7 December 1985 (1985-12-07) 1989 → 24 seats 21 seats 3 5 Date 7 December 1985 | 18 September 1979 10 November 1982 27 seats 16 seats 53.2% 46.8% | |
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Winner John Bannon | ||
State elections were held in South Australia on 7 December 1985. All 47 seats in the South Australian House of Assembly were up for election. The incumbent Australian Labor Party led by Premier of South Australia John Bannon defeated the Liberal Party of Australia led by Leader of the Opposition John Olsen.
Independents: Martyn Evans, Norm Peterson, Stan Evans
Background
Parliamentary elections for both houses of the Parliament of South Australia were held in South Australia on 7 December 1985, which saw John Bannon and the Australian Labor Party win a second successive term, against the Liberal Party of Australia opposition led by John Olsen.
Bannon's consensual approach to government differed markedly from the Dunstan era. While then there had been a stream of social reform under Dunstan, Bannon's priorities were oriented in economics. He established the Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine, the submarine project, the defence industry, the Hyatt and Adelaide Casino complex, conversion of part of the Adelaide railway station into the Adelaide Convention Centre, sold land reserved for freeways under the MATS plan, and staged the Formula One Grand Prix. Poker machines (pokies) were introduced in South Australia, a decision Bannon would come to regret decades later. Other measures were introduced such as action to prevent destruction of vegetation and urban renewal programmes to invigorate some of the declining inner suburbs in Adelaide.
Labor won the election with an increased majority. The Liberal Party retained John Olsen as leader, partly because his main rival Dean Brown lost his seat to Independent Liberal Stan Evans.
In the South Australian Legislative Council, the sole balance of power was held unbroken by the Australian Democrats from their inception in mid-1970s, until the late 1990s. Though the Democrats would exceed 16 percent of the vote at the 1997 election, during the following term the Democrats would lose the sole balance of power for the first time, sharing the balance of power with independent members, slowly losing numbers and influence, until they were eventually without parliamentary representation as of the 2010 election.