Labor’s sweep to victory in South Australia’s election on the weekend reveals something about pandemic politics, political journalist Barry Cassidy says.

Liberal South Australian premier Steven Marshall was ousted by Labor’s Peter Malinauskas after just one term in power.

Political journalist and former host of Insiders, Barry Cassidy, says the result “does give us a sense of the politics of the pandemic”.

“We’ve had three state elections before South Australia that were held during the pandemic. All of the incumbents won — Queensland, WA, Tasmania,” he told Tony Jones, filling in for Neil Mitchell.

“What they all had in common was that they took very tough measures to deal with the pandemic.

“In South Australia he (Steven Marshall) was going pretty well, and then all of a sudden he opened up, and he opened up too early, he opened up before vaccinations reached 80 per cent … and support then for Stephen Marshall collapsed.”

With a federal election approaching, Mr Cassidy says Australians are “more entitled … than normal” to be unsatisfied with their potential Prime Ministers.

“Australians are rarely satisfied with the choices they get, and even at the time when it turns out they had pretty good choices, I don’t think they appreciated it at the time.”

Press PLAY below to hear more about the politics of the pandemic

Image: Nine