Hello, and welcome to the second volume of my South Australian politics tracker! The original tracker was getting abit unwieldy (turns out adding dozens of news clips nearly 100mb big takes a toll on a Blogger page, whodatunk). I'm going to continue covering SA politics and its updates in this thread here, but if you want to check out the original thread (I highly suggest you do for continuity's sake), check it here.
12/11/2025 - Sarah Game's Anti-Abortion bill fails
In some good news, for a saga that keeps on happening despite everyone wanting it to be done with, Sarah Game's anti-abortion bill has failed. The bill, which sought to tightly restrict abortion after 23 weeks, was voted down 8-11. Before I note the 'known voters' below, I did want to quickly go over the abhorrent campaign ran by the anti-abortion campaigners. Namely, Joanna Howe. Howe, a professor of law at the University of Adelaide, has been the main figurehead and power behind the anti-abortion push in SA. You may remember her from the last vote where she literally intimidated Jing Lee into changing her vote, and was subsequently banned from parts of parliament for her conduct. Well, with this ongoing campaign, Howe has only (somehow) managed to stoop lower. She recently created an AI ad, using the deeply saddening story of a mother who had an abortion as its backdrop, and superimposing an AI-generated baby onto the mother telling the story. The AI-generated baby continually guilted the mother for her choice, in an ad which may be the coldest I have seen in my entire life. Meanwhile, today, Howe made her own 'game' out of the abortion debate, promising people points for a raffle if they paid for words which may be said by those debating in the Legislative Council. Safe to say, this abhorrent behaviour didn't go unnoticied in parliament, with Tammy Franks especially tearing Howe down.
Moving on from the disaster that is Howe, as I mentioned, the bill was voted down 8 votes for to 11 against. While we don't have the full identities of who voted where, we do have some, courtesy of reddit user /u/Expensive-Horse5538 and their thread here. According to them, the voters were as such;
Those who voted against the bill:
- Kyam Maher (Deputy Premier, ALP)
- Tammy Franks (Independent)
- Robert Simms (Greens)
- Michelle Lensink (Liberals)
- Jing Lee (Jing Lee – Better Community)
- Ian Hunter (Labor)
- Connie Bonaros (SA Best)
- Mira El-Dannawi (ALP)
- Emily Bourke (ALP)
- Justin Hanson (ALP)
- Russell Wortley (ALP)
Those who voted for the bill:
- Sarah Game (Fair Go)
- Ben Hood (Liberals)
- Heidi Girolamo (Liberal)
- Nicola Centofanti (Liberal)
- Dennis Hood (Liberal)
- Clare Scriven (ALP)
- Tung Ngo (ALP)
- Frank Pangallo (Liberals)
*Should also be noted that Laura Henderson (Liberal, for the bill) and Reggie Martin (ALP against the bill) paired out due to Henderson being on maternity leave.
Now, you may be wondering why Tung Ngo and Clare Scriven voted for the bill, being Labor and all? Well, they're both deeply catholic, with Scriven being especially religious. She is so religious that, quite recently, she attended the 'Seeking God for SA' Conference, which saw her speak alongside Deepa Mathew (Family First), Christopher Brohier (Family First), Dennis Hood (Liberals), and Ben Hood (Liberals). Her vote here is not that shocking all things considered, and both her and Ngo voted for the previous anti-abortion bill in 2024. What is more interesting is Jing Lee's vote against the bill, which she says is due to a year of research and education, and which I think is just down to her wanting to spite Howe. Both options are valid, in any case.
What this means for the state election is quite interesting. Game has already said she won't be backing down from the anti-abortion rhetoric, and so I assume she'll bring it into the next election as a policy. However, I doubt the whole saga has gone the way she wanted it, as she now has lost a key vote in the Legislative Council and is stuck with Joanna Howe as a hanger on (or is it the other way around?). Either way, Game and Howe probably aren't finished with their, and pardon my french, bullshit, so don't be shocked to see them here again soon.
