Time for a new thread, so here’s some very scattered thoughts that it occurs to me to share at this late hour:
• I had a piece on the Senate result in Crikey yesterday, and have been keeping a low profile on Poll Bludger in part because I’ve been busy fielding inquiries from media outlets eager to hear an election wonk’s take on the whole affair. If you’d like to comment on the progress of late counting in the Senate I’d encourage you to do so on the dedicated thread, or at least re-paste your comments there after leaving them on this one.
• I’d also like to encourage those with particular insights to offer on late counting in close lower house seats to share the love in the relevant comments threads, which can serve as useful clearing houses for information for those of us trying to keep up. Note that these posts can be accessed through links near the top of the sidebar.
• So what the hell happened in Fowler? There was, as we know, a much milder swing against Labor in western Sydney than media hype and certain local opinion polls had primed us for. However, that scarcely explains the thumping 8.8% swing enjoyed by Labor journeyman Chris Hayes. What presumably does explain it is Liberal candidate Andrew Nguyen, chosen by the party with a view to snaring the Vietnamese vote in Cabramatta, who suffered swings approaching 20% in that very area. As to what Vietnamese voters might have known about Nguyen that the Liberal Party did not, I cannot even speculate. However, it won’t be the only question the party has to ask itself about its candidate selection processes in New South Wales, for the second election in a row.
• It wasn’t a very good election for Bob Katter, who failed in his bid to bring new allies to Canberra and had his seemingly impregnable hold on Kennedy cut to the bone. One reason of course was that he was squeezed out by Clive Palmer (with due apologies for the unattractiveness of that image). However, another was very likely a preference deal he cut with Labor which in the event did neither party any good. I would also observe that this is not Katter’s first failed attempt at empire-building. At the 2004 Queensland state election, Katter organised an alliance of independents with a view to activating discontent over sugar industry policy, and the only one to poll a substantial share of the vote had done nearly as well without Katter’s help at the previous election. Even the much-touted successes of Katter’s Australian Party at last year’s Queensland election involved it a) absorbing probably transient protest votes which formed part of the huge swing against Labor, and b) electing two members who could just easily have won their seats as independents. Katter’s constituency would evidently prefer that he stick to being an independent local member, and limit his broader ambitious to bequeathing the family firm to his son.
• As well as witnessing an explosion in the micro-party vote, the election has at the very least seen the rate of informal voting maintain the peak scaled at the 2010 election. Limiting it to ordinary election day votes to ensure we’re comparing apples with apples (pre-poll and postal voters being generally more motivated and hence less prone to informal voting), the informal vote rate has progressed from 4.18% to 5.82% to 5.92%. Presumably the Australian Electoral Commission will be conducting a ballot paper study to let us know how much this is down to proliferating candidate numbers leading to inadvertent mistakes, and how much to disaffection leading to deliberate spoilage of ballot papers.
• If I do say so myself, my BludgerTrack poll aggregate performed rather well. The Coalition’s two-party preferred vote is at 53.15% on current counting, which is likely to edge up towards the projected 53.5% as the remaining votes come in. Better yet, there’s a good chance the state seat projections will prove to have been exactly correct, allowing for the fact that the model did not accommodate non-major party outcomes such as the possible wins for Clive Palmer in Fairfax and Cathy McGowan in Indi. No doubt this is partly down to luck. There was some imprecision on the primary vote, with the Coalition about a point too low and the Greens about a point too high (though the model in fact scaled down the latter from the pollsters’ published results), with the circle being squared by a preference allocation method that proved over-favourable to the Coalition, based as it was on the 2010 election result (although I’m pretty sure it still performed better than a method based on respondent allocation would have done).
Nonetheless, the model was certainly successful enough to confirm the wisdom of its basic premise that the best way to read the campaign horse race is to a) only pay attention to large-scale polling, i.e. national and state-level results, b) adjust pollsters for bias according to their past performance where sufficient observations are available from recent history, c) instead use the pollster’s deviation from the aggregated poll trend where sufficient observations are not available, and d) weight the results of each pollster according to how historically accurate/consistent with the trend they have been. As to the performance of the polls themselves, I’ll have a lot more to say about that when all the votes are in. In the meantime, here’s a broad brush overview from Matthew Knott at Crikey.
