Final 2PP: 50.12-49.88 to Labor

The Australian Electoral Commission has finalised the last of its two-party preferred Labor-versus Coalition counts, and it confirms Labor has won a narrow victory on the national total of 6,216,439 (50.12 per cent) to 6,185,949 (49.88 per cent), a margin of 30,490. If distinctions to the second decimal place are what matters to you, Labor did about 0.05 per cent worse than last time due to the arbitrary fact of the Nationals finishing ahead of Wilson Tuckey in O’Connor, meaning the AEC finalised a two-party result on a Nationals-versus-Labor basis where the 2007 Liberal-versus-Labor result was more favourable to them. So while I think it reasonable to cite the published figure as the definitive national result, a slight discount should be factored in when considering the matter of the swing, which should properly be rounded to 2.5 per cent rather than 2.6 per cent.

Whatever the specifics, the result leaves quite a few people looking foolish:

Barnaby Joyce: “We’d won the two-party preferred vote by the time the independents made their decision.” (Lateline, 7/9).

Andrew Bolt: “Labor won fewer votes, fewer seats of its own and less of the two-party preferred vote.” (Herald Sun, 8/9).

Alan Jones: “Is it a healthy democracy when a party wins the majority of the two party preferred, wins the majority of the primary vote and wins more seats in the Parliament than the other party but the other party forms government?” (2GB, 8/9).

Sarah Martin: “Yesterday, Julia Gillard’s Labor Party won government despite losing the primary vote and the two-party-preferred vote, or securing a majority of seats.” (The Advertiser, 7/9).

Kerry Chikarovski: “The Coalition won the primary vote, they won the two-party preferred …” (The Drum, 7/9).

Lateline: “Labor loses two-party preferred vote” (report headline, 30/8).

Kenneth Wiltshire: “It is probable that the Coalition will win more third-party preferences.” (NB: This of course is absurd – Labor got 65 per cent of third party preferences, much as they always do – but I think we know what he’s trying to say.) (The Australian 6/9).

Lisa Wilkinson (to Wayne Swan): “Now, you won fewer primary votes, fewer two-party preferred votes and fewer seats.”
(Swan explains to her that she’s wrong.)
Wilkinson: “But in the end you got 49.9 per cent of the vote and the Opposition got 50.1.”
Swan: “No, I don’t think that’s … Lisa, that is not a final count.”
Wilkinson: “Well, that’s what the AEC is saying and that’s what Australia said at the polls.” (The Today Show, Nine Network, 9/9).

No doubt there were others.

Our troubles here began on August 30, when the AEC removed three electorates from the national total on the basis that the Labor-versus-Liberal counts there had been discontinued after election night, as it became apparent the Greens (in the case of Batman and Grayndler) or Andrew Wilkie (in the case of Denison) rather than the Liberals would face Labor at the final count. As three of the weakest seats in the land for the Liberals, these were by extension among the strongest seats for Labor in two-party terms. The resulting adjustment in Labor’s two-party vote from 50.4 per cent 50.0 per cent led to a great many uncomprehending reports of a “surge” to the Coalition, which had an added edge due to Julia Gillard’s post-election claim that Labor had, apparently, won the two-party vote. Those who wanted a clear and accurate exposition of the news had to ignore, say, The Australian, and look to an evidently more reliable source of information in Bob Brown, who explained the absence of eight electorates from the published result and correctly concluded: “If you look at the whole of Australia and you treat every seat equally, when you do that Labor’s ahead and is likely to keep that lead right the way through to the finishing pole.”

Antony Green defends journalists on the basis that they were within their rights to take an official AEC figure at face value, but I’m not so kind. Even if awareness of the missing electorates was too much to ask, those quoted above should at least have been aware that the count was incomplete. As it stands, we have a result that leaves those of us who had done the sums with exactly what we were expecting, and a lot of dopey pundits and dishonest politicians with egg on their faces.

UPDATE: Morgan has published results from a phone poll of 541 respondents conducted on Wednesday and Thursday evening which has Labor leading 52-48 on two-party preferred from primary votes of 35.5 per cent for Labor, 42.5 per cent for the Coalition and 15 per cent for the Greens. The margin of error on the poll is about 4.2 per cent.

UPDATE 2: As Peter Brent points out, the 52-48 result comes from the less reliable two-party measure based on respondent-allocated preferences – going on previous elections, which the most recent election has again vindicated as the superior method, Labor’s lead is only 50.5-49.5.

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.

2,186 comments on “Final 2PP: 50.12-49.88 to Labor”

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  1. [Frankly people who have dont pray and and dont feel a connection to anything spiritual i often wonder how they cope in times of distress.
    I actually feel sorry for you and hope one day you may find the type of inner peace that i know comes with knowing there is more to the life than just birth and death.]

    I’m only speaking for myself, but as a person who has no religious beliefs (whatever that makes me) I don’t feel any sense of inner turmoil. In times of distress I turn to my family and my partner to help me cope.

