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.
[Strange to say but a hostile Murdoch press seems more to be an electoral asset for the ALP.]
Yep – this a big takeaway from the 2014 election: Murdoch’s dwindling power.
The Feral Hun threw everything at the ALP, and the punters werent the slightest bit interested, didnt deviate from 52-48 for a second.
Theyd already decided, and they took the Napthine government down. They werent the least bit interested in the rants emanating from News Ltd.
On a bit of a different note to a lot of this, does anyone have any thoughts about why Labor’s performance in the Legislative Council has been so bad this time around?
I really wonder if the amount of candidates for all country regions who were Melbourne-based people installed in factional deals might have done some damage in the bush. When some well-known locals got done over to find seats for Melbournians, and then their vote drops sharply…
Rossmore@396
Thanks for that, but I really must give full credit to our candidate, Jennifer Yang. I have never seen a candidate work so hard before.
Jennifer also dragged her family in to assist, including her husband Rob and her father-in-law.
Jen got pre-selected rather late in the peace, but she was off and running almost immediately.
She mobilised some of the Chinese community, which is rather large in the area, in addition to our traditional mix of supporters and members.
I am certainly not alone in hoping she runs again and if Dan and team can get some good runs on the board, she will be in with a real chance. She is interested and has the support of her family and in-laws.
I scrutineered and was tricked into thinking we would go close, and possibly win, by an abnormally large swing at my booth. Unfortunately, that did not carry through at other booths.
Just a thought bubble here.
Is there anything in Andrew’s offering the National’s a role in government on regional issues?
Give then an chance to do something for their consistent?
On paper the national’s rural interests are more aligned with the ALP’s general principals than the RWNJ party that the Libs have turned into.
[On a bit of a different note to a lot of this, does anyone have any thoughts about why Labor’s performance in the Legislative Council has been so bad this time around?]
More choice presumably leads to some diminished returns on primaries. beyond that – you never know, preffing ‘nutcase’ micros may have put off some of the ALP primary voters.
Its dropped somewhere around 2.5% – despite a swing to the ALP in the assembly.
The “pref” geniuses never factor that one into their model.
Rebecca
When you look at the last election and this one, although there is an obvious drop in the transfer of votes from the Lower House to the Upper House for Labor, it doesn’t seem to be in the regions where the Upper House preselections were most resented…
….I will add, as someone who had skin in that particular game, I was hoping to find that the opposite was true!
JimmyDoyle@398
I was expecting us to get Forest Hill. I must check the detailed results there to see what happened.
Burwood is a tougher nut to crack, but who knows?
So much depends on how well the new State Govt goes.
Although I think a Matthew Guy led opposition will not be particularly attractive to the punters.
Rebecca@402
I think you are on to something there Rebecca.
It is time that was reformed. Apart from anything else, it is just wrong in principle.
constituents*
bemused @ 408 – ironically enough, of the three I mentioned Burwood is now the most marginal. Go figure!
Also, everyone should check out this lovely map. It breaks down Victorian electorates further into booths and shows which party won that booth. I hope the ABC keeps it for future elections:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-29/victorian-election-results-booths-map/5923536
[408
Bemused
Although I think a Matthew Guy led opposition will not be particularly attractive to the punters.]
I think Labor should quietly order an “investigation” into any possible links between Guy and the developers – well after he is elected leader of course.
JimmyDoyle@411
Should have checked before commenting. 😳
I was going off a comment I recalled from the party last night.
JimmyDoyle@412
Quietly being a good way to start. Get a bit of evidence on board before going to the royal commission on links between developers and politicians.
(also check who in your own party will be slugged)
JimmyDoyle@412
A proper ICAC would be a good start.
And if it also finds some crooked dealings by people on the Labor side, then so be it. I don’t want anyone dodgy in my party.
But I am sure where the balance will lie with the number of crooks. 👿
393
JimmyDoyle
Cheers, JD.
My proposition (still nascent) is that neo-liberalism has to be replaced by post-liberal learning and practice.
The post-war consensus disintegrated under its own weight, to be partially displaced by various attempts at deregulation, privatisation, de-bureaucratisation, devolution….and so on. Really, some of these measures were unequivocally “good things”. For example, until the 1980s in WA we still had a “State Engineering Works” and a “State Laundry & Linen Service”…among others…and there were no really good reasons to oppose their closure or sale. Likewise, there was no really good reason for taxpayers to be exposed to the risks of running airlines or ocean freight businesses.
