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.
Boerwar
Apparently according to the AFP if the treasurer leaked this information, it was not a criminal offence because he is authorised to do so. If Treasury leaked this, it would be a criminal offence. To be honest, I am confused.
lizzie
Labor had better make sure that there is an offshore processing place in operation at the time of the next election, that there is a railway under construction between Epping and Parramatta, and that the NBN costings have not blown out over the next three years.
Boerwar
I suppose that depends how soon the elction is, doesn’t it?
Good luck to the ALP and all who sail in her…
victoria
The interesting bit is that Ministers and their staffs routinely deliberately leak Government information. It is a normal part of spin cycle management.
The issue here is that the information, while accessible to the Minister and his office, was not quite ‘Government’ information but Opposition information.
If Swan or his minions leaked it, then they probably not broken any laws. But they would certainly have bastardized democracy. I don’t know who leaked it.
There is always the possibility that the Coalition leaked it to create a ‘reason’ not to go to Treasury with their costings. Their involvement with Grech shows they have no compunction about playing the leaking game for party political purposes.
victoria
It seems that if the leaker were someone who shouldn’t have had access to the documents, it was criminal. Treasurer and high Treasury officals – not criminal.
Robb’s argument is still ridiculous “The person who let the public know that our figures were flakey lost us the election”
lizzie
It does. I was thinking three years when I wrote that post.
[that the NBN costings have not blown out over the next three years.]
No one will care about costings blow-outs. The key thing is how much of the NBN has actually been rolled-out.
I’d be a bit surprised if the Epping to Paramatta rail link isn’t quietly dropped.
Leaks – OTOH didn’t someone say that it might have been the “auditors”?
“Robb makes me sad
I think he is in denial severely”
apparently he suffers from depression per MSN , so i dont understand why he stays in such a depressing job And that 11 bilion black hole exposed wouldn’t improve his feeling
I see ‘ABC bias’ was getting a good run here again today. Once you imagine a bogey man in the dark, he just keeps getting bigger. There is fundamental confusion between being cash-strapped in some areas due to expansion – leading to short-cuts and errors, and real conscious partisan bias favouring one party (as seen in News Ltd).
Bias is obvious in News publications; but not so in the ABC. The only responses I got last night to my call for evidence were lines like ‘look at the board and join the dots’ and ‘there is a general vibe of bias’.
Why is the ABC staff association saying nothing? You think they’d remain silent if there had been any suggestion of pressure on management to have reporters and producers skew news and CA in favour of the Libs?
But the real clincher is that both major parties’ supporters accuse the ABC of bias. This shows perception is in the eye of the biased beholder.
Boerwar
Yes, I know you were. I was being provocative.
Boerwar
My take on it is that the costings were found to be well and truly dodgy. The coalition should be embarrassed about that alone. Based on this, it would appear that the coalition either wanted to use the excuse of a leak to avoid scrutiny, or that the ALP knew the costings were bad, and wanted to garner some attention towards it. They both had motive.
Ultimately, it was proved that the coalition was incompetent in this area, and should really just be quiet about it. But no, Mr Robb has gone on a rant. I don’t know how much skin in the game, the media have with this story. Doesn’t seem to be rating all that much attention.
vik
Beg to differ. Cost blow outs fit into one of Abbott’s most effective modes of attack.
lizzie
Success. I was provoked.
jv
I agree with you on one point. Both ‘sides’ seem to flare up on bias. But I think the Right flares up more on ‘who wrote it’ and the Left on the actual content.
(Ducks for cover)
You got my response. Did you find out anything more about that?
Well — I just realised where Robb found his sliminess … Julia Whateverhisnameis from the Menzies Institute has obviously been coaching him along with Graham Sleazeball.
The same style of bald-faced lies, to a word. He even has a pro-Lib commentator like Van Onselen bagging hi for his spin.
Itep
It would be a huge gift to Abbott to drop that railway. Merely promising it caused a wave of utter cynicism in this campaign. Next campaign: if there is no railway, then no promise by Gillard is going to hold water.
If I was Gillard I would make absolutely certain that railway construction was well on the way in three years time.
I thought I saw something that indicated that Kenneally is working hard to have the contracts signed before March 2011.
the most important news in Melbourne today, is the Collingwood/Geelong game tonight.
If Collingwood get up, this city is going to lose its collective mind!!
