The Poll Bludger’s lower house predictions left a bit to be desired – I underestimated the Nationals, failed to spot Labor’s troubles in Gippsland, missed Russell Savage’s defeat in Mildura, punted on some roughies that failed to come home (Eltham and South West Coast) and got suckered in by some faulty conventional wisdom (South Barwon and Melbourne). However, I can claim to have salvaged some pride with my upper house predictions, all of which are looking good except my call of three Liberal and two Labor in Western Victoria, which will likely be the other way round (UPDATE: See below). Given that my prediction was for a total of 20 seats for Labor, the Western Victoria bonus would give them the magic 21 seats and an absolute majority in the 40-seat chamber. Bearing in mind that the VEC still only has results in from 1744 out of 2416 voting centres, the picture appears as follows in the eight regions listed in rough order of interest (if any).
1. David Davis (Liberal)
2. John Lenders (Labor)
3. Andrea Coote (Liberal)
4. Sue Pennicuik (Greens)
5. Evan Thornley (Labor) leads David Southwick (Liberal)
Labor is coming perilously close to having its star candidate Evan Thornley lose to the third Liberal. The Greens have a quota without much room to spare after preferences from the Democrats boost them from 15.64 per cent to 17.31 per cent, above the magic number of 16.67 per cent. Similarly, Evan Thornley starts out with Labor’s 14.98 per cent surplus over the first quota and just gets there with preferences from independent Rita Bentley (0.38 per cent) and People Power (1.37 per cent), boosting him to 16.73 per cent. He will further get the Greens surplus if he needs it, which on current figures will boost him 0.60 per cent to a total of 17.33 per cent. That gives him an uncomfortable lead of 0.66 per cent; if this lead evaporates, Family First preferences will put the Liberals’ David Southwick over the line. It is interesting that Rita Bentley is giving Thornley such a valuable boost, as her preference ticket singles him out for special treatment – Thornley is in third place behind Bentley’s running mate Geoff Taylor, while the other Labor candidates are behind the Liberals.
1. Jaala Pulford (Labor)
2. John Vogels (Liberal)
3. Gayle Tierney (Labor)
4. David Koch (Liberal)
5. Elaine Carbines (Labor) leads Peter Kavanagh (DLP)
With Labor and Liberal winning two seats each, the final seat has emerged as a contest between Labor and the Greens with the tide continuing to flow to Labor. At the critical point of the count, Labor leads 9.13 per cent to the Greens’ 8.46 per cent (their 8.17 per cent primary vote plus preferences from the Socialist Alliance). Whichever of the two emerges in front will get to a quota on the preferences of the other, leapfrogging either the Nationals or the DLP. (UPDATE: The previous statement was based on the erroneous assumption that Labor preferences would go to the Greens rather than the DLP. In fact, if Labor falls behind the Greens – which is reckoned to be at least possible by those in the know – their preferences will deliver the seat to the DLP).
1. Justin Madden (Labor)
2. Khalil Eideh (Labor)
3. Martin Pakula (Labor)
4. Bernie Finn (Liberal)
5. Henry Barlow (Labor) leads Colleen Hartland (Greens)
After the first four seats go three Labor and one Liberal, Labor is leading the Greens in the race for the fifth seat. Labor has 9.31 per cent over the third quota against the Greens’ total of 9.14 per cent. Labor is then boosted by preferences from People Power (1.24 per cent) and the DLP (0.99 per cent), while the Greens get preferences from the Democrats (0.94 per cent) – leaving Labor with a lead of 11.54 per cent to 10.08 per cent at the critical point of the count. Whichever of the two ends up behind here will propel the other over the second Liberal candidate (7.80 per cent boosted to 11.72 per cent after Family First preferences).
