South Australian legislative election, 2002
| 2002 South Australian state election major party leaders |
|---|
| Labor | Liberal |
|---|
| | |
Mike Rann
Opposition Leader | Rob Kerin
Premier of South Australia |
| Parliament | 16 years | Parliament | 8 years |
| Leader since | 1994 | Leader since | 2001 |
| District | Ramsay | District | Frome |
Legislative elections for
Parliament of South Australia were held in
South Australia on
9 February 2002. The
Australian Labor Party led by
Mike Rann defeated the incumbent
Liberal Party led by
Rob Kerin by just one seat, despite Labor receiving only 49.1% of the
two party preferred vote, to win government for the first time since 1989.
This was the first election since Labor narrowly lost as opposition in the
1997 election, doing much better than most analysts predicted, after their comphrehensive loss in the
1993 election where the ALP were reduced to just 10 seats. Coming into the 2002 election, the
Liberal Government had faced a number of scandals including the Motorola affair, over which Premier
John Olsen was forced to resign. However, the new Liberal Premier
Rob Kerin was successful in communicating a more positive message to voters and presented a more down to earth image than either his predecessor or
Australian Labor Party leader
Mike Rann.
Under its state constitution, South Australia holds legislative elections approximately every four years. The Electoral Act stipulates that the election campaign must run for a minimum of 25 days and a maximum of 55 days.
In accordance with electoral regulations, the Electoral Commissioner then advertised key dates for this election of all 47 members of the House of Assembly and eleven members of the Legislative Council:
* Close of rolls
* Nominations
* Polling Day
* Return of Writs
At the election, Labor won two seats from the Liberals, the districts of
Adelaide (
Jane Lomax-Smith) and
Colton (
Paul Caica). This gave Labor 23 seats, the Liberals 20 seats with one National (
Karlene Maywald) and three conservative independents (
Peter Lewis,
Bob Such and
Rory McEwen). In order to form majority government, a party needed 24 seats out of 47.
Most analysts expected
Rob Kerin to form a minority government with the support of all the independents. However, on
13 February, independent Peter Lewis announced that he had signed an agreement to support a Labor Government with a number of conditions including support for parliamentary reform and concessions for his electorate. Following parliamentary precedent established by
Don Dunstan following the
1968 election, the Kerin Government refused to resign until after Rann and Labor demonstrated that they had majority support on the floor of the House of Assembly. The Liberal Government was defeated on the floor of the House of Assembly on
March 5,
2002 and Labor took office promptly after.
|
Metro SA: ALP in red, Liberal in blue, Independents in white. Please note that these boundaries are based on the latest electoral redistribution. |
|
Rural SA: ALP in red, Liberal in blue, Independents in white, Nationals in green. Please note that these boundaries are based on the latest electoral redistribution. |
In the
Legislative Council, Liberal won 5 seats, Labor 4,
Australian Democrats 1, and the recently formed
Family First party won their first ever seat in an Australian parliament. This left the overall numbers in the Legislative Council at: Labor 7, Liberal 9, Democrats 3, Family First 1, and 2 independents (
Terry Cameron and
Nick Xenophon).
*
South Australian legislative elections*
South Australian Legislative Council*
South Australian House of Assembly*
State Electoral Office - 2002 resultsGeneral information
*ABC Election Guide - South Australia 2002 Election
;Political Parties
*Australian Labor Party
*Liberal Party of Australia
*Australian Greens
*Australian Democrats
*Family First Party
*The Nationals
