2026 South Australian state election

Members of the House of Assembly are elected by instant-runoff voting using full preferential voting. Each electoral district elects a single member.

Members of the Legislative Council are elected by proportional representation using a single transferable vote. Members serve staggered eight-year terms with half of the Council elected at each state election.

2024 redistribution

Abolished district

The Electoral district of Frome was abolished and replaced with the district of Ngadjuri.

As required under the South Australian Constitution, the South Australian Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission must re-draw the boundaries of the House of Assembly electoral districts after each election.

The commission's report was handed down in December 2024. The report noted that given the outcome of the previous election, it was possible to achieve minimal disturbance in the redistribution. The only electoral district outside of the allowable electoral quota was Taylor, which was 12.6% over and projected to be 18.6% by the middle of 2026. Five other districts were calculated to have a quota variance at or above 8% by 2026: Croydon (+8.1%), Flinders (–8.0%), Giles (–10.1%), Kaurna (+10.0%), and Kavel (10.0%). In the draft report four months earlier, the commission had recommended changes to the boundaries of Flinders, Black, Croydon, Gibson, Morphett, and West Torrens, but decided to retain the boundaries from the 2020 redistribution. Changes were made to 16 of the 47 districts. The redistribution meant that only five districts had a variance quota greater than five per cent.^{[27]: 16–17}

The commission received two submissions to rename electoral districts. John Fulbrook, the member for Playford, requested that the district be renamed to avoid confusion with the City of Playford Council. He explained that his office once received 30 phone calls in a day from City of Playford ratepayers over a proposed increase in council rates. This suggestion was rejected, with the Commission stating that the electoral district has borne the name of Playford for 18 years longer than the local government area.^{[27]: 17–18}

Reggie Martin MLC made a submission concerning the name of the Electoral district of Frome. The district was named after the third Surveyor General of South Australia, Edward Charles Frome. Martin expressed concerns over the use of Frome's name due to his involvement in retributive actions against Aboriginal people in the Coorong area following the Maria massacre. The Commission sought further information from Dr Skye Krichauff, a historian specialising in South Australian colonial history and the relations between Aboriginal people and colonists, and Professor Irene Watson. The Commission determined that the district should be renamed, and received various submissions from Aboriginal organisations who have a connection to the area encompassed by the district of Frome. The name "Ngadjuri", meaning "we people", was chosen over the name "Cowie", meaning "water".^{[27]: 18–24}

Submissions were also made for the commemorative naming of electoral districts following the deaths of former premier Steele Hall, and Indigenous rights advocate Lowitja O'Donoghue. The Commission determined that the names were appropriate for an electoral district, however, it is current practice under the Geographical Names Act 1991 that a person should be dead for at least a year before their name is considered for commemorative naming. Submissions were also made for naming in honour of political activist Elizabeth Rose Hanretty, and former premiers John Bannon and David Tonkin. The Commission determined that their names may be appropriate for an electoral district in a future redistribution.^{[27]: 24–25}

The last state election was held on 19 March 2022 to elect members for the House of Assembly and half of the members in the Legislative Council. In South Australia, section 28 of the Constitution Act 1934, as amended in 2001, directs that parliaments have fixed four-year terms, and elections must be held on the third Saturday in March every four years unless this date falls the day after Good Friday, occurs within the same month as a federal election, or the conduct of the election could be adversely affected by a state disaster. Section 28 also states that the Governor may also dissolve the Assembly and call an election for an earlier date if the government has lost the confidence of the Assembly or a bill of special importance has been rejected by the Legislative Council. Section 41 states that both the Council and the Assembly may also be dissolved simultaneously if a deadlock occurs between them.^[28]

The Electoral (Miscellaneous) Amendment Act 2013 introduced set dates for writs for general elections in South Australia.^[29] The writ sets the dates for the close of the electoral roll and the close of nominations for an election. The Electoral Act 1985 requires that, for a general election, the writ be issued 28 days before the date fixed for polling (S47(2a)) and the electoral roll be closed at 12 noon, six days after the issue of the writ (S48(3(a)(i))). The close of nominations will be at 12 noon three days after the close of rolls (Electoral Act 1985 S48(4)(a) and S4(1)).^[30][31][32]

There were 18 political parties registered with the Electoral Commission of South Australia at the declaration of nominations on 2 March 2026.^[33] Parties in bold fielded at least one candidate in either the House of Assembly or Legislative Council election.

