Victorian election minus nine days

Four fun facts:

• Roy Morgan has exposed itself to ridicule by not only publishing a phone poll of the four Labor-versus-Greens seats from a sample of just 276, but also purporting that meaningful conclusions can be drawn from the seat-by-seat breakdowns (“Greens set to win Inner Melbourne seats of Richmond & Northcote; Vote in Brunswick & Melbourne ‘too close to call’”). The best that can be done with the poll is to combine the results and compare them with the 2006 election, which shows the Greens up 17 points on the primary vote, Labor down 16 points and the Liberals up three, with a two-party swing to the Greens of 8 per cent – and even then a margin of error approaching 6 per cent must be taken into account. For what very little it’s worth, a uniform 8 per cent swing would deliver the Greens Melbourne, Richmond and Brunswick, but not quite Northcote. We aren’t told how preferences were allocated, but clearly it wasn’t on the basis of the last election – the Greens’ preference share has gone from 74 per cent to 41 per cent.

• SportingBet has the Liberals short-priced favourites to take Mount Waverley, Gembrook and Forest Hill, narrower favourites in Mitcham, South Barwon and Mordialloc, and even stevens in Frankston and Prahran. A little surprisingly, Labor are short-priced favourites to retain all seats reckoned to be under threat from the Greens. Taken together, this points to Labor winning a reasonably comfortable victory with between 49 and 51 seats out of 88.

• Antony Green’s upper house calculators are now open for business. Antony’s own experiments with various plausible scenarios have raised at least the possibility of boilovers in Eastern Victoria, where Family First, the Democratic Labor Party or (most likely) the Country Alliance might be a show, and Northern Metropolitan, where independent carers’ advocates have drawn first spot on the ballot paper and done well out of preferences.

• The Victorian Electoral Commission has upheld a complaint against Democratic Labor Party material purporting to provide instructions on how to vote “Labor for Northern Victoria”, but in doing so has ruled that the Australian Labor Party too is forbidden from identifying themselves simply as “Labor” on how-to-vote material.

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.

182 comments on “Victorian election minus nine days”

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  1. When a new party wants to be resigstered via the AEC they have to put advertisements in the newspapers to see if anybody objects to their name etc. Does anyone know when this new party started if the ALP objected to them using the name of the defunct (1978) DLP?

  2. It’s pretty outrageous that a party that’s been known as ‘Labor’ for more than 100 years cannot be called that in this election.

  3. Bob Brown calls for a fighting fund.

    [
    BOB Brown has written to Greens supporters around the country asking for donations to bolster his party’s campaign in inner-city Melbourne.

    The move comes after the Liberals’ preference deal made the Greens’ chances of winning close to impossible.

    In his letter, the Greens leader has evoked the recent success of federal Greens MP for Melbourne Adam Bandt, who won the previously safe Labor seat on the back of Liberal preferences.

    “The voters of Melbourne made history once before in electing Adam Bandt, and are just about to make history again in the Victorian election,” he writes.

    ]

    Then this

    [
    Senator Brown says he wants Greens supporters across Australia to stand up to those who will do whatever it takes to “lock us out of parliament”.
    ]

    The Libs decide to not preference the Greens and suddenly the poor Greens are being locked out of parliament. Someone pass me the tissues.

    The Greens seem to be suffering from a born to get preferences mentality.

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/victorian-election-2010/brown-calls-for-a-fighting-fund/story-fn6wlyrv-1225955219340

  6. Quit Crying

    If you want something, but are not willing to give anything back … you should not be surprise that you may not keep getting something

    Quite simply, Greens will always support the ALP in almost all parliaments, so for the Liberals, it does not matter what mix of Green/ALP MPs we have.

    If the Greens ever wants to get the Liberal preference again, they can start by talking split tickets or preference in the upper house

    There are no free lunches in the world … apart from parliament house … so stop crying

  7. 3. mad Cyril

    Yes, I got the email. I figure that the vic greens should be able to look after themselves, they’re big and popular enough.

    I’m a Green and if I wanted to be in a party born to get preferences I’d have joined the Australian Democrats.

