Frome by-election live

ALP NAT LIB GRN ONP BROCK COUNT
PRIMARY 5041 1267 7576 734 134 4557 19309
% 26.1% 6.6% 39.2% 3.8% 0.7% 23.6% 100.0%
Swing -16.4% -7.6% 0.7%
PORT PIRIE 2157 181 1344 129 29 2480 6320
% 34.1% 2.9% 21.3% 2.0% 0.5% 39.2% 100.0%
Swing -23.5% -11.7% -0.8%
REMAINDER 1368 735 4292 478 70 757 7700
% 17.8% 9.5% 55.7% 6.2% 0.9% 9.8% 100.0%
Swing -8.6% -6.2% 1.9%
DECLARATION 1516 351 1940 127 35 1320 5289
% 29.2% 6.5% 35.7% 2.3% 0.7% 25.5% 100.0%
Swing -9.2% -13.9% -1.9%
3CP 5532 8215 5562 19309
28.6% 42.5% 28.8%
2CP (FINAL) 9322 9987 19309
48.3% 51.7%

Thursday, January 28

Malcolm Mackerras muses on this and other recent by-elections in the Canberra Times.

Wednesday, January 27

Electoral commissioner Kay Mousley has officially rejected the Liberals’ request for a recount, on the basis that specific concerns about the counting of votes had not been identified. The mere closeness of the result was deemed insufficient grounds for a recount. Below is the piece I wrote for yesterday’s edition of Crikey, previously available to subscribers only. Martin Hamilton-Smith’s office has been in touch to dispute the claim that the “super Saturday” concept referred to below was seriously considered, saying it came down to “one MP” who had been “canvassing the notion to media”.

For psephologists and related species of political tragic, by-elections can’t happen often enough. But for normal people, forced mid-term visits to the polling booth rank somewhere around brain surgery on lists of favourite things. No political operative should ever need reminding of this, but it appears the South Australian Liberal Party did – and now has been, in terms it won’t forget in a hurry.

Saturday’s preference count for the Frome by-election, held a week earlier upon the retirement of former Premier Rob Kerin, gave the Liberal Party the rudest of shocks three days after it had issued a press release claiming victory. Both Liberal and Labor scrutineers were convinced that Liberal candidate Terry Boylan had survived an early scare, thanks to Nationals voters who ignored the party’s recommendation to direct second preferences to independent candidate Geoff Brock. It was believed this would prevent Brock from getting ahead of Labor’s John Rohde, resulting in his exclusion at the second last count. That being so, the State Electoral Office’s indicative two-party count pointed to an unconvincing final Liberal margin over Labor of 1.7 per cent.

However, it seems scrutineers obsessing over the Nationals had neglected to consider the actions of Greens voters, who in the absence of guidance from the party’s how-to-vote card were thought to have followed their normal practice of putting Labor second. In fact, 42 per cent of Greens preferences flowed to Brock against 37 per cent to Labor – enough for Brock to emerge a bare 30 votes ahead of Rohde, before storming home on Labor preferences to defeat Boylan 9987 votes to 9322.

Before the evening was through, a Liberal Party that could previously be heard expressing nothing but warm goodwill about their good mate Kero suddenly found voice to complain about the “obscure” reasons given for his retirement, which had “fuelled resentment” among voters. However, this was clearly wisdom after the event.

Last June, The Advertiser’s Greg Kelton reported that “senior Liberals” were “hatching a plan which would force the Rann Government to face a ‘super Saturday’ of by-elections on the growing political row over changes to country health services”. This would involve the simultaneous retirement of Kerin (who was quoted saying the idea had been “mentioned a few times”) along with fellow Liberal veterans Graham Gunn and Liz Penfold, initiating by-elections in the country and outback seats of Frome, Stuart and Flinders. As bad as Frome has been for the Liberals, it appears that only the reluctance of Gunn and Penfold to bring forward their retirements has spared them a self-inflicted triple-barrelled disaster.