Roxanna:
[Fran, I’m counting on it. This is not what we formed the Greens for.]
Indeed not. Not the least of the things we have learned from both Tasmania and the 43rd parliament are the dangers of being perceived as too close to the governing party — especially when we have no real leverage to secure much of our policy platform.
If there is a future occasion where this arises, I’ll be favouring an arm’s length arrangement where we simply agree to support bills and motions on merit.
[A ferociously fought issue in the 2010 election was whether to move to a profits-based mining tax. Labor won the election, yet Coalition MPs and Senators voted in parliament against the mining tax.]
Labor had no mandate to do anything after 2010, they effectively lost the election having less seats than the Coalition and only being propped up by 2 traitorous conservative independents.
[If there is a future occasion where this arises, I’ll be favouring an arm’s length arrangement where we simply agree to support bills and motions on merit.]
Then why do you even bother being in parliament?
A party of tin-foil hats and tree worshipers.
Fin Review reports “internal polling shows that the return to Mr Rudd two months ago saved as many as 17 Labor seats”
Seeing the seats in QLD and NSW that didn’t fall on Saturday, I can well believe it.
This appointment stuff is funny.
The poor old Labor party…gives Brenadan Nelson a job,gives Tim Ficsher a job…any others?
The Libs showing how it’s done…Swtkowski for NBN?
Killer politics from the killers.
I reckon they need someone like Howes in there….someone who can actually take a fight up to the tories instead of these shrinking little daisy boys and girls we’re stuck with….
Ancient history lefty e. We’ll never know what could’ve been nor does it matter.
Sean – give it a rest. You won. You don’t have to keep campaigning. Have an early night or a sleep in.
The 43rd Parliament worked the way Parliament was designed to work and how the founding fathers intended. The government was formed from a majority on the floor of the House of Representatives which was able to provide supply and support for major bills.
And your definition of ‘traitorous’ – has ‘traitor’ been redefined to mean someone who does not support the political Right?
lizzie@38
And what a load of rubbish that article was!
The myth making is in full swing. Rudd’s speech was really two speeches. It was a concession to the victors and then it was a rallying cry to Labor.
I only caught snatches of it on a big screen at a noisy party, rather like the one Rudd was present at. I recall him quipping to the audience that they were acting like they had won when Labor had lost the election.
Those present with Rudd seemed to respond well to it, as did the people I was with.
Newspoll was the closer on primary votes however as with most of the national polls they didn’t get the others preference allocations correct. In the wash-up all the national polls were reasonable apart Longeran. Trying to capture the mood of voters in polling was like hearding cats.
The individual seat polling was a bit of a joke.
wal kolla@97
I’m sure he wept regarding crap like this –
[ wal kolla
Posted Sunday, February 17, 2013 at 12:00 pm | Permalink
Why do you think people some people are born blind, retarded etc?
Because of the sins of the past life.
If people lived and died good lives, we would not need a NDIS.]
Bracks sacked
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/former-victorian-premier-steve-bracks-sacked-by-julie-bishop-in-vindictive-decision-20130910-2tgtp.html
Good Morning
Regarding the Greens. I think that to sign a deal helping to get legislation through for the Rabbot the price will be high.
That would be keep the Climate change package of legislation, Marine Parks, Tarkine World Heritage and support SSM.
In other words I think it’s not going to happen.
“Labor had no mandate to do anything after 2010, they effectively lost the election having less seats than the Coalition and only being propped up by 2 traitorous conservative independents.”
Somewhere a village has lost its idiot.
dave@50
That and Shorten as leader…. 🙁
Wow dave, that’s some grade A quality bull there.
“The myth making is in full swing. Rudd’s speech was really two speeches. It was a concession to the victors and then it was a rallying cry to Labor.”
It was all about Kevin. Nothing changed, nor will it while Rudd is still around. Labor is on a one way trip down a dead-end street whilst Rudd remains in Parliament.
bemused
The word is that Shorten only wants the leadership if 2016 is winnable for Labor
guytaur, you’re deluded if you think Abbott would even entertain talk of a deal with the Greens for a second.
Ah yes Toll Roads so beloved of the LNP and NSW Right.
