Firstly, let me note that I have dedicated posts for late counting for the lower house and upper house, so if you’ve got anything to offer that’s particularly related to the progress of the count, I encourage you to do so there. What follows is a summary of the results and the fortunes of the various players.
Labor is up 2.5% to 38.8% on the primary vote, which will come down very slightly, say to about 38.5%, as absent and pre-polls come in. It won 43 seats in 2010, of which five were made notionally Liberal in the redistribution (Bellarine, Monbulk, Ripon, Wendouree and Yan Yean), while two new Labor seats were created (Sunbury and Werribee), giving them a net total of 40. Four of the five notionally Liberal seats have been retained, the exception being Ripon, the only one which was not defended by a sitting member. The ABC computer isn’t giving away Ripon either, but Labor’s chances appear slim. However, Labor appears likely to lose Melbourne to the Greens, although that is not as certain as it may have appeared earlier in the evening.
Assuming Labor loses Melbourne, that brings them to 43, which is supplemented by one clear gain from the Liberals in Mordialloc, leaving them one seat short of a majority. Added to that, Labor is all but certain to win the sandbelt marginal of Carrum, and likely to win the other two, Bentleigh and Frankston. Further, Labor is trailing but not out of contention in Prahran (assuming they finish ahead of the Greens, as seems very likely), and a technical possibility in South Barwon. If everything goes wrong for them they might end a seat short of a majority, but that would leave the Greens holding Melbourne, with no option but to support a Labor government even if they didn’t want to.
The Liberals are down 1.8% on the primary vote to 36.2%, which will probably rise very slightly in late counting, perhaps to 36.5%. The Nationals are down 1.2% to 5.5%, which is unlikely to change much, and have lost the seat of Shepparton, which was vacated by the retirement of Jeanette Powell, to independent candidate Suzanna Sheed. This was the worst aspect of a generally poor result for the Nationals, who were also given a fright in Morwell where their margin has been cut from 13.3% to 1.7%, and suffered meaty swings in a number of their very safe seats.
The Greens looked to be big winners early in the count, but their position weakened as the evening progress, such that it’s no longer entirely certain that they have won Melbourne. Certainly they have fallen short in Richmond and Brunswick, as well as the longer shot of Northcote. Their current primary vote of 11.2% is exactly as it was in 2010, although absent votes will probably push it up a little. However, they look to have won two extra seats in the Legislative Council, in Eastern Metropolitan and South Eastern Metropolitan, while also retaining their seats in the other three upper house regions. In no case do Palmer United preferences look to have been responsible.
There is a lot more to be said about the upper house result and the apparent bevy of successful micro-party candidates, but that’s dealt with here. Keeping things focused on the lower house, the one point to be made about the minor players is that Sheed’s victory brings elected independent representation back to the chamber. The result of the 2010 election was the first Australian federal or state election since 1993 at which all the seats were won by the major parties.
Finally, apart from shooting just a little too high for the Greens, and making no effort to account for the possibility of seats not being won by the major parties, I’d like to observe that my poll tracker (and no doubt poll trackers in general) just about nailed it.
UPDATE: Here’s a Labor swings map which I knocked together for my Crikey article today, but which I’ve decided not to use because it isn’t interesting enough.
Sorry Zoomster, my fault. I posted the map. Did not notice it was for 2010. I hope ABC does one for 2014.
zoomster@443
Damm, all the effort in gaining multiple language skills, a horticultural degree and an MBA – i fricken forgot the forklift license!
bemused @ 444 – either way I hope Labor consider Mount Waverley and Burwood, as well as Forest Hill, prime targets for 2018 (assuming they do a good job in the next four years).
Work to Rule @ 452 – look on the bright side: this can count as one of the 40 job applications required if you should need to apply for the unemployment allowance… of course you’ll only get six months worth, but hey, you can fast or hibernate the rest of the time.
bemused
one of the women I spoke to at the National Womens Conference said she’d been ‘eased out’ of her public service job because she’d been too diligent checking up on resumes for 457 applicants…in that, she actually checked them.
She said she didn’t have to do anything fancy, just google the addresses of the former employers listed – which, of course, didn’t exist.
Of all the questions in that Qld Reachtel poll, the one result that surprises me most is
Regardless of your voting intention, who do you think will win the upcoming Queensland state election?
LNP 50.8% Labor 49.2%
Usually this metric I thought lagged behind voting intention – that is people say “I’m going to vote against Newman” but don’t believe/realise that so many others think the same.
In Victoria in 1999 I think Kennett was still well ahead on “who do you think will win” even though the polls had tightened, similarly with Labor in 2010.