For all that, Labor shouldn’t get too cocky (and reports from The Advertiser that “gleeful Labor MPs have run off copies of Mr Hamilton-Smith’s ‘Liberal victory’ press release to hold up when State Parliament resumes next month to goad the Liberals” do not bode well in this regard). The two-party swing Labor would have picked up if Brock had run third had less to do with voters’ conscious preferences than with their adherence to how-to-vote cards, which in Brock’s case had Labor third and Liberal fourth. The 16.4 per cent of voters who deserted Labor might very easily find less benign ways to register their evident displeasure with the government when the next election is held in March 2010.

Labor MPs would do well to acquaint themselves with a forgotten episode of Western Australia’s recent political history known as the Peel by-election, which in February 2007 gave Labor a morale-boosting 1.0 per cent two-party swing from a strong performance on the primary vote – for all the good that did Alan Carpenter 18 months later.

Tuesday, January 27

Crikey subscribers can read my by-election post-mortem here.

Sunday, January 25

Electoral commissioner Kaye Mousley refuses a recount. Mousley argues that “the final difference between the two candidates is some 600 votes with the distribution of preferences”, although the point surely is that Brock survived the second last exclusion by 30. That would leave the Court of Disputed Returns as their only recourse. However, the Electoral Act empowers the court only to anoint a different winner or order a new election, and I’m not aware of any basis on which such an order could be made.

Saturday, January 24

7.15pm. The last trickle of 265 postal votes had little bearing on the result: 147 (55.5 per cent) went to the Liberals, 47 (17.7 per cent) to Labor, 37 (14.0 per cent) to Brock, 23 (8.7 per cent) to the Nationals, 10 (3.8 per cent) to the Greens and 1 (0.4 per cent) to One Nation. In other words, they added 10 votes to the hurdle faced by Brock to overtake Labor. Meanwhile, the Poll Bludger has maintained its dismal record in predicting by-election results with this clanger from January 9: “Despite a preference swap between independent Port Pirie mayor Geoff Brock and Nationals candidate Neville Watson, there seems little reason not to think Terry Boylan will easily retain the seat for the Liberals.” That said, there’s plenty of humble pie to go round.

6.55pm. The Advertiser now has a full report, which tells us “Liberal officials say they will be ‘seeking clarity’ on the count from the State Electoral Office”. Also:

Liberal MP for Morphett Duncan McFetridge partly blamed Mr Kerin for the loss, saying he had given obscure reasons for leaving politics which fuelled resentment by voters towards the by-election.

True enough, but I hadn’t heard anyone in the Liberal Party complain before. Indeed, it seems they were happy to bring on the by-election because they were expecting Labor to suffer a bloody nose over the country health plan. In June we were hearing this idiotic talk emanating from the Liberal camp (courtesy of Greg Kelton of The Advertiser):

SENIOR Liberals are hatching a plan which would force the Rann Government to face a “super Saturday” of by-elections on the growing political row over changes to country health services … The move would involve three Liberal MPs in rural seats – who are all due to retire at the next election – stepping down to force by-elections. The MPs, Rob Kerin in Frome, Liz Penfold (Flinders) and Graham Gunn (Stuart), have all been outspoken in their criticism of the Government’s planned changes to rural health services … Mr Kerin told The Advertiser the by-election idea had been “mentioned a few times’” but he had not spoken to anyone about stepping down in Frome which he holds with a 4.2 per cent margin. He said he would not rule out the idea … (Gunn) ruled out stepping down to force a by-election in his seat of Stuart which, with a 0.4 per cent margin, is the most marginal Liberal seat in the state. Ms Penfold, whose vast Eyre Peninsula seat of Flinders is the safest Liberal seat in the state, said normally she would not support any moves for a by-election. “But this is such an important issue I will reserve my judgment,” she said.

6.45pm. The surprise packet was the flow of Greens preferences to Brock – 41.7 per cent against 36.6 per cent for Labor and 13.4 per cent for the Liberals. The estimates I was using in my preference calculation were 30 per cent, 50 per cent and 20 per cent respectively. The reason Brock was being written off was the high number of Nationals voters who were defying the HTV card and preferencing Boylan. The Nationals preference distribution I eventually arrived at based on Antony’s reports of what scrutineers were saying was pretty much accurate: 48.0 per cent to Brock (I had 45 per cent), 37.8 per cent to Boylan (I had 40 per cent, which admittedly was the low end of what Antony was expecting) and 14.1 per cent to Rohde (I had 15 per cent). No doubt the page on the Liberal website on Wednesday claiming victory will be removed shortly, so I’ve preserved it for posterity here. That said, we may yet get a recount.

