SA’s newest political party launches
A newly registered political party hopes to be a left-wing alternative for South Australian voters in the upcoming state election following the launch of the South Australian branch of right-wing organisation Turning Point Australia.
SA Socialists was officially registered yesterday after the group, associated with the successful Victorian Socialists party, secured the 200 members required to become an official political party under the Electoral Act.
The party hopes to offer voters a left-wing alternative to the mainstream political parties in South Australia, and was planning on fielding candidates at the 2026 state election.
Its launch followed the recent formation of a South Australian branch of right-wing organisation Turning Point Australia, affiliated with assassinated activist Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA.
Conservative social media commentator George-Alexander Mamalis was announced as the group’s new state coordinator.
While former One Nation legislative councillor Sarah Game has announced two new candidates for her new political party, Sarah Game Fair Go For Australians.
Accredited video game and film certifier Angela Rojas will stand for number two on the Upper House ticket for Fair Go, behind City of Adelaide councillor Henry Davis, while Jake Hall-Evans will contest the seat of Colton in Adelaide’s western suburbs.
Victoria Socialists was a “successful case of how you can bring socialists politics to modern Australia”, SA Socialists interim secretary Tom Gilchrist told InDaily.
The Victorian counterpart, led by social media figure Jordan van den Lamb (aka Purple Pingers), in May announced it would expand nationwide. While Victorian Socialists did not land an upper or lower house seat at the 2025 Federal Election, it recorded double-digit first-preference votes in certain seats across the state.
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SA Socialists hoped to build on this momentum, Gilchrist said.
The SA party would host a founding conference in November where the official constitution would be voted on and candidates would be selected to run at the state election.
The party would target “long-time, really safe Labor seats” – working-class seats that Gilchrist said the Labor party “really take for granted”.
SA Labor is set to hold its State Convention this weekend, and it is unclear whether any major candidate announcements will come out of it.
Gilchrist said Labor was “more concerned with actually trying to win over the marginal seats from the Liberals than actually addressing the problems that exist in those areas”.
“There should be a socialist option for people who feel disenfranchised and left behind by Labor and actually want to vote for a party to the left that expresses that the problems are with the pro-business politics of Labor,” he said.
Gilchrist said the party was “overwhelmed” with the initial response to the formation of SA Socialists.
“We had hundreds of people join in just the first few days of that launch back in May,” he said.
“From there, it’s been a process of turning that into something real. Organising events, forums, rallies and supporting strikes and actions from workers.”
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He said the party would focus on issues around wealth inequality, instead of the “pro-capitalist, pro-business politics of the major parties”.
“I think particularly in South Australia the Labor Party… seems more concerned about Trump supporting AUKUS or expanding law and order, whereas we think the problems people are actually facing is the housing crisis, the health crisis and we should be taxing big business to solve those problems,” he said.
The launch followed news that Opposition leader Vincent Tarzia would lose his seat if the election were held today, with the SA Liberals facing a wipeout in all its metropolitan seats according to new DemosAU/Ace Strategies Poll data.
Gilchrist was concerned that the weakness of the state Liberal Party “just strengthens the position of what is actually a pretty conservative a pro-business Labor government”.
He said SA Socialists would agree with the SA Greens “on a bunch of things” but “they’re also not a socialist party”.
“There’s members of the Greens who might be more socialist, but there’s also members of the Greens that support green capitalism,” he said.
Gilchrist said the Party’s main message was that “the problems in this country are that we just have politics which is done for and by the rich”.
Gilchrist said the growing prominence of right-wing groups in South Australia was “obviously very concerning”.
“The establishment of a local Turning Point group and the rise in the polls of One Nation I think does show the importance now of a left-wing project like SA Socialists,” he said.
“We’ve got people blaming the housing crisis on immigrants, and I think it’s something the major parties have not been able to stand up to properly because they don’t want to have a serious fight with the right over immigration.
“I think there’s an importance for a left party that can put forward radical anti-capitalist solutions to these problems.”
