Labor’s Nat Cook, who is ahead of Liberal Heidi Harris 51.4 per cent to 48.6 per cent on a two-party preferred basis. Picture: Dean Martin Source: News Corp Australia

Federal MP Andrew Southcott said national issues played a part in the votes, while Assistant Infrastructure Minister Jamie Briggs said the canoe comment was “very, very unhelpful”.

“People, I think rightly, expect us to be empathetic and that comment was not that,” he said.

South Australian Opposition leader Steven Marshall says it is too early to call the result, but admits the count has so far been disappointing for the Liberals.

The counting of votes is continuing today with Labor’s Nat Cook ahead of Liberal Heidi Harris 51.4 per cent to 48.6 per cent on a two-party preferred basis.

The Liberals had been expected to win the seat, but Mr Marshall said today the party always knew it was going to be a “complex by-election”.

He said the party faced an anxious wait while the pre-poll and postal votes were counted, and the results may not be known for days.

Premier Jay Weatherill said the swing to Labor showed voter dissatisfaction with broken federal Coalition promises as well as with the “pathetically weak” reaction to them from the SA opposition.

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Bob Such, who won Fisher from Labor in 1989, served as a Liberal MP for 10 years before becoming an independent in 2000.

He was diagnosed with a brain tumour a week after the 2014 state election and died in October.

Another state by-election will be held on January 31 in the Adelaide Hills seat of Davenport, sparked by the retirement of long-serving Liberal Iain Evans.

Mr Marshall said that in the lead-up to that poll, the party would not want another canoe-type comment, which had been damaging and completely untrue.

AAP