D-day plus 2

Remember to keep following the late count action in the Photo Finishes threads below. In lieu of any new commentary on the current situation, now might be a good time to draw attention to the fact that I wrote a conference paper last year on minority government formation and the rise of the Greens. Meantime, here’s a new thread for general discussion.

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.

4,146 comments on “D-day plus 2”

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  4. I’ve been reading some of Tony Windsor’s speeches and media releases etc on his website: http://www.tonywindsor.com.au/index.html

    Two people he doesn’t particularly like:

    1. Barnaby Joyce

    2. Nick Minchin (great line: I invite Minchin to take a munchin for his luncheon)

    Besides his general dislike of the National Party, he’s very independent.

  5. Darren Laver@4103

    Lefty e

    “Queenslanders for Kevin” are a bit like doctors’ wives – mythical electoral beasts!

    Exactly, they were pissed off at Kevin and wanted to get rid of him – and when the party did, they were still pissed off cos they couldn’t do it themselves.

  6. [In WA the ALP would’ve been reduced to 1 or 2 MARGINAL seats.]

    What, instead of *3* Frank?

    See how irrelevant that is compared to QLD?

  7. I think the mining tax could have waited, I am not sure why that was announced when an election was due. Of course the mining magnates and their neo-con mates i.e. fibs, went into concerted attack mode. It would have been better, in hindsight, to have planned for a deficit budget for a couple of more years. There was plenty of time to spring the MRST if Labor had improved its power in the senate. I think Julia was also foolish to insist the mining tax stay when asked about it. Now the fibs and the mining interests will go for the next vulnerable target, the indies.

  9. What is the point of going over this? Rudd is gone. He is not coming back. The election is over. Labor has probably lost government. We need to move on and look forward.

    Who is a consensus leader? Combet?

  10. I’m quite worried about Wilkie. People seem to assume that he will lean to the left, but I’m not sure. There is actually a possibility that Wilkie may be the 4th amigo if the inds turn to Abbott. Interesting times though given his views on refugees and the war.

  11. [In WA the ALP would’ve been reduced to 1 or 2 MARGINAL seats.

    FACT.]
    How many lost seats would that have been Frank?

    Labor lost 8 seats in Qld alone. If those seats could have been held in Qld, even at the expense of WA, there would have still been enough surplus to defuse NSW losses as well. Surely Frank, for the good of the party, you would have been prepared to cut WA loose if it saved the Labor government.

  12. Peter Young @4067 I am sorry but are you from the East? As Frank has correctly pointed out – the west was lost after the mining tax until Gillard stepped up. I quite like the fact that Rudd saved us from Howard ( actually I have a little shrine in my back yard) and I am no lover of the NSW right – BUT the I can reassure you that many more seats would have gone in WA with Rudd at the helm.

  13. Frank, the mining tax certainly was loser in the west, but the west would have been irrelevant if the policy had been properly explained, not just after Julia Gillard arrived on the scene, but from the word go, in most of the east.

    It is rather ironic that two of the three independents on whom government now depends couldn’t give a monkeys about the mining tax. Mines just don’t figure at all with Windsor and Oakeshott, or their electors. You could fit the number of people employed in the mining industry there on a couple of refugee boats – just about enough to fill the Armidale or Taree McDonalds or KFC! Even Katter regards the sell out by the Nats to the mining industry as one of the great tragedies of Australian political history.

    It is rather ironic, it seems to me, that given that we have just had an election in which the media have been complaining continuously about “spin” that Labor (and Rudd particularly) abjectly failed to “spin” something that would, on its real merits, have been a vote winner across so much of Australia. There was nothing wrong with the mining tax, ethically, socially or politically. Nothing “la la land” about the Greens supporting it, either. The trouble was that Rudd simply failed to even try to make the case. Maybe he just thought it was simply so obvious.

    It is a tribute to Gillard, I agree, that she at least managed to maintain the principle, albeit in a watered down fashion, given the earlier failure to get the message across.

    If Labor had handled it properly from the outset, though, it might have been a far more important change and we wouldn’t be sitting here wondering which way things were going to go today.

