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.
Clearly, Corporal Jones was wont to say, “The Greens don’t like it up’ em”, given the bleating and crying going on here today.
lizzie
[Interesting that LT sat with her body firmly turned away from Uhlmann throughout Insiders.]
I noticed the body language.
(I reckon Insiders must book a hair-dresser to make Laura look remotely couth before she appears.)
After a huge effort, an unpopular state government and a toxic federal government the Greens’ vote in Victoria flat-lined.
Thank goodness that the Labor vote increased or cattle would still be grazing their way through the Alpine National Park.
It is time for Greens Party voters to accept that the Greens Party will never form government. It creeps around at the margins, like a thief in the night, snaffling a seat here and a seat there off Labor.
The Greens, unless they are entirely delusional, would be the first to admit that the Greens Party was intent on damaging Labor by taking votes and seats off Labor.
In Victoria Labor has had to do the hard yards in order to gain government. It will be Labor that does the hard yards of environmental protection. You will be hearing plenty of Greens Party noise, plenty of care, but zero accountability. Because that is the beauty of never having to form a government. How easy is that?
(a) The Greens Party dissipates the anti-reactionary effort. For example, it was reported that Greens Party spent three quarters of a million dollars to take Melbourne. The Liberals must be pissing themselves laughing at that one.
(b) The Greens Party is competing with Labor for the same votes and the same seats. The Greens Party does not even pretend to itself to hope that it will ever take a Liberal seat. And, for a party that is in denial about the help it gives to the reactionaries, that is saying something.
(c) To the extent the Greens Party damages Labor it is taking serious risks with the environment. The slew of damaging decisions made by Abbott, Baillieu, Newman, Barnett and Napthine are all – ALL – part-owned by the Greens Party.
This ALP vs Greens thing is a rerun of the Rudd-Gillard thing. People who push it, like greenborough growler, are doing the progressive side of politics, and the ALP in particular, big damage.
If the tories wised up they would set themselves a goal of harvesting 33% or so of green preferences. That wouldn’t be hard, with ALP stirmongers likelike GG continually heaping shit on the greens. Many green voters are single issue types. If someone like Turnbull took over the Liberal leadership, it’d be a doddle to pitch a fake sweet line to such voters.
Then thank you, GG. You’d have just kissed goodbye to a quarter of green preferences.
Truly idiotic!
[dedalus
Posted Sunday, November 30, 2014 at 12:25 pm | Permalink
This ALP vs Greens thing is a rerun of the Rudd-Gillard thing. People who push it, like greenborough growler, are doing the progressive side of politics, and the ALP in particular, big damage.]
Damn right, d. The sooner the Greens realize that they are helping the Coalition destroy the environment, the better.
{dedalus
Posted Sunday, November 30, 2014 at 12:25 pm | Permalink
This ALP vs Greens thing is a rerun of the Rudd-Gillard thing.]
Not even remotely true. Rudd might have been out of his tree but even Rudd was not a Greens.
[MTBW
Posted Sunday, November 30, 2014 at 12:03 pm | Permalink
K17
The ALP-Green arguments on this blog are pure monty python.]
Rubbish. Monty Python is funny. Which no-one would ever say about the Greens Party.
[areaman
Instead they’ll need support from the greens AND three of the mainly right wing micro parties or the libs.]
Isn’t this theoretically impossible, according to Greens Party dogma. There is no way that the Greens Party will compromise it principles and agree with anything that the Shooters Party wants.
Patrick Bateman@51
Exactly the same thing Greens did to ALP but lets not get that fact in the way of good argument. Almost every ticket in every region, Greens had ALP either on the same number as ALP had Greens, or in some even lower. Without going back and checking who they put ahead of ALP I can’t claim they put right wing micro parties ahead of ALP, but they sure put others ahead of ALP.
Bw
[After a huge effort, an unpopular state government and a toxic federal government the Greens’ vote in Victoria flat-lined.]
but it’s got nothing to do with the Feds …
It’s all about level crossings.
