| # | % | Swing | 2PP (proj.) | Swing | |
| Ahmed (IND) | 1160 | 4.2% | |||
| Fenn (FFP) | 830 | 3.0% | |||
| Schorel-Hlavka (IND) | 64 | 0.2% | |||
| Nolte (IND) | 1293 | 4.7% | |||
| Perkins (IND) | 140 | 0.5% | |||
| Kanis (ALP) | 9221 | 33.3% | -2.3% | 51.4% | -4.8% |
| Collyer (IND) | 161 | 0.6% | |||
| O’Connor (IND) | 153 | 0.6% | |||
| Murphy (DLP) | 525 | 1.9% | |||
| Toscano (IND) | 205 | 0.7% | |||
| Mayne (IND) | 1308 | 4.7% | |||
| Borland (IND) | 203 | 0.7% | |||
| Whitehead (IND) | 168 | 0.6% | |||
| Patten (SEX) | 1822 | 6.6% | 3.7% | ||
| Oke (GRN) | 10072 | 36.4% | 4.5% | 48.6% | 4.8% |
| Bengtsson (AC) | 345 | 1.2% | |||
| TOTAL | 27670 | ||||
| Booths counted | 14 out of 14 | ||||
| Votes counted | 61.6% of enrolled voters | ||||
Monday
Rechecking and a little over 400 more postal votes have nudged Labor’s lead up from 754 to 772. Here’s a piece I had in Crikey yesterday:
Notwithstanding the Greens’ unduly stubborn refusal to concede defeat, it is beyond doubt that Labor is over the line in the Melbourne byelection. Its candidate, Jennifer Kanis, holds a 754-vote lead over Cathy Oke of the Greens, with only a few thousand votes outstanding and the tide of late counting running in Labor’s favour.
The result has surprised election watchers, national newspapers and, most memorably, Sportsbet, which went a step too far with its regular publicity stunt of paying out on sure-thing election results before the actual event.
As is often the case in byelections, there are enough intricacies in the result to allow interested parties to craft narratives to suit, be they Christopher Pyne comparing Labor-versus-Greens apples with Labor-versus-Coalition oranges, or Adam Bandt claiming a slight rise in primary vote share meant the electorate had “gone green”.
My own take on the result is that the Greens fell victim to an unexpectedly strong determination of Liberal supporters to deprive them of their votes.
One recourse was absenteeism, which saw turnout slump from 86.9% at the 2010 general election to no more than 67%. Another was informal voting, the rate of which shot up from 3.8% to 8.7%. Given the intensity of media interest, and the electorate’s high levels of educational attainment and civic engagement, these are remarkable figures.
Clearly some Liberal supporters managed to struggle their way through the ballot paper, but few seem to have given their support directly to the Greens, who have actually polled about 750 votes fewer than at the state election. That they were able to increase their overall share probably has more to do with relatively high turnout among their supporters than votes shifting in their favour.
Liberal votes instead scattered among the crowded field of minor candidates, of whom the best performers were Fiona Patten of the Australian S-x Party (6.6%), Stephen Mayne (4.7%), conservative independent David Nolte (4.7%) and the three Christian parties (6% combined), all of whom showed at least some tendency to poll most strongly where the Liberal vote had been highest in the past. Reflecting the pattern of Liberal preferences when they were directed against the Greens in 2010, these votes (which would have included a share of left-leaning supporters of Patten and Mayne) flowed about 60-40 to Labor.
Past state byelections had given the Greens cause to expect better. When the Liberals sat out the Marrickville byelection in inner-city Sydney in 2005, the Greens vote shot up 10.5%. In the Western Australian seat of Fremantle in 2009, Adele Carles claimed the seat for the Greens in the absence of a Liberal candidate by adding 16.5% to the party’s primary vote — and turnout actually increased.
That things were so different in Melbourne may well suggest that conservative voters are feeling more hostile to the Greens than they were a few years ago.