[It is a issue that has always interested me as I have often wondered what the effect would be if voting in Australia remained 2pp but was non complusory. Advantage Labor/Greens or Libs?]
Compulsory voting was introduced by a right-wing (Nationalist Party) government, and I would assume they did it because they felt they would gain an electoral advantage over the ALP.
Aguirre@217
Yes, I did see your response – thanks – but haven’t seen anything more on it.
victoria
I am a conflicted couch potato tonight.
The other thing I have no information on is the composition of the impending Climate Committee. I saw Garnaut’s name mentioned in a media report as a possibility (which is encouraging), but haven’t heard anything else. Anyone got any pointers yet on who will be on it? I wonder will it get terms of reference and a timeframe for reporting.
*off to billiards*
All Robb is doing here is attempting to shackle one idea to another, so that when anyone reads or hears “11B black hole” they also think “Treasury leak”. There’s nothing more sophisticated to it than that.
If it comes off – as it probably will – then lazy thinking will do all his work for him.
[Gixxer Man
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.]
I agree with William. She was proved right.
So where’s your comment on Abbott? After all, what did he say on election night? And how did members of his Coalition act, also on Election night? And afterwards, especially towards the Independents?
Come on! Have the courage of your convictions.
We expect you to comment on just how foolish Abbott and the Coalition were, not only on election night, but pretty close to every day after.
[vik
Beg to differ. Cost blow outs fit into one of Abbott’s most effective modes of attack.]
But if a government project is actually in-operation, then the general public doesn’t care anymore about the costs.
An example is the Epping to Chatswood rail link here in Sydney. This suffered a cost blow-out from $1.4 bn to $2.3 bn, but because the rail link is up & running and people are using it daily, the costs have disappeared as an election issue. The state opposition never mentions the costs blowout because it knows it won’t gain any traction on this issue.
The Dr is briefly in before her Friday jaunt to the local
[I’d be a bit surprised if the Epping to Paramatta rail link isn’t quietly dropped.]
My bet is that they will build it if the NSW State Government still lets them get on with the job after the next State election, itep.
[Labor had better make sure that there is an offshore processing place in operation at the time of the next election, that there is a railway under construction between Epping and Parramatta, and that the NBN costings have not blown out over the next three years]
Good call Boerwar. Those three things are essential.
And if they are all in place, Labor should be in a very good position to win.
ltep@208
As usual ltep, you will be wRONg 🙂 It will go ahead as Gillard says. O’Barrell may (try to ?) renege on his side after he is elected, but Gillard will do as she said she would.
You are coming along very nicely as a reliable contrary indicator.
I just hope you do not act, financially on your *calls*.
vik
IMHO, Abbott wrought terrible damage on Labor with a few simple memes: ‘waste’ was one of them. I suggest that he managed to conflate a cost blow out with ‘waste’ in the last campaign. Nor does he need the cost blow out figures. The crap figure of $8 billion for BER waste was frequently used during the campaign but was never challenged by Labor. The difficulty for Labor was that it had only three counters:
(1) there was no waste or blow out. (Patently, false)
(2) there was not $8 billion of waste.
(3) there was only a ‘little bit’ of waste.
No matter where they went, Labor was buggered on the waste issue.
There had better be no cost blow outs on the NBN because it will feed directly into the meme of an incompetent, wasteful Government. People are predisposed to believe this story.
[No one will care about costings blow-outs. The key thing is how much of the NBN has actually been rolled-out.]
Don’t be so sure, Vik. Jennifer Hewitt on Sky today was very, very grumpy. She is not happy about a Labor minority Govt. and virtually said that any waste in the NBN will show up before long and she’ll be right on to it. In fact, if the BER is anything to go by the OO will be trying to invent disaster anyway.
I have never seen her more grumpy or acerbic about anything the other panellists said which turned out to be even slightly complimentary to Labor. Tim Costello and Gerard Henderson were reasonable. Jane Capon was her usual passive/aggressive self.
The Murdochcracy agenda was writ plain in every word and look from Jennifer Hewitt. We are in for a torrid time.
Rob Oakeshott got another working over from PVO’s panel on The Contrarians. Tim Wilson is one very nasty character and Julian L? from Kooyong is the usual windup Lib talking doll. No matter what you just can’t shut them up. I really should organise my cooking routine around some other programs I think.
