South Australian state election, 1997

11 October 1997 (1997-10-11)

All 47 seats in the South Australian House of Assembly 24 seats were needed for a majority 11 (of the 22) seats in the South Australian Legislative Council

	First party	Second party

Leader	John Olsen	Mike Rann
Party	Liberal	Labor
Leader since	28 November 1996	5 November 1994
Leader's seat	Kavel	Ramsay
Last election	37 seats	10 seats
Seats won	23 seats	21 seats
Seat change	14	11
Percentage	51.5%	48.5%
Swing	9.5%	9.5%

Premier before election

John Olsen
Liberal

Resulting Premier

John Olsen
Liberal

State elections were held in South Australia on 11 October 1997. All 47 seats in the South Australian House of Assembly were up for election. The incumbent Liberal Party of Australia led by Premier of South Australia John Olsen defeated the Australian Labor Party led by Leader of the Opposition Mike Rann, forming a minority government with the SA Nationals and independent MPs.

**House of Assembly (IRV) — Turnout 91.75% (CV) — Informal 4.04%**
Party	Votes	%	Swing	Seats	Change
Liberal Party of Australia	359,509	40.40	-12.41	23	-14
Australian Labor Party	312,929	35.16	+4.79	21	+11
Australian Democrats	146,347	16.45	+7.35	0	0
Nationals SA	15,488	1.74	+0.63	1	+1
Independent Liberal	6,970	0.78	*	1	+1
Independents	27,870	3.13	+0.01	1	+1
Other	20,801	2.34		0	0
Total	889,914			47
Liberal Party of Australia	WIN	51.50	-9.50	26	-11
Australian Labor Party		48.50	+9.50	21	+11

Independents: Rory McEwen, Mitch Williams

Background

Following the 1993 landslide to the Liberals, ending 11 years of Labor government, Labor now led by Mike Rann held just 11 seats in the House of Assembly. The Liberals held 36 seats and there were no independent or minor party members in the House of Assembly. They had held a record 37, but lost one at the 1994 Torrens by-election. However the Liberals were suffering from heightened internal tensions. Premier Dean Brown had been toppled by Industry Minister and factional rival John Olsen in a 1996 party-room coup. Olsen had been in office for around 12 months on election day. Even with the leadership change, Labor needed a 13-seat swing to make Rann premier, a deficit thought insurmountable when the writs were dropped.

To the surprise of most observers, Olsen lost the massive majority he'd inherited from Brown. Labor polled exceptionally well, regaining much of what it had lost in its severe defeat of four years earlier. Indeed, on election night many Liberal observers feared that Labor had managed the swing it needed to regain government. Ultimately, Labor picked up 10 seats, three seats short of victory. The Liberals lost a massive 14 seats; 11 to Labor (including one at a 1994 by-election), one to the Nationals, and two to conservative independents. Labor received a record two-party swing of 9.5 percent, as opposed to the previous record of 9.1 percent to the Liberals at the last election. Olsen were forced to seek the support of the Nationals and the independents to stay in office at the helm of a minority government.

The election was also notable for the Australian Democrats' strongest lower house performance in South Australia, falling short by two percent to one of the party's predecessors, the Liberal Movement (LM), who contested the 1975 state election. Though the Democrats did not win a lower house seat compared to the LM who won two, the Democrats finished second after preferences in seven seats compared to the LM in three seats. In the South Australian Legislative Council, the Democrats retained the balance of power, which they had held uninterrupted since their inception in the mid-1970s. As it turned out, however, the Democrats' influence in South Australia crested at this election. During this parliamentary term, the Democrats would lose the sole balance of power for the first time, sharing the balance of power with Nick Xenophon and two ex-Labor independent members. They would slowly lose numbers and influence, losing their remaining parliamentary representation as of the 2010 election.

Post-election Pendulum

For previous pendulums and maps, see South Australian state elections.

LIBERAL SEATS (26)
Marginal
Gordon	Rory McEwen	IND	0.1% v LIB
Hartley	Joe Scalzi	LIB	0.7%
Stuart	Graham Gunn	LIB	1.5%
Heysen	David Wotton	LIB	1.9% v AD
Chaffey	Karlene Maywald	NAT	2.6% v LIB
Frome	Rob Kerin	LIB	2.9%
Colton	Steve Condous	LIB	4.0%
Davenport	Iain Evans	LIB	4.3% v AD
Unley	Mark Brindal	LIB	4.5%
Mawson	Robert Brokenshire	LIB	4.7%
Adelaide	Michael Armitage	LIB	5.4%
Waite	Martin Hamilton-Smith	LIB	5.9% v AD
Fairly safe
Bright	Wayne Matthew	LIB	6.2%
Light	Malcolm Buckby	LIB	6.3%
Kavel	John Olsen	LIB	6.3% v AD
Finniss	Dean Brown	LIB	7.3% v AD
Coles	Joan Hall	LIB	7.8%
MacKillop	Mitch Williams	IND	7.9% v LIB
Newland	Dorothy Kotz	LIB	8.0%
Schubert	Ivan Venning	LIB	8.7% v AD
Fisher	Bob Such	LIB	9.8%
Flinders	Liz Penfold	LIB	10.0% v NAT
Safe
Morphett	John Oswald	LIB	13.0%
Hammond	Peter Lewis	LIB	14.7%
Goyder	John Meier	LIB	17.2%
Bragg	Graham Ingerson	LIB	18.8%

