Photo finishes: Hasluck

Friday, August 26

477 pre-polls go 252-225 to Liberal, lead out to 868.

Thursday, August 26

5pm. Another 806 postals go 447-359 to Liberal; the lead is now 820.

3pm. 1865 absent votes have favoured Liberal 946-919, increasing the lead to 721.

Wednesday, August 25

5pm. The Liberals have enjoyed a good batch of postals breaking 801-616 their way, increasing their postal vote share from 52.7 per cent to 54.1 per cent. They have also gained five votes from 667 pre-polls and 38 from further rechecking of ordinary votes. That increases the margin to 770 votes, though my projection is that outstanding absent votes will rein that in to 369.

2pm. Rechecking of ordinary votes have boosted Labor by 99 votes, while a further 955 absent pre-polls have followed the earlier trend in favouring the Liberals 505-450. Extrapolating current swings on pre-polls, postals and absents across uncounted votes, I project a Liberal margin of 269 before taking into account the small but unpredictable share of provisional votes, on which Labor could maybe hope to recover as much as 100 votes if they’re lucky.

Tuesday, August 24

7pm. The Liberals have gained another 131 votes through rechecking of ordinary votes, which have produced a net gain of 80, and a further 705 pre-polls, which have added 51. The margin is now 586.

4pm. 2546 postal votes have been added out of what will be a total of about 3500 and they haven’t delivered the miracle Labor had hoped for, favouring the Liberals 1775-1417 and pushing the lead out to 455. This is still quite a lot better for Labor than in 2007, when the Liberals’ postal two-party vote share was 7.1 per cent higher than for ordinary votes rather than 2.5 per cent. Funnily enough, the current Liberal lead is exactly what Labor were able to scrounge back on absent votes in 2007. However, that becomes 330 when you factor in the 1 per cent swing against Labor, and the remaining postals look likely to widen the gap by maybe another 100 votes. But could provisional votes hold an ace for Labor? Last time there were only 130 of them compared with 638 in 2004, because self-serving Howard government law changes made votes cast by people who had moved within the electorate without updating their address inadmissible. This time provisional votes will include the 600 or so late-enrolling voters who were enfranchised by the High Court ruling in favour of GetUp!, nearly every one of whom has been personally contacted not only by the AEC, but also the ALP who know such votes would heavily favour them. (UPDATE: Propmanoz in comments explains I was wrong about this: supplementary lists of affected voters were used to admit the voters on polling day. The only provisional vote dividend for Labor would be an increase in the number of voters who make the effort to follow up on providing the required identification if they had none on the day, which would be expected given the importance of the contest).

3pm. 704 absent votes have broken 376-328 Labor’s way – possible the Gosnells area I affect I alluded to two days ago – which has narrowed the Liberal lead from 363 to 317. That makes the current batch 3.7 per cent better for Labor than the ordinary votes compared with 2.2 per cent in 2010, so there’s a suspicion the rest of the absent count will come from different areas and thus not favour Labor to the same degree. There should be at least 2000 absent votes to go: if the trend from the first batch continued, Labor would claw back an extra 136 votes.

Monday, August 23

921 absent pre-polls, cast at centres outside the electorate an thus not counted on election night, have gone 477-444 in favour of the Liberals and widening the lead to 382. Contrary to what I foreshadowed yesterday, no polling day absent votes have been added.

Sunday, August 22

Tomorrow there will be about 1000 absent votes added, which Labor expects to be dominated by Gosnells area residents voting across the boundary at the Westfield Carousel megaplex – a Labor crowd. Absent votes from farther-flung locations will follow over coming days. A bagful are expected from Broome where, I am told, 50,000 people are attending a festival (I think it must be this one, notwithstanding that it does not actually start for a few days). I would presume its audience to be “blue-green”: resident of the prosperous hills suburbs around Kalamunda, but not entirely representative of them. Given there were 6500 absent votes in 2007, that still leaves a lot left over from various other locations.

Throughout and beyond, postal votes – perhaps as many as 4000 – will be added to the count, in addition to a smaller number of international votes as they arrive. This is where Labor may have an ace up its sleeve: it had 2420 applications processed compared with just 681 for the Liberals, dramatically reversing a 911-549 deficit in 2007. This gives them the advantage that they and not their opponents can target their residences with timely campaign and how-to-vote material (an area self-evidently crying out for reform).

