5.05am. Looks like the Coalition vote continued to build as upper house voting continued into the wee hours, probably putting the final seat beyond the reach of the Democrats, AAFI and Fishing Party. Likely result: Labor 9, Coalition 8, Greens 2, CDP 1, Shooters Party 1.
2.05am. A considered assessment of the upper house from Stephen L in comments.
1.38am. Apologies, I had not noticed other developments in the upper house count: Labor is now looking at nine seats, not eight; and the Liberals’ eighth candidate is currently leading the Democrats, AAFI and Fishing Party in the hunt for the final place. The other seats have gone two Greens, one CDP, one Shooters Party.
1.28am. In fact, the Fishing Party has fallen behind Australians Against Further Immigration, on 45,817.
1.16am. The gap between the Democrats and the Fishing Party has increased to 49,320 to 44,677. May it ever widen.
12.55am. Did kind of okay with my predictions: wrong about Camden, Murray-Darling, Pittwater, Tweed and Wollondilly, the latter two of which I foolishly changed at the last minute. Goulburn, Lake Macquarie, Dubbo, Newcastle, Port Stephens and Maitland are still up in the air.
11.05pm. A little critique of the media coverage. I have been flicking between ABC Television and Sky News, trying to favour the latter because I know most of my audience is watching the former. I wished this had not been necessary because the ABC was greatly superior, despite some very good talent on Sky. No prize for guessing what makes the difference: Antony Green. His presence and authority keeps the coverage focused on the actual election, whereas Sky was forced to fall back on tedious big-picture chat. If Sky hopes to establish its brand among political bigwigs – which seems to be the rationale behind things like NSW Votes 2007 and interactive election night coverage – it should appreciate that such people tune into election coverage for election results.
I got a bit cranky earlier on at the NSWEC for what I falsely diagnosed as a slowly updating XML feed and a "virtual tally room" that did not provide booth results. It turns out there were booth results, but to get them you had to click on a link identified as "Election Night". Why? As for the XML feed issue, this turned out to be limited to one page on the ABC website. So qualified apologies are in order.
Finally, bouquets to my spendid web hosts, Unlimited Space, who got an undeserved cranky email from me this morning and subsequently shamed me with the quality of their response. I am entirely lost for words in attempting to compare their performance with the incompetent scumbaggery I had to suffer from Lycos.
10.38pm. Tony Burke’s guess is that the Fishing Party and the Democrats, but not the Shooters Party, will win upper house seats.
10.29pm. Upper house count trending in favour of the Democrats. Please let it be …
10.26pm. Reader John Thompson, who seems well on top of the Newcastle count, says: "A few more preferences from Newcastle must have come through and put Gaudry ahead of Tate for 2nd place. And therefore Labor will retain. Assuming the indicative count is correct".
10.18pm. The Democrats and AAFI can by no means be ruled out for that last upper house seat; the Fishing Party have slipped a little with another 150,000 counted.
10.10pm. My hurried initial upper house assessment: Labor 8, Coalition 8, Greens 2, CDP 1, Shooters Party 1, Fishing Party (please, no …) 1.
10.04pm. Nearly 1 million votes counted in the upper house, and my prediction of an AAFI win is not looking good: they’re on 1.5 per cent.
10.01pm. Lot of talk still about Port Stephens – they lead 14,118 to 13,610 on the two-party count with two booths to come, but one of them is Tea Gardens, which is a weak booth for Labor.
9.53pm. News flash: Pru Goward now leads in Goulburn on the notional count with only one booth to go, 14,619 to 14,309. And shouldn’t she do well on pre-polls and postals?
9.50pm. Debman is trumpeting swings that have reduced margins to winnable levels, which is true up to a point, but there were also swings to Labor in important seats: Monaro, Penrith and Keira.
9.45pm. Peter Debnam isn’t talking like a man who’s about to surrender the leadership, or who in any way has anything to be ashamed of.
9.29pm. The invaluable Oakeshott Country in comments tells us that Labor’s vote "shot up with last booths to 40%". With Peter Blackmore on 27.1 per cent, he would need an extremely strong flow of preferences to get up.
9.25pm. Kerry Chikarovski’s observation just now of a 9.0 per cent Liberal swing in Lane Cove is not an isolated case. 8.1 per cent in Cronulla; 10.5 per cent in Epping; 10.6 per cent in Hawkesbury; 13.3 per cent in Hornsby; 10.2 per cent in Ku-ring-gai; 7.2 per cent in North Shore; 9.1 per cent in Vaucluse; 8.8 per cent in supposedly endangered Terrigal. These are incredible results, exactly where the party needed them least. Could it be that the Labor’s success in painting Peter Debnam as a Vaucluse toff prevented similar results elsewhere?
9.22pm. Nationals look to be recovering from their scare in Barwon.
