The Lord taketh away

The verdict from the McEwen recount is in: Labor candidate Rob Mitchell’s six vote win has been overturned, and Liberal member Fran Bailey declared re-elected by just 12 votes. This gives the result level pegging with the Liberals’ 1974 win in Stirling as the closest federal electorate result of modern times. Labor is still considering a legal challenge, but it’s an open question as to whether a re-match would really be in their interests. It seems very likely that we can now settle on a final result of 83 seats for Labor and 65 for the Coalition plus two independents. Two other recount demands await adjudication:

• The Greens will reportedy call for a recount for the Victorian Senate, a contentious move given that nearly 3.3 million ballots would need to be rechecked. Antony Green’s projection shows both the Coalition and Labor winning third seats upon the exclusion of eighth placed Family First, the Liberals doing so with a surplus of 21709 votes (0.68 per cent) and Labor with 6088 (0.19 per cent). At this point Greens candidate Richard di Natale is left stranded on 13.4 per cent, 0.9 per cent or 27804 votes short of a quota. This of course assumes that all votes are cast above the line, when there are in fact 65101 (2.05 per cent) below-the-line votes for which we presently have only first preference results. These are unlikely to make much difference, as most are votes for parties whose preference tickets favoured the Greens ahead of Labor. Much of the leakage would come from Liberals going below the line to ensure the Greens did not get their vote. Against this can be weighed Labor voters who gave their first preference to a Labor candidate before switching to the Greens, but past experience suggests this is unlikely to account for more than 10 per cent out of 14123. If the assumption of all votes behaving as ticket votes were to hold, the Greens would need for Labor to finish around 2000 votes below the quota after Family First’s exclusion, which is roughly 8000 less than they presently appear to have. The distribution of the Liberal surplus would then be enough to give di Natale the narrowest of victories. In support of their recount appeal, Greens spokesman Jim Buckell provided The Age with an interesting list of claimed irregularities: “309 Greens Senate votes from one booth were not recorded at all; in Isaacs 150 votes were missed; in Dunkley 173 Greens votes were recorded as 17; and in Gellibrand, some Greens votes were attributed to another minor party”. However, it seems most unlikely that the required average of around 215 votes per electorate would be found to have wrongly favoured Labor over the Greens.

• Labor candidate Jason Young’s request for a recount in Bowman following his 64-vote defeat has been knocked back by the divisional returning officer. Young is continuing to pursue his recount request further up the Australian Electoral Commission hierarchy, but one suspects he is unlikely to find any joy.

On a completely unrelated note, here is a chart I knocked together showing each state’s deviation from the national Labor two-party preferred vote going back to 1949.

The first thing to note is the hyperactivity of Tasmania, which can in large part be put down to its small population of five seats. Nonetheless, the results tell a story of a natural Labor state which turned around temporarily following the Whitlam government’s tariff cuts and Labor’s opposition to the Franklin dam at the 1983 election. The largest state by contrast has stayed within a narrow 5 per cent band on the Labor side of the ledger, dipping below the line only in 1987 and 1998. Victoria’s long-lost standing as the jewel in the Liberal crown looks very much like a symptom of the 1954 Labor split and the party’s subsequent paralysis at state level, and its Labor vote has only once fallen below the national result since 1980. The exception was the 1990 election which also proved aberrant for reliably conservative Queensland, state government factors providing the explanation in each case. It can also be seen that the Coalition’s relative strength in Western Australia at the 2007 election was matched only by 1961, there is nothing new about its conservative leaning.

On another completely unrelated note, I have just had to pay a fee to renew the pollbludger.com domain. This wasn’t hugely expensive ($50 to be precise), but it nonetheless offers a good excuse to pass the hat around among those of you who enjoy giving me money.

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.

489 comments on “The Lord taketh away”

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  1. Just heard Swan on TV stating that “the fallout in the U.S subprime crisis shows that Australia is not immune from the global crisis”
    Thanks Wayne as if i didn’t know. Dill.