Saturday, August 21

This post will be progressively updated to follow late counting in Hasluck, where Liberal candidate Ken Wyatt finishes the night with a lead of 369 votes (0.28 per cent) over Labor incumbent Sharryn Jackson. This turns into a 0.6 per cent lead on Antony Green’s projection.

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.

74 comments on “Photo finishes: Hasluck”

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  1. It all comes down to this seat I think. Stephen Smith reckons Sharryn can get over the line by a couple hundred votes. She did pretty well with the late vote in 2007, and on positive side, there doesn’t seem to be as much postal vote in Hasluck as absentee and pre-poll. It’s a question of whether she can make up the 370 vote gap given the resources and extra name recognition of being a sitting member. If Labor wins Corangamite, Lindsay and Hasluck, it reaches 73 to Liberals on 72, with one Green and the independents pressured to support the party with the most seats. (Or to put it another way, Labor can’t lose office if it wins Hasluck – worst is 75-75).

    http://results.aec.gov.au/13745/Website/HouseDivisionFirstPrefsByVoteType-13745-305.htm

    Let’s hope Sharryn had a good late vote campaign.

  2. Some pre-poll/postal voting stats (for comparison of these 5 undecided seats, see post #210 in the thread: D-day plus 1)

    First-up, the number of pre-polls in absolute numbers and also as a percentage. The average number of pre-polls in all seats was 6,964

    4,053 4.3% Hasluck

    Next postal votes. The average number of postals in all seats was 6,382

    6,057 6.5% Hasluck

    What is noteworthy on the postals is the percentage that are ALP postals. The first number shows ALP postals:total postals (The average percentage in all seats of ALP:total postals was 26% with very wide variance.)

    The second number shows ALP postals:All Party Specific postals (i.e. excluding AEC & GPV)

    40% 78% Hasluck

    Postals could be pretty strong for ALP

  4. All the booths are counted now.

    However, the counting will be checked over the next few days.

    Also some 15,000 votes from pre-poll, absents, postals and
    provisional are still to be counted or included.

    In the past these have favoured ALP and may do so more
    this time because Sharryn was the sitting member.

    I think this one could go on for days.

  5. Dr Good, interested in your comments. In Brisbane there is only 70% of the vote counted. What are the other 30% comprised of? Postals, pre-poll, absents? What is your feeling about Bevis’s chances of making up the 850 he is behind on TPP?

  7. In 2007 in Hasluck there were:
    about 6000 absents
    about 3700 pre-polls
    about 3000 postals
    and 130 provisionals

    but as we have heard above there could be 6000 pre-polls in 2010

    You can see the 2007 detailed results for Brisbane and Hasluck
    on the AEC web site. I will check that out shortly

  9. The computers on sky and the abc see that the Libs are 400
    ahead at the moment and make some general assumptions
    to predict a Lib win.

    We might be able to make a more subtle analysis here

  10. Lynchpin it appears from the AEC website that 2 polling booths have not been counted so far. They were ‘special hospital teams’ who presumably go around the major hospitals to allow voting in the hospital wards. Other electorates with similar teams have also not reported their results yet. I wouldn’t think that this would make up much of the 30%. Some of the difference is made up by 2477 absent, pre-poll and postal votes. Could be that there was a large no-show by Brisbane voters.

  14. William, I only half caught Antony Green’s piece tonight.

    I think he said, only Hasluck remains in doubt.

    So how has he allocated the other doubtfuls?

  15. William

    You say “This gives them the advantage that their own how-to-vote cards are sent out with the ballot papers (an area self-evidently crying out for reform).”

    I think you are wrong on that. The AEC sends out the ballot papers, and they certainly don’t include parties’ how-to-vote cards. But since people who use return addressed envelopes provided by parties to send in their postal vote applications in fact wind up sending them (probably unknowingly, in many cases) through the party machines, the parties have the opportunity to send how-to-vote cards separately to the voters in question.

    I agree with you about the need for reform.

  16. @Aristotle – Antony is allocating Linday & Corangamite to Labor, Brisbane & Boothby to the Coalition and Denison to Wilkie. All very plausible, but I wouldn’t be quite as sure about them (particularly Brisbane) as he seemed to be.

  17. [William, I only half caught Antony Green’s piece tonight.

    I think he said, only Hasluck remains in doubt.]
    Yes, in fact he seemed to go further and imply that whoever wins Hasluck will form government.

  18. Thanks, Charles and Greentard.

    I can understand if the Coalition doesn’t win Hasluck, they would really struggle to from a minority govt, needing Wilkie’s support, but I still think the ALP at 72 could count on Bandt and Wilkie to take them to 74 and would need only 2 of the Independents, but, in that instance, would probably get all 3.

