By Andrew Hall
The final figures have now been released regarding the South Australian state elections on December 11, in which the Liberals swept the Labor Party aside with a landslide result.
However, Liberal control of both houses of state parliament was thwarted. Counting and preference distribution on the last upper house seat (which the Liberals needed for control) went on for several weeks before the seat finally went to the ALP. As reported in the Advertiser, the split voting tickets of the Australian Democrats and the Green Party SA almost handed the Liberals this last seat.
The view that the Liberals "took all" is far from the truth, as progressive alternatives also increased their support over the previous state election. When all alternative votes are combined in the upper house, they represent some 15-16% of the vote.
While this figure includes the Australian Democrats, their overall support fell by at least 1.5%, to 8% in the upper house.
One of the highlights of the campaign was the success of Clare McCarty and the "Education is the Key" campaign run by the South Australian Institute of Teachers. With 2% of the vote (almost 20,000 votes) they came fourth overall behind Liberal, Labor and the Australian Democrats in the upper house.
The SAIT campaign achieved the desired result in highlighting the weaknesses of the major parties' commitment to education and establishing a base from which to campaign on education needs after the election. This was accomplished despite pressure from the Labor Party and some trade unions not to run in the elections.
The total "Green vote" in the upper house also managed a good result, with some 14,000 votes being divided between the "de-development" Green Party SA and the social justice and green policies of the Green Alliance.
The Democratic Socialist Electoral League ran a very successful campaign, almost tripling the result in the seat of Adelaide (Andrew Hall) from the last election, and more than doubling the previous result in the western suburbs seat of Peake (Melanie Sjoberg).
Other successful campaigns were run by Brian Noone in the seat of Hart, with around 7% of the vote, and Kate Barrett in Colton, as well as the SA Greens in Heysen and Kaurna.