Late mail

There are no fewer than seven seats which are still too close to call a week after polling day, with less than 0.3 per cent separating the two parties. The AEC’s official Close Seats list further includes Flynn and La Trobe, but these are all but certain to respectively go with Labor and Liberal. Corangamite briefly popped on to the list a few days ago, but it’s gone now. Two other seats that could be of at least theoretical interest come the preference count are O’Connor and Calare. In O’Connor, Nationals candidate Philip Gardiner (18.37 per cent) has a vague hope of getting ahead of Labor (20.42 per cent) on preferences from, among others, the Greens (6.68 per cent), and then overcoming Liberal member Wilson Tuckey (45.25 per cent) on Labor preferences. Similarly, in Calare the independent candidate Gavin Priestley (23.73 per cent) might be able to overcome Labor (24.84 per cent) with preferences from the Greens (2.60 per cent) and the Citizens Electoral Council (0.94 per cent, which was boosted by a donkey vote that will flow on to Labor) and then, just maybe, within spitting distance of John Cobb of the Nationals (47.89 per cent). For some reason only ordinary votes have been counted to this point in O’Connor.

Bowman. Labor’s Jason Young narrowly led Liberal incumbent Andrew Laming from election night until Tuesday when Laming got his nose in front on pre-polls, but this has proved to be the only close electorate where postals have favoured Labor. Young recovered the tiniest of leads and has inched slowly ahead to his current lead of 116 votes.

Herbert. Liberal incumbent Peter Lindsay leads by just 60 votes, and I have unconfirmed reports that only provisional votes remain to be counted. Last time provisionals favoured Lindsay 279-257: if there’s the same number this time and they swing the same way as the rest, Colbran will close the gap by 45 votes and lose by 15.

McEwen. Another seat where Labor was ahead on election night, but postals put Liberal incumbent Fran Bailey a very handy 502 votes up on Monday. That looked like it might be enough, but a remarkably good partial count of absent votes pulled it into 111 yesterday. Further counting of pre-polls then pushed her lead out to 150.

Solomon. Labor’s Damian Hale was a full 1.0 per cent ahead on election night, but late factors such as overseas Defence Force votes have steadily whittled it down to 262 votes, or 0.3 per cent. That leaves some hope for CLP incumbent Dave Tollner, though Hale should probably get up.

Swan. Labor incumbent Kim Wilkie had a 134-vote lead on election night, but has since had to watch as each new batch of votes has delivered a few dozen votes to Liberal candidate Steve Irons, who currently leads by 239 and is looking increasingly likely to emerge as the only Liberal candidate to topple a sitting Labor MP.

Dickson. Labor’s Fiona McNamara had reason to feel confident about her 425-vote lead on election night, but a strong performance on postals by Liberal member Peter Dutton pushed him 268 votes ahead on Wednesday. The seat has since provided Labor with some rare late count good news, absents and pre-polls reeling in the lead in to just 106.

Robertson. This one hadn’t been on my watch list, with Labor candidate Belinda Neal holding a formidable 1094 vote lead on election night. However, Liberal member Jim Lloyd has kept whittling away Neal’s lead, once again being boosted by postals which have gone 58-42 in his favour. Neal’s lead is now just 273 – too close to comfort, but probably just enough.

To illustrate the recurring theme of Liberal comebacks, here is a table comparing party support by type of vote cast for 2004 and 2007, bearing in mind that the 2007 figures are still incomplete. While there was a slightly better performance by the Coalition in declaration votes across the board, it does seem they have managed to produce their best results on postals where it has mattered most.

ORDINARY ABSENT PRE-POLL POSTAL
2007 2004 2007 2004 2007 2004 2007 2004
Labor
 44.0 38.3 5.8 39.3 34.0 5.4 41.1 34.9 6.2 40.2 34.4 5.9
Coalition
 41.7 46.5 -4.8 40.8 44.2 -3.4 45.3 48.3 -3.0 49.2 52.9 -3.7
Greens
 7.6 7.0 0.6 12.1 10.9 1.2 6.7 7.9 -1.2 5.0 4.9 0.1

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

683 comments on “Late mail”

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  2. Albert F: Howard was and still is a climate skeptic.
    Good riddance to his old and outdated views. He has already put us 10 years behind the rest of the world.

  3. Marky Marky

    You are quite right. The energy, infrastructure and economic actions that are the inevitable outcomes of the funding system created by Howard’s disastrous environmental policies (no Federal funding for public transport, no increase in renewable energy targets) will take some time to turn around. Lets be grateful that JW, the environmental sceptic, has finally been turfed out before he could do any more damage. It will take years to turn around Howards wrong direction on climate change. But at least we have a sane PM now.

