Sunday, April 13
This is probably my final update, since the result is well and truly beyond doubt. On the raw votes, the ABC calculator produces a result at the final count of 194,282 (14.86%) to Linda Reynolds and 179,150 (13.71%) to Louise Pratt, and my own projection is hardly different (14.91% to 13.66%). As Antony Green points out on Twitter, Labor below-the-line votes are producing the very unusual result of the second candidate, Pratt, outpolling the first, Joe Bullock, the current numbers being 1285 to 1039 with a great many more still to be apportioned, although it seems unlikely Pratt’s lead will be overturned. A precedent for this noted by GhostWhoVotes is that Barnaby Joyce outpolled George Brandis as the respective second and first candidates of the Liberal National Party Senate ticket in Queensland in 2010, the circumstance here being that Nationals loyalists who opposed to the LNP merger expressed their displeasure below the line.
Friday morning
Antony Green and Kevin Bonham are both calling it for Linda Reynolds, and I’m not going to argue. Yesterday saw the addition of another 13,530 postals and 2034 absent votes from Brand (on top of the 1653 that had been counted there already, these being the only absent, pre-polls or provisional votes entered into the count so far), together with more rechecking. My projection now has Reynolds’ lead over Louise Pratt at the final count at 190,430 (14.57%) to 183,002 (14.00%), or 7428 votes, which is lower than yesterday because of some tinkering I’ve done with the model. Putting the raw vote into the ABC calculator, Reynolds now leads 189,988 (14.54%) to Pratt’s 183,443 (14.04%), increasing the margin to 6545 from 3407 yesterday. The postal results have been consistent with the contention that the Joe Bullock story breaking the day before the election caused a shift in support from Labor to the Greens, Labor’s postal vote (24.64%) being higher than its ordinary vote (21.83%), while the Greens are much, much lower (6.98% compared with 15.78%).
Thursday morning
The addition of 11,138 out of what should be at least 90,000 postal votes has blown a hole in Labor’s hope that votes cast earlier in the piece will be relatively favourable for them, making a Louise Pratt victory look increasingly unlikely. With numbers reported from Brand, Curtin, Durack, Hasluck and Perth, the results respectively show the Liberal vote 11.1%, 11.1%, 10.3%, 13.4% and 9.6% higher than the ordinary vote, equalling or exceeding the similarly large differentials in September. Putting the raw votes into the ABC calculator previously showed Pratt in the lead, but now Linda Reynolds holds a lead of 3407 votes (0.26), or 188,421 (14.42%) to 185,014 (14.16%).
On the model I’m using to fill the gaps in the count, Reynolds finishes 8499 (0.65%) clear with a lead of 190,963 (14.61%) to 182,474 (13.96%). For pre-polls, postals and provisionals, the model assumes parties’ vote shares will differ from ordinary votes to the same extent that they did in September, producing percentage figures which are applied to estimated totals based on declaration vote data published by the AEC (1653 absent votes were added today from Brand, but as absent votes tends to bounce around depending on where they were cast, I will continue using the aforesaid method until a large number of votes are in). For postals, the party vote shares recorded so far for each of the five electorates for which votes have been counted are extrapolated to an estimated total, likewise based on the AEC data. For electorates where results have not yet been reported, the method is the same as for pre-polls, postals and provisionals.
The Liberal margin will come down by perhaps around 3000 if Palmer United’s position improves to the extent that it doesn’t need HEMP preferences to get elected, in which case HEMP votes will be passed on to Labor at their full value rather than a much-reduced transfer value. However, the improvement in PUP’s position needed for that to happen is a not insubstantial 0.3% going on the modelled figures.
Wednesday morning
I’m not going to do serious number crunching until we start seeing pre-polls, absents and postals, but the Liberals gained at least 1500 votes on yesterday’s re-checking and the addition of special hospital results as such, Kevin Bonham putting their lead at 2504 based on the current numbers. Kevin also observes that Labor’s position might improve by “thousands of votes” depending on the arbitrary fact of whether Palmer United reaches a quota after Liberal Democrats preferences are distributed, or whether the job still needs to be finished with the subsequent exclusion of Help End Marijuana Prohibition. In the latter case, HEMP will go into the mix of votes to be distributed as the Palmer United surplus at a fraction of their value. Otherwise, their preferences will transfer at full value to their next party of preference, namely Labor. However, the odds are in favour of the Liberals on either scenario.