[ANDREW ROBB: There is no doubt that public opinion of our costings process was materially influenced by this piece of deception and dishonesty by the Treasurer. By leaking this document and then not claiming responsibility for it, he has left a cloud over both his own Treasury and our own motives for questioning this process.
Our actions have been totally vindicated now by this action which is unbefitting of the office of the deputy prime minister.]
Is there enough in this for Swan to give Robb the same treatment (threat of legal action) as Rudd gave to Dolly?
There is a rather scurrilous assertion in the above quote in the public domain.
Victoria we in Boganvillia will feel the same way if the Colliewobbles win
If you go to the front page of the ABC blog ‘Unleashed’ right now you will see two stories by the same think tank – the Institute of Public Affairs.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/
About one-third of the way down from the top of the page, a piece by Chris Berg: “No new paradigm”.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s3011148.htm
About two-thirds the way down the page, one by Tom Switzer: “Global climate agreement not ‘inevitable'”
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s3013677.htm
I’d be fascinated to hear the explanation of how a supposedly independent blog can have TWO different articles by two different authors from the same think tank on the front page at the same time. (Some weeks back when I did a random check of the blog the situation was even more glaring – there were THREE articles by different IPA darleks simultaneously on the front page).
And a note on this so-called Institute of Public Affairs. From sourcewatch.org (my emhapsis):
[The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) is a right-wing, corporate funded think tank based in Melbourne. It has close links to the Liberal Party of Australia, with its Executive Director John Roskam having run for Liberal Party preselection for a number of elections. Following the 2007 federal election defeat for the Liberal Party, The Australian’s journalist Christian Kerr noted that a new group of federal Liberal politicians were “receiving support from former Howard government staffer John Roskam” at the IPA.]
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs
This is the think tank that dominates opinion/propaganda slots at the blog. A think tank closely associated with the Liberal Party. But of course there is no partisan bias at the ABC, right, jaundiced, ltep? It’s all in everybody’s imagination. 😀
Is Boganvillia where the Aussie flagatariat live?
Amigos where are you?
The line of questioning for the journos should be very simple:
Journo: Andrew Robb, was there an error in the Liberal’s costings?
AR: No
Journo: So what’s the problem with your costings having been leaked? If there was no error and you were happy for the costings to be revealed anyway, what damage has the leak done other than bring forward scrutiny to your calculation and assumption?
AR: Mummy….
[An example is the Epping to Chatswood rail link here in Sydney. ]
Gee, I wish that had been there when I started at Macquarie U in 1970!
[Don’t be so sure, Vik. Jennifer Hewitt on Sky today was very, very grumpy. She is not happy about a Labor minority Govt. and virtually said that any waste in the NBN will show up before long and she’ll be right on to it. In fact, if the BER is anything to go by the OO will be trying to invent disaster anyway.]
BH
I also noticed how much of a sourpuss she was today. Not a nice look.
george, I like your style.
Cuppa, I’ve been sending emails to Jon Fayne for years about the IPA. He keeps saying it’s all about “balance” and he’s happy to consider someone else from the “centre-right” to have on his talkback show. Every time I’ve offered another name, he has either an issue over their geographic location or that he thinks they are not to the right politically.
Itep
there is practical benefits in that rail line , and Julia promised it w/o quals
So there’s also politcal damage now to he who does not do so given her clearness
van Onselen is having a good time destroying the Menzies Institute mouthpiece on The Contrarians
BTW Jane Capon? on Sky was praising Labor for its handling of the economy and bagging Abbott’s costings debacle.
Hewitt tried to intervene and say Labor was no good but Jane kept on while Hewitt looked as tho she would like to ‘job’ her. I enjoyed that bit.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/17/3015112.htm?section=justin
[A company has been fined over the death of a teenage employee who was electrocuted while installing home insulation in central Queensland.
Rueben Barnes, 16, died in the accident near Rockhampton in November last year.
Christopher and Richard Jackson from Arrow Property Maintenance pleaded guilty to charges heard in a Rockhampton court earlier this week.
This afternoon, a Magistrate imposed a $110,000 fine for breaching electrical safety laws and a further $25,000 for breaches of the Workplace Health and Safety Act.]
Even if the western Sydney rail line goes ahead (and I agree that it is vital politically that it does) don’t expect to see much actually happening on the ground in 3 years. There will have been lots spent by that stage but construction work will have just commenced.
Talking about ‘unhinged’ I think poor ol’ Bob Ellis is becoming so.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s3014203.htm