    I assure you there are millions of people who don’t need faith to be completely at peace. For all those who feel otherwise I completely respect that.

  4. [95 Paul_J
    Posted Friday, September 17, 2010 at 3:12 pm | Permalink
    @ My Say

    I was a practising Catholic for over 30 years untill I gave it way for reasons I won’t bore you with but I will say]

    my story exactly

  5. [Yes we criticize it as well but we dont criticise you for being atheist so please dont criticize me for being a catholic .]

    I don’t criticise you for being a Catholic — your belief system is your right, as is mine.

    I do however, talk from an ‘educated’ standpoint. I spent much of my undergraduate uni time studying religion. I have closely studied the catholic church, its origins, beliefs, and its evolution. Thus I think I might see it from a more objective viewpoint.

    I am not saying that the catholic church doesn’t do any good — all religions do positive things for their societies. But they are also responsible for that which can only be described as despicable — and the Catholic church’s history contains many events that can only be described that way. The problem is that that history is ‘whitewashed’ over for the congregation so many do not believe those wrongs even occurred.

    My one argument with modern churches (and this includes all religions) is that they place a priest/holy person (most often a male) in between you and your God. If God is in all things, then this is unnecessary at best and deceptive social manipulation at worst.

  6. Morgan has published results from a phone poll of 541 respondents conducted on Wednesday and Thursday evening which has Labor leading 52-48 on two-party preferred from primary votes of 35.5 per cent for Labor, 42.5 per cent for the Coalition and 15 per cent for the Greens. The margin of error on the poll is about 4.2 per cent.

  7. I was raised a catholic, it just petered out over the years and would now classify myself as an atheist. The whole catholic thing of sin and redemption, rinse and repeat, is just not healthy for the mind in my opinion. It is liberating to leave all that behind.
    Without sounding too flakey I believe in the power of the universe, that there is something cosmic (pun intended) about it that we just don’t understand. Almost like a collective power of neurons or consciousness if you know i mean. The mystery as Van Morrison would say. But there is no omnipotent being involved in my world view.
    If there is a god he doesn’t give a shit.

  8. William if you added religion to politics we could then get onto the third no no of intimate personal relations and get on conroys naughty filter and show it didn’t really work and work full circle back to religion!!!!

    But in accord with your wishes I have swallowed a response that would make the works of Calvin seem short compassionate and pithy in the modern world.

  12. so william the last Morgan Poll was face to face, why do morgan have so few in their phone polls yet face to face is more people, wouldnt it not be more expensive to send people out in the field than make a phone call

  13. [Morgan has compared his phone poll result to his last face to face in that report.]

    Yes. He’s very naughty doing that given the extent of the known discrepancy between the two.

  17. My say – Atheism is a belief just as much as a religion.

    Agnostic is the way for me. The Universe works in mysterious ways, I am not willing to speculate too much, but I will ask the question – what happens when our fascination with how things work creates a machine capable of simulating the Universe? Would you label the start button Big bang?

    The old religions are like Shakespeare – themes will continue to resurface. That does not mean that all plays should be Shakespeare, but it does mean that the Bible, Koran and others provide the classical base for modern theology.

    We now live in a world where these classical beliefs are not able to provide much in the way of guidance for the technology that we are creating. We have gone well beyond the moral issues that early scholars were able to conceive.

  19. William wasn’t J Gill just as foolish to claim the 2PP vote as a mandate on election night knowing full well it was a very very provisional count. One could easily say that it was her statem,ent that started all the fuss. Perhaps you should add that to your list as well as the usual (mostly right of centre) suspects you pick on.

  21. [ Frankly people who have dont pray and and dont feel a connection to anything spiritual i often wonder how they cope in times of distress.
    I actually feel sorry for you and hope one day you may find the type of inner peace that i know comes with knowing there is more to the life than just birth and death ]

    My say, coping is easy, one can just rationalise the situation. Things are how they are, the normal course of events seems reason enough to me without any need for a god. So don’t feel sorry, the way I see it inner peace requires no religion.

    But you are right when you say

    [ more to the life than just birth and death. ]

    There is the bit in the middle called living, and for many this bit is too short to invest it in a faith that makes no sense.

  24. Even leaving aside the dodgy comparison- why do a poll with such wide MoE in the first place, when things have been so tight lately?

    Unless there’s been some vast movement since the election, its resolution is too coarse to be any use…

  25. [Henry i will just say yes i understand what your saying, thats how i feel too]

    william can i just finish by saying to henry but no i am not an athiest could not be.
    but the last paragraph agree

    sorry william just wanted to clear that one up.

  26. Just on point of spirituality and with a nod to Henry’s post i enclose some pictures of the universe taken from the hubble telescope.

    Images of awe beauty and wonder which of course lead to thoughts or origin and meaning.

    http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/entire

    I dont think you need some third rate pre medieval value and obedience system in order to understand sprituality.