9.18pm. Reader John Thompson has emailed me with an extrapolation from the Newcastle preference figures provided earlier by Anthony Llewellyn, which have Tate winning over Labor 13651 to 12695. But as Llewellyn himself notes in comments:"Word is the booth I was at is at the more conservative end of electorate. Pref flows better for alp elsewhere. In which case I may be vindicated in predicting alp retain. Still early days."
9.15pm. Actual two-party figures from Goulburn, with about 15 per cent of the booths still to come, including a few from Goulburn: Stephenson 7955, Goward 7791.
9.10pm. Looks like Pru’s stuffed, if talk on the ABC about a big flow of Greens preferences to the independent is anything to go by.
9.06pm. Geoff Provest credits his win in Tweed to the Casino to Murwillumbah rail closure. Yeah, I remember now, Charles Richardson – that was why I backed him.
9.05pm. Sorry, that Epping swing was based on the premise that independent Martin Levine would run second, which is way off the mark.
9.02pm. Some laughably big swings to the Liberals in their safe Sydney seats: 7.9 per cent in Castle Hill, 9.4 per cent in Cronulla … 16.8 per cent in Epping! Labor now home in Balmain.
8.58pm. ABC computer has independent Greg Piper 0.2 per cent ahead in Lake Macquarie, but there seems to be a perception preferences to Piper will be stronger than this assumes. Several days of fun await us from Goulburn: a double contest, with Labor threatening to beat the independent to second, and a tight contest between Goward and the independent.
8.57pm. Raw figures from Dubbo: Dawn Fardell 14,128, Nationals 14,655, Labor 3,819, CDP 726 votes, Greens 789 votes. Surely Fardell will get up on preferences.
8.55pm. Haven’t said anything about Dubbo for a while. The ABC computer 1.2 per cent ahead, but that may be based on speculative preference predictions.
8.51pm. Some Broken Hill booths finally in from Murray-Darling, and just looking at raw figures it appears the Labor vote has plunged here also (and the population of Broken Hill seems to have gone down by a third).
8.49pm. Nick Greiner on Sky News says he will “take a punt” on independents winning Maitland and Lake Macquarie. Bit of a repeat of 1988 with respect to the Hunter, if nothing else.
8.43pm. More from Leopold on Goulburn in comments: "Goward still 251 votes behind in Goulburn. Two very good booths for Goward, Bowral (3,200 votes) and Moss Vale Central (2,300 votes) yet to report 2PP. On the other hand, Goulburn High (2,500 votes) is very good for Stephenson and is also yet to report. May well not be decided tonight".
8.41pm. Was off line for about six minutes. What did I miss?
8.37pm. Tony Burke on Sky News observes that state Liberal governments have suffered from Coalition control of both houses at the federal level, leaving voters searching for other ways to redress the power balance.
8.30pm. Star comments performer Oakeshott Country says: “The Marrickville and Lewisham Booths are still out. I think Labor will be safe in Marrickville.”
8.27pm. The assessment on the ABC just then didn’t look so good for Labor in Marrickville, but we all know that the ABC computer is less reliable with no Labor-versus-Coalition contests.
8.25pm. Liberals definitely home in Pittwater, almost definitely in Manly.
8.22pm. ABC computer says Labor retain in Maitland, but it might be underestimating Liberal preference flows to Peter Blackmore. It seems Newcastle is down to who finishes second out of John Tate and Bryce Gaudry; if it’s Tate he’ll win, if Gaudry Labor will win.
8.20pm. Thanks to Adam for pointing out that the Nats are under the pump from independent Tim Horan in Barwon.
8.19pm. Big lead for the Nationals in Murray-Darling, but no Broken Hill booths in yet.
8.18pm. I came into Pru Goward on the ABC half way through.
8.16pm. Big reverse in Labor’s favour in the previously interesting Riverstone.
8.15pm. Leopold on Goulburn in comments: “a whopping booth in from somewhere – maybe Bowral, though for all I know it was a bunch of small booths. Unless the trend turns around later in the count, Goward should get home. Anything above 40% primary will be hard to beat under OPV.”
8.13pm. Anthony Llewellyn in comments: “Just finished scrutineering in a newc booth. Pref flows for libs 56 Tate 24 gaudry 16 exhaust 4 mckay. Greens 9 m 8 t 50 g 34 e. Gaudry 15 m 32 t 53 e. Tate 40m 25 g 35e””. Make of that what you will.
8.11pm. Returning to earth now with aggregate vote figures: Labor now down 4.8 per cent. Conspicuously lower lift for the Liberals than the Nationals. Other parties’ gains lower than I would have expected.
8.09pm. Andrew Stoner has conceded defeat.
8.09pm. Labor by no means out of the woods in Port Stephens, only 0.6 per cent ahead with 35.6 per cent counted.
8.07pm. Thanks to Rebecca in comments for calling attention to Lake Macquarie – drat, Antony’s discussing it now. Independent Greg Piper might get up, but it depends on unpredictable preferences. And as Antony says, booths to come are mining areas, so who knows.