News Articles
ABC | Abortion legislation voted down in South Australian Parliament
07/11/2025 - 12 new Greens candidates drop
Well, yesterday we got our biggest individual candidate 'drop' of the year, with the Greens revealing 12 new candidates for seats from Badcoe to Port Adelaide. Some are familiar electoral faces, others are new, and one is (and I say this with all sincerity), a legitimate clown. So follow me as I go through the 12 candidates one by one.
- Josh Andersen-Ward (Badcoe)
The first candidate on our list is a completely new one as far as I can tell. Andersen-Ward's not got any electoral experience to speak of, but he does have some significant credentials to back him up. He's been a corporate lawyer for SA Water, a Paralegal for RSA Law, a Complaints Officer for the Commonwealth Ombudsman, a Facilities Support Officer for CSIRO, and is currently studying his Masters in Accounting and Finance. He's not really the type of candidate you'd expect to be running for the Greens (finance and legal guy doesn't strike me as the type), so I'll be interested to hear more about him.
- Sarah Luscombe (Black)
Our second is our first returning electoral candidate. Luscombe is probably best known as being the Green's candidate at the 2024 by-election for Black when David Speirs resigned from the seat. At that election, she won 13.1% of the vote, up by 1.3% from Liz Tidemann's result in 2022. She is also another local politician entering the 2025 election, being a councillor for the Coastal Ward of the City of Marion. She is also a clinical psychologist, working primarily with children. All of this is to say that Luscombe is probably the most 'promising' of the bunch, though with rumours that Speirs is eyeing a return to politics, it seems that Black will be a very difficult seat to contest.
- Susan Ditter (Bragg)
Ditter does not have much on her in regards to her current life in South Australia. Annoying, I know. However, her past does shed some light on her. She was a board member for the Pride Foundation Australia in Tasmania, the Executive Officer of Working It Out, and the chair of the board for the National LGBTI Health Alliance. All of this is to say that she is, obviously, an LGBTQI+ ally and advocate (as can be seen by her parlimanetary submissions on multiple issues). She is also the granddaughter of Otto Kurt Ditter, founder of Ditters Nuts which can be found in the Adelaide Arcade.
- Matthew Wright (Colton)
There is barely anything out there about Matthew Wright, and most searches for him are dominated by the Matthew Wright who played for the Adelaide Crows between 2011-2015. I can tell you two things about him though. Firstly, he was the Greens candidate for Hindmarsh at the 2025 federal election, winning 13.6% of the vote there (down 0.3% from 2022). Secondly, he is not the Matthew Wright who was the candidate for Sturt for the Nick Xenophon Team at the 2016 federal election who wasn't actually sure what NXT stood for. Unfortunately for Wright, and his future SEO, he's sandwiched between a middling football player and a mostly forgotten political candidate that will still overwhelm him search engine wise.
- John Photakis (Davenport)
Another Greens candidate who there is scarcely little about, and who also contested a previous election. And trust me, I tried finding anything about Photakis, I've known about his candidacy for weeks, and theres just nothing. What little I can find is from him, and it is essentially is that he's a 'stupol hack' (ahving been in student council at Flinders Uni and student voice at TAFE SA), and is a perennial candidate. He contested Kingston at the 2025 federal election for the Greens, getting 13.5% of the vote (up 1% from 2022), at the 2022 federal election for the Greens, getting 12.4% of the vote (up 3.2% from 2019), and Davenport in the 2022 state election for the Greens, getting 9.4% of the vote (up 2.2%). His candidancy for the Greens actually goes all the way back to the 2018 state election (also for Davenport), and he was a council candidate for the Thalassa Ward of the City of Onkaparinga in 2022. All that is to say that, him having nothing but politics on the internet means there probably isn't much more there in reality, but he's only gone up in votes year-on-year, so we'll see if he does any better this time round.
- Stef Rozitis (Elder)
Rozitis has a long resume of teaching going on for over a decade. She's been a school teacher, a preschool teacher, and a tutor at all three major universities. More interesting to me, she is a member of the 'Woke Lesbo Symposium', "a collective of writers from Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia of diverse backgrounds, gender identities and sexual orientations whose members produce creative work and scholarship within a social justice framework." She's also a previous candidate of the Greens, having ran for the seat of Badcoe at the 2018 state election, getting 7.9% of the vote (down 3.9% but that is due to the seat being redistributed from the seat of Ashford and the existence of NXT).
