The first two Senate results were determined today, for Tasmania and the Northern Territory. No further results will be decided until at least next week, with the possibility of some having to wait until a week subsequently. This post will review the results as they emerge.
Western Australia (October 2)
The one we’ve all been waiting for: it’s Louise Pratt and PUP, rather than Scott Ludlam and Sports, possibly pending an unprecedented Senate recount. 1. David Johnston (Liberal); 2. Joe Bullock (Labor); 3. Michaelia Cash (Liberal); 4. Linda Reynolds (Liberal); 5. Zhenya Wang (PUP); 6. Louise Pratt (Labor).
The result was decided by a difference of just 14 votes, that being the margin at the key point of the count between Shooters & Fishers (23,515) and Australian Christians (23,501). Going on the ABC computer projection, the margin at that point in the count was 23,395 for Shooters & Fishers against 22,967 for Australian Christians. So below-the-line votes cost van Burgel 534 vote and Bow 120 – not quite enough to make the difference. Had Shooters & Fishers dropped out, their preferences would have gone to the Australian Sports Party, sustaining them at a point in the count where they would otherwise have been excluded. There would then have come a later point in the count where the Palmer United Party would have been excluded on account of being behind the Sports Party, and their preferences would have flowed to the Greens giving Ludlam the seat at the expense of Pratt.
New South Wales (October 2)
As anticipated, 1. Marise Payne (Liberal), 2. Bob Carr (Labor), 3. John Williams (Nationals), 4. Doug Cameron (Labor), 5. David Leyonhjelm (LDP); 6. Arthur Sinodinos (Liberal).
Queensland (October 2)
No surprises here either, except that it’s come sooner than anticipated. 1. Ian Macdonald (LNP), 2. Chris Ketter (Labor), 3. James McGrath (LNP), 4. Claire Moore (Labor), 5. Glenn Lazarus (PUP) & 6. Matt Canavan (LNP).
Victoria (October 1)
1. Mitch Fifield (Liberal), 2. Gavin Marshall (Labor), 3. Scott Ryan (Liberal), 4. Jacinta Collins (Labor), 5. Janet Rice (Greens); 6. Ricky Muir (Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party).
Also confirmed today, and also in line with what all models were projecting.
South Australia (October 1)
1. Cory Bernardi (Liberal); 2. Nick Xenophon; 3. Penny Wong (Labor); 4. Sarah Hanson-Young (Greens); 5. Bob Day (Family First); 6. Simon Birmingham (Liberal).
Confirmed today, with no surprises. More to follow.
Australian Capital Territory (October 1)
1. Kate Lundy (Labor); 2. Zed Seselja (Liberal).
Confirmed this morning. No surprises here.
Tasmania
1. Richard Colbeck (Liberal); 2. Carol Brown (Labor); 3. David Bushby (Liberal); 4. Catryna Bilyk (Labor); 5. Peter Whish-Wilson (Greens); 6. Jacqui Lambie (Palmer United).
Liberal and Labor both scored a clean two quotas off the primary vote (2.63 and 2.30 respectively), with Labor’s surplus enough to ensure election for Peter Whish-Wilson (0.82) after the exclusion of the third Labor candidate, Lin Thorp. The race for the final seat ended up a three-way contest between the ultimately successful Jacqui Lambie of the Palmer United Party, third Liberal candidate Sally Chandler, and Robbie Swan of the Sex Party. The ABC calculator had been giving it to Swan because a strong performance on preferences, including from some unlikely sources, would have helped him stay ahead of Lin Thorp by 15,145 to 14,449 at a key point of the count. However, many of those preferences were perversely to come from conservative parties (Shooters and Fishers, Country Alliance, Australian Fishing and Lifestyle Party) whose supporters were not of a mind to direct preferences to the Sex Party consciously (UPDATE: Kevin Bonham in comments points out the Sex Party in fact got more below-the-line preferences than Labor from Shooters and Fishers voters – however, on the ABC calculator projection they were getting all of them). That caused 653 below-the-line votes for those parties to leak away, while below-the-line votes gave Thorp a net gain of 287. The closure of the gap meant the exclusion of Swan, followed by the exclusion of Thorp and the election of Whish-Wilson. At this stage, Jacqui Lambie emerged with a 31,142-29,866 vote lead over the Liberal Democrats, whose exclusion unlocked the flood of preferences which elected her. Had Lambie failed to stay ahead of the Liberal Democrats, her own preferences would have decided the result in favour of Chandler.