6.20pm. Wasn’t looking hard enough – SEO preference distribution here. The amazement lies in the second last exclusion: Boylan 8215, Brock 5562, Rohde 5532. With Rohde excluded, preferences give Brock his 1.7 per cent victory.

6pm. BROCK SHOCK! Nothing yet on the SEO or Antony Green’s site, but The Advertiser reports that the preference distribution has defied expectations by giving victory to Geoff Brock – according to Brenton in comments by 9987 votes (51.7 per cent) to Terry Boylan’s 9322 (48.3 per cent). Evidently those Nationals preferences were kinder to Brock than scrutineers believed.

Wednesday, January 21

11pm. Antony Green in comments: “The Labor scrutineers have been watching National preferences all week to work out where they are going. They’re flowing to the Liberals, which is why everyone’s given up on Brock closing the gap. Once the Liberals get half of the National preferences, there aren’t enough votes left to get Brock ahead of Labor.”

4pm. Based on Antony’s feedback, I have changed the minor party preference estimates as follows. Nats: Brock 45, Liberal 40, Labor 15. Greens: Labor 50, Brock 30, Liberal 20. One Nation: Liberal 50, Brock 30, Labor 20. That leaves Brock in third place, 1.2 per cent behind Labor.

3pm. With the addition of 3288 pre-poll votes, only a handful of postal votes remain to complete the primary vote count. These have made things interesting: coming mostly from Port Pirie, where the main pre-poll booth was located, they have split 1094 (33.9 per cent) to Brock, 1033 (32.0 per cent) to Labor, 868 (26.9 per cent) to Liberal, 179 (5.3 per cent) to the Nationals), 50 (1.5 per cent) to the Greens and 14 (0.4 per cent) to One Nation. Brock’s primary vote deficit against Labor has narrowed from 3.3 per cent to 2.5 per cent and, if my preference estimate is correct, he will just barely edge ahead of Labor on preferences and ultimately win the seat. BUT – please read this before commenting – these estimates are completely unscientific (see my 8.16pm entry from Saturday) and are evidently different from the calculations of Antony Green, who has spoken to scrutineers. He says: “Brock could yet pull ahead narrowly and win on Labor preferences, but it would require stronger flows of preferences to him from the National and Greens candidates than I think can be delivered. Not impossible but I would say it is unlikely.”

Tuesday, January 20

12.30pm. Antony Green has added 1795 postal votes which aren’t yet appearing on the SEO site, and they are very encouraging for the Liberals. Only 189 (10.5%) are for Brock, whose total vote has fallen from 23.1 per cent to 21.7 per cent, increasing his deficit against Labor from 2.0 per cent to 3.3 per cent. However, Antony notes that the 3000 pre-poll votes remaining to be counted mostly come from Port Pirie, which might at least staunch the flow. Terry Boylan has received 925 votes (51.5 per cent), increasing his vote from 40.2 per cent to 41.5 per cent and perhaps increasing his slim hope of winning even if Brock overtakes Labor. My table now includes a section for provisional votes, with a “votes counted” figure based on an educated guess that the final total will be 4500. Note that the preference projection now has Brock finishing in third place.

Monday, January 19

My general overview of the situation can be read at Crikey. Dovif in comments: “As for the scrutineers, the ALP will be trying to kick out as many ALP 1s as possible, while the Libs will be trying to increase the ALP vote. That would be fun to watch.”

Sunday, January 18

The Advertiser reports the Liberals are “confident” of retaining the seat, while conceding a “slight possibility” of defeat. The report says “almost 5000” postal and early votes were cast by Friday.

Saturday, January 17

9.00pm. I have evidently not been giving enough weight to the possibility that Brock will fail to get ahead of Labor. He trails by 2 per cent on the primary vote, which he would be able to close on preferences – but as Antony Green points out, independents traditionally do poorly on pre-poll and postal votes and the primary vote gap can be expected to widen. Antony deems it unlikely that the Liberals can win if Brock stays ahead.

