Tens of thousands of South Australians are casting their vote in today’s state election, with Opposition Leader Isobel Redmond tipped to claim one of the most remarkable election victories in Australian political history.

But South Australian Premier Mike Rann says he is feeling confident despite Newspoll data indicating the Labor Party is headed for an election defeat.

The poll published in The Australian suggests there is virtually no chance of Mr Rann’s Government retaining the numbers to rule in its own right, despite Labor’s record 10-seat majority.

The Liberals are ahead of Labor 52 per cent to 48 on a two-party preferred basis, and need to win 10 seats to govern in their own right. Labor only needs to lose a net five seats to lose its majority.

Once the most popular premier in the country, Mr Rann has taken a beating in the lead-up to the election, with many people now preferring Ms Redmond as leader of the state, even though she has only been Opposition Leader for eight months.

Mr Rann voted in the marginal seat of Norwood this morning and says he is confident, but believes it will be a tight result.

“I feel really positive. I feel really positive about our state,” he said.

“I’m sure that what we’ll see tonight is a very, very close finish, it could be a very long night.”

He says the Liberals’ campaign has fallen apart in the last few days because of mistakes over their costings.

“That shows us how incredibly phoney the Libs have been in their costings; they hope they can slide their way into Government,” he said.

“South Australia has a good story to tell, what we want to do is finish the job we’ve been elected to do and get this state moving ahead and that’s exactly what’s happening.”

‘Not surprised’

Mr Rann says he is not surprised by the Newspoll data, and in his final appeal to voters, the Premier asked them to think more about what his Government had achieved.

“In so many areas like renewable energy and the fact that we’ve got the lowest unemployment of any state in the country, and also are we in a better position for the future to take the next step up,” he said.

“And I also hope they’ll ask themselves who is best-equipped to keep our economy moving forward, to keep the jobs growth going, to keep winning the projects, to keep securing the contracts, and to get the best deal from Kevin Rudd and his Government.

“My appeal to people is to allow us to finish the job, to complete the mission which is transforming our state to become much more confident, much more vibrant, and to keep the jobs growth going.”

‘Ready Redmond’

Ms Redmond cast her vote flanked by supporters at Stirling this morning, and said she was hopeful of polling well.

“I’m never, ever confident coming into an election but certainly it’s encouraging,” she said.

“It seems to me to indicate that there is a mood for change in the electorate.”

Ms Redmond said she spent last night having a relaxing dinner with friends and would today take time to thank her volunteers.

“I think I’ve run my race but there’s a lot of people out there, volunteers, who’ve put up their hands to work all day and they’ve put up posters, they’ve done all sorts of things over the last few weeks,” she said.

“I’ll probably spend a good part of the day travelling around trying to thank them.”

The Liberals have thrown their weight behind Ms Redmond with the campaign theme of “Redmond is ready”.

Campaign hiccups

But the final week of campaigning has had some hiccups for the Liberals, with former deputy leader Vickie Chapman initially refusing to rule out challenging the leadership, and Shadow Treasurer Steven Griffiths admitting to the Financial Review that some of their financial estimates were spin.

Despite those problems, Ms Redmond says she hopes voters consider broader issues as they walk into the booths today.

“What we want to do is recycle storm water – the Government seems to have a problem with that, although they seem to forget that we all drink storm water all the time,” she said.

“We want to rebuild the Royal Adelaide Hospital, save all that money, and put that into other health services.

“We want to have an independent commission against corruption. We want to maintain Glenside as a dedicated mental health facility.

“Probably for the first time in 20 years the two sides of Liberal and Labor present completely different policy alternatives and the voters have a very clear choice.”

Ms Redmond denied there were blowouts in the party’s costings of its promises, saying the Liberals would be able to pay for their promises.

“We’ve had Horvis, a major national firm, do the assessment of those costings and we believe that we are not only solid on those, but we are very much in a position to produce the things that we’ve said that we can produce and bring our budgets back into surplus,” she said.

Hung parliament

Flinders University Associate Professor of Politics Haydon Manning says a hung parliament is still a distinct possibility.

“It’s certainly an election that’s a lot closer than many of us predicted only a few months ago,” he said.

“It does appear though that Labor may have clawed back enough to govern in their own right with a very slender majority.

“I guess it rests very much in the minds of the swinging voter as they approach the polling booth.”