SA voters stick to script

SOUTH Australia stuck to the script with only one seat a chance of changing hands and Labor holding sway across metropolitan Adelaide.

The ALP remains in the hunt to win Boothby from first-term Liberal MP Nicolle Flint but the result was too close to call last night.

With more than 50 per cent of the vote counted, Labor’s Nadia Clancy was narrowly ahead with 50.5 per cent of the two-party preferred vote.

In other SA seats, Centre Alliance’s Rebekha Sharkie romped to another win in Mayo, seeing off a second challenge from Liberal Georgina Downer.

Ms Downer, the daughter of former long-serving Mayo MP and foreign minister Alexander Downer, also lost to Ms Sharkie at a by-election last year.

While in Sturt, the Liberals appeared untroubled by the retirement of party powerbroker Christopher Pyne to easily retain the eastern suburbs electorate.

Boothby aside, Labor was set to pick up at least five seats across SA, all in metropolitan Adelaide, with the Liberals winning at least three, including the big country electorates.

Across the city, the ALP will retain Makin, Kingston, Adelaide, Spence and Hindmarsh.

Ms Sharkie said she hoped to work with a “frustrating” coalition government to “restore integrity into the parliament.”