Saturday, August 28
The AEC has published its provisional distribution of preferences which makes it very clear that Andrew Wilkie will surpass the Liberal candidate in very fine style, recording 20,430 votes to the Liberals’ 15,695 after distribution of Greens and Socialist Alliance preferences, and then comfortably winning the seat on Liberal preferences.
Friday, August 27
The Australian Electoral Commission announces it will conduct a “provisional” distribution of preferences in Denison to ascertain whether the Liberals are likely to be excluded from the count before Andrew Wilkie, a necessary precondition for the latter winning the seat.
Tuesday, August 24
6pm. Indicative preference count finished for real now, with pre-polls and hospital booths added, and Wilkie’s lead has risen to 1.2 per cent (1375 votes).
3pm. The indicative preference count for ordinary votes has been completed, and it puts Andrew Wilkie 1091 votes (1.0 per cent) clear of Labor. That’s a big hurdle for Labor to clear on absents and postals, but there are too many imponderables to say it can’t happen.
Monday, August 23
11pm. “Only one seat now in doubt as Wilkie loses bid for Denison”, reports the Sydney Morning Herald, and it’s probably not alone. This misapprehension is based on the ABC computer’s projection of the Labor-versus-Wilkie indicative preference count, which assumes the 20 booths that haven’t been counted will follow the preference pattern of the 26 that have. There is a three-sided problem here: Labor’s share of the preferences is not as high in areas where they are weak generally; the booths are being counted in alphabetical order; and the strongest Liberal booths begin with an S. Antony Green’s modelling to account for this turns the projected 0.6 per cent Labor lead into a 1.1 per cent deficit (subject to a margin of error), a view shared by PB commenters who know their way around a linear regression. However, Labor is likely to at least close that a little on postal votes.
6pm. Labor might appear to have the advantage superficially at present, but Sykesie in comments has produced a model accounting for the association between Labor’s primary vote in booths that have reported and the share of their preferences in them. The upshot is that as counts are added for booths less preferable to Labor are added, their share of the preferences will come down, Sykesie projects them to finish on 48.4 per cent with an error margin of only 1.3 per cent. However, that doesn’t factor in the likelihood that Labor’s position will improve as postal votes come in. That still makes it too close to call, but Wilkie would probably be favoured.
2.30pm. The Electoral Commission is conducting a thrilling indicative preference count between Wilkie and Labor to ascertain what will happen if they are indeed the final candidates. Wilkie currently looks to be just slightly under the share of preferences he needs, but it’s been back and forth as booths have been progressively added in alphabetical order.
Sunday, August 22
Accomplished Tasmanian psephologist Kevin Bonham, who closely observed the behaviour of Greens preferences in relation to Wilkie when the latter ran at the March state elections, disagrees with Possum’s assessment that Greens preferences will not necessarily put Wilkie ahead of the Liberals, and thinks a greater threat to Wilkie would be that he might be overtaken by the Greens, who will have run a better resourced postal vote campaign. If he’s right, the surprises in Denison might not be over. It is mostly being taken for granted that Liberal preferences will allow Wilkie to ride home over Labor if he finishes ahead of them, but a WA Labor source advises caution on this count based on the precedent of Kwinana at the September 2008 state election. It was widely thought after election night the seat had been won by independent Carol Adams, but victory slipped away from her due to the surprisingly high number of Liberal voters who had Labor second.
Saturday, August 21
This post will be used to follow the late count in Denison, where independent Andrew Wilkie superficially looks well placed to win a Labor seat vacated by Duncan Kerr and contested for them by Jonathan Jackson. At issue is the distribution of preferences from the fourth-placed Greens, who polled 19.01 per cent. Wilkie needs them to close what at present is only a 0.1 per cent deficit over the Liberals, but Possum at least believes the fact preferences are splitting three ways between Labor as well as Liberal and Wilkie will land him short, especially after factoring in a likely weakening of his position as postal votes come in. However, the ABC reports “Labor scrutineers are predicting a desperately close result as preferences are distributed”.
