What follows is a brief overview of the results in electorates I felt worth commenting on for one reason or another, together with projections of state vote shares based on ordinary votes results (which are not quite fully accounted for in the count, but close enough to it) and the extent to which postals, pre-polls and absent votes shifted the totals in 2010. New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory are covered herein, with the others to follow.
New South Wales
% Swing Projection Coalition 47.3 +2.6 47.2 Labor 34.9 -2.8 34.5 Greens 7.7 -2.2 8.1 Palmer United 4.3 Others 5.8 Two-party preferred Coalition 54.2 +3.2 54.3 Labor 45.8 -3.2 45.7
Banks. The 3.3% swing which ousted Daryl Melham was almost exactly equal to the state total, which followed an 8.9% swing in 2010. An increase in the number of candidates from four to nine restricted the Liberal primary vote gain to 1.7% and contributed to a halving of the Greens vote, down from 9.6% to 4.7%.
Barton. The seat vacated by former Attorney-General Robert McClelland is going down to the wire, the 6.9% margin exactly matched by the swing on ordinary votes. This was the second biggest swing against Labor in Sydney after Macquarie. Barton was another seat that witnessed a dramatic proliferation of candidates, from three to eight, with the five minor party and independent newcomers collectively drawing 11.3%. The Liberals nonetheless increased their primary vote slightly, the balance coming off Labor and the Greens.
Blaxland. Reports on the eve of the election suggested Labor had grave fears for Jason Clare’s hold on Paul Keating’s old seat, despite its 12.2% margin. This proved entirely unfounded, with Labor up 5.4% on the primary vote and holding steady on two-party preferred.
Charlton. For some reason, the seat vacated by Greg Combet gave the Palmer United Party what was comfortably its highest vote in New South Wales at 11.3% (UPDATE: Frickeg in comments reminds me the belated disendorsement of the Liberal candidate probably had something to do with it). The party’s second best showing in the state was 7.8% in neighbouring Hunter. That aside, Combet’s departure did not cause any disturbance to Labor, the two-party swing being slightly below the state average.
Dobell. Craig Thomson managed 4.0%, which was at least better than Peter Slipper and contributed to a double-digit drop in the Labor primary vote, their worst such result in the state. Also contributing was former test cricketer Nathan Bracken, running as an independent with the backing of John Singleton, who managed 8.3%. The Liberal primary vote was up slightly, and its 5.9% swing on two-party preferred adequate to account for the 5.5% margin.
Eden-Monaro. Mike Kelly appeared to be well placed early in the count, but the larger and later reporting booths, including those in Queanbeyan, tended to swing more heavily. Kelly is presently sitting on a swing of 4.8%, enough to account for his 4.4% margin barring late count peculiarities and maintain Eden-Monaro’s cherished bellwether record. This was higher than the state average, part of a pattern in which swings in the state’s regions were actually slightly higher than in Sydney, contrary to all expectations.
Fowler. After all the hype about Labor’s looming collapse in western Sydney, a seat in that very area produced the most anomalous swing of the election in Labor’s favour. The 9.0% swing to Chris Hayes was 12.2% above the statewide par for Labor, and was fuelled by an 11.2% drop in the Liberal primary vote and swings approaching 20% in Cabramatta, the very area the Liberals had hoped to target by picking a Vietnamese candidate in Andrew Nguyen. However, look at the seat’s behaviour over longer range suggests this to have been a correction after an anomalous result in 2010, when Liberal candidate Thomas Dang slashed the Labor margin by 13.8% and picked up swings ranging from 16.5% to 23.1% in the Cambramatta booths.
Gilmore. The south coast seat was one of three in New South Wales to swing to Labor, presumably on account of the retirement of long-serving Liberal member Joanna Gash. Her successor, Ann Sudmalis, has emerged with 2.6% remaining of a 5.3% margin.