Re the friction between Labor and Greens…..where does it leave people like me who swing between both parties? There is a continuum re the political spectrum and many of us are on the cusp. Still have issue with people in detention, especially children but my pragmatic side turns to Labor as the lesser evil of the two main parties. I find the values of Green and Labor more similar than different, and feel we should concentrate on fighting the conservative backward thinking policies of this destructive mob.
[Patrick Bateman
Posted Sunday, November 30, 2014 at 10:17 am | Permalink
The hatred Labor right people have of the Greens is a clear reflection of the fact that the Greens now occupy many positions which should be occupied by a principled ALP.]
For the record, I don’t hate the Greens Party.
I despise them because they play russian roulette with the environment while pretending that they have no intention of damaging Labor.
It is either self-deception on a grand scale or naivete on a grand scale.
dedalus,
Don’t pout and sit up straight.
Labor harvest 80% of Greens preferences at election after election. So your contention about a moderate Lib creating a switch is simply not borne out by the facts of History.
Further, when ever I hear the phrase “progressive politics” I reach for my revolver. It’s just another meaningless lefty assertion to self endorse themselves as the morality monitors of Australian politics.
Quite frankly, politics is about creating jobs for electors, building a quality education system, etc. All those things that are in the Labor policy document. So, if the Greens really want to get progressive, they should do everything to implement the Labor program as propagated by Dan Andrews.
Erasmus,
Sounds like you like the sound bites of the Greens. They never deliver, though.
No party owns electorates or voters, as the Nats in Shepparton and Labor in Melbourne may have found. Maybe having a non-Labor spouse keeps things in perspective in our household.
In the next Victorian election I would imagine Labor will spend a lot of money and resources trying to take back Melbourne (as they should do) – a seat which the Liberals cannot possibly win, which would again make Liberal HQ happy. This is called democracy, which I support.
E
[where does it leave people like me who swing]
Always use a bag.
[Rebecca
Posted Sunday, November 30, 2014 at 11:03 am | Permalink
The Greens are absolutely not in a position to be complaining about Labor doing this, especially not after their embarrassing attempt at screwing Labor with open tickets yesterday, which was just a deeply counterproductive fail on all sides.]
I understand that the Greens Alpine National Park Cattle Herd was very pleased at this action by the Greens and is very disappointed that the Greens lacked sufficient power to damage Labor more than it did.
Boerwar
We live in a bloody democracy for God’s sake. We get to vote for whom we want.
I choose the AlP but I am certainly not in the game of telling others who they should vote for.
Labor will willingly accept Green preferences when they can to enhance their position so your comment does not stand up to scrutiny.
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/victorian-election-wrap-federal-drag.html
Victorian Election Wrap: Federal Drag Strikes Again
In which I argue that this election result was predictable and predicted and that those banging on about it being such a shock that a first-term government has lost are being silly.
ALP
[CTar1
Posted Sunday, November 30, 2014 at 12:32 pm | Permalink
Bw
After a huge effort, an unpopular state government and a toxic federal government the Greens’ vote in Victoria flat-lined.
but it’s got nothing to do with the Feds …
It’s all about level crossings.]
*laughs*
The award for electoral drollery went to the sign I saw during the night was in Armistead’s location where one of his supporters had a sign up with a promise to double the parking at Frankston station.
Good to see Labor party hacks taking less than 24 hours to start petulantly whining about how it’s not fair that the Greens exist.
Born to rule entitlement isn’t something exclusive to the Liberals, after all.
I’d be happy to lay off the Greens if they laid off Labor – but I can’t see that ever happening.
The Greens ‘principled’ stance on donations means that they rely heavily on the money garnered from primary votes to survive. It’s easier for them to take these from Labor.
That’s fair enough, and the votes come back to Labor anyway – it’s the ‘purer than thou’ attitude which is ridiculous.
The Greens are a political party. The sooner they realise that and recognise what that means, the better for everyone.