8.06pm. Do I have this right – that the independent might lose in Goulburn because Labor might get ahead of him into second place on Greens preferences?
8.04pm. ABC computer’s call of Camden as a Labor gain looks bold – only 0.9 per cent ahead.
8.02pm. But the notional two-party count, which I don’t think you can argue with, shows the slightest narrowing the margin in Goulburn, in absolute if not relative terms – from 303 votes to 294 votes (comparing 4813 votes counted with 8308)
8.01pm. Too much chat on Sky News and not enough results.
7.59pm. Talk in comments about Pru Goward’s primary vote edging upwards. What was that Barry O’Farrell was saying about the Labor exhaustion rate? I only caught the odd phrase here and there.
7.58pm. Big swing still there in Riverstone, Labor leading to 2.6 per cent.
7.54pm. Goulburn notional two-party count has Goward trailing 2,558 to 2,255.
7.51pm. ABC computer has Newcastle down as a gain for John Tate.
7.49pm. No trouble in any of the other Liberal-held seats like Lane Cove, South Coast and Terrigal.
7.47pm. Interesting early figures from Riverstone – a huge swing to the Liberals. The booths are Marsden Park, Schofield and Vineyard. Anyone know about them?
7.44pm. Looking very grim for Pru Goward in Goulburn. I am greatly surprised. Barry O’Farrell pretending to be unhappy.
7.42pm. 4.4 per cent swing to Labor in Penrith, a correction after a big swing in 2003.
7.38pm. New figures at the ABC site: Close in Balmain, but Labor should get over the line. The computer has Labor winning Camden, Keira, Kiama, Menai, Miranda, Monaro and The Entrance. Liberals down as winning Pittwater.
7.38pm. Liberals well ahead in Wollondilly but only 3.0 per cent counted.
7.38pm. Liberals home in Hawkesbury.
7.37pm. Liberals looking pretty good in Manly.
7.36pm. STILL no new results on the ABC site. Liberals apparently home in Pittwater.
7.34pm. Aggregate figures are interesting: Labor down 7.0 per cent on the primary vote with 12.7 per cent counted, although there are a lot of rural booths here and it has been coming down.
7.33pm. Labor doing better than expected in Newcastle, but preferences are wildly unpredictable.
7.32pm. Turns out you can see booth results on the NSWEC site by clicking on “Election Night” on the electorate page.
7.26pm. Nationals chap (only listening, couldn’t see who it was) disagrees with Antony, talking of “a lot of seats that are coming across”. But he might be seeing a better performance from the Nationals than the Liberals, consistent with the Victorian election.
7.24pm. Sky News says the Nationals are well ahead in Monaro, though only from 2 per cent of the vote.
7.23pm. “No signs of Labor losing any seats at all, says Antony, whose figures are half an hour ahead of anything I have access to.
7.22pm. “Menai looking better than Miranda”, says Barry O’Farrell. Antony calls the election. Says Labor have lost Tweed, which is the first I have heard of this. Curse you, Charles Richardson …
7.21pm. Still no new results on the ABC site. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this the fault of the NSWEC XML feed? If so, they are doing an extremely poor job.
7.20pm. Labor in front in Miranda.
7.19pm. With 10 per cent counted, Pru Goward looks to be in trouble; but this is from Goulburn. I expect the northern areas to do better for her, and ABC talking heads concur. But a downcast Barry O’Farrell is talking of disappointing results at the other end of the seat. This is a big surprise for me.
7.19pm. Peter Blackmore looking very good in Maitland from about 4 per cent of the vote.
7.18pm. First booth in Pittwater has a massive Liberal primary vote; God knows where it is.
7.17pm. Nick Greiner says a booth in Miranda shows an 8 per cent swing with a “good” preference flow and high rate of Greens exhaustion, suggesting a close result perhaps favouring Liberal.
7.15pm. John Gatfield on Sky News is talking about Liberal confidence in Pittwater and a better than expected performance in the Hunter Valley.
7.14pm. Adam Carr hears the Greens are not as doing as well in Balmain as the first booth suggested.
7.13pm. Listening to Sky News now. Liberals looking very good in Miranda; 49.1 per cent on the primary vote from 5.9 per cent.
7.12pm. Slender lead to the Nationals in Tamworth, according to the ABC computer. Primary figures looked okay for the independent though.
7.10pm. Looks like the NSWEC have a slow-updating XML feed, and a website that doesn’t give booth results. The only way of knowing what’s going on is to watch ABC TV.
7.09pm. Chris Hartcher looking okay in Terrigal.
7.08pm. ABC site hasn’t updated for a while; I gather the XML feed is updating in fits and starts.
7.06pm. Early figures from Balmain looking almost interesting for the Greens, though we’ve been here before.
7.04pm. Very early booth in Hawkesbury has Pringle better than I would have expected.
7.02pm. As always, the first booths to come in have mostly been small rural ones; they point to swings to the Nationals in the 3 per cent to 4 per cent range.
