Symbolically, it signals unofficial campaigning has begun with total focus on retaining power or seizing it from a government seemingly in ruthless control.
The distraction of a federal election within the next eight weeks is a fly in the ointment for both major parties, which would prefer not to be lassoed into hitting the campaign trail with Anthony Albanese or Peter Dutton.
As InDaily has reported, the electorates of Sturt and Boothby are SA’s only federal seats sparking any national interest.
But next year’s state election is a contest that will cost political careers and leave corpses littering the electoral map, whatever the result.
For the first time Premier Peter Malinauskas and relatively new Opposition Leader Vincent Tarzia will publicly go head-to-head on Friday in the cauldron of a televised debate.
The SA Press Club hosts this sold-out event a year out from the state election and then again 12 months later, just days ahead of voters going to the polls.
Friday’s event couldn’t be higher stakes for both leaders.
Malinauskas looks home and hosed for another term in office with a 15-seat buffer zone and the Liberals seemingly in a world of pain, but with little to lose.
Labor’s newly unveiled 20-year Infrastructure SA plan, catering for expanding needs as our population grows, is just a taste of things to come over the next 12 months.
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Let’s face it, either party can technically win in a two-horse race, and in politics never write off the ‘Steven Bradbury factor’ where the underdog skates past the front runner who falls just before the finish line.
The upcoming debate will see both leaders make a concise election pitch to a room full of business leaders, other politicians, media and the public.
It’s a remarkable snapshot of trying to win over a tough crowd when deep down, however experienced they are on the floor of parliament, both are as edgy as all hell.
This debate sees them face timely and tricky questions and even allows them to ask questions of each other on any topic from health to the economy and Whyalla’s cash drain on the public purse.
I’m somewhat uniquely placed to know the inner workings of what goes on behind the scenes and attempts to get a debate leg-up on each other.
FIVEaa’s Stacey Lee and I are moderating the debate which will also be broadcast, in part, on Friday afternoon during her program.
It will also be streamed live on other outlets’ social media sites.
So, what are the early tips on topics under discussion?
The Premier will have to face the music on his lavish and outlandish claims last time around that Labor would “fix the ambulance ramping crisis”.
It’s an “F” fail whatever tactics he and Labor use to dress up statistics across the last three years.
He’s certain to promote improving ambulance response times, which he’s entitled to do.
But will voters swallow his line for a second time that their “lives depend on it” and give Labor another term in office?
The Premier’s hydrogen energy dream has also consumed plenty of media oxygen for almost nil return.
It, along with the evolving Whyalla fiasco, has seen taxpayer dollars fly out the door and evaporate into a cloud of public doubt.
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Did he take too long in dealing with the steelworks’ mounting debt and leaving struggling businesses in the dark?
And is Mali losing the Midas touch having stamped his approval on the Sheffield Shield final being played on the hallowed turf of Adelaide Oval, only to be rolled by the AFL?
The Premier loves to be a winner and soak up the deserving adulation that goes with it, but the Shield venue glory was a dangling carrot just out of his influential reach.
Vincent Tarzia will see the debate as his golden opportunity, or high risk, or both.
He doesn’t command the presence of his opponent, and he knows it.
By rights, David Speirs should have been the Liberal leader on stage proudly boasting his party’s manifesto into 2026.
But he and Liberal morale both crashed and burned when he abruptly quit politics fighting looming alleged drug offences, which he’s always denied.
Tarzia still seems to have a flimsy hold on the leadership and party unity.
Ben Hood’s unannounced late-term abortion bill last year and the ensuing debacle over MLC Jing Lee’s departure to the Independent crossbench left the party even more tattered.
Does Tarzia seriously think he’s turned the ship around and that his position is safe?
If SA Labor follows the recent WA voting model, it will be another bloodbath, and they could even increase their political supremacy.
Should that result occur, history tells us that Tarzia is a dead man walking and the Libs will virtually disintegrate rather than spend another four years in the drudgery of Opposition.
Should the unexpected occur, Malinauskas won’t be able to find a rock small enough to hide under.
A lesson the Libs can learn from previous Press Club debates is to be organised and focussed.
In 2021, then-Premier Steven Marshall arrived on the day asking what he was required to do, as he hadn’t really prepared anything.
A year later, and only days before the second debate in 2022, he and Malinauskas sat at the same lunch table.
The Labor leader had every base covered for what was about to unfold, with a meticulously prepared folder featuring coloured tabs and all information at his fingertips.
He sat quietly studying his notes during the half hour before he was on stage.
Marshall, on the other hand, had a glass of red wine and hoped for the best, relying on his quick wit and incumbency to carry him through.
Just over a week later, with the Liberals soundly defeated, that explained everything.
Mike Smithson is weekend newsreader and political analyst for 7NEWS.