Tuesday morning
Rechecking and perhaps a few delayed booth results yesterday added 2161 votes in Durack, 1076 in Forrest and 152 in Hasluck, to the extremely slight advantage of Labor. The West Australian reports counting of postal votes “may get under way today”.
Monday morning
Nothing new on the counting front yesterday, which the AEC presumably devoted to very carefully transporting votes to the divisional offices where the primary vote totals will be rechecked over the coming days. Ben Raue at The Tally Room observes that “the numbers of absent, provisional and pre-poll votes have dropped to 20-33% of the 2013 levels, while the number of postal votes has increased” – which would seem to bode ill for Labor, given how heavily postal votes traditionally favour the Liberals (47.6% in September compared with 38.8% on ordinary votes).
Sunday morning
For those of you who have just joined us, the WA Senate election result looks to be two seats for the Liberals, one each for Labor, the Greens and Palmer United, and with the last seat a tussle between the third Liberal, Linda Reynolds, and number two on the Labor ticket, Senator Louise Pratt. Both major parties were well down on the primary vote to make way for a surge to the Greens and Palmer United. Scott Ludlam was handsomely re-elected off a quota in his own right, while Palmer United’s Zhenya Wang will get there with preferences from a range of sources, the most handy of which are HEMP, Shooters & Fishers and Family First. The following quick summary of the results shows the raw percentages, and how I’m projecting them to look after pre-polls, absents and postals are added. There follows projections of the race for last place as derived by plugging both raw and projected results into Antony Green’s Senate election calculator.
As I write, 38 booths out of 814 are still to report results. The only electorate where all booths have reported is Moore, where 69,323 ordinary vote have been cast compared with 72,507. This makes turnout difficult to calculate, but it seems to me to have not been as bad as some were suggesting. The number of ordinary vote cast in Moore amounts to 70.14% of enrolled voters, compared with 74.59% at the election last September. In Brand and Fremantle, which in each case have had all booths report but one, the totals are 70.6% and 69.8%, compared with 77.7% and 75.1% at the election.
Saturday
11.39pm. Back from my ice cream break to find the count at 937,396 (63.3%), with 62 out of 814 booths still to report. The latest projection puts the Liberals on 33.8% and the Nationals on 3.2%, Labor on 21.3%, the Greens on 16.0% and PUP on 12.2%. On the ABC computer, third Liberal Linda Reynolds’ lead over second Labor Louse Pratt at the final count has narrowed to 14.84% to 13.73%.
10.05pm. Count up to 661,954 (44.7%). My statewide projections are the same as Antony Green’s, so I’ll drop the metropolitan model and work off those instead from now on. I’m projecting 39.2% for Liberal, 3.4% for the Nationals, 21.1% for Labor, 16.1% for the Greens and 12.2% for Palmer United. Plugging that into the ABC calculator has third Liberal Linda Reynolds beating second Labor Louise Pratt at the last exclusion 15.1% (1.0553 quotas) to 13.49% (0.9446 quotas). Kevin Bonham and Truth Seeker think Labor are doing a little better than that: I’ve no idea about their methods, but I suspect it’s because they’re going off the raw vote totals, whereas I’m going off swings.
9.36pm. Count up to 526,235 (35.6%), Liberal projection down a shade to 2.93, Labor up to 1.57. But Labor’s position in the race for the final seat hasn’t improved since my 9.00pm update, because the Greens vote has come down slightly and reduced the size of the surplus available to Labor.
9.24pm. To explain all that in vote terms, the Greens vote is variously projected at 17% or 18%; Labor’s at a bit below 21%; Liberal at 34.5% plus Nationals at 3-4%; PUP at around 12%.