7.01pm. Small early swing to the Nationals in independent-held Dubbo; on this indication, it should be close.
6.59pm. Apparently Antony said Labor looking good in Monaro.
6.58pm. Someone on Sky News was talking up Orange. God knows why; Nationals looking safe from independent John Davis.
6.57pm. The Murray-Darling swing to the Nationals is 16.1 per cent, though only from 1.5 per cent. “No particular swing in Lismore”; yeah, Labor looking okay in Bathurst.
6.56pm. General early impression is of small swings, consistent with the exit poll.
6.55pm. Also looking better for Labor in Bathurst.
6.54pm. Looking better for Peter Draper in Tamworth now.
6.53pm. Antony Green has called The Entrance for Labor. Slowly getting back into the loop here …
6.52pm. Sorry, offline for a while there.
6.50pm. Early figures from Murray-Darling look very good for the Nationals.
6.48pm. First very small booth in Camden has the Liberals slightly ahead – I’m just seeing this from Sky News though and it might be a raw figure.
6.44pm. Stephen Loosley talking about losing five seats on Sky News.
6.43pm. First booth in from Tweed, worth 0.9 per cent, shows 6 per cent swing to the Nationals, enough to cost Labor the seat.
6.39pm. Early swing to the Nationals in independent-held Tamworth. Most of the other seats with results in are not of interest.
6.37pm. A very early result from Murray-Darling shows a very small swing, enough to make it lineball.. Labor guy not sounding optimistic.
6.36pm. Antony discussing Goulburn on ABC TV. One very small booth in, and a great result for Pru Goward. Their Liberal talking head (can’t see him) saying another booth is also good. I can’t say I’m surprised.
6.33pm. ABC2 no good to me in Perth – apparently it’s delayed two hours, like everything else they broadcast. But as Adam tells us in comments, you can see it online here.
6.30pm. Bloody hell, no individual booth results from the NSWEC. There’s a tiny country booth in from Murrumbidgee, but no way of knowing which one.
5.38pm. The poll covered Oatley, Riverstone, Wyong, Londonderry, The Entrance, Miranda, Menai, Camden, Port Stephens, Monaro, Tweed and Penrith. The Coalition would have wanted to be looking at a 54-46 lead here to be on the track for a majority, but it’s actually the other way round. The primary vote was Labor 46 per cent, Coalition 41.1 per cent, which sounds disappointing from the perspective of the non-major parties.
5.30pm. Hawker Britton exit poll announced on Sky News, based on polling in 12 key seats, says a 5 per cent swing against Labor.
I’ve just liberated eight comments from moderation – sorry for the delay.
Penrith is interesting, I heard someone say Jackie Kelly took a high profile during the campaign.
Considering the nature of the campaign I can’t really read a federal message, while on Federal Politics I see the latest Morgan Poll has a sight swing back towards the Liberals, but still a massive lead for the ALP 58-42
Andrew, sorry I missed your earlier question.
Terry Lane sought ALP preselection for LaTrobe in 1980. It was something of an issue at the time because he was leading ABC Radio presnter at the time – I can’t remember if he was the Jon Faine or the Virginia Trioli of his day. Anyway he was beaten by Peter Milton, who went to defeat Marshall Baillieu (Ted’s uncle) for the seat.
blackburnpseph,
I grew up on the Northern Rivers & usually read the local papers online, so I hope you don’t mind me commenting on North Coast results.
1. Ballina – Greens polled 20% but didn’t direct preferences to ALP, so many votes exhausted.
2. Lismore – a 1.2% to Nats on 2PP. Last time there was a sitting ALP member in the areas added to the Northern end of the electorate.
3. Clarence – ALP didn’t put much money into the campaign. In 2003, ALP promised a new bridge in Grafton but in was put on hold, so there was a big swing in Grafton. Hospitals were also a big issue – A. Stoner promised a new hospital for almost every town in NSW if a coaltion Govt was elected. Cansdell has been tough on native flora and fauna during his first term – goes down well in this redneck electorate.
4. Coffs Harbour – I suspect that ALP tried to minimse their vote to finish behind Rhoades the independent. My perception is that Rhoades had a problem being Mayor and candidate at the same time. There was an issue before CH council about highrise development. The council was taking public submissions, so the mayor couldn’t express his opinion on the issue while the submission process was open. So Nats decided to oppose Highrise and claimed Rhoades was in favour. Pacific Hwy may also have been an issue even though Fraser was in Parliament for 5 yrs while Nats held roads portfolio in coalition Govt – he did nothing in this time.
5. Oxley is too far south for me to comment.
6. Tweed – a suprise result for me. Nats claim that it was cancellation of train service from Casino to Murwillumbah (train was replaced by coach from Casino to Tweed Heads). I doubt that, as Lismore didn’t swing to any great degree and airline prices are now so cheap that a 1hr flight from Coolangatta airport to Sydney is cheaper than a 15+ hour train ride. I suspect the main reason for the swing was demographic changes – new arrivals from Sydney expecting the facilities of a city of 4million in a town of 50,000. THe new arrivals wouldn’t be aware of how much things had improved in the last 10 years.
