One Nation South Australian leader Cory Bernardi says Labor Premier Peter Maliauskas would prefer to keep the Liberal Party “alive as a controlled opposition” as the populist party eyes six upper house seats.
The former Liberal senator, who looks to have won a seat in the state’s upper house for One Nation, struck a defiant tone on Sunday as counting continued across South Australia.
Senator Hanson’s One Nation took home a significant 21 per cent of first preference votes in the lower in a blow to the major parties.
Labor won just shy of 40 per cent of the primary vote in the lower house.
As of Saturday night, the Liberal Party was poised to pick up about eight lower house seats after receiving just 16 per cent of the primary upper house vote, where it was also behind One Nation which racked in about 23 per cent.
Addressing the media, Mr Bernardi said the party was still “in the hunt” in the two-party preferred race in “five or six seats in the upper house”.
“It looks like we’ll get three people elected,” he said.
“That, potentially with what’s left of the Liberal Party, and some independents, it may actually provide the balance of power for the Legislative Council.”
Mr Bernardi said a number of voters had “just put one in the One Nation box” when voting.
Those ballots were deemed informal and will not be counted until Monday, he claimed.
“Now, in some seats, that’s up to 5 per cent of the votes that are deemed informal,” Mr Berardi said.
“So, I think we will improve our status in some of these seats here going forward. I hope that’s the case. But, you know, if we are denied, representation in the South Australian parliament because of a cozy deal between Liberal and Labor, that says everything, it proves everything that I’ve said about the uni party politics in this state.”
Mr Bernardi said Labor would “prefer to keep the Liberal Party alive as controlled opposition”.
Nonetheless, the result would give One Nation the “strongest voice for South Australia that has ever been in that Parliament”.
“One Nation has learned many things from this campaign, and that means that we will be an even more formidable force at the next election,” he said.
Not ‘a single seat’
South Australian Liberal Leader Ashton Hurn has snapped back at One Nation as the minor party beat the opposition’s primary vote in Saturday’s state election.
“We still need to see all the votes come in. They haven’t won a single seat yet,” Ms Hurn told the media on Sunday.
“They’ve not been able to secure a single seat in the lower house, as far as I can see.”
Ms Hurn admitted there were “lessons to learn”.
“The feedback that I was having from people right across the state is that they just want to see politicians get back to basics,” she said.
“I think you can all agree that that’s really been the cornerstone of my campaign.
“There’s still a lot of work to do, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve been proud of the policy platform that we’ve put forward.
“We had a relatively short runway, just 100 days, and it was always going to be a tall order.”
Turning to Labor, Ms Hurn noted other conservative party’s abilities to turn around their fortunes in a small space of time.
“I think my message to the Premier is don’t look at how many numbers we’ve got, but we’re going to be a really effective opposition,” she said.
“It is not healthy to have a government that can just get away scot-free with failures. They need a strong opposition, and that’s what the Liberal Party will provide us.”
Ms Hurn said it was important the party get “back to basics” and that “we’ll do some reflecting over the next little while”.
“But, we’re not going to spend too much time dwelling because there’s a lot of work to be done,” she said.
“I’m looking forward to just rolling up my sleeves and getting on with it.”
Labor voters turn orange
Labor voters turned to One Nation despite a thumping win for the ALP government in South Australia, the re-elected Premier Peter Malinauskas has admitted.
Mr Malinauskas comfortably secured a second term on Sunday night in a poll marked by the rise of One Nation
As the dust started to settle on Sunday morning, Mr Malinauskas admitted on ABC not only Liberal voters had turned to One Nation.
“I also think we saw Labor voters moving to One Nation,” he said.
Asked if he believed One Nation’s had yet to reach its “upper limit”, Mr Malinauskas warned “the moment you start assuming the upper limit on any political opponent, is the moment your primary vote starts going down”.
Nonetheless, Mr Malinauskas said he wanted to “expose” One Nation.
“You look at One Nation’s contribution in the South Australian campaign, what you see is a lot of rhetoric, a lot of rhetoric, and almost zero policy,” he said.