One would assume than someone from the ALP would be keeping tabs on this thread among others. Perhaps Andrew Wilke as well. If the ALP isn’t looking at this then I’d be surprised
[I’d be very surprised if the ALP had briefed their scrutineers ahead of Saturday to look at how many Greens votes go to the Libs versus Wilkie. ]
I have seen somewhere that the TEC looked at this on an indicative basis prior to deciding to conduct the Wilkie-Jackson 2CP. But whether they found anything concerning the size of the margin, beyond simply that Wilkie was going to pass the Lib on existing votes if he stayed ahead of the Green is unknown to me.
[I’d be very surprised if the ALP had briefed their scrutineers ahead of Saturday to look at how many Greens votes go to the Libs versus Wilkie. ]
I also doubt this would have been covered on the night, although once they realised what was going on their serious scrutineers could have sampled for it during checking and during the W-J 2PP over the last few days.
However even without scrutineering there is good reason to infer the gap is so enormous that Wilkie will chase down any target set to catch the Lib.
OK the first 2000 postals are these provide strong hints about all three questions about whether Wilkie can win:
1. Can Couser catch Wilkie? Answer: Couser is in fact doing poorly on postals and going backwards so that is now out of the question.
2. Can Wilkie catch Simpkins? Simpkins pulled ahead by about 200 on that lot of primaries and will continue pulling away. If all the non-regular votes are similar it’s quite conceivable Simpkins will lead Wilkie by 1200 votes or so. All the modelling I have done suggests that Wilkie will close that down easily off the Green and Socialist preferences. Let’s wait and see though, just in case it blows out enough to get Simpkins’ lead out to the point where it becomes just conceivable that Wilkie might fail.
3. Assuming Wilkie and Jackson are the last two, who wins the 2CP? Well these 2000 postals only went 52:48 to Jackson and that is not nearly enough so it looks like the answer is Wilkie.
Looking very strong for Wilkie now.
Oh, I’m in a park in Campbell Town. Hi everyone. 🙂
Sorry about the complete incoherence of the first sentence of my post there. Can barely see what I am typing.
2000 postal votes added to the count, and they went 52% to Jackson. I pointed out yesterday at comment #143 that in the recent state election the ALP did better on postal votes than they did at the polling booths, but did worse on absent votes. Wilkie increased his lead on the Green by 120 votes, but the Liberal went 220 votes further ahead of Wilkie with strong postal support. I think this just confirms the impression that so long as Wilkie continues to stay ahead of the Green and then beats the Liberals, he’s home easily. Jackson will only win now if it’s a final count against the Lib.
About 2000 postals to go – if they are like the others Wilkie will be ~1200 ahead with 5800 pre-poll etc to go – Jackson would need >60% on 2pp – big (impossible) task!
Hope the weather is OK at Campbell Town, Kevin.
Apologies for not posting earlier to this thread. I gave Wilkie no show before the election and have happily lost a dinner or two on the outcome. It is difficult to see Jackson wining from here – he can rack his cue, I think.
My take on the Wilkie triumph here: http://www.tasmanianpolitics.blogspot.com
Correction – my comment yesterday re Tas election was #174. The further significant thing about the state election in the present context is that the Greems did significantly better on absent votes than they did on postals. Nonethless I don’t think you can see them overtaking Wilkie now, even with all of the Socialist Alliance preferences. It’s down to the way the Green preferences break between Wilkie, ALP & Liberals to see if Wilkie catches Simpkins.
In Latrobe now; let’s just say it’s good psephology weather ’cause it’s not good for much else apart from farming!
[I gave Wilkie no show before the election and have happily lost a dinner or two on the outcome.]
I always gave him some sort of chance but it was generally a very small one; a few percent was my usual estimate. I was underestimating him because I assumed my own views of Labor’s behaviour were atypical and it turns out they were not. Fortunately I was not tempted to stake any of my hard-earned on Jackson at $1.03.
A few questions spring to mind, assuming Wilkie now goes on to win which in my view is almost certain:
* What are the longest seat odds at which a federal candidate has won? Wilkie was at $17 in from $51 at the start of the campaign.