Also, in Tweed, Ballina & Coffs Harbour the Nats suddenly became environmently friendly. Even though in other parts of the state they were advocating grazing in National Parks and other similar policies.
With the Leg Council votes, does anyone have even a vague idea of how many of the “other” are informal and how many below the line.
If they’re mostly informal then the ALP and Lib proportions will rise as you take these out. If they’re mostly below the line ALP and Lib will do fairly badly here.
If it’s mostly informals I make the outcome ALP 9, Libs 7, Greens 2, CDP 1, Shooters 1, last one fought out between Libs, Dems, AAFI and Fishing. Libs and Dems to lead on primaries, but maybe some preference interchange between AAFI and Fishing Party (both right-wing and next to each other on ballot).
On the other hand, if there are a lot of below the lines I would expect the Dems to benefit and they would take that spot, and there is a chance the ALP will not get the ninth, leaving the AAFI and Fishing to fight that out.
Just a few quick comments:
1. George wins the award for the silliest comment of the night in calling a coalition win in 2011 “near inevitable”. Seemingly because they failed to take anywhere near the number of seats they needed, and in fact fewer than at least 50% of pundits predicted, but– hurrah!– they reduced the margin in a lot of seats that they lost.
2. Mea maxima culpa to ‘Dave’ (earlier commenter): his prediction of the ALP losing 11 seats was a little silly, but I especially mocked his prediction that the ALP would go down in Lake Macquarie. On the basis of no more than the fact that Centrebet couldn’t be bothered running a book on it. And it turned out to be one of the few that the ALP has (probably) lost.
3. The fact that ACE (Democrats) is in with a show at all is a minor miracle. Let alone him actually winning. My faith in stuff is restored. If he does, people can stop speculating, and confidently forecast the death of the parliamentary Democrats as occurring on a particular Saturday in late March 2015.
Blackburnpseph re the north coast.
As I said in one of the earlier discussions, there is now virtually no Labor infrastructure on the coast. This is the result of targeting marginal seats in the city and expecting independents to do Labor’s work in the country. For this policy to work Labor must run dead and this is the message we get from Sussex st.
It saddens me to say that this deadness extends to policy concerns as well – failure to restore the Murwillambah railway particularly when Qld is building a railway to the border and the Grafton Bridge are prime examples. Even good actions of the government e.g. rescuing Port Mac Base Hospital from private ownership get attributed to independents. This leaves very little room for Labor
The demographic changes that Labor should be taking advantage of are being wasted. Where Labor had 3 seats two elections ago (Tweed, Clarence and Port Stephens) – they are in a good position to have none this year.
The small swing in Myall Lakes was due to 2 strong independents in 2003 being replaced by the Mayor of Taree – whose qualifications for election are much more limited and the thinking protest voter therefore going to Labor. A very prominent GP who had been a Labor candidate on a number of occassions, died suddenly last night and the news went around Taree within hours – maybe there was a small sympathy vote.
Lake Macquarie- In 2003 Labor’s postal votes were about 10% less than the booth votes – this may be due to the Cooranbong branch of the SDA as suggested above. If this reoccurs this year Jeff Hunter is a goner
Simon, 8 years is a very long time in politics and anything could happen between now and then. I am hoping that ACE (Democrats) gets up. There is a good chance of the Democrats electing a Senator in either SA and QLD so don’t write them off yet.
Also 2010 SA election could be a comeback election for the Democrats in their homeland state as the Rann Government gets more and more arrogant with each passing day.
An ACE victory (if it happens) will be a turning point for the Democrats. He will be their first MP elected since 2002 for the Democrats.
My mistake it is actually the pre-poll that SDAs use. In 2003 Michael Chamberlain got 54% of these compared tp 30% of booth votes. The figures for Hunter were 36% and 55%. These are not in tonight’s figures and I think Lake Macquarie is the second Labor seat to fall – a big surprise to me.
Looking at 2003 the “other” vote in LC was 3/4 informal, 1/4 below the line.
On this basis Labor should manage 9 (although they will probably go down a little on absentees/postals/prepolls). I’d say the Dems probably lead the Libs and AAFI/Fishing by a whisker, but if the 3:1 ratio of informals to btl is right this is going down to the line – hope the Dems have some good scrutineers. If not I hope the NSW Greens do the right thing and lend them some (although having been too exhausted to scrutineer in Vic for the first week after the election that may be a big ask).
I agree with Max that if ACE can scrape in it actually might trigger a revival in the Democrats, but not in the way he suggests – I will post here or on Crikey about this at some point, but want to mull over my thoughts first because it’s a hypothesis likely to be laughed at if I don’t articulate it well (or perhaps even if I do).
Just looking at Antony’s guide – he is already aware of the heavy non-labor votes from Cooranbong in pre-poll
William, just to change the subject for a minute from the results (I see you HATE that!)
