Senate – South Australia – Australia 2025

Incumbent Senators

¹tLeah Blyth replaced Simon Birmingham on 6 February 2025 following Birmingham’s resignation.

• History
• 2022 result
• Preference flows
• Candidates
• Assessment

History

South Australia was represented by five Labor senators and five Liberal senators from 1951 until the 1961 election, when the ALP managed to gain a 6-4 majority. A 5-5 balance was restored in 1967.

Former Liberal premier Steele Hall was elected in 1974 on the ticket of the Liberal Movement, taking a seat away from the Liberal Party. Hall was re-elected in 1975, while the Liberals regained their fifth seat at the expense of the ALP. Hall retired in 1977 and was replaced by Janine Haines of the Democrats. The 1977 election saw the Democrats lose the seat, with the Liberals winning six seats to the ALP’s four.

Haines was returned to the Senate for the Democrats in 1980, alongside five Liberals and four ALP senators. The 1983 double dissolution saw the ALP win a fifth seat off the Liberals. In 1984, the Democrats won a second seat while each major party held five seats. This pattern continued until 1993, when the Liberals won a sixth seat off the ALP, producing a 6-4-2 pattern which was maintained until the 2004 election.

The 2004 election saw the former Democrats seat (belonging to Meg Lees) lost to the ALP, producing a 6-5-1 split. In 2007, Natasha Stott Despoja’s seat was lost. The Liberal Party also lost one of their six seats. The ALP and Liberals each now hold five Senate seats, along with independent Senator Nick Xenophon and Sarah Hanson-Young of the Greens.

In 2010, the ALP lost one of their three seats to the Greens’ Penny Wright, producing an overall split of 5 Liberals, 4 Labor, 2 Greens and one independent.

2013 was a low-point for Labor, falling into third place behind the Nick Xenophon group. Sarah Hanson-Young, Nick Xenophon and the two Liberal senators were re-elected, but Labor only retained one of their two seats, with the final seat falling to Family First’s Bob Day.

The Liberal Party and the Greens both lost seats in 2016. The Greens lost one of their two seats, while the Liberal Party dropped from five seats to four. Both of these seats went to the Nick Xenophon Team, who won a second and third seat.

Family First senator Bob Day was forced to resign from the Senate in 2016 due to ineligibility. He was replaced by Lucy Gichuhi, who went on to join the Liberal Party.

Nick Xenophon resigned from the Senate in 2017 to unsuccessfully contest the 2018 South Australian state election, and was replaced by Rex Patrick. Fellow NXT senator Skye Kakoschke-Moore was forced to resign due to citizenship issues, and she was replaced by Tim Storer, who had stood in 2016 for the Nick Xenophon Team but sat in the Senate as an independent. Xenophon withdrew from politics in 2018 and his party was renamed “Centre Alliance”.

Storer retired in 2019, and Kakoschke-Moore stood unsuccessfully. The third NXT seat, along with the Family First seat, were absorbed by the Labor and Liberal parties, who each gained one seat. The Greens retained their one seat, while the two Centre Alliance senators were not up for election.

The two remaining Centre Alliance senators both lost their seats at the 2022 election. Rex Patrick left the party and ran his own independent ticket, while Stirling Griff ended up running as Nick Xenophon’s running mate on an independent ticket, but neither came close to winning. The Greens picked up a second seat, and the Liberal Party picked up the other former CA seat. This produced an overall split of 6 Liberal, 4 Labor and 2 Greens.

2022 result

Preference flows
Four seats were won on primary votes: two for the Liberal Party and two for Labor.

We can now fast forward to the last nine candidates contesting those last two seats:

• Barbara Pocock (GRN) – 0.9313 quotas
• Kerrynne Liddle (LIB) – 0.4051
• Jennifer Game (ON) – 0.3281
• Trimann Gill (ALP) – 0.2896
• Michael Arbon (UAP) – 0.2403
• Nick Xenophon (IND) – 0.2359
• Tyler Green (LGC) – 0.2011
• Ian Markos (LDP) – 0.1768
• Rex Patrick (RPT) – 0.1654

Patrick preferences flowed most strongly to the Greens and Labor, followed by Xenophon and the Liberal:

• Pocock (GRN) – 0.9682
• Liddle (LIB) – 0.4298
• Game (ON) – 0.3434
• Gill (ALP) – 0.3261
• Xenophon (IND) – 0.2623
• Arbon (UAP) – 0.2488
• Green (LGC) – 0.2099
• Markos (LDP) – 0.1804

Over half of Liberal Democrats preferences flowed straight to the Liberal candidate, pushing her quite far ahead of the pack fro the final seat.

• Pocock (GRN) – 0.9796
• Liddle (LIB) – 0.5232
• Game (ON) – 0.3621
• Gill (ALP) – 0.3441
• Xenophon (IND) – 0.2656
• Arbon (UAP) – 0.2619
• Green (LGC) – 0.2160

Legalise Cannabis preferences flowed most strongly to the Greens, followed by Labor, One Nation and UAP. It was enough to push Pocock over a quota for the fifth seat:

• Pocock (GRN) – 1.0475
• Liddle (LIB) – 0.5416
• Game (ON) – 0.3935
• Gill (ALP) – 0.3808
• Arbon (UAP) – 0.2905
• Xenophon (IND) – 0.2735

Pocock’s small surplus mostly flowed to Labor:

• Liddle (LIB) – 0.5457
• Gill (ALP) – 0.4130
• Game (ON) – 0.3955
• Arbon (UAP) – 0.2927
• Xenophon (IND) – 0.2758

Xenophon preferences flowed most strongly to Labor and Liberal, pushing Labor further ahead of One Nation:

• Liddle (LIB) – 0.6280
• Gill (ALP) – 0.5182
• Game (ON) – 0.4261
• Arbon (UAP) – 0.3105

UAP preferences favoured One Nation very strongly, pushing Game ahead of Gill:

• Liddle (LIB) – 0.6681
• Game (ON) – 0.6064
• Gill (ALP) – 0.5566

Labor preferences mostly exhausted but favoured the Liberal over One Nation, giving Liddle the final seat:

• Liddle (LIB) – 0.8684
• Game (ON) – 0.6679

Liddle’s final margin over One Nation was 0.2 quotas.

Candidates

• A – Tyler Green (Libertarian)
• B – Imelda Adamson Agars (Fusion)

• C – Liberal
  1. Alex Antic
  2. Anne Ruston
  3. David Fawcett

• D – Labor
  1. Marielle Smith
  2. Karen Grogan
  3. Charlotte Walker
• E – Frankie Bray (Animal Justice)
• F – Rex Patrick (Jacqui Lambie Network)
• G – Nicole Smeltz (Trumpet of Patriots)
• H – Monique Crossling (Nationals)
• I – Jordan Shane (Australia’s Voice)
• J – Rob Lonie (People First)
• K – Jessica Nies (Legalise Cannabis Party)
• L – Louise Ackland (Citizens Party)
• M – Christopher Brohier (Family First)
• N – Sarah Hanson-Young (Greens)
• O – Madeleine Wearne (Sustainable Australia)
• P – Jennifer Game (One Nation)

• Ungrouped
  1. • Kosta Hadjimarkou (Independent)
     • Janette Francis (Independent)

Assessment
It seems most likely that South Australia will produce another split of three left and three right. There is a danger the Liberal Party could lose their third seat to a minor party of the right such as One Nation.

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