9.15pm. I have two models on the go here: the one I’ve been quoting, which extrapolates metropolitan swings across the rest of the state, and one which looks at the swings of all electorates, the problem with which is that non-metropolitan electorates should improve for Labor later in the night as bigger booths from regional cities report. But with the count now up to 367,945 (24.9%), the difference between the two seats of figures is diminishing – apart from the Greens, who are on 1.24 quota in the statewide model and 1.34 in the metropolitan-only model, and PUP are a bit higher in the former (1.18) than the latter (1.12). But both pretty much have the Coalition about 0.03 short of a third quota, and Labor on about 1.55.
9.00pm. With the same caveats applied in my 8.43pm comment, I’m now having Labor narrow the gap a little: Liberal 2.94 quotas, Labor 1.55, Greens 1.36, PUP 1.13. With the Greens surplus pretty much all going to Labor and PUP pretty much all going to Labor, the score at the final count would have Liberal winning 1.07 to 0.91, but with the numbers still certain to keep shifting around as the count progresses, and perhaps still the outside chance of both losing out to a micro-party boilover.
8.55pm. Antony observes current numbers in fact find that final vote going to Voluntary Euthanasia, but the statistical chance of that sticking would be low. Nonetheless, it should be emphasised that the final seat which I’ve been representing as a race between third Liberal and second Labor could be less predictable than that.
8.43pm. The picture isn’t getting any better for Labor as the count moves up to 121,082 (8.2%). My present projection based on metropolitan area swings has the Liberals on 2.96 quotas, Labor on 1.51, Greens on 1.36 and PUP on 1.14. That would easily get the Liberals to a third seat when the PUP surplus was distributed. Still plenty of room for caution though: the swing may be quite different outside Perth, and the swings I am calculating are derived not from booth-matching, but by extrapolating from the current electorate totals from metropolitan seats with their results from last September.
8.33pm. “Most of my modelling is based on the Perth vote”, suggets Antony, indicating my belated idea to run off the metropolitan swings gels with what he’s doing. With over 5% counted, very big transfer from Labor to Greens looking sticky.
8.23pm. Count up to 47,611, or 3.2%. Metropolitan swing projections: Coalition down 7.1%, Labor down 5.7%, Greens up 8.6%, Palmer United up 6.3%. Applying metropolitan swings to 2013 statewide results is the best rough guide I can come up with, because metropolitan booths do not have the issue with regional ones that a relationship exists between their size and their partisan tendency (i.e. these booths that are reporting early from O’Connor, Durack and Forrest and very conservative rural booths). Doing so confirms the picture noted previously, with a very close race between third Liberal and second Labor for the last seat.
8.11pm. Sam Dastyari concurring with my assessment that it’s likely Liberal 2, Labor 1, Greens 1, PUP 1, with the last seat a battle between a third Liberal and a second Labor.
8.08pm. Antony Green projecting a perilously low Labor vote, but the data available to him isn’t as good as usual and there’s still on 2.2% counted. My crude early projections for the metropolitan area are a 5.4% swing against Labor, 7.0% swing against Liberal, 6.2% towards Palmer, 9.3% towards Greens.
7.57pm. My early indications are of a 7.0% Palmer United swing in the metropolitan area, and all on the ABC News 24 are talking of a Scott Ludlam win as an accomplished fact. So you might start punting on a 2-2-1-1 result, unless Labor ends up doing badly enough that it comes in at Liberal 3, Labor 1, Greens 1, PUP 1.
7.34pm. With the count up to 5718, my PUP swing projection is now at 6.7%, which is a winning score for them. I’ll be interested to see what Antony’s next projection for them says. The lower micro-party vote is making a HEMP win look unlikely.
7.26pm. Antony Green’s data-matching off the earliest fraction of the vote – which is still a lot cruder than what he’s usually able to do – concurs with a drop in the micro-party vote.
7.18pm. Count now up to 2459. We’re at least getting evidence of a lower micro-party vote: I’m crudely projecting solid drops for parties such as the Liberal Democrats, Australian Christians and Fishing & Lifestyle.
7.11pm. To illustrate that point, an increase in the vote count to 1586 has been enough to push my PUP swing projection up to 4.0%.