1. Richard Dalla Riva (Liberal)
2. Shaun Leane (Labor)
3. Bruce Atkinson (Liberal)
4. Brian Tee (Labor)
5. Jan Kronberg (Liberal) leads Bill Pemberton (Greens)
After the election of two Liberal and two Labor candidates, the fifth place emerges as a close contest between Liberal and the Greens. The Greens appeared to have the edge earlier in the count, but the tide has continued to flow in the Liberals’ direction. The Liberals are currently on 11.72 per cent above their second quota, with the Greens on 10.30 per cent. With the Liberals further boosted by 4.36 per cent from the strongly performing Family First, the current result at the final count is Liberal 17.48 per cent and the Greens 15.86 per cent – surely an unbridgeable gap.
1. Theo Theophanous (Labor)
2. Jenny Mikakos (Labor)
3. Matthew Guy (Liberal)
4. Nazih Elasmar (Labor)
5. Greg Barber (Greens)
The remarkable thing about the DLP’s near-miss was that it was not entirely down to the strength of their preference arrangements, which were inferior to those of People Power and the Democrats. Their vote of 4.85 per cent may well have been boosted by their position on the far left of the ballot paper, echoing their strong 2.3 per cent Senate vote when they were similarly placed in 2001. It was suggested on that occasion that they had benefited from confused Labor voters. However, the miracle ultimately failed to eventuate because the Greens vote has steadily increased to 16.09 per cent as counting has progressed, lifting them above a 16.67 per cent quota with the addition of 1.13 per cent from the Democrats as preferences.
1. Candy Broad (Labor)
2. Wendy Lovell (Liberal)
3. Damian Drum (Nationals)
4. Donna Petrovich (Liberal)
5. Kaye Darveniza (Labor)
The collective Coalition vote was 50.54 per cent, or a clear three quotas. With the Liberal vote on 28.65 per cent (11.98 above the first quota) and the Nationals on 21.89 per cent (5.22 per cent), these seats went two Liberal and one Nationals. Labor polled 30.05 per cent (13.38 per cent over a quota) to the Greens’ 6.86 per cent; to that the Greens could add only a tiny Coalition surplus plus further preferences from some surprising sources, with the Christian Democratic Party and the DLP both putting the Greens ahead of Labor. That still left them well short of a quota, with Labor coasting home on preferences from Family First (3.66 per cent) and the Country Alliance (2.32 per cent).
1. Philip Davis (Liberal)
2. Matt Viney (Labor)
3. Edward O’Donohue (Liberal)
4. Peter Hall (Nationals)
5. Johan Scheffer (Labor)
A straightforward result with a clear two quotas to Labor (35.36 per cent) and three for the Coalition after the addition of Family First preferences. The Nationals polled 9.70 per cent against the 4.65 per cent Liberal surplus over the second quota, and thus emerged with the third Coalition seat.
1. Gavin Jennings (Labor)
2. Adem Somyurek (Labor)
3. Gordon Rich-Phillips (Liberal)
4. Bob Smith (Labor)
5. Inga Peulich (Liberal)
Another refreshingly straightforward outcome with Labor on just over three quotas (50.72 per cent) and the Liberals just over two (33.50 per cent).
Anyone wish to give us an update on the Thornley V Southwick contest? Southwick appears to be closing the gap.
I think Rudd is very intelligent but I am not sure if he has that common touch. In my opinion the best prime-minister was Paul Keating. I guess we only get one good prime-minister per generation. I think Gillard is capable but she does not have the broad faction support. Beasly is just yesterday’s bread. Not really inspirational.
Yes Keatings got my vote too but will he come down out of renovations? I doubt it.
Why not legislate (on the German model) that parties cannot be elected to the Legislative Council with less than 5% of the primary vote in their electorate this would end the corrupt preference-selling and buying game by the microparties and the majors.
Centuar 007
LOL actually foreign debt was highest under the last labor government, you might be confusing it with the current account deficit, which has very little to do with the government.
Total taxes are higher, because total GDP is higher, Australia has one of the worst indirect tax system of all OECD country, that is the results of things like land tax, payroll tax, excise tax, etc, which are the domain of state governments, which Howard had tried to get rid of. Australia does have one of the highest top marginal individual tax rates, which can create a skill drain, but the Labor party has complained about the cuts in tax rate and increase in threshold the last two times, so they are unlikely to do anything there.
