Election night live

And they’re off …

You’ll be able to hear my own dulcet tones this evening on ABC Radio’s live coverage, along with those of Fran Kelly, Mark Colvin, Sandy Aloisi and Senators John Faulkner and Michael Ronaldson, which is being carried on all ABC local, regional and national stations and of course online. Below you’ll find embedded Crikey’s contribution to this evening’s festival of democracy, which I might find time to contribute to in a quiet moment. For those of you who like it both ways, an old-fashioned comments thread is open below. Moderation will inevitably be light to non-existent, so play nice everybody.

We’ve got exit polls, from which the only clear message to emerge is that exit polling still has a way to go, in this country at least. Morgan has been publishing results of SMS polling throughout the day which has consistently had the Coalition ahead 52-48, with primary vote figures at 4pm of 33.5% for Labor, 42.5% for the Coalition, 11.5% for the Greens and 5% for the Palmer United Party (hourly updates here. But Newspoll has results suggesting Labor will be very lucky to get off that lightly, with Labor to lose 14 seats in New South Wales, seven in Queensland, three in Victoria (with Labor to gain Melbourne and Sophie Mirabella to retain Indi), but a status quo result in South Australia and Tasmania apparently not covered. So at the very least, we have a credibility race on between Newspoll and Morgan this evening. For what it’s worth, Morgan’s exit polling wasn’t far off last time. Many thanks to the PB comments community for doing my research for me here.

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.

1,842 comments on “Election night live”

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  1. kezza2 @1800

    Don’t worry. There will be plenty of rewriting of history courtesy of ALP HQ. Plenty of ECT and plenty of amnesia. Bards will write songs about Messiah Kev and how he saved the ALP. And it shall be passed down to the new generation of drones.

  2. Picture your feelings tonight if Tony Abbott won an outright majority in the Senate, the ALP had no seats in QLD, Western Sydney or WA and Coalition MPs facing each other across the isle in the lower house.

    This is what would have happened, in my honest opinion, if JG was still at the helm. She was always my preference and hell, still is but your fellow Aussie voters kinda hated her fucking guts.

    Kev’s just an MP now, deal with it or something. Or is your loathing of him so great you want to see the ALP lose his seat if he quits altogether?

  3. [Or is your loathing of him so great you want to see the ALP lose his seat if he quits altogether?]

    Yup, at the moment since a by election in a few months wouldn’t affect the Senate result its a price worth paying.

  4. What will the shock jocks talk about now? Surely they should now be made redundant as there is nothing for them to whinge about.

  5. Oh and Meguire Bob. Please come back. At least some of your infectious optimism was warranted and you’ve got nothing to apologise for or to be ashamed of. I’d take you over the depressing doomsayers any day of the week.

    Looking forward to kicking this mob out in three years. A generation my ass!

  6. If Gillard was still PM, then what happened to Bligh would have happened to her – pretty much a 60/40 split.

    We would be lucky to have even 30 in the HOR and any in the Senate.

    At least, with around 30 seats being under 3% margin and with 55-60 seats held – Labor holds a very good chance of getting back up at the next election. Rather than being out in the sticks for a decade or more.

    So… a sad result, but not a bad one.

    Still. Will be some mourning, though. 🙁

  7. Hey guys, Australian Motoring Enthusists Party are real chance in VIC, from their AWESOME 0.52% primary.

    YES! I in 200 punters reckon they’re TOPS! Bow down to their mandate etc.

    Come on. Mick! Other LNP punters! Am I insane, or is this SOME SERIOUS BULLSHIT!!!

    SENATE REFORM NOW.

  8. I think it was PM Paul Keating who called Senate members “unrepresentative swill”. It is a weird and archaic (colonial) house and election system but changing it requires Constitutional change and that requires a Referendum, and that requires ….

    a referendum, the bill must ordinarily achieve a double majority: a majority of those voting throughout the country, as well as separate majorities in each of a majority of states (4 of 6).

    Australians have in most instances voted No to referendum questions: only 8 out of 44 referendums since 1906 have been carried. In Sir Robert Menzies’ words, “to get an affirmative vote from the Australian people on a referendum proposal is one of the labours of Hercules.”

