Inside Story

Menu

Podcasts

The elusive X-factor

Two political insurgencies — in Batman and in South Australia — failed to live up to expectations this weekend. Peter Clarke talks to political scientist Rob Manwaring about why

Peter Clarke & Rob Manwaring 18 March 2018 76 words

Back to the future? Liberal leader Steven Marshall at the party’s election-night party. Tracey Nearmy/AAP Image

Two closely watched elections this weekend have produced unexpectedly straightforward results. Despite high hopes, the Greens suffered a negative swing against a strong Labor candidate in the inner Melbourne seat of Batman, and in South Australia a longstanding Labor government was unseated by the Liberals, with support for Nick Xenophon’s SA-BEST falling well below early expectations. On the morning after, Peter Clarke talks to political scientist Rob Manwaring about what happened and why.

Listen here

Peter Clarke is a Melbourne-based webcaster, writer and educator who tweets @MediaActive. Rob Manwaring is a senior lecturer in the School of Social and Policy Studies at Flinders University.

Topics: elections | politics | South Australia

Related Articles

Retrospective Tim Rowse 17 March 2026 Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Noel Pearson’s clash over the Voice masks a more complicated picture Essays & reportage Matthew Ricketson 17 March 2026 The satirist inverted conventional journalistic formats to probe politics and power Retrospective Peter Brent 16 March 2026 Malcolm Turnbull is playing the long game, but he mightn’t be leader when it counts Retrospective James Panichi 16 March 2026 Must Australian politicians “work tirelessly” for their communities or face electoral oblivion?