    That it for me William.

  28. [“Australia is a very unequal society,” Professor Hamilton said.]

    Total BS. One he should read Possums recent post on this. Two he should know that Oz’s Gini coefficient compares quite favorably globally. If you want to look at bad places look at South America.

    I think the only really equal country on the planet is Tonga.

    All poor, yet all share everything equally amongst their families.

    They also have the worlds highest proportion of PhD’s per capita.

    They also have the highest proportion of Mormonism. 😆

  29. [ Atheism is a belief just as much as a religion. ]

    “Atheism is a belief system in exactly the same way as not collecting stamps is a hobby”

  31. No problems mysay, I hear you and respect your beliefs.

    Beautiful pictures gough, thanks. You into astronomy at all? If so, can you recommend any basic sites. I got a telescope the other day and am keen to get some value out of. Azimuths, zeniths etc, my head is spinning.

    Back onto politics – there has been real change since the election in the will of the electorate so why is rabbit so keen to go back there? Dont get it.

  32. [William wasn’t J Gill just as foolish to claim the 2PP vote as a mandate on election night knowing full well it was a very very provisional count. One could easily say that it was her statement that started all the fuss.]

    I suspect she was in some ways simply indulging in some “pre-emptive action” in response to signs that the Coalition was going to be pursuing such a line itself. Both Brandis and Minchin had already been claiming probable victory in the 2PP before Gillard made her statement. I have no doubt that the Libs would have been making an even greater fuss about it if it had really gone their way.

  38. Jen, I don’t think we ever know that definitively – when Greens preferences get distributed they are “contaminated” by non-Greens votes which they have received to that point in the count as preferences from other candidates, so they don’t give us a perfect picture. The Electoral Commission of Queensland treats us to a ballot paper study after each election to give us a better idea, but I don’t think the AEC does the same. Besides which, we don’t even have the data on preference distributions at this point. The best you can do is look at Antony Green’s post on the six seats which had only Labor, Liberal and Greens candidates standing, which suggests there was no significant change from last time. As I noted a couple of posts ago, this was contrary to assurances we received from the likes of the perennially incompetent Dennis Shanahan, who was just sure the Greens flow to Labor would be weaker this time – despite the demonstrated tendency for Greens preferences to flow to Labor more strongly as their vote increased.

  40. I have criticised Gillard for her premature claim to the 2PP mantle in the past, but it would have been very odd of me to have included someone who got it right in a list of people who got it wrong.

  41. Damn right Jon, one of my hobbies is not collecting stamps.

    No side can meet the burden of proof. If there is no god, you can not prove this. If there is, God would not want to be clearly identified.

    Either way, self reliance is the best attitude to have. God’s away on business…

    Sorry WB, last one from me on this.

  43. Christopher Pyne said that the Coalition had won more preferences (see 1771 on the previous thread). In 1777 on the previous thread I pointed out the ridiculousness of this similar to what has been said about Kenneth Wiltshire at the top of this thread.

  44. Some or most of the people who got it wrong would’ve had a lot of information before them hinting strongly that the ALP would end up in front on the national 2PP. This suggests (to me) either gross incompetence or deliberately deceptive handling of the figures.

  45. I once did a Morgan FTF and it was mostly market research using images from advertising. The political poll was a very small part of it. Anyway, that’s why they bother 🙂

  46. [Australia’s growing acceptance of inequality is partly to blame for the controversy over the federal government’s proposed mining supertax, an ethics professor says.]

    [Clive Hamilton, professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University, says the controversy is indicative of a belief among Australians that people’s circumstances are a result of their own efforts, and that rich people deserve to be rich.]

    Who does this remind me of 😉

  47. “Atheism is a belief system in exactly the same way as not collecting stamps is a hobby”

    Not collecting stamps is a hobby in the same way that not having a belief system is a way of life.

  48. It actually means a hell of a lot for labor to have won the 2PP.
    In 10, 20, 50 years time historians will be unable to trot out the “in 2010 labor lost the 2PP vote yet clung on to power” which is the line always used against Howard in ’98.
    It also removes another plank from the libs “illegitimate” baloney.

  49. [For Cuppa’s benefit:

    Word count: 48 words]

    I see you’re sarcastically highlighting their word count.

    I emphasised the word count of the ABC story about the AFP’s dropping of the investigation of the alleged leaks in the first place to highlight their paucity of coverage compared to the SMH, which devoted eleven paragraphs and over 300 words to its coverage of the same story. The SMH gave the story more than five times the coverage (on word count).

    Even so, the 48 words the ABC has given to this story about the 2pp result is less than the three whole sentences(60 words) they devoted to the AFP story.

  50. [William wasn’t J Gill just as foolish to claim the 2PP vote as a mandate on election night knowing full well it was a very very provisional count.]

    Not necessarily – Labor scrutineers would have told Head Office how the preferences were running and it may have been picked up from that.

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