8.16pm. That’s us done for the evening, with the result still up in the air. My preference estimate has Brock leading 7208 to 6837. I have distributed the minor players as follows: Nats: Brock 60, Liberal 30, Labor 10. Greens: Labor 55, Brock 35, Liberal 10. One Nation: Liberal 55, Brock 35, Labor 10. I have then taken the Labor vote, including those votes Labor received as preferences from the aforementioned, and given 80 per cent to Brock and 20 per cent to the Liberals. It was reported on Wednesday there had been 1700 early votes and 2200 postal applications, which can be expected to favour the Liberals quite solidly. Stay tuned over the next week or two.

8.11pm. Clare has indeed given Liberal candidate Terry Boylan the result he needed – 59.0 per cent (though down 7.9 per cent from 2006) against only 6.2 per cent for Brock.

7.49pm. Port Broughton and Tarlee now added – relatively good results for the Liberals, bringing my margin estimate below 5 per cent. If Clare can cut that further, the result will be truly up in the air.

7.47pm. Port Broughton has kind of reported, but the SEO is having more of those data entry issues (Brock on zero).

7.44pm. Just taking my first look at Antony Green’s site – his assessment is about the same as mine.

7.42pm. Still to come: Clare (2432 votes in 2006), Port Broughton (good Liberal booth, 849 votes in 2006) and Tarlee (259 votes). The Liberals will need very good results here, a good show on the many outstanding declaration votes and better preferences than I’m crediting them with.

7.40pm. Port Pirie booth of Solomontown gives Brock a slightly below par 35.4 per cent. The Liberals will be hoping for a big result in the very large country booth of Clare.

7.35pm. Three rural booths plus Port Pirie West now in – another plus 40 per cent result for Brock in the latter. My preference calculation now has him opening up his lead, so my summation from three entries ago may have been askew.

7.33pm. These are my preference estimates – would be interested if anyone disagrees. Nats: Brock 55, Liberal 35, Labor 10. Greens: Labor 55, Brock 35, Liberal 10. One Nation: Liberal 55, Brock 35, Labor 10. Labor: Brock 80, Liberal 20.

7.31pm. Unfortunately, the SEO is doing an irrelevant Liberal-versus-Labor preference count. Brock will clearly finish ahead of Labor.

7.30pm. Here’s roughly how I see it. Frome is evenly divided between Port Pirie and the rural remainder – the former is breaking 66-34 to Brock over the Liberals, and the latter’s doing the opposite. That suggests it should be very close, but this is based on my very rough preference guesses which if anything probably flatter for the Liberals. The locally knowledgeable Michael Gorey is calling it for Brock in comments.

7.28pm. Crystal Brook (rural) and Port Pirie South both in, another 40 per cent result for Brock in the latter.

7.21pm. Risdon Park South replicates Risdon Park East, with Brock’s primary vote around 40 per cent – my slapdash preference calculation now has him in front.

7.19pm. Three more booths in including a very exciting result for Brock in the Port Pirie booth of Risdon Park East – assuming it’s not a glitch, because the SEO has no percentage figures next to the raw results.

7.12pm. 2CP error corrected.

7.10pm. Five more booths in, including the first from Port Pirie – which Geoff Brock narrowly won ahead of Labor. That shuts out any notion of Brock failing to pass the Nationals, and could yet make things very interesting as more Port Pirie booths come in. Apologies for the 2CP error in the table – will get to work on it.

6.55pm. I’ve now removed Brinkworth’s alleged 14 Labor votes from my count.

6.53pm. Some explanations about the table. The “3CP” result assumes the last three standing will be Labor, Liberal and Brock, although Brock is well behind the Nationals on the basis of small rural booths. The “count” figure has been devised so it will add up to 100 per cent when all votes are in, whereas other media normally just show you the number of votes counted divided by number of enrolled voters.

6.50pm. Two more small rural booths, Brinkworth and Manoora, now in – although something’s obviously gone awry with Brinkworth, which has 14 votes for Labor and nothing in any other column, including the total.

6.39pm. As Judith Barnes notes in comments, the absentee vote could be over 20 per cent.