The result also fits a pattern of the Greens underperforming at state level in Victoria relative to federally. When Bandt won the federal seat of Melbourne in 2010, he polled 37.6% in the booths covered by the state electorate. This was almost exactly what Oke polled on Saturday, when the Liberals’ 28% share of the vote was up for grabs, and well above the 31.9% they polled at the 2010 state election. While this may partly reflect the fact that the hot-button issues for the Greens are most salient at federal level, it could equally be a reflection on a state parliamentary party that lacks a strong media performer.
As for Labor, while it can’t take too much joy at having dropped 3000 votes from the general election, it has room certainly for relief and perhaps even a flicker of satisfaction. Its primary vote has fallen 2.4%, which is about what pseph blogger Poliquant calculates as par for the course at byelections where the Liberals don’t field a candidate.
It is also clear that the 4.2% vote for independent Berhan Ahmed came largely at Labor’s expense, having been concentrated in a small number of booths where the Labor vote was correspondingly down (Stephen Mayne relates that Labor received about 80% of his preferences).
Certainly there are bad signs for Labor in the result as well, but they are nothing it didn’t already know about: that half its primary vote in Melbourne has vanished over the past decade, and that it is becoming increasingly reliant on preferences in stitching victories together. However, it has equally been reminded that such victories can indeed be achieved, and that however calamitous things might be for it in Queensland and New South Wales, in Victoria the ship remains more or less afloat.
Sunday
Apologies for the Crikey-wide outage that appeared to kick in at about 11.30 last night. The VEC has announced on Twitter there are only 1000 postal votes to come, although it would surprise me if the current count of 3728 pre-poll votes were the final story, given there were 6268 of them in 2010. However, even if there are a few thousand votes still outstanding, they will offer the Greens no prospect of overcoming a 754-vote Labor lead that will widen further with the addition of the remaining postals.
I have reset the above table so it just shows raw results, in doing so removing what was projected as a 0.5% lead to the Greens. This reflected a 6.7% swing to the Greens on booth votes, compared with an overall margin of 6.2% from 2010. The projection went on to be buried by the addition of 3000 postal votes, which the VEC unusually decided to get stuck into on election night (together with 3728 pre-polls, which behaved more in line with the polling booth votes and thus made little difference to the overall picture). The postals split 59.6-40.4 Labor’s way, and while this actually represented a swing to the Greens of 1.6% compared with postals in 2010, the effect was to drag the overall swing below 5%. Another factor was that the Greens did extremely well on absent votes in 2010, which by-elections don’t have.
Labor’s win has come as a surprise to me, and I know I’m not alone in pseph-dom in this count. I had expected to see a pattern similar to that in the 2009 by-election for Fremantle, which had supported Labor, Liberal and the Greens in similar proportions to Melbourne in the past, and where homeless Liberals appeared to fall in behind Labor’s rival by way of taking a kick at the main enemy. Besides the result, the most radical difference between the two elections was turnout. Very unusually for a by-election, turnout in Fremantle (which I am measuring in terms of formal votes cast) actually increased, from 79.6% to 83.5%. Even on a favourable projection, turnout in Melbourne appears to have slumped from 83.7% to around 63%, a result interestingly similar to the South Brisbane by-election held a few months ago to replace Anna Bligh.
This makes it instructive to consider the election in terms of raw numbers of votes rather than percentages. There are roughly 45,000 voters on the Melbourne electoral roll, of whom about 7500 can be expected not to vote at a general election. Normally this could be expected to increase at a by-election to around 11,000, but this time it shot up to 15,000. No doubt Liberal voters were over-represented here, and its tempting to contemplate how different things might have been if the Greens had chosen a candidate as attractive to Liberal supporters as Adele Carles proved to be in Fremantle. However, it should not be assumed that the collapse in turnout can be entirely understood in terms of Liberals sitting it out, as there were also 3000 fewer votes for Labor as well as 750 fewer for the Greens.
Liberal voters made their impact felt in a a 7500-vote increase for “others”, most of which was garnered by (religious) conservatives and liberals. The latter were particularly prevalent around the CBD, where the Liberals have a considerable constituency. The standout example was David Nolte, who polled around 10% in Docklands and East Melbourne and also at the university end of Carlton, but very weakly elsewhere. Another independent with strong localised support was African community leader Berhan Ahmed, who polled 15.9% in Hotham Hill, 10.5% in Carlton and 10.1% in Flemington, but only 4.2% overall. There was a corresponding drop in the Labor primary vote in these booths. The other minor candidates to recover their deposits will be Fiona Patten of the Australian Sex Party, who is on 6.6% overall and reached double figures in and around the CBD, and Stephen Mayne, who failed to crack 5% but has a notable base of support in East Melbourne (11.3%).
