Developments of various kinds in the field of vote-counting:
• Labor’s month-long leadership election campaign is finally drawing to a close, with caucus having determined its 50% share of the total vote yesterday and around 25,000 rank-and-file ballots to be counted on Sunday. Reports suggest that Bill Shorten has won at least 50 out of the 86 votes in the party room, receiving the undivided support of a Right which had been polarised during the Gillard-Rudd stand-off. By contrast, David Crowe of The Australian reports that Left members including Warren Snowdon, Brendan O’Connor, Kate Lundy, Laurie Ferguson, Maria Vamvakinou, Julie Owens and newly elected Bendigo MP Lisa Chesters have failed to fall in behind Albanese. Tea-leaf reading from party sources quoted around the place suggests Bill Shorten will do best if a large number of votes are received from his relatively strong states of Victoria and Western Australia, with most other states (together with the ACT, which punches above its weight in terms of ALP membership) considered strongholds for Albanese.
• ReachTEL published a poll yesterday of 891 respondents in New South Wales and Victoria showing Anthony Albanese favoured over Shorten by 60.9-39.1 in New South Wales and 54.0-46.0 in Victoria. Each had slight leads over Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister in Victoria and slight deficits in New South Wales. Results on voting intention confirmed the general impression from the limited national polling in finding no honeymoon bounce for the new government.
• Electoral Commissioner Ed Killesteyn has ordered a recount of above-the-line votes for the Western Australian Senate, which will change the result of two Senate seats if a 14-vote gap between the Shooters and Fishers and Australian Christians parties is reversed. Also under review are votes declared informal the first time around, which is always a grey area. Tireless anonymous blogger TruthSeeker has performed good work in identifying count peculiarities potentially significant enough to turn the result, including a popular favourite known as the “Waggrakine discrepancy”.
• The Fairfax recount limps with the Clive Palmer camp apparently challenging any vote that doesn’t go its way, thereby requiring it to be sent for determination by the state electoral officer in Brisbane. AAP reports the result “won’t be known for at least another week”.
UPDATE: GhostWhoVotes relates that ReachTEL has let rip with its first post-election poll of national voting intention, and it continues an unbroken run of such polling in plotting a position for the Coalition south of what it achieved at the election, however slightly. Coming off a large-even-for-ReachTEL sample of 3600, it shows the Coalition with a two-party preferred lead of 52.1-47.9, compared with roughly 53.5-46.5 at the election, from primary votes of 45.4% for the Coalition (45.6% at the election), 35.3% for Labor (33.4%) and 8.6% for the Greens (unchanged). Tony Abbott’s performance is rated good by 40.5% and poor by 40.2%.
And any conspiracy to ‘rig’ the outcome, even if it was rigged for ostensibly a good purpose, is to risk delegitimizing the whole process.
This is a joint decsision and the members get a say. You mean those 40% of members who voted the other way aren’t to have their opinion respected either?
For any that missed it the article under discussion.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/late-surge-for-anthony-albanese-puts-labor-leadership-contest-with-bill-shorten-on-a-knife-edge-20131012-2veym.html
Mega Cyclones and Hurricanes
__________
Last year New York and New Jersey were devestated by a mega hurricane which made it’s way op the east Coast of the USA
Now the Indian mega cyclone
One thing the experts have said is that maybe be that there will not more cyclones with global warming but they will be more intense and more severe in their effects
Amazing that the effects of the US mega hurricane have not all been made good
Even in NY some areas on Statin Island are still in a bad way,and the “old New Jersy Shore” once a popular resort area for working class New Yorkers on beach holiday…is still, far from returnbed to normal…and it may never be…. so great was the damage there to the wonderfull old timber homes and guest-houses which were a feature of the little resort towns there running down to Atlantic City
One wonders when it will be Nth Qland’s turn for a mega cyclone
I can think of some Q’land politicians I woulkd like to see blown away
[DisplayName
Posted Saturday, October 12, 2013 at 9:51 pm | Permalink
fred, if we turn what you said around, it means caucus has no legitimacy.]
It’s not a legal argument I am running, it’s perception. Given the last 3 years I suspect there a many that would say that yours a fair comment.
guytaur:
Uh huh.
Given the people who bought into that story, it seems to me that the Rudd forces have leaked the Albo member vote in order to set in motion the platform from which they can undermine a Shorten leadership from the get-go.
fred, both candidates are part of that very group!
As I said DisplayName, Labor will have a problem.
[
confessions
….