6.37pm. Two country booths reporting, Georgetown and Lochiel – excuse the mess in the Port Pirie entries in the table, it will correct when I have figures in. Only a small amount counted, but Geoff Brock might have hoped for more, remembering of course that Port Pirie is his stronghold. In noting the drop in the Liberal vote, it needs to be remembered there was no Nationals candidate last time.

6.15pm. Please excuse the messiness in the table above – I’m still sorting it out. The numbers there are test results rather than real figures.

6.00pm. Polls close. Official results here. First figures should start to come in around 6.30pm, by which time I should have my act together with my results table.

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.

478 comments on “Frome by-election live”

Comments Page 4 of 10
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  1. I’m sorry to keep picking you up f@145, but you keep ascribing meaning to something which is just numbers. First it was the after preferences starting to reflect the ‘truth’. The swing are just numbers, they are neither true nor untrue. And then you say “the ABC is showing two party swings that are less incongruous with the primary vote swings shown yesterday”. My first complaint is about grammar. If you said “the numbers on the ABC site show” it makes sense but your sentence makes the ABC the active subject of the sentence and you keep writing comments that way. Sorry if I bridle at that, but you keep writing the ABC is saying something and the ABC isn’t saying anything, it’s just showing a bunch of numbers. Lastly, when you keep ascribing things to the ABC, I find that personally very funny because I actually layout those pages and do the calculations and I’m the only person at the ABC who understands them and I’m certainly not implying any meaning to them.

    Secondly, you’ve said the 2-party swings are incongruous with the primary swings. That doesn’t make sense. The 2PP is calculated by distributing the preferences from the primary votes and the swings are calculated by simply subtracting the primary and 2PP percentages from the last election from this election. If Brock finishes second, then the 2PP will be of no use in telling you who won the seat, but the primaries and 2PPs are still entirely consistent.

  2. hey Brenton, i happen to really like most coppers even though i certainly dont want this one to win, so i take it Brock’s got no chance of winning? wot a bugga, this copper wont get past the next election, Brock would be more organised by then.

  3. Maybe I’m getting a but antsy about ‘showing’. I’m even worse when people use ‘know’ when they actually mean ‘hope’ or ‘believe’.

  4. Antony,
    I know you prefer to deal in known figures rather than speculations. However, could I ask (in my ignorance of how the system of lodged how-to-vote recommendations actually operates) what your expectations are about the tightness with which the Nationals’ htv’s might flow to Brock? This seems to be the key question* in how the final Brock v. Rodhe contest will be decided, which as you (and William) have repeatedly pointed out is the probable determinant of the ultimate winner.
    * apart than the other imponderable, what the pre-polls will reveal in the next 24-48 hours.

  5. A question to the experts esp William and Antony.

    What should Brock have done differently to improve his postal and pre-poll vote and is it possible to make those changes without a huge budget and a party machine ❓

    Could Brock have hired an adviser who could put those things into place ❓

  6. Don’t worry, I’m auditioning for the next series of grumpy old men. It’s not so much grammar as the fact that people are typing. To get a response up more quickly, people skip prepositions and pronouns which can result in unintended ownerships and sentence subjects.

    Journalists can muck it up as well. The Advertisers piece on today’s count has a sentence where I think I know what they mean, and it sort of makes sense if you read it quickly, but it is actually a complete muddle. “About 6100 absentee votes were cast – more than 27 per cent of the electorate’s enrolled voters – meaning candidates were unlikely to win outright without the benefit of preferences from absentee votes.”

    I would have thougt winning ‘outright’ means without preferences otherwise every candidate who wins wins outright. The preferences are needed not because of the number of absentee voters but because no candidate will get 50% of the primary vote and win outright. And they need the preferences of all voters, not just absentee voters. The sentence is right that the result has been unclear because of the large number of absentee votes, but it has muddled this detail with the need for the electorate to go to preferences. It is the sort of confusion you get when you write a sentence in a hurry and don’t have a good sub-editor. There is a lot of material that goes on web versions of newspapers that doesn’t get sub-edited enough. Many of the cutbacks at newspapers in recent years have been from amongst the ranks of experienced sub-editors.

