South Australia Postcount 2026: Hammond (And Ngadjuri)

Hammond (Lib 5.1%)
Robert Roylance (ON) vs Simone Bailey (ALP) vs Adrian Pederick (Lib)
Roylance should remain in top two and win on Liberal preferences

The rural lower Murray seat of Hammond was one of those that stood out in pre-election modelling as being a seat on a relatively low Liberal vs ALP margin but nonetheless being apparently fertile ground for One Nation.  And this looks like this is how things have panned out.  As I start this article Simone Bailey (Labor) holds a thin lead with 27.5% over Robert Roylance (One Nation) on 27.0% with incumbent Adrian Pederick in third on 22.1%.  The most significant preference source is independent Airlie Keen on 10.4%.  Keen ran competitively in 2022 but there has been a large swing against her with the rise of One Nation.  The rest: the Greens 4.5% Legalise Cannabis 3.3% FF 1.9% Animal Justice 1.4% Lucas Hope (IND) 1.0% Aus Family 0.5% United Voice 0.4% Fair Go 0.1%.  Yes there is a candidate in this seat who actually at present has 27 votes, their presence on the ballot paper probably costing thousands of dollars in staffing costs.

The count is at 67.9% enrolment and Roylance did just fine on prepolls so I don't see really where Pederick recovers 4.9% to knock him out of the top two.  Maybe Pederick gets something off Airlie Keen but I would expect there is a lot of splatter in Keen's preference flows and the fact they are breaking three way with Bailey would make it hard to recover nearly enough.  

I would expect ECSA to realign this count to Labor vs One Nation early in the coming week and this is likely to then show One Nation being far enough ahead to not be caught.  William Bowe's estimate is 53.3-46.7 to Roylance and I think that is very realistic, though it could plausibly be somewhat closer.  An extremely strong flow from Keen would be needed for Labor to actually win.  (As noted in the Light section, Labor is actually outperforming One Nation on preferences in the seats where they have been thrown so far, but these are seats with Labor incumbents with huge primary votes, among other factors.)

Roylance has a strong CV, and while I've been extremely critical of the online support base One Nation is attracting and its (and their) behaviour on social media in this election, they are doing a good job of attracting more rounded looking and younger local candidates who (barring any vetting controversies) would not have been out of place in a major party.   If they can manage to retain such candidates once elected (a big if in that party's history) it's a promising sign for the party's current rise being more than a flash in the pan nationwide.

There is a similarly structured contest in Ngadjuri (Liberal 3.2%, nee Frome), the rural seat north of Gawler, but I see even less doubt that One Nation's David Paton will get that one, though I'm keeping an eye on it.  After prepolls with 63.05% of enrolment counted Paton has 34.5%, Tony Piccolo (ALP star who relocated from adjacent Light) has 28.9% and incumbent Penny Pratt (Liberal) has 26.1%.  With 5.0% also for the Greens, Piccolo will surely move further ahead of Pratt off their preferences and I cannot see how Pratt bridges the gap especially as the non-One-Nation minor right vote here is risible.  With Paton leading the very large Liberal preference batch should elect him very easily.

It's quite possible that in both Ngadjuri and Hammond we'll end up with something I never thought to encounter - a beaten Liberal Condorcet winner (the incumbents might beat both One Nation or Labor head to head, but can't get out of third on 3CP.)  One Nation are benefiting in these seats from Labor being high enough in the count that they don't have to face Labor preferences.  While I see not a lot of doubt about the fate of Hammond and very little about Ngadjuri I will keep an eye on the realignments.