Saturday
11.22pm. While I’ve had my eye off the ball, the VEC has caught me off guard by adding huge numbers of postal (3066) and pre-poll (3975) votes, the former of which have, as far as I’m concerned, decided the result for Labor. Labor has received 1702 postals to just 1156 for the Greens, a split of 59.5-40.5: 1702 (59.5%) to 1156 (40.5%). Pre-polls have slightly favoured the Greens, 1914 (51.3%) to 1814 (48.7%), but the overall result is an unassailable lead 754-vote (1.4%) to Labor.
8.49pm. Examination of the results from 2010 shows up a very telling point: the Greens did exceptionally well on absent votes, scoring 54.4% on 2PP. However, absent votes are those cast in polling booths outside the electorate – which is to say that they don’t exist at by-elections, because there are no polling booths outside the electorate. That would seem to suggest that my projection is flattering to the Greens.
To those who are confused by all this – and in particular by the disparity between my figures and the VEC’s – what I have done here is calculated the swing on the booth results, which are all we have at the moment, and that swing is 6.6%. Labor scored 57.4% on booth votes in 2010, and 50.7% today. After other votes were added in 2010, Labor’s vote came down to 55.8% – so on that basis, a 6.6% swing would suggest they are headed for a narrow defeat. But as just noted, the reason they came down was that the Greens did so well on absent votes. The non-existence of such votes at this by-election puts a rather different complexion on things.
8.45pm. Flemington 2PP added, so the projection is final for the night.
9.35pm. With all but one booth now in on 2PP, my projection now leans a little further to the Greens. BUT … at this point, that matters less than what the dynamic of pre-polls and postals is going to be. There could be any number of reasons why they might be a little more favourable to Labor (in relative terms) than they were at the state election, and that’s all it would take. I’ll have a think about that and get back to you, but with the negligible exception of the one outstanding 2PP result, my projection has achieved all it’s going to achieve this evening, which is to say that it’s too close to call.
9.29pm. Still awating Docklands, Flemington, Melbourne and South Kensington on 2PP, remembering that all this is likely to do is nudge the preference share slightly in one direction or the other.
9.27pm. Final primary vote result in (Flemington), and it tips the Greens into the lead on my projection.
9.15pm. The addition of eight 2PP results in one hit didn’t change the complexion of things any: Labor’s share of minor preferences changed from 60% to 61%.
9.14pm. I’m back. We’ve now got 10 of 14 booths on 2PP and 13 of 14 on primary (Flemington the holdout), and it’s as close as close can be.
9.07pm. South Kensington and Melbourne have reported, but my spreadsheet’s crashed. With you in a minute or two …
9.00pm. Half-hourly results dump any moment now …
8.50pm. I’d say the VEC site is providing half-hourly updates, and we’ll get another blurt of results in about 10 minutes.
8.45pm. At North Melbourne booth, Stephen Mayne reports Labor got 32.5% of his own preferences, 92% of Nolte’s and 57% of the Sex Party’s.
8.38pm. Still to come: Flemington, Melbourne and South Kensington, and 11 of the 14 booths’ two-party counts.
8.37pm. Carlton Central and East Melbourne primaries added, and my projection is staying lineball.
8.31pm. The VEC has published 2PP results from three booths, which suggest my preference splits were exactly right after I made the adjustment just noted to Sex Party preferences.
8.28pm. After half an hour of silence, the VEC has just unloaded seven booths in one hit. Poor effort. My figures now align what ALP sources just told James Campbell. On intelligence from Stephen Mayne, I’ve adjusted Sex Party preferences from 70-30 to Labor to 50-50.
8.23pm. So the ALP has results from seven booths, but the rest of us only have two.
