Yesterday, the Australian Electoral Commission performed an act which in a rational world would have excited no interest. Since last weekend the commission has featured a “national two party preferred result” on the front page of its Virtual Tally Room, which has assumed tremendous psychological interest as Labor’s margin has steadily eroded from 0.6 per cent to 0.4 per cent. However, the tally had a flaw which biased it in Labor’s favour: there were no Labor-versus-Coalition figures available from strongly conservative Kennedy, Lyne, New England or O’Connor, where the notional two-candidate preferred counts conducted on election night involved independents. This was only balanced out by left-wing Melbourne, where Labor and the Greens were correctly identified as the front-running candidates for the notional count. For whatever reason, the AEC decided yesterday to level the playing field by excluding seats where the notional preference count candidates had been changed since election night, which in each case meant left-wing seats where the Liberals had finished third to the Greens (Batman and Grayndler) or Andrew Wilkie (Denison). The result was an instant 0.4 per cent drop in Labor’s score, reducing them to a minuscule lead that was soon rubbed out by further late counting.
In fact, very little actually changed in yesterday’s counting, which saw a continuation of the slow decline in the Labor total that is the usual pattern of late counting. The media, regrettably, has almost entirely dropped the ball on this point. Mark Simkin of the ABC last night reported that Labor’s lead had been eradicated by the “latest counting”, as opposed to an essentially meaningless administrative decision. Lateline too informed us that Labor’s two-party vote had “collapsed”, and Leigh Sales’ opening question to Julie Bishop on Lateline was essentially an invitation to gloat about the fact. Most newspaper accounts eventually get around to acknowledging the entirely artificial nature of the 50,000-vote reversal in Labor’s fortunes, but only after reporting in breathless tones on the removal of votes that will eventually be put back in.
The reality is that nobody knew who had the lead on the two-party vote yesterday morning, and nothing happened in the day to make anybody any the wiser. The Prime Minister equally had no idea on election night when she made her ill-advised claim to the two-party majority mantle. Only when all seats have reported Labor-versus-Coalition counts, which is probably still a few weeks away, will we be able to say for sure. The best we can do at present is to construct a projection based on the votes counted and our best assumptions as to how the gaps in the vote count data will be filled when all the figures are in.
At present we have completed “ordinary” polling day totals for all electorates and advanced counts of postal votes in most cases, but there has been no progress yet on absent or pre-poll votes in roughly half. Where counting of any of these three categories has been conducted, I have projected the party results on to the expected total of such votes (derived from the “declaration vote scrutiny progress” for absent and pre-poll votes, and from the number of applications for postal votes discounted by 16 per cent as per experience from 2007). Where no counting of a particular category has been conducted, I have compared the parties’ 2007 vote share in that category with their ordinary vote share, and applied that difference to the ordinary vote from this election. For example, the 2007 Liberal two-party vote in Canberra was 7.19 per cent higher than their ordinary vote share, so their 40.54 per cent ordinary vote at the current election has been used to project an absent vote share of 47.73 per cent.
For Batman, Grayndler and Denison, I have used the figures from the two-party Labor-versus-Liberal counts that were conducted in these seats from ordinary votes on election night, calculated the swing against the ordinary vote in 2007 and projected it over the expected absent, pre-poll and postal totals. For Melbourne, New England and Kennedy, where no Labor-versus-Coalition figures are available, I have used preference shares derived from the Labor-versus-Coalition counts from the 2007 election to determine the swing on ordinary votes, and projected that swing through the other categories. It’s with Lyne and O’Connor that things get crude, as we have no case study of how Rob Oakeshott’s or Wilson Tuckey’s preferences split between Labor and Nationals candidates. For O’Connor, which has at least been a Labor-Liberal-Nationals contest at successive elections, I have crudely arrived at a 7.9 per cent swing against Labor derived from the primary vote swing plus moderated by a 70 per cent share of the swing in favour of the Greens. The best I could think to do for Lyne was average the two-party swings from the neighbouring electorates, producing a 5.14 per cent swing against Labor.