Grayndler. The Greens vote fell only modestly, by 1.2% to 22.8%, but it looks enough to have cost them a second place they attained for the first time in 2010. With primary votes generally fairly static, the change in Liberal preferencing policy would presumably have inflicted a hefty two-party swing if they had made the final count.
Hunter. Joel Fitzgibbon was down 10.1% on the primary vote, and while this was partly on account of the Palmer United Party’s second best performance in the state, he also suffered Labor’s biggest two-party swing in the state at 8.9%.
Kingsford Smith. One of a number of pieces of saved furniture for Labor in Sydney, Kingsford Smith turned in a largely status quo result in Peter Garrett’s absence, outgoing Senator Matt Thistlethwaite easily defending a 5.2% margin against a swing of 1.9%.
Lindsay. The swing that unseated David Bradbury was slightly on the high side for Sydney at 3.5%, more than accounting for a margin of 1.1% without meeting the more fevered expectations of a western Sydney disaster.
Macarthur. Liberal sophomore Russell Matheson picked up the second biggest two-party Coalition swing in New South Wales, up 6.8% on the primary vote and 8.4% on two-party preferred.
Page. The expectation that Labor would perform better in regional New South Wales than in Sydney was most strikingly defied in Page, where Janelle Saffin unexpectedly fell victim to a 7.2% swing.
Parramatta. Julie Owens’ seat produced a fairly typical result for Sydney in swinging 3.4% to the Liberals, which hasn’t been enough to account for the 4.4% margin. (UPDATE: I speak too soon. In keeping with a general trend of late counting away from Labor, postal votes are flowing heavily to the Liberals and putting Owens at very serious risk.)
Robertson. As expected, the seat Deborah O’Neill did well to retain in 2010 with a margin of 1.0% was an early election night casualty for Labor, the swing of 4.0% being perfectly typical for non-metropolitan New South Wales.
Throsby. Gary “Angry” Anderson managed 10.5% as candidate of the Nationals, nearly doubling the party’s vote from 2010 despite the number of candidates being up from five to 11. The Greens conversely were well down, by 6.5% to 5.3%.
Werriwa. Frequently written off during the campaign, Laurie Ferguson is set to retain about 2.2% of his 6.8% margin from 2010.
Queensland
% Swing Projection Coalition 45.3 -1.9 45.5 Labor 30.1 -3.9 29.7 Greens 6.1 -4.7 6.2 Palmer United 11.3 Others 7.2 Two-party preferred Coalition 56.0 +1.1 56.3 Labor 44.0 -1.1 43.7
Blair. One Labor MP with good cause to feel glad about Kevin Rudd’s return was Shayne Neumann, who picked up a 1.4% two-party swing and held firm on the primary vote in the face of 12.8% vote for the Palmer United Party. Here as elsewhere in Queensland, the Greens crashed in the absence of the Kevin Rudd protest vote in 2010, dropping 6.9% to 4.2%.
Brisbane. While Labor had much to be relieved about in Queensland, its high hopes for recovering Brisbane were not realised, with Liberal National Party member Teresa Gamabaro up 1.8% on the primary vote, Labor steady. A 6.9% drop in the Greens vote to 14.3%, coming off Andrew Bartlett’s high-profile campaign in 2010, produced a significantly weaker flow of preferences to Labor.
Capricornia. The central Queensland seat vacated by Kirsten Livermore is going down to the wire after a heavy 8.9% drop in the Labor primary vote. This was mostly down to the competition from the Palmer and Katter parties, the former outscoring the latter 7.9% to 5.3%. With the Liberal National Party vote little changed, Labor suffered a 4.4% swing on ordinary votes off a margin of 4.6%.
Fairfax. Clive Palmer seems to be fighting to hold on to a 1411 against a strong trend in late counting towards Liberal National Party candidate Ted O’Brien. However, O’Brien’s current vote count looks to have been inflated by a discrepancy you can read about here. As things stand, the key to Palmer’s potential victory is his clear success in outpolling Labor 27.3% to 18.1% on ordinary votes, with LNP candidate Ted O’Brien’s 41.0% below the safety zone with Labor and Greens preferences flowing strongly against him.
