The Amazing 2026 South Australian Election: Final Lower House Results And Poll Performance

SA 2026 ALP 34 (+5) Lib 5 (-9) ON 4 (+4) IND 4 (-)
(Changes from pre-election/notional; Labor gained two seats from Liberal during 2022-6 term)

Estimated 2PP ALP 57.89 vs Liberal (+3.3)

Estimated "Shadow 2PP" ALP 58.19 vs One Nation

The 2026 South Australian lower house was remarkable in so many ways.  It makes Queensland 1998 seem almost boring by comparison, except that Queensland 1998 was there first.  Maybe all elections are going to be like this now and this soon will not seem so unusual but if that's so my colleagues and I are going to have a very busy time in the future!

All manner of curious things happened here.  Finally, someone (Lou Nicholson in Finniss) won a state or federal seat from fourth on primaries; hooray we have lived to see it.  Both majors missed the 2CP in Stuart and Mount Gambier in the first such cases since Nicklin 2001.  The Liberal Opposition missed more 2CPs (29) than they made (18) and were outpolled by One Nation (unprecedented) but are still the Opposition.  Worse than that they missed nine 3CPs as well and even managed to finish fifth in Port Adelaide and Black - Black being a seat they won at the previous election!  And so on.  It was obvious this was going to be a very messy election - a little while out I thought how on earth will we ever make a pendulum from THIS - but aspects of it were even more unique than I saw coming.

Legislative Council 2026: Rosevears

ROSEVEARS (2020 margin Lib vs IND 0.57%)

This is my second guide to the Legislative Council this year.  My guide for Huon is here and my latest guide to voting patterns in the upper house is up.   

I expect to be doing live coverage of the Legislative Council elections on this site on election night, scheduled for Saturday May 2.  However, updates to this page in the lead-up will probably be less frequent than normal. 

The current numbers in the Council are three Liberal, three Labor, one Green and eight independents, with the independents ranging fairly evenly across the Green to Liberal spectrum.  Labor gives up one vote on the floor and in the committee stages because it holds the Presidency.  As the major parties frequently vote together, the Government has not had an especially difficult time of it in the upper chamber lately, most notably getting the hugely controversial Macquarie Point stadium through 9 votes to 5.  But that is not to say the Liberals get everything their own way, for instance having their legislation to wind up greyhound racing referred to an inquiry.

This year sees just two Legislative Council contests, being the first defence for independent Dean Harriss in Huon and likewise for Liberal Jo Palmer in Rosevears.  

Tasmania Redistribution: The Reaction

Yesterday the AEC released public feedback on the proposed radical redistribution as previously covered here (Draft Scraps The Franklin Divide).  Frankly I thought there might be more complaints than there were, but some of those that there are are pretty punchy.  Of the 90 distinct submissions received, exactly half by my count discussed the proposed boundaries at all, and of these I counted 14 as purely supporting the proposal (one or two noting some initial reluctance in doing so) and 31 objecting, nearly all of these proposing something substantially different if they proposed anything at all.

Predictably the most common objections concerned the condition of Lyons and especially the placement of Glenorchy in it.  Objectors raised Glenorchy's disconnection from the bulk of Lyons through the inclusion of Brighton in Franklin, argued that neo-Lyons was thematically incoherent, complained about the severing of Glenorchy from Greater Hobart and also objected to rural Tasmania being fragmented into majority urban seats.  Submission 34 by Mark James is a good representative of the objections:

"Under the proposed model, rural/regional voters will be outnumbered by city voters in all five electorates. There is no community of interest at all between Glenorchy, Sheffield, and St. Helens. - For a state with a famously decentralised population, in which the majority of the population live outside the capital city, voters in the capital city will form the bulk of three out of five electorates."

Legislative Council Voting Patterns 2022-6

In the leadup to the 2026 Legislative Council elections for Huon and Rosevears (link TBA when I've written it) this article is my annual review of voting patterns on divisions in the upper house in the previous four years.  But before I get into it, I need to deal with some methods nerdery at the start.

Shy Division Losing

Some Labor MLCs aren't particularly fond of my findings, and they were especially defensive about a stat that in the small sample added to the mix last year Labor had voted with the Liberal Government 90% of the time.  (Fear not, in this year's sample it is 86%).  This even led to an attempt on election night live TV to shoot down (but not shag or marry) my methods in which it was falsely claimed that if there were thirty divisions on a single Bill I would include them all in my assessment.  Fortunately the incorrect claim has since been retracted.  

What in particular the Labor MLCs do not like goes to an unfortunate quirk of the LegCo's standing orders. When votes are called for on a motion they are initially taken on the voices.  The President or whoever is in the chair at the time declares a provisional result, eg "I think the ayes have it".  At this point someone can call for a division - but only if they are voting on the side that lost the call on the voices.  

In a case where the Government has no friends on a vote they might vote one way on the voices, but then not bother having that vote recorded to avoid embarrassment.  And in this case, while Labor voted the other way, there is nothing Labor can do here to cause a division such that them voting on the other side shows up in my figures.  This does sometimes happen, though no evidence that it happens often has been presented.  (I had thought this was in contrast to federal parliament because of something that happened in the same-sex marriage vote, but was mistaken - see comments.)

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: Hammond (And Ngadjuri)

Hammond (Lib 5.1%)
Robert Roylance (ON) vs Simone Bailey (ALP) vs Adrian Pederick (Lib)
Roylance expected to win

(Link to tallyboard thread)

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.

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%.  

South Australia 2026: Postcount Summary, Links Hub and Basic 2CP Contests

SEATS WON ALP 34 Lib 5 ON 4 IND 4

Seats covered

Finniss (Liberal) - Liberal vs One Nation vs IND, IND has won from fourth

Kavel (IND vacancy) - Labor vs IND vs One Nation, IND stayed in top two and won easily

Hammond (Liberal) - ON win staying in top two and beating Labor on preferences

Heysen (Liberal) - Liberal vs ALP or Green, Greens narrowly missed final two with Liberal defeating Labor (Liberal probably would have won anyway)

Light (Labor) - close but Labor win

Mackillop (notional Liberal) - One Nation narrow win over Liberal

Narungga (IND) - One Nation appears to have very narrowly won subject to recount.

Morphett (Liberal) - narrow Labor win

Ngadjuri  One Nation win.  

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL  5 ALP 3 ON 2 Lib 1 Green

South Australia 2026 Postcount: Heysen

HEYSEN (Lib 2.6%)

Josh Teague (Lib) vs Marisa Bell (Labor) and Genevieve Dawson-Scott (Green)

Teague very narrowly leads Bell, but Bell not sure of making the final two.  No direct information on Liberal vs Green flows

Link back to summary page

The first of my postcount threads focuses on the Adelaide Hills seat of Heysen, which was the Greens' biggest target seat at this election.  What do you get if you take Prahran 2014 and throw in a One Nation candidate with 14% of the vote?  Well something like whatever this is.  Because of the slow count in other threads and the relatively settled picture for the night in Heysen I've started writing this one on the night, and it will run ahead of the tally board thread.