Labor tries to end Ashton Hurn's 'honeymoon' early

Ashton Hurn was three days into her leadership when her Labor opponents declared "the honeymoon is over".

It was a period shorter than that taken by the prime minister, who holidayed for four days following his wedding last month.

But with the South Australian election now less than 100 days away, both sides of politics have had to react quickly to Vincent Tarzia's decision last week to step down as Liberal leader.

Ms Hurn was elevated to the role on Monday and, as she has said multiple times since then, has a metaphorical mountain to climb.

As of Friday, she is yet to announce her shadow cabinet line-up and the Labor attacks have continued.

Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis has spent the week trying to wedge the new leader on how the Liberals will fund an election pledge to scrap stamp duty by 2041 — a commitment he says would strip more than $2 billion from the budget each year.

Ms Hurn has left the door open to scrapping the policy, which was announced by Mr Tarzia last month.

"Certainly when it comes to all of the economic levers, we'll be looking at those really closely," she said on Tuesday.

Mr Koutsantonis fronted a press conference the following day, showing reporters a social media video in which Ms Hurn promoted the policy.

He said the Liberals were facing a lose-lose scenario, whichever way they proceeded.

"If they abandon it 10 weeks before the election campaign, they are a shambles," he said.

"If they keep it, which I think they will, they need to explain to South Australians how they're going to pay for it."

Ramping promise unfulfilled

Election campaigns are a contest of priorities and promises — but voters must also be convinced that parties can deliver on what they have pledged.

Part of that comes down to explaining how their policies would be funded, including whether any service cuts or tax hikes would be needed.

But another measure of credibility, particularly for a government seeking re-election, is track record.

As the Labor government nears the end of its first term, it is an obvious time to take stock of how they have gone executing the promises they made prior to the 2022 election.

Their centrepiece commitment — to fix the ramping crisis — remains unfulfilled, with ramping reaching record highs over the last four years.

Premier Peter Malinauskas and senior ministers have repeatedly pointed to substantial investment in the health system but acknowledged they would have liked to have seen better results.

Another key election pledge was a $600-million hydrogen plant, which was sold prior to the 2022 poll as a world-leading policy that would lower electricity prices.

Labor conceded it was facing "challenges" meeting the initial budget before it shelved the plant earlier this year, redirecting some of the money into a support package for the Whyalla steelworks.

The state's auditor-general found more than $85 million that had been spent on the plant was unlikely to have any future use for the state.

Commitment tracker kept secret

The government's "fix ramping" promise featured the most prominently in its 2022 campaign — but it was one of more than 700 made by the party in the lead-up to the election.

That included more than 90 health-related pledges and funding for 72 sports club upgrades.

To oversee delivery of their commitments, the government set up an agency called the Premier's Delivery Unit (PDU) shortly after its election win.

As of June this year, there were nine staff working in the unit — four of whom were earning more than $191,000 per year.

The PDU says more than 90 per cent of 2022 election promises have been delivered, but it will not release a breakdown of which ones.

At multiple appearances before a parliamentary committee, PDU chief executive Rik Morris has said the unit tracks commitments using a live reporting tool shared with cabinet.

Information held within the system is therefore cabinet-in-confidence and cannot be released.

Instead Mr Morris has directed committee members to a website listing government media releases — including some that relate to election commitments.

Countdown to polling day

The status of election commitments is not always clear cut.

Labor promised to cut 50 executives from the public service if it won government, saving more than $40 million over four years.

But annual public sector reports have shown that executive numbers have risen during each year of Labor's term.

Mr Morris, a former Labor staffer, did not class the commitment as a failure.

"My understanding was that the initial reduction was achieved but … government has changed and expanded its roles in different areas," he told the parliamentary committee last month.

"As such, additional people have been recruited to those positions."

How voters define a broken promise — and whether Labor will be punished for those that have gone unfulfilled — remains to be seen.

South Australians head to the polls in 99 days.