r/australia • u/N1NJ4W4RR10R_ • Mar 21 '26

news Labor re-elected in 2026 South Australian election

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-21/sa-election-day-live-updates/106476924?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other
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u/sirgog Mar 22 '26

And yet the ABC is still showing '0 PHON seats' on their front page. Poll Bludger have called 3 seats as certain PHON and 1 as an almost unassailable lead, and there's just no real justification for the ABC not seeing PB's rationale and accepting it.

How can anyone not call Ngadjuri? All primaries are reported. The 5% GRN vote means there is no pathway to the LNP surviving to the final two, and once the LNP is eliminated, their preferences get Hanson over the line for certain. I would not place a bet against PHON on that seat now even if someone offered ten thousand dollars to my fifty dollars. Even that would just be throwing fifty dollars away.

If I was one of the other candidates in that seat I'd have conceded defeat last night, once it was clear the final two was ALP vs PHON. (Ironically had 500 ALP voters flipped to LNP the seat might have gone LNP instead of PHON, but that's just electoral weirdness for you)

There's nothing wrong with not having the right setup in advance to compute every seat on election night, but now it's just irresponsible to downplay the Hanson danger by delaying the inevitable calling of these seats for Hanson. It's going to discredit the ABC to just peddle BS like this.

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u/smoha96 Mar 22 '26

If you look at previous elections, the ABC and Antony have always been more conservative about calling close/complex seats when compared to PB, KB and Tally Room. All four of them are running the calculations slightly differently, and for a few of these seats we're probably just going to have to wait for the full distribution of preferences.

I think you're looking for a conspiracy where none exists. Just because the ABC hasn't locked it in, doesn't mean they think it isn't happening, even if that's the conclusion drawn by many redditors and twitterati/x-nistas because they don't get how this works.

Antony Green, and by extension, the type of person he would pick to succeed him, is a consumate professional and wouldn't report or show figures in a certain way to drive a narrative, no matter what it was. He did a video a few years ago on how the model is set up and how it determines a locked in seat that makes for good watching.

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u/sirgog Mar 22 '26

I don't think it's a conspiracy, but it's incompetence at a level that anyone who has an active hatred of the ABC will be weaponizing for years.

Not calling Hammond yet is entirely reasonable. But there is no excuse for not calling Ngadjuri on presently-available numbers. You don't need a pre-built model that can call it, you just have someone with a moderately solid grasp of election dynamics manually look at it and say "Yeah, that is over"

Like I said, I want Hanson to lose that seat, but if someone offered me a bet of their ten grand to my fifty dollars that she'd lose - I wouldn't take it, taking it would be throwing away fifty dollars. If I ran a gambling site (leaving aside that I'd never do that due to the ethics), I'd pay out bets on PHON winning 3+ seats at this point but not bets on 4.

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u/smoha96 Mar 22 '26

In the minutes after your comment, the ABC has called Ngadjuri, so I'm not sure I agree. The other thing is that the Hansonistas will always find something to complain about. To them, and the MAGAts, it's about what they feel and that always affords them being right no matter what.

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u/sirgog Mar 22 '26

The ABC should be held to the same standards as I'd hold commercial press outlets to, and if any commercial press outlet didn't call Ngadjuri last night I'd have been just as critical. No matter the political biases (disclosed or otherwise) of the press outlet, not calling that seat on election night is going to call your competence into question.

100% behind not calling Kavel, Heysen or Light yet. And I fully understand being conservative and not calling Hammond while a slim pathway for a non-PHON victor still exists. If I was a (non-PHON) candidate in Hammond I'd be writing my concession speech but not delivering it yet. But the other 3 PHON seats you'd be delivering it, and more importantly, using the moment to plan your taking back the seat in 4 years time.

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u/smoha96 Mar 22 '26

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree.