Peter Malinauskas is South Australia’s new Premier after Labor claimed victory at the state election held on Saturday.
It’ll be days before the final seat count is known but Labor appears to be set to hold 25 seats, and could end up with 27 seats at the end of the counting process.
The Liberals will retain 15 seats, while Independents appear to control the remaining 5 seats in the state’s parliament.
Saturday’s election result sees Labor returned to power after just four years in opposition, with Steven Marshall’s government’s coming to an end after a single term. Marshall’s own seat in in doubt, although the outgoing Premier has said he’s confident there will be enough votes to get him over the line.
In his victory speech Malinauskas thanked the South Australian people for their support.
“It is not lost on me the significance of the privilege and the size of the responsibility that you have invested in me and my team,” he said.
“Which means for all of my MPs tonight, particularly the newly minted ones, and I’m incredibly proud of each and everyone of them, it means that we’ve got a big job to do.”
Peter Malinauskas said the goal of his government was to realise an ambition and ideal of delivering a fairer, better society and more opportunities for South Australians.
“I do believe we have the policy and the plan to realise that ambition” the new Premier said.
Outgoing Premier Steven Marshall said he was proud of his government’s achievements.
“We came to government four years ago, an incredible situation, since then we’ve had fires, floods, fruit fry, the coronavirus and bushfires. I think we leave South Australia is an immeasurably better situation than what we found four years ago.” Marshall said.
Marshall said he appreciated that Australians had the opportunity to live in a free and democratic society.
“When I look around the rest of the world at the moment, there’s a lot of turmoil, in fact there’s a lot tumultuous situations and volatile situations in Australia too, but I feel very grateful that we live in a democracy where everybody get their vote, and today the people of South Australia have spoken.”
OIP Staff
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