- David Deex (Elizabeth)
Another previous candidate of the Greens, Deex ran for the seat of Spence in the 2022 federal election, winning 11.3% of the vote (up 4.14%). He is also a member of the Anti-Poverty Network. Perhaps most notable about them is that they were the Youth Governor for the 2024 South Australian Youth Parliament. Deex's speech as Youth Governor included a quote from the village people, so, there's some good taste there at least.
Deex as Youth Governor at the back
McGee is another one of the Greens candidates with a long resume. She's been a tutor/manager for the International College of Hospitality and Management, the University of Adelaide, and TAFE SA. She's also been an assessor for foundational English at two colleges and the academic team leader at a military technological college, all in Oman, as well as Head of Oman's Dental College and Project Manager for the British Council in Oman. Finally, she's also been an english teacher in Korea and Japan as well. Add on her volunteering experiences with Girl Guides SA and Backpacks for Kids, and she seems to have a veritable wealth of world experience, at the very least. Honestly, where do people find the time?
- Melanie Searle (Hartley)
Off the bat, Searle is the most like Labor's most recent candidates, in that, like them, she was already very well connected to the party's internals. Searle has been the executive assistant for the SA Greens for the last two years, and before that held a litany of various jobs. These include Medical Secretary for an Endoscopy Clinic, Personal Assistant to Investment SA's CEO, Project Officer for Health Industries SA, an Audio Typist for Urology SA, and an Executive Assistant at Baptist Care SA. Not much to say about her politically, but she has got a degree in International Development which she specifically highlights on her candidate page.
- Sean Weatherly (Kaurna)
Weatherly might be my favourite candidate of the 2026 state election so far. Firstly, he is a previous candidate, having ran for the Greens in Kaurna in the 2022 state election, winning 10.8% of the vote (up 1.7%). He's been a council candidate before for the city of Onkaparinga and is a member of the Anti-Poverty Network. All of this though pales into what actually makes me interested in him, in that he is a genuine stage performer. Now, he does say he is also a film and TV performer on his website, but his IMDB suggests he has been, at best, an extra with a couple of lines. However, he has his own stage production company, Loaded Productions, which has performed at various Fringe festivals and has the ongoing musical "Price Check! The Supermarket Musical". This musical is described as "The world's first post Covid-19 musical, set in a suburban supermarket the year after the pandemic" and all its messaging seems very socially conscious, but I'd be interested to watch it. Finally, and perhaps most notable to me (and I want to state I am not making any fun here, I am just genuinely interested), Weatherly has, for the last 15 years, preformed as Noodles the Clown. This, and his alternate persona Pirate Sean, mean that it is highly likely many South Australians who are voting for the first time this election may have had Weatherly at their childhood birthdays, which I think is an incredibly interesting concept. I've linked the photos down below mainly because I'm interested to see if anyone who stumbles across this blog has any experience with Noodles.
A new entrant into the political arena, Isabella Litt is, in her own words, "a certified yoga teacher, meditation enthusiast, intuitive tarot reader, and facilitator of women's circles". She is qualified in Vinyasa, Yin, and Tibetan (Mastery of) Yoga, as well as being a counsellor, and a Usui Reiki Master. I assume you're as confused as I am, and if you're not, please let me know what all this means.
- Hayden Shaw (Port Adelaide)
Now, Shaw is perhaps the most non-Greens candidate I've ever seen. He is an Army vet, a small business owner and a financial professional, and a volunteer for sporting organisations. Atleast, thats what his candidate page says he is, as, also unlike most Greens candidates, he's not easy to find online. If I find more, I'll write it in here.
25/10/2025 - Hammond's got a new candidate (that I missed)
Just a short supplementary update to the thread, since I somehow missed this a couple days prior. Labor has announced their candidate for Hammond (the seat that holds Murray Bridge), it being Mid-Murray Mayor Simone Bailey. Bailey's got a background in finance (everything from being an auditor, to an investigator, to an accountant) and otherwise is a board member for an aged care association and Country Arts SA.