First, great coverage.
Your comment re flicking between two channels. When I worked at the Liberal opposition office here in Tas, we had several TVs set up next to each other. When the 6.00pm news came on, we used to watch both networks together. Both sight and sound.
Takes some getting used to, but does work. If had been able to do that, with some snappy use of the remote volumes, you might have found tracking both a bit a bit easier. Or it might have driven you mad. We only did it for 15 minutes of news; five hours might be a different thing.
My new upper house calculations that don’t use the SEO %s and instead remove the ‘Other’ votes:
Immediately:
Elected: Coalition 7 Seats
Elected: The Greens 1 Seats
Elected: Labor 8 Seats
5 Remain to be filled.
Elected: CDP with 4.39 Pct
Elected: The Greens with 3.62 Pct
Elected: Labor with 3.48 Pct
Elected: Shooters Party with 2.8 Pct
Elected: Coalition with 1.9 Pct
——————————
1.69 Democrats
1.56 AAFI
1.53 The Fishing Party
With Labor running dead in areas where independents are strong or have been éncouraged’ – New England at Fed, Northern Tablelands at State, or the Northern beaches – or the areas where the greens may overtake the ALP – lower North Shore – Is there not the risk that the ALP may actually disadvantage themsleves at statewide elections – LC or senate – because they cannot put people on the ground – leaving holes in HTV coverage etc?Surely in these areas the local ALP membership must get very disocuraged.
And before anyone says it, the ALP appear to have run down their organisation and are getting much lower votes than the Libs do in inner Sydney or Western Suburbs ALP strongholds.
Arghh all my clocks and computers have different times.
What the latest couple of state elections have showed us that governments dont have to do anything to win. Broken promises dis interested MPs seems the go around Australia and it is saddening that this is from the ALP. Could it be the weakness of the Libs in the States is due to the concentration of resources etc Federally. Will The federal ALP follow suit if it wins office and weaken the state governments?
What pressures are put on major parties to make them work for the people?
Bill,
Some people think federal government is more important than state and so the political talent goes there. I don’t agree with the first part of this and am not sure of the second. The Liberals did not get far in the Victorian election because they had a poor campaign. They said Labor had done nothing, easily refuted by the huge list of things Labor has actually done. They rightly attacked Labor over its broken promise on the Scoresby Freeway, then said they would drop tolls, then said they would have half-tolls for a few years and then said they would keep tolls. They go on about high taxes when state taxes have fallen from 5.8 per cent of GSP to 4.5 Per cent of GSP. They also carry the baggage of the last time they vandalised the state. I think this last point will be irrelevant by 2010.
They are already making similar mistakes in their federal campaign; e.g., saying Labor has no policies when Kevin Rudd has one with your breakfast cereal every morning.
blackburnpseph,
I agree entirely. It is a very short sighted policy. I expect it will only change when the LC/Senate vote appreciably declines of when a number of candidates get below the 4% threshold to attract election funding. It will be interesting to see the ALPs vote on a district level in the areas you name.
The biggest joke I’ve heard by some reporters in relation to the result of this election is that it will put a smile on John Howard’s face because it shows people in NSW prefer to vote ALP in the state and conservative federally. They use history as a guide. Unfortunately they leave out of that historical perspective the years between 1983 and 1988 where Labor governed both federally and in NSW. So much for that argument.
Bill,
The pressure put on major parties is the possibility of their losing votes. In the end, it is very simple. People get what they vote for. If they think they don’t they can vote for someone else or stand themselves.
Of course the NSW people had two elections to throw federal Labor out during that time (1984 and 1987) and didn’t.
Thats true Chris thats why i am standing myself and will keep doing that ( if i win pre selection for future elections) until i win! haha
Well, the return of another Labor government means that Howard can go on blaming “the states” for everything, which he couldn’t do if there was even one Liberal premier. Also he can run a scare campaign in October about “coast-to-coast Labor dominance”, which might have some effect in the Howard-bogans seats.
But all this offset by what seems to me clear evidence that the IR laws are dragging the Coalition to its doom at both state and federal level. People are willing to vote for a Labor government which can’t even make the trains run on time rather than for an opposition which wants to hand the state IR laws to Canberra. This may have been a symbolic question but it was a very potent symbol.
What i find sad is that the big issue worldwide is “can’t even make the trains run on time” Governments can fall on an issue of little importance compared to Global Warming, IR and Social Justice.
Adam,
What a load of bollocks you talk about IR, a big part of why Labor has lost the last 2 Federal elections is because LaborSupporters like you talk to other Labor supporters and find themselves in violent agreement on why the Rodent is so bad.
Ultimately its the bogan vote as you put it that counts and I think thats up in the air.
Now now Edward if you misbehave I will go and find all your predictions from last week about sweeping Liberal gains and last-minute swings etc etc.
On the expected LC results.
It seems like it might be a repeat of last election except the Coalition has pulled one seat off Labor.
