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.
Oh I see Confessions. I didn’t realise QB was so close to the finishing line. Thanks for the update.
alias @ 2638
Quentin Bryce leaves Yarralumla in March 2014.
So it will be a non-issue.
I’d like to see her term extended but Abbott won’t do that.
He wants one of his cronies – probably Peter Cosgrove, a hardened Tory from way back.
Socrates:
zoomster has offered many instances over the last few years of the ways she treated her constituents.
If she really is gone, then good riddance. I hope the new federal govt doesn’t give her a taxpayer funded, post parliamentary sinecure as compensation.
socrates – and the fact that someone at lib HQ thinks she was a good look for them on Q&A.
Thanks Feeney. I wasn’t up to speed on the precise timing. Knew it close but didn’t realise it was that close.
Perhaps Abbott might appoint an indigenous person just to make a splash. Noel Pearson? Galarrwuy Yunupingu?
[Well I think at this point we can stick an apple in Mirabella’s mouth. She’s done.]
Figuratively speaking, I hope.
Abbott will make popular the ‘Deer in Headlights’ look.
Tricot RE #2700, Here Here
[Figuratively speaking, I hope.]
It’s a gastronomic allusion.
kudelka is on fire today. I sense he’s enjoying the change of government
http://www.kudelka.com.au/2013/09/buy-the-boats/
Just had a closer study of the map of Indi. Politics aside, what an absolutely breathtakingly beautiful corner of the planet.
Psephos: Mirabella is too important to the hard-right of the Liberal Party to be lost from parliament. Some backbencher in a safe seat will be necked and Mirabella installed faster than you can say “by-election”.
That may be so Paul Austin, but the stench that followed Mirabella around the seat of Indi this time will surely follow her to another electorate – where she would suffer the additional hurdle of being a blow-in. Not sure the L-NP would want to risk that.
McGowan’s votes have been added. She leads by 1449. Now I can have a good sleep. Good night.
When was the last time an MP was tossed out and came back in another guise, senate or by election, in the same parliament?
Hadn’t thought about Cosgrove, but yes he would fit the bill. Tory through and through and a ‘popular’ general – that is to the conservatives. He used to pee in JWH’s pocket.
The conservatives love all that dressing up in uniform stuff.
I had visions of John Howard being offered the job.
The fact that the GG and Shorten’s relationship was brought up again by the conservative media just shows who is really pulling the strings.
Somebody mentioned that Minchin would be offered the Brack’s (former) gig. More “jobs for the boys” Tony? Pay back time Tony?
[Psephos: Mirabella is too important to the hard-right of the Liberal Party to be lost from parliament. Some backbencher in a safe seat will be necked and Mirabella installed faster than you can say “by-election”.]
Even the lunar/far right in the LNP have their limits and I think Mrs Mirabella found them and they will be glad to let her go…
alias
Indeed. We have some land on a riverbank in Indi. Beautiful country.
If anyone is interested, if you go to the site of the Governor-General, under “Caretaker Government”, you will see the official correspondence passing between PMKR and the GG, announcing Rudd’s resignation and recommendation to call on Abbott to form a Government.
I have to say it made me feel sick when I saw the reality of what happened last Saturday.
sustainable future
[
kudelka is on fire today
]
Under Abbottabad it will be a cartoonist led recovery 🙂
feeney:
If Labor can sort itself out, it will once again be back in govt. I have this nagging feeling that Abbott is going to entrench himself in office as Howard did, however.
[Liam Hogan @liamvhogan 14m
I love Greens pushing for an ALP ballot despite Christine Milne being installed unopposed as Leader (with SHY quietly withdrawing)]
Yes, the media seems to have missed that one yet again!
The only example I can think of is Eddy Ward, in 1931, who lost East Sydney to John Clasby (UAP). Clasby died shortly after and Ward won the by-election.
W G Spence (Nat) lost Darling (NSW) in 1917. Shortly after he won a by-election in Darwin (Tas).
I remain to be convinced that God exists. But if Ms Mirabella loses, takes it to the Court of Disputed Returns, loses there too and has to pay the other parties’ costs, then His existence will be undeniable.
Sir Charles Marr (Nat) lost Parkes to Edward McTiernan (ALP) in 1929. When Scullin appointed McTiernan to the High Court in 1930, Marr regained the seat at the by-election. He lost it again in 1943.
[2617
Boerwar
Posted Wednesday, September 11, 2013 at 8:18 pm | PERMALINK
alias
‘Upon what grounds could Mirabella obtain an injunction?’
Plenty.
(1) The votes were left in a shed all by themselves.
(2) There were sufficient votes to overturn the outcome.
(3) If it could happen to these votes what else might have happened in the shed?
]
The votes were in nappies?
Half your luck BoerWar
Bright, Harrietville, Porepunkah, Mt Beauty, the Ovens valley.. magnificent.. Corryong, Mitta Mitta, Rutherglen – the finest fortified wines in the world – and Glenrowan, scene of the last stand of the infamous Ned Kelly.
I’ll nominate Indi as the most spectacular electorate in the country, excluding those covering vast tracts with tiny population centres.