8.20pm. Sunday Herald Sun reporter James Campbell tweets: “ALP sources say vote it will come down to preferences but with almost half the booths reporting 1st preferences they are behind.”
8.17pm. Stephen Mayne reports East Melbourne booth primaries are ALP 466, Greens 436, Mayne 175, Sex 151, Nolte 144 – which suggests to me little or no swing, which would be an excellent result for Labor.
8.10pm. That RMIT booth has apparently gone 55-45 to Greens, which suggests a swing of about 7-8% – further encouraging the idea that it’s going to be close.
8.04pm. So in a nutshell, the Greens’ raw primary vote lead gets closed on my 2PP projection because a) the better performing minor candidates are preferencing Labor, and b) these two booths collectively were relatively strong for the Greens in 2010.
7.58pm. Twitter reports “catering situation at ALP HQ has improved”.
7.56pm. Keep in mind also I’m assuming 70% of those voting for minor candidates favour the party favoured on the how to vote card. The better performing candidates are tending to be those favouring Labor. If they show more (or less) independence than I’m presuming, the projection could be off.
7.47pm. Very similar swings in booth booths. Labor basically steady on primary vote, Greens up 6% and 4% respectively. Both booths broadly representative of the electorate as a whole as well, North Melbourne East a little above average for the Greens (remembering that the swing calculations take that into account).
7.45pm. North Melbourne East and Parkville booths added, and my word it looks tight …
7.40pm. Slowest count ever.
7.24pm. Conversely, more Twitter talk is of lineball results in Carlton, which is the Greens’ best area. Some actual results would be helpful …
7.21pm. Twitter talk is of 3% swing away from Labor and 7% to Greens – assuming this is off the primary vote, it points to a Greens win in the 55-45 vicinity.
7.13pm. Word on Twitter is that the Greens won the RMIT booth with 489 votes to Labor’s 300, which would be more than encouraging for them if so.
6.47pm. The fact that there are 16 candidates on the ballot paper might cause the count to be a little slower than usual.
6.25pm. Some further technical detail while you wait. Until booths begin reporting two-party preferred results, preferences will be distributed on the basis of 70-30 splits according to their how-to-vote cards, or 50-50 where no recommendation was made. When two-party booth results become available, the preference splits from booths which have reported two-party results will be projected on to the ones that haven’t.
6pm. Welcome to the Poll Bludger’s live coverage of the eagerly awaited Melbourne by-election count. Polls have closed, and the first results should be in in around three quarters of an hour. The table above will be display both raw and projected figures as the 14 booths progressively report. The first two columns will provide raw primary votes and percentages. The third “swing” column will show the primary vote swing for those parties which contested both this election and the 2010 election (Labor, Greens and Australian Sex Party), calculated by comparing the booths which have reported with the same booths at the election (which required some tinkering in one or two cases where booths have moved or are not being used). The two-party preferred swing will do the same. The latter will be compared against the total result from the 2010 election to project the outcome shown in the “2PP (projected)” column.
MWH,
The Greens declared something wrong, so it must be wrong? More sanctimoniuous bulldust.
The reason the Libs send out the postals is because they have always held the seat and people contact the electoral office.
I dare say that you would prefer these people not vote at all.
Bobalot,
Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn!
I think it is the Greens refusing to rule out propping up the Coalition, if they lost a by-election, that cost them this seat. The Current Victorian Government are not too popular at the moment, especially in Melbourne.
GG – If you could step above politics I think it is fairly easy to see why it is more democratic for the AEC to deal with postal votes (as is done in most other countries).
Indeed MWH – both majors are involved. Lets not pretend its all above board either – its more in the line of major party consensus that Australia’s unusual postal vote system works for them:
[After each recent election, parliament’s joint standing committee on electoral matters has seen the main party representatives team up to outvote the minor party and independent members who would like to change the processes of postal voting]
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/parties-allowed-to-hijack-postal-votes/story-e6frg6zo-1225787722798
Here’s the money quote. Its all a bit smelly. I was just wondering if this had moved on at all since I last looked into it a few years back.
[The main parties send out postal voting application forms to constituents. If the main party candidate is an MP, the public pays for the practice under electoral entitlements. The taxpayer-funded materials contain a host of party propaganda attached to the application form and voters are expected to return the form to the political party, which then forwards the information to the AEC.]
