In his first column for InDaily, veteran journalist and ABC presenter Matthew Abraham slips down the rabbit hole that was the state election.

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.

“Oh you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “We’re all mad here.

I’m mad. You’re mad.”

“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.

“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Nobody, with the possible exception of Vladimir Putin, does wacky elections quite like us.

South Australia is the only state in the Commonwealth with a clause cemented into its constitution declaring that the party that gets more than 50 per cent of the vote shall, as far as practicable, form government. You would have thought we hold this truth to be self-evident.

And yet we are the only state in the Commonwealth where, consistently and for much of the past century, this has simply not happened.

Trying to fix this has so seriously warped our electoral system that the votes of just over a million people now count for very little, election after election.

Four years ago, the election result hinged on less than a thousand votes.

This time, some calculate that the March election result would have switched with about 300 votes changing hands in two seats.

Either that, or the Independent member for Frome, Geoff Brock, just could have shouted “hold the anchovies” as Premier Jay Weatherill dialled up his Super Supreme Deal.

It makes you wonder why we bother having elections here at all. Rather than an Electoral Commission, why not one of those ticket dispensers they have at the supermarket deli counters? Take a ticket, and wait your turn. In the case of the Liberals, that would be about once every 20 years. It would be cheaper and far less stressful.

South Australians have largely shrugged their shoulders and gone about life as though the election, with all those robo-calls and noddies, never really took place.

Opposition Leader Steven Marshall privately concedes that he was outclassed, to use his words, by a veteran political operative in Jay Weatherill.

This collective ennui appears to have settled on the Weatherill-Brock Government and Her Majesty’s Opposition in the weeks since polling day.

If winners are meant to be grinners, why is the tone of the newly-returned Labor Government so grumpy? Is it exhaustion, or something more than that?

Within days of the election result, Tom Kenyon resigned from the critical trade and manufacturing portfolio, a brief that includes the Holden basket case.

Kenyon is smart, energetic and looks as fit as a trout. No one doubts his sincerity in wanting to spend more time with his young family, but if he was suffering ministerial burn-out, how are some of his older Cabinet colleagues motoring?

The smart ones were expecting to lose and, dare we think it, some may have been privately relishing a little rest and recreation in opposition.

On the day the new government was sworn in at Government House, the newly-elected Labor MP for Napier, Jon Gee, took a swipe on ABC TV news at what he obviously believed was the biased media coverage of the campaign, oddly singling out The Advertiser.

But gee Mr Gee, your side won, remember? Not only that, but you sailed into parliament in a rolled gold Labor seat courtesy of the bungled exit of Michael O’Brien.

No doubt the newbie MP has already knuckled down to more important things, like finding jobs for the hundreds of Holden workers soon to be unemployed in his electorate.

Even as late as last week, Labor’s whip in the Upper House Kyam Maher was tweeting: “I’d hate to be the Lib staffer who draws the short straw and has to tell Rob Lucas the election is over – and they lost”.

Twitter is a vast public forum. Rubbing your victory into Liberal noses is one thing, rubbing it into the noses of the 53 per cent of voters who wanted a change of government is quite another.

Premier Weatherill will want to stamp on this sort of thing because his strategy from here on in is obvious – rather than reminding people of the result, he wants everyone, especially the media, to forget about it and move on.

And what of the Opposition? Surely they should be as mad as hell. Not really.

Opposition Leader Steven Marshall privately concedes that he was outclassed, to use his words, by a veteran political operative in Jay Weatherill. He has even said this to his Liberal team. Given the party’s near perfect record on treachery, this is either a tactical master stroke, refreshing humility or a really dumb thing to admit.

He should look a beaten man, and yet on the evening news he still carries that “what, me worry?” air of Alfred E. Neuman, the gap-toothed cover boy of Mad magazine.

The case of the election that never really was gets curiouser and curiouser with each passing day.

Premier Weatherill says that one of his key missions over the next four years is to restore the electorate’s “faith in democracy”. How he plans to do this is anyone’s guess, so watch this space.

Over a coffee, colleague David Bevan and I put to a source remarkably close to the Premier that if just 300 votes had swapped sides, he would be in Opposition.

“And if my aunty had balls, she’d be my uncle,” came the reply.

Matthew Abraham and David Bevan present the weekday breakfast program on 891 ABC Adelaide.

InDaily’s regular political columnist Tom Richardson is on leave.