  2. 132
    HarryH
    One explanation from 7/11/07 at Polemica (hard to link)

    Turning “razor gang” into a positive?
    For members of the Australian Labor Party, the term “razor-gang” is most closely associated (and generally in a derogatory light) with the Fraser Government’s vicious public sector cuts of the early 1980’s. It is therefore very interesting that Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has revived the term during this year’s election campaign and is attempting to use it as a selling point for the Opposition.

    So why is Rudd using this evocative term, with so much historical baggage, to describe what his Opposition has in mind? Surely there are a myriad of ways in which the desired cost savings could be described that don’t so unabashedly draw a direct line between Australia’s conservative government of a quarter century ago and the proposed future of this country.

    It’s hard not to think it’s all about selling that “economic conservative” tag. It certainly seems as though Rudd is tailoring aspects of his language and party policy for that grizzled sub-sector of the population who feel that the Howard Government has not fulfilled its public sector minimisation ambit. By killing a few sacred cows with some carefully chosen words and some targeted plans, Federal Labor is trying to portray itself as not only the party of public funding sweetness and light for its traditional supporters (at least of the two major parties), but the party of public sector cuts and cost savings for the conservative voters that it needs to woo in order to win government.

    It is a difficult balancing act to pull off. Fortunately for Federal Labor, the Howard Government (and particularly the PM) is so loathed after eleven years by Labor voters, most would probably vote for a resurrected Margaret Thatcher in overalls before they would even consider voting for the government. It is therefore no wonder that Rudd is leading his troops towards the “centre” and well beyond in this election campaign.

  3. 132
    HarryH

    I think that once Rudd proclaimed ‘no more’ to massive handouts and irresponsible ‘helicopter’ money from J W Howard, he then had to justify signing onto 31 billion big ones.

    From then on, government savings were up in the cross-hairs, and where does the average joe sixpack think all his taxes go? Yep, you probably guessed it, into the giant maw of Canberra’s big beehive, its bureaucracy.

    It was a dogwhistle, and a threat, especially to some of the pet mandarins, that their days were numbered. It may have hurt Labor in Canberra, but was a resounding message throughout the land.

    Like I said: “I think”!

  4. I was in a lift today with a Dep Sec of a very large Gvt Department today – he didnt look all that worried to me [as one of the mandarins of Canberra!]

    Could have been that the coffee he was out to get was a more weightly issue!

  5. 150
    Chino

    I do remember reading recently that one of the rags had a shot of the van outside K House on that historic day. As for me, well I was way too busy to notice, what with dealing with ‘her indoors’ well knocked up with horse tranquilisers and poor Mr Rodent on all fours following us about and calling us “George”. Pitiable sight, really.

    Ah, but what day it was, eh?

    KR

    PS Talking of pics in Grub Street rags, I saw that one of Maxine and Mr Rodent, you know the one, she was telling him about Tasmania being all Labor!

  6. I see that Albanese has announced an 82 day sitting schedule for 2008. Can anyone point me towards the date for the first sitting week? A couple of friends and I wish to get QT tickets if we possibly can.

  10. Is it possible to reserve tickets for QT? I don’t want to get there and find that it’s a matter of waiting around for hours to get a seat.

  22. There is a considerable difference between an apparatchik and a party chick. Harry is in fact neither. He has never been part of the “apparat” (the party machinery). He was a public servant until he inherited his seat from his father in 1986. He has sat quietly up the back of the House for 21 years waiting to be Speaker like his father was. I think patience of that order deserves reward. He has been 2nd Deputy Speaker for some years and knows the standing orders very thoroughly. He is a popular chap and will be a perfectly good Speaker.

  23. Jesus, did you read that link at 141?

    Arctic could be gone – completely- as early as 2012.

    F*cking Bush Presidency – what a cancer on the globe.

  28. Prob’ly a bit late for me to weigh in.

    Something I so liked.

    Went to my friend’s, yesterday, who has finally and good, employed someone to build a new pergola to replace the ancient and dangerous existing.

    Looks terrific, no shit work, no brackets, dovetails and whatever. Perfection.