Northern Territory
1. Nigel Scullion (Country Liberal); 2. Nova Peris (Labor).
Labor finished just short of a quota with 0.9824, but would presumably have got over the line on below-the-line preferences on any scenario. Even if it were otherwise, the combinations that might have put Nova Peris in jeopardy were not in place. The one party with the potential to absorb the entire non-Labor vote was First Nations, but the combined vote for it and its immediate preference feeders amounted to only 2.18%, giving its candidate no chance of overtaking Australian Independents or Shooters and Fishers as required to keep the snowball rolling. Peris made it to a quota when Sex Party preferences were distributed, and stood to receive the 8.7% Greens vote if the count had proceeded further.
Thanks KB, we appreciate it.
Let us spare a thought for Don Farrell, who voluntarily gave up top spot on the SA ALP Senate ticket, a spot he had won in a free and democratic party ballot, because of a noisy campaign by the Left demanding that Penny Wong be given top spot even though she didn’t win the ballot. As a result he has lost his seat. I don’t agree with Farrell about quite a lot of things, but he deserves credit for putting party unity ahead of his personal interests and paying the price for doing so.
Adam Carr @202, hear hear. Its a pity that the ALP preferenced the Greens. SHY would have lost her seat had they preferenced Zen ahead of the Greens. The supreme sacrifice
Psephos,
Though Don did this, I can assure dear readers that he is not mortally wounded and will continue to run South Australia from a place other than his Senate office come July 1st next year.
Sorry, but to give Don Farrell, the Godfather of SA Labor, any sympathy when he has run the place like a fiefdom for the past umpteen years is just laughable.
One could also point out that if Farrell and Wong were considered of equal talent the noise of the left would not have made a difference. It’s only because Wong was so clearly of more worth to the ALP that the argument carried such weight.
I imagine Farrell could come back if he wanted to at the next election in place of Gallacher.
WA and Tas the only seats not going to expectation.
WA being the closest poll since QLD and Victoria 2007
Looking forward to finally getting to see the BTL preference data. Strange that the AEC insists in publishing two formats in the line zip file. Wasted down load I guess. Not very efficient but that is our public service for us. I remember when the MCC spent $60,000 to try and prevent the publication of BTL preference data when it could have cost them $1.00
I think it had something to do with years already served vs strategic roles. Obviously Kevin wanted to reward Wong for her switch of support. still it was an agreed position.
It occurred prior to the Rudd/Gillard switch.
That you Antony Green Truth seeker and Kevin Bonham for your great work
Every single election system is flawed
The German Quota system is flawed because 8% of people did not have their voice heard and created a parliament not in the wishes of the public
Compulsory preferential voting make us choose between the likes of One Nation, PUP or Family First or Sex Party, Greens and Socialist Alliance. Most Australian would have no idea on any policies of 4 of the above
Optional preferential voting means someone who is voted for by less then 50% of the electorate can get elected
Every system is flawed, My view is that OPV is the best system. I am happy with what we have at the moment in the lower house and the senate
Maybe there should be a rule that Cabinet ministers always get the top Senate spot. But the SA Branch doesn’t have such a rule. Its rules say that the Senate ticket should be elected by a ballot at state conference. They had a ballot, and Farrell won. Maybe that was a bad choice by conference, but that’s a risk you run with democracy. The Left always make lots of noise about party democracy. But here, when they lost a ballot, they then agitated to get the result reversed. Farrell, being the gentleman he is, agreed to stand aside. As a result, he has lost his seat. I think he deserves credit for that.
dovif@209
This happens anyway even in the Reps in many seats because of the percentage of people who don’t vote or who deliberately or accidentally vote informal.
Given also that in many cases the “voting for” entails putting one candidate second-last because you dislike the other one more, I don’t see why people care so much about this argument. And I think anyone who does care about it should be supporting some kind of Condorcet system for the Reps. I have no idea what they should be supporting in the case of the Senate.
One lesson for us all – I carried a copy of my Senate voting intention in with me to vote BTL, and then forgot my glasses.
Still added up to 74 but may have done some proximity preferencing in panic after all.
Apologies for the long post, but George Brandis book buying on the public purse is breathtaking
[WHAT George Brandis bought.
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Whoops! meant for main thread
But for any aspiring Senator, maybe some tips in there….
Had a look for evidence of the fabled reverse donkey vote in the SA Senate cutup. Not a lot to see there. 🙂
I like the term proximity preferencing. It’s a good one.
Optional preferential is akin to multiple choice first past the post.
What has been talked about and what will most likely be adopted is the possibility of a saving provision where the rest of the ballot paper will be filled in on the basis of the registered how to vote card related to the party of the first choice candidate.
With OPV a reiterative count where the vote is rest and restated Quota recalculated on each iteration become even more important.