Tom – What percentage of registered voters do you think would have even heard of this issue?
Just because those who post on PB follow things closely does not mean that most people do.
Who apart from Labor and Green were handing out HTV cards at most booths? The Greens lost the election on preferences from these parties. There are still many who fill out the HTV card as given without thinking about it.
MWH
I fully explained this late last night …… Shows On amplified part of what I said. The “CPRS is bad because it locked in a bad scheme” is a mantra ….. Nothing more nothing less.
It is the Green’s excuse and is not a reason.
Fact is the Greens overplayed their hand … Their usual high principled but unattainable stance. In the end they preferred nothing to something. The something would have been Step 1 and the anti AGW ball would’ve started rolling.
The whole issue of controlling carbon emissions was quite benign in comparison to the present climate.
All praise for Ms Milne’s work on the MPCC but it was too late.
You had already visited Abbott upon us.
Had your mob had one ounce of common sense and half an ounce of pragmatism the Wong McFarlane agreement would not have been created as a target for Minchin’s and his deniers.
Just to restate, the Greens gave us Abbott. Shame!
One can only wonder how Green handwringing, crying, principles, but no action on AS ers will pan out. In the worst scenario the carbon matter will settle and the AS issue will be VIP at the 2013 election.
If this happens, the Greens will then have served up Abbott as PM and Morrison as Minister for Immigration.
That’ll be another feather in the Green’s cap.
The public pays for the sitting party to send out postal info plus party propaganda, and Greensborough Growler thinks this is as it should be!
Postal vote or not, at the end of the day you vote for who you wish.
I wonder if any Green supporters can explain Adam Bandt’s hypocritical dummy spit?
MWH,
You’ve been writing political crap all day and night. So attempts to criticise others for being political on a political blog is rubbish.
The fact is that Parties running the “postal Votes” is a part of our political system as are How to Vote cards and all the traditional things that Greens despise because they perceive them as disadvantaging them.
It’s nothing to do with principle or fairness.
psyclaw – My reason is wrong because you say it “is a mantra ….. Nothing more nothing less. It is the Green’s excuse and is not a reason.”
Maybe you don’t agree with my reasoning. So lets discuss why.
Or are you so locked in to Labor spin that you can no longer present a reasoned argument?
MWH @ 547
Are you really saying that no aspect of the CPRS could have been repealed / amended by a future government. That is fairy talk, otherwise known as Green handwringing.
Fact is you blocked Step 1 of who knows what might eventually have merged / will in fact emerge in regard to reducing carbon.
By this you served up the intolerable Abbott and we are all suffering as a result of the Green’s immature, naive, and unconscionable conduct.
Not having learned your lesson, now you continue down the same pathetic path regarding ASs.
GG – Nice to see you aligning with the Liberal logic of Bronwyn Bishop. Her ‘reasoned argument’ against changing the law to make it easier for the young and people who have moved to enrol before an election was simply something like “the current system is the law so it should be respected”.
But isn’t the whole point of politics to make changes to the law?
But to you, just now, the current system is great because it was Labor who could send out the postal forms. As lefty e pointed out, when Labor isn’t in the favoured side then they want the law changed.
But I think you have just given us a great example of Labor values – “nothing to do with principle or fairness”.
psyclaw – Perhaps try reading what I wrote. I explicitly said that parts of the law could be changed.
But the part that cannot be changed is the taking away of property rights without reasonable compensation. That is part of the constitution.
Now I still fail to see how the Greens gave us Abbott.
The bit I left out was that after Abbott become opposition leader Labor could have negotiated with the Greens. As proven by the Carbon Tax, the Greens would have accepted a low initial target and absurd compensation. But they would have insisted on changes so that the bill no longer gave polluters property rights.
Labor refused to negotiate with the Greens. Once again, this was a decision of Labors.
MWH
My paragraph 3 @608 says it all.
Rationalise to your heart’s content, and when you’ve exhausted your excuses, ask FB to add on a bit more.
Time your mob stops running on the spot on the sidelines and finds the ticker to join the game and actually do something other than handwring, and making excuses.