Race war, what race war, I did not know we are in Indonesia, US, Iran, Africa, Iraq or Israel. If you think Australia is bad, you need to go overseas. Also you might want to invent a policy which stop anyone being racist.
Iraq war, it is ok for Sadaam to kill 1million people over 5 years, there was little outcry over that.
Health system, health is a state government issue, The only role federal government has is allocating spending and the private health care system and you cannot complain about taxes and spending on health at the same time. The state governments have record GST revenue at the moment, yet in NSW, VIC, SA and QLD, the % of budget spending on healthcare had decrease from when the labor government were voted in.
AWB kick back, well they were clear for that. Even if everyone knew everything. For me, I do not see it a crime to help Australian farmers; there is many more shady way of doing business.
I would be really surprise if Beasley get voted in
a. he is incompetent
b. as shown in QLD and NSW next year, when time are good, people do not vote out a governments. The government has to be more than incompetent and must be hated by everyone for them to be voted out.
centaur_007: there are no swing voters on this site, so there’s no use Politicking.
Peter Fuller thanks for the article mate – v.good
Geoff I like the German model of no less than 5% but why stop there and use NZ’s model… that way major parties who win most seats are forced to work with minors- which is more democractic [I think this unicameral electorate/list system should be used in Tasmania] and yet again why stop there and introduce the Robson rotation to all jurisdictions… that’ll make a fairer system than currently in place [yes im dreaming]
Lucky Bracks… in comparison to the good ol’ year of 1996… it was the same year that undid Goss from -yet again- a freeway decision which hurt in the Logan Areas during the 1995 QLD Election. At least Bracks was able to minimise the damage. I wonder how much will be left over from the Cross-City Tunnel for the NSW Labor Govt? Probably safe to say that Clover Moore well remain Bligh MP due to this blunder on the Govt behalf.
I won’t even pretend to understand all the machinations of counting for the Victorian Upper House.
Thanks all for the comments: a very intelligent bunch of political junkies!
Looking like a very healthy majority for Bracks in the Lower House, and maybe control of the Upper House too?
Good Luck Evan Thornley – no, it’s not me, but I hope my namesake makes it.
Adam raise St Kilda booths, I have had a look at VEC website with booth results, and I note the Greens beat the Liberals in several booths at the St Kilda end of Prahran,
I agree with Centaur the next election will be fought in Prahran, Mt.waverley, Gembrook, Burwood, Mordialloc, Frankston and Forrest Hill.
The seats in Ballarat are around 6%, Seymour is 6% and the seats around Bendigo and South Barwon will also be more marginal next time, and one other thing, there should be a redistribution within the next 4 years, this will change things further.
Has was reported in today’s Age, the result looks like 1996 where the ALP got some really big swings, but in the wrong seats.
Well done to the Bracks Government on being returned.
Have today’s figures clarified the situation in West Vic, or helped confirm Thornley’s position in South Metro?
As at the latest update on the ftp site, just after 5 pm, the result in Western Vic still shows the ALP beating out the DLP.
Before GRNs go out, the result in excess quotas is
GRN 0.506
ALP 0.542
DLP 0.952
The gap of about 2060 votes seems a bit hard to make up. As far as I know, the Greens are scrutineering the BTL, but I don’t know the results (and probably not in WVIC, anyway). On Sat night, ALP scrutineers in WMET reported that their BTL vote was “splitting 50:50” when it left the ALP, which I took to mean between GRN and Coalition. If that happened for ALP candidates 1 & 2, then ALP leakage to the Greens could put the DLP over the line. Ironic.
In the Assembly, a recount is going on for the booth vote and all the Ordinary Votes have been reset to zero in quite a few electorates. This will peeve some people.
Why would the ALP BTL vote leave the ALP before it went through ALP candidiates 3, 4 and 5? If it does not it remains in the ALP quota and has no effect on the respective positions of the ALP and the Greens.