7.07pm. Vote count up to 1216. The least useless of my projection figures based on the available data is the Palmer United swing, which I have at a less-than-expected 2.9%. Still pretty useless though.
7.03pm. Keep in mind that big unwieldy Senate ballot papers are slower to count than than lower house papers, so it’s to be expected progress will be slower than we’re used to.
6.56pm. Five small booths in from O’Connor, which would not even be representative of that electorate never mind the rest of the state, since they offer no insight on the larger towns. Also a booth from Pearce, for a grand total of 355 votes counted. Much talk from political operatives about a drop in turnout of about 15%, putting it in the high seventies.
6pm. Polls have closed in Western Australia’s Senate election. Absent any media commitments, I’ll be closely following the results as they come in on this post. I’m still unclear as to whether the AEC will be publishing booth results, but at the very least will be able to analyse the figures based on crude matching of reported results at the division level to the 2013 figures. Antony Green will be covering the results on ABC News 24, but I’m not exactly clear what format that will take.
So, to summarise where I think most people think we are
After the first 4 places are taken you have 4 groups fighting for what is left
PUP (+Fishers, sports, Motorists, Family First & Katter)
Lab (+ extra Greens, Sex, Wiki, The group that shall not speak its name)
Lib (+Nats, Christian, DLP)
HEMP (+ everyone else)
When HEMP gets knocked out, all those votes split 20%PUP, 30%Lib and 50% Labor.
PUP will definitely get over the line.
Labor might.
If Labor doesn’t, the leftovers from PUP and its followers almost all flow to the Libs putting them over the line.
Labor will be doing it hard because postal etc will probably add .25% to the libs and -.25% from Lab.
Part of the problem with analysing what the results of this election mean is that we don’t have a true precedent for it — and the chances of a similar election happening again are very slight.
There’s a danger that we ‘learn lessons’ from it which simply aren’t there.
My tealeaf reading at the moment is that it’s ‘a curse on both your houses’ result — it’s interesting how many conservative types read this as a ‘wake up call for Labor’ whilst ignoring the swing against the Liberals.
Similar swings against both majors suggests it’s not a problem with one party, but a problem with both.
I’m all for rank and file preselection of Senators (using the 50/50 rule Labor uses for preselections in general) but this election doesn’t necessarily support the proposition that if you elect ‘good people’ to Senate positions you’ll improve your vote.
IF prepoll figures show Labor doing dramatically better, that proposition may be supported. But it’s very likely that in future elections people revert to not being very interested in the individual candidates running for the Senate.
Similarly, though I’m not unhappy with the Greens result, too much can be read into it. In a lower house seat by election, minor party candidates do tend to poll better than the majors. In a lower house seat where the outcome doesn’t really make much difference to anything, even more so.
Ifonly, it seemed to me there was a last minute backlash against the ALP (reaction to #1 comments). Perhaps that isnt reflected in postals.
Im really not sure how significant influence those comments had though.
ifonly
[Labor will be doing it hard because postal etc will probably add .25% to the libs and -.25% from Lab.]
Unless the ‘Bullock factor’ is real, in which case you’d expect the postals and prepolls to be better than Labor scored on the day — on which basis, ironically, Pratt might get up.
I’m still going with 2 Labor…which is the result Labor was aiming for.
Wasted opportunity for the ALP.
Uninspiring campaign, uninspiring no.1 candidate.
One last hope to cling on to is that the below the line’s will favor the left because the “inner city, latte sipping, intellectual types” want more precise control of their vote.
Her is. Joe Bullock’s quote, which was reported during the campaign.
[Speaking at a function arranged by the Dawson Society in November, Mr Bullock described Ms Pratt as a “poster child” for causes such as gay marriage and accused her of canvassing votes against him.
In the same speech he also described the ALP as untrustworthy and full of “mad” members and admitted he had voted against Labor.
He said he was needed in Parliament otherwise it would follow “every weird lefty trend that you can imagine”.]
Genius. And Labor wonder why they have trouble recruiting and retaining members? The sort of person that Joe Bullock typifies represents less than 20% of the population, which is about the vote share Bullock got.
