One Nation Will Not Preference Either Major Party at South Australian Election

One Nation has revealed it will not preference either the Labor or Liberal Party at the upcoming South Australian (SA) state election.

A recent Roy Morgan poll showed 35 percent support for the Labor Party, 28 percent for One Nation and 16.5 percent for the Liberal Party.

Voter preferences on election day, could therefore play a major role in determining the overall winner in a seat where no major party secures more than 50 percent of the vote.

One Nation SA Leader Cory Bernardi said it had always been his party’s position that voters own their preferences, not political parties.

“We’ve been approached by both branches of the uni-party, but we’ve decided there will be no preference deals,” he said.

“This is what we’ll be recommending to South Australian voters at the polling booths: put One Nation first. That’s it. How voters number the other boxes on their ballot papers is up to them.”

Liberal Party Set to Preference ‘Based on Values’

Meanwhile, the Liberal Party is planning to preference One Nation ahead of Labor in all seats, leader Ashton Hurn said on March 7.

“So they’ll be coming out shortly, but I think it’s safe to say that One Nation will be above the ALP,” she told reporters.

Liberal state director Alex Hyde had previously promised that One Nation would not be put last and said preferences would be “unashamedly based on values.”

“The SA Liberal Party approach to preferences is clear: to elect as many Liberals, and as many centre-right parliamentarians as possible,” he said on Feb. 23.

The Labor Party, on the other hand, intends to preference One Nation last in all seats other than those where independents found guilty of crimes are running.

The official How to Vote cards were submitted to the South Australian electoral commission on March 6, but have yet to be made public.

How Do Preferences Work?

In Australia, political parties are permitted to distribute “how-to-vote” cards at polling places for both state and federal contests, offering voters a suggested order in which to rank the candidates.

While these cards are only advisory and voters are free to ignore them, they can still shape how people allocate their preferences and therefore play an important role within Australia’s preferential voting system.

When a party places a particular candidate at the bottom of its card, it is signalling to supporters that every other candidate should be ranked ahead of that person, which reduces the chances that preference votes will ultimately be directed to them.