  14. I have been very critical of the media bias Labor faced. However, that bias made a sensible media management policy even more important. I don’t know much about polls or campaigning but I do know media management and whoever ran Labor’s needs sacking.

    The contrast with the Liberals’ simple, consistent message and refusal to get dragged into annoying distractions like detail or taking questions at pressers could not have been more stark.

    In the first two weeks in particular Labor completely ignored media management 101 – you don’t answer questions, you deliver messages.

    It wasn’t as if the Murdoch papers being anti was a surprise, even if the venomous attitude of some parts of the ABC might have been.

    The new standards of the ABC can seen in an article posted on The Drum today about supposed pro-Labor bias. It took one poster about five minutes to utterly trash the report’s credibility so why on earth did Aunty publish it?

    None of that though excuses Labor’s utterly amateur approach to what should be a basic campaign skill.

  15. What amuses me is all the same people who’s political antennas are so finely tuned that before the election they were predicting we would win eighty seats plus and scoffing at my suggestions that Labor was in deep trouble and the betting market had them way under the odds are the same people who are telling me that their political judgement is good enough to have predicted we would have gone worse under Rudd,what a joke.

  18. Rod Hagen@4115

    Frank, the mining tax certainly was loser in the west, but the west would have been irrelevant if the policy had been properly explained, not just after Julia Gillard arrived on the scene, but from the word go, in most of the east.

    You don’t live in WA – I can assure you that the Libs, aided and abetted by our one sided media Would’ve continued their GBNT and arttack on States Rights TENFOLD.

    I grew up during BOTH Court eras – so I KNOW how beholden our media are to the Liberal Party.

    You don’t.

  19. labor party supporter – ‘why did you fly our plane into a mountain!?’
    RWLH – ‘you should have seen the size of the other mountain mate!’

  20. Thats the problem itep we have now burned both Gillard and Rudd and have no one with any public profile to turn to other than Swan who is useless.

  21. Gweneth@4114

    Peter Young @4067 I am sorry but are you from the East? As Frank has correctly pointed out – the west was lost after the mining tax until Gillard stepped up. I quite like the fact that Rudd saved us from Howard ( actually I have a little shrine in my back yard) and I am no lover of the NSW right – BUT the I can reassure you that many more seats would have gone in WA with Rudd at the helm.

    Hear Bloody Hear – it’s funny how those in the East, and even some so called “locals” – yes I’m referring to PJN just do NOT get it about how feral our media are in relation to any tax on the Mining Instustry – it is akin of taking a kids lollies and making him cry.

  22. I agree with Gweneth, Gillard saved Labor by NOT being from the NSW right and really stepping up to the plate as a leader. Hasluck and Corangamite are heading ALPs way. The Libs in the West have also lost support from the West Nationals (poor Wilson Tuckey) lets not forget how divided the Coalition is compared to the solidarity of the ALP.

  23. [BUT the I can reassure you that many more seats would have gone in WA with Rudd at the helm]

    Gweneth, I agree that if Rudd had stayed in power more seats would have been lost in both the east and the west than we have actually seen go.

    But there were only 4 seats left to lose in WA after 2007, and one has probably gone anyway. So there weren’t really “many” more to lose!

  24. [SD, don’t worry about Wilkie. Worry about Corangamite. If Labor can’t hold it Wilkie is irrelevant.]
    Oh no! Not another one. This has been death by a thousand cuts.

  25. perhaps someone can enlighten me as to why the count is very fast on election night and then slows to a trickle afterwards, I mean arent all the votes there? Why not pull some people from nearby seats and help.

  26. Re. numbers – assuming Hasluck goes to the Libs and Dennision goes to Wilkie.
    As far as legitimacy goes the ALP and the Coalition are both at 72.
    The figure of 73 for the Coalition is based on Crook – the WA Nat, however he has said he will sit on the cross benches.
    I fully expect him to sit with the Coalition – based on his polices and background, however I would count Brandt in a similar way – there would have to be a >90% chance he would support the ALP.
    So from a legitimacy point of view either the major parties are both at 72, or at 73, neither has more seats than the other.

