The Playmander was a pro-rural electoral malapportionment in the Australian state of South Australia, which was introduced by the incumbent Liberal and Country League (LCL) government in 1936, and remained in place for 32 years until 1968., "A 2:1 ratio of enrolments in favour of the rural areas was in force from 1936."
The term is a portmanteau of Playford and "gerrymander". Unlike in the US, where it originated, the term "gerrymander" was commonly used in Australia to refer to malapportionments, which were common in Australian state electoral systems.
During the Playmander's existence, the South Australian House of Assembly was elected from 39 single-member districts, 26 in the country and 13 in Adelaide. The low-population rural seats held as much as 10 times the voting power of the 13 high-population urban-based seats, even though rural areas contained only a third of South Australia's population by the late 1960s. At the peak of the malapportionment in 1968, the rural seat of Frome had 4,500 formal votes, while the metropolitan seat of Enfield had 42,000 formal votes.
During the Playmander's existence, Labor won enough parliamentary seats to form government only once, in an against the odds win in 1965 that ousted its namesake, Sir Thomas Playford, as Premier after over 26 years in office. The Playmander was strong enough that Labor was denied government despite comprehensive majorities of the statewide two-party vote in 1944, 1953, 1962 and 1968. Labor also won a majority of the primary vote in 1953, 1962 and 1968.
More equitable boundaries were subsequently put in place following the 1968 election, ending the Playmander, and again after the 1975 and 1989 elections.
Eight new seats were introduced in 1970, and seats were required to be proportionate from 1975. A unique fairness clause directs the Electoral Commission of South Australia to redraw boundaries after each election, with the objective being that the party which receives over 50 percent of the statewide two-party vote at the forthcoming election should win the two-party vote in a majority of seats; while this clause was removed from the State constitution in 2017, the Commission still retains it when drawing electoral maps.
One change introduced as part of the Playmander remains to this day: as in the lower houses most Australian jurisdictions, the House of Assembly is still elected using single-member seats. Prior to the Playmander, the House of Assembly had been elected using multi-member seats since the inaugural 1857 election.
Etymology The word Playmander is a portmanteau word derived from the name of long-serving Premier, Sir Thomas Playford, and the political term gerrymander, and was coined around 1971 by political scientists Neal Blewett and Dean Jaensch of Flinders University. Unlike in the US, where it originated, the term "gerrymander" was commonly used in Australia to refer to malapportionments, which were common in Australian state electoral systems.
Playmander years
When South Australia first gained responsible government in 1856, its constitution required that there be two country seats for every one seat in Adelaide and its suburbs; thus, rural overweighting was written into the State's constitution.
With the merger of the Liberal Federation and the Country Party in 1932 to form the Liberal and Country League, the Country Party had demanded key concessions as part of the deal, particularly to the electoral system. The already entrenched rural overweighting was increased to the constitutional 2:1 ratio, the number of MPs was reduced to 39, and the multi-member seats were abandoned in favour of single-member seats, with 13 in Adelaide and 26 in rural South Australia. The changes were intended to effectively lock Labor out of power, and there was much uproar when it was brought in: Labor MP Tom Howard declared in Parliament that "the working class will not lay down like tame dogs under a system that will not give them proper representation".
The electoral system contributed to Playford achieving a then-world record for a democratically elected leader, as he spent 26 years as Premier of South Australia. During this period, as a result of population changes, the rural overweighting allowed Playford to retain power even when the LCL lost by decisive margins in actual votes: in 1944 and 1953, for instance, Labor won 53 percent of the two-party vote to the LCL's 47 percent, a margin that in the other states of Australia (with fairer electoral systems) would have seen the Labor leaders (Robert Richards in 1944 and Mick O'Halloran in 1953) defeat Playford's LCL government in a landslide. However, with the Playmander, the LCL was still able to eke out a paper-thin majority in both elections.
This was because rural areas, excepting industrial towns such as Whyalla, Port Augusta and Port Pirie, were likely to support the LCL, while Adelaide and its suburbs were overwhelmingly Labor; even at the height of Playford's popularity, the LCL only had a realistic prospect of winning seats in the wealthy eastern suburbs and around Holdfast Bay.
By the early 1960s, the rural-to-urban ratio had been almost completely reversed from 1856; around two-thirds of the state's population lived in the Adelaide urban area, meaning the rural overweighting effectively resulted in a rural vote being worth at least double a vote in Adelaide. In one of the more extreme cases mentioned above, a vote in the rural seat of Frome was effectively worth ten times a vote in the urban seat of Enfield.
The term "Playmander" was adopted by the Adelaide press, including the articulate young Labor member Don Dunstan. Dunstan, more than anyone else, was the driving force behind Labor both overcoming the Playmander and extensive changes being made to the electoral system; the latter, however, would not be implemented by Dunstan.