Time the Greens grew up.
MWH,
Nice attempt at misrepresentation. But, you’re talking more rubbish.
There was nothing to stop the Greens sending out postals (which they did). I’ll bet that Bandt and his merry crew will have an advantage at the next Federal election because they will be the office people contact. That’s a reality not a flaw in the system. As I said, the alternative is that these people don’t vote at all.
I’ll give you an example of Greens values “Much ado about nothing”.
MWH
“The taking away of property rights without compensation”
This happens all the time in various areas of life. The government takes the rights and pays the compensation.
As I said ….. such is your excuse…… a straw man no less.
psyclaw – the world I live in had Labor negotiating with Liberals (under Turnbull) on the CPRS with the Greens totally excluded.
Please explain how in your world the Greens had anything to do with what happened within the Liberal party.
My Say
Are you around?
MWH
Are you dull or just a game player.I’ll spell it out once more.
1) The greens blocked the CPRS, even though (in words)they are an enviro friendly party. Forget the excuses, that’s what you did ….. Sat on your hands.
2) That left the issue alive.
3) This created time and a target for the Liberal deniers to install Abbott.
Why can’t you accept responsibility for your mob’s actions, and move on and do something.
Get off your hands and actually do something about ASs, and stop the fairy talk.
psyclaw – Yes, my whole point is that once you create property rights the government has to compensate.
So if a company is now emitting 100 units of carbon, and you give this company the rights to emit 90 units for free, and have them pay for 10 units, there will be an incentive for them to reduce their emissions. If the reduction target is only 5% then this scheme works well.
But if a later government wants to reduce emissions by 20%, then this can only be done by buying back 10 of the 90 units that were given away. And even though the 90 units were given away, the trading on the 10 units has set a market price. So buying back 10 units would be prohibitively expensive.
This is far more complex than just repeating spin.
psyclaw – you really have no idea.
The history was that the Liberals installed Abbott BEFORE the legislation was put to parliament. If Turnbull was still the leader then the Liberals would have approved it.
And, as I’ve said before, Labor was unwilling to negotiate with the Greens. As proven by the Carbon Tax negotiations, the Greens are willing to compromise. But back then Labor was not willing to compromise.
That nothing was passed under Rudd is the fault of Labor.
MWH
Unlike you and your’s I’m interested in getting things done rather than wringing my hands as to why they can’t be done.
Compensation that must be paid is paid, and the courts enforce this, every day of the week, simple or complex, big amounts and small amounts.
But …… Talking about actually doing things is a foreign language to your mob …… Sideliners, handwringers, fairy talkers.
So you ignore all my points.
I’ll point out that Rudd’s Labor failed to do anything on climate change. Labor’s failure.
Gillard’s Labor only took action because it was the price demanded by the Greens.
Do you really think that there would be a price on carbon today if Gillard had won in her own right?
So on this issue it is the Greens who achieved something despite the efforts of Labor to first “lock in failure” to “provide certainty to business” under Rudd, and then Gillard’s attempts to defer any action until the next term.
You confuse spin with action. But the Greens got us the Carbon Tax.
MWH
Abbott was installed before the in faith agreement was put to the House …… Yes …. to bomb the agreement so that it COULDN’T be put to the House.
Had the do nothing Greens passed the CPRS months earlier, no need for in faith agreement, no need to bomb the in faith agreement, no need to install a denier LOTO, no need to have Abbott.
Accept your responsibility.
psyclaw,
The Greens are in favour of a bottom of the ocean AS policy.
GG
Yep.
Followed by the mandatory tears and handwrining.
Then follows words in biblical proportion about how it wasn’t their fault.
And 70% of Labor voters think that Labor is responsible for the failure to make progress on AS.
MWH,
Yeah, those poll results really showed up in Melbourne.
MWH
You are obviously unprepared to discuss actual facts.
Good luck as you muse your way through the issues still ahead of with fairy talk.
And don’t forget, you can’t wash your hands of future happenings that you cause by your failure to act.
It’s easy ….. support the changes to the Migration Act ….. Disempower Abbott and Morrison, and as an act of restitution send away the LOTO that you gave us.