    Parties and their voters are different creatures, so the election is looking interesting to see how preferences really flow. The Liberals prefering Labor is a fine and honest preference choice for them to make. Giving Bob Brown the benefit on any doubt, the “locking out” is probably a reference to the Put The Greens last Mantra. That and the suggestions around that the ALP do the same, do look like the start of an effort by some to combine the old parties against a common enemy. Bob is probably still smarting from the shrinking of the Tasmanian Parliament and that was a real lock-out effort. I don’t get the impression that would happen in Victoria. maybe the libs and greens will end up cooperating on improving public transport in victoria, once the campaign vitriol settles, lots of laborites on PB have complained for that the greens and libs were far too close, obviously they were wrong. Just complaing about scrutiny, I guess. 🙂

  9. 6:

    but Dovif, the siege mentality is great for campaign donations. 😀 The ALP and Liberals do the same, I’m sure. It was an “unexpected” change in the campaign dynamic and it requires compensating reenergising. All I’ve seen on this ‘blog from vic ALPers is streams of horrified comments that the greens vote with the liberals most of the time in the Parliament. Gee, I want to know what more the Liberals are getting from the ALP now, that they never got from the Greens?

  10. Disasterboy

    The Greens are a protest party, they get more votes when the government is on the nose, and they are instigating protests, that is why in NSW and Victoria, they votes with the Liberals a lot

    Voting against bad ALP policy does not do the Liberals much good

    The only way the Greens will get some Liberal votes preferencing them, should be if there are some reciprocated votes going back

  16. By Crickey, the old troops of the ALP seem unnaturally nervous re this poll. Morgan have shown that they are a bit loose with some of their stat analysis however, lets get it straight, it a small sample a dodgy, however it the best we have as yet and we have never seen an election where preferences have had such exposure. This could have interesting results re 27th,
    Another thing that has been ignored, understandably, is the role these preference deals.lack of, will play in 2014. If the Greens get just one up without preferences then its game on for 2014, another Federal election between, Brant a litmust test.
    ALP doing exceptionally well in the bookies ring, back to your lives citizens.

  18. Another Senifeld post from Barking. All about nothing. It’s amazing how the focus of our Greensters has moved from this coming election to the future. It’s as if they think have one.

  19. 10 Dovif
    fair enough, except I don’t get the impression that the Green vote grows just because the government is on the nose, unless all governments are on the nose! Which is an Australian tradition. 🙂

  20. Some Greens on Poll Bludger wanted the Greens to be included in the leaders debate and the forum at the Burvale. After Greg Barbers efforts over the last couple of weeks, if I were a Green I’d be pretty relieved he wasn’t able to get anywhere near the debates.

  22. 18 GG
    We’re in the Greens because we’re not sure any of us (humans) have a future. since we want to change that, where’s the thanks for our inclusive compassion? 😉 if we leave it up to the dinosaur parties like most of last century, its gonna get uglier.

  24. madcyril

    Most people I have seen today in the seats of Burwood, Forest Hill, Kilsyth and Bayswater seemed pretty happy, so obviously Labor is safe.

    – and hardly a mention of the Greens, though as you rightly pointed out, most of these areas are not really in the “Green Zone” so to speak!

  25. Disasterboy

    I think the greens are right, most human do not have a future, with overpopulation leading to too much CO2, so which continent do the greens want to eliminate first?

  27. 26

    Probably, yum, scrumpy. Are you buying?

    25

    we need the continents, its just the destructive technologies and conspicuous consumption, like scrumpy, we need to reduce. 🙂

  28. 26

    Probably. yum, scrumpy. Are you buying, I’ll cry into some?

    25

    We need the continents, its just the destructive technologies and conspicuous consumption, like scrumpy, we need to reduce. 🙂

  31. [
    its just the destructive technologies and conspicuous consumption, like scrumpy, we need to reduce
    ]

    I agree. We should start by banning all Apple products such as the Ipad and the Iphone. I’m sure the Greens and their inner city trendoid supporters won’t have a problem with that.