By the 1950s, O'Halloran and other Labor figures had despaired of ever defeating Playford and winning power. They found themselves having to rely on Playford to get favourable legislation passed. This attitude changed when Frank Walsh became state Labor leader in 1960 upon O'Halloran's death. Walsh knew a conventional statewide campaign was not realistic due to the significant rural overweighting, and opted instead to target the LCL's marginal seats in the 1962 election. By then, the LCL's grip on power had become increasingly tenuous; due to being almost entirely dependent on rural support, the LCL usually won just enough seats to govern alone, and in fact it never held more than 23 seats (three more than necessary to govern) during Playford's tenure. By the time the writs were dropped for the election, the LCL only had a bare majority of 20 seats, and had also lost seats at every election since 1950.
At the election, Labor won 54.3 percent of the two-party vote, even higher than in 1944 and 1953. In a fairer system, this would have been enough to give Walsh a strong majority government. However, the rural weighting was strong enough to hold Labor to a two-seat swing, one short of what was required to make Walsh Premier. The balance of power rested with two independents, who supported Playford, thus allowing him to continue in office with a bare one-seat majority. This illustrated just how distorted the Playmander had become: the LCL was in a position to govern despite winning only 45.7 percent of the two-party vote.
The Playmander was eventually beaten at the 1965 election, when Labor gained power for the first time since 1933. While the two-party vote remained at 54.3 percent, the rural overweighting was strong enough that Labor won 21 seats, a mere two-seat majority. Walsh retired in late 1967 and was succeeded by Dunstan, who led Labor into the 1968 election.
While Labor won 53.2 percent of the two-party vote at that election, it lost two seats, resulting in a hung parliament. After much negotiation, independent Tom Stott threw his support to the LCL, thus making LCL leader Steele Hall the new Premier, despite the LCL winning only 46.8 percent of the two-party vote. Further underscoring this, the LCL had won only three metropolitan seats in 1965 and 1968: Burnside, Mitcham and Torrens.
Hall was embarrassed that the LCL was even in a position to govern, despite having been convincingly defeated in terms of actual votes. The outcry over the result led Hall to institute electoral reform in 1968: the House was expanded to 47 seats, with 28 in Adelaide and 19 in rural areas, which more than doubled the number of metropolitan seats and reduced the number of rural seats.
It still fell short of "one vote one value", as Labor had demanded, since rural areas were still over-represented, albeit by only 10%; Adelaide had 60% of the seats, whereas it accounted for two-thirds of the state's population, though the most populous metropolitan seats still contained double the number of voters than the least populous rural seats.
However, Adelaide elected a majority of the Parliament for the first time in the State's history: given Labor's dominance in Adelaide since the 1930s, the conventional wisdom was that Hall knew that he was effectively conceding defeat to Dunstan at the next election. When a snap election was called in 1970, Labor gained power as expected, with 53.3 percent of the two-party vote, sweeping the eight newly created seats.
Post-Playmander years In 1973, Labor retained office with 54.5 percent of the two-party vote, and the LCL became the South Australian division of the Liberal Party of Australia in 1974. Labor retained power in 1975 with a majority of seats but lost the two-party vote on 49.2 percent. Dunstan then instituted "one vote one value" electoral reform, which meant that all seats had to contain approximately the same number of enrolled voters; and created an independent body, the South Australian Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission, to draw the electoral boundaries.History of Redistributions, South Australian Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission
After John Bannon won in 1989 even after losing the two-party vote at 48 percent, a 1991 referendum was passed which added a "fairness clause" to electoral legislation, requiring the commission to redistribute seats with a view toward ensuring that party which receives a majority of the statewide two-party vote at the forthcoming election should win the two-party vote (in terms of "traditional" two-party matchups between Labor and the Liberals) in a majority of seats.
Despite this 1991 change, Labor has won a further three elections (2002, 2010 and 2014) with less than 50% of the two party preferred vote; though in 2002 this was due to the support of independents (and also initially in 2014, until Labor's Nat Cook won the 2014 Fisher by-election soon after). Prior to the 2018 election, at which the Liberals won a majority, Labor had been in office for all but 12 years since 1970, the Liberals having only governed from 1979–1982 and 1993–2002.
Since the end of the Playmander, South Australian politics have been characterised by a concentration of seats in the Adelaide metropolitan area, a manifestation of South Australia's status as the nation's most centralised state. Successive redistributions have resulted in Adelaide and its suburbs containing close to three-quarters of the seats (34 out of 47 in 2017). This makes it difficult to form even a minority government without gaining significant ground in Adelaide. Labor's success in South Australia over the last four decades has been built on a strong base in Adelaide; under normal conditions Labor wins the most seats in the capital. Since the 1975 redistribution, most of the Liberal margin has been locked into ultra-safe rural seats. This remained the case even after the "fairness clause" amendment.