* How many federal seats have been won from third place on primaries or worse; who was the last to do so? (I am guessing a lot would be three-cornered contests)
Trivia: Former Tas premier Paul Lennon has been scrutineering for Jackson.
“How many federal seats have been won from third place on primaries or worse; who was the last to do so? (I am guessing a lot would be three-cornered contests)”
Liberal Cameron Thompson won Blair in 1998 with a primary of 21.7%. Pauline Hanson topped the primary count with 36%, but only managed to get 46.6% after all preferences were distributed.
I thought that might be a record (which Wilkie looks like he will just beat, as I suspect he might fall just short of 21.7% primaries), but Charles Richardson pointed out in Poll Bludger’s comment thread followed the count in Brisbane that in 1972 in the seat of McMillan, Henry Hewson of the Country Party came in 3rd (out of 5 candidates) on the primary vote count with just 16.6%. The ALP candidate topped the primary count with 45.8%, but could still only manage to reach 47.6% after preferences.
(which involved a preference flow so tight it defies belief – out of the 18882 votes for the three excluded candidates, only 722 flowed to Labor!)
More postals in and Jackson’s 2CP on postals is down to 51-49. There is no evidence at all that Wilkie is performing worse on postal prefs than on normal prefs. It seems the few remaining Liberal voters in this electorate don’t need an HTV card to despise the Labor Party.
Simpkins did very well on these postals and is now 622 up on Wilkie, so if that trend continues he might get out to 1300 up. But I doubt the trend will stay that strong as we move on to non-postal absent vote types that are not skewed by the Liberal effort on postal envelopes, and even if it does 1300 is a piece of cake to overhaul.
I can’t see any life at all in this one now.
[(which involved a preference flow so tight it defies belief – out of the 18882 votes for the three excluded candidates, only 722 flowed to Labor!)]
That’s amazing!
A little bit off topic here… EMRS have gotta be the most stuffed polling firm in Australia. Constantly getting the three major parties wrong by a predictable few % can be corrected for (it’s just an extreme house bias, although it doesn’t help dealing with it that other pollsters don’t often cover Tassie, not even Newspoll with its state breakdowns), but how did they manage to completely miss Wilkie? Via Tasmanian Politics, they had Wilkie at 6%… now I get that a small sample has a large margin of error, but surely not to the point of turning 21% into 6%. They need to get asked some serious questions, starting by the papers who write stories based on their polls. I could imagine the editor of the Mercury being pretty irritated at missing a scoop over the last few weeks.
I think the lack of election coverage for Tasmania is simply due to our lack of seats in the House of Representatives. It’s rare that seats in Tasmania counts. Also all the polling goes into Bass and Bradon (along with the federal money) because Franklin, Lyons and Denison are seen as safe Labor seats.
EMRS aren’t the best polling firm, but given everyone missed the Wilkie coup, including the betting agencies, I don’t think too much blame can be attributed to them.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the polling firms do cover Tasmania in their general national polls and Newspoll does analyse Tasmania by state, but the refuse to release the results because the sample size is too low to be statistically significant.
Although I am critical of EMRS from time to time, their poll on state-wide figures was remarkably accurate. Their predictions were 43Lab/34Lib/20Grn/3other, while the result will be around 44/34/16/6. I think that’s exceptionally good.
Yes, Green prediction was higher than eventuated, but the Green vote is nearly always over-stated in polls, and EMRS is no exception there. They got the major parties almost spot-on, and the 2pp 60/40 spot-on too.
EMRS failed to pick up Wilkie’s support in Denison, true, and I agree that even with a small sample of 200 it was a surprise it wasn’t. But there are a number of valid reasons why:
1. First, yes, sampling error. Two hundred means that 12 people supported Wilkie as opposed to the actual 20. That’s not hard to envisage. You can see why the margin of error is so great on this sample size.
2. I don’t know for certain, but I believe EMRS would have asked respondents who would get their first preference: Labor, Liberal, Green or Independent. If Wilkie’s name had been used it is highly likely that the response in the poll would have been higher.
3. Timing. The EMRS poll was conducted over a week before election day. A lot happens in the last week of a campaign and who knows, Wilkie support may have been as reported by EMRS at that time, but increased in that last week.