Given the people who bought into that story, it seems to me that the Rudd forces have leaked the Albo member vote in order to set in motion the platform from which they can undermine a Shorten leadership from the get-go.
]
confessions
I do not say its so one way or the other. If it is though then the only way to fix such things in future is more weighting to the members vote and less to caucus.
What I do know is that it is sad that a secret ballot can have results leaked to the media like this. I can see Abbott saying if they can’t be trusted to run a secret ballot how can they be trusted to run the country.
fred, well yes, if that’s the case the problem will be “Rudd forces”.
Father Ted @oldjoeschmo 10h
Oakshott competed in 2 events with @TonyAbbottMHR & said it “never even crossed his mind” to claim expenses for them. Speaks volumes #auspol
It matters little who polls what and where from.
The recently elected NZ Labor Leader received only 33% of the Caucus vote, but an overwhelming vote from branch members and the unions (who have a vote over there).
Ed Milliband, UK Labor Leader, lost his fellow MPs vote but won strong support from the unions, and this pushed him over the line against his brother David who, in many political observers’ opinion, was the far better candidate.
So shit happens. I shouldn’t have used that phrase, it reminds me of some odious creature.
feeney@1446
I thought I read about the AEC running it in something George Wright sent out. I will try to find it.
[Ed Milliband, UK Labor Leader, lost his fellow MPs vote but won strong support from the unions, and this pushed him over the line against his brother David who, in many political observers’ opinion, was the far better candidate.]
And what a bad idea that turned out to be.
I mean, I could stab someone and claim the problem is their lack of scaly hide :P.
Guytaur –
Once official counting began, there was no way it was going to remain secret. That’s why caucus voted before counting began. It’s not a big deal. The ballot is only “secret” in the sense that how members/MPs voted is not identified through the voting process anyway… General elections are “secret ballots” but strangely the result (and the counting) is done entirely in the public gaze…
Abbott is going to stay studiously quiet on this matter because the only comparison that can be made with the LNP is that the LNP is not making any move towards making their own processes more democratic.
Off topic
Saw the movie Gravity in 3D today. Did not think i would appreciafe a movie set in space.
It was a claustrophobic, suspense thriller, and an emotional drama at the same time. The visual effects absolutely amazing.
Here is movie trailer
http://youtu.be/OiTiKOy59o4
guytaur:
We’ll see.
What does it matter if the numbers are leaked? The votes from both constituencies are in – it’s not as if leaking them will affect the numbers in any way.
Shorten backer Mark Latham has conceded Albanese will ‘probably win’
Former Labor leader Mark Latham, who has been urging a vote for Mr Shorten, said on Saturday he expected Mr Albanese to prevail.
“I voted for Bill Shorten … but on the balance, probably Anthony Albanese will get the job,” he said.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/late-surge-for-anthony-albanese-puts-labor-leadership-contest-with-bill-shorten-on-a-knife-edge-20131012-2veym.html#ixzz2hVNgCkfB
zoom, I gather people are inferring things from the act of leaking, not the numbers.
[
DisplayName
Posted Saturday, October 12, 2013 at 10:06 pm | Permalink
fred, well yes, if that’s the case the problem will be “Rudd forces”.
]
It is my view that if the candidate wins the members vote then the “Rudd” forces or whatever other form of destabilisation that comes up (senator Kim Carr for example is no babe in the wood) will be easy to deal with.
feeney
What Mr Bowen has said publicly applies. Due to the members voting this is the most legitimate leader contest of any major party.
This is why I said a day or two ago that if Caucus had an idea of how the membership was voting they should take that into account in their decision.
Of course that leaves the Reachtel poll as the closest idea inaccuracy and all. Of course professional politicians in caucus will know the flaws.
If it turns out that the member vote and the caucus vote are roughly the same ratio it will leave the MSM with no divided party narrative.
[And what a bad idea that turned out to be.]
Please don’t try to draw bad comparisons on the eve of Labor’s historic vote.
Surely Mr A, if either, has an issue if he wins. Parts of the media will, ongoingly, highlight that he has only 40% of his colleagues behind him. Not sure how caucus can collectively repair that; though presumably Shorten would declare, with more than usual sincerity, his strong support. It’s an unavoidable risk of having two distinct constituencies in such a public poll.
That said, the media so far has ignored this obvious problem (though a version of it haunts Rudd’s super majority of caucus rule). Instead the media prefers the crude and faux rhetoric of ‘pollies’ vs ‘the people’, as if polls of voters matter when it’s ballot of paid up members, not Jill Supporter let alone Joe Public.