    As for National preferences, at best 50-60% to Brock. Having done so badly with the postal votes, I would be very surprised if he claws back any of the gap to Labor on pre-poll votes. The swing to the Liberals will fall when the pre-polls are counted, but Brock will have to significantly outpoll Labor to narrow the gap. My rough estimate is that he needs 70% of Green and National preferences to pass Labor, and I think that is too high for him to achieve.

  7. It would have been good for Brock to win, but if he can’t, then I prefer he doesn’t get ahead of Labor on prefs, otherwise Libs will just point to the ALP primary drop, and know there’s no retort for the 2pp vote as it would be Lib v Ind.

  8. D@156 – it’s not his postal and pre-poll that is important. His vote was dire outside of Port Pirie, only 5.6% in the Clare and Gilbert Council area. Until the Clare booth came in on Saturday night, Brock was set to win the seat. The postal vote is heavily weighted outside of Port Pirie, which is why he had a low vote. It reflects the failure of his campaign outside of Port Pirie.

    The Liberal Party would have sent a postal vote application to every voter in Frome. Labor probably did something similar. Most applications for postal votes would have been on one of these party forms. The return address is the political party, who very quickly pass on the application form to the Electoral Commission, having first noted the name and address. The party then sends campiagn and how-to-vote material to the voter which arrives before the postal vote from the Electoral Commission. That’s why Independents rarely do well with postal votes, except for sitting Independents who also write to all constituents.

  9. re my own remark at 158. Another possibility is the journalist was correct and the sub-editor has mangled it by amalgamating two sentences. That’s been known to happen as well.

  10. Bob 159: If it is Lib vs Ind, surely Libs would only win by a very small margin? That would imply some ALP votes preferencing Libs above Brock, which would be rather odd.

  11. I don’t know what bob@159 is worried about. I don’t think the Libs stand any chance of winning in a two candidate runoff against Brock.

  12. Judith, I think it’s a good thing – they can see us paying them out for thinking that the primary vote actually matters rather than the two-party vote. They cannot comprehend that a 16% primary vote and 1% two-party vote drop, if reproduced amongst all electorates at next year’s election, would mean that Labor keeps each one of the 28 seats they currently hold. They think this by-election spells the end of Rann Labor.

    As I said on there, “They are either spinning it, or, more scarily, actually believe what they’re typing.”

  13. dunno whats wrong with this site today but i have to keep logging in, so does Brock have any chance at all or is it all over red rover?

  14. Antony (151). I know quite well who was responsible for those numbers and considering the quickly thrown up phrases in the ‘live blogging’ episode, your grammatical criticism is poorly placed. I’ll let it pass because I know your work and take your point about web content producers working in the absence of sub-editors. But not without noticing that discussion on this thread, and links from here to discussions on other Australian sites, does strike me as nearing the unpalatably rude and we should steer clear of making it normative.

    It is true that in online discussion people do often refer to online news websites casually by ‘brand’. Especially where the source becomes obvious in context, through a link (or in the continued discussion of a link, as in our case). Maybe this is unfortunate, and shows a bubble-headed attitude to media where anything outside of online content becomes increasingly unimportant in spite of its growing consequence.

    I wince when posters refer to independent blog commentaries as ‘articles’ – which is misleading and shows either naivety, flippant mischievousness, or a deliberate attempt to discredit well researched content by regarding it with the same credibility as unsubstantiated rumour. I expect that happens less frequently here, as the place seems populated by journalists who take pride in their work.

    I stand by my observation that the two party swings shown yesterday by the ABC were misleading. Clearly some visitors were reduced to a state of uncorroborated hope because of it. I have no problem with this, because some votes were uncounted and preferences were still being distributed.

  15. No. The 2PP swing yesterday was only 0.8% different to today. It was right as a 2PP yesterday as it is today. The 2PP on Monday said the Liberal would win with a 0.3% to Labor, and on Tuesday a 0.5% swing to the Liberal Party. I think by Thursday the pre-poll votes will bring that swing back towards zero, maybe the 0.3% I was showing on Saturday night when I was using the prediction method rather than just simple percentages.