William – Qld thread?
https://www.reachtel.com.au/blog/7news-sunday-mail-queensland-the-state-were-in-2014-november2014
zoomster @ 455 – that’s appalling! Now even the public service is using 457s?
zoomster@455
It is just a racket.
There is another visa class, 451?, which is even worse.
RR @ 456 – the next unpolishable turd to be flushed.
457
An appropriately numbered post.
jd 459 – and this after I had just seen Newman saying he would provide no state assistance to small businesses affected by that huge storm in Brisbane. He is a copy-writer’s dream
Under the Liberal-National Party, You’re on your own
I wonder if he has heard of Hurricane Katrina?
RR @ 461 – Newman probably thinks Bush and FEMA’s response to Katrina was right on the mark.
RR @ 461 – Newman probably thinks Bush and FEMA’s response to Katrina was right on the mark.
apologies for the double post.
[apologies for the double post.]
You should’ve apologised for the post.
I have a post up on the ReachTEL poll. Sorry no link, but I’m sure you’ll know where to look.
“Government is not and never has been in the business of bailing out businesses from extreme weather events”
Obviously Newman doesn’t count cyclones as extreme weather events, nor I suppose severe droughts affecting large swathes of rural Queensland. Then again, those sort of extreme weather events provide much better photo-opportunities.
ShowsON – why?
[435
JimmyDoyle
I am suspicious of calls for new “unifying theories of everything” as I think they are attempts to proscribe the way we think about things – just as the way neo-liberalism attempts to do. Having said that, you outline what would be a fair and just economic system, which is all I’m asking Labor to fight for…]
We need an economy that is not merely “fair and just”, but is also dynamic, resilient, adaptive to its environmental boundaries and still able to grow. To do this, as I have been suggesting, we need to re-think how the economy works and how to strengthen it.
My basic proposition is that different parts of the economy have different capacities. We need to better-integrate these capacities and we need to build/re-build them on a continuing basis. The thesis is that these resources are inter-dependent; that we can find opportunities for innovation and adaptation by fostering their interaction; that we should choose modes that are pragmatic, collaborative, competitive, non-prescriptive, and founded in humanist understandings.
There are many ways of doing this. Some of them require the use of formal and informal State power; others depend on learning – on technology, knowledge and creative exchange – and others depend on bringing strong business practices and venture capital together with other resources.
This is about deliberately choosing innovation rather than inertia. None of this is particularly revolutionary, but, rather, just looks beyond slogans and at some very obvious dynamics, especially:
– some investments offer increasing returns to scale. We should select these.
– some investments not only create new capital, they feed back into our already-extant productive potential (our existing capital), especially in our urban economies, in education, technology and research. We should select these too.
There are many other opportunities to build our “capital” – that is, to build our capacity to produce future “income”. There are too many to mention here, but they clearly rely on the engineering of our natural advantages in agriculture, forestry and fisheries, in the land more generally, in the oceans, basic materials and energy; the advanced re-engineering of our “built” capital, especially in computing, health care, manufacturing, the legal and financial systems, transport and communications infrastructure.
This is a vision of an economy that goes beyond the sterile accountancy of neo-liberalism and the suffocating, corrupting bureaucracy of Statism.
z
This is my common peeve. Indian is not Asian? Only in the Americas does that apply. Also by “Asian” I bet they mean Chinese.
Good luck getting someone with all the qualifications above (and forklift) that speak all those languages for that salary.
Raaraa@470
Read my earlier post on this.
They list all those skills so they won’t find anyone.
Then they can go for a 457.
Bemused – I can’t believe 457s haven’t been abolished, or at very least regulated to prevent such flagrant abuses.
Bill Morrow, Turnbull’s NBNco stooge, is getting pretty worried lately.
https://twitter.com/mjrowland68/status/538974512411193344
Rocket @449,
Moving the BaT tunnel a bit west and taking up the space under the Transit Center in Brisbane is going to put the kibosh on building a future high speed rail station at Roma Street.
I’m proposing to build the high speed rail station along the only strip of land in the middle of the city without tall buildings. That is underneath Central station, Anzac Square and Post Office Square.
[472
JimmyDoyle
Bemused – I can’t believe 457s haven’t been abolished, or at very least regulated to prevent such flagrant abuses.]
The most objectionable element in the 457 set-up is the fact that the workers are indentured. They are not free to leave their employer, meaning they act to retard competition for labour. This was the feature of the 19th century economy that led to resistance to “blackbirding” in the Queensland sugar industry and inspired Labor to adopt the White Australia policy.
