Talk:Premier of South Australia

Left/Right
"Before the 1890s, there was no formal party system in South Australia. Party labels before that time indicate a general tendency only." Does anyone know what "general tendencies" the governments before the 1890s had, and if so is there a way to indicate this in the article without referring to them as Labor/Liberal (for obvious reasons) or "left" and "right"? I'm not sure myself but would be quite interested to find out and indicate them in a meaningful and correct way. Timeshift 15:28, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Free trade vs protectionism seems to be mentioned in quite a few articles of the time. --Scott Davis Talk 22:47, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Well done Wikipedians
Nice to see that the SA parliament website relies on us for something :-) Click "Premiers of South Australia" on this page Timeshift 14:54, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Maybe we should seek permission to use their images in that case Screech1616 (talk) 13:44, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Something wrong at bottom of page
Grr... can anyone figure it out? Timeshift (talk) 11:50, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Ahh, thanks Peter. Timeshift (talk) 12:19, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Party leader template
I have created an SA ALP leader template. How far back should an SA Liberal leader template go? Eastick was the first Liberal Party leader, LCL has a seperate wiki page with 4 leaders and should have another template? Timeshift (talk) 03:01, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Saw the ALP template; great job as I hadn't realised I had missed Kirkpatrick. Eastick would be the logical choice for the first Liberal leader and I can't see why the LCL shouldn't have a template of its own. --Roisterer (talk) 03:46, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Done. Will do navboxes, and earlier templates, when I have some more time. Timeshift (talk) 05:52, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Done - but I don't if it's worth doing it for leaders prior to the LCL as parties get a little bit fluid before them. Timeshift (talk) 10:01, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Also i'm surprised nobody picked up on John McPherson. Timeshift (talk) 09:46, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Good spot. --Roisterer (talk) 12:43, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Comm Lib Party
Removed CLP refs, per http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A110181b.htm - The Liberals exhibited a new assertiveness: in 1906 they had formed the Liberal and Democratic Union with a network of branches... Stung by Labor's April election victory, in September 1910 the anti-Labor parties amalgamated to form the Liberal Union, with Peake as parliamentary leader. Timeshift (talk) 03:20, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Don dunstan.jpg
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Error - who was Labor leader 1916-1917?
If Vaughan left Labor in 1916 to help form the NLP, but remained Premier until 1917, who was Labor leader during this time? I can't seem to find an answer for it, and Vaughan's infobox showing him as Labor leader until 1917 is clearly wrong. Timeshift (talk) 02:52, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Any corrections on Leader of the Opposition (South Australia) welcome
Such as when a non-Labor party become another non-Labor party under a different name under the same leader, and other possible errors. Thanks. Timeshift (talk) 17:10, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Premiers of Victoria which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RM bot 15:00, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Playmander on Timeline
I note with interest the highlighting of a period of time when a so-called gerrymander was in place, often referred to as a "Playmander" after Tom Playford, the Premier at the time.

