South Australian state election, 1965
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All 39 seats in the South Australian House of Assembly 20 seats were needed for a majority |
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0.0Thomas Playford
Liberal and Country League
State elections were held in South Australia on 6 March 1965. All 39 seats in the South Australian House of Assembly were up for election. The incumbent Liberal and Country League led by Premier of South Australia Thomas Playford IV, in power since 1938, was defeated by the Australian Labor Party led by Leader of the Opposition Frank Walsh.
Independent: Tom Stott
Even though Labor won the 1944, 1953 and 1962 elections on the two-party vote against Thomas Playford IV and the Liberal and Country League (LCL), the electoral rural overweighting known as the Playmander since 1936 consisted of rural districts enjoying a 2-to-1 advantage in the state parliament. The seat system was also changed from multi-member to single-member. Labor's statewide two-party at the 1965 election remained unchanged at 54.3 percent, barely winning for the first and only time during the 32-year Playmander, with just a two-seat majority government. Labor won the seats of metropolitan Glenelg and rural Barossa at the 1965 election, after winning the seats of rural Chaffey and metropolitan Unley at the 1962 election. At the 1968 election, Labor still won a 53.2 percent two-party vote, however the LCL won the seats of rural Murray and rural Chaffey, forming a one-seat minority government with independent Tom Stott. If just 21 LCL votes were Labor votes in Murray in 1968, Labor would have formed majority government. The LCL won only three metropolitan seats in 1965 and 1968 – Burnside, Mitcham and marginally Torrens. The most populous metropolitan seats (13) had as much as 5-10 times the number of voters than the least populous rural seats (26), despite two thirds of the population located in the metropolitan area − 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.
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