GG – I think they did. First preferences for Labor – 33.3%, first preference to Green – 36.4%.
And in two party preferred, almost half the voters preferred Green over Labor.
Labor can be pleased that they won the seat. But if they claim that these figures show that Labor have Melbourne’s support, I would hate to see what figures are needed for them to admit that they are in trouble.
pscyalw – have you been taking lessons from climate change deniers.
Many times I’ve pointed out where your facts are WRONG. Yet all you can say to me is “I’m unprepared to discuss actual facts”.
Note that the history of what happened with the CPRS can be told without any value judgements of favouring a political party. Saying that the Greens were responsible for Abbott due to the CPRS has no relationship to this history.
You are so locked in to blindly supporting Labor that you don’t even know what has happened.
You have to love the Whine of Pyne! wtte, “Labor must crushed at the result!”
MWH,
Labor’s Primary held up and the Greens were bolstered by Libs. Preferences gave the seat to Labor.
$250k incinerated for no result. Greens no chance when the Libs preference agaisnt them at the next election. Bandt screwed.
That’s the system. You probably want to portray that as another electoral outrage.
I’m just saying that, in my opinion, it is not a result that shows strong community support for Labor.
Maybe you should let Adam Bandt know that there isn’t “strong” community support for him in his electorate since he only managed to win on Liberal preferences.
Logic of a Green’s supporter:
The Greens getting 2nd on the PV and winning on Liberal preferences = Great victory for the Greens and evidence of strong community support for the Greens.
Labor getting 2nd on the PV and winning on preferences (With defacto Liberal preferences going to the Greens) = Great victory for the Greens and evidence of strong community support for the Greens.
Apparently this makes sense.
Michael Wilbur-Ham (MWH)
I really respect your efforts here,. the ALP yellers are having a field day. ‘Oh congrats to the ALP who managed a 4.8% swing against with the worst government in Vic in living memory.’
The point you are missing is that the 1% can be put at the feet of the Greens leader. What disasters does this man have to oversea. The ALP are not going to attack him, he is their best asset.
Long term, this is a strategic point, the ALP hard heads are shouting with glee their victory,. listen to them they are telling you something.
The Inner Melbourne problem for the Greens is the Barber/Luntz faction can not be told,. They have protected their backs at the expense of others,. And the expense of the party vote.
This election is not overly important, only 60% turned up, but if the Greens elite refuse to accept that they are not political geniuses then it could become an issue.
Oh and just to renew some old friendships,. Greensboro growler in particular,. the sooner you step back and actually have a look at what is best for the workers that you profess to represent the better.
Could you tell me just what is the short,. medium and long term strategy for your party,.
Tell me where I go wrong,. “Blow the left vote untill they have no option and the Libs totally lose it and then you get the developer donations back, the pokie donations back, (oh and keep the revenue from the dirty 1000 machines,) etc etc./
Now the bet you are making is that the Green voters, will either give up or leave,. just where to I’m not sure,. Do you honestly think they will flock to the Shorten/fitxgibbon ALP./ HAAAAAAa HAAAAAA what a joke,.
Rejoice in your shallow victory, you are giving up on the battlers for the apparent promise of the white cars in ten years,. what a disgrace.
“…the fact is that Parties running the “postal Votes” is a part of our political system as are How to Vote cards and all the traditional things…”
Just a few comments on this if I may. There is nothing traditional about political parties intervening in the postal voting process, which prior to the early 1990s, was the full responsibility of the AEC.
In those days, voters could only obtain postal vote applications directly from the AEC, and they returned them directly to the AEC in order to be issued with the ballot materials, which then had to be filled out and returned to the AEC, post-marked before polling day. This all took a couple of weeks, but there was nobody standing in between the AEC and the voter, and we depended only on the efficiency of our postal service to ensure it was all done on time.
However, the two major political parties have colluded over the past two decades to amend the Commonwealth Electoral Act to allow political party offices to send out AEC postal vote applications, with political advertising attached, and their own return addresses. The political parties have placed themselves between the AEC and the postal voter, and that is not a good thing, let alone traditional.
