Some scattered thoughts on the Victorian election:
• Hats off to Peter Brent of Mumble. His pre-campaign post of October 21 was outstanding in its prescience, and his post-mortem from yesterday said it all in 278 words. I am particularly keen on the idea that the late swing to the Coalition was not so much a reaction to campaign events as something that was always going to happen when minds became focused. This happened uncommonly late in the piece due to the national politics fatigue which has inspired Possum to write off the significance of any federal polling conducted before the new year.
• This is not to say that Labor didn’t make errors, and that the attack ads on Ted Baillieu’s real estate undertakings weren’t among them. Indeed, it may even have been enough to push them over the edge. The Roy Morgan Reactor “worm” responses to various party ads are instructive: the Baillieu Knight Frank ad was easily the most poorly received. The Liberals’ positive ads also went down a lot better than Labor’s, another symptom of the inherent difficulties faced by an ageing government. I suspect the Liberals did very well out of the message that voters should avoid signing on for 15 years of Labor government, which doubtless tapped into awareness of the situation north of the border.
• The debacle for the Greens ran deeper than a simple failure to win lower seats which might be blamed on Liberal preferences. Their 10.6 per cent primary vote was 2.1 per cent lower than at the federal election, and they seem likely to lose one of their three seats in the upper house. My guess is that extravagant claims for their place in a new paradigm lost them support they would normally get from voters who are indifferent to them ideologically, but simply seeking somewhere to park a protest vote. Compounding this was the Liberals’ preference decision, which as well as being damaging in purely instrumental terms reinforced perceptions of a party with a hard ideological edge. It would also have had many questioning their competence, and there was no figure in the state party of Bob Brown’s authority to help negate the idea.
• The election provided a further blow to new paradigm talk by producing the state or federal election result since 1993 in which no independent or minor party candidates won election to the lower house. The defeat of the Assembly’s sole independent, Craig Ingram in Gippsland East, would be troubling news for Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, with Ingram citing locals’ desire to avoid a repeat of the federal election aftermath as a reason for the fatal 14.1 per cent drop in his primary vote.
• Here’s a colour-coded map giving an idea of the swings recorded across Victoria. Labor-versus-Coalition figures in Mildura, Gippsland East and the four inner-city seats have been obtained by using preference flows from the last election. Apart from Labor’s relatively strong performance in the north and north-west of the state, nothing particularly stands out. Sophomore surges are evident in Ferntree Gully, Kilsyth, Hastings, Evelyn and especially Morwell, which Labor were surprised to lose in 2006 and are now locked out by an impressive 15 per cent margin for Nationals member Russell Northe. This is part of an ongoing story of Labor decay in the Latrobe Valley which has been evident at state and federal level over the past five years in particular. Retiring member effects explain the slight swing to Labor in Murray Valley, and perhaps also the heavy swing against them in Essendon. I wouldn’t read too much into the swing to Labor in Mildura, where comparisons are complicated by the fact that there was a sitting independent last time, which may have corrupted my preference calculation.
Sorry, it’s early morning and i’m not awake!
Still, I don’t see that that confirms deblonay’s point. I think any seat (given the swing against the government) would show much the same profile.
After all, the results from this election are comparable (in terms of seats won) to ’99, and Labor saw swings to it in the subsequent two elections.
So this doesn’t prove deblonay’s point, but simply that there was a metropolitan swing against the party across most seats.
Some of those in the safest Lib seats already questioning Ballieu’s policies:
http://www.bordermail.com.au/news/local/news/general/fire-victims-wary-of-baillieus-buyback/2014365.aspx
The Nationals snaffle the Water Ministry
[
THE Nationals will get the crucial water portfolio in Victoria’s new cabinet, and Premier Ted Baillieu will become arts minister.
The Age believes Nationals deputy leader Peter Walsh will be sworn in today as water minister, with Liberal deputy leader Louise Asher missing out.
This is a U-turn by Mr Baillieu, who before the election repeatedly indicated Ms Asher and Mr Walsh would share the sensitive portfolio in government, as they did in opposition.
Mr Walsh, the member for Swan Hill and a former head of the Victorian Farmers Federation, will have responsibility for ”shutting down” Labor’s $750 million north-south pipeline and exposing previously confidential contract details for the $5.7 billion desalination plant.
]
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/state-election-2010/nationals-snatch-water-ministry-20101201-18gmy.html
I wonder whether he will also ‘shut down’ the irrigation upgrades which Melbourne Water financed in return for access to the pipeline?
Surely this means that MW can ask for its money back.