In principle, allowing workers into the economy should expand our productive potential. It should allow the economy to grow. But the use of indentures is an abysmal practice. It should be revoked. In the early years of the Swan River Settlement, “cargoes” of indentured workers from SE Asia were traded off ships’ manifests by Femantle shipping and mercantile agents. This was close to slaving. It remains a matter of profound shame (imo) that indenturing has been revived, in this case by the Tory John Howard.
briefly @ 475 – it defies belief.
http://www.scmp.com/business/economy/article/1649899/pbocs-hu-says-falling-inflation-biggest-risk-chinas-economy
[The People’s Bank of China sees falling prices as the biggest risk to the economy and also the primary reason behind its first interest rate cut in two years, deputy governor Hu Xiaolian said.
She played down concerns about slowing growth, although many analysts believe the rate cut was also prompted by worries over economic prospects. The job market was generally sound, Hu added.
China’s inflation rate eased to a near-five-year low of 1.6 per cent in the past two months, far below the official goal of about 3.5 per cent for this year. The producer price index has stayed negative for two years amid sluggish industrial demand.
The State Council has held a series of meetings aimed at removing the funding bottlenecks for small companies as most of them have had to resort to the shadow banking system, at annual interest rates of more than 10 per cent, or even 20 per cent.
The deflationary pressures, which make borrowing more costly, were largely linked to the cooling property sector and excessive capacity in industries such as steel.]
[476
JimmyDoyle
briefly @ 475 – it defies belief.]
This is Work Choices applied to the 457 sector…highly retrograde.
briefly @ 469 – I certainly don’t suffer the illusion that the state is the answer to every problem. Encouraging innovation is a no brainer, and the best way for governments to encourage that is to invest in our universities and infrastructure, in the CSIRO, and as a seed investor in new and/or considerably risky sectors.
Further to my previous comment, it’s just such a shame Labor didn’t have more time to try and grow our car industry through innovation. Labor has got ensure that manufacturing survives in some form in this country when it is next in power. It is both a source of jobs and of innovation.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/27/us-eurozone-economy-idUSKCN0JB1N520141127
[Failure to reform and shield weaker members threatens to divide the euro zone, the head of the European Central Bank warned on Thursday, amid fresh signs the currency bloc’s economy is losing speed.
Delivering a blunt message to political leaders, Mario Draghi urged the 18 countries that share the single currency to consider ways to support struggling members, warning of the perils should fears that some might quit the euro be revived.
“Lack of structural reforms raises the specter of permanent economic divergence between members,” Draghi told an audience at the University of Helsinki, choosing unusually frank language.
“And insofar as this threatens the essential cohesion of the Union, this has potentially damaging consequences for all.”
Draghi’s remarks were not limited to reforms in individual countries but also encouraged a rethink of a basic principle underlying the fractious currency alliance — that strong countries are not obliged to help weak ones.
His comments came as the economic clouds over the region darkened. Lending in the euro zone shrivelled further in October while price inflation, a key yardstick of economic health, is very low.
Annual price inflation in Germany, the euro zone’s biggest economy by far, slowed to 0.5 percent in November, its lowest in nearly five years. Spanish consumer prices also dropped for the fifth month running.
LIP SERVICE
Yet enforcing order across the politically divided region in areas such as government spending has proven difficult. On Friday, the European Commission will tell France and Italy — the bloc’s second and third-largest economies — and smaller Belgium that their 2015 budgets risk breaking EU rules.
Nowhere is the contrast between north and south more visible than with France, which has put off reforms, and Germany, committed to not spending more than it earns.]
sheesh!
[478
briefly
This is Work Choices applied to the 457 sector]
If not the same to the letter, it is the same ethos and rationale that motivated WorkChoices i.e. neo-liberalism (sorry to belabour that point :P) in that people are simply there to be exploited, without regard for their human dignity.
briefly and jd – thank you for all the discussions and links. Sure beats all the previous stuff.
One of the sad things in the EU was that Spain actually kept well within those set rules, but the availability of cheap credit (essentially for the first time) to the people of Spain caused a massive consumer property bubble and consumer (rather than govt) debt problem.
[479
JimmyDoyle
briefly @ 469 – I certainly don’t suffer the illusion that the state is the answer to every problem. Encouraging innovation is a no brainer, and the best way for governments to encourage that is to invest in our universities and infrastructure, in the CSIRO, and as a seed investor in new and/or considerably risky sectors.
