In 2017, when then-Labor leader Jay Weatherill crashed an AGL set-piece press conference to berate the federal Treasurer over his Government’s attacks on SA’s energy woes, Frydenberg’s po-faced gaze quickly went viral and entered political folklore.

Today, however, he was all smiles standing alongside his partisan colleague Steven Marshall, touring the Bickford’s plant in Adelaide’s north as the State Government restated its commitment to jobs and growth.

Awkwardly, the Treasurer was even asked today about AGL – the company that hosted him for his run-in five years ago, which is currently in the sights of Atlassian founder Mike Cannon-Brookes.

“Well… I don’t look back, I look forward,” Frydenberg said when asked about any apprehension in returning to the SA political fray.

“And when it comes to Steven Marshall, we have an outstanding partner at the federal level.”

Marshall and Frydenberg at Bickford’s today. Photo: Tom Richardson / InDaily

But that could change come March 19, with yesterday’s Australia Institute-commissioned poll, published by InDaily, putting Labor ahead 51-49 on a two-party-preferred basis as the election campaign kicks off.

“I’ve always said I think it’s going to be a very tight election,” Marshall said of the poll, restating his mantra that Labor leader Peter Malinauskas is a “risk”.

“[South Australians] know what they’re going to get with the Liberal Party,” he said, citing a strong economy and a commitment to health spending.

Malinauskas was today making his own health spending commitments, receiving a rousing reception at the nurses’ union headquarters as he pledged an elected Labor government to recruiting 300 extra nurses “over and above existing budgeted increases to nurses over the forward estimates”.

It was a rock-star reception for the Labor leader, who has unashamedly traded on his sporting prowess (not to mention physique). One nurse told him he “looked like an actor”, while another recalled his now-infamous topless photo-op at the North Adelaide Aquatic Centre, telling him: “You’ve got my vote just for that!”

Malinauskas with nurses today.

He says he will also legislate nurse-patient ratios – requiring an immediate injection of 76 nurses “just to fill the gap”, although conceding the full influx of 300 nurses won’t come “overnight” but during a full four-year term.

Union boss Elizabeth Dabars welcomed the commitment – while insisting her union was not “party partisan” – saying the Opposition was “doing what should be done, putting beds before basketball and staff before stadiums”, and arguing the “health system has been in crisis for a considerable amount of time”.

The Labor leader addressing the gathered union members.

But Marshall was quick to link the Labor leader to that crisis, repeating his argument that the former Health Minister presided over the closure of the Repat, and labelling him a “former union boss [who] has never had an economic portfolio”.

The Premier said his Government had “increased the number of nurses by more than 1000 in our first year”.

While conceding the election race is tight, Marshall declined to pin the decline in his polling numbers since September on the decision to open SA’s borders.

“I’m not going to comment on individual polls – they jump around a lot [but] it’s been a pretty tumultuous time in Australia in recent months with Omicron coming in,” he said, adding that SA was fully prepared for the Delta wave.

But as for the subsequent Omicron wave?

“I don’t think anybody was prepared for the Omicron wave,” he said.

“We opened the borders before Omicron was even discovered.”

Marshall questioned: “Do South Australians really want to go back to being a hermit state?”

“Yes, it’s been tough – but we’ve got through this by working together,” he said.

“If we’d kept the borders closed…we’d have a major handbrake on our economy – thousands and thousands unemployed… and nobody wants that.”