Plug all that in and here’s what you get:
Labor 6,313,736 (50.02 per cent)
Coalition 6,307,924 (49.98 per cent)
In other news, Andrew Wilkie says the two-party vote total is “not relevant” in determining which party he will back. Good for him.
UPDATE: An Essential Research poll has it at 50-50, which is “unchanged” – I’m not sure if this is in comparison with the election result or a previously unpublished Essential result from a week ago. Basically no change on preferred prime minister. UPDATE 2: The 50-50 from last week was indeed an unpublished Essential result from their rolling two-week average, which they understandably felt was not worth publishing under the circumstances.
Interesting piece William. On top of this would you also need to factor in the extent of counting across divisions? In a preliminary check yesterday I saw 7 of the top 10 least counted booths were safe ALP seats (v 3 safe Liberal seats). I suppose what this says is that the late counting won’t be smooth and it’s hard to make an accurate projection unless you have a massive predictive model.
With all that said, an extremely foolish call for Gillard to have mentioned the 2PP figure at any stage when it was clear this could change and a final result would not be known (probably) until well after the independents had made their decision.
The media still doing thier best to undermine democracy. Maybe from now on we should just let them decide for us seeing as they think they know better. Sad state of affairs.
So if the numbers pan out like that, it’s 50-50. How appropriate.
Yes, Julia was foolish to bring up the 2PP. What was the point? To have a moral victory? Yeah, way to go ahead and give the Coalition one if they pull out in front in the end, as could possibly happen when it’s close. Jesus, I would forgive you if you had a 52-48 lead at the end of the night but not when it was as narrow as it was.
However, the Coalition are hardly innocent in that regard and George Brandis and whoever else should’ve kept their mouths shut on election night so Tony didn’t have to convolute things by asserting the primary vote is what matters.
Luckily for everyone, the 2PP vote doesn’t matter to the indies, so their decision may be based on many rationales but it’s unlikely that it’s the side that’s a couple of thousand votes ahead on 2PP or primary or whatever else.
This system is stupid.
And Their ABC24 Breakfast are breathlessly parroting the 2PP change bulldust.
Wangers.
As someone else mentioned yesterday, when the national 2PP is so close it doesn’t really mean a whole lot ‘morally’. Some of the figure for one side will just be because people voted for a local member that they liked, rather than preferring the party, and some of the vote could be tied up in seats like O’Connor where 1 party’s supporters strategically voted for an opponent in order to see of another opponent. These would both subtract maybe a couple of thousand from each side’s respective vote tally.
Thanks William. You have done the hard work.
Did Grattan really say that adding in the missing eight seats would take
the TPP up to 50.1% for the ALP? As we do not know the TPP for
these seats I wonder how she claims that. She did not say that
she used an estimate cleverly constructed like yours. She seems
to think that she can just add in some available numbers. I think that
she does not know how the TPP is worked out if she can claim
that.
I think everyone else in the media, at the OO, the ABC, and in the
Liberals eg Bishop are just following Grattan’s analysis. Fools.
Where is Antony Green?
Also note that Grattan claims that late counting will favour
the Liberals. Again this is ill informed. Yes, maybe postals
will slightly but there are even more absentees and even
some pre-polls still to go. Not to mention a few provisonals.
And then there is the state of counting across the seats
to take account of.
This is all very foolish of the Liberal cheer leaders.
I think we are headed for another election, if not now then certainly within the next year. There have been many Green voters that have said they would have voted ALP. Surely though they would have preferenced the ALP. The result wouldn’t have been very different except for primary vote.
If there was a re-run I reckon a lot of the close seats would swap over. ALP would gain Boothby, Dunkley, and retain Brisbane, Hasluck and denison, but lose Coorangi, Lindsay, and retain O’connor. just my thoughts
William
Do you know for sure that the AEC are not counting
Crook as a member of the Coalition so that they
use Tuckey vs ALP for the eventual TPP in
O’Connor?