[Erasmus
Posted Sunday, November 30, 2014 at 12:33 pm | Permalink
Re the friction between Labor and Greens…..where does it leave people like me who swing between both parties?]
With a bit of luck it leaves you in a position of understanding that you do, finally, have to make a choice between noise and substance – a choice between getting the cattle out of the Alpine National Park or yakking about it incessantly while wringing hands.
Note this from KB:
[The Coalition has lost Shepparton to independent and family lawyer Suzanna Sheed (who announced her intention to run a mere four weeks ago!)]
4 weeks! Thats how tenuous the NATs hold on seats is in th face of quality rural independents,folks.
Its almost like the lcoals cant wait to ditch them – just need a good excuse to pull the trigger.
GG, ideals are necessary to influence the public discourse. When handing out HTV cards for Labor at the last election I met quite a few who moved from Labor to the Greens because of the asylum seeker policies.
CTar1, I asked for that!! 🙂
Bw
[to double the parking at Frankston station.]
A serious bit of digging required.
Transfield will bid.
teh,
Winners are Grinners actually.
The Greens can suit themselves.
[teh_drewski
Posted Sunday, November 30, 2014 at 12:41 pm | Permalink
Good to see Labor party hacks taking less than 24 hours to start petulantly whining about how it’s not fair that the Greens exist.]
Strawman and bullshit. Not a bad combo.
The Greens Party is entitled to exist, hoover up Labor votes, spruik policies and all the rest of it.
It is even entitled to delude itself that damaging Labor does not help the Liberals.
What the rest of us are entitled to do, and which we are doing, is to tell the Greens that they are playing Russian roulette with the environment every time they go into an election and damage Labor.
Because, every single time the Coalition wins an election, they start increasing the rate of damage to the environment.
Because Labor might form a government that stop the environmental rot.
And because, for all their energy, hope and idealism, the Greens will never, ever, be in a position to form a government and protect the environment.
Enjoy.
[CTar1
Posted Sunday, November 30, 2014 at 12:44 pm | Permalink
Bw
to double the parking at Frankston station.
A serious bit of digging required.
Transfield will bid.]
It was a Nappy policy. They sort of got a bit slack about the bidding thingy towards the end. Horsey people did well out it, I understand.
…and I’m not going to indulge in ‘look at what Labor did in the Upper House’ discussions until we actually know the results.
GG, don’t verbal me. I was talking about a possible scenario should a semi-intelligent Lib leader take advantage of the partisan split among ALP voters regarding their attitudes to the Greens. Read erasmus’ comment 111 and consider there must be numerous green soft voters out there whose preferences would be ripe for the picking if only the tories woke up to themselves and ditched their “ideology”.
No problem with the grinning, GG, just the entitlement.
zoom – you’re not one of the hacks I’m referring to, to be fair.
[a choice between getting the cattle out of the Alpine National Park or yakking about it incessantly while wringing hands.]
I love how there is finally an example of modern Labor doing 100% the right thing on an environmental issue and hacks like you are making out like they are the true party of the environment.
Their carbon tax as originally proposed was a joke which rewarded polluters. They are still good friends to the coal industry. They have systematically failed to protect Tasmania’s natural heritage. They are clearly better than the Liberals, but moving a few cows to a different paddock does not make them environmental saviours, fer chrissakes.
[Erasmus
Posted Sunday, November 30, 2014 at 12:43 pm | Permalink
GG, ideals are necessary to influence the public discourse. When handing out HTV cards for Labor at the last election I met quite a few who moved from Labor to the Greens because of the asylum seeker policies.]
Every vote you succeeded with presented a 20% return to the Liberals by way of a preference bleed. Well done! You guys rely on russian roulette to keep cattle out of the Alpine National Park.
That is very principled, no?
[Re the friction between Labor and Greens…..where does it leave people like me who swing between both parties? There is a continuum re the political spectrum and many of us are on the cusp. Still have issue with people in detention, especially children but my pragmatic side turns to Labor as the lesser evil of the two main parties. I find the values of Green and Labor more similar than different, and feel we should concentrate on fighting the conservative backward thinking policies of this destructive mob.]