    What can be considered misleading, though misleading only to the extant that it gave hope that has proved not to be justified, was the gap between the Labor and Independent candidate. On Monday Labor was on 25.1%, Brock on 23.1%. On Tuesday the numbers are 25.0% and 21.7%. I can’t understand therefore why you keep saying the two-party preferred swing was misleading yesterday. The primary votes and the gap between candidates may have been misleading, but not the two-party preferred swings.

  16. Thanks Antony

    I wonder if he’ll run again in the next election in March 2010, which is only one year away after all. If he can improve his vote in Clare and shore up his postal votes, which will be smaller that this time, he’d have a very good chance. And as has been pointed out before, once an Independent gets in a rural seat, they could be in for life.

  17. Knowing that part of SA as I do, I can’t see the conservatives in Clare ever being enthusiastic about voting for the Mayor of Port Pirie … But you’re right, he wouldn’t have to improve his vote all that much to get over the line.

  18. Bob1234

    While I agree that the 2PP barely moved and is not horrible news for the ALP, this result is not good news for the ALP for the following reasons

    Kerin, per Anthony’s write up had a strong personal vote, in the 2002 election the seat swung 8% to the Liberals, while the rest of the state went toward Labor, the seat, then followed state trend in the 2006 election, without Kerin’s personal vote (a premier/opposition leader), the Lib did not go backwards at all, this probably shows that there was some underlying swing to the Liberal
    It shows that the support for the ALP is soft and that if more local identity runs in similar seats, they have a chance to beat the ALP member. While these members might be Left leaning independents, it increase the possibility of minority government
    If this was to happen in a state election, upperhouse support might be affected, ie Brock is likely to lead his supporter to vote no pokies in the upper house.

    I think the election was not a good one for the Libs, who might still lose the seat, this also was not great for the ALP

  19. Noting Diogenes 168 I take it that Brock winning would suit Labor? Is he likely to vote with Labor on any particualr issues if elected?

    If yes then, wouldn’t it almost suit Labor to “run dead” at the next election to help Brock over the line?

  20. It wasn’t great for Labor but it’s a lot better than it could have been.

    The 2006 election saw a record result – 56.8% Labor 2PP. Frome’s margin was 3.4%. Yes there is Kerin’s personal vote, but polling had shown that the swings against Labor were more or less confined to rural areas, while the metro popularity was holding up to 2006 levels. Considering such a tiny swing in Frome, they certainly can’t be in trouble in the metro areas, which is where SA elections are decided.

  21. S@171 – I think Labor were pretty well running dead in this by-election anyway – well at least as dead as they could get away with. Travelling through the region not so long ago, there were barely any Labor campaign signs to be seen.

    dovif@170 – I actually think this by-election is a minor disaster for the Liberal party in South Australia. Don’t forget there was a reduction in the Liberal margin from 11.5% to 3.5% in Frome in the Rann-slide election of 2006. For the Liberals to be even thinking about getting into government they need to be polling 50% plus primaries in this seat, in my opinion.

    The 2PP margin from 2006 is going to be virtually unchanged – the majority of the drop in Labor vote is going to Brock in any case – hardly surprising that the Pirie people are voting for a popular Mayor. Let’s not forget the perception of the Country Health Plan being badly received as well. Short of Brock actually winning this seat, this is about as good as Labor could have hoped for.

    Hamilton-Smith and his cronies have some major thinking to do.

  22. In fact I would go so far as to say the Liberals can count their lucky stars that Graham Gunn didn’t retire – or they really might have been staring down the barrel at losing Stuart.

  23. Socrates

    Given that Brock’s preferences seem to be 2/3 Labor and 1/3 Lib, I would be confident he’d vote with Labor on most issues. Looks like a great seat to run dead in if Brock puts his hand up again for 2010.

  24. When do they start doing a proper preference count, counting down? If the Nats have preferenced Brock over the ALP, surely he will pickup more than 2.5% and enough to stay above ALP?

  25. “Port Pirie’s Mayor Geoff Brock was only able to find four days for campaigning, kept busy by his local government duties, but nevertheless has become the wild card in this election.” – imagine how well Brock could have done if he was campaigning full time!

  26. “We will be going to Port Pirie on Saturday morning and we will be distributing preferences and determining who the winner might be,” Electoral Commissioner Kay Mousley said.

