Australian Electoral Commission says SA has four Liberal senators, three each for Labor and Nick Xenophon Team, one Green and one Family First

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Family First senator Bob Day has been re-elected in South Australia, edging out Labor for the state’s final Senate seat.

The Australian Electoral Commission conducted the full distribution of preferences in that state on Tuesday. Four Liberal senators have been elected, Labor and Nick Xenophon have three, and Greens and Family First have one each.

Day defeated Labor’s fourth candidate, Anne McEwen, who was first elected in 2004. He also beat One Nation despite receiving fewer first preference votes, dimming Pauline Hanson’s hopes of winning three or more Senate seats.

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Day’s election may help the Turnbull government pass legislation in the Senate, given he voted with the Coalition 86% of the time in the last parliament, more than any other crossbench senator.

He was an outspoken critic of the government’s Senate voting reforms and launched an unsuccessful high court challenge against them. He argued they would disenfranchise voters because they “took away a voter’s right to delegate their distribution of preferences to a minor party of their choice”.

Day was elected after receiving 0.37 quotas on the first count, demonstrating that minor parties are still in with a shot if they receive preferences from other parties in the new Senate voting system.

Day’s support may be critical to pass the Australian building and construction commission and registered organisations bills, the two industrial relations bills used by the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, to trigger the 2 July double-dissolution election.

Day supported the bills and at one stage Turnbull gave him the job of coordinating the crossbench’s negotiating position to help their passage.

The Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young was re-elected, but her fellow senator Robert Simms missed out.

Nick Xenophon was re-elected along with party team-mates Stirling Griff and Sky Kakoschke-Moore.

The four Liberal senators elected in South Australia were Simon Birmingham, Cory Bernardi, Anne Ruston and David Fawcett. The successful Labor candidates were Penny Wong, Don Farrell and Alex Gallacher.

Simon Birmingham (@Birmo) Thanks South Australia for your support to continue to serve & to represent our wonderful state. https://t.co/s4wycwI7Ey

Day is joined on the crossbench by Hanson in Queensland and One Nation candidate Rod Culleton in Western Australia, Jacqui Lambie in Tasmania and the three NXT senators in South Australia.

At press time, the AEC had not run full preference distributions for Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. Victoria’s result will be drawn up on Tuesday afternoon.

Turnbull has rejected the claim he had called a double-dissolution election under the new Senate voting rules to “clean out the Senate”, arguing it was to pass the industrial relations bills blocked by the old Senate.

On Thursday he said the government was not in a worse position in the Senate, because there were 18 crossbench senators in the old Senate, including the Greens, and there would be a “similar number” after the election.

“Here’s the difference: the new crossbenchers will be there because a large number of people voted for them,” he said.