A total of 436 candidates are contesting the election for the 56th Parliament of South Australia, up from 291 in 2022, and the most in the state's history. 388 are standing for the 47 House of Assembly seats and 48 for the 11 Legislative Council vacancies. Of the 436 candidates, 268 are men, 164 are women, with four unspecified. The most heavily contested seats are Hammond and Port Adelaide with 12 candidates in each electorate. It is the first time that a single seat will be contested by more than nine candidates. By contrast, the least contested seat is Bragg, with just five candidates.^[34]

Five parties, Labor, Liberal, the Greens, One Nation, and the Australian Family Party, are contesting all 47 lower house districts. Antony Green notes that a majority of candidates are from minor right-wing parties, which would mostly disadvantage the Liberal Party as some preferences will leak away to Labor, who don't have to contend with a similar fracturing of support.^[35] A number of parties are fielding large numbers of candidates in the upper house election: Labor have seven candidates, Liberal and SA Best have five each, One Nation have four, and the Greens and the Australian Family Party have three each.^[36]

On 11 March, former AFL player Chris McDermott, the lead candidate for the Fair Go Party in the Legislative Council, quit the party citing irreconcilable differences, although he still appeared at the top of the party's upper house ticket and would have sat as an independent if elected. Sarah Game subsequently advised voters to not vote for the party in the Legislative Council, instead suggesting the Liberal Party could be the only "legitimate opposition [to the Labor Party]."^[37]

On 12 March, Carlton Woodhouse, the Liberal Party's candidate for Wright, was disendorsed after comments he made on an American podcast demonising Islam, feminism, same-sex marriage and "the trans agenda". As the disendorsement came after the close of nominations, Woodhouse still appeared on the ballot as the Liberal candidate. On the same day, party leader Ashton Hurn confirmed that while Woodhouse was no longer the party's candidate for Wright, the party would still honour Woodhouse's contract at Liberal Party headquarters. Liberal Senator for South Australia Alex Antić, who is aligned with the party's conservative faction, criticised the disendorsement saying that while he hadn't read what Woodhouse had said, "if this guy is disendorsed, or if he feels compelled to leave, we might as well shut the doors on this election with one week to go."^[38]

The day before the election, it was revealed that Aoi Baxter (also known as Trent Baxter), the One Nation candidate for Adelaide, had a warrant out for his arrest for failing to show up to a British court after he was charged with sexually touching a woman without consent. The party's media representative Richard Henderson was initially defensive when the Australian Broadcasting Corporation asked about the charges, commenting that it was a "charge but not conviction, right?". One Nation issued a statement to the ABC, stating that Baxter had not disclosed this information to the party and that it may be a different person. His profile was removed from One Nation's website shortly after^[39] and One Nation then banned the ABC from its election night party over its coverage of the incident.^[40]

After the election, an ABC News investigation revealed that two further One Nation candidates, Schubert candidate, Bruce Preece, and Mawson candidate, Tyler Green, had been selected by the party despite accusations of domestic abuse and antisemitism respectively. Preece had been subjected to interim intervention orders for domestic abuse between 2012 and 2020, with court records showing he was charged with breaching the protection order at least once, while Green had published more than a dozen extremist posts on social media, including comments about "Jewish bankster wars" and promoting Holocaust conspiracy book, The Six Million: Fact or Fiction?^[41]

Labor went into the election as firm favourites for a second term. By late 2025, multiple polls showed the Liberal Party would struggle to hold their marginal seats, with one internal poll suggesting they could be cut down to only three seats. By all accounts, this prompted opposition leader Vincent Tarzia to resign the party leadership in December. He was succeeded by first-term MLA and shadow health minister Ashton Hurn. Not only was Hurn the Liberals' fourth leader since 2022, but she was taking over with just over 100 days to go before the election.^[52]

