Fourth seat likely, but One Nation faces new challenge
Abe Maddison |
One Nation is set to clinch a fourth seat in the South Australian election, but the party faces a struggle to “keep everyone in the tent”, political analysts say.
Ten days after Labor’s historic victory in the 47-seat lower house, only the result in the seat of Narungga is yet to be decided.
Labor has 34 seats, the Liberal Party five and One Nation three, with four independents.
Flinders University public policy lecturer Josh Sunman said while the two-party preferred count in Narungga was close, it appeared One Nation’s Chantelle Thomas had defeated Liberal Tania Stock, although a recount was likely.
On Monday, the Liberals’ Rebekah Rosser conceded to One Nation challenger Jason Virgo in the regional seat of MacKillop while David Paton had won Ngadjuri and Robert Roylance claimed Hammond.
One Nation has also secured three upper house seats, including state party leader and former Liberal senator Cory Bernardi.
“If history is any lesson here, One Nation is going to struggle to keep everyone together in the tent,” Mr Sunman told AAP.
“Cory is a Christian Right conservative, we have Jason Virgo, who’s a former sex party candidate … there’s a lot of competing ideas and perspectives in that caucus.”
He noted that in Queensland in 1998, none of the 11 MPs they elected stayed in the party for the whole term.
One Nation’s first SA MP, Sarah Game, was elected to the upper house in 2022 but quit in May 2025 to become an independent.
Adelaide University emeritus professor of politics Clem Macintyre said a party room of seven across the two chambers was “a very substantial result” for One Nation.
“I wait with great interest to see how long they stay together as a coherent party,” he told AAP.
“One Nation has a terrible history of members being elected under their banner and then walking out on the party.
“So if the party implodes in the next four years, and the Liberals can begin to recover their ground, then a seismic election might be followed by one that sees us return to a bit more situation normal.”
Much would hinge on whether the Liberals manage their workload as an opposition with only five lower house members, Prof Macintyre said.
The Labor win was still the headline event of the election and Premier Peter Malinauskas was “a formidable politician at the peak of his powers”.
“Even though Labor’s vote dropped I don’t think there is a major party in Australia that would get a 37 and a half per cent primary vote at the moment, with politics the way it is,” he said.
The challenge for Mr Malinauskas would be to keep his party busy.
“He needs to find work for everyone … and maintain that extraordinary level of discipline,” Prof Macintyre said.
AAP