    I thought Barnaby Joyce and Warren Truss were very foolish last night.

    I also thought Gillard was sensibly very gracious towards the Independents and the Greens, while Abbott was too busy being excited to think about commenting about them, except to say he will talk to them in a few days.

    A clear contrast.

  19. Wishful thing by you all… there is no way the three Independents from NSW & QLD will support Labor. The Labor Party have continually called katter a nutter… and the other two have a background with the Nationals along with Katter…

    They would never support Labor and we are all very naive to think they will!

  23. I voted for my local Greens members, however, I think if you read all the posts the only ones a bit frantic are the poor old Labor yes ppl…

  25. [I would presume its audience to be “blue-green”: resident of the prosperous hills suburbs around Kalamunda, but not entirely representative of them.]

    But I have never even been to WA. 😉

  27. The question that will need to be answered is whether the people who elected Windsor, Oakshoot and Katter would prefer a Liberal or Labor government

    They are all traditional National seats and if the indis support an unpopular Labor government, it could easily catch up with the them at the next election.

    There was a coffee shop poll in New England, which shown the Liberal/ALP preference in the electorates ran at 85% to 15%. These people might prefer independants then the Nationals, but if they are forced to choose the ALP/Nationals, the Nationals will win easily

    If the ALP want the support of the indis, they are going to need to pork barrel those electorate a lot more than the Liberals

    The Independants will also need assurance that the ALP will be more competant in their second term. Or it will reflect poorly on the indis

    So unless Labor get Hasluck, the likelihood is that it will be a Liberal/National/Independant government, because that is what Windsor/Oakshoot/Katter’s electorate would want. If they do not choose what the electorate want and it all go sour, Windsor/Oakshoot/Katter would pay the price

    So Gillard must start getting the pork ready

  28. ifonly.

    last time the seat had a sitting Liberal member and
    it is believed they generally favour the sitting member.
    This time the sitting member is from the ALP.

  30. If it’s 73-73 I’d expect the 3 Indys would end up backing the Coalition. There’ll be alot of to-ing and fro-ing, and they’ll give the Nationals especially some sleepless nights before deciding, but on balance I think they’ll back Abbott.

    Whether the LNP (or Labor) can actually get it to 73-73 is different story.

  31. [If it’s 73-73 I’d expect the 3 Indys would end up backing the Coalition. There’ll be alot of to-ing and fro-ing, and they’ll give the Nationals especially some sleepless nights before deciding, but on balance I think they’ll back Abbott.

    Whether the LNP (or Labor) can actually get it to 73-73 is different story.]
    Only if you ignore the state of the senate.

  32. The Senate has nothing to do with who forms government.

    As I said over at tallyroom, the argument that we should give government to whoever can deal with the Senate best is silly. By that logic Kevin Rudd should have handed government back to the Liberals because they could have dealt better with the last Senate.

  33. MDMcD

    Windsor and Oakeshotte have both stated in the clearest of terms that they are very mindful of delivering a stable government. The state of the Senate has a strong bearing on the stability of government, ref 1975.

    Re comments by others to the effect that these two gentlemen represent ‘naturally’ National Party seats, Page is just as similar to Lyne or New England as, say, Cowper is, and it recorded a 4.8% swing TO Labor. Combined Labor/Green in Page is 55% vs 42% for Nats. Both Windsor and Oakeshotte left the Nats because they felt that their electorates’ interests were completely at odds with the Libs city-centric, right wing, small government, racist dog-whistling line. I doubt that either of them have anything in common with Abbott at all.

    They both have an extremely strong personal following, and I feel sure that their constituents will back their decisions, whatever they are.

    cheers,

    MD

  36. 920 votes counted…were these the “1000 odd Labor Gosnells votes” William was talking about above?

    Cause they actually broke slightly better for Wyatt.

  37. Mad Dog, you make a very valid point. As a resident of Page there are very clear similarities with Lyne – similarities that Oakeshotte would be very well aware. most of the statements he has made since the election show a clear affinity with Labor policies. If Labor can clean up its act he will have no trouble supporting a Labor government.

    However, it is not so clear that Windsor could do so and Katter is not a serious contender as a labor government supporter.

    Supposedly the coalition is going to promise to increase their broadband spend – perhaps they might do it by axing their super-generous parental leave which is not so popular in the bush.