Thanks for the Sunday morning summary, Mr Bowe.
[602
zoomster
…. but this election doesn’t necessarily support the proposition that if you elect ‘good people’ to Senate positions you’ll improve your vote.]
This is absurd. What you’re saying is it doesn’t make any difference who is on the ticket. There is no doubt whatsoever that Ludlum helped the Greens and that Bullock hurt Labor.
The idiots who run the ALP in WA should be called on to explain how come they gave first ranking to a candidate with a conviction for assault, who is a loony god-botherer and who has nothing but disdain for most of the people on whom he would rely to support him and whom he aspires to “lead”.
When they’ve explained that, they can look at the Green campaign, which was carefully built to combine their policy story with their candidate strengths.
And then they could ask themselves what possible campaign they could run around Joe Bullock that would resonate among all the voters they’ve lost.
Morning all.
Well said briefly. It’s one thing to try to shuffle these fools into safe Senate seats during general elections, but quite another in situations like this re-vote when the Senate ticket is the only thing people are watching.
[
Socrates
Posted Sunday, April 6, 2014 at 8:18 am | Permalink
..
Genius. And Labor wonder why they have trouble recruiting and retaining members? The sort of person that Joe Bullock typifies represents less than 20% of the population, which is about the vote share Bullock got.
]
The 20% Bullock got included the rusted on Labor Voters, that has fallen to around 20% it would seem. A pretty sad result I would say.
Most of those that support types like Bullock have Bullock and the worst the Liberals can offer to chose from.
The idea that we have ALP folk here trying to polish the turd of this result for the ALP is just laughable.
Reality check:
1. we are constantly told Abbott and Barnett are hugely unpopular and are set for electoral defeat so this by-election setting should be absolute gold for the ALP
2. the drop in the coalition vote is typical of by-elections and probably means no net seat loss
3. the ALP vote is in the low 20s. Perhaps VERY low 20s.
4. the ALP has only definitely won 1 out of 6 Senate seats
5. the ALP MIGHT just scrape home in a 2nd but it will be by the barest of margins (unlikely)
The comment was made that Bullock only represents about 20% of voters, which is about what the ALP received. That begs the question, how many voters are union members.
The message is there loud and clear, whether you can’t hear it due to union ties is up to you.
Briefly +1
Fred
Agreed. The 20% represents the total of the rusted-ons and those to whom Bullock has any appeal. So the latter group is < 20%.
The candidate choice should not be a left/right argument. After all the NSW left sent McDonald to parliament. But if the Labor right insists on putting one of their people at number one, they should at least choose one without a rap sheet and with a brain. Seriously, what is Bullock going to achieve in parliament? Which Liberal minister will quake in fear at getting questions from him?
[This is absurd. What you’re saying is it doesn’t make any difference who is on the ticket. ]
Did PUP run the same ticket at the by-election as the general election?
[610
confessions
Morning all.
Well said briefly. It’s one thing to try to shuffle these fools into safe Senate seats during general elections, but quite another in situations like this re-vote when the Senate ticket is the only thing people are watching.]
The WA branch appears to treat its safe seats as sinecures for the irrelevant, incompetent and – in Bullock’s case – ignorant.
Other than having a deep desire to oppose the LNP, there is not one single reason why anyone would vote for Bullock. Talk about taking voters for granted!
Everything
[The comment was made that Bullock only represents about 20% of voters, which is about what the ALP received. That begs the question, how many voters are union members.]
Agreed. Union members are less than 20% of those in the workforce, less than one voter in six. Being a union leader is not a mandate for anything.
morning
So Bullocks comments date from November last year. Do I need to ask why they hit the headlines the eve of the election?
I’m not defending the comments but having the media blindside your opponents is of great advantage to Abbott. Pity Arfur wasn’t from WA.
Everything
Abbott will loose a seat in the senate. 😛
briefly:
The result seems to be a pox on both major parties.
Just noticed eastern staters are off daylight saving. That must’ve been the longest daylight saving ever.
Will the AEC continue the count today ?
The coalition win 3 seats
The ALP win 1 seat
[confessions
…..
