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.
STOP RESPONSE TO THE FINNIGANS!!!!!!!!!
[“Yes. He shows many symptoms of depression, anxiety, paranoia, irrationality….He is unwell. It is obvious he needs medical attention. He should not have a job with such high expectations and responsibility.” ]
That’s Briefly you’re talking about there I presume.
I don’t think I have ever read such a determined and concerted campaign to denigrate someone as I have witnessed on PB with the sole purpose of destroying a person who deserves far better treatment than he is receiving from those who have gained so much from his efforts in getting rid of a Leader and Government that made most of the country ashamed to be Australian.
Give it a break for goodness sakes before the site becomes unbearable to visit.
Doyley -1647
Very good post. That’s how i expect it to play out too.
Must say am enjoying the toing and froing today, you are all in fine form, highly entertaining…love your work team.
[STOP RESPONSE TO THE FINNIGANS]
Ok… oh cr*p!
Truthy at 1678
What about when Dick Dastardly gives Mutley a medal. Same dynamics but more emapthy for the characters from the general public.
[Do you like sandals? Jesus wore sandals. I wonder if he had the same trouble as me and got sand in between his toes?]
Hey George! You need some big stone foot-washing water jars. Throw a wedding. What’s the best red you can imagine? Take it from there.
A very fine Sunday’s greetings to all those PB commenters who post sensible, thought-out and interesting comments.
I brought my password with me up to the fine electorate of Dawson hoping to keep up to date with the usual informative and sensible comments on PB.
Seems like I wasted the effort from much of what I have read since earlier last night. It’s a shame that some people just use the forum to vent their own particularissue that is iritating their spleen.
Be back late tomorrow to see if things improve. Keep the faith the good sensible posters here. The future viability of PB rests on your good contributions.
The rest just give me a king size headache and a strong inclination to find something better to spend my time doing.
[Hey George! You need some big stone foot-washing water jars. Throw a wedding. What’s the best red you can imagine? Take it from there.]
Ozpol, shhhhh! I’m trying to make friends with Truthy. He’s still at stage 1 of his therapy process “Shock & Denial”. Needless to say, we’re not making progress.
[d you said that cos Dave, last night, thought it was not much good. ]
Sorry, Dave. Had to go out so couldn’t answer earlier. Got my names mixed up there.
Watched Kev with Hillary and he was in top form. He’ll make sure that she sees everyone when she comes here unlike Howard and Janette who didn’t invite the Labor women to meet her when she came out with Bill. She had to ask for the Labor women to group in another room and she snuck out to meet and greet. Had a a ball with them too, so I heard. She was probably glad to get away from Mrs Bucket’s pretentiousness (or ‘nose in the airiness’).
[John Howard got awarded the Presedential Medal of Freedom from George W. Bush… try and top that one.]
There are some distinguished recipients of that award. Robert McNamara was also given it by Lyndon Johnston for his running of the Vietnam War.
gough1, of course, your analogy was much better!
Perhaps there could be a Simpsons episode where Montgomery Burns gives Howard the second Annual Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of: Excellence.
[There are some distinguished recipients of that award. Robert McNamara was also given it by Lyndon Johnston for his running of the Vietnam War.]
Robert McNamara was actually not responsible for what happened in Vietnam.
He wanted a roll down of the war and troops to be pulled out of Vietnam, but Johnson over ruled him.
If McNamara was really in charge the war would have been over by ’65.
Come on, everyone! JUST GET OVER IT! Kevin Rudd is no longer PM. Julia is our PM.
As stated here before, Kevin is my member. I have worked on every campaign for him since 1996 (when he failed at his first attempt) – doing all the hard leg work, such as street stalls, pre-polls, and working all day on election day from setting up at 5 am right through to scrutineering etc etc – and I’M WELL AND TRULY OVER IT and also the people here WHO REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE REALITY.
Please, if you must continually grieve, then do it somewhere else, and not waste this blog with all this boring crap!
[Howard got a treat for being a good loyal dog. That’s it. Nothing to boast about.]
Cannot remember if it was in the Oz media or the US. Howard was described as that irritating itch around Bush’ rear end.
“Gimme y’r hand!” Smack! Smack! “Baaaad OPT!”
Here’s a soothing feel-better something Daily Show’s Jon Stewart calls on American voters to rally for sanity: TV satirist Jon Stewart announces Washington march against Tea Party extremism
The whole article is gloriously refreshing, to say the least. Perhaps someone will follow suit here?
[Jon Stewart, the arch-liberal US news satirist, is planning a “Rally to Restore Sanity” in Washington next month to draw voters to an anti-extremism demonstration sold on witty irony. He’s calling it the Million Moderate March.
His tongue may be in his cheek but it doesn’t muffle the star TV host’s rallying cry to an exasperated mainstream just days before the midterm elections in November.