@smh: Cross City Tunnel facing receivership again due to difficulties caused by unpaid $60 million stamp duty bill #Sydney http://t.co/N6IAwZtG5t
Sean Tisme
Posted Tuesday, September 10, 2013 at 9:32 am | Permalink
A ferociously fought issue in the 2010 election was whether to move to a profits-based mining tax. Labor won the election, yet Coalition MPs and Senators voted in parliament against the mining tax.
Labor had no mandate to do anything after 2010, they effectively lost the election having less seats than the Coalition and only being propped up by 2 traitorous conservative independents.
—————————————————-
Re-writing history and trying to change the facts
Labor 72
Liberals 44
LNP 21
Nationals 7 TOTAL 72
The one Country Liberal did not align with the Coalition and sat with the Independents
Other Independents saw what a dip stick Abbott is and refused to support him.
Obviously we’ll never know with absolute certainty Itep, but 17 is an awful lot of seats in internal tracking polls
A vindication of the ALPs return to Rudd.
Moving forward!
[Mike Carlton
Reprising her stomp on asbestos victims, Julie Bishop is about to become,again,the new Queen of Mean.]
Itep
Depends on how desperate he gets. With that Senate he could get that desperate.
However we are on the same page. Not going to happen.
William
My hearty congratulations.
Does this mean that Nate Silver is America’s answer to William Bowe?
pussy claw hope u don’t mind
ive copied and pated your post
will send around, if u don’t mind with our your name of course,
William puss claw is more what I would like to see at the top
THATS REALIY
OVER UNIVERSITY LECTURES TELLING ME IT ALL OK
[Moving forward!]
Hear hear.
Abbott shows from day 1 what a divisive PM he will be. Scraps Bracks’s NY role.
ltep@114
So you ‘support’ Howes ?
victoria
See Narnia “Lion, Witch & Wardrobe”. Ice Queen.
Lord Howe Howe for the Senate?
Why you scared little dave?
Are you a Bad Person?
Scared you may come back a prokaryote?
Be nice to the people around about you and help others.
Earn some Pin and stay away from Paw.
Observe Sil, and you might just make. Its never too late to correct ones mistakes…
victoria@116
Surely the job of whoever becomes leader is to make 2016 winnable for Labor.
Boswell displayed a sort of gut instinct for climate change bullshit when he said that when he went down to the beach he hadn’t noticed any increase in sea level.
Anyway, AGW aside, Boswell certainly had a gut instinct.
wal kolla@130
Back into the slime pond from where you came.
‘The word is that Shorten only wants the leadership if 2016 is winnable for Labor’
A dilemma then;for 2016 to be winnable requires Shorten to be assed over for the leadership.
I’m going to come back a rock.
[Ah yes Toll Roads so beloved of the LNP and NSW Right.]
And Steve Bracks. Promised east-link wasn’t going to be tolled, won the election, lied and left office to brumby.
‘Abbott shows from day 1 what a divisive PM he will be. Scraps Bracks’s NY role.’
No.
Abbott shows how the big boys do it.
Is Labor taking notes?
[I’m going to come back a rock.]
Brick with Eyes? 😀
Bracks sacked
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/former-victorian-premier-steve-bracks-sacked-by-julie-bishop-in-vindictive-decision-20130910-2tgtp.html
Not even sworn in yet. It can only get worse
Flag remains at half mast
Question:
How many of Rudd’s supporters reached puberty before the election?? 😀
Now for some good news. $500 ph will be a thing of the past for lawyers. 🙂
http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/business-it/lawyers-next-for-techdriven-outsourcing-20130909-hv1qa.html
PSYCLAW 87
Can any one tincurl that wonderful comment for me to tweet, I am on the tablet and cn’t tincurl on it Please someone
‘Not even sworn in yet. It can only get worse’
We can only hope.
Audacious, I know.
DisplayName
Agreed. Labor need to get their collective shit together and unite purposefully
@leoniedoyle: Judith Sloan promises to write less if government agencies are chopped. I’m torn. http://t.co/xC6VYMPciG ($)
victoria@116
It would be the role of a decent leader to set about making 2016 winnable.
He seems to self exclude.
why is Mesma being blamed for Bracks. Watch out Mesma, scapegoating has started already
lefty e@120
Do you have a link to that afr report?
Zoomster @ 89
Be my guest 🙂
During the campaign I was patiently waiting for such as this to be patiently explained to the electorate in plain, simple, brief, concrete language …….but alas…..