Historic result as One Nation clinches two seats in South Australia election
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation group has secured two Lower House seats in the South Australian parliament, while Sky News predicts the populist party could take a further three seats.
The gains in Hammond and Ngadjuri mark the first time One Nation has secured lower house seats at polls outside Queensland.
Robert Roylance, who worked as a primary school teacher in China, is set to become the member for Hammond, while Adelaide Plains Council Deputy Mayor David Paton is set to take over Ngadjuri from Labor’s Tony Piccolo, with preferences still being finalized by the South Australian Electoral Commission.
One Nation South Australia leader Cory Bernardi said Prime Minister Peter Malinauskas would prefer to keep the Liberal Party “alive as a controlled opposition”, with One Nation eyeing six seats in the upper house of parliament.
The former federal Coalition senator, who appears to have won a seat in the state’s upper house for One Nation, struck a defiant tone as counting continued in South Australia on Sunday.
Senator Hanson’s One Nation won 21 per cent of the first preference vote, dealing a blow to the major parties.
Labor received 40 percent of the primary vote in the lower house.
As of Saturday night, the Liberal Party was poised to pick up nearly eight lower house seats after receiving just 16 per cent of the primary vote in the upper house, while also trailing One Nation, which had about 23 per cent of the vote.
Addressing the media, Mr Bernardi said the party was still “in the hunt” in a two-party preferred race for “five or six seats in the upper house”.
“It looks like we’re going to pick three people,” he said.
“This could potentially restore the balance of power for the Legislative Council with what remains of the Liberal Party and some independents.”
Mr. Bernardi said some voters “put one in the One Nation box” when voting.
He claimed that these votes were considered unofficial and would not be counted until Monday.
“In some seats this now means up to 5 percent of the votes are counted unofficially,” Mr. Bernardi said.
“So I think we’ll improve our situation in some of these seats in the future. I hope that’s the case. But you know, if we’re denied representation in the South Australian parliament because of a comfortable agreement between the Liberal and Labor parties, that would say everything, prove everything I’ve said about one-party politics in this state.”
Mr Bernardi said Labor would “prefer to keep the Liberal Party alive as a controlled opposition”.
However, the result will give One Nation “the strongest voice ever for South Australia in that parliament”.
“One Nation has learned a lot from this campaign and it means we will be a much more formidable force in the next election,” he said.