    So we are stuck with the Senate. Its one advantage? (And perhaps equally a disadvantage.) It is by nature a brake on the govt of the day because it’s rare that a govt has a majority in both houses.

    Where it backfires badly sometimes is that govts are forced to deal with crazy-ass Senators (like religious fundamentalist fwit Fielding (who believed the Earth was only 6000 years old and that CC was crap)) in order to get any legislation through. Before Fielding was mad Catholic Senator Brian Harradine who exacted concessions from the Howard govt on abortion as well as buckets of money for his State (Tasmania) in exchange for his vote in support on govt bills.

  9. Im sick of the crazy-ass senators, David Mills.

    Idont even cafe about left and right.

    I wont someone with legitimacy.

    You cant argue with legtimacy.

    SENATE REFORM NOW.

  10. Im sick of the crazy-ass senators, David Mills.

    Idont even care about left and right.

    I wont someone with legitimacy.

    You cant argue with legtimacy.

    SENATE REFORM NOW.

  11. Back again; does cough medicine induce insomnia?

    So Abbott will have a Senate majority for repealing the carbon price, and for most other things, since the numbers will be Right 40, Left 35, Xenophon 1. I actually think this is good. There will immense pressure on Abbott from business to bring back some form of Work Choices, and he won’t be able to plead a hostile Senate.

  12. I’m sorry, I must have lost my mind. The Australian motoring enthusiassholes are nothing!

    We’re forgetting the Australian Sports Party, currently in line to take the 5th WA Senate seat.

    Becasuse they’re even more AWESOME, what with their 3000 primary votes (0.25%).
    YE
    YES! One in 400 punters DEMAND justice. NOW!

    And we’re here to agree, becasue we are a freakbeacon of democracy.

    DEMOCRATISING NATIONS: look, and LEARN

  13. Does anyone on earth have a STUPIDER system for their upper house?

    Just curious.

    I for one hope we win this prestigious measure.

    Go Australia!

  14. [So the Senate is gone you think?]

    I’m just going by the ABC predictions, and I’m assuming that all the micros elected are essentially right-wing. Maybe that will prove incorrect on some issues, but not on core ones I think.

  15. @ lefyt e

    It is archaic but if it were reformed a result like tonight’s would probably reflect the one in the HoR even more closely. Its cons are also its pros in a way …

  16. @ Psephos

    “I’m assuming that all the micros elected are essentially right-wing.”

    That’s probably (unfortunately) correct. Well at least SHY seems to have been returned.

  17. David Mills
    Posted Sunday, September 8, 2013 at 2:06 am | Permalink

    Well Hash is equally as wrong about the ALP being out for 20 years as he is about the NBN (and the economy).
    ——–

    The result speaks for itself. Labor lost. The amusing thing about Labor supporters/hopefuls is that they sit in denial, much like Gillard sat in parliament with her nose in the air, while being completely ignorant to the views of the people. In the end her own party had to throw her out and go back to the guy they politically assassinated and despised.

    Labor wasted money, left us with massive debt and the people of Australia have thrown them out like the trash they are. In party bickering and fighting like little kids, and leaving Australians to put up with a PM who was statistically the worst PM in 40 years, only to throw her out when it became apparent they were faced with a thrashing.

    You can prattle on about an NBN that wont deliver speeds to Australians from servers over seas based on distance and bandwidth limitations, and/or argue it till your blue in the face. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter, Labor have lost, they have lost convincingly, and they can be thankful that they weren’t under Julia Gillard, the PM that Labor told us was right for the country 100s of times, only to throw her out due to apparent polls that did not matter.

  18. It just occurred to me that if, in three years time, Labor won the election the composition of the Senate would make governing pretty problematic.

    Let’s hope it’s still too early to tell and the ALP or Greens get a few more Senators up.

  19. @ Hash

    1. Other countries will install FTTP and benefit from it while we fall behind. FTTN is already insufficient and will be a retro relic in 5 years time let alone 10. That means starting to install it now is a joke.

    2. The ALP will be returned well before 20 years.

  20. http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/2013-federal-election-late-night-wrap.html

    Just a late night wrap from me. I had a fun call at the Mercury; picked the card in the Lower House for Tas in my lead-off comments including the big banana (Lyons), but was totally gobsmacked by the size of the Palmer vote down here which (to my delight) killed the Family First preference snowball stone cold dead. They’re probably winning.