Is this necessary? There is an argument that an additional period post 2002 that is known as the "Reverse Playmander" is now in place, and in the spirit of neutrality should also be included. Screech1616 (talk) 12:53, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
 * If you can find a reliable source referring to this, add it. (But in my opinion the current ALP is just doing better at keeping marginal seats. And you won't fix that by adjusting the boundaries.) Mark Hurd (talk) 16:01, 5 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Oh wow. Who's been in your ear? Liberal apparatchiks? Rusted ons? News Ltd and/or reader comments? Where to start, honestly. Ok, why just post 2002? The last time the electoral laws were changed was after the 1989 election which were Liberal instigated and passed with bipartisan support! Definition of gerrymander according to google: manipulate the boundaries of an electoral constituency so as to favour one party or class. Where? How? And how did the pre-2002 redistribution do this? The Liberal and Country League manipulated the boundaries and there's plenty of reliable sources for it. There has been no gerrymandering since the Playmander and you won't find a reliable source saying otherwise. Did you know that in 2014, a majority of Liberal seats (12 of 22) swung toward Labor? Adelaide, Dunstan, Davenport, Unley, Heysen, Waite, Goyder, Kavel, Schubert, Hammond, Bragg and Chaffey. Which is amusing considering Labor ran dead in seats they didn't hold so they could concentrate on seats they did hold... I wonder what the 2PP would have been if they did. Several state metro Lib seats had 8%+ 2pp swings toward Labor in some booths, the largest being St Peters in Marshall's seat with 15%! The others were the usual suspects... Evans, Chapman, Redmond, others. And you can see it in the federal results too - Labor retaining Makin, Wakefield, Adelaide and Kingston. Makin was always held by the government of the day but Labor holds it on the third strongest result of any party in the seat's history (second in 2007, first in 2010), Kingston's Labor margin is the second strongest result of any party in the seat's history (first in 2010). Labor's 2pp in Wakefield and Adelaide is several percent more than it was in 2004. Was there a gerrymander at the 1998 fed election and Howard should have been a one-term PM? Ok, back to state politics. Several seats were substantially redistributed - best example was Ashford which went from 4.8% to 0.6% but Labor increased it to 1.9%! Look at the booth results rather than the seat results, it's got nothing to do with the boundaries. It could marginally be claimed that there's a gerrymander HELPING the opposition if the electoral commission is whittling away popular government MP's margins! You can't win a state election in SA without carrying the metropolitan area. Labor very clearly won the metropolitan two-party vote in 2014, and is reflected in the 2013 fed results. Let's look back. Playford won a majority right through his time with the Playmander right up until his 1965 defeat by a single seat and took a 55% opposition 2PP to do it. The Libs won the two-party vote in a majority of seats in 2002 and 2014 but couldn't command a majority on the floor of the house. As for 2014, the statewide 2PP for a state with such a centralised population is something that i'm sure Antony Green will write about at some point and will make for very interesting reading. But it really should go without saying - the SA Libs, both state and fed, are a hopeless affair. But that won't stop cretins like Pyne claiming that the SA govt is somehow illegitimate (yet somehow fed Labor's 2010 2pp of 50.12% was illegitimate too... who knows what goes on inside his head). I'm sure he would have been a supporter of the Playmander without hesitation though. So please, rather than throw around baseless accusations, how about you provide some evidence for your claims? And/or if you want to contest what i've said above, you're more than welcome to that too. Or, if you wish to agree with people like Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham (and Martin Hamilton-Smith) that they didn't win 2014 because they are hopeless at marginal seat campaigning, you're welcome to do that too. What you're not welcome to do is ignore this and walk away with your tail between your legs. Timeshift (talk) 01:59, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * By the way, I googled the term "Reverse Playmander" and it found no results. I did come across this though :) Timeshift (talk) 06:37, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * The issue with the current system is that it favours the incumbent. Add to that the small relative size of the electorates (20-25,000 people), it becomes a very difficult situation to unseat sitting members - the power of incumbency is extreme in SA.  I agree, the situation is a result of the 1989 changes but unlike how it is designed to work, it actually has the result effect.  By concentrating the winnable seats into the number that are required to change government reduces an election down to just those seats.  Yes the opposition has a significant number of seats in regional areas as would be expected with a conservative party and with such a centralized population this makes it very difficult to redistribute as the system is designed.  Had the opposition not imploded during the 90s and early 2000s, they would still be in power now as in the same manner, the redistributions would be favouring the incumbent government.