Fisher. With Palmer United Party candidate Bill Schoch apparently primed to overtake Labor on preferences, despite trailing them 21.0% to 18.3% on the primary vote, Mal Brough’s 43.8% share of the vote was an uncomfortably long distance from the 50% mark. Nonetheless, Brough appears to be gaining about a quarter of the overall preferences on offer, enough to get him over the line with a few per cent to spare.
Griffith. Kevin Rudd suffered Labor’s equal biggest swing in Queensland of 5.2%, with Bill Glasson’s 5.9% lift on the primary vote the second highest achieved by an LNP candidate.
Kennedy. Bob Katter emerged a big loser of election night with a 17.1% slump in his primary vote, reducing him to 29.5%. Liberal National Party candidate Noeline Ikin was the beneficiary of a 14.0% spike that put her well in front on the primary vote count with 40.6%, but preferences are flowing solidly enough to Katter to leave him with a margin slightly below 3%.
Leichhardt. There was strong movement to Labor in Aboriginal communities, doubtless reflecting the background of Labor candidate Billy Gordon. This briefly created the illusion of a potential Labor victory as the first booth-matched results came through on election night, but that was negated by a strong performance by LNP member Warren Entsch in Cairns and the electorate’s rural areas.
Lilley. The 1.6% swing against Wayne Swan was well in line with the statewide norm, and if anything a little above it. Given the pre-election publicity though, Swan’s success in retaining almost all of his 2010 primary vote was among the results that lifted Labor’s spirits on an otherwise grim evening.
Petrie. Kevin Rudd’s election night boast of having defended all of Labor’s Queensland seats to the contrary, it appears that Yvette d’Ath has been unseated by a swing of 3.0% on the ordinary votes, compared with her pre-election margin of 2.5%.
Northern Territory
% Swing Projection Coalition 41.2 +0.8 41.6 Labor 38.3 -0.2 37.7 Greens 7.7 -5.0 7.9 Palmer United 4.6 Others 8.2 Two-party preferred Coalition 49.7 +0.9 50.1 Labor 50.3 -0.9 49.9
Lingiari. As usual, swings in the extra-Darwin Northern Territory electorate were all over the shop, the general picture being of a slight swing to Labor in remote communities blunting the swing against Labor to 2.7%, short of Warren Snowdon’s 3.7% margin. This followed a 2010 result which delivered huge swings to the Country Liberal Party in remote communities but partly balanced them out with strong swings to Labor in the major centre, specifically Alice Springs.
Solomon. Natasha Griggs, who unseated Labor’s Damien Hale in 2010, notably failed to enjoy a sophomore surge, Solomon delivering a rare 0.7% swing to Labor to reduce the CLP margin to 0.9%.
Doug Cameron dismissing Conroy and his nonsense out of hand.
Id be interested in hearing arguments against having a combined caucus / members vote on the ALP leader.
You do realise Australia is the only country in the westminster tradition that doesnt already do this sort of thing?
Outsider
As Psephos has pointed out many times there are no new rules. The existing rule is that Caucus decides the leader.
ru
Slogans only work for the tories
Outsider
[Can anyone enlighten me?]
Phespos’ argument that it’s the ‘old rules’ seems logical although the Press seem to say ‘new’.
Maybe that’s one of the things to be thrashed out at the Caucus meeting.
BK
Congratulations on the honour bestowed on your family. 🙂
I suppose caucus could always give a nod to Rudd’s rules anyway, if they felt like it.
Looks like Labor is having a bonfire of the vanities.
The reactionaries must be pissing themselves laughing.
BK:
What great news! Congrats.
D
Caucus cannot change the rules. There is some sort of National meeting which decides the rules. Caucus applies them.