    A compliment from me, to this well turned out bloke of maybe, mid to late thirties. Muscles, legs, good looker. Own business. Sharp conversationalist. A Howard man, one assumes.

    A slight mention of politics, from me. Seeing as the subject arose. He said, one to go. I said, Bush? He said, yep. I said, Trifecta? He said, yep.

    Discussion of the state of play, aka McEwen. Skated to Boothby, Kingston. He was of the latter electorate. Knew everything.

    Turns out he is not only his own man, and as I said, great artisan, but the long time Union organiser, in his own realm and long time Labor Party member.

    Congratulations and commiserations, all round.

    Next time. Blokes like this.

  29. Kirribilli: ” It was a dogwhistle, and a threat, especially to some of the pet mandarins, that their days were numbered. It may have hurt Labor in Canberra, but was a resounding message throughout the land.”

    Methinx Kirribilli, it did hurt Labor in the two Canberra city electorates, but not a lot, it was designed deliberately as a message for the rest of the country.

    But it did hurt feelings locally, probably because Rudd’s short visit to the city was so at odds with the rest of the campaign. He scowled, glared, with not so much as a smile for the voters of this city, (over 70% of whom do not even work anywhere near the PS) and then sacked or demoted the ACT ALP reps.

    Kev and Therese must have some bad memories of their ANU student days of living in the city (hey Kev? It was nearly 30 years ago, get over it, huh?)

    Secondly, the APS had been quietly gearing up all year for a ‘changing of the guard’ — many saw the writing on the wall, re-arranged SES chairs, took that retirement they were long overdue for, and so on.

    Some departments were ready, geared up and raring to go from Day One.

    Much of the work had been done before Rudd said anything, so as not to upset the larger population of junior pub servants who aren’t involved in any politicisation anyway.

    Howard’s meat-axe in 96 was far more sudden and painful for thousands, many of whom had no idea what hit them.

    In short, yes it hurt Labor in one local safe electorate, probably the Greens too, but was either:

    (a) a mistake, but a minor one, or
    (b) a deliberate message that goes down real well everywhere else, (ala Canberra-bashing) and safe seats can take the knock.

    but a smile or two, and some positive rhetoric about ‘nation-building’ that everybody else got, might have helped cushion the blow.

    Canberra is still part of Australia, whether the rest of the country likes it or not, and it would have been nice to feel the PM isn’t gritting his teeth to *endure* its existence.

    *sigh* – its bad when the PM hates you, as much as the rest of the country does.

    If Bob McMullen’s proposal to create a 3rd ACT electorate goes ahead, ALP might have to fight just a little harder to retain its safe status, in at least one, possibly two of the three seats.

    The southside electorate has shown that it should not be taken for granted.

    Safe Labor yes, will vote for ALP ashtrays, but it has *standards* for ‘quality ashtrays’ unlike other safe seats.

    It will double-digit swing away from ALP candidates it doesn’t like. Just because we’re safe, doesn’t mean we will put up with idiot ALP junk MPs, or national embarrassments, or insults from the PM like Keating’s classics.

    Inoffensive, non-entities yes, but idiots? No Way! Get enough Canberra-bashing, without a f*wit local MP making it worse.

    .

  31. Rain- if you are still around, there is a big fight in SA about ACHAs. The Health Department has decided to restrict services for “discretionary” operations like circumcision, varicose veins, breast reduction etc as follows
    http://www.health.sa.gov.au/ELECTIVESURGERY/Default.aspx?tabid=205
    The doctors and media are arguing that this breaches the ACHA between State and Federal Governments because it reduces the range of services provided by SA, which the ACHA specifically says the States cannot do. Do you have aq view?

  32. The Age was told that on one ballot paper, an elector had crossed out the names of all the candidates, replacing them with the hand-written names “Mark Skaife”, “Craig Lowndes”, “Todd Kelly” and other V8 Supercar drivers. The voter then donkey-voted, numbering the boxes alongside one to eight downwards.

    The numbers favoured Ms Bailey on preferences and, after being ruled informal in the initial count, it was contested by the Liberal Party and ruled a formal vote for the recount.