So does the net effect mean that either The Greens or a combination of Shooters and Christian Democrats are in the “Balance of Power”?
Realistically this gives Labor in NSW 3 choices of LC support for legislation if it wanted to do something. Coalition, Greens or Christian/Shooters.
I don’t know why I find the notion of Christian-Shooters so amusing, maybe its the imminence of Easter.
I’m not sure there is a lot of common ground between the Christian Democrats and the Shooters Party, though. At least not anything that would not be common between the Liberals and the Greens.
smiles
Disasterboy
The power of the HtV
In some places, a how-to-vote card can really swing things. In Manly Barr (IND, Assembly) was persuaded to issue a HtV which recommended a Green vote in the LC. State-wide GRN in the LC was about 8.9%; in Manly, the LA GRN vote was abouut the same- 9.3%. But in the LC, the GRN vote in Manly averaged 20.2% across the booths and was as high as 32%.
Subtracting the GRN base vote of about 9%, it would seem that about one-third of Barr’s voters followed his HTV for the LC, even though it was in rather small print at the foot of his HtV.
Personally, I hope the conservatives keep on saying IR is not having any effect on their election chances. In that way they will go to the Federal election with it intact and suffer the consequences. I agree with Adam on this.
Sorry about the formatting, but below is a summary of votes, %ages, quotas, “won on primaries” and likely “won on remainders” for the LC. You can cut and paste into a Word table to get a viewable layout.
The numbers agree with The Speaker’s assessment above
Group Party name # Candidates Votes %AGE Quotas First pref seats Remainder to be filled Rank of remainder Another Seat? Total Seats Quota 133895
Total 2945676 22.000 16 5 5 21
GROUP A 16 18971 0.64% 0.142 0 0.142 12 0 0
GROUP B THE FISHING PARTY 20 44938 1.53% 0.336 0 0.336 8 0 0
GROUP C AUSTRALIANS AGAINST FURTHER IMMIGRATION 15 45898 1.56% 0.343 0 0.343 7 0 0
GROUP D 15 0 0.00% 0.000 0 0.000 20 0 0
GROUP E LIBERAL / NATIONALS 15 992994 33.71% 7.416 7 0.416 5 1 8
GROUP F 21 17891 0.61% 0.134 0 0.134 13 0 0
GROUP G AUSTRALIAN DEMOCRATS 16 49660 1.69% 0.371 0 0.371 6 0 0
GROUP H 15 3036 0.10% 0.023 0 0.023 18 0 0
GROUP I THE GREENS 21 263871 8.96% 1.971 1 0.971 1 1 2
GROUP J UNITY PARTY 18 37162 1.26% 0.278 0 0.278 9 0 0
GROUP K CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY (FRED NILE GROUP) 21 129378 4.39% 0.966 0 0.966 2 1 1
GROUP L RESTORE THE WORKERS’ RIGHTS PARTY 18 27385 0.93% 0.205 0 0.205 10 0 0
GROUP M 15 3817 0.13% 0.029 0 0.029 17 0 0
GROUP N THE SHOOTERS PARTY 19 82351 2.80% 0.615 0 0.615 4 1 1
GROUP O LABOR 18 1173690 39.84% 8.766 8 0.766 3 1 9
GROUP P 15 19043 0.65% 0.142 0 0.142 11 0 0
GROUP Q SOCIALIST ALLIANCE 16 12394 0.42% 0.093 0 0.093 14 0 0
GROUP R SAVE OUR SUBURBS 17 9002 0.31% 0.067 0 0.067 16 0 0
GROUP S HUMAN RIGHTS PARTY 15 11743 0.40% 0.088 0 0.088 15 0 0
UNG 7 2452 0.08% 0.018 0 0.018 19 0 0
The Poll Bludger 250307 3
(NSW election live)
Gary,
I have been watching Insiders. Piers Ackermann referred to Greg Combet as a “union hackâ€. Given his articulate and reasonable line, he is as far from a hack as PA is from an unbiased journalist. The Liberals will run the anti-union line, but I don’t think it will bite at all.
In the table I just posted (which you can’t see, because William needs to moderate it), the %age votes are based on all votes except “Other including informal”. Stephen asked earlier about how much of this was “Informal”, I would suspect nearly all. If you view the VTR, the %ages given on the front page are %ages of the total vote, not %ages of the “Formal”. Given that there appear to be about a quarter of a million informals, everybodys’ %ages are dragged down somewhat on the VTR
Adam,
IMHO people don’t care if trains don’t run on time. They only care if the train they want to catch doesn’t run on time.
Adam,
My predictions were better than yours,
I think you’ll find I said 53-47 and 4-6 seats, so yes I was out but considering the closeness of Port Stephens and Miranda I think it was a reasonable prediciton on my part as it may still be 4 seats.
My prediction for Epping was right: Greg Smith retained the seat for the Liberals, with roughly the same margin as last time.