Sent up as “a few hours of fun” but in reality a serious riposte to the rightwing Tea Party movement now stealing the spotlight, Stewart promised to supply signs declaring “I Disagree With You, But I’m Pretty Sure You’re Not Hitler” and other deadpan slogans …
Stewart is a master of comedy but he is also seriously influential. When he blasted CNN’s dog-pit-style political pundit-fight Crossfire programme back in 2004, saying it was “hurting America” with its mindless, partisan bickering, the show was eventually cancelled, with Stewart’s criticism cited as one of the reasons.
The largest segment of Stewart’s audience is under 30 and has liberal views – and gets as much of its news from The Daily Show as from the evening news programmes and cable news channels.
Stewart’s rally will be counter-balanced by a spoof “extremist conservative” rally called the “March to Keep Fear Alive” by his fellow Comedy Central satirist Stephen Colbert.]
Aaaah! If only!
Dio@1674
[don
“Not only that, recent research indicates that we carry Neandertal blood in our veins in any case.”
Isn’t the jury still out on that one?]
The journal Science seems to think that europeans and asians carry neandertal blood.
http://news.discovery.com/human/neanderthal-human-interbreed-dna.html
[THE GIST
* A newly mapped Neanderthal genome provides strong evidence that humans and Neanderthals interbred.
* Between 1-4 percent of the DNA of many humans living today likely came from Neanderthals.
* People of European and Asian heritage are most likely to carry the Neanderthal genes.
It’s official: Most of us are part Neanderthal. The first draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome has provided the strongest evidence yet that modern humans and Neanderthals interbred and that all non-Africans today have Neanderthal gene fragments in their genetic codes.
Although the Neanderthal contribution to the DNA of these individuals is estimated at being just one to four percent of the total, the finding, published in the latest issue of the journal Science, helps to resolve the long-standing controversy over whether or not humans mated with Neanderthals when the two groups encountered each other outside of Africa.]
Truthy
I agree McNamara was not mainly to blame; he certainly didn’t start it. But if you read his own book, or see the documentary “The Fog of War”, he acknowledgesd his own severe errors too.
On that medal, all the Iraq principals – Blair, Howard, Cheney and Rumsfeld – got the award. Given that Iraq turned out not much better than Vietnam, and neither should have been fought, I’d say the analogy was, sadly for the Iraqis, quite apt. The Presidential Freedom Medal isn’t an award for bravery – it just means the US president owes you something.
stop the full stops
[stop the full stops]
No. Way.
can we negotiate on the bolding?
Oh well, it looks like briefly now has the Greens to hang his/her obsessive hatred on ➡ won’t have the time to kick Rudd with Bob Brown in the sights…
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1357691/Greens-want-tougher-tax
Afternoon all. I would have thought that Rudd neither completely failed nor completely succeeded. He was not a complete failure as PM. He was not a complete success as PM.
Just a bit of both.
[can we negotiate on the bolding?]
No. Way.
STOP THE STOPPING!!!!
feeney,
It seems to me the anti Rudders are the ones that are forever trying to justify the unjustifiable. They’re always venting their venomous views about his alleged short comings. Must be some deep seated psycholological recovery process to absolve them from their dark thoughts and darker actions.
[John Howard got awarded the Presedential Medal of Freedom from George W. Bush]
STOP THE BOASTS
Insiders was a bit like Rudd and the curate’s egg this morning. Lenore Taylor was in excellent form. Stutchbury was running the standard OO/Coalition line. How suprisement. Corey(?) was a bit of a mixed bag. Cassidy reads his prepared questions and occasionally returns to his prepared questions if they are ignored completely the first time. But Cassidy is not very quick on his feet so his follow-up questions are B Grade.
I am still waiting for a competent journo to participate in the following scenario:
Turnbull, ‘Labor has still not done a cost benefit assessment of the NBN!’
Journalist, ‘Oh, that must be bad. BTW, has the Liberal Party done a cost benefit assessment of its $10 billion back of the envelope MDB strategy yet?’
smh re Insiders interview
[Mr Pyne said it was only human nature that the Liberal-Nationals were disappointed they didn’t win, but it was time to give voters a palatable alternative option.
“We could at any time form a government though by-elections or through independents changing their mind,” he told ABC TV on Sunday.]
They’re still hoping for the indies to change their minds!
Indeed, talking about potkettling, has anyone seen a cost benefit analysis of the Coalition’s proposed $6 billion spend on the NBN?
[We are a small country and easily ignored]
Diog, there are 180-odd countries in the world and, in terms of GDP, Australia ranks at about 12th, I think. We are not a superpower, but neither are we a ‘small country’.
Yes, the answer to the universe really is 42
It’s The Indy. It’s Sunday. The news is all about the Pope, the LibDem conference, new cricket betting allegations & the Casey Afflick/ Joaquin Phoenix leg-pull. So yes, “42” is dated Friday, 8 November 1996; but it’s a Hitch Hiker Tragics’ icon! 😆 And it still rates as The Indy’s 2nd most viewed article (after Rupert Cornwell’s Has America gone mad? Extreme right-wingers who, ordinarily, would not get elected to the PTA are winning as the country goes into one of its periodic fits of political insanity
And the answer to that one is an affirmative 42!
