Voters in Adelaide’s southern suburbs are going to the polls in a by-election sparked by the resignation and criminal prosecution of former opposition Leader David Speirs.
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00:00A lot of people are coming through early to beat that heat that we've heard about.
00:06More than 26,000 eligible voters coming through to enjoy a democracy sausage, have their voices
00:12heard and also beat that heat as we've heard.
00:16But it's not the only thing that's heating up as this has been a very interesting lead
00:22up to a campaign for the state seat of black.
00:27It was triggered by the resignation of former seat holder and former opposition leader David
00:34Spears when he resigned from state parliament in October following his arrest on a drug
00:40charge and he made his first magistrates court appearance yesterday.
00:44Hoping to take his place are Liberals Amanda Wilson, Labor's Alex Dighton, Sarah Luscombe
00:50from the Greens and Jonathan Parkin for the Australian Family Party.
00:55It did get a little bit spicy yesterday as both the major parties took aim at each other's
01:00campaigns.
01:01The state's electoral commission upheld a Labor complaint about Liberal electoral ads.
01:06They claimed that under Labor state government fees and charges had gone up 30% which was
01:12found to breach the electoral act and that material was ordered to be withdrawn.
01:17The Liberals have also taken exception to Labor campaigning with Ms Wilson saying that
01:23she felt intimidated by Mr Dighton during a verbal altercation while they were at an
01:29early voting centre.
01:30Now they've both agreed to stand a metre apart although Mr Dighton denies any wrongdoing.
01:37It's a very interesting by-election especially in South Australia as more than a quarter
01:42of enrolled voters have cast early ballots and those won't be counted until Monday.
01:48This reignited debate in the state about whether our laws need to be changed.
01:53It also means that if this is a close race we won't know the result this evening.
02:00And it also means that I guess it's an interesting test, many are seeing this as a very interesting
02:06test of Vincent Tarsier and how he's leading the state's Liberal party.
02:11So it will be very interesting to see how this one turns out, that's for sure.