EMRS got the gross figures correct, which does support the general robustness of the poll. I didn’t believe it would be 60/40 to Labor, but they were right.
Ah, in point 1. in my previous post, that should be “opposed to the actual 40”.
Peter Tucker the margin of error doesn’t explain the poll: for a sample of 200 people from the enrolled population of Denison a result of 6% should have a MOE of 3.29% (for the usual 95% confidence level).
If the ‘real’ level of support in the population polled was 21.46% (Wilkie’s current figure) the MOE would have been 5.68%. So MOE is not the reason.
The explanation looks like either it was a rogue poll (ie the 1 in 20 implied by the 95% confidence level) or the poll asked about Independents and didn’t mention Wilkie’s name. The good correlation with the final vote on the statewide figures suggests it probably wasn’t a rogue poll. Surely if EMRS had asked about Wilkie by name that detail (and the result) would have been published? The answer looks like it was the design of the questions: EMRS or their sponsor didn’t think Wilkie was worth polling.
We’ve now got the bulk of the absent votes and 80% of postal votes counted, plus 200 pre-poll. Wilkie only 632 behind Simpkins and about 1700 ahead of Couser. He leads Jackson by 1200 in the 2CP distribution. There’s too few votes left for those relativities to change substantially, and we know enough about the preference flows to say that Wilkie will comfortably overtake Simpkins with the Green preferences. It’s over… Mr Wilkie goes to Canberra.
[A little bit off topic here… EMRS have gotta be the most stuffed polling firm in Australia.]
Won’t get an argument from me on that one but as Peter points out their poll was actually very accurate as regards the majors and just overcooked by the usual amount for the Greens. In fact, I projected that it was severely overcooking Labor and for once I was wrong and they were right. (First time for everything!) With Wilkie the problem was they didn’t name him. A similar problem applied with Ben Quin last time so they did a repoll where they did name him and got a much more accurate result. But even taking that into account I don’t think they would have got an accurate result for Wilkie. Another foible: they should have cut Independent and Other from the candidate list for electorates lacking Independents and/or Others.
Almost all EMRS polls are rogue polls; this one was, except for Wilkie, the exception that proves the rule!
By the way the sponsor of EMRS in this instance, I believe, was the Launceston Examiner.
For what it is worth, my brother in law in Hobart explained to me he and his entire family voted for Wilkie (ex Labor voters) as they saw him as a good choice that wasn’t as radical as Greens, and his high profile at the March State Election helped there.
Before Duncan Kerr won this seat it was once a safe Liberal held seat for Michael Hodgman “the mouth from the south”. Duncan Kerr over successive elections built up a strong personal following. He was before his time with things like a Grocery Watch for Denison voters.
I have no idea how much campaigning Johnathon Jackson did for the seat but from all reports not much until he got wind he might be in trouble. So it was clearly a mistake to take it for granted.
Just back to the counting, particularly if Kevin is still blogging. We now have:
WILKIE on 13,642
JACKSON on 22,993
BARNES on 839
SIMPKINS, on 14,512
COUSER on 12,087
Presumably by the end given the way the Declared votes are going Jackson will stretch his primary vote lead over the others by a few more votes, perhaps as little as a hundred more. Simpkins looks set to increase his lead over Wilkie past 1,000 and the indication is that Wilkie will increase the distance over Couser.
What seems crucial is how Couser’s preferences are running. If they are running split 1/3 Lib, Lab, Ind then its no help to Wilkie.
The key issue is the difference in per centage of these preferences between Wilkie and Simpkins. From what I read it doesn’t really matter so much how many Jackson pulls from Couser. So long as Wilkie picks up enough preferences from Couser to overhaul Simpkins he wins.
So my question is do we now have a rough gauge on Couser’s preference flows?
Perhaps Tasmania as a three-party system is just unusually difficult to poll, and the curse of EMRS is that they’re the only company that does it.
No. William. They are just rubbish. With no real competition to cause them to implement more rigorous and scientific systems.
The only thing I will say for them is that they are probably slightly better than the previous polling “company” which was basically the head of Pol Sci at the University of Tasmania and his PhD Students.