    My model did OK but not brilliantly; I’m maybe six seats short, maybe more or fewer depending on late counting. Got at minimum four seats wrong with 11 in play so expecting to end up wrong in about ten, most of which were projected Labor losses. Happy about getting Melbourne right (but very hesitantly, in the end Bandt’s romped it.) Probably just the 2PP swinging back on the last day (and/or being overestimated in the first place) cushioned the damage. Will take a while to know exactly where the 2PP has landed.

  21. @ Hash

    “Massive debt”?

    Not according to a Nobel Prize winning Economist or even any 1st year economics text book. Pure right wing propaganda.

    Jeff Kennett himself was quoted a few weeks ago as saying:

    “The public thinks debt is a no-no. The public needs to be educated about debt.”

  22. Hash,

    Australia doesn’t have too much debt.

    Actually the economic fundamentals are solid and are more than capable of handling existing levels of debt and even allowing for modest increase.

    Very view Australian governments at federal or state level have ever been completely debt free.

    Actually neither are there many successful business for debt is a tool used by business to take advantage of business opportunities.

  23. @ Hash

    The USA has been in debt for around 170 years. And until the GFC (and two wars) they were doing OK. One of the world’s economic powerhouses, – not despite, but because of debt. Governments create growth by borrowing and investing. Read a first year economic text book!!!!!

    And (according to many economists (qualified people who are not right wing hacks)) Australia avoided the recession the GFC would have otherwise caused because of Rudd’s neo-Keynesian fiscal stimulus. Read a first year economic text book!!!!!

  24. David

    Alternatively Hash could read a history book on the Melbourne land bust or the Great Depression to see what happens if government does not react proactively to keep the economy working.

  25. Wall Kolla quoted me:

    [Regardless of our vote, we will be right and the others wrong]

    then said:

    [Which is why I regard your lot as a bunch of pig-headed morons.]

    Which comment underlines the single most troubling problem on the right — your evident indifference to matters of principle.

    Psephos, responded to my above remark as follows:

    [Then why run at all? Why not just stay home and be right?]

    Because it’s best if we can give others a chance to fly with the figurative eagles, rather than abandoned to the mercies of the walking dead.

  26. triton quoted me:

    [The loss of SHY is a disappointment, but Bandt was the more important retain]

    then said:

    [Bandt is a pain. Now he’s an insignificant MHR. SHY is a much bigger loss. The Senate is more important to keep Abbott at bay.]

    I disagree. Bandt becomes the first Green to be re-elected to the HoR. That’s very cheering, and he’s a far more authentic lefty. He got over the line in the teeth of a plebsicite election in which the Libs officially preferenced the ALP in solidarity with rightwing policies and a desire to protect their duopoly.

    SH-Y, though pleasant enough and certainly a hard worker, was reliant on preferences from the rightwing independent, Nick Xenophon, which always leaves a sour taste in the mouth.

    As to the Senate ‘keeping Abbott at bay’ it’s regrettable that they are one step closer to control, but in the end, that’s representative politics. If the proportion of intellectual walking dead increases, then in a PR-system, they are going to triumph at the expense of better people. I regret the increase in such folk, and along with my fellow Greens, have tried to resist it, but we lack the resources of the elite. That’s the reality. We have to focus on what it’s feasible to do with what we have. Bandt was in the more winnable position and as the sole lower house MP was the more important win.

  27. Rosemour

    [I hought Rudd’s seech was terrific. The idea of losing then giving a victory speech must have really done the tories heads in.]

    Speaking as someone who found Rudd execrable, I’d second that. If you can’t win, you should at least deny your enemy as much of what they want as you can.

    I didn’t see the speech but if the reports here are accurate, then well done him. Bonus points if there are no images of him being downcast. The Murdoch press would certainly have used them to sneer at us all.

    I still believe he should very soon depart from public life of course.

  28. Sprocket quotes:

    [A FRINGE party scooping up Senate votes intended for the Coalition wants to legalise concealed guns, marijuana and euthanasia.]

    Two out of three aint bad … The LNP would have scored 1/3.

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