LABOR SEATS (21)
Marginal
Norwood	Vini Ciccarello	ALP	0.8%
Mitchell	Kris Hanna	ALP	0.9%
Florey	Frances Bedford	ALP	1.3%
Elder	Pat Conlon	ALP	2.6%
Wright	Jennifer Rankine	ALP	3.1%
Reynell	Gay Thompson	ALP	3.7%
Hanson	Steph Key	ALP	5.6%
Kaurna	John Hill	ALP	5.8%
Fairly safe
Peake	Tom Koutsantonis	ALP	7.0%
Lee	Michael Wright	ALP	7.1%
Napier	Annette Hurley	ALP	9.5% v AD
Safe
Torrens	Robyn Geraghty	ALP	10.1%
Giles	Lyn Breuer	ALP	11.4%
Playford	Jack Snelling	ALP	12.9%
Elizabeth	Lea Stevens	ALP	14.3%
Ross Smith	Ralph Clarke	ALP	14.8%
Ramsay	Mike Rann	ALP	18.2%
Taylor	Trish White	ALP	22.2%
Hart	Kevin Foley	ALP	22.7%
Spence	Michael Atkinson	ALP	23.3%
Price	Murray De-Laine	ALP	24.4%

Metro SA: ALP in red, Liberal in blue. These boundaries are based on the 2006 electoral redistribution.

Rural SA: ALP in red, Liberal in blue, Independents in white, Nationals in green. These boundaries are based on the 2006 electoral redistribution.

Legislative Council Results

1997 Legislative Council Result (STV GV)
Party			Seats
	Liberal Party of Australia	37.8%	4
	Australian Labor Party	30.6%	4
	Australian Democrats	16.7%	2
	No Pokies	2.9%	1
	HEMP Legalise Marijuana	1.7%
	SA Greens	1.7%
	Grey Power	1.6%
	United Australia Party	1.3%
	Nationals SA	1.0%
1997-2002 Legislative Council
Party			Seats
	Liberal Party of Australia		10
	Australian Labor Party		8
	Australian Democrats		3
	No Pokies		1

In the Legislative Council, the Australian Democrats won two seats for the first time. Elected were 4 Liberal, 4 Labor, 2 Australian Democrats, and No Pokies candidate Nick Xenophon. Carrying over from the 1993 election were 6 Liberal, 4 Labor, 1 Democrat; leaving the numbers at: 10 Liberal, 8 Labor, 3 Democrats, 1 No Pokies.

Both on 1.72%, the HEMP Legalise Marijuana party received 15432 votes and the SA Greens received 15377 votes.

Labor upper house members Terry Cameron and Trevor Crothers would resign from the party in 1998 and 1999 respectively, resulting in the permanent end of two decades of the Democrats holding the sole balance of power.

Legacy

The 1997 result put Labor within striking distance of winning government at the next election in 2002. John Olsen was left with internal disquiet over the leadership challenge and poor election result while his opponent, Mike Rann, was seen to have 'won' the campaign despite losing the election.

On 6 February 2007, Mike Rann told parliament that some in the Liberal party had leaked information to him before and during the election campaign. The following quote by Rann is from Hansard on 6/2/2007 :

"You asked me a question and I will give you a 55-minute answer, because you will remember one day when I came into this place and I had, I think, 880 pages of cabinet and other documents... I remember being telephoned and told to go to a certain cafe, not in a white car but in a taxi, and then to walk in a zigzag fashion through the streets of a suburb, where I was to be handed cabinet documents. So much for their cabinet solidarity and cabinet confidentiality! There was a queue on the telephone telling us what had happened the day before. It was the same during the 1997 election campaign. People thought, `How does this guy (the leader of the opposition at the time) know intuitively exactly what John Olsen is doing the next day?' It was because I was being phoned and told! So, do not talk to me about cabinet solidarity lest I come in here and start naming names, which will set off another generation of disputation on the other side of the house. Anyway, cabinet approved, among other things, on 20 December 2006 minister Lomax-Smith's proposed statement and approved her to announce publicly that she opposed the proposal in cabinet. She did so because we agreed that she should be able to do so. Somehow I do not think that John Olsen agreed to what happened when I was getting the phone call at 6 o'clock in the morning and at midnight, and walking in a zigzag pattern through suburbs to be handed a cabinet bag and cabinet documents. We have a different approach. We agreed to it. It was a cabinet decision to agree to it. So, please, ask me some more questions, because there were two different camps involved in this leaking to the then poor unpopular leader of the opposition, and I am more than happy to name names."

References

1997 election maps and results: Antony Green ABC archive
History of South Australian elections 1857-2006, volume 1: ECSA
"Background leading up to the election/Liberals in power". Crikey. Archived from the original on 2008-06-29.

Political Parties

Elections and referendums in South Australia

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