Antony Green is twittering that there will be a recount to check
Wilkie beats the Lib after SA + Green prefs
Did anyone note down anything about the 2CP count ALP vs Lib on Saturday night?
That might be useful to recall now.
I am wondering if the following figures are about right:
65% of Green+SA prefs go next to ALP.
20% of Green+SA prefs go next to Libs.
15% of Green+SA prefs go next to Wilkie.
Nearly all Lib prefs go to Wilkie vs ALP.
Those numbers would explain why 70% of Lib+Grn+SA
go to Wilkie vs ALP.
They would also mean that Wilkie gets eliminated
before the Lib.
Hi Dr Good the Greens had an open ticket in this seat apparently so my memory of the discussion was that they may be favouring Wilkie better than that.
I notice they have counted some provisionals in Denison (not sure this has occured in any others yet). Not that many discarded at this point. Could this be the GetUp votes?
The provisionals sample from Denison shows 49 Labor, 27 Green, 25 Wilkie, 3 Socialist Alliance and 5 Informal. So it looks to be skewed towards a progressive voter dynamic.
May not help Jackson but still could pull back a result somewhere like Brisbane.
just my 2 cents worth in
every Tasmanian i speak to are very upset they cannot understand how wilkie
won can you explain how the preference’s could catch up to some one whom seemed to be at one stage 9th in front.
starting to like the first past the post
it does not seem fare to me
if this seat is still in doubt why is wilkie out and about??
dunno maybe he’s got a leg cramp…
I guess it comes down to how sophisticated the Green and SA voters were or how many of them were protesting labor voters. If the later you would expect a significant number would head back to labor on 2nd preference.
In any case to overcome the Lib, Wilkie has to get 7.7% more of the Green and SA 2nd preferences than the Lib does. If the Green
/Lib leakage is the approximate usual of 20%, Wilkie has to get 28% and the ALP would get 52%. It may be interesting.
William: something askew with the headline post on this thread, looks like it runs two entries together.
Anthony @221 and beyond:
[What seems crucial is how Couser’s preferences are running. If they are running split 1/3 Lib, Lab, Ind then its no help to Wilkie.
The key issue is the difference in per centage of these preferences between Wilkie and Simpkins. From what I read it doesn’t really matter so much how many Jackson pulls from Couser. So long as Wilkie picks up enough preferences from Couser to overhaul Simpkins he wins.
So my question is do we now have a rough gauge on Couser’s preference flows?]
I don’t know directly but a lot can be affirmed about them from other evidence such as:
* the usual Labor/Liberal split on Green prefs in Denison, albeit boosted somewhat by Duncan’s green-cred.
* the Liberals’ woeful performance on the indicative 2CP between Jackson and Simpkins that was done on the night (despite the huge primary swing against him, Jackson had a 2CP swing to him on that one of about a point).
* indications from the current 2CP that Wilkie is probably beating Jackson, though not by much, in a head-to-head split of Green preferences if you ignore Simpkins (I believe this is somewhere around 50-50 in Glenorchy from scrutineering feedback and I know it is likely to be pushing 60-40 in the strong-Green weak-Lib booths from direct inference.)
The split of Green prefs from Couser to Simpkins, Wilkie and Jackson will not be anywhere near even, Simpkins will be last by a long long way and it will surprise me if he even breaks 20% in that split. But I’m pleased the AEC is doing this tomorrow just to hopefully settle the seat completely.
[I notice they have counted some provisionals in Denison (not sure this has occured in any others yet). Not that many discarded at this point. Could this be the GetUp votes?]
No; this has been discussed a few times on here before; the GetUp voters were placed on a separate roll and allowed to vote on the day and so they are not provisionals.
[If the Green
/Lib leakage is the approximate usual of 20%, Wilkie has to get 28% and the ALP would get 52%. It may be interesting.]
If the ALP were even getting 52% of Green prefs just as a split of Jackson against just Wilkie, never mind Simpkins, then they would be much closer to not losing the seat on 2CP against Wilkie.
I think it might even go something like 45 Wilkie – 40 Jackson – 15 Simpkins. That’s very rough though.