[
While he has said he will shut down the north-south pipeline, yesterday he promised to keep it in working order in case it was needed in an emergency. ”It’s basically at the moment a hose that is sitting there to fill a bucket that’s already full,” Mr Baillieu said.
]
Is there any water flowing through the pipeline at the moment? If the Libs plan on maintaining it for possible future use, then how is it being “shut down”?
I’m back after a few days of “catching up” on paperwork and kids’ stuff!
Interestingly I was talking to a relative from the Riverina who came over to Victoria on election day to hand out HTV cards in a Northern Victorian town. They said that the person next to them was from the “Country Alliance” (they had not heard of them pre-election, living in NSW and all). This Country Alliance person just said to every approaching voter “We’re putting the Greens last!” and attracted the most attention of all the HTV people, with many making a bee-line to them on hearing these words! My relative’s party was also putting the Greens last I think, but clearly not making such a song and dance about it!
The Greens spent most of their energy in this campaign on the ultimately fruitless task of winning four inner-Melbourne Lower House seats from Labor (which would not have prevented a Coalition government) – at the expense (money and publicity-wise) of their campaign for the Upper House. And so they have most likely lost a seat in the Upper House, which I am stunned at – I predicted they would fairly easily get the 5 (one in each metro region) no matter who won the election for government in the Lower House.
The Australian Democrats foundered after spending lots of resources on chasing a Lower House presence, and then fighting bitter internal battles over policy and leadership once Don Chipp retired. Are the Greens about to follow a similar path? When Bob Brown retires they will be torn between the “Old Guard” environmentalists who founded the party, and the “New Guard” with a specific social agenda. The latter group appear to believe that same-sex marriage is a more major problem confronting Australia and the world than Global Warming, so if they wrest control of the party I think the “environmentalists” may be just a bit upset.
madcyril
when you don’t have any possible need for the water, you shut the pipeline down.
When you need the water, you reopen it.
Brilliant, really!
zoomster, yes that’s what I was thinking. Stop the Baillieu spin!
I just hope that some of those Ryan quotes in support of the Pipeline have been captured on film for posterity.
When they “shut it down” I hope they leave the 13,000 Megalitres currently sitting in the pipeline there, rather than letting it run dry. It is currently the only “evaporation proof” reservoir in Victoria.
One interesting thought. Given that the Victorian water projects (both the pipeline and the desal plant) actually appear to have been heavily “departmentally driven”, and accepted by the previous government on this basis despite the potential for political backlash, one might assume that this is an area where Baiilieu is likely to find himself facing some substantial “bureaucratic opposition” in the early days of government at least.
860 Rod
I always wondered about the possibility of it being able to be used as an emergency mega-source of water in bushfires near the area it runs though. I know there are numerous technical problems with this, but a few gigalitres spraying out on Black Saturday would not have gone astray!
It’s pouring with rain, the weeds are taking over my patch, the Libs are in power. An ex-VFF chief is water minister. I’m feeling very low this morning.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/blogs/the-dreyfus-files/abbotts-song-sheet-on-carbon/20101202-18gzb.html
[obviously someone in Tony Abbott’s office forgot to send the new Premier the “Wreck-It” song sheet from which the rest of the opposition is apparently now forced to sing. The Victorian Liberals do not support the Abbott position that climate science “is absolute crap”. Nor do they support his rejection of a carbon price. Instead, the Victorian Coalition, at least in this area, is reflecting the strong support of the people of Victoria, and the support of Victorian industry and business, for action on climate change, including a carbon price.
And quite properly the government of Premier-elect Ted Baillieu is signalling its willingness to work with the Prime Minister and Greg Combet to deliver strong and effective emissions reductions in Victoria by introducing a carbon price in the Australian economy. What neither the state nor the federal government supports is a hugely expensive, taxpayer funded, and ineffective “direct action” scheme.]
Zoomster at 851:
[ So this doesn’t prove deblonay’s point, but simply that there was a metropolitan swing against the party across most seats. ]
Exactly – at this election. The main story in Footscray was the last two elections, where Labor lost a massive chunk of their vote to left-wing candidates and haven’t got it back. Note how Labor got a 7.3% swing to them in 2002, despite an 8.3% swing against them on primaries – that doesn’t happen every day. The combined left-wing vote went up (due to the Liberal disaster), but Labor’s share of it went way down. In 2006, they lost another 6.8% but their 2pp vote barely moved. 2010 is where the Liberals got their 1999 voters back, hence the further primary swing against Labor about the same size as the 2pp one.