(ps I don’t mind who wins).
confessions@1456
confessions is still seeing Rudd people.
The therapy is not working. 🙁
frednk, if the candidate who has the support of “Rudd forces” wins, then there won’t be a problem from “Rudd forces”.
What you suggest as providing the superficial appearance of greater democracy is in fact a concrete submission to coercion, a move away from democracy.
Jackol Abbott will now come under pressure for LNP members to get a ballot, after the UK Labour Party reformed its rules in 1993, the UK Tories allowed members a ballot after the 1997 defeat with Iain Duncan Smith and David Cameron both being elected by Tory members votes.
DN
then they shouldn’t get their knickers in a knot. I wouldn’t call scrutineers reporting on numbers ‘leaking’. Scrutineers report on numbers as a matter of course — I had constant updates during the Indi count, and I didn’t see them as leaks.
DisplayName I think it comes down to what you expect from the process, democracy because it is a nice word or democracy to give the leader more legitimacy.
Seriously, bemused? Several commentators above make slurs against Rudd and you wait until fess makes a reference to him before you pounce?
That’s almost stalking.
@abcnews: Peter Slipper says revelations about MPs’ expenses prove the charges against him are politically motivated. http://t.co/nJPBOISCPv #auspol
Actually the real Sunday ToiletPaper front page
http://twitter.com/sundayteleed/status/388972791682187264/photo/1
The stories inside are all Himbos/Bimbos, crime and sport.
[What does it matter if the numbers are leaked? The votes from both constituencies are in – it’s not as if leaking them will affect the numbers in any way.]
Yes, yes, but it’s all in their interpretation. If Albo wins the member vote and this can be leaked to the media and takes hold among the general populace accordingly, then if Shorten is declared the winner, we have a ready-made Rudd whiteanting scenario there for the taking.
DN
[frednk, if the candidate who has the support of “Rudd forces” wins, then there won’t be a problem from “Rudd forces”.]
I think you’re underestimating the Rudd forces, there.
Legitimacy comes from winning a fair contest.
Again on the flip side, if the rules say caucus have 50% and they rig the vote against themselves, what do you think will happen when they end up unhappy with the person chosen? That person will have no authority in front of caucus, the people he’s meant to work with. How is that any better?
Confessions I assume we are going to see the curcus and member voting percentages, in which case why are scrutineers reports any differnet to crutineers reports in a general election?
zoom @ 1485, if there will be trouble either way then there’s no reason to listen to them at all :P.
confessions – I thought Bowen made it clear that the separate components of the vote would be made public when the overall result is released, so there’s not going to be any secret about how the members voted vs how caucus voted.
I’m just not seeing any conspiratorial intent in the early hints at numbers.
DN
Not a problem with this choice. All involved have said numerous times how good the candidates are and how they can work with either one.
zoomster@1481
She is the most persistently delusional and usually the initiator.
This whole thing has nothing to do with Rudd or Gillard.
guytaur
I agree with all you have been saying.
I was merely expressing disappointment at the suggestion of people leaking to the media who do Labor no favours.
If the sources are correct, we won’t get to see Tanya Plibersek, who I am in love with, as Deputy Leader.
The 50/50 means that the considerations of caucus hold weight, concretely not abstractly. It’s that simple. If you think they shouldn’t then the solution is not to rig the vote but to change it to 100/0 members/caucus.
DisplayName
True; but I don’t think the feelings if caucus is Labors immediate problem.
[That’s almost stalking.]
zoom, I’ve noticed the same thing myself, and so have started an experiment for bemused.
Today was day 1 of the experiment.
[I’m just not seeing any conspiratorial intent in the early hints at numbers.]
Nor am I, but others clearly are.
zoomster@1485
Have you started seeing Rudd people too?
Rudd might not even get his own vote in any leadership contest.
guytaur, they say that now but if they rig the vote against themselves that undermines the legitimacy of the elected candidate in their own eyes. It makes it very easy for people to make excuses for themselves.
fred, Labor has no problems worth solving superficially.
feeney
People are making assumptions about picking people for positions like deputy leader.
However those assumptions are just that no matter how soundly based on traditional practice to attain unity.
Caucus may decide to do differently. After all it is a caucus composed of those who have experienced the consequences of holding to tradition when history is created like dumping a first term PM.
So there is probably a 5 to 10 % chance of Plibersek getting the deputy job.