Adam,
Elaine Carbines (3rd on the Labor ticket) will win Western Victoria. The count is over 85% complete, and after preferences my estimate of her current margin is over 3,000 votes.
Evan Thornley is in front and will probably take the last spot (Greens Sue Pennicuik will be 4th elected). In Southern the count is only 74% complete, the trend has been in favour of his Liberal rival David Southwick, and his margin is a skinnier 1,430. So the conclusion about Thornley is much more tentative. There’s a lot riding on it as he will provide Labor’s 21st Legislative Council seat completing the majority, if he is successful.
This analysis assumes that BTL preferences will approximately follow party ticket preferences – or more correctly that the variations employed by BTL voters will cancel out (e.g. Greens who prefer Liberal to Labor will be offset by FF voters who go the other way). If significant numbers of BTL PP, Greens or Democrats prefer Southwick to Thornley, ET may miss out.
The ALP BTL vote won’t matter. They are mostly with Carbines anyway, so doen’t have an opportunity to leak out of the ticket.
If they are with Carbine they are locked in. Odds are that other ALP BTL will stay within the ALP in which case they also are locked in with Carbine. But it depends on how many of the green BTL votes exaughst and do not travel beyond the Greens. No one knows and the Chief Commissioner has indicated that he will not be making the preference data file available for independent scrutiny. (A direct contribition to legislation and obligation to ensure the election process is subject to proper scutiny. Without access to this data it is virtually impossible to scutinize the count.) An absolute disgrace.
Southern Metro. Simmilar situtation and aagin depoends on what percentage is spliting and or exaughtsing. The other issue is noone knows whats going on whats to be counted and how any opostal votes were issued. We should know what back but again this information is not available. Scutineers are telling me they have not been given this information and have been denied access to the preference data file.
Have they counted the 7000 odd postal/prepoll votes from Caulfield and how did they flow? Expected to be against the ALP
The VEC still has not corrected the data-entry/data wuaility error in relation to the DLP’s goup name. (Missing a space) I have to manually correct this every time I do a down load.
A rough calculation shows that if the Legislative Council had been elected under the old system, Labor would have won 10 seats, which added to the 17 they won in 2002 would have given them 27 seats out of 44, enough to lose a few in 2010 and still keep control. I can’t recall such an act of political self-sacrifice as Labor’s reform of the Council in all the annals of party political history.
Chris Curtis asks:Why would the ALP BTL vote leave the ALP before it went through ALP candidiates 3, 4 and 5? If it does not it remains in the ALP quota and has no effect on the respective positions of the ALP and the Greens.
Stuff Happens
There is a distinct tendency to vote across the columns and this can have a critical effect in some cases. It particularly happens with the #1 candidates when they are high-profile people. In a Local Council election here in Sydney 38% of the BTL vote for a #1 candidate in one party preferenced a #1 of another party as their #2. This wouldn’t matter if the 2nd #1 were elected at the first count, but it would matter if if the 2md #1 were in a party later excluded. In the instance I cited, it changed the make-up of a Council from 7:5 to 6:6. (This was, however, partly a consequence of a candidated being excluded because of neing elected Mayor. It nevertheless revealed how common “across the top” can be.)
In numerical terms in WVIC, a leakage like the above from the ALP #1 in could see 38% * 0.60 (=TV) *6140 Madden votes leak away. That’s 1415 votes, in a situation where 2,000 will make the difference
Is this the Chris Curtis who contested Diamond Valley for the DLP in 1974 1975 and 1977?
Key conjunction points
Lib surplus (2.16%) increasing to 2.23% with BTL before elimination
ALP surplus (8.88%) increasing to 9.06% with BTL over half a quota (16.67%)
NP from 5.3% increasing to (7.91%) with BTL + preferences before elimination
DLP (4.07%) FF(3.92%)
DLP (7.98%) NP (7.91%)
ALP (9.06%) GRN (8.4%)
Much depends on how many BTL only list five and exaughst. Unkown factor. Still not sure what is outsstanding. Absentee/ More postals/Booths?? An Auditor/scrutineers nightmare.
