Labor will look to win over disillusioned voters in two South Australian seats it has not held for more than 45 years, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten says.
Mr Shorten was alongside Sturt candidate Cressida O'Hanlon and Boothby candidate Nadia Clancy on International Women's Day when he committed $1.2 billion for work on Adelaide's north-south road corridor.
The party announced Ms O'Hanlon as its Sturt candidate this week, as the Liberals faced calls to preselect a woman to run in place of the veteran MP and outgoing Defence Minister Christopher Pyne.
Mr Shorten said while Labor had not traditionally been successful in the seats, several factors including Liberal infighting the ALP at the upcoming federal election.
"I'm sure they'll be perhaps dyed-in-the-wool Liberal voters in Sturt and Boothby who mightn't have traditionally thought about voting Labor," he told reporters in Adelaide on Friday.
"But this time they're going to go 'well, after 2000 days of Liberal government, what have we got to show in South Australia?'
"And they might say 'we're just sick of the instability'."
The Liberal Party's margin in Boothby slipped from 3.5 per cent to a notional 2.8 per cent in the 2017-18 federal seat redraw.
The party holds Sturt by 5.4 per cent following the redistribution - though it's unclear how the resignation of Mr Pyne, who held the seat for 26 years, will affect the vote.
Labor Senator Penny Wong addressed questions of whether the Liberals should select a female candidate in Sturt.
"It doesn't matter if they pre-select a woman or not, because we all know what they really think," she said.
"You know there's an election coming when the Liberal Party suddenly start talking about women's representation again."
Premier Steven Marshall's chief of staff, James Stevens, this week resigned from his position and announced he would contest the Sturt preselection ballot.
Nominations closed on Friday.