The result seems to be a pox on both major parties.]
YIKES!
confessions
Getting up in the dark to get the kids to school was becoming a drag.
Everything
It’s not a done deal yet. Hey, maybe they’ll go to court & have a recount followed by an appeal and we can be having this discussion same time next year.
Even though Bullock only represents 20% of voters, Australian workers still need to be represented in Parliament.
The Coalition governs for the owners of farms, banks, and industry, they govern for the wage setters.
If we want to retain an Australian middle class and provide a ‘fair go’ for middle and lower class Australians then we need a socially progressive government like Gillard gave us. The ALP is unable govern in their own right so rather than fighting the Greens who probably have more unionists in their ranks than the Labor party they should co-operate – much like the Coalition has done for 60 years
LOL.
Hubby – not very politically involved – wandered in and asked what the result was so far in WA.
I said it looks like 2/3 Libs, 1/2 Labor, 1 Green, 1 PUP.
His response: “So basically nothing’s changed since the last election — what a fuss about nothing.”
[mikehilliard
Posted Sunday, April 6, 2014 at 8:51 am | PERMALINK
Everything
It’s not a done deal yet. Hey, maybe they’ll go to court & have a recount followed by an appeal and we can be having this discussion same time next year.]
How many times does the Lib 3rd candidate have to win before the AEC lets her take her well deserved seat????? :devil:
Mike
Bullock had the special genius to make the remarks between the last election and before it was known whether there would be another, though one was highly likely. The fact that his idiocy was reported during a campaign is not surprising.
Despite the beliefs of the Labor right, political candidates get scrutinised during campaigns, whether they have an assault conviction or not. Bullock could have mentioned his education – at Trinity Grammar School in Sydney. Nope, that won’t help with the working class bit.
Maybe his past political history? Darn, that is not so good either:
[Selecting candidates is always a difficult task and the Labor Party has made its decision; it won’t change, but my guess is the “experts” who preselected Bullock have forgotten the 1994 Helena by election.
The Court Government had shut the Midland Railway workshops and this lent itself to a local campaign and Bullock was chosen as the Labor candidate. We all turned out to get him elected and I vividly recall the venomous responses on the doorsteps of the electorate.
In the normal course of campaign door-knocking, most people, regardless of their views, are very polite to you when you are on their doorstep. However, I have never experienced such outright aversion for a candidate as there was for Bullock. As soon as people recognised his face and name on the pamphlets, their reaction was instantly poisonous.
As those responses forecast, the election produced a disastrous swing against Labor; out of a possible 18451 votes Bullock polled 6823 (38.48%). There was a further 4,629 who just did not vote; Liberal Candidate Rhonda Parker polled 8,185 (46.16%) and won the seat.]
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/nothing-average-about-joes-senate-bid-20130422-2i9du.html#ixzz2y3Usp8gc
In short Bullock is old, privileged, with a short temper. Another liability in parliament.
I predict the Murdoch media will forget about this result when reporting on the greens – they will continue to focus on other recent elections and keep the narrative that the greens are in decline. They will dismiss this result as a product of the labor candidate throwing the campaign into disarray. I think the PUP advertising hurt both LNP and ALP and some of the disaffected voted greens as well as PUP. The dickhead labor candidate has cost the country dearly.
Barry kicks of with Labor is really on the nose. Silly old hack.
You can’t win a Federal election with a handful of seats in WA.
Maybe the ALP can recruit some footy players – commercial negotiation with the player managers? Cant do worse than with the current crew?
Ultimately the state of the WA party is the fault of the missos.
I hope media watch asks the Murdoch media “when did you first become aware of bullock’s November speech and why did you wait until Thursday to air the comments?” It is not good for democracy to have a major media outlet as the propaganda unit for any party.
[619
confessions
briefly:
The result seems to be a pox on both major parties.]
Well, it’s been a very long time since the LNP primary vote Statewide has registered only 37% of the total. But the votes lost have obviously gone to PUP and the micro parties, all of which will prove to be no more than transient populist/protest gimmicks. The LNP probably have a better ability to win back these voters than Labor has.
