2026 South Australian state election

2026 South Australian state election
← 2022 21 March 2026 2030 →
All 47 seats in the South Australian House of Assembly
24 seats are needed for a majority
11 (of the 22) seats in the South Australian Legislative Council
Opinion polls
 
Leader Peter Malinauskas David Speirs
Party Labor Liberal
Leader since 9 April 2018 19 April 2022
Leader's seat Croydon Black
Last election 27 seats 16 seats
Current seats 28 seats 14 seats
Seats needed Steady Increase 10
Incumbent Premier

Peter Malinauskas
Labor



The 2026 South Australian state election will be held on 21 March 2026 to elect members to the 56th Parliament of South Australia. All 47 seats in the House of Assembly (the lower house, whose members were elected at the 2022 election), and half the seats in the Legislative Council (the upper house, last filled at the 2018 election) are up for re-election.

The incumbent Labor government, currently led by Premier Peter Malinauskas, will attempt to win a second four-year term against the Liberal opposition, currently led by David Speirs.

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 (ECSA), an independent body answerable to Parliament.

The election will be held on the same day as the South Australian First Nations Voice election.[1][2]

Background

At the 2022 South Australian state election, the Labor Party won government after spending four years in Opposition. The party, led by Peter Malinauskas, gained 8 seats to have a majority in the House of Assembly while the incumbent Liberal government, led by Premier Steven Marshall, saw a loss of nine seats including 3 from independents. Statewide, the Labor Party won 54.59% of the two-party preferred vote, which was a swing of over 6.5% compared to the previous election.[3][4][5]

In the Legislative Council, Labor won five seats, the Liberals won four and the Greens and One Nation both won one seat each. In total, the Labor government has nine seats and the Liberal opposition has eight seats, with five crossbenchers (the Greens and SA-Best have two seats each, while One Nation has one, held by Sarah Game).[3][4][5]

With the Liberal Upper House President unexpectedly re-elected to the Presidency, this gives the Labor government nine of 21 seats during votes on the floor, meaning that only an additional two non-government votes are required for the government to pass legislation.[3][4][5]

The 2022 Bragg state by-election and the 2024 Dunstan state by-election saw strengthened Labor votes.

Date

The last state election was held on 19 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 federal 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.[6] As none of these possibilities eventuated, the election was held on its proper date of 19 March 2022.

The Electoral (Miscellaneous) 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 (S47(2a)) and the electoral roll be closed at 12 noon, six days after the issue of the writ (S48(3(a)(i). The close of nominations will be at 12 noon three days after the close of rolls (Electoral Act 1985 S48(4)(a) and S4(1)).[7]

Opinion polling

Voting intention

House of Assembly

Primary vote
Two-party preferred
House of Assembly (lower house) polling
Date Firm Primary vote TPP vote
ALP LIB GRN ONP SAB OTH ALP LIB
11–20 September 2022 Dynata[8] 34% 34% 13% 5% 6% 8% 53% 47%
19 March 2022 election 39.97% 35.67% 9.12% 2.63% 0.20% 12.41% 54.59% 45.10%

Legislative Council

Primary vote
Legislative Council (upper house) polling
Date Firm Primary vote
ALP LIB GRN ONP SAB OTH
11–20 September 2022 Dynata[8] 35% 32% 13% 4% 7% 9%
19 March 2022 election 36.96% 34.38% 9.03% 4.23% 1.05% 14.38%

Leadership approval

Date Firm Preferred Premier Malinauskas Speirs
Malinauskas Speirs Undecided Satisfied Dissatisfied Undecided Satisfied Dissatisfied Undecided
March 2023 Dynata[8] — — — 74% 13% 13% 51% 19% 30%

References

  1. ^ "Key dates". 2024 South Australian First Nations Voice election.
  2. ^ "SA First Nations Voice election results show low turnout, but candidate urges 'give us a chance'". ABC News.
  3. ^ a b c "Drama in SA parliament as Liberal investigated by ICAC returned to top position". ABC News. 3 May 2022.
  4. ^ a b c "'Beggars belief': Labor coup sidelines Libs, crossbench". 3 May 2022.
  5. ^ a b c "SA 2022 – Legislative Council Result Finalised". Antony Green's Election Blog. 27 April 2022.
  6. ^ "Australian elections timetable". Australian Parliamentary Library. Retrieved 5 February 2013.
  7. ^ "Electoral (Miscellaneous) Amendment Act 2013". South Australia Legislation. Government of South Australia. 2013. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
  8. ^ a b c "Poll shows Labor's honeymoon not over". 28 September 2022.
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