The South Australian Liberal Party, officially known as the Liberal Party of Australia (South Australian Division), and often shortened to SA Liberals, is the South Australian Division of the Liberal Party of Australia. It was formed as the Liberal and Country League (LCL) in 1932 and became the South Australian Division of the Liberal Party when the Liberal Party was formed in 1945. It retained its Liberal and Country League name before changing to its current name in 1974. It is one of two major parties in the bicameral Parliament of South Australia, the other being the Australian Labor Party (SA Branch). The party is led by Ashton Hurn since 8 December 2025.
During its 42-year existence as the Liberal and Country League, it spent 34 years in government, mainly due to an electoral malapportionment scheme heavily favouring rural areas known as the Playmander. The Playmander was named after LCL leader Sir Tom Playford, who was the Premier of South Australia for 27 years, starting shortly after the 1938 election until his party was narrowly defeated at the 1965 election. The Playmander was dismantled by LCL leader Steele Hall after regaining government at the 1968 election, losing government again at the 1970 election. Since the rural malapportionment abolition and one vote one value adoption, the party has won just 4 of the 17 state elections: the 1979, 1993, 1997 and the 2018 elections.
Contents
History
Formation
The Liberal and Country League had its roots in the Emergency Committee of South Australia, which ran as the main non-Labor party in South Australia at the 1931 federal election landslide. In the House of Representatives, it took an additional two seats to hold six of the state's seven seats. In the bloc-voting winner-take-all Senate, it took the three seats up for election.
Encouraged by this success, the Liberal Federation (the SA branch of the United Australia Party) and the SA Country Party merged to form the LCL on 9 June 1932, with former Liberal Federation leader Richard Layton Butler as its first leader. Liberal Federation itself was preceded by Liberal Union (1910–1923) with the latter created from a tri-merger between the Liberal and Democratic Union (formed 1906), the Farmers and Producers Political Union (formed 1904) and the National Defence League (formed 1891).
In its first electoral test, the 1933 state election, the LCL took advantage of a three-way split in the state Labor government to win a smashing victory, taking 29 seats versus only 13 for the three Labor factions combined. Butler then became the Premier of South Australia.
Traditionally a socially conservative party, the LCL contained relatively distinct factions whose ideologies often conflicted:
Farmers, graziers and rural property owners.
The Adelaide Establishment
The urban middle class
The urban middle class continued to support the party although they had little say in its running. Indeed, it was not until the election of Robin Millhouse in 1955 that someone from this third faction was elected to parliament. Millhouse, often considered during his term as the most progressive member of the LCL, continually criticised the conservative wing of the party. He eventually resigned in 1973 and joined the splinter Liberal Movement party.
Playmander period
The Butler LCL introduced the electoral malapportionment scheme later known as the Playmander in 1936. The House of Assembly was also reduced from 46 members elected from multi-member districts to 39 members elected from single-member electorates. The electorates consisted of rural districts enjoying a 2-to-1 advantage in the state parliament, even though they contained less than half of the population. Two-thirds of seats were to be located in rural areas ("the country"). This arrangement was retained even as Adelaide, the state capital, grew to two-thirds of the state's population.
Even allowing for a smaller chamber, the LCL suffered heavy losses at the 1938 election, winning just 15 of 39 seats. However, Labor picked up only a small number of additional seats. In an unprecedented result, the crossbench swelled massively, with no less than 14 independents elected from a combined independent primary vote of 40 percent, higher than either major party (33 percent for the LCL, 26 percent for Labor). Butler and the LCL had to rely on the crossbench for confidence and supply to remain in government. Only months later, Butler resigned in favour of Tom Playford to make an unsuccessful attempt to enter federal politics. From the 1941 election onward, the Playford LCL would regain and keep a parliamentary majority, albeit narrowly. Additionally, turnout crashed to a record-low 50 percent in 1941, triggering the Playford LCL to introduce compulsory voting from the 1944 election.
In January 1945, the Liberal and Country League became the South Australian division of the newly formed Liberal Party of Australia. However, the SA division continued to be known as the LCL.
