Moral majority

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.

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.

3,640 comments on “Moral majority”

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  1. [anony 72 + 1 =75 now thats what I call silly.]
    pedro, at least you’ve stopped the tears. now i’m going to point you at the liberals. have at them.

  2. [A pity the black hole wasn’t more like $20 billion but I’ll settle for $7 billion to $11 billion.]

    It is more like 20 but there is only so much the Public Service can do in a day

  3. Darn

    [A pity the black hole wasn’t more like $20 billion but I’ll settle for $7 billion to $11 billion]

    Darn it depends whether youse a three or five year forcast

    the three year forcast is 11b the five year 18b

    the FIBS fibbed fiberally

  4. Please excuse typos, I am not doing corrections. 🙂

    Lateline: Labor/Green Alliance, and Abbott says it is a conspirancy.
    then to KB on Obama and Iraq.

    Other headlines:
    yada yada then
    Labor/Green signing. Labor 3 seats short of forming govt. Greens won’t block supply or vote nc. Sig concession by govt on climate change, Tone banging on about broken prom re cits assembly. Jools outlines it all, tone whinging coz there is now 2 coalns.

  5. But don’t you guys understand? Tone’s leadership is so powerful, so big, so bright… it’s like a supernova. And a supernova as great as Tone’s leadership can only leave behind a black hole.

    So a black hole in the budget, at first, may seem like a bad thing but, when you look at it closer, it actually demonstrates the cosmic awesomeness of Tony Abbott!

  6. so Windsor and Oakshott at least cannot side with Abbott just on the credibility issue alone and therefore it is either abstain or vote with Gilliard

  7. Please excuse typos, I am not doing corrections. 🙂
    Lateline cont:
    Swan on economy: strong growth, then tone says it is all due former govt.
    Bandt and same sex mrage and asylum seekers.

    Tony Windsor: Labor costs in line, liberal BLACKHOLE OF 7-11 BILL

  8. how on earth did the accounting firm that the coalition utilized miss a number of these double costings? these weren’t underlying assumptions or projections!

  9. [Mr Wilkie would not reveal details of the Coalition offer but told The Australian it focused heavily on his call for poker machine reform and improvements to Hobart’s hospital.]

    [Wilkie has been assured by Julia Gillard that if he backs Labor, work on the Royal Hobart Hospital will start within months.]

    i know which offer i would take and its not the first one note the difference upgrade to start work.

  10. [does anyone know how Windsor and Oakeshott voted in 2009 on the CPRS/ETS bills?]

    For Oakeshott’s comments after the failure of the legislation in the Senate see:

    http://roboakeshott.com/system/files/2009_12_03_explanation_on_ETS.pdf

    Oakeshott was an active participant n the debate, and moved various amendments of his own. http://www.roboakeshott.com/node/515 is worth a look.

    One other area where Oakeshott and Katter don’t seem likely to come out on the same side involves ethanol – see http://www.roboakeshott.com/node/477

    His media releases generally are well worth casting your eye over.

    Windsor originally opposed the Bill, but changed his mind when the provisions relating to agriculture were changed – see http://www.tonywindsor.com.au/releases/091116.pdf

  11. [AC

    bastard

    Another glass of vino hits the screen]

    Gus, lick it off – waste not, want not, lol.

    BTW, when are dodgy costings not really dodgy costings?

    When they’re part of the blackhole version of history.

  12. [how on earth did the accounting firm that the coalition utilized miss a number of these double costings? these weren’t underlying assumptions or projections!
    ]

    The Budget is a complex beast – that’s why we leave ot to Tresury

  13. coalition budget 96% accurate. abbott extends two party preferred lead as gillard goes green. – oo

    gillard’s green deal sealed with blood from christian baby says treasury insider – oo columnist

    treasury today indicated that labor’s costing were ‘largely’ in order, refusing to speculate as to how large any discrepancy may be. this after gillard’s spin that labor’s costings were ‘accurate’. so dies democracy in a whirlwind of spin. – smh

    join us on the drum where annabel crabb and chris uuuuuhlman will hold julia gillard down while michael kroger kicks her repeatedly while wearing hobnailed boots. the panel will be balanced by turning the prime minister over so mr kroger can continue kicking her other side. – ABC 24

  14. The Coalition can say what they like in their press release, they can say their policies put the country on track for a 40 billion dollar surplus within 6 months, it doesn’t matter, the independents have seen the costings.

  15. [join us on the drum where annabel crabb and chris uuuuuhlman will hold julia gillard down while michael kroger kicks her repeatedly while wearing hobnailed boots. the panel will be balanced by turning the prime minister over so mr kroger can continue kicking her other side. – ABC 24]

    GOLD

    😉

  16. [Where is Nostrils and GP ??]

    Frank, I was just thinking the same thing… I think they’re just getting their calculators fired up before coming here to explain it all.

  17. [whereas 5% of policies led to the blowout..?]

    Indeed. Didn’t Tony like saying things about Australia’s “Trillion Dollar economy” before the election? Now, let’s see. What is 5% of 1 Trillion…? 😉

  18. Ah, I’ve just realized what the 95-96% correct for the libs costings is … they’ve taken $7B divided by the total commonwealth budget of $150B(?) – so they got all that stuff right that they weren’t touching like unemployment benefits, pensions, PS salaries, defense expenditure, etc. So glad they tallied all that stuff up correctly rather than just taking the existing budget figures – they could have fat-fingered it when they copied the numbers over.

  19. Frank Calabrese @ 3371

    [Where is Nostrils and GP ??]

    How long do Black and Gold pizzas take to cook and dress up like it’s a restaurant pizza?

    Meh, I’m sure they’re watching their inboxes waiting for the LP email to tell them what their lines are.

    Failing that, they’ll just push out the usual. “You guys are clasping at straws/in denial. Tony is going to win, get used to it!” BS.

  20. VP @ 3370,

    magic-pudding economics.

    it equates to standard and poors giving lehman brothers a AAA rating, then the company tanking, which is what happened.

  21. AND who was the idiot on here proclaiming that Oakeshott was the leader of the country Independents? May have to scroll past his posts in future………

  22. TW also said ALP-Greens agreement not significant, other members can do what they want. Wants more info. on costings assumptions specifically on cuts Fibs say they counted in their assumptions, but cuts which they did not enlighten the voters on & are refusing to tell Treasury & that this is somewhat suspicious.

  23. Whatever happens this at least can be a kick in the teeth to anyone who ever bangs on about Labor or the left having ‘magic pudding economics’.

  24. Please excuse typos, I am not doing corrections. 🙂 And this is not verbatum, it is what I could type as it was said on Lateline.

    tJ: Lets get this straight, there is a discrepancy of $7-11bill.
    Windsor. ….Coaln says there are projects to be scrapped…They were not prepared to tell treas what the projects would be scrapped…. There has been a series of interactions between Coals and Treas today…we want an explanation tomorrow of why there are differences..There are 2 applicants for the job, treas assessed applicants. Labor’s are mostly in line…
    tj Will it have an effect on your decision?
    W. …has no bearing on my decision, wanting stable govt. What others do is up to them.

  25. [3394 Gusface
    Posted Wednesday, September 1, 2010 at 11:16 pm | Permalink
    my say

    go to bed

    baddies will be here soon]

    gus nothing can top that sat night when there was 4 of them here together remember them.
    it send shivers all over me.

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