Now there’s an interesting question… barring complications caused by redistributions (eg: the two Narre Warren seats), how many seats were won by different parties at the 1999 and 2010 elections? There’s the three independent seats, Morwell, Narracan, Seymour, Carrum and Mitcham which are all Lib/Nat this time; on the other side, Monbulk and a few in the south-eastern suburbs (Cranbourne, Narre N and S) that were Liberal last time but Labor now. Any others? There can’t be that many.
B of p
not arguing with that, just deblonay’s original premise that the rail link debacle cost the election.
There’s no evidence to support this in the Footscray vote.
I’m not saying it helped, but more that it fed into the general feeling that the Govt was out of touch yadayada (and which all govts finally get labelled as, as more and more people don’t get exactly what they want).
B o p
You’re missing the by election seats – Benalla and Burwood.
I see various media agencies are reporting that Australia’s first Indigenous party will be launched early next year. What side of politics will they inhabit?
There have been various attempts to get an indigenous party up before, Firstname lastname. If the same people are involved it will be a party of the left.
[ You’re missing the by election seats – Benalla and Burwood. ]
Yeah, I skipped them due them being Lib/Nat after the 1999 election. Frankston East is a bit of a head-scratcher… what happened to it? Probably just put it into the ‘outer south-eastern’ pile, I guess. Obviously Labor are doing better around there than in 1999, for whatever reason.
[There have been various attempts to get an indigenous party up before, Firstname lastname. If the same people are involved it will be a party of the left.]
Rod, do you think this will have any implications on the Green’s vote?
The Baillieu Ministry, some of the appointments include
[
David Davis – health minister; and ageing minister;
Louise Asher – tourism and major events; and innovation, services and small business minister;
Robert Clark – attorney-general and finance minister;
Matthew Guy – planning
Martin Dixon – education
Andrew McIntosh – corrections; crime prevention; minister responsible for establishing the new anti-corruption commission;
Terry Mulder – roads; public transport;
Wendy Lovell – housing; children and early childhood development
Richard Dalla-Riva – employment and industrial relations;
Hugh Delahunty – sport and recreation; veterans’ affairs;
Peter Hall – higher education and skills; minister responsible for the teaching profession;
Dennis Napthine – ports, regional cities, racing and major projects
Michael O’Brien – gaming; consumer affairs; energy and resources;
Jeanette Powell – local govt; aboriginal affairs
Gordon Rich-Phillips – assistant treasurer; technology; aviation industry;
Ryan Smith – environment and climate change; youth affairs
Peter Walsh – agriculture and food security, water
Kim Wells – treasurer
Mary Wooldridge – mental health; womens affairs; community services
Nicholas Kotsiras – multicultural affairs and citizenship
]
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/special-reports/premier-ted-baillieus-cabinet-appointments-ready-for-power/story-fn5kmqy2-1225964119796
[Rod, do you think this will have any implications on the Green’s vote?]
Possibly a little in terms of first pref votes, George. The Greens have quite often stood Indigenous candidates in the seats where the new party is likely to be of influence.
If the same people who are behind it are involved this time, though, some of the Greens candidates may well actually stand for them. I’d expect the new party to be most likely to preference The Greens , and then Labor.
[who are behind it are involved]
should have read
[who were behind the last attempt to get the “First Nations” party up are involved]
In the recent election Labor won 21 seats in the L.A on Green prefs.
It won 4 on Liberal prefs(including the once blue-ribbon seat of Footscray.
That leaves just 18 seats won outright…a far cry from the splendid showing in the Federal Election… The Labor primary vote statewide was lower than even in the long years of the DLP’s existence.
There’s are the facts Frank,and shouting” Green Cultist” won’t solve any problems!!
I recall the day of the Footscray rail debacle and it was the ONLY story on the media that day. As the Libs had been pushing the rail issue it was manna from heaven for them!
Oddly Bracks and Brumby did wonders for country rail..and services there are excellent.
I attended the opening of the Maryborough service in August and Joe Helper was widely praised and it hel[ed him to hold his seat for sure.
Kennett by contrast seemed to hate country rail and closed many lines,a fatal error..
Independents won or held in East Gippsland and South Gippsland in 1999 when Labor promised to reopen the lines to Bairnsdale and South Gippsland and it also promised to
reopen the Ararat and Maryborough lines and then won Ripon… …even one of the seats Kennett lost,if held by him,would have kept him in power.
If you have trouble with this Frank just get a map of Victoria !!