Sure not every system is perfect. You claim that Germany 8% rule is unrepresentative well so is the Droop quota. in the ACT and up to NT 33% of the electorate are denied a say in who represents them. Just because some systems after flawed should not mean we have to retain our own brand of flaws.
The surplus quota and system of segmentation should be changed. It is not a difficult change and would not alter the way we vote. But it will reflect the voters choice.
Tasmania has to abandoned the last bundle Hare Clarke also.
This is best down with a reiterative count. In the past the notion of undertaking a reiterative count was considered prohibitive using a manual system. With the use pf computers a reiterative count is no longer prohibitive but desirable, fairer and more accurate
With OP a reiterative count facilitates a floating quota. The remainders should stay with the vote and help decide any ties.
One transaction per candidate, no segmentation. Simple pure proportional preferential ballot.
democracy@work@216
When it comes to the Senate, even if the result under OPV was that every voter knowingly chose to exhaust their vote once it left their chosen party, I would take it over the current system without hesitation. Because it would be an outcome of knowing voter choice to not direct preferences. At present voters unknowingly trust parties to direct their preferences for them, often unaware that those preferences may go somewhere that that voter would not knowingly want.
I do think if we go to full Senate OPV it should be accompanied by HTV Card reform. Actually this should happen in the Reps as well to get rid of some of the “you must vote this way” rubbish aimed at voters with poor English language skills or low intelligence. It should be compulsory for HTV cards to advise voters prominently, clearly and preferably using a set wording that they have the option of directing their own preferences.
Kevin Bonham @ 128: Whatever one thinks about the issue of how-to-vote cards and people following parties’ recommendations – and personally I don’t have a problem with people who conceive of their political positions purely in party terms, and care not about individual candidates – there is a fundamental problem these days that candidates systematically refuse to state their positions on many policies. This may be less of a problem in compact jurisdictions like Tasmania, but I’d have to say, having voted using the NSW Senate ballot, that I can’t really imagine how I could have come up with a truthful ordering of candidates below the line. And in such situations, voting the party ticket is hardly an abomination, it’s just common sense. That’s one of the reasons I’ve always been in favour of OPV.
Actually, I think a lot of the arguments against ticket voting are badly overcooked. In effect, it largely works like closed list PR, which may not be as flexible as Hare-Clark, but is hardly undemocratic.
The ACT has adopted a sensible approach to OPV and formality. The instructions say number the candidates from 1 to at least 7 in Molongo or 1 to at least 5 in the other two electorates. But your vote still counts if you show fewer preferences, including just a solitary 1. http://www.elections.act.gov.au/elections_and_voting/formality_of_ballot_papers
Like Tasmania, HTV cards cannot be handed out close to polling booths, and parties have worked out they maximise their chances by spreading 1st preferences over all members of the team.
Ticket voting penalises any party getting more than a quota in the Senate. Liberals gave a seat to PUP in Tasmania by not adopting Hare-Clark tactics. Their third candidate would have been well ahead of PUP late in the count if Liberal voters had been more event spread.
Evenly spread!
Geoff Powell@220
Not quite sure how this works in this case. PUP crossed quota on Liberal Democrat preferences with over .15 of a quota to spare after the Lib Dems were excluded, and as far as I can tell PUP would still have done so no matter how the Liberals split up their primary vote. Third Liberal was ahead of both PUP and LDP when LDP were excluded but was then leapfrogged by PUP on LDP preferences. If there had been three Libs on .9ish each they would have collectively got more BTLs but not enough to make a difference.
It is much more a relevant scenario in Hare-Clark where there are lots more votes exhausted and so a situation with, say, three .9s beating a .8 is very feasible.
D@w said
Sure not every system is perfect. You claim that Germany 8% rule is unrepresentative well so is the Droop quota. in the ACT and up to NT 33% of the electorate are denied a say in who represents them. Just because some systems after flawed should not mean we have to retain our own brand of flaws.
There is a big difference between Germany and droop quota. In Germany the 8% did not count in the final count. While the droop quota is counted in the final result. It went down to the last 2 candidate and one of them did not receive enough votes to win. In every election, one candidate does not win. They can have up to 49.99% of the vote for example Palmer. I do not see it as an issue
Meanwhile in Germany 8% of the vote did not count in final seat allocation which is distortionary
Has anyone ever been elected to the Australian Senate before with a lower first preference vote than Ricky Muir? Less than 1% – genuinely curious.
Sport party a 50:50 chance of election with 0.2%.
On another matter I have posted some cool graphs of preferences in ACT Senate, and show that Zed Seselja got elected despite receiving no ticket preferences
Results should be known for the remainder of the states by early afternoon. Button pushed in NSW and Queensland at 9.30 am, WA at 11 am WST (1 pm EST).