She's the third announced candidate for Hammond, following the Liberal's Adrian Pederick (the current MP), and Independent Arline Keen (Mayor for Murray Bridge).
News Articles:
25/10/2025 - Housing is back on the menu
This week has seen the Greens, Labor, and the Liberals all dish out (atleast part) of their housing policy going into the coming election. They range from good, to eh, to not good respectively, even if the Liberals get points for creativity.
Breaking it down chronologically, the Greens were first off the block with their housing policy announcement. While the headlines were a $6.7bn cost with plans to build 20,000 public homes in 4 years and clear out the public housing maintenance backlog (which is currently at an unsustainable level), perhaps most interesting is the fact that the Greens announced their goal of re-establishing the SA Housing Trust as a publicly owned builder. The Trust would then be the one to develop those 20,000 homes and clear out the backlog without having to engage with private contractors. This, of course, is both a short- and long-term policy. Unchaining the housing trust from its need to work with private companies would allow it to focus on building up public housing to combat the current housing crisis, and also plan additional housing supply in the long term. As such, there's not much to complain about with the Greens' policy, especially as they also announced that they'd be establishing a Commissioner for Rental Tenancies who'd have the power to investigate and enact penalties around renters' rights infringements.
From this good (and cohesive) policy, we move onto the Liberals, whose policy left alot to be desired. Really, I'm shocked it was announced as a standalone policy. Their policy is a $40mil fund to build 4,000 prefabricated and modular homes by 2032. Note, that is around 666 homes per year from 2026, versus the Greens' 5,000 homes per year. There's not really much to talk about with this policy other than it's half-baked and otherwise not the most helpful on its own, though points for creative thinking that the housing crisis can be fixed in this manner.
And finally, today Labor has announced its latest housing policy. The policy is a $500m guarantee fund that apartment developers in the CDB can join. This fund would see the government guarantee up to 50% of a development's apartments (up to a $30m cap) and buy apartments that remain unsold for 10% less than the market rate. There's alot of terms and conditions attached to it that aren't super relevant right now, but broadly, this is an eh policy. It'll likely fast-track a few apartments, but as far as I can tell there's no restriction on whether these apartments need to be affordable, built for families, or built well. Without that, it's possible that developers building apartments for short-term living or the rich will attach themselves to this guarantee, and that won't really help the housing crisis. It also isn't a comprehensive or long-term policy, and is lacking ambition. I would've preferred a government with a near-certain chance of a total victory at the election to bring out policies which could be described in any of those ways, but maybe I ask too much.
To end this update, I should note that the SA Socialists have had their party registration approved. Based on the InDaily article I'll link, and my own conversations with them, they'll be having their conference in November where they'll be revealing their candidates. For now, I've edited the party tracker, which you can find here.
News Articles:
News Clips
9 News
21/10/2025 - A Poll finally lands in our laps
For readability's sake, I've provided the polls at the bottom of this post.
Rejoice! The wait for state polling has finally finished. Seriously, we were in a major drought there for a second, with no poll since May and no poll featuring the Legislative Council since September 2022! The poll is highly welcome, as it provides me room to both confirm my speculation, and speculate even more. I'll leave the in-depth analysis to those who know it, I'm no expert on methodology or polling numbers, but it should be noted that the poll was undertaken by DemosAU and Ace Strategies and surveyed 1,006 South Australians with a 3.9% margin of error.
Now, diving into the poll, there's actually not much to discuss in regards to the lower house. Labor polled at 66% 2PP and 47% primary (both 1% lower than the last poll) while the Liberals have polled a dismal 34% 2PP (1% lower) and 21% primary (no change). There are no kind words to be said here for the Liberals' result, it is a horror show of the most disastrous proportions. And interestingly, this isn't a result I am entirely shocked by. The current talk around Adelaide is that some of the Liberal's internal polling has shown that Labor will win every seat in the state bar the ones held by Independents. This poll, rather worringly for the Liberals, seems to fall on the side of that talk being true. But its not all sunshine and rainbows for the 'left' in SA either. The Greens saw their primary polling drop from 13% to 11%, in what may be a repeat of the federal election for them. It does not help that the Greens are being assailed from two sides, with the resignation of Tammy Franks from their party and the foundation of the SA Socialists. Finally, 'Other' recieved a result of 19%, which would be incredibly high come the election, but does also show what I suspect to be a desire for independent candidates in specific seats (think Keiran Snape in Adelaide or Ryan Harrison in Unley).
