Check back here throughout the day for updates from the campaign trail.

4pm Bressington out, numbers down

Independent Upper House MP Anne Bressington is a non-starter in the list of candidates for the March State Election.

As InDaily reported last week, Bressington is not seekeing re-election, having sevred on eight year term in the Upper House.

When candidate nominations closed at midday today, a total of 204 candidates had nominated for the House of Assembly and 63 for the Legislative Council.

This is down on the last election when 253 nominated for the House of Assembly and 74 for the Legislative Council.

Draws for all House of Assembly ballot papers were conducted shortly after the close of nominations at midday today.

A record number of voters are enrolled to vote in the State election on March 15.

When rolls closed at 12 noon on Friday, 21 February, a total of 1,142,419 South Australians had enrolled to vote.

This is an increase of just over 49,000 on the 2010 figure of 1,093,316. South Australia’s Electoral Commissioner, Ms Kay Mousley, said the average number of electors per district was 24,307.

The largest district is Lee with 25,971 voters and the smallest is Giles with 22,712. In 2010, the average enrolment per district was 23,250.

11.42am Libs promise more money for crime victims

The Liberals have announced an expanded victim support service with a particular focus on children, costed at $12 million over the forward estimates.

From the press release:

A Marshall Liberal Government will provide more than $12 million over the forward estimates towards the expansion of victims compensation and support.

As part of this commitment, a Marshall Liberal Government will provide $600,000 per year towards the expansion of victims support services to children.

 If elected, a Marshall Liberal Government will:

• Provide more than $12 million over the forward estimates towards the expansion of victims compensation and support, including $600,000 per year towards the expansion of victims support services to children from 2015-16;
• Allow victims to speak from the heart without their victim impact statements being censored by the courts;
• Double the maximum payments under the victims of crime compensation scheme to $100,000 and index annually;
• Double the maximum compensation payable for grief and funeral expenses and eligibility for grief payments extended to those under 18;

• Increase fees for legal representatives; and,

• Roll out a Disability Justice Plan as a broad-based strategy to systematically address the hurdles that South Australians with a disability face.

10.52am Record voter numbers

South Australians will go to the polls on March 15 in record numbers, says SA’s Electoral Commissioner Kay Mousley.

She said this morning that when rolls closed on Friday a total of 1,142,419 South Australians had enrolled to vote – just over 49,000 more than were enrolled for the 2010 election.

The average number of electors per district was 24,307. The biggest district is Lee, with 25,971 voters and the smallest is Giles with 22,712.

10.44am Manufacturing money for high school

Labor today promised to open a $2.3 million “Centre for Advanced Manufacturing” at Seaview High School. Premier Jay Weatherill said the school would become a “specialist advanced manufacturing school”.

Labor is promising $200,000 in specialist equipment for the centre. Specific subjects would be determined by the school with input from employers at Tonsley (the old Mitsubishi site, and now manufacturing hub) and would include “robotics, laser-based manufacturing, computer-aided design and virtual engineering”.

9.35am Missing in action… the environment?

One issue that’s been largely absent from election dialouge has been the environment. ConservationSA have just their election campaign ‘asks’; here are the key bits:

1. Double the environment portfolio’s proportion of the state budget within the
next term of government to reverse the current trend of serious environmental
decline, as described in the State of the Environment Report 2013, and ensure
environmental programs are sustainably funded for the long term

…

3. Accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy
• Adopt a target of over 40% greenhouse pollution reduction by 2020, 60% by 2030 and
95% by 2050;

4. Protect South Australia’s water resources
• Prescribe all at-risk surface and groundwater supplies, resources and reserves and
ensure there is a water allocation plan in place for them;

5.  Maintain Zero Waste SA at full operation

…

7. Ensure that major infrastructure developments that contribute to cumulative
impacts are subject to a Strategic Environmental Assessment to take into account
their combined impact on the local and regional environment and life cycle
greenhouse gas emissions
• Protect the Northern Spencer Gulf from siting of further ports and large scale
desalination plants, and establish the best location for a single well-placed port in
Southern Spencer Gulf.

8.40am Marshall v Weatherill on morning radio

The Premier and the Opposition Leader took to radio this morning to talk hospitals old and new. Over the weekend the Liberals announced their plans for the Old Royal Adelaide Hospital, which will be vacant in 2016. They want to make it… a hospital. The plan is to lease it to private providers who’d be able to use some of the old buildings – some are so far past their use-by-date they need to be condemned, but there are plenty of new and modern bits – to run as a private hospital.

Steven Marshall told the ABC this morning the plan would recoup existing investment that the State Government had made in the site over many years, rather than knocking everything down and starting again.

“The anchor tenant on that site will be medical. we want to recoup some of the investment that we’ve made in that site, we think there’s enormous potential for the medical centre.”

Weatherill said it was a move to privatise the healthcare system and would be going against the push of public opinion, which he claimed supported the site being used for a new city high school.

“Here you’ve got privatisation of our healthcare system and Labor standing up for a new public school.

“The fabric there can be used for other purposes. and we want to use it for a school.”

The whole debate is being backgrounded by the results of the State Government’s design competition for the site, which resulted in a series of designs – many of which, it should be noted, were very flexible on their uses. During that comp there was a call for public submissions on what the site should become, and according to Weatherill no one supported a hospital, while 83 per cent of people wanted a school.