Psephos
Agreed, but what is wrong with the SA branch that put him ahead of Wong in the first place? You say it was a “democratic” process but I cannot imagine how the branch could have concluded that Farrell was the more effective representative of the state in the Senate or the better asset for the party. Do they want to be in government or not? If they do, they need MPs who can get them there. I suggest that what you call a democratic process was factional deals and arm twisting.
South Australia BTL votes published.
http://vtr.aec.gov.au/SenateDownloadsMenu-17496-csv.htm
Only ‘surprise’ there is that Moore was elected before Lazarus, but not too surprising.
Can’t believe that the ALP preferred to elect to the Senate ahead of Nick Xenophon’s running mate, Stirling Griff:
1. Bob Day, Family First, former secretary of the HR Nicholls Society, big home builder, critic of penalty rates etc, opponent of the carbon tax.
2. Simon Birmingham, Liberal, architect of the Hindmarsh campaign which unseated Labor’s Georganas.
How silly can they get?
With a margin of 7 votes in Fairfax, instead of going to the trouble of a recount and possibly having a judge examine the handwriting of dozens or hundreds of ballots, might as well just toss a coin. The margin is too small to say that one candidate deserves a seat in the HoR and the other doesn’t. By now many more than 7 people will have left the electorate and others moved in, and many more will have changed their minds about whom they should have voted for. They are trying to make precise that which, for practical purposes, is inherently imprecise.
Oops. Wrong thread.
Dofit @223 Nor is the Droop wasted quota counted in the final result in the ACT and NT that’s up to 33%
I heard today that Janet Powell did yesterday. Geoff my condolences to your family
Toorak, Birmingham would’ve won without the Labor preferences.
Triton, wrong thread, but it’s immaterial whether 7 people would’ve moved in or out of the electorate by now or have would’ve change their votes – elections are decided on the votes cast on the day so whoever gets a majority of the votes ‘deserves’ to win the seat. Only if there’s uncertainty over the validity of enough votes should there be a fresh election.
When will the WA Senate be determined?
ltep
That’s a convenient technical definition that works in theory because it sounds fair and produces a definitive outcome (even if that ends up being decided by a court), so everyone can go away satisfied that the rules have been followed. But the process does not reflect the reality of the fluidity of voter residency and support for a given candidate, or that when it is this close it’s as good as tied at 50% each. There’s an effectively random fluctuation that has a small influence on vote totals or preferences, and it’s really just election-day luck who gets the prize of three years as an MP. There were probably more than seven people who simply distracted that day and forgot to vote, or they were sick, or some family emergency arose, but on another day they all would have voted. A lot of time and squabbling over handwriting would be saved by recognizing that and using a simple luck-based method to choose the winner.
ESJ, the button will be pressed at 1 pm EST, results should be tweeted in around a half hour.
Socrates@224
Second and third candidates for the major parties are habitually elected with less. The ticket votes for these parties are first preference votes for the lead candidates, so the second and third candidates have only their own BTL votes, which for the second candidate especially is often tiny.
But in terms of first preference votes for a ticket’s leading candidate he would be the record holder. Unless Dropulich beats him in the next hour. 🙂
Itep, yes Birmingham still would have won but that’s no reason for the ALP to prefer him to Griff.
In every election, one candidate does not win. They can have up to 49.99% of the vote for example Palmer. I do not see it as an issue.
Doesn’t this mean that almost 50% of the electorate are denied representation? Why divide the cake into two pieces and throw one away?
Anonymous commenter at Truth Seeker’s (excellent) blog claims Pratt has won the last spot in WA (which you’d presume means Wang wins the 5th).
I hope that’s right, but I’ll wait for confirmation. Is it possible to know that before the button is pressed?
It shouldn’t be. I’d also appreciate confirmation, lest this be a “Dewey defeats Truman” headline to stir things up a bit.
Oh, I think the button has been pressed. I thought I saw 5 pm for that somewhere earlier.
A few tweets are claiming Pratt is through (I hope not from that anonymous post!).
Simon Mead is ALP WA State Secretary – suspect he is close to the money. Assume Palmer employee Zhenya Wang gets #5
So PUP 3 GRN 9 ALP 26 = 38 and blocking vote in new Senate.
OR 3 of the other 5 indies and same result.
XEN
FF
LDP
MOT
DLP
Or L-NP with 33 need 6 of 8 to pass legislation. Which is another way of saying, without PUP nothing goes through.
Triton, results declared at 5 pm (unless there’s a recount required I’d imagine).