Attorney-General lands new role after Labor pre-election bombshell
The South Australian Attorney-General has landed a big promotion following the resignations of two of Premier Peter Malinauskas’ key confidants.
Kyam Maher has been elected Deputy Leader of South Australia’s Parliamentary Labor Party and will be sworn in as Deputy Premier later today, following yesterday’s shock resignation of Susan Close.
Maher, currently the Attorney-General and the government’s leader of the upper house, will be the Premier’s right-hand man in the lead-up to the 2026 state election.
The Malinauskas government is yet to announce who will take up the role of Treasurer, replacing Stephen Mullighan, who also resigned suddenly yesterday from the role.
Both Mullighan and Close will not stand for re-election when the state goes to the polls next year, with the former saying he wanted to spend more time with his family and the latter noting now was the right time for her to leave public life.
Close will continue in her role as Vice President of the Australian Labor Party.
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The Member for Adelaide Lucy Hood and Member for King Rhiannon Pearce have also been given Cabinet roles, but details are yet to be announced.
The Premier also announced last night that Member for Elder Nadia Clancy will serve as an Assistant Minister.
With Close leaving the Cabinet, the roles of Minister for Industry, Innovation & Science, Minister for Climate, Environment & Water and Minister for Workforce and Population Strategy are up for grabs.
In addition to Treasurer, Mullighan was the Minister for Defence & Space Industries and Minister for Police, meaning those roles also need to be reassigned.
The Opposition questioned the timing of Mullighan’s resignation, particularly after his recent trip to the United Kingdom “on a taxpayer funded lavish junket”.
Leader of the Opposition Vincent Tarzia said there were “serious questions… about whether taxpayers should foot the bill for their last hurrah”.
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“This is the epitome of a golden goodbye on the taxpayer dollar, with the Treasurer already plotting his exit when he boarded the plane,” Tarzia said.
“South Australians deserve transperancy on every cent spent, especially when it’s for a Minister who’s about to walk away from the job he was elected to do.”
Close said yesterday she wanted to take the “remarkable opportunity to choose to leave politics, to be able to do something else with still some energy to give”.
“I didn’t want to make a decision that could hurt Peter or that could hurt the team, but I did need to make a decision for myself,” she said.
“Life is really short. I have been watching my mother disappear into dementia over the last four years, and it was for me an alarm bell reminding me that life is finite and it’s precious and it is way shorter than you think when you’re young.
“I want to do something else. I want to have some freedom, and I feel I’ve given what I can to public life.”
Yesterday, Mullighan said his decision brought to an end more than 22 years of being in state government in South Australia “in a number of different ways”, including 12 as the Member for Lee.
“These are very personal decisions for both Susan and I. But for me, I’m in a position where I’ve lost both my parents and Antonia [his wife] has lost her father.
“It takes a village to raise children and our village is a little bit smaller. I want to make sure while the kids are still young, and I’m relatively young, that I can be around more and be more present as a husband.”
The refreshed frontbench team will be sworn in at Government House at 10.30am today.
