South Australia's opposition leader has focused on broken promises while the premier highlighted the government's economic achievements in a combative debate, one year out from the state election.
The Labor government enters the home stretch with a comfortable margin of 28 seats to 13 over the Liberals in SA parliament's lower house, with two by-election victories in the last 12 months.
The opposition has a fledgling leader and a scandal fresh in the public's memory.
But Opposition Leader Vincent Tarzia came out swinging at the SA Press Club debate on Friday, saying "this guy" Peter Malinauskas was a "good times" premier who was "creating another class of forgotten people" and "squeezing the middle class".
He homed in on the government's failed election pledge to "fix the ramping crisis" in the state's hospitals, and the shelving of a $600 million hydrogen plant project in Whyalla to redirect money to support the town's steelworks industry.
"When politicians think that they've got such a massive majority and they're so arrogant that they don't have to keep their promises, it's just not good enough," he said.
Mr Malinauskas said the narrative around SA had changed and people were no longer "talking about our potential or making excuses, lamenting the fact that the rest of the country looks down on us".
He said six per cent of the ambulances arriving at hospitals account for more than half of all the hours of ramping.
"Before we were elected, if you called an ambulance for a life-threatening emergency there was a one-in-three chance of it rocking up on time. Now there's two in three chance, that's the difference between life and death."
SA was consistently ranking first or second in the nation in terms of economic performance, unemployment was below four per cent and there is a stable tax environment and a business-friendly regulatory regime, he said.
Mr Tarzia took over from David Speirs, whose leadership imploded in 2024 and he was subsequently charged with two counts of supplying drugs. the former leader is negotiating with prosecutors on the outcome.
Challenged on the issue, Mr Tarzia said only that Mr Speirs was "not a member of the Liberal Party any more ... the guy's going through some challenges at the moment".
On the issue of housing, Mr Malinauskas said there were people with "silver bullets".
"Ignore them all. The only thing that matters is increasing supply," he said.
The Housing Industry Association had ranked SA No.1 in a recent report and given the government's housing policy a nine out of 10, he said.
Mr Tarzia said the Liberals had learned from the two by-election losses and been "more professional".
"We've been disciplined, we've been focused, we've been united, no leaks, and we're getting on with it," he said.