Adam, Its not self-sacrifice but self interest. The concentration of the Labor vote in Western Melbourne, meant that under the old system the party was disadvantaged. If they would only have won 10 out of 22 this time with 54-55% of the 2PP that does that show? It means barring an earthquake of 2002 proportions they would be in permanent minority.
– as in fact they were.
Now either alone or with the Greens, the left can expect to be in majority in most occasions, as per the federal senate from 1981-2004. Better to have the Greens with the balance than be in permanent minority to the conservatives.
I don’t see any self-sacrifice in that.
To all those critics that dismissed the Senate profiling think again with the exception of FF which increased by 1% point and PP who were unknown but took away from the DEM much of the other minor parties including the Greens votes more or less the same way in the 2004 senate..
I agree with your point about the 2PP and the unfairness of the old electoral system, but there are two ways of looking at the new situation. Labor does not want to share a political space called “the left” with the Greens. Labor is a party of the centre, and being dependent on the Greens in the Council can only force Labor to the left, which is of course the path to defeat. Recall the fate of the Field government in Tas. The Greens are a polarising party – 10% love them, 90% hate them, and this is alliance Labor must avoid. Thanks to Bracks Labor has avoided that fate for now.
Incidentally it is very instructive that despite the best efforts of the Age and the ABC to hype them up, the Greens actually lost votes. 10% seems to be their absolute ceiling vote.
Adam,
10% is now base vote. (the glass is half full).
Remember that 6 groups actively leafletted against us, while Labor ran a very effective campaign pretending that Greens preferenced Libs.
I can tell you now that that campaign had a huge effect. I was on the ground at a booth that recorded a 30% vote for the Greens. But still had at least 1 in 10 go in saying they weren’t voting Green on the basis of Labor’s campaign.
If it hit us hard at one of our best polling booths, imagine the damage it did in other areas.
Now to see how long Labor can cry wolf and get away with it.
Adam,
Yes, I am the Chris Curtis who contested Diamond Valley in 1974, 1975 and 1977 – and don’t forget Greensborough in the 1973 and 1977 by-elections and Templestowe Province in 1973. Are you Adam Carr (with the election results website)?
Re your post on the balance of power and the Greens: I am sure the ALP would prefer to have a majority in its own right in the Legislative Council, but, if that is not to be, I bet there are a few hardheads who would prefer the balance of power in the hands of the DLP rather than the Greens. Irony or ironies: the Libs refuse twice (1973 and c2000) to live up to their promise to the DLP to bring in PR; this deprives the Libs of any influence on the details of the system and helps destroy the DLP; with the DLP out of the way, the ALP does bring in PR; and the DLP (which actually voted itself out of existence in 1978) gains the balance on ALP preferences.
bmwofoz
St Kilda is very strong Green territory and we tend to win booths on preferences.
Adam’s booth if it was East St Kilda was quite high too.
My booth St Kilda priomary was roughly 30-32% for each electorate (Albert Park, Caulfield, Prahran). around 5000 voters.
Bring on the redistribution.
Hello Dinesh, are you back in Melbourne? I think you are wrong, if you look at the situation in Tas, or Germany for that matter, the Greens vote in most places reaches a ceiling and stays there. I don’t think the Aust Greens can advance beyond 10%.
Chris, yes it would be a fine irony if the current DLP (not your one, of course) held the balance in the Council courtesy of a Labor government, but I don’t think you’ve quite got there. And nor should you on 2.5% of the vote. I would have put in a 5% threshold as in Germany to prevent preference surfing of this kind. On your other point, yes I would much rather have the DLP hold the balance of power than the Greens. Labor will never lose an election by being dragged to the right. The fatal precipice is always to the left.
Adam,
Just to add another irony, I think the ALP is now to the right of the original DLP on some things; e.g., privatisation.
that’s why all the old Groupers are happily back in the ALP.
