South Australia Postcount 2026: Finniss

FINNISS (Lib vs ALP 6.7%, Lib vs IND 0.7%)

David Basham (Lib) vs Lou Nicholson (IND) 

Nicholson wins from fourth position on primaries.  Unprecedented in state and federal elections

(Link to tallyboard thread)

The Victor Harbour/Goolwa seat of Finniss sees a similarly messy count to Kavel with four candidates with currently very similar primary votes, as I start this thread with the prepoll not yet in and sadly only 33.1% of enrolment counted.  It may be very different after prepoll and it was very different in 2022.  On the night Lou Nicholson was on 54.7% 2CP vs Basham and the doubt seemed to be would she make the final two or not.  She ended up making the final two but very poor numbers on prepolls and absents resulted in Basham winning (just) 50.7-49.3.  Now, the rematch ...

As with Kavel this is another seat where nobody has a quarter of the primary vote.  Currently One Nation's Greg Powell (23.6%) leads Basham by six votes, with Nicholson on 20.5% and Phoebe Redington (ALP) on 17.6%.  The Greens have 7.2% and the top of the ballot paper, and have recommended preferences to Nicholson.  The others are Bron Lewis (a tealish sounding independent on 4.3%), Animal Justice 1.6%, Aus Family 1.2% Fair Go 0.4%.  

South Australia Postcount 2026: Kavel

KAVEL (Retiring IND vs Lib 25.4, notional Liberal vs ALP 3.5)

Matt Schultz (IND) vs David Leach (ALP) vs Bradley Orr (Lib) - Schultz expected to win

Link back to summary page

Sunday 22nd 11:50am: I really wanted to wait til the prepolls were in before unrolling postcount threads for the messy seats, because prepolls often put scenarios to bed.  But as it's taking a while to get there on Sunday, I will start the Kavel thread before that point (and probably the Finniss one too) and if things do later simplify then this is at least a time capsule of how insane this seat looked.  

The problem with the Mt Barker / Adelaide Hills seat is simple; nobody has any votes.  The succession war for the former conservative Liberal turned indie/Speaker/Minister Dan Cregan has produced a splatter of primaries with nobody with even a quarter of the vote (I'm wondering if this is some kind of record for a mainland state seat if it persists).  With just 39.5% of enrolment counted, Labor's David Leach leads on 23.9%, Cregan's nominal successor Matt Schultz has 20.7%, Christiaan Loch of One Nation has 19.7% and the Liberals' Bradley Orr has 17.3%.  The Greens have 12.8% and the detritus (ballot clutter makes good snail food) is Family First 1.7% Animal Justice 1.6% Real Change 1.1% Australian Family 0.5% Jacob van Raalte (IND) 0.5% and Fair Go 0.2%.