Achievements and regrets: Peter Malinauskas and Ashton Hurn reflect on 2025

"This Christmas will be different for all of us I think."

In his final speech to parliament this year, Premier Peter Malinauskas spoke to his colleagues — both Labor and Liberal — about the "little bit of anxiety" that hits politicians the Christmas before an election.

Awaiting them after their pudding and mince pies is a long campaign of fierce political combat, harsher media scrutiny, early radio interviews and relentless door knocking — all with the prospect of losing your job at the end of it.

But the latter consideration will likely be on the minds of far more Liberal than Labor MPs this Christmas.

The opposition — fresh off electing Ashton Hurn as the party's fourth leader in as many years — is staring down an ascendant premier and reflecting on another "pretty dismal year", in the words of Flinders University associate lecturer in politics and public policy Josh Sunman.

"It can never be a good year when your polling's routinely showing you winning about three seats of 47," Mr Sunman said.

It's perhaps not surprising then that Ms Hurn is so keen to talk about the future.

Asked by ABC News whether the Liberal Party's turbulent 18 months changing leaders had been a lowlight of 2025, Ms Hurn said: "Look, I'm just focused on the future, honestly."

"With such a short runway between now and the next election, my focus is well and truly on making sure that we give the people of SA a choice," she said.

"So, I'll leave the commentating to the commentators."

Events, I've had a few

If anxiety is weighing down the Liberal camp this Christmas, that's not to say Labor hasn't had its share of worrisome moments in 2025.

Separate industrial crises in Whyalla and Port Pirie, a drought across the regions, a harmful algal bloom off the coast and the collapse of a major disability employment provider in Adelaide have prompted government interventions worth hundreds of millions of dollars — saving jobs, industries and arguably Labor's political skin.

Policy problems have been compounded by personnel challenges; in September, the premier lost two of his most senior cabinet ministers, deputy premier Susan Close and treasurer Stephen Mullighan, whose shock retirements forced an unexpected reshuffle that left Labor with a far more inexperienced ministry.

The government's also copped plenty of criticism this year for shelving its signature energy policy, a hydrogen power plant in Whyalla, after spending nearly $300 million on it (the government insists it will recoup much of that through asset sales).

And asked about his lowlight for the year, the premier pointed to his government's well-documented inability to cut down on ambulances ramping hours outside public hospitals — Labor's key promise at the last election.

"I've been pretty candid about the fact that we would have liked to have seen better results than what we have in terms of ramping hours," Mr Malinauskas told ABC News.

"Notwithstanding the fact that ambulance response times have continued to improve, but that's an area that still needs a lot of work."

'More grateful than regretful'

Labor's response to the algal bloom — the ecological disaster that's disrupted South Australia's tourism, aquaculture and fishing industries — was another source of frequent political criticism in 2025.

But the premier rebuffed suggestions he should have responded differently.

"I think a lot of people say that with the value of hindsight, which government doesn't have at the time," he said.

"We took all the advice of the best available scientists that we've got here in South Australia … and we acted on their advice and I'm not too sure what differently you could do."

Asked more broadly if there was anything he would have done differently, the premier said: "Certainly I can think of mistakes that we've made along the journey."

The government's protracted struggle to relocate the police horses from Thebarton was one example of "something we got wrong", he said.

"Naturally, I think of many occasions where as premier I can find ways to improve my performance," he said.

"But thankfully, by and large, I think there's more we're grateful for than regretful for."

New year's resolutions

As for his highlight of the year, Mr Malinauskas pointed to the national implementation of the under-16 social media ban, which had its origins in South Australia.

He also highlighted the government's "extraordinary intervention" at the Whyalla steelworks.

The industrial plant, which the state government stripped from Sanjeev Gupta's hands in February, is expected to be sold to a new owner in the second half of 2026.

"That now looks as though it's heading in the right direction, although there's still a bit of work to be done," Mr Malinauskas said.

For Ashton Hurn, she said her highlight was the "exciting policies" she released as shadow health minister to attract nurses and midwives to South Australia.

In the 92 days between now and the election, she will have to unveil the rest of the Liberal Party's policy platform.

"Part of what my leadership approach is is just rolling up my sleeves and getting things done," she said.

"We would definitely release a 100-day plan … you can expect to see that in the lead-up to the next election."

But the state budget's position, namely the predicted $48.5 billion debt by the end of the decade, makes the task of forming an election platform all the more difficult, according to James Hancock, deputy director of the University of Adelaide's SA Centre for Economic Studies.

"What we are seeing is that there are rising debt levels into the future and rising interest costs," Mr Hancock said.

"There's not a lot of room to make sort of easy decisions about things that might be popular with the public broadly."

So, what will the two leaders likely be thinking about over Christmas?

"I think Malinauskas will be reflecting on how does he lead a campaign now over the next three months that doesn't seem too hubristic," said Josh Sunman from Flinders University.

"You don't want to be seen as the party that thinks they've got it in the bag because that doesn't tend to go well for you.

"I think Ashton will be reflecting very heavily on where can she make impact, where can she kind of change the narrative around the Liberal Party and their kind of preordained loss that seems to be coming and where can she kind of scrape back ground."

Much to contemplate over Christmas lunch.