  27. Whats this “many more seats in the west woulda bin lost” business?

    There *aren’t* ‘many more’ ALP seats in the west to lose. There was four, Gillard’s probably lost one anyway.

    Rudd might have cost one more, tops. That’s comapred to 8 in QLD

    Do the math people!

  28. Swan would be the federal version of Eric Ripper. So we should stick with Gillard? I think it has to be her or Combet. Shorten is tainted now, Swan is a massive dud. I suppose Bourke could be given a go. Smith might be interesting just for performance in the west.

  29. Victoria @4010
    You are so prompt in your responses – I can’t keep up.
    Many thanks for your good wishes.
    My wish is that he grows up in a better Australia – and many here are trying very hard for that!

  30. I mjust say, Ive been really bummed about how crap the ALP is going in late counting – especially in state like VIC and TAS where they got a swing.

    Elsewhere (QLD, WA) I kind of expected it.

  33. Wilkie stood for the Greens in Bennelong against John Howard in 2004 and was given hell by JWH’s operatives beforehand. Back into the Liberal fold after succeeding as an independent? I doubt it.

  34. Itep 4101

    There are some people trying to claim that Corangamite and Hasluck
    are going to be Liberal as we start to count the postal and absentee votes.

    They are arguing that the votes so far counted justify this.

    However, they have not realised that there seems to be a big
    difference between absentee and postal votes. The postals
    often do favour the Libs but the absentees favour the ALP.

    It is mainly postals that were counted today.

  35. [perhaps someone can enlighten me as to why the count is very fast on election night and then slows to a trickle afterwards, I mean arent all the votes there? Why not pull some people from nearby seats and help.]
    Because after the election, the new votes being counted are those which were cast outside the specific electorate and are couriered to their home electorate, those postal votes which dribble in daily into the electoral office and provisional votes which are individually assessed for validity before being included in the count.

    More people won’t make the process

  37. Dee, it’s always like this. In 2007 we were ahead or close in a number of seats we then went on to lose (McEwen, La Trobe, Sturt just from the top of my head). Once the postals start being counted in other seats we can expect to see Labors vote drop in seats like Lindsay, Greenway and even Moreton. There’s no reason to think Labor won’t hold all of these at this stage, but these are all seats to watch.

  38. [Who is a consensus leader? Combet?]
    I do not think we need a consensus leader. Labor has been far to consensual lately, consenting to every slander, lie and misrepresentation of it’s record, achievements, history and ethos; not only consenting to it but apologising for the beating. Like apologising for the programs that saved the voters’ sorry @rses from the dole queues? Give me a break.

    It is about bloody time we had a leader who will stand up for us. I thought Rudd would, I know he is capable of it. I am sure he wanted to, but focus-group-think looks to have won out.
    Julia could have and tried sometimes but even she went around apologising, e.g. ‘Real Julia’, ‘we lost our way’ for goodness sakes.

    Did anyone ring up the greens and say wtf are you doing campaigning against your only allies in getting your agenda met, and how about a deal? You keep out of our shaky huts and we will see you get a seat at the table in the grand hall? Or some such.

    I wouldn’t mind losing if we go out fighting. I will fight and go down but damned if I will hide.

  39. BB @4046

    Typical spray from the libs. What about Abetz and the damage he has caused in Tasmania for them? “fair go!!” they have no idea – can’t even be courteous to other booth workers on election day!

  40. [We were lucky that there wasn’t a WA ALP Govt.]
    Frank

    How many people would be happy to sacrifice the whole 4 WA seats if they could have back the 8 or 9 lose Qld seats? How about you?

  41. Looking at the returns so far, I think the ‘fairylands’ should win over the ‘la la lands’ at this stage, but we’ll have to wait for a possible late surge from larger ‘the reality is’ booths, and re-do the count with a TPP approach.

  42. Anyone think or hope Julia Gillard will use her womanly charms to woo the independents?

    You know, playing with her hair suggestively, the odd wink and smile. I don’t mean in a stupid dumb slut way but in a Margaret Thatcher way – apparently she had a way with her getting male MPs on her side.

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