  38. #33

    No, Page is very different from New England and Lyne.

    Page has been a marginal seat for decades, Labor won it back in the early 90’s. It’s clear there is a very diverse mix in that seat, and it’s certainly not “naturally conservative” at all

    But in 2007 Lyne went 59-41 National in 2007 in a bad year for the Coalition, and New England is more rural and conservative than Lyne; last election before Windsor won it went 63-37 National. I’d call that “naturally conservative”.

    I think they’d back the Coalition in the event of a deadlock, or if the Coalition was ahead. But if Labor got one seat ahead that would be a different story.

  39. Hasluck is the key to which Party will win government in 2010.

    Scenario One: Lib/Coa wins Hasluck simple maths applies. 73 + 3 conservatives = 76 an absolute majority thus Abbot PM

    Scenario Two: ALP wins Hasluck. 74 + 1 Green = 75 whilst not an absolute majority I believe the 3 conservative Ind’s will back the ALP to govern. Reason being is it in their interests to avoid the only other alternative…another election.

    After looking at the numbers today I think the ALP can win Hasluck. As the encumbered with the use of ElecTrac their postal vote should surpass the 370 votes needed. Not withstanding the ALP’s poor week 2. The ALP scrutineers will drag a few votes back too. I have a question. Does anyone know if the Greens ran a postal vote campaign? It could come down to that.

    Also, the accidental informal vote % will be lower with the pre-poll and postal votes. From electoral study research I have conducted the ALP usually cops the worse end of the informal vote. This will also factor heavily. More ALP voters manage to vote correctly at pre-poll and postal.

    After looking at the numbers today i think the ALP will win Hasluck. As the encombered with the use of electrack their postal vote should surpass the 370 votes needed. Not withstanding the ALP’s poor week 2. The ALP scrutineeers will drag a few votes back too. I have a question. Does anyone know if the Greens ran a postal vote campaign?

  40. @27, 38 etc dovif & MDMConnell

    I see no evidence of any of the independents thinking “is this a naturally Labor seat or a naturally National Party seat?”

    These people were elected in their own right standing as independents. Although WE may think in two-party preferred terms, they don’t, and they don’t expect their electors to either. Otherwise, their electors wouldn’t have voted them in.

    Their decisions will be much more about interests and processes than about assumed two-party ideologies.

  41. My narrative currently has:

    Hasluck: COA Ahead. After 75.66% of all potential votes counted, LIB lead ALP by 369 votes, requiring 51 % of the estimated remaining 18159 votes (based on 95% turnout) to change outcome

  42. It is interesting looking at the last census industry of occupation results for the Lynn region.

    The largest groups are:

    1) Retail Trade – 7,468 people
    2) Health care and social assistance – 6,738
    3) Construction – 4,646
    4) Accomodation & Food Services – 4,262
    5) Education & Training – 4,138
    6) Manufacturing – 4,100
    7) Public Administration & Safety – 2,547

    Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing only makes it into 8th place these days (2,260 )
    Mining is way, way, down the list (105) and even gets thrashed by Arts and Recreational services (632).

    Simply put, this is no longer anything like a typical Country / National Party seat of old.

  44. In terms of the postals, my post from the general thread:
    Labor had 2420 applications processed compared with just 681 for the Liberals. So if all the libs go lib than the margin is out to 1100. half the labor postals would be 1210, giving a narrow victory. remember i am assuming ALL the liberal postals go liberal and only HALF the ALP postals go ALP, which is obviously the more pessimistic ALP position, but does give a buffer if the AEC postals break the other way by a small margin

  45. Has anyone mentioned that the absents broke 376-328 for Labor, bringing the difference back to 369 (incidentally, the exact same number as the ‘election night’ gap).

  46. Ognore my post, I left out half the postals. Using a 60/40 split (suggested by JJ) to the party that sent them, I get 349 extra votes for ALP. Is the 60/40 accurate though??

  47. @43 bombinglion (and for everyone else)

    Yes, sorry, I have been looking at so many threads I had forgotten which one I was on.

  48. On today’s counting margin here on 2pp has narrowed from 369 to 317. Am I reading this right? How many more absentees and postals to go?

  49. They have started reporting counts of absent voters in Hasluck.

    So far 10% (that’s 744 of 7372 so far) have been counted.

    Jackson for the ALP has got 53.41% of them so far.

    If she can keep up that rate she can catch up nearly 500
    votes on the absent and be over 100 ahead going in to
    postals.

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