 * We have heard a lot of hysterical commentary about the recent election result, a lot of it ridiculous. The key out of everything is that it will take a landslide to unseat any government in this state, a hung parliament in an SA election would likely be an election win for the opposition in most other jurisdictions.  Whilst my previous comment was a bit tongue-in-cheek, the situation is that we have replaced one broken electoral system with a slightly less broken electoral system - it is far from fixed.  The main point I was making was that I was unsure why that period needed to be highlighted on the timeline, there seems to be a very politically skewed motivation behind it, and from your response it seems highly emotive too. Screech1616 (talk) 12:18, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Well thanks for replying but talk about answers to questions that weren't asked. Why did you ignore everything i've said? Providing evidence for your claims of a gerrymander/"Reverse Playmander"! It's one-vote-one-value, there's no weighting like the Playmander giving two thirds of seats to the state's outback population despite only containing one third of the state population. One-vote-one-value, with an allowable deviation of up to 10% from one seat to the next. The electoral commission is acting on what the Liberals wanted in 1989 and what the Labor govt agreed to, and the commission are constantly whittling away popular govt MP margins. To say there's some form of gerrymander is blatantly false and misleading and damages democracy. Why were people like Liberal Senator Birmingham, or Hamilton-Smith, admitting they didn't win 2014 because they are hopeless at marginal seat campaigning? There were several Labor seats redistributed where the margin was substantially decreased. How is that favouring the incumbent? If you're saying that the single-member system that Playford introduced when prior we had multi-member seats has it's faults in a highly centralised state like SA, then perhaps, but no system is perfect even though it's the SA Libs that keep instigating the changes throughout the decades to the electoral laws. I disagree with your incumbency comments. There was just 316 votes in Newland preventing the Liberals winning govt, with Such out, Brock would have had to side with the Libs. 316 votes. It's good marginal seat campaigning and a bit of luck. If they're a bad member, just like in NT, they're gone. They have less than 5000 votes per seat and almost every voter has personally spoken to or been spoken to by their MP. If they're a good member, what's wrong with that? It's a westminster system, not a popular vote, and if there are good members representing good seats, that's what counts. Bums on seats. Not some arbitrary percentile of votes. But when you look at it, in 2002 and 2014, the SA Libs actually won a two-party majority in 24 of 47 seats, a majority of one. SA 2014 had a Lib 53% 2PP with 51% of seats on 2PP. Fed 2013 had a Lib 53.5% 2PP with 62% of seats on 2PP. I ask, which result was more proportionally correct? Back to SA, there's something a two-party system and fairness legislation can't account for - independents. This is not a presidential system even though the campaigns have certainly become presidential. I find it amusing you think it's just infighting which saw the back of Brown/Olsen/Kerin and that the Libs would still be in power. Look at the 1994 by-elections and the budget cuts. People hated the SA Libs, again, long before Olsen became Premier. Anywho, let me say it again. There has been no gerrymandering since the Playmander and you won't find a reliable source saying otherwise. But there are loads of reliable sources for the Playmander. So basically, one is true, one isn't. My response may have been emotive but one really does get sick of constant crap peddled by imbeciles that the election outcome was somehow illegitimate. It's a very serious accusation which in itself debases our democratic institutions. Ask Izzy Redmond, she knows all about it. Timeshift (talk) 00:32, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Maybe there is a valid argument in weighting the value of the vote in regional areas. Maybe those areas need the protection/favour of having more members.  Often the complaints heard are that all the resources and infrastructure go into Adelaide and the suburbs, maybe we need to make the country vote more valuable.  Similar to the Australian Senate, each state has the same number of Senators so that the Eastern states to not control the decision making.  In such as centralised political environment, maybe a similar imbalance is required.  The problem is historically this was done extremely poorly, with the balance way too far towards the regions making the metro areas almost irrelevant, which seems to cloud debate into this concept that 1 vote-1 value is somehow the ultimate democracy.  The issue is that if politicians govern only for the majority, then the disadvantaged/minorities get left behind.  Why build access ramps, provide translation services etc? The majority don't need them so there are minimal votes in it.  Why build new infrastructure in rural communities, that's not where the votes are.  There is a social justice element to this, the regions in South Australia do tend to get neglected. Screech1616 (talk) 11:56, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The Senate is an upper house and a house of review for the states. There is no comparison for a state lower house. "Decision making"? It's a house of review. Not a formation of govt. Abandoning one vote one value would be loony. At least you've revealed your hand by wanting more weight to be given to rural over metro. Perhaps if what you're looking for is multimember representation, then so be it, but somehow I doubt you along with most Liberals would be happy to have Greens elected to the lower house. Remember, the Libs won the two-party vote in 24 of 47 seats, and statewide, in 2002 and 2014. It's a fair system. But you seem to continue to want to portray it as a "Reverse Playmander"/gerrymander which damages and debases our democratic institutions. I think that's very poor. At least Senator Simon Birmingham, and Hamilton-Smith got it right: poor marginal seat campaigns from the Liberals cost them two elections in a row. Timeshift (talk) 22:33, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Fisher - rural Clarendon, Cherry Gardens, Coromandel East and Chandlers Hill added in (damn the reverse playmander!) and yet the Libs still lose it to Labor. Nearly a 10% 2PP swing and with unchanged boundaries since the last election. Utter lulz. But by all means, I hope Libs keep making excuses for losing elections here, it will only prolong their already vast time on the opposition benches. Timeshift (talk) 00:22, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Henry Ayers - Premier five times? Seven times? Ten times? Have we infact got many of them wrong?! Need help!