“old”?
You’d have to be pretty old by now to have been a Grouper
I agree with Adam that Labor was successful because it occupied the centre ground.
The results in Gippsland though are interesting because Labor lost heartland seats over local issues including water, greenhouse, local government and representation.
Country people respect Brumby and Bracks. They are suspicious though of the rest of the Labor Cabinet and if local issues are raised contrary to the government position they will support a viable alternative (ie Mildura and Morwell).
Let me assure you it was not self interest in bringing about the upper house reform. There were many who argued that it be delayed another term. We had the chance of changing it back in 1985 when the ALP had control of the upper-house for a brief period. Not enough to change the powers of the house but enough to change the electoral system. I had written a paper which argued for reform as an alternative to abolition which was the ALP policy at the time. To my surprise this paper was taken up by Evan Walker and later supported by John Cain. I was asked to do some more research and together with Henk van Leeuwen and later John Lenders we continued to do more research. The only reason it did not get though in 1985 was because Jean Maclean and George Crawford and other members of the left argued that they would only support reform if the power to block supply was removed. In reality it was about protecting their seat and not about the need for change. Anyway Cain realised he was not going to get it though as they indicated they would cross the floor and he devoted what time he had to push though IR issues and other legislation that did have support. Again the window of opportunity was short as we new they would call for a fresh election. Nunawading was one on a draw out of a hat.
We continued to do more research and considered issues such as entitlements and transitional arrangements. I felt and so did Evan that the best option was a swift and straight forward transition, others wanted a phase in approach, Half elected by PR and the other half to follow.
It was all academic at that time as we did not have control of the upper-house and unless we could persuade the National Party or some of the Liberal Party Members to support the change it was not going to go anywhere.
John Lenders was ALP Organiser later State Secretary and he was committed to the reform package along with John Brumby. Abolition was also still ALP policy at the time. Reform or abolish.
Looking back I think the campaign to save the auditor general had a profound impact on ALP thinking and When we came into government and later secured control of the upper house for the first time. John Lenders who was then Leader of the house steered the reform package though.
At first I recommended a 5 seat by nine member option and John Lenders favoured a five seat by 7 members with a reduction in the lower house to 75. but as time moved on and I was no longer involved in the policy (I was working in NSW and involved with the National Trust at the time) the proposal changed. It was considered to difficult to get agreement on the reduction of the lower house and as such the idea of increasing the upper house by even one member had a negative connotation about it. They wanted to be seen to reduce the size of the parliament and not increase it. I tried arguing that it was possible to have upper house boundaries that still matched in with the existing lower house boundaries but that two would have more lower house seats then the remaining three and still remain within the 5% tolerance.
As things turned out further negotiations resulted in the eight electorates five member option and a few other proposals that we new would not be supported by the commission because of obvious issues (Boundary division and the like) for some unknown reason to me the Five electorate model was not on the table when the commission met to consider all options.
I must admit I am disappointed about the five seat option not being adopted (Be it seven or nine member seats) as I thought it was the better of the various models in that it was an odd number of seats with an odd number of positions and and an odd number in total this there would always be a clear majority.
Options aside the current reform is most certainly better then the old single member two term system that was in place which had to go.
Whilst the reform started with Evan Walker and John Cain and to a lesser extent but also supported by Bill Landeryou who succeeded Evan as Leader of the Government in the Legislative Council it was John Lenders and John Brumby with support form Steve Bracks that really delivered on the reform package.
Victoria will be the better for it. It takes on average around 62,000 voters to elect a single member to the Legislative Council compared to around 34 thousand for the lower house. If you look at the results of this election you can see that the outcome mirrors the voters support and it is quite possible that the Liberal/NP Government would have secured control of both housed based on the 1992 and 1996 State elections. (Or even the 2004 Senate Vote).