By contrast, we still have a State Mint and a State Chemistry Centre and run State research facilities in agriculture, fisheries, forestry, mining and support some elements of the Smart Economy, including in computing and electronic engineering.
So it’s just not correct to say we have reverted to a pre-Edwardian laissez-faire economy. We have not re-introduced the Masters and Servants Act. We have not re-instated indentured labour nor have we reintroduced the property-based franchise. We have not disbanded universal, compulsory state education and we have not closed state hospitals. In WA, we have scarcely even touched the regulation of working hours, workers compensation insurance remains compulsory and workers can still freely organise themselves into industrial unions. We do not live in a neo-liberal or a neo-colonial economy. In my view, this in large part is because of the positions taken by Labor over many decades.
However, if there is one element that has changed it has been the deletion from political and economic discourse of the language of “class conflict”. Marx has been put into the philosophical archive. I would argue the linguistic change is even more far-reaching than that. The rest of the economists…Smith, Ricardo, Keynes, the Austrians, the Monetarists…have also been replaced in many ways by the technologists and the statisticians; the engineers and the geeks; the NGOs, the marketers and the think-tanks.
The language of our thinking – our speculations, our evidence, our descriptions of the practical and the possible – has been comprehensively edited.
In some ways, this reflects the radical rejection of a reliance on “the State”, but at the same time it has not meant an uncritical renewal of trust in “the market”. These choices are still highly contestable, as they have always been. And they are informed by networked exchanges in the new media, such as this one occurring here today.
We are evolving new ways of inquiring into and understanding our common (planetary) circumstances, and, it follows, in my opinion our political settings are also altering. This is giving rise to what I have suggested we should call “post-liberalism” – an essentially innovative, cross-sectoral, open-ended, egalitarian and networked political economy of the young and the free…
[414
Work to Rule
Quietly being a good way to start. Get a bit of evidence on board before going to the royal commission on links between developers and politicians.
(also check who in your own party will be slugged)]
Indeed. Labor should be cautious of blowback, but it would be crazy to ignore the goldmine of shadiness that is Guy.
bemused @ 415
Labor does need to corageous and establish a proper ICAC like the one in NSW. I don’ think it’s likely though?
FWIW – I had heard that Mount Waverley was the most likely to fall to Labor. Oh well.
JimmyDoyle@417
Judging by Andrew’s day one announcement of releasing the East-West link documents – I think the ALP has already decided that they will dish out any dirt they can find.
I am sure Guy is on their list. Maybe start with his associates first….
Most voters want their vote to count so they stick to ALP or Lib for the lower house where 1 person is elected.
Because you vote for 5 members elected to the upper house you can place a more nuanced vote knowing that a candidate with more than 20% of the vote gets a seat.
JimmyDoyle@418
We had a margin of over 8% to overcome and were well down on the pendulum.
Some were saying, and I may have repeated it here, that it was really better than it appeared because the seat has previously swung big-time. Wishful thinking on this occasion.
billie@420
There is a difference between ‘nuanced’ and just plain ‘nutty’.
[Although I think a Matthew Guy led opposition will not be particularly attractive to the punters.]
That’s why I hope Michael O’Brien takes over as leader. Guy looks like a shyster and probably is one. O’Brien looks like a safer pair of hands to me.
Gary Sparrow – as I am a Labor partisan, you’ll forgive me if I prefer Guy to take over the leadership.
The right have decided to game the upper house preference system and they put up multiple microparties knowing that statistically some will get up.
Who ever forms government has to be able to negotiate with the microparty
Gary Sparrow@423
Guy reportedly has the numbers, as befits a party of spivs.
Gary Sparrow@423
O’Brien is just as much a nutter than Guy is.
Infact he is also a religious Nutter.
Guy has fewer numbers now than he did last night Bemused 🙂
@401,
I hope that the flip side of this is that after all the rank propagandising being done by the Murdoch papers, that the voters are finally ignoring these papers, refusing to buy them and telling their mates exactly what they think of them.
I was overheard at the local newsagent saying something like “oh yeah, more trash from the Telegraph” and the newsagent owner said to me “I wish more people would say that”.
[That’s why I hope Michael O’Brien takes over as leader. ]
He may be the best of a bad bunch, but from what I saw of him last night, he’s going to need a major persona makeover to be presentable in a mainstream context.
confess
Daniel Andrews shows it can be done!
Look at where he was and how he was viewed 4 years ago to now. It shows with some work you can make people electable.
Gary Sparrow@428
They both probably do. 😀
That’s what losing an election does.