Of course we are big.
We are the world’s biggest exporter of coal are we not? And that turns into atmospheric CO2 does it not?
Hello, just stopping by quickly! I’m not sure if you’ve all seen this:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/why-the-coalition-is-a-better-stronger-alternative-20100918-15h3z.html
But it seems to be that “we wuz robbed” is precisely how Mr. Abbott is reacting.
[…has anyone seen a cost benefit analysis of the Coalition’s proposed $6 billion spend on the NBN]
Yes. It concludes: “you get what you pay for”
george
Is there really one or are you spoofing?
george,
The Press release changed that to “And they all lived happily ever after”.
Boerwar, see GG @ 1735 😉
Abbott should be asked to explain what the Coalition policy is on the future for walruses:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/13/walrus-haul-out-alaska
Boat Walruses is all we need.
g
I was afraid of that. My point remains. If the Opposition are chanting cost/benefit analyses, where are all their cost/benefit analyses? Why isn’t the fourth estate putting the question. Sauce for the gander.
Malcolm Turnbull on The Drum
[ I don’t want to labour the politics of this, but we are dealing with a Government that has already wasted billions of dollars incompetently and dangerously installing pink batts in roofs not to speak of massively overpaying for fairly basic school hall buildings.]
His subject is the NBN, but he is reiterating the tired argumnent that pink batts are useless and dangerous. The electrical incidents, as far as I recall, were mostly in Qld and concerned metal staples and foil insulation. I give up. Why does no-one contradict?
GG
I await a bold one line fourteen point detailed Coalition policy announcement from Finns on his area of expertise – marine pinnipeds.
Thanks Zilm, the unhinged one has just churned out the same old speech, rearranged it, added a few words, taken some out and we are left with the same tired argument he has been trolling for months. Even his writers are too bloody lazy to change the tune.
I do despise the idiot.
lizzie
Turnbull is just another falisfyer. Being from the financial industry he sounds a bit of a smoothie. Since billions were not spent on pink batts it is impossible for billions to have been wasted on them.
Turnbull is just doing liar, liar pants on fire team time, before he has a go at sinking the proverbial into Abbott’s back. Abbott knows it. The Abbott team know it. We know it.
[We are a small country and easily ignored]
Only if our leaders let it be. And that often involves the connivance of the MSM – which managed to suppress mention of Rudd’s & Wong’s tireless efforts at Copenhagen. Luckily, those of us who read OS newspapers managed to discover the truth and add it to blog posts.
Or our leaders become laughing stocks for trying to get included the MSM “happy snaps” with any sporting medalist, but give our Nobel Laureates & “intellectual” performers the Big Ignore (luckily, Rudd didn’t) and cut funding to the very universities & research Institutes which produce our top performers.
Or we let the MSM concentrate only on the very small minority of poor hospitals while constantly ignoring their world-beater achievements.
Or if those of our wannabe leaders trying like crazy to convince the nation & the rest of the world our achievements (like beating the GFC) are really monumental “Debt! Debt!” minuses, succeed in their Mission of Deceit.
[I was afraid of that. My point remains. If the Opposition are chanting cost/benefit analyses, where are all their cost/benefit analyses? Why isn’t the fourth estate putting the question. Sauce for the gander.]
Totally agree, and a dead simple question to be asked by any journo. If they were stupid enough to do one (and as Poss says in his post, “rubbish in = rubbish out”), the assumptions used to reach the (obviously positive) conclusion would be laughable.
Boerwar
[Turnbull is just doing liar, liar pants on fire team time, before he has a go at sinking the proverbial into Abbott’s back. Abbott knows it. The Abbott team know it. We know it.]
Yes, and that’s another thing. I’m tired of Coal pollies always talking about Labor as if they were liars, and using other derogatory words all the time. An old saying
“The faults you see in others are your own.”
And never was it truer than in Abbott’s team.
[Malcolm Turnbull on The Drum]
Lizzie – did Turnbull get any comments on that article re the positives of the BER and insulation? Is it a new article or the one he wrote the other day?
[#1740,,,Malcolm Turnbull on The Drum
I don’t want to labour the politics of this..but I will.]
A Q’land company has admitted guilt, not training their staff and in particular that sad case of the young man who was electrocuted. Yet Turnballs still insinuates the blame is on the Government. It is time for the Govt to talk of legal action against opposition members re these accusations, it’s sick.
BH
No, nothing that I can see to counteract the usual rubbish. I think he wrote it on the 17th following smh editorial counteracting the article there. He took offence and went into print on The Drum.
He’s certainly putting himself about at the moment, isn’t he!
I am glad that Ted Baileu is tackling the big issues here in Victoria. First it was banning the bong, and now this…….
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/baillieu-pledges-to-act-on-rogue-puppy-factories-20100918-15hac.html
Banning rogue pauppy factories (his only mention in the paper)