Centaur
maybe but surely a grown up country deals with hung parliaments
Real sense of convergence of politics in Oz and the US (issues of perceptions of “communicating with the public” i.e. the media; blocking Senate)
[During a hastily-called Rose Garden event during which the sound system failed him, President Obama attempted today to communicate to the American public that his administration remains on top of the economic crisis.
The president’s primary messages were twofold: One that Republicans need to stop obstructing a initiative he proposed to cut taxes that will encourage small businesses to hire and expand, as well as a $30 billion small business lending initiative.
“Drop the blockade,” he said to Senate Republicans, whom he said were “holding this bill hostage,” damaging economic growth.
Second, the president said that his “economic team is hard at work in identifying additional measures that could make a difference in both promoting growth and hiring in the short term and increasing our economy’s competitiveness in the long term.”]
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/08/can-you-guys-still-hear-us-president-obama-talks-economy-amidst-technical-snafus.html
Another “Pollster”, from Phillip Coorey…
[MORE than one in 10 voters would have voted differently had they known Australia was headed towards a hung parliament, according to a new poll.
The nationwide poll of 1000 voters was conducted from Friday to Sunday for the public affairs company Ogilvy Illumination and came at the end of a week without any indication as to who would govern Australia.
It found that 13 per cent of voters would change their vote if they went to the polls again.
This, the pollster said, would be ”more than enough to result in a substantially changed federal parliament were Australians to be called back to the polls in the near future”.
It found those aged between 18 and 24 were most inclined to change their vote, 18 per cent of them saying they would choose differently if given another chance.]
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election/one-in-10-would-vote-differently-in-election-20100830-147eq.html
Excellent piece William. It would be desirable if the MSM would pick up on this. For all practical purposes, it is a tie in votes as well as seats, with Bandt ballancing Crook for 72 or 73 all.
I do not think the criticisms of our voting system are fair on this. The fact that we are deadlocked means our system has accurately reflected the status quo: neither side has won a clear majority, let alone a mandate.
One question: is this the closest result in Australian political history? In percentage terms a 0.02% margin is less than 1/250th of the informal vote! Statistically, this is a freak result.
Posted the link to this post on the ABC News Breakfast Facebook page with the following message:
The LNP will likely pull ahead as more votes are counted.
Wilkie and Crook are the keys in this. If Wilkie supports ALP and Crook still continues to sit on cross benches then you have 72 vs 74. Only ALP can form gov
William makes a very valid point. I was stunned last night when I saw various sections of the media running with this story.
When is the media going to be held accountable for their appalling standards? No checking was done with respect to this matter. They bring the claims of bias upon themselves with their shoddy (or is it dishonest) work.
centaur009
Everyday my doubts about Wilke siding with the ALP increase. he is a strange beast indeed.
oh Lord please don’t let Tony abbott be prime minister. If he does then please send x1 plague of locusts, x1 recession and x1 horseman of the apocolypse
The MSM has turned DemoCRACY into DemoCRAZY because they dont know what it means anymore. Shame on the ABC.
William Bowe, this is incredible, tremendous analysis, and what was the last Newspoll before the election?
If I’m not mistaken, was it not Labor 50.02, Coal 49.98.
If so, how could a poll be that accurate? Sensational stuff. They deserve a big gong do they not.
Gillard brought it on herself. She should not have said what she said.
Thanks very much William – I was wondering why none of the 20 or so seats I was watching had dropped more than trivial amounts (Stirling actually went up 0.05) yet there’d been such a major change on the national scene. It really is depressing how *bad* the media coverage has been this election just in general – people commenting on things they clearly know nothing about and such.
One question – as the 2pp on AEC’s website says “Liberal/National Coalition”, what is it actually reporting when it comes to O’Connor?
20: Newspoll was 50.2/49.8, still amazingly close to the mark given moe. They got lucky at the right time.
[Everyday my doubts about Wilke siding with the ALP increase. he is a strange beast indeed.]
He’s certainly not going to make it easy for the ALP.
Maybe the sticking point is his Royal Hobart Hosptial renovations demand (which he upgraded yesterday to one of his “main demands” along with pokie reform) ?