480
JimmyDoyle
Further to my previous comment, it’s just such a shame Labor didn’t have more time to try and grow our car industry through innovation. Labor has got ensure that manufacturing survives in some form in this country when it is next in power. It is both a source of jobs and of innovation.]
sure…though, when we think about the auto industry, it is bound to change radically once electric cars become the standard, as they fall by at least 50-60% in price and become at least partially robotic. There may well be chances to attract new manufacturing here, based on new energy and materials technologies and smart capabilities.
As well, we cannot separate the vitality of the auto industry from global investment flows, the effects of financial repression/exchange rate distortion on global trade and over-investment in auto-making in nearly every country.
Quite obviously, we needed to decide to compete…or to exit. We have a Government that wants to quit. They are a national disgrace.
RR – You are certainly welcome. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed exercising my brain tonight.
The EU is a joke. It has been nothing less than a con job for Southern European countries. As you say, Spain followed all the rules and still had austerity forced down it’s throat by unelected technocrats.
[483
Rocket Rocket]
You’re quite right about Spain. One has to feel very sorry for the Spanish people. They are paying for a huge boom in speculative lending by their banks and the excessive creation of financial assets right across the EU economy after the adoption of the Euro.
There are many unresolved questions in political economy. I am tempted to take some time off and write about them….have to earn a crust though, so not easy to see exactly when I might do this….
Post 485 re eurocrats
______________
That’s true as you said and that why they are so hated…and why UKIP and other right wing anti-euro partes are on the rise everywhere…see France with Le Pen and her party too…making major gains
Shockey at work –
[MYEFO: Deloitte Access Economics warns ‘the budget is burning’ ahead of December update]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-01/deloitte-access-economics-warns-the-budget-is-burning/5929216
(Chris Richardson a dick head but)
[TEMPERATURES were well above average across the Border region in spring, with more extreme heat likely in the summer months…]
[..“Daytime temperatures on the Border have been around two degrees above average for the period,” Bureau of Meterology forecaster Dean Stewart said.
Mr Stewart said that was quite a significant rise.]
http://www.bordermail.com.au/story/2732653/a-warm-lead-up-to-summer/?cs=11
‘The Border Mail’ regularly has articles like this one, recording above average temperatures over the preceeding months. It has an unblemished track record – none of them mention climate change.
Spain is the only one of the problem child of Europe that I feel sorry for, we often forget that in 2008 the government had a healthy budget surplus
I have been luxuriating in the collection of articles in The Age which all criticise the Coalition and Abbott for being out of touch.
In particular, I liked this comment about Robb’s spinning yesterday.
[The final argument, and the weakest, was expressed by Robb, who says he spent a lot of time in the electorate of Bentleigh on polling day and “there was not a word about Abbott”.
All that says is that Victorians are very polite, even when they’re angry. ]
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victoria-state-election-2014/victorian-state-election-2014-tony-abbotts-spinners-deluding-themselves-20141130-11x2f5.html
Morning bludgers
Thanks BK for today’s reading.
Laura Tingle appears to suggest that ALP were prepared for six years in opposition. I didnt see it that way at all. My feeling has been that the political cycle has changed in recent times, and one term govts very likely. Now we have proof in the pudding and the journos are jumping on board. How insightful of them!
[Until the last couple of weeks, the ALP had settled in for six years in the wilderness of federal opposition.
Tony Abbott and his colleagues came to office presuming they would have a minimum of two terms to implement any tough reforms before enjoying a more loving relationship with the electorate, simply because no federal government in living memory has got less than two terms in office.
Victorians’ decision to turf out the Coalition after just one term has changed all that.
Bill Shorten is now a man in a hurry. Tony Abbott is a man who may run out of time.]
Not that you get any sense that the Prime Minister is seeing it that way yet.
Oops i should have posted comment on main thread
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2014/11/27/bludgertrack-52-7-47-3-to-labor/?comment_page=31/#comments
Main thread?
Oops for me.
I thought this was the main thread!
One thing I have noticed our media have fallen for the idea that Victoria sticks with its governments, besides Bolte & Bracks all other premiers have been in office less than 8 years
cud chewer @ 474
I’m proposing to build the high speed rail station along the only strip of land in the middle of the city without tall buildings.
When are you going to start digging?
We have a Bolte Bridge, hammer hall, Geoff’s shed, where’s our Bracksy thing, or Baileu, napthine or Brumby,
Hmmm… how about Baileau retirement home
napthine freeway somewhere
and the brumby desal plant
489
Hamer was in for 9 years (Bolte`s successor, so you can`t claim that it is to far in the past) and Dunstan was in 8+2 years (with a 4 days gap when John Cain Senior was premier for the first time) but otherwise you are correct.