[just my 2 cents worth in
every Tasmanian i speak to are very upset they cannot understand how wilkie
won can you explain how the preference’s could catch up to some one whom seemed to be at one stage 9th in front.]
It’s simple. He may have been that many thousands in front but he has much less than half of the votes and hardly any support beyond those who voted for him.
[starting to like the first past the post
it does not seem fare to me]
Yes, well, Pauline Hanson’s supporters didn’t like it when she lost in exactly the same manner.
So if you think Jonathan Jackson belongs in parliament when not much over a third of the voters voted for him, and when 80% of the rest (a staggering figure really) would prefer to be represented by a guy who three years ago was only a #2 Green Senate candidate, then by the same token Pauline Hanson should have been re-elected.
Actually Jackson is an even worse case here than Pauline Hanson because I think Hanson had all the parties preferencing against her!
By the way, Couser is sneaking up again; if you assume he gets 100% of the Socialist prefs (which he won’t but he may well get most of them) then he is now 699 behind with potentially over 2000 still to throw. He cannot possibly get over Wilkie but it will be interesting to see which of the three crucial margins in the preference distribution (Wilkie-Couser, Wilkie-Simpkins, Wilkie-Jackson) is the smallest in the end.
[if this seat is still in doubt why is wilkie out and about??]
It isn’t. What the AEC are doing tomorrow is a formality to enable the result to be made clear to the non-expert public earlier instead of having to wait til next week.
Actually reading Antony Green’s blog (sadly the comments are now closed, probably to prevent my response to them from melting his server) I can’t believe the utter hypocrisy of so many of the Labor supporters whining about how unfair it is that their guy got over a third of the votes (down from a shade under half!) and gets ganged up on on preferences because most of the rest of the electorate was against him.
Labor has been winning more seats than its primary count suggests on Green and Democrat preferences for 20 years or more. In 2007 Labor won nine seats from behind on preferences; take those away and you would have had your hung parliament last time instead of this time and very likely another three years of John Howard. I think in 1990 without Graham Richardson’s skills in cornering the minor party preferences we would have had Andrew Peacock as prime minister.
Of course you can say that if we had FPP then Greens would vote tactically for Labor and Labor would win many of these seats anyway. But the same applies to a seat like Denison; under FPP it would have been worked out long ago that Greens and Liberals couldn’t beat Labor, but in a case like this an Independent would have emerged and the Green and Lib voters would have voted tactically for that person.
Labor lives by the sword of preferencing all the time but some of its supporters can’t take dying by it even once. Quite ridiculous.
Oh and for more free entertainment:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/27/2994814.htm?section=justin
Yep, although Labor dropped 12 points of primary support in a seat they held while the Libs dropped only 7, it was the Tories what done it, not Labor’s fault at all. Never mind that the Tories might have actually been diabolical enough to vote tactically!
Jonathan Jackson has shown courage and grace over this by taking far more of the responsibility for what happened than is actually rightfully his. The rest of his party should do the same.
thanks Kevin I was pretty sure the GetUp votes had already been counted but that batch of provisionals looked a bit suspicious.
[thanks Kevin I was pretty sure the GetUp votes had already been counted but that batch of provisionals looked a bit suspicious.]
A possibility is that they have counted the provisionals for which ID was required and has already been provided and are yet to consider the remainder, as the deadline for ID provision expired today. That would explain the high approval rate, in which case it won’t stay that high.
Just doing some booth analysis and finding that the AEC figures have mucked up the primary swings for some or all parties in many booths, which means I’ll need to reenter them all from the 2007 website *sigh*
Kevin I don’t know what you’ve been reading but I’m not aware of anyone in Labor complaining about preferential voting. As you say, we gain much more from it than we lose. Denison is one of the two or three “greenest” seats in the country and it’s only been Duncan Kerr’s personal standing that’s kept the Green wolf from the door for this long (ditto Tanner in Melbourne and Albanese in Grayndler). I assume the Greens would have won Denison if Wilkie had not stood. Do you agree? The loss of the inner city vote to the Greens is something Labor is going to have to learn to live with while we focus on fighting the Libs for the marginal seats. If we had moved to the left to appeal to voters in Denison, we would have lost Bass and Braddon, as we did in 2004 when Latham tried this trick. Preferential voting actually saves us from the worst consequences of this situation.