“They made a virtue out of it almost, that they’re not offering a policy proposition to the people of our state in terms of how we govern ourselves.
“What we have to do – mainstream parties of government and obviously Labor being the most important, in my view – is to make sure that we’re keeping an eye on the cultural sense of the party itself and what we stand for.
“But, at the same time, making sure that we do offer a clear policy agenda, particularly around growing prosperity and sharing opportunity.
“Now, if we did both those things in concurrence with one another, I think it will expose One Nation as being a little bit more symbolic rather than serious about using the power of government to achieve things for people.”
Mr Malinauskas dodged questions about any future federal pivot, stating he was “very grateful” to be Premier.
But he had a message for his federal and state colleagues.
“You’ve got to make sure that, first and foremost, the economic settings are right to ensure that a growing economy doesn’t leave people behind and actually delivers a dividend for more people to have a degree of prosperity in their lives,” he said.
“But, culture and economics, I think, are always front of mind.”
‘Be upset’
Barnaby Joyce who quit the Nationals to join One Nation said the right-wing populist party was talking about how to better vet candidates after one SA hopeful was found to reportedly be facing sexual touching charges in the United Kingdom.
Aoi Baxter was running in the seat of Adelaide, but was dumped when the allegations came to light on the eve of the state election.
Speaking on Sky News on Sunday, Mr Joyce said every party was “going to have mistakes”.
He said One Nation was “talking to colleagues, former colleagues and the Labor Party about how other people deal with it so we can become better”.
Mr Joyce would not say, however, who they were speaking to.
Mr Joyce said “everyone was preferencing against” One Nation.
“The Labor Party would prefer the Liberal Party than One Nation because they see One Nation as the real opposition,” he told Sky.
He also lashed his former SA coalition colleagues over their stance on net-zero.
“You’re not going to get cheap power if you believe in net zero. It just doesn’t happen,” he said.
“We believe in building coal fired power stations. That upsets you? Be upset. We believe that strongly controlling immigration. If that upsets, you’d be upset.
He denied the party were “bigots and racist”.
“We’re not at all. We’re not at all,” he said.
Mr Joyce did, however, heap certain praise on the Premier.
“The Labor Party, let’s be frank, is red hot,” he said.
“I mean, there’s a lot of things you can say about Peter, but he’s a good-looking guy.”
Lessons from SA loss
The wholesale scrapping of the Coalition’s policy platform in the wake of its devastating 2025 election loss left a “vacuum for Pauline Hanson to walk in”, former Nationals leader David Littleproud says.
Mr Littleproud told Nine on Sunday morning the results marked a “big showing” for One Nation, The Nationals’ primary rival in its rural heartland, having “increased their votes significantly from basically scratch”.
“I think the lesson for that – not just in South Australia, but federally – is that people are angry,” he said.
“If you look at where the polls are federally, they don’t like any of us.
“The reality is no one’s sitting there with 50 or 40 per cent of the primary vote in any of the polling. Everyone’s scratching around that 20 to 30 per cent.
“That’s because people are angry because they’re hurting and they’re looking for direction.
Mr Littleproud said the lesson “out of this poll and out of the polls we’ve seen is you’ve got to stand for something”.
The Maranoa MP stepped down earlier this month as Nationals’ leader, citing fatigue.
He had been instrumental, however, in two collapses in the Coalition with then-Liberal leader Sussan Ley, but has since voiced support for new leader Angus Taylor.
On Sunday, he said the “biggest mistake” made by the Coalition after its election loss in May was to “basically abolish all policies”.
“That left a vacuum for Pauline Hanson to walk in,” he said.
“She’s a consummate professional as a politician, so she’s taken advantage of that.”
Mr Littleproud said there was a “significant opportunity” for the Coalition under Mr Taylor, noting Anthony Albanese lacked the popular support of Mr Malinauskas.
The Labor premier was at pains on election day on Sunday to point out Senator Hanson was a Queenslander.
On Sunday night, she snapped back, telling supporters: “Guess what, mate … I’m going to leave you some landmines.”
One Nation is poised to take at least two upper house seats – with state leader Cory Bernardi assured of one – as well as one or potentially more lower house seats.