This is a great historical event in Victorian political history only to have been married by the Chief Electoral Commissioner, Steve Tully, who has refused to make available important and necessary information. This data MUST and WILL be published with our without Mr Tull’s support and we will have it published if not sooner by the will of the Parliament by order of the courts/tribunal. Tully’s refusal to provide this information is not supported by anyone. He continues to do himself and the VEC as dis-service by bringing the conduct of this election into disrepute.
Antony Green at 8.35 p.m. :
“The ALP BTL vote won’t matter. They are mostly with Carbines anyway, so doen’t have an opportunity to leak out of the ticket.
My concern in my qualifying remarks (at 8.45 p.m.) is primarily about transfers from other candidates’ BTL votes, rather than within the Party groups (although as Geoff Lambert points out, even that assumption isn’t an absolute certainty).
For example, in Southern Metro (the only seat which I think is really in doubt) the Democrats have 3887 Group votes which will automatically go to Evan Thornley rather than David Southwick. Their three individual candidates have between them just over 1000 votes. These may prefer Thornley, prefer Southwick or exhaust before they are of use to either candidate. Evan is also relying on PP, Group C Independents and probably the Greens. My calculations have merely assumed that they these BTL votes will help Thornley. Correspondingly, I have assumed DLP and Family First BTL votes will go to Southwick.
This simplification will not matter unless there is a numerically significant tendency in either candidates’ direction, which is at odds with a party’s allocated preferences.
To be even more pedantic, I have disregarded the 239 votes of Myers the ungrouped candidate at the bottom of the ticket, as I have no way of knowing whther these votes ultimately prefer Southwick, Thornley or exhaust. It’s threatening to be close enough for those votes to matter.
Exactly. In Western Victoria if sufficent Green voets only vote 1-5 Green then who knows what the effect will be. Thornely klooks safe but as they say it aint over until the fat lady sings…
The VEC conduct of this electin is not the best.
Someone just wrote me saying that the VEC issued the wrong voting papers in Gembrook and it took them some time before they realised. Can anyone confirm this fact?
Update on the “Hold Tully accountable and ensure Victoria has an open and transparent electoral system” has gone international.
Not only have we contacted Rob Hulls office (Minister responsible for the VEC and FOI) we have also written to all member of parliament and candidates that stood for public office at Saturday’s election.
We have contacted a number of electoral advocacy groups in the USA and Europe highlighting the refusal of Steve Tully to provide an open and transparent electoral system.
The fact that the VEC accessed electronic voting data prior to the close of the poll is of considerable concern as the Mr Tully’s refusal to provide relevant and detailed information on the election results.
Without this information it is impossible to conduct a proper scrutiny of the ballot.
Mr Tully’s reputation is at stake and so is Victoria’ commitment to open and transparent democracy.
There still is time for Mr Tully to reconsider his refusal to make this information available. There is no legal issue preventing this information being made public only the desire of the Chief Commissioner to not be held accountable.
In Southern Metro, is seems the key issue is whether Evan Thornley gets to a quota before Family First is excluded. If that doesn’t happen, he’s going to have to go back to selling software.
Enough about Mr Tully already
I agree Adam – it seems a little repeatitive to me
The situation with some of the LC counts in Victoria, where a seemingly small shift in vote distribution from one party can produce an unexpected result in the contest between two others, contrary to perceptions based on primary support, is not that unusual. Although it could be labelled by psephologists as “perverseâ€, it is also true that no proportional representation system can be free from intransitivity (the “Condorcet phenomenonâ€); this intransitivity is more likely to show up in extreme situations or at “tip points†such as exist in a couple of Victorian LC seats right now.
Intransitivity is not even confined to PR- one can imagine a Federal Parliament in which a majority of seats were held by a party that had only 25% of the two party preferred vote.
PR is a bit like the Brownlow Medal count, where the weight of opinion, expressed by mass rankings, produces a result that is generally supported as being valid. PR has some well-known weakness, some discussed on Bludger a fortnight ago, but I don’t think the current Victorian counts are reflective of those weaknesses. Apart from Ticket rorting, that is.