Gary Sparrow@431
He appears to lack all the excitement of a charismatic leader, but my well be a more solid performer and be there for the long haul. That is the type of leader I prefer.
Gary S:
True. 😆
On the plus side O’Brien is reportedly a Carlton supporter!
briefly @ 416
I concede that governments don’t need to be running laundries or cafes. On the other hand, the (past and future) privatisation of almost all our structural industries like electricity and telecommunications, where monopolies are not just a hazard but a feature, were and are mistakes when done by Labor, and just plain robbery when done by the Coalition.
Implying that I was saying that we had returned to a “pre-edwardian laissez-faire economy” is a mischaracterisation of my argument. I certainly don’t think it’s that bad, but one would have to be blind to not see that wages and working hours, as well as our institutions of science of education, are under a sustained attack by robber-barons like Rinehart, Murdoch, Stokes as well as the good people of the IPA and spivs like Tony Shepherd.
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. However, I think your “post-liberal economy” would struggle to come about thanks to the sustained assault from the right on the very idea of egalitarianism.
And while I agree that trust in the state and the market are in a state of flux, trust in the state(a social democratic state as opposed to a military-industrial state) needs to be rebuilt. And I think a healthy dose of scepticism about markets is pretty much all that separates us from the barbaric economic system they have in the US.
[427
Yesiree Bob
O’Brien is just as much a nutter than Guy is.
Infact he is also a religious Nutter.]
In that case I’m only too happy to see them fight over who gets to lead the morally bankrupt spivocracy that is the Liberal Party.
poroti
There is one beef I have with the coverage of state politics, and that is it’s really hard to find any equivalent of the federal MYFEO. I’d like to know how Napthine was travelling half year through introducing a budget like that.
[I think Labor should quietly order an “investigation” into any possible links between Guy and the developers – well after he is elected leader of course.]
Yep. Id be checking out Docklands and Fishermen’s bend. Height relaxations, unbelievable and costly stuffups around open space, and so on.
JimmyDoyle@411
Jimmy, I have now checked and that is not correct.
The Libs won outright in Burwood, but at least in Mount Waverley and Forest Hill they were forced to preferences.
We must have done relatively well in Mount Waverley compared to Forest Hill as they had similar results.
Reachtel QLD
ALP 51
L-NP 49
The next domino to fall?
@PeterDoherty7: Labor in QLD with a nose in front 2PP @7NewsBrisbane Sunday Mail State We’re #qldpol #auspol https://t.co/bCOGG85AdZ http://t.co/LoBB7x8taG
Reachtel QLD
ALP 51
L-NP 49
The next domino to fall?
@PeterDoherty7: Labor in QLD with a nose in front 2PP @7NewsBrisbane Sunday Mail State We’re #qldpol #auspol https://t.co/bCOGG85AdZ http://t.co/LoBB7x8taG
Bemused @ 439 – I suppose it depends how you “measure” a marginal seat i.e. on the margin above 50% + 1 or on whether or not preferences would be distributed or not.
Chuckling at an ad in the local paper — they’re looking for someone able to speak conversational English, ‘Asian languages’ and Indian, with a horticultural degree, knowledge of export processes, experienced in supervising seasonal workers, with a forklift license, and able to drive and maintain tractors and power ladders, and willing to work weekends…and they’ll pay this phenomenon $53k…
JimmyDoyle@442
Jimmy, in Burwood the Libs did not need preferences, at least how the count stands now.
bemused
the map linked to is for 2010.
zoomster@443
And of course when they get no local applicants they are free to get someone on a 457. And of course such a person will not have all those attributes and there is no check.
A common enough dodge.
sprocket_@440
Margin seems a bit narrow to survive to election day. But a narrow LNP victory is probably the worst outcome for federal Lib.
Raaraa
No wonder Fairfax and News Ltd came out with a tick for Napthine this week. Their post budget predictions were a little off the mark to say the least a bit embarrassing for their political “gurus”.While News Ltd said
[With this Budget, Premier Napthine can’t lose the next election ]
Fairfax hitched themselves to the same wagon with.
[This is a shock and awe budget designed to blast Labor into electoral oblivion. Odds on, it will succeed.]
Saw this on the TV news, and now in the Courier-Mail
ONE of Brisbane’s biggest eyesores is to disappear from the skyline, set to be demolished.
Great news! And after they get rid of Campbell Newman’s government, then they can get rid of the Brisbane Transit Centre as well.
This Reachtel poll showing Labor up 51-49 in Queensland is a bit more important than some other issues.
zoomster@445
I am not aware of linking to any map.