The 2025 federal election was a warning sign of things to come. The Liberals lost their last seat in Adelaide when James Stevens lost Sturt to Labor challenger Claire Clutterham, leaving them with no seats in Adelaide for the first time since 1946.^[53] More ominously, the Liberals only won two Election Day booths out of over 400 in the capital.^[54]

A variety of polling organisations conducted nationwide and electorate-specific opinion polling for the election. Overall, polls predict a landslide victory for the Labor Party, with Labor having led every poll in both the primary and two party preferred vote. From the start of 2026 to the election, Labor’s polled vote ranged from 35% (Roy Morgan, 19–23 Feb 2026) to 44% (Newspoll, 11–17 Feb 2026).

Since the start of 2026, polls suggested that One Nation would record a higher primary vote than the Liberal Party; polled to be between 19% (DemosAU, 31 Jan–16 Feb 2026) and 28% (Roy Morgan, 19–23 Feb 2026), compared to the Liberal's 16.5% (Roy Morgan, 19–23 Feb 2026) and 20% (YouGov, 6–17 Feb 2026).

Graphical summary

This section is an excerpt from Opinion polling for the 2026 South Australian state election § Graphical summary.[edit]

The incumbent Labor Party government was re-elected for a second term, winning 34 of the 47 seats in the House of Assembly. This is a net gain of 7 seats from the previous election, giving Labor their highest seat count in their history, eclipsing their result at the 1930 state election, in which they won 30 seats. The Liberal Party has fallen to just five seats, a loss of 11, their worst position in their history. One Nation won the seats of Ngadjuri, Hammond, Mackillop and Narungga, the first time that the party had won lower house seats outside of Queensland. It was also the first time since 1979 that a political party, other than Labor, the Liberals, or the Nationals, had won a lower house seat in South Australia.^[69] Despite finishing four points ahead of the Liberals and doing well enough to render any attempt to calculate a statewide two-party vote meaningless, One Nation still finished one seat behind the Liberals. Its support was spread out across the state, and was not concentrated in enough areas to translate into seats. Additionally, the Liberals were the only party to direct preferences to One Nation in all seats. While One Nation made some inroads in Labor-held Adelaide seats, it was not enough to overcome minor left-wing preferences flowing overwhelmingly to Labor. In some rural seats, One Nation pushed Labor into third place, only for Labor preferences to flow overwhelmingly to the Liberals.^[70]

On 16 April 2026, the Electoral Commission announced that they had discovered 642 uncounted ballot papers in three recently returned sealed boxes. As a result of this, a recount was triggered in Narungga for 17 April, where 77 unopened ballot papers and 4 declaration ballot papers lodged in the neighbouring Stuart district were found.^[71] The recount indicated that the margin of Chantelle Thomas of One Nation, the winning candidate, would have increased from 58 to 74 votes if the missed votes were included in the final count.^[72]

House of Assembly

Main article: 2026 South Australian House of Assembly election

This section is an excerpt from 2026 South Australian House of Assembly election § Overall results.[edit]

More information Party, Primary votes ...

House of Assembly (IRV) – Turnout 88.7% (CV)

Party		Primary votes			Seats
		Votes	%	Swing (pp)	Seats	Change
	Labor	419,626	37.5	–2.5	34	7
	One Nation	256,022	22.9	+20.3	4	4
	Liberal	211,551	18.9	–16.8	5	11
	Greens	116,283	10.4	+1.3	0
	Independent	61,054	5.5	–1.8	4
	Family First	19,560	1.8	–1.9	0
	Legalise Cannabis	10,881	1.0	New	0
	Australian Family	9,298	0.8	+0.5	0
	Animal Justice	5,530	0.5	–0.1	0
	Real Change	2,965	0.3	+0.2	0
	Fair Go	2,746	0.2	New	0
	United Voice	2,062	0.2	New	0
	National	1,427	0.1	–0.4	0
	SA Best	257	0.0	–0.2	0
Total		1,117,714	100.0	–	47
Informal votes		50,001	4.3	+1.1
Turnout		1,167,715	88.7	–0.3
Enrolled voters		1,317,186	–	–
Source: Electoral Commission of South Australia[73]

Close

Seats changing hands

More information Seat, Pre-election ...