The key points to come out of this first time PR in Victoria are:
1. Just like federally PR doesn’t stop control of the house being gained by one party. Federally this is more difficult because of an even number from each area being elected. In Victoria with 5 being elected, a high primary vote for both major parties will likely see 3-2 splits everywhere and minor parties shut out. This is much more likely to happen under a Coalition government than a ALP one. This would have been prevented by having 8 areas of 11 seats with 6 MLCs, or 11 areas of 8 seats with 4 MLCs. Unfortunately the fact that there are 88 lower house seats makes creating areas difficult.
2. When the conservative parties eventually do win office, it is highly likely that the ALP will be decimated in the Upper House. They will likely fall below 14 seats, winning one seat in Rural areas and South Eastern Melbourne areas. One could see a 24 LNP 13 ALP 1 GRN result occur at a election where the LNP wins 50-60 lower house seats.
The worst aspect of the new arrangement is the scrapping of overlapping terms, ie the whole upper house is elected at the same time as the whole lower house. This negates the whole point of an upper house, which is that it has a longer mandate than the lower house and can thus serve as a house of review. The new system perpetuates the worst aspect of the old, with the government controlling both houses and thus having no real legislative oversight. While the new arrangement has turned out to be in Labor’s short-term interest, as Howard says Labor will eventually lose office and will then lose the upper house as well. My preference would have been for the NSW system – the upper house being elected by statewide PR for overlapping eight-year terms, with a 5% threshhold to prevent preference surfing.
A point about the Nationals…
Antony Green wrote an article on the decline of the Nationals as demographics change and should eventually disappear. [I think the article was written late last year or earlier this year.] However, after gaining more lower house seats to being a total of 9, would one say the Nationals are on a comeback [if not nationally, just in Victoria] or was this an anamoly? Come 2010 it could be interesting to see how many rural seats Labor looses, and whether these go to the Liberals or Nationals… and if the Nationals can pick any from the Libs and viccie versa. I think for now the Nationals are here to stay, but I reckon they have just delayed their death. [Sounds a bit like the democrats to me – if they manage to keep MLCs in NSW and Senators federally.]
I think the main reason why we see “perverse” results such as the election of a Family First senator in 2004 or the possible election of a DLP MLC in 2006, is due to the institution of “ticket voting”.
It really is ridiculous how an entire party’s support can be lumped onto another candidate, when we all know that different voters will express preferences differently.
Compare this to the NSW upper house system, where I don’t think preferences decided a single position.
If you want to stop candidates being elected with ridiculously small amounts of votes, rather than setting an arbitrary bar of 5% (there is a massive difference between someone being elected with 4.5% and someone winning with 0.5%), you should abolish ticket voting.
Instead, voters may direct preferences, or not, above the line. So if you vote [1] Greens, your preferences only flow to the Greens candidates. If you wish you can then vote [2] Labor if you wish, and some would probably preference the Liberals second.
I think the Nats’ best chance of survival is to do what they did at this election; sell themselves as a sort-of-independent country voice distinct from the Liberals. This is especially the case when the Liberal leader is a city boy with few rural credentials.
The other advantage of this approach is the ability to localise the campaign in specific seats (which they did here in Morwell and Mildura), rather than being at the mercy of the statewide Liberal campaign.
Why is it taking the VEC so so long to started counting the “Absentee Votes” in the lower house???
There is at least 2500-3000 votes still outstanding in seats like Kilsyth, Mount Waverley, Gembrook etc
Usually, Absentee votes have to be (used to be?) bundled up in the electorate in which they were cast and sent (by Registered Post?-it used to be) to the Electorate to which they apply. That’s over 7500 packages to post via an inherently slow method. But, maybe they are like Laurie Brereton and deliver them on the pillion seat of a motor bike?
More puzzling than the delay on absentees is why in some electorates they have counted so few early votes. I realise that they want to prioritise the close seats, and that is fair enough, but surely there are staff in district offices without any close seats who could have counted more than 200 early votes.