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”

Comments Page 70 of 73
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  1. evan14
    [What great development have I missed?]

    The cat’s out of the bag, jumped right out of the $11bill BLACKHOLE treas found in the Coalitions costings, as revealed by Tony Windsor on Lateline just an hour or so ago!

    We knew the dog didn’t eat the homework, it wouldn’t touch anything that toxic!

  2. [Right……..the Liberal costings are wrong/there’s a huge hole in them?
    But, will the MSM ignore this tomorrow, as I fully expect?]

    Sky has ignored it so far … can’t wait to see how Gilbert spins it on Agenda in the morning.

  4. JB @ 3446,

    i’m just looking at the tweets. damn. the thing is exploding with black-hole tweets.

    the funny thing is that the percentages that JH provides don’t equal 100% ;P

  5. It doesn’t matter whether or not the MSM gloss over it. The fact is the indies have spotted the black hole. They’re the ones whose support matters!

  7. Thats curious – no mention at the Organ!

    Hold her steady TSOP, and get busy on the blower. I sent an email to Wilkie today. This is Stalingrad as far as Im concerned.

    And there’s *no surrender* to those lying, spinning, Tory BS artists. They can kiss my grits. The future lies just there, just beyond their tawdry lies.

    And I have a funny feeling they’re about to get whats coming – the Kessel is closing around them.

  10. hmm.. so the coalition isnt going to save as much as expected…

    all that means is they wont pay off the deficit any sooner.

    what I was hoping for is clear proof their $30B in spending was badly unfunded.

  11. Did i fecking hear right?

    TJ ended Lateline by saying Fibs said treas found $11bill in SAVINGS in costings and they were 95-96% correct? And TJ didn’t qualify it.
    WTF… did I hear right?

    What about the BLACKHOLE…is this how they are gunna spin it?

  12. It hasn’t been reported by the media because nobody really watches the news at 11pm. It will be all over the airwaves tomorow.

    Even if it wasn’t it doesn’t matter, the only people who’s decisions it will affect have already seen it

  14. I suppose it’s a forlorn hope that someone will replay the Hockey/Robb intro of the costings complete with the two months of Hogwarts uber-professional slaving.

  15. [Right……..the Liberal costings are wrong/there’s a huge hole in them?
    But, will the MSM ignore this tomorrow, as I fully expect?]

    evan – I don’t think they will ignore it. But in any case, it’s what the indies think that matters and they have already shown they are not going to ignore it.

  16. Hey Peter Young,
    There’s no conspiracy theory at work here.
    Conroy is quite happy to sell the NBN to China. After Australian taxpayers fund it and build it.
    So investigate it to your own satisfaction and get past your smug supine acceptance of all things Left.
    Selling the NBN to China is an alarming prospect of tremendous interest to most non Fabian Australians.
    They would like to read newspaper articles about it, see 7:30 reports based on the story, see it on 60 minutes! They’d like to see it in the morning on Today. See it in the evening on Lateline. Strong interest to be sure.
    Yet, it was not covered in the weeks up to the election.
    Prior to the election, I heard Conroy blithely admit his plan on News Radio to a somewhat troubled sounding junior journalist. Dimly, this guy could sense ‘maybe there’s a story here’. Obviously, it wasn’t going to get a run. And it didn’t. If it did, it would have swung at least 10 per cent off Labor.
    Of one thousand taxpayer funded ABC journalists, not one followed it up. All carefully packed away for the election.
    Yet to be fair, there was that commercial radio ‘Senior Producer’ who claimed an on air quote from the minister didn’t constitute proof. ‘Ring me back when you have proof.’ While this conversation was progressing one of his own reporters confirmed the story – on air. Attempting to prompt an intelligent response yet again, I again rang back. He blithely admitted to ringing the ALP who confirmed the story – ‘but they said it was ‘OK’…’
    ALP says it’s Ok, therefore no story. That’s the quality of Australian journalism at the moment.

  18. cud chewer

    at the top of the table it says coalition estimate of impact on fiscal balance 11.5 billion

    at the bottom after treasury adjustments it says treas=ury estimate of impact on fiscal ballance a few hundred million

    difference is 11 billion

  21. Darn.. Tony Windsors attitude left a lot to be desired.. he kept going on about seeing coalition figures to have it sorted out.. sorta.. or wtte.

  22. No we know

    a) why sloppy and co were late for the press conference

    b) why he’s called sloppy

    c) why he was desperate to get robb off the stage when he wanted to anwer questions

  23. Everyone, I wouldn’t get too over-excited and assume that Labor are suddenly over the line.
    I don’t trust Wilkie, and Katter I suspect will either abstain or go with Abbott.
    It’s all still up in the air, in my opinion!

  25. Puff: Fear not. The more the MSM spin, the more the indies will feel the need to take up the sword of justice and righteous accountability.

  26. Vernula yes I’ve figured it.. but sadly it isnt as bad as I’d hoped. hearing that the actual spending promises have ballooned and they were sending treasury backwards would be different.

  27. Ask yourselves this. If the indies were really interested in just endorsing Abbott do you think they would be going on Lateline and revealing all of this?
    It’s getting harder by the day for them to justify choosing the libs.

  28. I’m worried that this will occur:

    KOW: “Explain this black hole”
    TA: “Umm… Labor has put us in an even worse economic situation than we first anticipated?”
    KOW: “Good enough! Congratulations, Mr Abbott… or should I say ‘Mr Prime Minister!'”

  33. [It’s all still up in the air, in my opinion!]

    Absolutely Evan – this aint over by a long shot.

    But make no mistake: Abbott just took a major blow to the goolies.

  34. Thing is, even though it’s just a difference in projected savings TW made a point of outing it on Lateline and saying it goes to matters of trust.

  39. Watching Lateline business,
    everyone happy with economy, no inflation threat, no decrease in interest rates though (could they go any lower????).
    Mining co’s v unhappy with QLD guvvy selling railway, mines want to buy it. (Thought they was going broke????).

    Markets doing good, apparently. Everyone is smiling.
    Mining stocks led rally on markets (hmmmm)
    Geezuz, look at the price of gold, which liberal barsdart was it sold off the Aus gold stocks for a song a few years back?

  41. [Thing is, even though it’s just a difference in projected savings TW made a point of outing it on Lateline and saying it goes to matters of trust.]

    Perhaps I wasn’t paying enough attention.. did he actually use the term “matters of trust”?

  43. Such a fraud was bound to happen with treasury being riddled with Labor stooges. They managed to hide $5 billion in losses from the mining tax for Gillard. That’s a PROVEN FACT of how far out they can be on a single issue, let alone multiple costings.

  46. VoT
    [Such a fraud was bound to happen with treasury being riddled with Labor stooges. ]
    That is a joke right? Where’s the smiley?

  49. voice o ftruth@3492

    Such a fraud was bound to happen with treasury being riddled with Labor stooges. They managed to hide $5 billion in losses from the mining tax for Gillard. That’s a PROVEN FACT of how far out they can be on a single issue, let alone multiple costings.

    Someone is about to be consuming a nice Fecal Sandwich – and it ain’t me 🙂

    And who appointed Ken Henry – one John Winston Howard 🙂

    Libs hoisted own petard 🙂

  50. The other significant point made by Windsor on Lateline was that there was $3 billion worth of saving in terms of projects the coaltion would stop. However that did not specifiy to treasury what these projects were nor did they mention them during the campain.

    Wonder if Tony will come under pressure to spell what there projects are? – Probably not.

    I quite like Windsor’s uber laid back deliver – that he choose to break the news himself – i think means something – just not sure what.

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