Seat	Pre-election				Swing	Post-election
	Party		Member	Margin		Margin	Member	Party
Colton		Liberal	Matt Cowdrey	4.8	14.7	9.9	Aria Bolkus	Labor
Finniss			David Basham	0.7	5.9	5.2	Lou Nicholson	Independent
Hammond			Adrian Pederick	5.1	0.2	4.9	Robert Roylance	One Nation
Hartley			Vincent Tarzia	3.6	8.3	4.7	Jenn Roberts	Labor
Kavel		Independent	Dan Cregan	25.4	15.7	10.6	Matt Schultz[c]	Independent
MacKillop		Independent	Nick McBride	22.6	23.5	0.8	Jason Virgo	One Nation
Morialta		Liberal	John Gardner	1.4	9.8	8.5	Matthew Marozzi	Labor
Morphett			Stephen Patterson	4.5	5.2	0.7	Toby Priest
Mount Gambier		Independent	Troy Bell[d]	13.1	2.7	10.4	Travis Fatchen	Independent
Narungga		Independent	Fraser Ellis	8.3	8.0	0.1	Chantelle Thomas	One Nation
Ngadjuri		Liberal	Penny Pratt	8.1	3.8	7.1	David Paton
Unley			David Pisoni	2.2	9.0	6.8	Alice Rolls	Labor

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Pendulum

Labor seats (34) Marginal Morphett Toby Priest ALP 0.7 Light James Agness ALP v ONP 1.6 Taylor Nick Champion ALP v ONP 4.2 Elizabeth Ella Shaw ALP v ONP 4.5 Hartley Jenn Roberts ALP 4.7 King Rhiannon Pearce ALP v ONP 5.2 Fairly safe Mawson Jenni Mitton ALP v ONP 6.6 Unley Alice Rolls ALP 6.8 Dunstan Cressida O'Hanlon ALP 8.1 Giles Eddie Hughes ALP v ONP 8.5 Morialta Matthew Marozzi ALP 8.5 Lee David Wilkins ALP v ONP 9.4 Colton Aria Bolkus ALP 9.9 Safe Reynell Katrine Hildyard ALP v ONP 10.1 Newland Olivia Savvas ALP v ONP 10.3 Hurtle Vale Nat Cook ALP v ONP 10.8 Kaurna Chris Picton ALP v ONP 12.0 Wright Blair Boyer ALP v ONP 12.5 Ramsay Zoe Bettison ALP v ONP 12.9 Gibson Sarah Andrews ALP 13.7 Port Adelaide Cheyne Rich ALP v ONP 14.4 Black Alex Dighton ALP v ONP 15.4 Torrens Meagan Spencer ALP v ONP 15.6 Florey Michael Brown ALP v ONP 16.1 Davenport Erin Thompson ALP v ONP 16.4 Cheltenham Joe Szakacs ALP v ONP 17.0 Playford John Fulbrook ALP v ONP 17.2 Adelaide Lucy Hood ALP 18.2 Enfield Lawrence Ben ALP v ONP 18.8 Elder Nadia Clancy ALP 19.1 Waite Catherine Hutchesson ALP 19.7 Very safe Badcoe Jayne Stinson ALP v ONP 21.2 West Torrens Tom Koutsantonis ALP v ONP 23.2 Croydon Peter Malinauskas ALP v GRN 24.0

Liberal seats (5) Marginal Heysen Josh Teague LIB 0.6 Fairly safe Chaffey Tim Whetstone LIB v ONP 6.0 Bragg Jack Batty LIB 8.5 Flinders Sam Telfer LIB v ONP 9.6 Safe Schubert Ashton Hurn LIB 17.4 One Nation seats (4) Marginal Narungga Chantelle Thomas ONP v LIB 0.1 MacKillop Jason Virgo ONP v LIB 0.8 Hammond Robert Roylance ONP v ALP 4.9 Fairly safe Ngadjuri David Paton ONP v ALP 7.1 Independent seats (4) Marginal Finniss Lou Nicholson IND v LIB 5.2 Fairly safe Stuart Geoff Brock IND v ONP 6.9 Safe Mt Gambier Travis Fatchen IND v ONP 10.4 Kavel Matt Schultz IND v ALP 10.6

Legislative Council

Main article: 2026 South Australian Legislative Council election

This section is an excerpt from 2026 South Australian Legislative Council election § Overall results.[edit]

More information Party, Primary votes ...