It is vintage Rudd that no-one actually knows what is going on except that there is a complete and utter shambles.
Today’s Mumble:
[ It is in the ALP’s interests for Rudd to leave parliament soon, obviously, and presumably he intends to. If instead he sits on the backbench fluttering his eyelashes as Peter Costello did for two years, he really is as malignant an individual as the Kevin-haters insist.
In any event, this time around no-one in caucus would reciprocate the flirting. ]
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/and_what_now/
I am hoping he will go next year, after a suitable period has elapsed after the election.
v
Why are we congratulating BK’s family? Is it something to do with Indi?
[I suppose caucus could always give a nod to Rudd’s rules anyway, if they felt like it.]
Not really, the Party rules say Caucus choses the leader, Caucus cannot change this.
The media have been having a field day running with one of Rudd’s last grenades, but their will be no challenge and no membership vote. Shorten will be elected unopposed and Plibersek will be elected Deputy unopposed.
The dance for the media is tripe.
outsider
If there is more than one candidate it will be under the new rules where the membership comes into play.
One other thing just saw Doogie on 7:30 and just love his style. Leigh couldn’t sway him on anything.
[He is good at reciting slogans but not great on policy detail]
True, but didn’t Abbott become Prime Minister adopting such an approach?
CTar, the press will say whatever they feel like, they don’t bother with trivial things like facts. Rudd put in new rules and if Labor don’t follow them it won’t because Labor never actually got around to putting them in place, it will be those factions and those faceless men.
@ruawake/912
The media already making Labor Leadership a circus, I just happen to pass the TV and it was about Labor Leadership!
[Doug Cameron dismissing Conroy and his nonsense out of hand.
Id be interested in hearing arguments against having a combined caucus / members vote on the ALP leader.
You do realise Australia is the only country in the westminster tradition that doesnt already do this sort of thing?]
Do any others have three year terms though?
I think Canada and the UK can indulge in party conferences to select leaders given their long terms.
Labor circus… enough said…
Boerwar
[822
BK
Posted Thursday, September 12, 2013 at 6:53 pm | PERMALINK
I just saw on the local news that they will be having a bronze statue of my uncle at the new Adelaide Oval.]
[v
Why are we congratulating BK’s family? Is it something to do with Indi?]
Well done, BK.
Your good work in Indi is appreciated by the Buldgers here!
[In any event, this time around no-one in caucus would reciprocate the flirting. ]
If here is anything to go by, do not be so sure, Mr Mumble!
Couldn’t they argue that they’ll get around to the other half of the vote later, once the rules are in place?
New2This
Wait for about twelve months to pass and your government starts to fall apart.
You will then have to call yourself “Old2This”.
[I still haven’t worked out if Labor’s new leaders will be elected by caucus under the old rules or under Rudd’s new 50/50 rule. Can anyone enlighten me?]
I doubt it. Since Rudd’s “reforms” have never been approved by a National Conference, they have no legal standing. On that basis Caucus can just go ahead and elect a Leader in the usual way next week. But the membership is now expecting a ballot, and much of the media is assuming there will be one. Caucus cannot conduct a membership ballot – it is not an executive body. It can ask the Federal Executive to ask the state and territory branches (who hold the membership lists) to conduct the ballot, but would have no legal basis for requiring them to do so. And the process would grind to a halt if anyone decided to take it to court.
My understanding is that contrary to the media reporting, the new rules have not yet been endorsed by the National Conference, so the old rules remain in place. So it will be a caucus ballot. But I stand to be corrected
Psephos:
Sounds like a right mess.
One solution would be for the membership ballot to be “advisory”, with the result to be ratified by Caucus.
So you didn’t answer my question Psephos! Rank and file members I know assume it remains a caucus decision
Player One@881
And I am not surprised in the least that you prefer the candidate that has caused so much disruption in the ALP. Your Liberal masters will be pleased.