  4. So Howard is to blame for more freeways, pulp mills and desalination plants? No but Yes in regards to doing nothing regarding policy settings and targets. To me the State LABOR governments are also doing very little.

  6. To paraphrase another, rather more sensible man named Winston,

    Signing Kyoto isn’t the solution to global warming,
    It isn’t even the beginning of the solution,
    But it is the end of the denial

  7. 454 – Howard is to blame for not ratifying Kyoto and spending about 10 x more money on government advertising, then on any policies to assist renewable energy.

  8. #
    439
    Asanque Says:
    December 3rd, 2007 at 5:33 pm

    Wilkie is 32 votes behind now.
    He’s coming back!

    Sadly Asanque he won’t just make it by 150 votes

    there’s only 4700 odd ordinary votes left & he’s only winning 50.29% of these
    whereas the absentees & pre polls are larger 2PP margins in favor of LCP

    Hopefully there were huge ALP voters in the last part of the last booth counted !

  9. I agree, but we have signed the agreement now what major policy settings will change as a result. I’m looking forward to hearing or should i say not hearing because little will result.

  10. Union hacks, union hacks, riding through the Glen
    Union hacks, unions hacks, a band of noble men (and women)
    Feared by the bad
    Loved by the good
    Union hacks, union hacks, unions hacks

  11. Union hacks, union hacks, riding through the Glen
    Union hacks, unions hacks, a band of noble men (and women)
    Feared by the bad
    Loved by the good
    Union hacks, union hacks, unions hacks, amen.

  12. “I, Kevin Michael Rudd, do solemnly swear….”

    “Michael”?

    “Michael“?

    The bastard who used to bash me up at school was a “Michael”: Mick “Basher” Burns.

    If I’d have known Rudd’s middle name was Michael, I wouldn’t have voted for him.

    Never trust a Michael. That’s been my motto throughout life and it hasn’t done me any harm at all.

    I feel conned.

  13. i was slightly surprised to see that Peter Garrett is the oldest of the 20 Labor ministers. perception is a funny thing hey.

    Peter was regarded as a big plus in the youth vote(which he was) but he really is getting toward elderly age.

    John Faulkner to me seems like a wise old owl of the Party, but he is younger than Garrett.

    just an interesting little sidelight i thought.

  19. Ah, I see, I apologise William. That’s good news for Kim, but it means there is no actual momentum towards him in the count, which I suppose is bad news.

  20. Old Tom,
    A couple of pages back, you remarked about the lack of appropriate 2PP votes, when a candidate from outside the two major blocs becomes a serious challenger.
    I suspect the problem is that this decision has to be taken prior to polling day, because the initial 2PP count is decentralised to individual booths. By the time it emerges that this is a mistake, it isn’t possible to communicate with each booth and/or ask them to redo the count. Since it is an unofficial 2PP estimate, it probably isn’t justified to re-do the complete count (with all the other more pressing tasks, Senate votes, checks of absentees, postals,provisionals etc.), before the formal allocation of preferences after all the primaries are in – i.e. after the last date for postals, this Friday.
    While the case for an independent-National 2PP estimate in Calare was reasonable, I doubt that anyone figured that the National was in with a fighting chance against Tuckey in O’Connor. Conversely, there might have been an argument for doing the 2PP allocation in Forrest as an Independent-Liberal contest, but that’s not how the seat turned out.
    Thank you for your earlier insight about Corangamite and the effective campaign by YRAW. I spent my childhood and early teens in that area, and our home booth was one that fitted your description a small rural booth with about 400 votes. In one particularly memorable election in my childhood the ALP vote at the booth was 15. My grandfather contested Corangamite in 1919.

  21. [To me the State LABOR governments are also doing very little.]

    MM, the feds are ultimately responsible here. Under constitutional law, when the feds use the external affairs powers, they may enact domestic law to enforce our obligations under those international agreements. You may recall the Franklin dam case as an example of use of the special external powers the Cth has. (It was tested in the High Court and Tasmania lost.)

    The fact that Howard refused to ratify Kyoto meant the states had, as a result, no legal obligation to do anything. Now with new Commonwealth legislation under Rudd, the states, insofar as they are involved/responsible for example, building new coal fired power stations, will be forced to comply with said new legislation.

  25. Wouldn’t his full title be The Honourable Colonel Dr Michael J. Kelly, AM?

    No, military rank comes first so its Colonel, The Honourable Dr….”

  27. Watched most of the swearing-in online. Like others (eg news.com) I was taken by the sight of toddlers escaping their non-parliamentary parents in the adjoining room, and playing on chairs/floors. Shades of Camelot?