[I assume the Greens would have won Denison if Wilkie had not stood. Do you agree?]
No, I think they would have failed. Firstly they would have needed to make up a primary gap of over ten points on the Libs from last time to get into second. I am doubtful that they would have done this. Secondly even if they had got into second I don’t think that they would have won the 2CP against Jackson. If Wilkie, who is seen as more moderate than the Greens, can only win that 2CP by around 51:49 it seems unlikely that the Greens would have won it or even got close. There would have been habitual Labor voters, in the northern suburbs especially, who would have voted 1 Wilkie 2 Jackson but who would not have voted 1 Green, not even as a protest vote.
Indeed in the current cutup, if you assume Couser gets over Wilkie (which he can get close to still but can’t quite make it) and thus reduces it to a three-candidate contest, then I don’t think Couser wins. I am not even sure he would then catch the Lib on Wilkie’s preferences.
[If we had moved to the left to appeal to voters in Denison, we would have lost Bass and Braddon, as we did in 2004 when Latham tried this trick. Preferential voting actually saves us from the worst consequences of this situation.]
The loss of Denison has nothing to do with Labor’s ideological orientation in the state and everything to do with poor candidate selection and preparation, poor marketing of transition from a longterm sitting member to a new candidate, and inadequate campaign effort. You needed a candidate who could sell themselves as ready for federal parliament based on their own achievements and you needed to be advertising the expected transition and building profile for the candidate much further out than was actually done. Jackson’s CV was not only thin but also poorly promoted, so that leading into the election all most people knew about him was that he was the son of Judy Jackson – who by the end of her career was actually rather unpopular anyway.
Oh, and what I’ve been reading is mentioned above: my say’s comments on this thread and Antony Green’s blog entry (http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2010/08/distributing-preferences-in-denison.html) which has numerous anti-preferential voting comments. Not that I know for a fact that any of these other than my say were “Labor supporters”, I am just inferring that nobody else would be so outraged about what is occurring!
239&240
Also the Liberals directed preferences to the ALP ahead of the Greens in Tasmania which makes a Green victory very hard if they need more than a minority of Liberal votes to win.
I also think that Wilkie`s fair share of Commonwealth funding for Southern Tasmania would have been a big help because they have Hare Clark at state level and so the injustice of funding spread of the single member electoral systems would be more stark to them.
Any chance of a lib leakage to labor ?if the libs booths where poorly manned not many vote cards would be available.
[Any chance of a lib leakage to labor ?if the libs booths where poorly manned not many vote cards would be available.]
We already know this is not a factor because those votes have already been distributed. There is always some Lib leakage to Labor in these cases but there is simply not enough to make a difference. Anyway it appears the Liberal preferences are flowing heavily to Wilkie even from those voters who voted by post and hence probably did not see how-to-vote cards.
[Also the Liberals directed preferences to the ALP ahead of the Greens in Tasmania which makes a Green victory very hard if they need more than a minority of Liberal votes to win.]
Actually in Denison (and I’m not sure what the story behind the change is) they were initially preferencing Labor ahead of the Greens, then in the last few days they flipped and preferenced the Greens ahead of Labor. (They were always preferencing Wilkie 2).
Oh dear, this is just too funny:
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/wilkie-claims-denison-20100828-13wpn.html
[Mr Wilkie on Saturday said he was now prepared to call himself the federal member for Denison after a close count in his contest with Labor candidate Jonathan Jackson.
Cautious pundits had declared him the winner days ago.]
Not like your incautious paper which declared him the *loser*. Classic!
Kevin, I bow to your superior local knowledge as always.
Now that I look, I see that Kerr announced his retirement in September, but Jackson wasn’t pre-selected until April. Is that correct? If so it’s very remiss of someone. Admittedly there was a state election in between which must have distracted everyone, and of course last September the Rudd government seemed headed for easy re-election. Even so, Wilkie must be unable to believe his luck.