The AFR had reported yesterday that the Cabinet had given Julia a broad mandate to meet the Indies’ policy requests, but at the same time also resolved to avoid making new spending promises in the Indies’ own electorates.
I’m pretty sure if push comes to shove, then the ALP will agree to the demand, but if the AFR story is correct then Julia would need to go back to Cabinet to get the approval.
Thanks, William. Rationality in the face of NewsLtd’s (esp TheOz) rising hysteria.
So, after last night’s 7.30 Report’s segment and today’s Age’s A climate for change, the Indie Three’s Want List is headed by NBN and Health (esp “superclinics & “e”-health). Also important (all 3 + Wilkie come from rural electorates/ backgrounds) are protection of farming land from miners, water (esp the Murray-Darling; inc the Great Artesian Basin) and Green farming/ Climate Change’s impact (inc on oceans).
Like the Age’s Tim Colebatch (& without making any of my Kiss of Death predictions) I have a hard time trying to work out how Abbott is going to accommodate any one of these within the policies he took to the election – and his own faction’s hard right opposition to all but the Murray Darling (& its hasn’t, to the best of my knowledge, included underground/ artesian water at *risk in coal-seam gas mining).
In short, to accommodate the Indies, Abbott has to junk key planks of his election platform, blow his “planned” budget (whatever that is & if it actually existed) and invite confrontation with the very mining interests which got him so close to the ultimate prize.
Gillard, on the other hand, only has to address the mining v farming (with Q’s having just taken the initial legislative steps) and get more serious about the Murray-Darling & underground water reserves (also a concern in the Hunter & other non-GAB areas).
* I’ve tried to read most of the recent research articles on coal-seam gas mining, both for and against (& the balance is about the same as the current electoral state-of-play). Whilst coal-seam gas is both much cleaner energy, and a bonanza for my home state, the proposed method in the Surat Basin had some real problems (esp in Russia) which are already appearing in Surat, inc (reportedly) oily flammable seepage into artesian water.
He’s chucked a conscience vote for same sex marriage in there as well, which I doubt Tony would be too happy about.
An junk he will Oz-poll tragic……Note: 4 Sale…x1 abbott mother, x1 abbott grandmother
The murdoch media war against labor continues dont let us allow the facts to get in the way of a good labor beat up. If Abbott crawls over the line the black hole of labor mismanagement will provide fodder for the punters for another decade. even sadder days ahead for all.
Andrew I don’t think he’ld mind. It would be defeated.
Which horseman, centaur009 @ 18? We’ve done locusts this year, and last … and most of the others. So could we please have a different plague? FROGS. Frogs would be nice. The drought got most of ours, and wet weather without croaking is just not right!
Wilkie’s comments to the SMH seem to have disappeared from the SMH website, but this is what they had up last night:
[Mr Wilkie said renovations to Royal Hobart Hospital and betting limits on poker machines were his main demands. He said both leaders had been ”receptive”. He said a humane asylum-seeker policy was paramount. He said he did not like the Liberals’ hardline policy approach and Labor’s was not much better.
His priority list, which he stressed were not demands, included infrastructure projects for Tasmania, worth an estimated $2 billion, increased pensions and other welfare payments, a publicly funded dental scheme and a conscience vote on gay marriage.]
So, going through his demands one-by-one:
– Pokie reform: ALP more likely to support than the the Libs ? Some Libs would consider this to be undesirable social engineering ?
– Royal Hobart Hospital: Both equally likely to support ?
– Humane asylum seeker policy: ALP ahead on this count, but Wilkie doesn’t like the Timor solution. But if he goes with Tony, then he gets Nauru & TPV’s ??!!
– $2 billion Tasmania infrastructure projects: Both equally likely to support, but ALP maybe slightly more likely, due to debt/deficits being one of Tone’s main electioneering slogans ?
– Increased pensions & welfare payments: both would find it hard to support (too costly) but ALP maybe still more likely to support some increase ?
– Denticare: at one time this used to be ALP policy ?
– Gay marriage: Before the election, both Julia & Tony said no vote on this … but Tone would have a personal objection to this, while Jules is just playing politics … so ALP still more likely to back down ?