  32. Disasterboy

    But everytime you breath, you are releasing CO2 into the air, killing the plants, killing Earth for future generation and keeping he carbon in the air

    I say all the Greeens should come together and reduce this emition

    Alternatively have a ETS, everytime you breath, you pay a $1 in tax

  33. Rocket Rocket
    Posted Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 7:16 am | Permalink
    When a new party wants to be resigstered via the AEC they have to put advertisements in the newspapers to see if anybody objects to their name etc. Does anyone know when this new party started if the ALP objected to them using the name of the defunct (1978) DLP?

    The fact is that although most branches around Australia shut down the Victorian Branch never did.
    Many never accepted the vote there and the DLP have stood in every Federal Election and in all by one State election since forming.
    Parties did not have to register until 1984. Hence that date on all the older parties.
    In fact the DLP registered in Victoria before the ALP.

    As it was the ALP that broker away (and with the 1967 high court decision going the DLP’s Way) perhaps the ALP should not be able to call itself the ALP.

    Maybe their second choice the ASP (Australian Socialist Party) would be more suited.

  35. GG

    The Liberals policy is much better then that.

    Everyone who believe in Man make-Climate Change should help solve the problem by reducing their carbon emition to 0

    Once that happens, the world will be in equalibrium, and Climate Change would not be happening …. thereby proving that Climate Change is crap

  36. I think Labor should directly confront the spending/mismanagement ads. The state Libs have cleverly borrowed the idea from their fed counterparts, and we know how much of our gullible electors bought that one.

    Meanwhile, I think the Year 9 program is a winner. When I first heard about it I was dubious, but it does well to focus the election back on education. and feeds into the public schools should have what private schools have mindset

  40. GG

    I never said that, all I said was if you believe in something, you should do much more than just talk about it, and wait for others to do something

    Which is what you seem to here from the ALP and Greens

    Action speak louder than words, while most Greens and ALP seems like they want someone else to pay for it with no cost to themselves

  41. Rocket Rocket
    Posted Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 4:13 pm | Permalink
    dlpguy 33

    Like Democracy@Work, your version of reality and history is not quite there.

    I preferred the analysis of former DLP candidate Chris Curtis who has previously discussed this here.

    What part of fact dont you get Robert ?

    http://www.pwhce.org/dlp.html

  42. dovif,

    Fine sentiments about user pays. Shame you won’t pony up.

    Federal Labor is the only Party to try and legislate for carbon polluters to pay their fair share.

    As I recall, the Libs and the Greens did not support the legislation.

    Something about actions speaking louder than words.

  43. Geez GG – you have a lot of spare time on your hands. The Labor MP you work for obviously doesn’t have much work for you to do?

    Who was it again – Brooks, Herbert??

  46. [Bob Brown calls for a fighting fund.]
    According to this article so is Labor.
    [The Greens aren’t the only party going to the rank and file for financial assistance, with Labor asking supporters for ”as little as $10”.]
    http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/state-election-2010/greens-chase-more-campaign-cash-20101117-17xob.html

    [The Greens seem to be suffering from a born to get preferences mentality.]
    Is that the same as Labor always expects to snag the preference votes of Greens supporters?

    Given the preference deal Labor stitched up with Country Alliance, a party that was formed in 2006 with the purpose of “destroying the Greens”, Labor can no longer take for granted that my second preference will go to it. I bet there are a lot of other like-minded individuals out in voterland who feel the same.

    In ALP marginal electorates such as Forest Hill, Labor desperately needs the preferences of Greens voters to retain these seats.

    Yep, it is real smart to keep putting Greens voters off-side 😉

  47. Pegasus,

    You’re like the Green who came home and found his best friend in bed with his missus.

    Upset, he pulls out a gun and puts it to his head. Trigger cocked.

    His friend and his missus start laughing uncontrollably.

    The Green says, “Stop laughing, you’re next”.

  50. The IPA are a bunch of New Right sockpuppets, GG. Who gives a crap what they think?

    As for Burnside’s letter, I like Cr Jolly’s take (he’s not a Green, btw):

    [“Dick Wynne is doomed, and I’m much closer to the ground than most people,” the can-do Yarra councillor said, adding that local intelligence was suggesting the Liberal and ALP vote had collapsed.]

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