A big swing to the Liberals in Hornsby – presumably because Judy Hopwood is seen to be a hardworking local member.
Undoutably, WorkChoices was an issue in this election – the Conservatives are kidding themseves!
William, thanks for another informative election coverage!
This site and all the regulars here keep me coming back for more!
Any idea how postals and prepolls will go in Miranda? Barry Collier is far from safe!
In Queensland there are no bogans.
We call them Bevans.
Chris, I agree. This idea that everyone will be anti union enough to risk their and their children’s conditions and wages at the next election is fanciful. In fact I believe these IR laws are showing people why unions are relevant, even though many people choose not to be part of one. The fact is the government has gone too far and has frightened the horses. Not a wise political move. But let’s not try and wake them up to this shall we.
I love the line the federal government is pushing now after the NSW election. They claim Labor’s vote in the last week of the campaign dropped away once Labor’s IR ads kicked in over that week. There are so many holes in that argument. The fact that the government was returned with little damage speaks volumes for the campaign on IR.
Edward how did your theory stand up re Workchoices and western Sydney seats such as Camden and Wollondilly? I ask not as a smart alec comment but as one who is not familiar with the Sydney area at all.
GB,
Not sure. But I suspect the breakdown of the votes in those 2 seats will be keenly broken down in days to come.
I guess its the perennial problem of identifying why a swing occurred? Voters still dont have to give reasons for their vote.
None of the newspaper websites appear to have a call of the board – does anyone know where to find a full list of what’s won/lost/changed hands? Be great if a link could be posted in the main part of this blog.
If you look at broad aggregations across seats you may find the following:
The ALP vote held enough in traditional ALP areas to keep many Marginal seats in their hands (especially those with polar-LIB/ALP splits).
The Liberals polled strongly everywhere in northern Sydney, including seats in the Hills District, Epping, Ryde (well an improvement), Hornsby, Lane Cove, the Beaches, and the Entire North Shore.
In some of these seats the ALP has lost significant vote share for this election, and possibly for the term of this government.
The Liberals did not win any seats in the Howard Battler zones, partly because of good candidate selection by the ALP, and partly because of a poor understanding of these areas by existing Liberal MPs who live mainly in Northern Sydney.
Apart from that, the National Party made big gains (unexpectedly for Sydney people) against the ALP in the country, while it seems more Independants (and Greens) than ever are in the final 2PP counts.
Unfortunately for the Liberal party, this did not lead to many seat gains, but has them much better positioned for the next election both in terms of seats to defend and seats to win.
Better positioned, but certainly not well positioned. They will need to replicate this result with another 5% swing to force a hung parliament in 2011. They still need 8% to win government in their own right.
Toorak = Bogans
First thanks to William for his site
One thing which makes me made with Elections, if the Government suffers a swing people call it a protest, whatever happened to we don’t like the Government.
I.R was a factor, but I don’t think it hurt the Liberals as much as it will come Federal Election, by my rough guess the ALP on these results could pick up to 4 seats Edan Monaro, Lindsay, Hughes and McCarthur but would drop Richmond.
I feel the biggest factor in this result was the quality of the Two parties, which is poor at best.
The Federal Government advisors should read this blog and take notice of comments re: IR Law. They need to sell the reasons for making the changes to IR eg. helping struggling small businesses, and highlight the fact that not one nurse/teacher/policeman appears to have been sacked yet under their new regime. Small businesses are crippled by stupid State regulations.
How come I can see this so clearly, but expensive PR consultants can’t?
Meanwhile, I thought Independent Liberal Martin Levine would have done better than he did in Epping. Glad to see Rob Stokes take back Pittwater, and Judy Hopwood increase her margin from 4 to 13 per cent in Hornsby.Mrs Hopwood better watch her back though…
Not surprised the Nationals are regaining lost ground, given the drought.
bmwofoz,
The 2PP vote in Tweed was very similar to the 2PP vote in the those booths at last Federal election.
Nationals 2PP in Tweed 53.6%
Nationals 2PP for the same booths in 2004 Federal election 52.8%
bmwofoz, I stopped being worried about Richmond when it became clear that Larry Anthony would not be seeking preselection for the seat. That means that the personal vote built up by three generations of the Anthony family won’t be a factor in this election. Coupled with the renewed strength of the ALP, I don’t expect Richmond to fall to the Coalition.
PC: Levine was never going to be that effective. He had no real profile until the Hornsby Advocate and Stateline gave him one.
I am more surprised that the ALP only gained 25% of Primaries in Epping when there was supposedly a crazy fundamentalist Liberal running (though Greg Smith seems to be neither), in an area which overlaps with a seat the Prime Minister is supposedly about to lose, whereas many Liberals gained more than that in Safe ALP seats.
SkyNews Poll.
WorkChoices is having more of an effect than the economy. Let’s face it, as a neutural watcher, Howard is set to lose nearly every marginal seat in the country. It’s looking like Labor wall-to-wall and a massive Rudd victory.