  27. So still an unknown result! Fingers crossed Brock can pull it off. This will be the first time I’ve hoped the ALP vote actually goes down for once…

  28. I have updated my results and added a new entry to the post. As you can see, the preference estimate I have been using since Saturday shows Brock edging 0.2 per cent ahead of Labor to take second place and then going on to win the seat. Again, I would like to invite criticism on the preference estimates I have used here. Firstly, I have split the minor players as follows. Nats: Brock 60, Liberal 30, Labor 10. Greens: Labor 55, Brock 35, Liberal 10. One Nation: Liberal 55, Brock 35, Labor 10. I gather Antony does not expect Brock to do quite so well out of the Nationals and the Greens. After that I have divided the Labor vote (including votes received as preferences from the aforementioned) 80-20 in favour of Brock.

  29. For some reason comments were switched off on this post for the last half hour, so Antony emailed me the following:

    [I think the problem with your preference flows is that the three lowest polling candidates will have a proportion of random preferences. For all three you have one of the remaining candidates receiving only 10% of the preferences, which is very low if you accept some of the preferences of each candidate are more or less random and there are only three candidates remaining. Second, a lot of the National voters would not have received a how-to-vote, and many by natural instinct would give preferences to the Liberal. I’d guess National preferences to Liberal would be above 40%. Suggestions to me from scrutineers is that too many National preferences are flowing to the Liberal candidate which damages Brock’s chances of getting ahead of Labor.]

  30. Based on Antony’s feedback, I have changed the minor party preference estimates as follows. Nats: Brock 45, Liberal 40, Labor 15. Greens: Labor 50, Brock 30, Liberal 20. One Nation: Liberal 50, Brock 30, Labor 20. That leaves Brock in third place, 1.2 per cent behind Labor.

  31. Have I missed something? Brock has conceded, as has Labor.

    [Mr Brock said his strong primary vote sent a message to both major parties.

    “It was a good battle, a good by-election and I congratulate all the candidates and Terry Boylan, being the new member for Frome,” he said.

    “But I think both major parties have been put on notice . . . and I think (my 23.1 per cent primary vote) says enough to the major parties.”

    He said he would talk with people about standing in the March 2010 election – but ruled out standing as a Labor candidate.

    “I will think about for the moment, but I will be looking very seriously to running again in March (2010),” he said.

    “If I do (run), it will be as an independent.”]

    http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,24943402-5006301,00.html

  32. Now Brock has unconceded!

    [“At this stage, it looks like Terry Boylan could be the new member for Frome, but we have still got more primary votes to count and preferences,” Mr Brock said.

    “I will be waiting for the declaration of the seat.”]

  33. [ He said he would talk with people about standing in the March 2010 election – but ruled out standing as a Labor candidate. ]

    That article’s been updated, so it’s hard to tell… did Brock have anything to do with Labor, or is this just the Advertiser being a Murdoch paper? Funny way to word it.

  34. Bird

    I don’t think the Tiser is being malicious. They have been quite impartial on this one for a change. Most people see Brock as left-leaning, so the the Labor Party is the most logical spot for him and he’s obviously not going to be the Lib candidate given Boylan has just won. I think we can put Frome in the likely loss to the Libs for 2010, with Brock getting up. That’s another seat they need to win in metropolitan Adelaide. They’re in a lot of trouble.

  35. Yeah, if he barely campaigned outside Port Pirie and still almost won, he’d have to be good odds in 2010 if he gives it a red hot go, especially now he’s got himself better known in the electorate. (If he doesn’t get in now, that is – still might happen.) He’ll probably end up forming some kind of mini-leftist-independent bloc with Kris Hanna (drawing a slightly longer bow: he’ll get back in too).

  36. Scott @ 193: No, they haven’t, all we have to go on is anecdotal reports of what scrutineers have been seeing. You’re probably right about the preference count being conducted on Saturday.

  37. William

    [I tend to think that a by-election is a better environment for an independent than a general election.]

    I’m sure you are right because of the protest vote having a sweet target in the Independent, who never caused the by-election. Once again, if I wasn’t so lazy I’d get the figures out and prove it as it would be a nice hypothesis to verify.

    If Brock could broaden his support in Clare, do some more campaigning and get more professional I hope he’d have a good chance.

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