Exactly right. Unfortunately the right wing of the Labor Party is more obsessed with attacking the Greens than the real enemy, and has nothing but contempt for voters intelligent enough to realise that there is a real dilemma along the lines you describe for people who find things like the race to the bottom on refugees abhorrent.
[You guys rely on russian roulette to keep cattle out of the Alpine National Park.]
Please, repeat it a few more times. The Greens want to destroy a National Park, the evidence being that they don’t 100% back Labor 100% of the time. Have I got that right?
Nice piece by KB here if you havent read it on the first term “hedgehog” idea, and his thesis (which Ive long also believed) that Federal issues are nearly *always* in state voters minds – if only to offset the Feds at state level:
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/victorian-election-wrap-federal-drag.html
[Every vote you succeeded with presented a 20% return to the Liberals by way of a preference bleed. Well done!]
You could engage your brain and realise that every vote switched also sends a message to Labor that the voter in question disagrees with its policies on certain issues strongly enough to prefer a different party.
This is called democracy, it’s a great concept. You should check it out. If enough people feel strongly enough, then Labor will have to choose to change its policies or continue to lose support to a more progressive option.
Bw
[They sort of got a bit slack about the bidding thingy towards the end.]
This stuff comes back to bite.
I shouldn’t be too critical.
I’ve got a Morgan-Stanley umbrella in my car boot. Polo …
[Patrick Bateman
Posted Sunday, November 30, 2014 at 12:48 pm | Permalink
a choice between getting the cattle out of the Alpine National Park or yakking about it incessantly while wringing hands.
I love how there is finally an example of modern Labor doing 100% the right thing on an environmental issue and hacks like you are making out like they are the true party of the environment.]
Who said that? What I said was that if you want to make a positive difference to the environment you should support Labor. If you want the Liberals to smash the environment, vote for the Greens and damage Labor as much as you can.
There are only two parties that count when it comes to the environment: Labor and Liberal.
Take your environmental pick: Abbott, Newman, Barnett, Napthine, Baird or take the other lot.
BTW, you seem to think that cattle is the end of it. Tsk, tsk, Greens Party dreaming. Did you enjoy the Napthine environmental decisions after all?
Are you enjoying the way the environment is being smashed under Newman are you? Are you enjoying the way in which the marine national park system is under dire threat from the Coalition are you?
Oh, I forgot. Labor and the Liberals are ‘the same’.
The Greens Party can talk all it wants. It can dream all it wants about perfect environmental protection. It can hope to gain a BOP every now and then. But it cannot form government.
The Greens Party can, by the damage it does to Labor, give government to real, genuinely motivated, environmental vandals.
Environmental russian roulette.
To all Green-haters out there. The fact that 20% of Green preferences go to the Coalition only proves that it’s perfectly feasible for 33% to do so. So be careful what you wish for.
Oh FFS
Stop this anti green whinge you right wing labor trolls.
Labor preferenced the Country Alliance ahead of the greens. What did they expect the greens to do, lie down and say beat me again I love it?
Naturally they preferenced vaguely similar parties like Animals, cyclist, sex, euthanasia parties ahead of Labor. When the greens preference FF ahead of Labor then you can whinge.
While EVER labor preferences parties like the DLP, FF ahead of greens then I would expect the Greens to pay back in kind.
Labor is lucky that the Libs are such RW loonies because IF the libs were sane and led by Turnbull and the handful of sane people, then it would be easy to make a case for a preference deal between Libs and Greens. I fail to understand for example why the Greens continue to preference RW ALP whackos like Danby and Feeney and can only assume that their LNP opponents are even worse.
Now I am a left ALP person but rtecognise that I am just as close to the Greens – right on the cusp. Labor has moved so far to the right in th
[CTar1
Posted Sunday, November 30, 2014 at 12:54 pm | Permalink
Bw
They sort of got a bit slack about the bidding thingy towards the end.