Legislative Council (STV) – Turnout 87.8% (CV)

Party		Primary votes				Seats
		Votes	%	Swing (pp)	Quotas	Seats won	Not up	New Total	Change
	Labor	412,455	36.8	–0.2	4.42	4 [f]	5	9
	One Nation	272,611	24.3	+20.1	2.92	3	0	3	3
	Liberal	199,306	17.8	–16.6	2.14	2	4	6	2
	Greens	114,676	10.2	+1.2	1.22	1	1	2
	Legalise Cannabis	26,646	2.4	+0.3	0.29	0	0	0
	Family First	23,864	2.1	–1.0	0.25	0	0	0
	Ungrouped/Independent	14,989	1.3	±0.0	0.14	0	0	0
	Animal Justice	14,622	1.3	–0.2	0.16	0	0	0
	Real Change	11,322	1.0	+0.1	0.12	0	0	0
	SA Best	7,157	0.6	–0.4	0.07	0	0	0	2
	Better Community	6,750	0.6	New	0.07	0	0	0
	Australian Family	5,835	0.5	–0.4	0.06	0	0	0
	National	5,560	0.5	–0.2	0.06	0	0	0
	Fair Go	3,292	0.3	New	0.04	0	1	0
	United Voice	2,245	0.2	New	0.02	0	0	0
Total		1,121,330	100.0	–	12.00	11	11	22
Informal votes		35,011	3.0	–0.6
Votes counted		1,156,341	In progress
Enrolled voters		1,317,186	–	–
Source: Electoral Commission of South Australia;[78] Australian Broadcasting Corporation[79]

Close

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's chief election analyst Casey Briggs reported a second term for Labor shortly after 7:45pm; within two hours of polls closing.^{[80]: 1:47:34} By the end of polling day, the ABC projected that Labor had won 30 seats to the Liberal's four, with 13 still in doubt.^{[80]: 4:45:06}

Ashton Hurn conceded defeat shortly after 9:30pm, announcing that she had called Peter Malinauskas to congratulate him on Labor's re-election. In her concession speech, Hurn remained optimistic, stating that "[the pundits] said that we wouldn't get a single seat, but tonight, we will prove them wrong."^[81] Despite the swing against the Liberal Party across the state, Hurn retained her seat of Schubert with a two-candidate-preferred vote of 67% against the One Nation candidate.^[82] Malinauskas claimed victory at around 10:15pm, thanking Hurn for her "poise and commitment throughout the course of the campaign" and wishing her success into the future. He also acknowledged One Nation's strong result, and recognised Cory Bernardi for calling to congratulate him on his victory. He said that he was ready to work with the leaders of the other political parties in Parliament, as long as it is in the interests of South Australians. He praised his Labor Party as being "one of the most disciplined, united political parties in the history of our federation", yet remained cautious, stating that the result should not be confused as adulation, instead seeing it as an "invitation to continue to work our guts out for the next four years". Towards the end of his speech, whilst reflecting on Australian "progressive patriotism", Malinauskas quoted a poem from Henry Lawson, which included the following stanzas:^[81]

Tis our duty to the stranger—landed maybe an hour— / To give all the information and assistance in our power. / To give audience to the new chum and to let the old chum wait, / Lest his memory be embittered by his first day in the state. / 'Tis our duty, when he's foreign, and his English very young, / To find out and take him somewhere where he'll hear his native tongue. / To give him our last spare moment, and our pleasure to defer — / He'll be father of Australians, as our foreign fathers were!

The Australian conducted a statistical analysis of One Nation's performance at the state election. The analysis found that swings towards One Nation were the largest in seats with low rates of postgraduate education, high rates of low-income earners, and high percentages of blue-collar workers. The party enjoyed its strongest support in rural and outer suburban areas.^[83]