[One solution would be for the membership ballot to be “advisory”, with the result to be ratified by Caucus.]
Would Caucus accept an “advisory” that Rudd be reinstalled? 😉
[ I am hoping he will go next year, after a suitable period has elapsed after the election. ]
So you want another year of “leadershit” frenzy by the media, while Abbott uses this distraction to renege on every single one of his election promises?
And I thought you were a Labor supporter? 🙂
CTar1
Posted Thursday, September 12, 2013 at 7:47 pm | Permalink
Outsider
Can anyone enlighten me?
Phespos’ argument that it’s the ‘old rules’ seems logical although the Press seem to say ‘new’.
Maybe that’s one of the things to be thrashed out at the Caucus meeting.
————————————
When it comes to the media there are two things.
1. Don’t believe half of what they write/day because it’s not the truth or factual.
2. The rest is just lies.
Three duds and a backstabber…
I have lost a post somewhere but my question was to you Psephos:
Could there be a National Executive meeting called to ratify the new rules?
PO:
I’d love him to go ASAP, but I think a by-election right now would look bad.
There’s also the question of the unions. Labor has two kinds of members, individual branch members and affiliated union – that’s what makes it a Labor Party. If one type of member is to be given a vote in choosing the Leader, I don’t see how the other type of member can be excluded.
[Could there be a National Executive meeting called to ratify the new rules?]
No. Only National Conference can change the Party Constitution.
[ And I am not surprised in the least that you prefer the candidate that has caused so much disruption in the ALP. ]
You mean by reinstalling Rudd? Yes, I agree that has proven to be a utter disaster for the ALP.
Given that Rudd has probably caused the ALP to lose control the Senate as well, he has turned out worse than any but the most pessimistic here ever predicted.
But you can’t sheet all that blame home to just one person – a majority of caucus also supported Rudd. Would you rule them all out?
On newsradio this afternoon the president of the Alp said that there would be a ballot that included members who are financial for two years. I would assume that the president of Alp knows what’s happening
I’m expecting it will just be a caucus ballot. Seems the safest legal solution. Anything else will be a mess. National Conference can sort out Rudd’s brain fart later
New2This
Posted Thursday, September 12, 2013 at 8:04 pm | Permalink
Three duds and a backstabber…
—————————————-
Morrison, Pyne, Dutton and Abbott
confessions@935
Well, we will just have to disagree on this one. I can’t think how it could possibly make anything worse for the ALP right about now.
In fact, I think you might find the whole nation would breathe a sigh of relief!
[I’m expecting it will just be a caucus ballot.]
I think that’s sensible at this point, as I said this morning. Get the reforms sound from the start, rather than patchworking something together in the short term.
[On newsradio this afternoon the president of the Alp said that there would be a ballot that included members who are financial for two years. I would assume that the president of Alp knows what’s happening]
I heard that too!
Wasn’t sure if she said it would take up to a month, radio kept cracking up.
Did you hear that?
Why don’t you just let the ALP membership nominate the contenders for leadership then the caucus chooses between them?
It would be a bit like the Primary versus General Election scenario in the USA.
It is a little unwieldy to have someone lead a parliamentary team when the team don’t like them but the membership does. That is a little like what killed off the Democrats.
….although it was the other way around with the Democrat situation! :devil:
Can you people tell Shorten he can’t have a ballot and ask him to stop spruiking one.
[Mr Shorten also weighed into the debate about whether or not rank and file members should have a say in the leadership of the party.
“I think it is healthy to have a ballot of the members,” he said.
“It is exciting for the members to have an opinion.”]
Oh well, those guys are limber. I’m sure they’ll work out something that tecnically fits both expectations and the rules :D.
[You do realise Australia is the only country in the westminster tradition that doesnt already do this sort of thing?]
New Zealand?
[You do realise Australia is the only country in the westminster tradition that doesnt already do this sort of thing?]
Canadian parties elect their leaders at conventions, like in the US.