The political party offices in each electorate are then supposed to send all the postal vote applications they have received back from voters immediately to the local AEC divisional office, so the ballot materials can be posted by the AEC to the voters in time. However, according to the AEC, some applications forwarded by political party offices come into the AEC in batches, too late for the issuing of ballot materials, and those voters are effectively disenfranchised.
The AEC has also reported its suspicions that some applications do not make it to them at all, either by accident (because the politcal intern, who was supposed to deliver them to the AEC, got sick one day, and they all dropped down behind the desk and nobody noticed), or by design (one can only hope not).
The reason for this relatively recent interference by the political parties in the postal voting system is so that they can build up their computer databases with likely voting intentions, by recording the names and addresses (and any other conveniently visible details) of anyone who sends their postal vote application to them.
The history of these changes to our postal voting system can be followed through the AEC submissions, made after every election, to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. The AEC has consistently, for more than a decade now, objected to the direct involvement of poltical parties in the postal voting system.
Anyone who trusts local political staffers with their personal information on postal vote applications is sacrificing their privacy, and probably telegraphing their voting intentions. Australians led the world with the secret ballot and this relatively new intervention by the political parties in the electoral process is a retrograde step. It is not only robbing some people of their vote, and it is also stealing personal information for politically partisan purposes.
Bottom line, if you must vote postal, do it directly with the AEC.
Psephos @ 49
haha… just noticed.
Obviously I’m more progressive than I thought. 😆
http://www.sportsbet.com.au/blog/home/melbourne-by-election-run-and-won#.UAvD1GF-TTq
Saw this up-thread. Seriously?? Apart from the ALP having a quite convincing win where they were expected to lose 🙂 this has got to be about the funniest aspect to this election.
Oh, apart from Brant being a hypocritical tosspot……
MSW, genuine question (although yes I think Green strategy on climate change has been disastrous for the nation and the planet and I resent all those involved having much to say to anyone about anything but anyway), where did you study constitutional law? Sydney in my case.
slip of the pen there, meant MWH obviously …
on further thought, MWH, never mind the earlier question just answer me this, WTF does the proviso that acquisition of property by the Commonwealth must be on “just” terms (note, for what its worth, not “reasonable” as per your post) have to do with movement from the initial CPRS to something better?
First, a power in the Cth or a Minister to issue free permits etc on a year by year basis hardly creates a property right to continue to receive same in perpetuity.
Second, imposition of additional liabilities to purchase permits or take other actions isnt likely to constitute acquisition of property
Third, did you happen to read the arguments in the tobacco plain packaging cases? The basis of the Commonwealth’s case (which it looks like the HC thinks is soundly based in this respect) is that extinguishment or limitation of a right is not the same thing as the Cth acquiring it for itself. And this is where we get to the “oh the damage done” bit about Green strategy. Its entirely possible that the same argument supports at a legal level the validity of the Abbott approach of scrapping the lot
So, to quote Lilly Allen, f..k you very much to the oh so pure and oh so silly Greens for giving us a very high risk of Abbott PM
MM
MWH is having a lend of readers with his “constitution says can’t take away property rights” crap.
At s51 ss xxxi it is actually provided that the C’w CAN acquire property but must pay fair compo. This ss is positively phrased and talks about what can be done, not what can’t be done. It’s not unsurprising that a Green has difficulty understanding “doing” and confuses it with “not doing”.
But MWH is trying to promote the nonsense that it is unconstitutional for the C’w to acquire property rights.
What is unconstitutional is the C’w doing so without paying fair compo.
This is Green spin …… Greens are the masters of rhetoric but paralysed as far as action is concerned.
Sydney for me too.
MM @ 647
Meatloaf …… You took the words right out of my mouth, while I was busy doing 648.
MM
See my discussion with MWH beginning at 589 if you haven’t seen it.
His rationalisations about CPRS being bad because immutable is the excuse the Green’s hide behind to justify that their CPRS inaction was the first step in visiting Abbott onto us.
They’re a shameful mob.
Even now who knows what the consequences of the Green’s “principles” and inaction on the Migration Act will be…… Maybe serve up Abbott on a plate as PM.
Dog Albitey help us. Dog Albitey spare us the Greens.