At this stage, the Poll Bludger’s inkling is that the Coalition will indeed reach the "magic 38" and that this, along with maybe one seat for Family First, will produce the first clearly conservative Senate since 1981. That said, he has yet to fully think through the results for the three smaller states (although the result in Tasmania is a clear 3 Liberal, 2 Labor and 1 Greens). The rest are looking as follows:
New South Wales: A clear three quotas for the Coalition, with the inevitable two for Labor. Since the combined Coalition, Labor and Greens vote was 88.2 per cent, leaving less than a quota to spare, it does not appear that talk of a micro-party harvesting enough preferences to be in contention is likely to be borne out. Instead the final place is looking like a battle between Labor (with a surplus of 0.6 over the second quota) and the Greens (with 0.5 of a quota). Of the substantial players, the Greens will get the Democrats’ 0.15 per cent of a quota plus the Coalition’s negligible surplus, while Labor will get preferences from Fred Nile and One Nation, collectively amounting to 0.3 per cent of quota. Worth noting is the poor performance of Family First (0.5 per cent of the vote) compared with Fred Nile’s Christian Democrats (2.5 per cent). So it looks like the result here will be 3 Labor and 3 Liberal, whereas the Poll Bludger had predicted 3 Liberal, 2 Labor and 1 Greens.
Victoria: A not dissimilar outcome to New South Wales, barring a turning of the tables for Family First (1.9 per cent) and the Christian Democrats (0.3 per cent). That leaves Labor (a 0.57 surplus over the second quota) competing with the Greens (0.61 of a quota) for the final place. In this contest, Labor will get preferences from Family First (0.13 of a quota), Family First, the DLP and Liberals for Forests (all of whom got 0.13 per cent of a quota) while the Greens will have to make do with the mildly pitiful Democrats (who also got 0.13 per cent of a quota). Maybe the micro-parties will make a difference, but the Poll Bludger’s best guess is that here too the seats will split evenly between Labor and Liberal.
Queensland: On the basis of the Poll Bludger’s slightly rough and amateurish assessment, it appears that Hetty Johnston might actually get up, producing a result of 3 Coalition, 2 Labor and 1 Hetty Johnston. As for the make-up of the three Coalition members, it does appear that the third Liberal candidate, Russell Trood, has the edge over the National Party’s Barnaby Joyce.