This stuff comes back to bite.
I shouldn’t be too critical.
I’ve got a Morgan-Stanley umbrella in my car boot. Polo …]
There’s an old Dutch peasant saying which, loosely translated, goes, ‘He who transports apples, eats apples.’
dtt
Thank goodness you have finally gotten off your Ebola hobby horse. We must be nearing the one million mark by now, I imagine.
That said, you need to wrap your head around the fact that it does not matter how much Labor damages the Greens Party because the Greens Party will never form government.
OTOH, it does matter how much the Greens Party damages the Labor Party because the ONLY hope for the environment is a Labor government.
Are you enjoying your Russian roulette with the environment?
Stolen from teh_drewski’s post on the other thread…
[Eastern Vic – irrelevant. Lib/Nat preferences elect the S&F, neither Green nor Labor preferences distributed.
Northern Vic – relevant. Lib/Nat preferences elect the S&F, but Labor preferences to the Country Alliance prevent a Green taking the 5th seat.
West Metro – irrelevant, Green preference are not material in determining the 5th quota (and go to Labor anyway)
West Vic – irrelevant. The tiny Labor surplus after their second candidate is elected wouldn’t have changed the result for the 5th quota, regardless of whether Purcell or the S&F get up.]
[dedalus
Posted Sunday, November 30, 2014 at 12:56 pm | Permalink
To all Green-haters out there. The fact that 20% of Green preferences go to the Coalition only proves that it’s perfectly feasible for 33% to do so. So be careful what you wish for.]
See? Russian roulette with the environnment is fine.
Why not make it 100% and ensure that cattle graze the Alpine National Park completely flat?
…and can Greens posters kindly recognise that there is a difference between State and Federal?
We’re talking about the Victorian election, and the Victorian Labor party…so asylum seeker policies, what’s happening in Tasmania, etc etc aren’t relevant.
Oh FFS
Stop this anti green whinge you right wing labor trolls.
Labor preferenced the Country Alliance ahead of the greens. What did they expect the greens to do, lie down and say beat me again I love it?
Naturally they preferenced vaguely similar parties like Animals, cyclist, sex, euthanasia parties ahead of Labor. When the greens preference FF ahead of Labor then you can whinge.
While EVER labor preferences parties like the DLP, FF ahead of greens then I would expect the Greens to pay back in kind.
Labor is lucky that the Libs are such RW loonies because IF the libs were sane and led by Turnbull and the handful of sane people, then it would be easy to make a case for a preference deal between Libs and Greens. I fail to understand for example why the Greens continue to preference RW ALP whackos like Danby and Feeney and can only assume that their LNP opponents are even worse.
Now I am a left ALP person but recognise that I am just as close to the Greens – right on the cusp. Labor has moved so far to the right in that it is hardly surprising that a new party has emerged. Refugees, war in Iraq, uranium, public transport, RET, Free trade agreements, privatisation are just a few of the fundamental issues which differentiate the greens from the main stream ALP.
Once upon a time there was a STRONG voice for the left in the ALP, now it is practically silent. OK there are some left social issues on which the ALP has moved but for the gutsy issues the left is irrelevant.
If Labor REALLY wants to reclaim ground from the Greens, toss out the DLP elements and the mushy, free marketeers who might as well be Liberals and reclaim the left wing social agenda. Labor has become a centrist party. Stop whingeing about the left fringe and learn to deal with it.
The same is true of the Liberals. It is only a matter of time before a centrist/Lib party emerges. The catholic RW of the LNP are electoral poison and a new party WILL emerge.
lefty e,
I’d bet London to a brick that the ‘Man who would be Deputy PM’ that amazing retail politician Barnyard’s clear message to Shepparton that they can go whistle because they don’t vote National in the Feds was decisive. Superb effort Joyce, almost as good as your work as Shadow Finance minister.
As I always say. If Nats didn’t have selling out their constituents to the Libs to keep them occupied what would they do with their time?