South Australian State Election, 2010
The 2010 South Australian state election elected members to the 52nd Parliament of South Australia on 20 March 2010. All seats in the House of Assembly or lower house, whose current members were elected at the 2006 election, and half the seats in the Legislative Council or upper house, last filled at the 2002 election, became vacant.
The incumbent centre-left Labor Party government led by Premier Mike Rann was elected to a third four-year term over the opposition centre-right Liberal Party led by Leader of the Opposition Isobel Redmond. Labor's landslide 7.7 percent swing to a two-party-preferred vote of 56.8 percent at the 2006 election was reversed at this election with a swing of 8.4 percent, finishing with a two-party vote of 48.4 percent, however, Labor retained majority government with 26 of 47 seats, a net loss of two. Labor lost the inner metropolitan seats of Adelaide, Morialta and Norwood to the Liberals while Nationals SA member Karlene Maywald lost her rural seat of Chaffey to the Liberals. Independent Kris Hanna lost to the Labor candidate in Mitchell, independents Bob Such in Fisher and Geoff Brock in Frome retained their seats (the latter having won at the 2009 by-election), while independent candidate Don Pegler won Mount Gambier, replacing outgoing independent Rory McEwen. Jay Weatherill took over from Rann as Premier and Labor leader in October 2011.
In the upper house, both major parties won four seats each, with the last three to the SA Greens, Family First, and Dignity for Disability. The composition of the upper house therefore became eight Labor, seven Liberal, two Green, two Family First, two independent No Pokies, and one Dignity for Disability.
Like federal elections, South Australia has compulsory voting, uses full-preference instant-runoff voting in single member seats for the lower house and single transferable vote group voting tickets in the proportionally represented upper house. The election was conducted by the Electoral Commission of South Australia (ECSA), an independent body answerable to Parliament.
Read more about South Australian State Election, 2010: Campaign, Polling, Date, Previous Parliament, See Also, External Links
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