Parliament of South Australia, House of Assembly election
Election of 17 March 2018
Government in office and parliamentary support before and after the election
Government in office at election
Government in office after election
Enrolment and voting
South Australia, House of Assembly votes and seats won
Election held on 17 March 2018
Criteria for the inclusion of parties in this table are set out in the Glossary under 'listed party'
| Party Name | First preference vote n | First preference vote share % | Change from previous election % | Seats won n | Uncontested seats held n | Seat share % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal Party | 398,182 | 37.97 | -6.81 | 25 | 0 | 53.19 |
| Australian Labor Party | 343,896 | 32.79 | -3.01 | 19 | 0 | 40.43 |
| Nick Xenophon's SA-BEST | 148,360 | 14.15 | * | 0 | ||
| Australian Greens | 69,826 | 6.66 | -2.05 | 0 | ||
| Independents | 36,780 | 3.51 | +0.79 | 3 | 0 | 6.38 |
| Australian Conservatives | 31,826 | 3.03 | * | 0 | ||
| Dignity Party | 15,565 | 1.48 | * | 0 | ||
| Animal Justice Party | 3,262 | 0.31 | * | 0 | ||
| Danig Party of Australia | 732 | 0.07 | * | 0 | ||
| Stop Population Growth Now Party | 284 | 0.03 | * | 0 | ||
| Votes for other than listed parties | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 | |||
| Totals | 1,048,713 | 100.00 | 47 | 0 | 100.00 |
Previous election in this series | Display Chart
* Party did not contest previous election or did not meet criteria for listing, or contested previous election under a different party name.
Notes
Government in office after election: Although the Liberal Party had been the party with the most first preference votes at every Assembly election since 1989, it had only been in office for seven of the ensuing twenty-nine years, forming governments after the elections of 1993 and 1997. At this Assembly election in 2018, the Liberal Party lost just under 7 percent of its first preference vote share compared with the previous Assembly election in 2014 but won three more seats to give the Liberals a clear majority in the Assembly.
The leader of the Liberal Party, Marshall, was commissioned as Premier of a Liberal Party majority government on 19 March 2018.
Nick Xenophon's SA-BEST: Nick Xenophon was elected as an Independent member of the South Australian Legislative Council from 1997 to 2007 before being elected to the Senate at the 2007 Senate election and taking his seat in 2008 as an Independent senator from South Australia. He was reelected to the Senate in 2013 as a member of the Nick Xenophon Group and, as the leader of the Nick Xenophon Team at the double dissolution election of 2016, was returned together with two other Senate candidates from his Team. Xenophon used his influence in the South Australian Legislative Council and the Senate whenever he held the balance of power in these chambers to pursue centrist policies.
In July 2017 Xenophon registered Nick Xenophon's SA-BEST as a party to contest the 2018 South Australian Parliamentary elections. He resigned from the Senate in October 2017 to stand as a candidate for the House of Assembly. The party endorsed 36 candidates for the 2018 election and gained over 14 percent of the first preference votes for the Assembly but was unable to to win an Assembly seat. For the context of the party's role in the election, note Rob Mainwaring, 'The Popular Mr X', Inside Story, 26 January 2018, online here. [accessed 26 March 2018].
Independents: The votes and seats allocated to Independents in the table above were gained by candidates who ran for office at this election in 2018 without any party affiliation. There were 15 of such candidates, 7 of whom added some distinguishing phrase after their designation as Independent. These included 'Practical Experienced', 'Community Counts', 'Representing You', and one 'Independent Australian Democrats'.
Three members who had been sitting in the Assembly as Independents at the dissolution of parliament were reelected: Frances Bedford in the seat of Florey (she had resigned from the Australian Labor Party in March 2017); Troy Bell in Mount Gambier (he had resigned from the Liberal Party in August 2017); and Geoff Brock in Frome who had represented the seat as an Independent since 2009 (Brock had been a minister in the Weatherill Australian Labor Party and Independent coalition government from 2014 to 2018).
Australian Conservatives: The Australian Conservatives became registered as a political party in South Australia in July 2017. The party had its origin as group of activists in 2016 led by Cory Bernardi who had been a Liberal Party senator from South Australia since 2006 but had resigned from the Liberal Party in 2017 to lead the Australian Conservatives. The party held socially and economically conservative views and merged with Family First in South Australia. The Australian Conservatives fielded 33 candidates at this Assembly election in 2018 but gained only 3 percent of the first preferences votes, half the total that Family First had won at the 2014 South Australian Assembly election.
Dignity Party: The Dignity Party had been registered as a political party in South Australian since 2009 but its candidates had campaigned at elections under several labels including Dignity 4 Disability (see 2010 and 2014 Assembly elections in this series). At this Assembly election in 2018 the party fielded 30 candidates and succeeded in raising its first preference vote share to 1.5 percent, but its focus was on retaining the seat in the Legislative Council that the party had won in 2010 [results for South Australian Legislative Council elections are not yet included in this Database].
Danig Party of Australia: The Danig Party supported a range of interventionist policies on a wide range of topics; it fielded 4 candidates at this election but gained only 0.07 percent of the first preference vote.
Sources
The voting figures in the table above are taken from the Electoral Commission of SA website 'House of Assembly State Summary' online here [accessed 26 March 2018].