Psephos
[The only example I can think of is Eddy Ward, in 1931, who lost East Sydney to John Clasby (UAP). Clasby died shortly after and Ward won the by-election.]
Given the large numbers of MPs losing their seats over the years, that suggests very strongly Sophie won’t be back in this parliament. She’d have to be very concerned about her chances of getting back in Indi if she ran again.
confessions @ 2721
Yes, I tend to agree with you.
Abbott will be feted by the MSM, his mistakes overlooked by News Ltd, and he’ll be promoted as ‘just an ordinary sort of bloke doing the right thing for Australia’.
I’m really starting to feel sick about it all.
Depression is now starting to sink in with the reality of it all.
Remember reading that Cosgrove had Labor sympathies, at least in his early days.
Also Don Cameron (Lib), lost Fadden in 1983, elected in a by-election to succeed Jim Killen in Moreton later that year. Dan Mackinnon (Lib) lost Wannon in 1951 and won a by-election for Corangamite in 1953. Hugh Mahon (ALP) lost Coolgardie in 1913 (or rather Coolgardie was abolished and he was defeated in Dampier), and won a by-election for Kalgoorlie later that year. Sir Robert Best (Lib) lost his Senate seat in 1910 and won a by-election for Kooyong later that year. And John Chanter (Prot) challenged his 1903 defeat in Riverina and was re-elected in the by-election. Defeated senators have not uncommonly been appointed to vacancies in the subsequent term as well.
Ditch The Witch !!!! …. Ditch The Witch !!!!
Ditch The Witch !!!! …. Ditch The Witch !!!!
What’s Conroy hashtag doing on twitter?
Well, I’ve now thought of three examples, but two of them involved a defeated member getting their own seat back. Only Spence found a new seat within the same Parliament. So it is a rare occurrence, and I can’t see the Vic Libs risking another seat by putting Mirabella up at a by-election. I can’t really even see them giving her another run in Indi or anywhere else in 2016. It’s not like she’s a great talent or anything.
Frickeg, very good! Did you look those up? I did my three from memory.
Also:
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/twoway-race-a-possibility-for-party-leadership-20130910-2tidb.html
“Bill Shorten will seek the Labor leadership when the diminished ALP caucus meets in Canberra on Friday in a possible head-to-head showdown with present deputy leader Anthony Albanese.”
Yes, I cheated and went to the list of by-elections. May possibly have missed a few.
Confessions – Don’t be so pessimistic.
We are living in different times now. The old “certainties” such as “Governments always get two terms” is just a construct based on this past.
It this is not the case why did Labor then dump Rudd, in his first term, when his poll lead was 52-48? Why? Because Labor was spooked (among other things) that Rudd might just be a one term PM. The conservatives quickly picked up on this and added fuel to the fire.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Why is Abbott any more secure? Despite the polls towards the end, he was neither loved nor liked. Apart from his daughters and his wife, who actually likes him?
Voters have, as many predicted, held their nose to vote conservative warts and all – meaning Abbott – to get rid of Labor.
He is on borrowed time. But, and this is the main point, he needs to be attacked right from the word go.
Labor made a big mistake letting him run free over the Christmas period when he came in and believed its own propaganda about him being “unelectable”.
Labor needs to go on the front foot right from the word go. When Abbott pulls the rug from the car industry, it should be into howl mode for Labor.
Stuff all talk about “mandate” and “referendums on the CT”. He chose to oppose everything, agree to nothing and try to thwart everything.
What Labor does not want to be sucked into is some appeal to its better nature.
This went out of the window long ago in 1975 when the Liberals totally ignored “conventions” and just went for power.
The conservatives have no scruples and Labor needs to toughen up.
Any clue as to how Shorten and Albanese get along personally?
Frickeg and Psephos
I gather none of those by elections were engineered to find a seat for a despised MP.
feeney 2730
remember you fought the good fight for what you believed in, your day will come again in 3 years time I hope
Thomas. Paine.
Posted Wednesday, September 11, 2013 at 9:03 pm | PERMALINK
Abbott will make popular the ‘Deer in Headlights’ look.
——-that’s right. the headlights are the public
Shorten said Albanese could have it. It would be bizarre if he now fights him for it.
Mirabella may want to dispute the result, but it seems to have been a transcription error, so nothing to challenge
I swear I typed in deposed not despised!!!
[Yes, I cheated and went to the list of by-elections. ]
Fair enough. I’d forgotten about that drip Cameron, who managed to lose three different seats. My memory actually gets better the further back we go. I know the pre-war House of Reps almost by heart.
was that right current coup wants to suppress nos of arrivals. hope that figure leaked. boats alone could undo this ‘mob’
For a change of pace: one lesser reported outcome of the election is that my 3 year old now thinks all politicians are called ‘CHEESE MAN’.
alias – 2728
I remember when young telling our grandfather who lived near that we had driven through Glenrowan and he muttered under his breath “That’s where they got him, the rotters!”
We later lived in Shepparton for a while, and did lots of trips with our then very young children into the areas coverd by Indi – favorite time Autumn.
[@JoshBBornstein: If there’s a legal challenge to @Indigocathy if she wins #indivotes,Pro Bono Bornstein is on standby with 1/2 the Melb legal profession.]