What few people are saying, but what is certainly a fact, is that Andrew Wilkie can thank conservative voters for a degree of his primary vote. After the Liberal candidate publicly spoke of his personal support for gay marriage, the Party received a backlash from traditional voters. Where would such a voter go? It may be that Andrew Wilkie also supports changing the Marriage Act, but he was canny enough not to say so overtly. I am sure that brought a few hundred votes Mr Wilkie’s way, and then of course he benefits from the Liberal HTV card.
A most interesting election.
And Andrew Wilkie also has a political parachute, of sorts: if the House of Representatives lasts three years (and that is a big “if”), and he is defeated at the next general election, he will probably only have to wait a few months before the next House of Assembly election – where he would romp in to a State seat in Denison, especially if the number of Members per electorate is expanded from 5 to 7, as all three parties now support. So, win-win for Colonel Wilkie!
http://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Media_releases/e2010/28-08.htm
Result confirmed.
On current indicators:
* Wilkie gets over Couser by 1557.
* Wilkie then gets over Simpkins by 4735.
* Wilkie then gets over Jackson by 1468.
These are all +/- subsequent counting but there are only about 2000 votes left in the tank, at most.
Now, I have been saying for days to all who would listen that the Liberal would get stuff-all in the three-candidate contest between Wilkie, Jackson and Simpkins for the Couser preferences.
But a split of 53-39-8 (yes, eight!) exceeded even my expectations in that regard. 🙂
[Now that I look, I see that Kerr announced his retirement in September, but Jackson wasn’t pre-selected until April. Is that correct?]
I think so, that is certainly when I first saw it announced as formally confirmed. But there is this from last November:
http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2009/11/30/112731_tasmania-news.html
…showing that Jackson was basically the heir apparent back then. And a factional deal to anoint Jackson was reported in January here (page two, where Jonathan is incorrectly called Michael) :
http://www.examiner.com.au/news/local/news/politics/geoff-lyons-may-be-labor39s-man-in-bass/1720412.aspx
Interestingly of those listed at the bottom of the first article as the subject of rumours of potential candidacy, Urquhart and Singh have just been elected to the Senate and White is in state parliament. Not sure what the story with Williams is.
[What few people are saying, but what is certainly a fact, is that Andrew Wilkie can thank conservative voters for a degree of his primary vote. After the Liberal candidate publicly spoke of his personal support for gay marriage, the Party received a backlash from traditional voters. Where would such a voter go? It may be that Andrew Wilkie also supports changing the Marriage Act, but he was canny enough not to say so overtly. ]
Actually he has said so very overtly. Andrew Wilkie is a very strong and public supporter of changing the Marriage Act and has said so openly in many different forums, including the Denison candidates’ forum (where he hammered Cameron Simpkins over whether the latter would cross the floor or not if elected, very early in the debate) and the GLBTI candidates’ forum.
Here is Andrew Wilkie’s response to the TGLRG questionnaire on gay marriage:
http://www.movingforward.org.au/independentsfed2010.html
“Yes. I would initiate and/or vote for legislation to amend the Marriage Act to allow marriage between same-sex couples. I would also initiate and support measures to educate fellow Parliamentarians and the broader community about the importance of this reform.”
If someone in Denison was really opposed to gay marriage I’m not quite sure where they would have found to run and hide on that ballot paper. Probably a vote for Jackson would have been their least uncomfortable option but I doubt he’s really opposed to it either.
The “backlash” to the Liberal vote is meaningless. I have done analysis of the state election that suggests Wilkie ripped roughly four points out of the Liberal vote then, although it was masked by a swing from Labor to Liberal at that state election, and we know from the 2CP that there was actually a small swing to Labor this time. The difference between the state result and this one in terms of vote loss from Liberals to Wilkie can be explained by the low profile of the Liberal candidate and tactical voting by some Libs to get rid of Labor, without needing to suggest Simpkins’ comments on gay marriage had anything to do with it.
[and we know from the 2CP that there was actually a small swing to Labor this time.]
I mean the Jackson/Simpkins 2CP done on the first night.