In the meantime, very many voters that might be receptive to Labor policies have fled to the Greens. These voters include the young in disproportionate numbers and a significant share of everyday, middle-income, suburban voters with young kids. These are voters that Labor must hope to represent, but who are slipping away or have already fled, quite possibly for good.
I reckon Abbott will bring a vote to the Senate on same sex marriage in early July.
Bullock will cross the floor.
Bullock will be expelled from the ALP.
Bullock will then be free to vote anyway he wants for the remaining 6 years.
briefly
It will depend whether there’s any focus on Senate candidates in ‘normal’ elections.
If there’s the usual degree of indifference, then this – like so many by elections – doesn’t teach us anything ‘real’ about normal elections.
This election (as I’ve said consistently) saw an unusual focus on the personalities of Senators which saw personable candidates increase their vote – but in the last WA election, this didn’t happen, and the focus was on the parties involved, not the individuals.
If we return to business as usual next election, then the same will also apply to Senate candidates – people will vote for the party, regardless of who is on the ticket.
Certainly, if there is another Senate by election in the near future, the parties concerned would be wise to elect Senators who appeal to the public. But that’s unlikely to happen.
None of this means I won’t continue to advocate for rank and file preselection of Senate candidates, though — or that I won’t be cheeky enough to use this election as part of that argument!
a curse on union control of labor
shorten should stand down and a wholesale reform of labor constitution take place. we cant risk democracy any more in this country with debacles like this
Rex Douglas
Posted Sunday, April 6, 2014 at 8:15 am | PERMALINK
Wasted opportunity for the ALP.
Uninspiring campaign, uninspiring no.1 candidate.
——-it’s worse than that – of worse than you express it. this is balance of power, a chance to knock off abbott, a golden opportunity. and we trust this leadership in the next fed election?
Absolutely unbelievable that they found the Black Box ping so quickly.
If I was a cynic I might think the Chinese had some insider information about where to look!
zoomster
Posted Sunday, April 6, 2014 at 8:10 am | PERMALINK
ifonly
Labor will be doing it hard because postal etc will probably add .25% to the libs and -.25% from Lab.
Unless the ‘Bullock factor’ is real, in which case you’d expect the postals and prepolls to be better than Labor scored on the day — on which basis, ironically, Pratt might get up.
I’m still going with 2 Labor…which is the result Labor was aiming for.
——————-good point indeed matey.
and wont green preferences help pratt – or is that only BTL
Liberals defending Bullock?
Hrm, something strange here!
Bishop completely screwed up the amount of support for Solomon Islands!
OUCH :devil:
[In the meantime, very many voters that might be receptive to Labor policies have fled to the Greens. ]
My experience of the campaign was it was more about ‘saving Ludlam’ than anything else.
Geoffrey the Greens ATL votes will end up with Pratt. And probably most BTL. Can’t see many Greens voting for the Libs ahead of Pratt.
@634
I have the feeling that Labor will continue to give a conscience vote in this issue like the last time. The more surprising thing will be if Abbott allows such a vote to take place at all this term.
Confessions
“My experience of the campaign was it was more about ‘saving Ludlam’ than anything else.”
This is because you think through the lens of Labor.
In the weeks leading up to the election, Ludlum presented the WA 2.0 seminar for the Greens and throughout the campaign presented a strong Greens vision for the future.
Check out WA 2.0 – you’ll be impressed. It’s a bold vision.
He’s also a good campaigner.
#645
Probably.
They better! If they letter the ALP left dictate that it must be a party vote, they are in big trouble! I wonder what other issues Bullock may feel compelled to cross the floor about?
Everything
Given Tony’s Catholicism he won’t try anything remotely progressive.
His agenda is to maintain the dominance of older white men in power. Nothing more.
So the libs had a huge swing against them cos they are hopeless govt and that was expected whilst labor has a swing against them due to Joe Bullock.
Well done ALP WA, meanwhile the greens and Palmer make hay.
Good outcome Ludlum surviving. Hes a genuine talent. I wouldnt be surprised if he did a Kernot in a couple of years though!