    My wife quipped: ‘the kids should enjoy it whilst they can: they won’t be seeing much of their ministerial dad/mum from now on’.

    Also noticeable are headlines, eg AFR, ‘unions warn bosses not to rush AWAs’. In a sense the labour movement IS back in town. The difference is a Rudd government will consult with both sides, whereas the unions were frozen out from day one, understandably but regrettably, in the Coalition government.

    Heather Ridout now seems like a diplomat and a tactician compared to the Hendys of the world. Knott I understand, he went hard to extract concessions and to claim some kind of high ground in future mining employer – government discussions.

  29. Glen at 307 says:
    FG – I’m not saying all Unions are bad, just that they’ve got some rough sorts in there

    Glen, and I suppose all business men are paragons of virtue in your world, can I just mention a few names for you old son, and you can give me your feedback:
    Alan Bond
    Rodney Adler
    Richard Pratt
    Do I need to continue, have an original thought and get off the union bashing band wagon!

  30. The Honorable one, very similar to a Dads Army episode, Sergeant Wilson is now the Honorable one whilst poor old Mainwarring stays as he is.

  31. Oh Dear,
    Gridlock Campbell has hit the panic button and decided if a long campaign was good for Howard then it must be good for him.

    Hope the billboard explains why Minippi Parklands are drying up even though it has began raining again or why he promised rate rises no more than inflation but has been unable to keep the promise. Maybe it was just a noncore promise.

    http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/cando-time-as-kevin07-moves-on/2007/12/03/1196530543794.html

  33. Ross Vasta ought to nominate for State Leader of the Liberal Party. Of the federal MPs unseated in the Brisbane area last weekend he was the most personable by a long way.

  35. Make the most of the drinks at the Lodge Labor, possible recession on the way or should i say depression, not to be pessimistic but the next one will be terrible.
    Thirty per cent of population working casually, massive foreign debt and unemployment statistics which hide the truth considering you only have to work 2 hours in a fortnight not to classified, wondering if Labor will change this statistical measurement inequity bet you it does not.

  36. I will urge all the banks to take care and think long and hard before putting up interest rates Wayne Swan

    Yep who is he kidding, to think that the banks actually care about people. What next.

  38. Steve 476 “Unless the Tories count losing an election as their major achievement of the year.”

    Well, it was their achievement that did the counntry the most good.

    Watching ABC news and now 7.30 report. Swan is going well IMO, dealing with the inflation/recession risk rearing its ugly head on day one. Great legacy JHo.

  43. If a recession happens elsewhere in the world it will affect Australia, to suggest Howard is to blame is wrong.
    But i will say is that Howard Government has through it policies made the next recession a depression. Debt out of control. asset and government land sales, capital gains taxes reductions on property.
    Nonetheless Labor has also not helped through its policy of negative gearing in the 1980’s. Only one way out of making the next recession less harsh go back to government ownership of assets, that way profit does not determine employment losses and less demand.

  44. Adam

    There have been a couple of posts on this site re tory dynasties in SA here (Butlers, Playfords, Downers, etc) but I understand the new MHR for Port Adelaide, Mark Butler, is a descendant of Sir Richard Butler onetime “tory” premier of SA. I’m sure that you have this covered somewhere on your website. (I had a quick look there but couldn’t find any reference to this)

  45. #
    464
    William Bowe Says:
    December 3rd, 2007 at 6:25 pm

    I am informed that the narrowing in Swan is the result of a miscounted bundle of 100 votes.

    yep , on the same vote count last nite till now ie 72665:

    ylast nite LCP 2PP was 34951 now 34769 (-189)

    however the error is worse -last nite uncounted absentees were 1235 now 2496
    -last night uncounted prepolls were 789 now 1106

    Someone stuffed up big time in Swan counting

    If counting per 2PP % voting types continues as is: Labor loses by 142
    but one can hope

  46. Can someone explain to me why Country Liberal Party member Senator Scullion meets with the National Party, and not the Liberal Party?

    Did Dave Tollner – C.L.P. member in the House of Reps meet with the Liberal or Nationals?

    Have the Country Liberal Party always been in alliance with the Nationals rather than the Liberals?

  49. #
    498
    K Jin Says:
    December 3rd, 2007 at 8:01 pm

    You people are not true labor. A RAT IS A RAT ! Cassidy is a rat, as most jilted lovers are.

    I am sure you regret your reference to Matt Price ???

  50. The only reference I made to Matt Price (RIP) was in context of people using him. Surely no one could disagree that nearly everyone in the media has been using his lamented passing.
    YOU PAY YOUR RESPECTS. YOU DO NOT SHOUT OUT, EVERYONE LOOK AT ME

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