[He’s chucked a conscience vote for same sex marriage in there as well, which I doubt Tony would be too happy about.]
And about all Julia has to do is guarantee to give her party/ the parliament a conscience vote on his Private Members Bill; though after 1 July 2011 would be a sensible time. Done & dusted 2 years out from an election would be A Good Thing.
Thanks William for that excellent analysis.
Some comments here this morning critising the media for running with this story..
I have no issue with the media reporting this. It is in fact their job to highlight the new data and its impact on Gillard’s claim to form government. If there is a debate to be had, it should concern
1) the Australian Electoral Commission approach;
2) Gillard’s Knee-jerk claim to legitimacy on the basis of winning the 2PP vote; and
3) any Coalition gloating that emerges from the current (ie temporary) figures. William is right, the media is just laying a trap for the unwary.
[- Gay marriage: Before the election, both Julia & Tony said no vote on this … but Tone would have a personal objection to this, while Jules is just playing politics … so ALP still more likely to back down ?]
I said during the campaign that I felt the reason so many people kept grilling Julia about her personal position on this issue was that they just didn’t believe she was actually opposed personally to gay marriage and she was just saying that to appease the fundies in the electorate (and in the Right of the Labor Party in particular).
I think most people feel in their bones that this is an issue she would be more than happy to roll over on once the “political” pressure is off.
[I think we are headed for another election, if not now then certainly within the next year.]
Well it’d need to be a House only election (most likely) and whoever forced it to occur would likely face the wrath of the voters.
Wlikie has been reported as saying he may make a decision as early as today. On the other hand Windsor has said that it may take another week or more after analysing all the information coming to hand.
Mr Squiggle@34
You obviously didn’t read William’s post – didn’t you ?
Guess who has egg on one’s face – and it ain’t me 🙂
It’s going to be another politics-free morning for me but can I just repeat – it is the floor of the House that decides. Our Constitution (at least as far as the Reps is concerned) has absolutely NO mention of parties.
Everyone, including Gillard and Abbott, should just shut up about TPP, PV, etc. and get on with it.
Several of the panelists on QandA last night got it right.
[I have no issue with the media reporting this.]
My issue is not their reporting the data, it’s the way they’ve reported it. Still, Gillard set herself up for this so can’t complain now. Always think ahead as much as possible.
Thanks for your usual diligence and erudition William. I hope your work is picked up in today’s Crikey Daily Mail for general dissemination to the movers and shakers.
vik, in reality Wilkie’s vote is most likely irrelevant. The rural independents are the sole kingmakers.
chinda63@35
Another point in its favour is that Labor has already payed a good chunk of the dowside risk with this issue with the Libs rat-f*cking over twitter on this issue on election eve.
Yes 2PP is constitutionally irrelevant, but it IS relevant politically. The number of votes is of course relevant in political arguments as to who the independents should support.
Good to hear Brown on ABC radio slamming the 2pp as “a sham”, mentioning the 8 seats and the projection of ALP on 50.2%. Good on him. Emerson apparently said something similar. Doesnt stop the ABC running hard with it though.
[21 James J
Posted Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 7:31 am | Permalink
Gillard brought it on herself. She should not have said what she said.]
Bartlett said the same thing but before the election, and then of course the greens did the correct thing anyway, look we all say things in haste and the constitution does not say it has to be so just lets for get it.
ltep, not so. They have mentioned 77 as preferable to 76. Either needs Wilkie to do that
itep
is the 3 wise men or unwise men decided to go it alone wilkie does count
my say, Gillard is yet to be proven wrong on the 2PP. Why cant we and MSM must wait before throwing dirt at her? Didnt hear much criticism of Brandis and Minchin when they proclaimed the 2PP on election night than Labor took the lead. Its bias, pure and simple
God I wish reform of media ownership was on the indie wishlist
Can anyone tell me if the Indies now have the Coal. costings? Do we know if these costings are a full picture of the Coal plans including assumptions or the sorts of figures that were given to the accounting firm?