The failure of Brumby to take back the franchises in city rail. cost him dearly
Odd that Brumby and Kennett both lost on the rail issue.It gives the phrase “railroaded” a new meaning.
Re 856 on Greens in the Upper House – they have actually increased their vote on by about 9-10% over their 2006 result. that’s the way the system goes. You could argue that they were lucky to get the third seat in 2006.
In a statewide system for the Upper House like NSW they would probably get 4 or 5 seats.
[deblonay
Posted Thursday, December 2, 2010 at 3:40 pm | Permalink
In the recent election Labor won 21 seats in the L.A on Green prefs.
It won 4 on Liberal prefs(including the once blue-ribbon seat of Footscray.
That leaves just 18 seats won outright…a far cry from the splendid showing in the Federal Election… The Labor primary vote statewide was lower than even in the long years of the DLP’s existence.
There’s are the facts Frank,and shouting” Green Cultist” won’t solve any problems!!
If you have trouble with this Frank just get a map of Victoria !!
]
Blah Blah blah – The Green Cultist is still sputing bullsghit even after beuing shown up by both BoP AND Zoomster.
Stick to reading fairytales.
Frank 878
You seem to be unable to cope with the truth,and statistics which unsettle your fantasy view of Victorian politics.!
and Frank..try to write a piece without “Green Cultist” in the sentence.!
…and “Bullshit”doesn’t have a ‘g’ in it…at least not here in Melbourne.
I think you may have been reading too many of Ron’s strange postings ,and it’s having an effect on your spelling !!
In an expected turn around latest count data has the Greens 120 votes ahead of Stephen Mayne’s Group C.
Corporate Australia sighs a sigh of relief as Mayne faces defeat for the n’th time.
–
SNIP: Obsessive-compulsive reiteration of stupid, petty non-observation for umpteenth time deleted for protection of readers, some of whom may be operating heavy machinery – The Management.
With Mayne out of contention the Liberal Party are likely to be the victor in the race to the last opposition against ALPs Nathan Murphy. Liberal , Craig Ondarche is currently 6,800 votes ahead of Murphy with an estimated 40,000 votes to go the ALP would have to pick the Lyon’s share of votes outstanding to be in contention. Some say it is possible but the odds are against Murphy at this stage.
If the Liberal Party win the fifth Northern Metropolitan seat the LNP coalition will have an absolute majority on both houses.
SNIP: Link to poor quality website peppered with theft of intellectual property from myself and others deleted – The Management.
[onay
Posted Thursday, December 2, 2010 at 5:41 pm | Permalink
Frank 878
You seem to be unable to cope with the truth,and statistics which unsettle your fantasy view of Victorian politics.!
and Frank..try to write a piece without “Green Cultist” in the sentence.!
…and “Bullshit”doesn’t have a ‘g’ in it…at least not here in Melbourne.
I think you may have been reading too many of Ron’s strange postings ,and it’s having an effect on your spelling !!
]
You are a Greens Cultist pure and simple.
You got shown up EVERY time with your posts and byou are still spouting anti ALP Bullshit.
Deal with it.
Cut it out, Deblonay and Frank.
VEC just pulled the Northern Mtero results off line. They are doing a recheck. Why they ahd to take the data off line is anyones guess, Scruineers have requested a copy of teh reconsillaition report ahoing how many votes have been issed and how many returned to date. The VEC has failed to provide this information raising further doubt and questions as to the quaility of the Count. The AEC provided much more information as teh tally progressed. Taking the data off line whilst undergoing a recheck only servces to undermine confidence in the process.
Reports in say the VEC has refused to provide scrutineers with a copy of the reconciliation report and tabulation of the number of votes issues and received back. This information with the exception of some postal votes still in the mail should have been available on Sunday. (Unless they are still issuing ballot papers). Every coting centre should have submitted a declaration return and the results should have been tabulated well before now., The fact that the VEC is withholding this information undermines confidence in the process which is not open or transparent, If you do not know how many votes were issues then you have no idea how many are missing.
Simialar reports are comming in from Southern and Western Metropolitan Regions. VEC has failed to provide a Tally of the number of votes issued. This leaves scrutineers and the public left in the dark and the VEC open to allegations of vote rigging.
Thank you for alerting us to that, Anthony (van der Craats). Just in case you have other ideas, alerting us to it once will be quite enough, ta very very much.
bilbo
groundhog day?
VEC has removed all upper house tallies.