I want to move on from the boring lower house, though, to talk about the super interesting upper house. Labor polled at 37%, while the Liberals got only 17%. According to InDaily, this is a drop of 17.4% since the previous election for the Liberals (Labor had no change), an absolute shattering for the party, with it being projected that they would on win 2 seats to Labor's 4. One Nation meanwhile polled at 12%, 7.8% higher than the last election, and the Greens polled at 11%, 2% higher than the last election. Both parties were predicted to get one seat each, meaning that if the election was held today, Christel Mex and Carlos Quaremba would be joining the Legislative Council. It'd also mean that only Ben Hood and Heidi Girolamo would retain their seats from the Liberals, with all their other candidates having to fight over scraps. But there are scraps to be fought over, as according to the polls, 3 seats are in doubt.
And that is where the minor parties come in. 3 parties have polled at 4%, those being the Animal Justice Party, Legalise Cannabis, and SA-Best. Both AJP and SA-Best saw increases of over 2%, while Legalise Cannabis rose by just under 2%. This, imo, is the best indication that there's want for more from Labor and the SA political scene in general. SA-Best is essentially a dead brand run by a single politician (Connie Bonaros) who barely uses its name. AJP and Legalise Cannabis, while rising 'stars' across the political scene, are still not the most significant or well-run parties. And yet, if the preferences fall their way, all three parties have a shot at getting a seat. If you don't believe me, Sarah Game won her seat off just over 4.1% of the vote due to preferencing in 2022, and now we have 4 parties essentially at the same percent, atleast according to this poll. Moving on though, we have two parties who each polled at 3%, the Australian Family Party (Bob Day in a trenchcoat) and Family First, having gained 2.1% and lost 0.1% respectively. This is interesting for three reasons. Firstly, that Bob Day in a trenchcoat is able to take on the national Family First Party, whose playing in a usual strong state for them. Secondly, that 6% of South Australians want to vote for a 'Family' Party, and that they evenly split themselves amongst the two. And that thirdly, if the parties unified, according to the poll they'd have 6% of the vote which would probably be more than enough to get them a seat. Horrifying when you look at it that way, really.
Only 1 party got 2%, that being Stephen Pallaras - Real Change SA. Not much to say here, he's up 1.1% from the election, so he must be doing something right. If the 'mysterious' crash he was in doesn't slow him down, he could fight a real law and order campaign. And that takes us to the 1% parties. This includes the Nationals, who I consider an essentially dead party here, Sarah Game's Fair Go for Australians and the United Voice Australia Party. Game will probably not be happy that her party polled so low, considering it has a sitting MLC, recognisable names such as Henry Davis and Jake Hall-Evans, and the support of people like Dr Joanna Howe. Sitting next to Mark Aldridge's UVAP cannot feel good when you think of it like that (though Aldridge has been eternally shilling his party everywhere he goes). It is likely that the skyrocketing PHON poll has destroyed Sarah Game's chances, although there is every chance that the arrival of Turning Point SA (whose host, George-Alexander Mamalis is very close friends with Game and Davis) could turn things around if the conservative brand supports Fair Go. I'd absolutely hate it though. Ah, and before I forget, Jing Lee - Better Community polled an astonishing 0%. Maybe if the party had a better name or candidates or policies or something, it might do better.
Before I round off this post, I did want to note what the poll excluded. Or more specifically, the parties it excluded. The Libertarians, SA Socialists, and Australian Citizens Party were not avaliable to be chosen for this poll. As such, those parties may very well shift the balance. The Libertarians will likely not poll higher than 1%, two Family Parties and One Nation will likely keep their vote down, while the ACP will get a result at the bottom of the election (but maybe in front of Jing Lee). Really, the Socialists are the most interesting, in that a good campaign from them may see them taking votes off the Greens in a space that isn't really contested.
LOWER HOUSE
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