Under the scheme, a vote in a low-population rural seat had anywhere from double to ten times the value of a vote in a high-population metropolitan seat. For example, at the 1968 election the rural seat of Frome had 4,500 formal votes, while the metropolitan seat of Enfield had 42,000 formal votes. The scheme allowed LCL to win sufficient parliamentary seats even when it lost the two-party vote to Labor opposition by comprehensive margins at several elections: 1944, 1953, 1962 and 1968. For instance, in the 1944 and 1953 elections, Labor took 53 percent of the two-party vote, which would have normally been enough to deliver a solid majority for the Labor leader–Robert Richards in 1944 and Mick O'Halloran in 1953. However, on both occasions, the LCL managed to just barely hold onto power. By the 1950s, a number of Labor figures had despaired of ever winning power. O'Halleran, for instance, felt he needed to maintain a cordial relationship with Playford in hopes of getting Labor-friendly legislation through the House of Assembly.
Liberal Party
During Eastick's leadership, the Liberal and Country League assembled at a meeting of the State Council on 22 July 1974 to rename itself to "Liberal Party of Australia (South Australian Division)". The renaming initiative was welcomed by federal Liberal leader and opposition leader Billy Snedden, who was present at the meeting. The party also revised its constitution, adopted a new platform, appointed new young party officials and organisers, modelling after the Victorian Liberals.
In July 1975, David Tonkin challenged Eastick for party leadership, and became leader unopposed after Eastick stood aside. This would be the last time that a Liberal leader was elected unopposed until 2013.
Hall's Liberal Movement dissolved in 1976 and three of its four state parliamentary members (Martin Cameron, John Carnie, David Boundy) rejoined the Liberal Party. Hall, who was elected to the Senate in 1974 and 1975 as a Liberal Movement member, also rejoined the Liberal Party and joined the federal Liberal Party room. The remaining Liberal Movement state parliamentary member was Millhouse, who refused to rejoin the Liberal Party, founding the New Liberal Movement instead. His new party merged with the Australia Party a year later in 1977 to become the Australian Democrats.
One vote one value was introduced by Labor following the 1975 election where the Liberal Party won a 50.8 percent two-party vote but fell one seat short of forming government. Labor would regain their vote and majority at the 1977 election, however Dunstan resigned in the months prior to the 1979 election where the Liberals won government for one term.
At that election, David Tonkin, who succeeded Eastick as party leader in 1975, led the Liberals to victory against a weakened Labor Party. It was the first time in 20 years that the non-Labor side in South Australia had won the most seats while also winning a majority of the vote. However, despite winning 55 percent of the two-party vote, the largest two-party-preferred margin since the end of the Playmander at the time, the Liberals only won 25 of the 47 seats. This was because the "one vote one value" reforms left most of the Liberal vote locked in comfortably safe rural seats. Despite taking six seats off Labor, the Liberals only won 13 seats in Adelaide. As a result, despite winning a margin that would have been large enough for a strong majority government in the rest of Australia, the Liberals won only 25 seats, a bare majority of two.
Ideology divisions
In the 1990s and 2000s, ongoing division continued based on both ideologies and personalities, with sides forming between the moderate Chapman and conservative Evans family dynasties, complicated further by the moderate Brown and conservative Olsen rifts.
Party leaders
Since the 1970s, five parliamentary Liberal leaders have served as Premier of South Australia: David Tonkin (1979–1982), Dean Brown (1993–1996), John Olsen (1996–2001), Rob Kerin (2001–2002) and Steven Marshall (2018–2022).
All leaders have served as Leader of the Opposition.
Deputy Leader
The deputy leader usually serves as Deputy Premier while the Liberal Party is in government. This list includes leaders of the LCL.
Current federal parliamentarians
Representatives
Tony Pasin – Barker MP since 2013
Tom Venning – Grey MP since 2025
Senators
Anne Ruston – Senator since 2012
Alex Antic – Senator since 2019
Andrew McLachlan – Senator since 2020
Kerrynne Liddle – Senator since 2022
Leah Blyth – Senator since 2025
Electoral performance
The Playmander began in 1936 and ended after 1968. Compulsory voting was introduced at the 1944 election.