  34. #179 “If Bob McMullen’s proposal to create a 3rd ACT electorate goes ahead, ALP might have to fight just a little harder to retain its safe status, in at least one, possibly two of the three seats.”

    This would mean a resurrection of Namadgi, right? (Maybe they could parachute Penny Wong into it!)

    However, Bob McMullan must realize that if a third ACT seat is created, it would only exist so long as the ALP stays in govt. When the Coalition does eventually get back in (and whenever that day comes, it’ll be too soon for me) the ACT will go back to 2 seats, prompting a stoush in the ALP about who gets to stay. Bob himself (as member for Fraser) would be drawn into it.

  36. 182

    I think that vote is formal – all the boxes are numbered. It hurts to say it, but it counts.

    Just be thankful that vote (along with a half dozen others) decided only the outcome in McEwen, not the entire election.

  39. O’Connor has been declared to have been won by Tuckey but I can’t see how that can be decided without doing a proper full distribution of preferences to see if the Nationals ended up in front of the ALP after the minor parties had been eliminated.

    The AEC has only published 1st pref and TPP.

    Any explanations?

    Thanks

  40. Re:182

    A House of Representatives ballot paper is informal if:
    …
    it has writing on it which identifies the voter
    …
    the voter’s intention is not clear
    …

    Do we think that the intention of the McEwen V8 supercar fanatic was clear?

    Furthermore, how many V8 supercar fanatics live in McEwen?

  41. Very interesting, Dr G. I’ve now taken a look at the Cth Electoral Act 1918 section 268 where the relevant bits are:

    (1) A ballot-paper shall … be informal if:
    (a) …
    (b) …
    (c) in a House of Representatives election, it has no vote
    indicated on it, or it does not indicate the voter’s first
    preference for 1 candidate and an order of preference for all
    the remaining candidates:
    …….
    (d) it has upon it any mark or writing …by which… the voter can be
    identified:
    …..
    (e)…
    (2) …
    (3) A ballot-paper shall not be informal for any reason other than the
    reasons specified in this section, but shall be given effect to
    according to the voter’s intention so far as that intention is clear.

    I agree it’s difficult to see how the voter’s intention was clear if Kat’s report (182) is accurate, and the names of the real candidates were crossed out. Still, it’s only 1 vote, though it does perhaps call into question the quality of decision-making by the relevant officials.

  42. Surely the voter’s intention was clear. His (and we can be pretty sure it was a he) intention was to vote for V8 supercar drivers, not the election candidates. It was a protest vote against the candidates and he did NOT want it to count towards any of them getting his vote. Therefore it should not count.

  43. I think all one can say is that it is far from clear that the voter’s intention was to vote for the candidates whose names were printed on the ballot paper, and therefore it should have been declared informal.

  44. Listening to Julie Bishop this morning on AM using the ABC’s “balance” policy to tell Julia Gillard that she “must” hold a full and independent inquiry into the proposed changes to WorkChoices or else the Libs and Nats won’t pass the bills got me thinking that the only way out of this – to settle the election once and for all – is to hold a double dissolution when the repeal fails to pass.

    Put to one side the fact the the Howard government didn’t even tell us about WorkChoices, much less hold a “full and independent” inquiry into it (if you don’t include the pathetic one day Senate committee hearing and some repetitive blather over the years about unfair dismissal – one thousandth of what WorkChoices really was).

    These wankers need to snap out of the delusion that they are the government in exile; that Labor is just keeping the seat warm until the rightful rulers of Australia get their act together and go through the formalities of winning the few votes needed to return to power. Never mind about the daggers-drawn state of their party and their party room. Never mind that they’re out of office everywhere in Australia except Brisbane City Council. These are our natural leaders and know what’s best for us, unlike those Labor amateurs, fanatics and union bovver boys who serendipitously and quite counter-intuitively managed to win the last election while the Coalition, getting on with governing the country, had their collective attentions momentarily drawn elsewhere.