[Due to the close nature of the election, our focus at this time is on receiving postal vote declarations that may be admissible and opening and checking absent votes from around the State. In addition, we are checking provisional votes for admission to the count. Further, there are ballot materials still to be received from overseas issuing authorities.
As a result, the VEC is not as far advanced in the Upper House count as it had planned to be at this point in time.
Scrutinised rechecks of all voting centres are taking place in Region recheck centres. Once the rechecking process is completed, ballot papers marked below-the-line, will be transported to the VECs central count centre in the Victory Room at Etihad Stadium for data entry. Data entry will commence on Saturday 4 December.
The process and timetable for the Upper House counts and a more detailed plan is also available at http://www.vec.vic.gov.au/publications/publications-state.html.%5D
By tuning off the web results the VEC has raised serious questions related to transparency and openness. There is no justification for keeping the public in the dark it undermines confidence in our electoral process.
Its bad enough that the VEC has refused to make available to scrutineers access to the reconciliation report outlining the number of votes issued and returned to date. out to turn off the online reporting of the results because the count is close leaves the VEC open to allegations of manipulating the poll
For predictably ignoring #886 two comments later, I have shut down Anthony van der Craats’s “Quota Quokka” sock puppet.
The Pentagon loses millions of cables, the VEC lose their upper house votes and the NAB loses 60,000 transactions.
Must be the revenge of HAL.
[I’m doing a bit of sad refelction that so much of what I told John Brumby was going to hurt us when I met with him for just that purpose has come to pass and am thus more than ever determined to fight for the changes I was advocating.]
zoomster:
From what you’ve posted about your fight to get bans on cattle grazing in the Plains country onto ALP policy agenda, I imagine the new govt’s intention to reverse that will be difficult for you on a personal front.
Is it likely that this is one of those issues that flips depending on whether Labor or coalition are in govt, ie will Labor stick with it as their policy, or do you envisage having to fight hard to stop it being dropped?
So far Bailleau is doing practically everything right. This is worrying for the Labor Party in Victoria.
I heard Theo Theophanoeous on the radio blaming the Greens for the defeat.
It seems they as yet have not yet realised the mistakes made in the last three years.
More worrying for the Party is the lack of talent around.
I saw Bailleau showing compassion over Electricity prices, i have to ask myself this isn’t Labor meant to be the party of compassion.
Also worrying are the unions we now have two leaders who hardly get noticed and we have a union base which is dying.
The Labor Party i think at present are a bit of a mess.
Marky,
Spoken like the true Lib you are.
It is this attitude that was part of the reason we lost and if do not understand our failiings will never get back in government.
We introduced smart meters but no concession when we did it. Yep that was alot of sense.
Bailleau is not Kennett and the Libs have realised their mistakes they will i think be much harder for the Labor Party to tackle.
[ Greensborough Growler
Posted Thursday, December 2, 2010 at 7:42 pm | Permalink
Marky,
Spoken like the true Lib you are.
]
He’s either that, or a member of the Greens Cult – depends on the issue.
How can the ALP defend their record when they are busy trying to put out bushfires started by Greens who are more interested in targetting ALP seats, instead of targetting the real enemy in the Liberal Party.
Marky,
Written and authorised by your Ted Baillieu.
bilbo
mayne has mentioned PB on twitter
u iz hasz famousness
[MayneReport Some insightful comments on prospects in this thread: http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2010/11/28/victorian-election-photo-finishes/ ]
[marky marky
Posted Thursday, December 2, 2010 at 7:47 pm | Permalink
It is this attitude that was part of the reason we lost and if do not understand our failiings will never get back in government.
We introduced smart meters but no concession when we did it. Yep that was alot of sense.
Bailleau is not Kennett and the Libs have realised their mistakes they will i think be much harder for the Labor Party to tackle.
]
and neither was Colin Barnett not Richard Court, or John Howard Malcolm Fraser – and we all know what happened after THEY Got elected.
Instead of criticising the Greens ask why people are defecting to them and try to win them back. Hopefully some will come back when they see what Bailleau’ plans regaring the environment will be.
All i am doing is looking at the reality stop blaming others for the defeat, the Greens did not cause Labors loss, as they did not go anywhere on Saturday as well.
People voted against Labor in the outer suburbs and when people were asked about why the voted Liberal cost of living issues came up, public transport and Myki.
No doubt we kind of failed in certain areas.
Also if Bailleau plays his cards right, it could have federal implications as Labor has many Federal seats in Victoria.
marky,
Why don’t you get your Branch to send a letter of congratulations to Ted.
Better still, get him out to a meeting for a bit of a chat.
They’ll love that.