I was re-doing his lead slightly, and came across this and this for references to reword "but is perhaps best remembered for having Uluru/Ayers Rock named for him" as I couldn't find any refs to support this subjective/opinionated wording. Little was I to know the minefield I was about to stumble across. Both refs say Ayers was Premier of South Australia seven times! According to both his article and Premier of South Australia, we have him down for five times. So I checked ye olde faithful only to find that their Premier list on page 173 only starts from Walsh/1965! Odd, I seem to recall it going back much further. So, next stop was SA Parliament Premiers and Ayer's biography, which also says he was Premier seven times! So I clicked on the "Ministerial Appointment" dropdown, to find five Premier listings, five "Chief Secretary" listings, and one "Without Office" listing! I had a read of Chief Secretary, which very dumbed down my understanding is it is basically the old name for Premier (second in charge after the Governor). According to ye olde faithful, we had a Chief Secretary from 1856 right through to 1989, so once SA had a Premier i'm not sure what the Chief Secretary's role was apart from perhaps a ceremonial one, but I digress slightly. I'm now not sure exactly where we sourced the data for Premier of South Australia from and where we got five times for Ayers from (note, refs used in Premier articles are dying en-masse), i'm not sure why three sources including SA Parliament say he was Premier seven times, and why the SA Parliament "Ministerial Appointment" dropdown has him down for five-time Premier and five-time Chief Secretary and whatever the "Without Office" listing is. Where there's smoke, there's fire... this is likely just the tip of the iceberg. And the final Ayers confusion, while he was CS there were other MPs serving as Premier, and while he was Premier there were others serving as CS. I thought I had a half-reasonable grasp on early SA political history, but this has made me re-assess that significantly. My grasp on this is shattered. Does anyone have the motivation to proceed to check and solidly source Premier of South Australia and the individual Premier articles? What ref and/or method are we currently using, and if it's not the correct or best way, what ref and/or method should we be using? I've left Henry Ayers as a five-time Premier in the lead for now as that's what was there and what's in Premier of South Australia, but I think it will be one of many SA Premier articles under review/fact check. Additionally, there's a Chief Secretary of New South Wales article, does anyone want to do a Chief Secretary of South Australia article and/or list, presumably based on page 173? Anywho, thanks for reading... logging off, i've got a headache now :/ Timeshift (talk) 19:19, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I can start the article/list, but don't know how much other content I will get to. --Scott Davis Talk 05:45, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Easy bits of the article created today between other activities. I hope it helps. The see also Chief Secretary gives a clue about the general role and its history, but not SA specifically. --Scott Davis Talk 13:33, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Template:South Australian ministries displays the discrepancy in a nutshell: it depends on how you define times. Ayers had seven ministries, but the first and second, and the sixth and seventh were consecutive. He was sworn in as Premier atop seven different ministries; he had five unbroken stints as Premier, even if he might have been in acting mode in the brief stints between the dates his consecutive ministries fell and were voted back in. (Look at the individual ministries in the Statistical Register - it records the ministry as continuing in office until its successor was sworn in, so by that logic Ayers was still serving as Premier when he was re-sworn in with new ministers each time.) Does this make sense? I don't care which one you want to use in the article: I would probably go with whichever figure other sources use (noting that there's better sources than those cited), but they're both technically right so whatever. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 14:05, 7 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I should just point out that this also applies to Arthur Blyth and James Boucaut who also served as Premier atop consecutive and non-consecutive ministries, so whatever you do for Ayers applies to Blyth and Boucaut and should be changed there. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 15:16, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

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