    The stake needs to be hammered through the heart of the Coalition and the body burned. The electorate clearly voted for the end of WorkChoices and the cessation of other ikonic Howard policies in many other areas. They even kicked Howard out of his own seat to press the message home. No mercy should be shown to them by Labor. They should not allow anyone from that failed bunch of yes people to tell them what they “must” do about anything.

    As for “Brenda” Nelson. The sooner this small, pissant, cry-baby of a man is shown up for the worm he is, the better. All Byrlcream and no brain, he should be allowed to wither on the vine of his own irrelevancy. Turnbull, far more of a human being than Nelson, is nothing to worry about. He has the fatal, almost Shakespearian flaw of being not quite able to press home the advantage and win an election when it counts. Sure, he can stack Wentworth, but he can’t stack the whole country, not from the Opposition benches. You have to be Howard, with your grubby, partisan hands on the national purse strings to do that.

    Inquiries? On second thoughts let’s hold a few, starting with one into AWB, in the form of the prosecutions that Cole, Howard and Downer clapped for a little too loudly. Let’s see who grasses who when that process gets going. What about the Super Hornets? $6 billion dollars on an inferior lemon of an aircraft, hardly able to shoot down a Bali box kite, much less a modern Sukhoi. Hmmm… this is fun… Iraq might be another contender. Who said what to whom, and when did they say it? Turnbull’s mate with the ion-generating rainmaking machine (and the $12 million of taxpayers’ money) might get a guernsey. That was money spent in the caretaker period. It could be the naughty corner for you, Malcolm. Howard’s “whitlamesque” 10 year spending spree on middle class welfare might be another candidate for the microscope, especially as it seems Labor is now going over the invoices trying to figure out how to pay them and, at the same time, avoid rampant inflation in the years to come.

    Julie Bishop is calling for the inquiry that the government of and in which she was a cabinet minister never held, on a subject they refused to release figures upon because it would be “detrimental to the public good”, as the FOI rejection intoned.

    Yeah, let’s have some inquiries, but not into the repeal of laws that the government was clearly elected to repeal. Failing that, a double dissolution, followed by a joint sitting that will pass everything banked up seems just the ticket to clear out the deadwood once and for all from the Coalition benches.

  45. Maintain the passion, BB.

    Bishop of the West can say what she likes, but we already know that several of her colleagues have seen the writing on the wall about Workchoices. They surely don’t want to be dragged into a DD which they’ll be held responsible for, to refight a battle they’ve only just resoundingly lost.

  46. BB (194) Too much loathing and hatred in that post. Your team won the election. Praise be! So now be very careful you do not succumb to the dark side of The Force. Afterall, the Australian Labor Party has a precious reputation to maintain: that it is the only major party able to articulate and put into practice policies of truth, social justice and the ‘Australian way’ (that is, decency, graciousness and a fair go), or at least that is what many of the regular visitors to this website earnestly believe.

  47. BB
    Too many enquiries would make Rudd look vindictive and pedantic. But if he changes the FOI laws so all the Rodent’s grubby secrets are revealed, he could let the journalists do all his work for him and maintain the high moral ground. Most of these enquiries achieve nothing that a few vitriolic newspaper and 4 Corners articles couldn’t. Look at the AWB and Dr Death enquiries. Lots of dirty linen and no-one has faced charges yet.

  48. Has the Rodent been arested yet?
    Lets start at the top, Murdoch should be put under immediate detention as the megaphone for the War Criminal Party along with Bush, Blair, and dozens of their criminal cohorts.
    The putrid, festering Neo-Cons have to terminated and put to rest, once and for all times.
    Let the War Crimes Tribunal begin.

  49. 194 Bushfire Bill – Well said! I felt similarly when I heard Bishop this morning. It sounded like she was trying to crack an ironic joke but then I realised it was Bishop.

    I hope Labor will pummel them in Question Time and keep the public continuosly but calmly informed about the Libs closet full of skeletons, so that the threat of a Double Dissolution would make even the dumb libs realise they’d better back off on WorkChoices and other fixes Labor needs to do.

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