One of the factors that was overlooked in the recent debate over Senate electoral reform was the hours of enjoyment election watchers used to have projecting Senate outcomes, with help from Antony Green’s calculators, thanks to the exquisitely predictable preferences flows that arose from the group voting ticket system. The fact that voters will now be largely making up their own minds means we are headed into unknown territory with the coming election. But that’s no reason to give up altogether, and I believe I’ve managed to come up with a reasonably stimulating projection exercise based on the following:
• Experience in the Australian Capital Territory tells us that voters overwhelmingly do what the ballot paper tells them to do, and no more than that, even if they are technically allowed to exploit savings provisions to number fewer boxes than indicated. On that basis, my model assumes every vote consists of six numbered boxes above-the-line.
• A ballot paper study from the 2010 Victorian state election tells us that how-to-vote cards are obeyed by 45% of Liberal voters, 41% of Labor voters and 25% of Greens voters, but by next to no micro-party voters as they lack the infrastructure to staff polling booths on a large scale. We don’t actually know what those how-to-vote cards will say at this stage (and I dare say controversies will emerge as some recalcitrants recommend a just-vote-one option), but the parties’ group voting tickets from 2013 are, at the very least, a useful starting point.
• For those who don’t follow the how-to-vote card, there is a very useful resource available in the form of the below-the-line voting data from the last election, which records the full preference order of every single voter who made up their own mind. I’ve used this to develop matrices indicating how many voters for each party included the various other parties in their top six. These are then mixed together with the how-to-vote card followers in the proportions indicated in the aforementioned Victorian election study (though only for Labor, Coalition, Greens, Australian Christians and Family First – for all other parties, I’m going entirely off the below-the-line data).
• The parties’ primary votes are, in the main, determined by applying the state-level swings currently recorded by BludgerTrack to the 2013 election result, with exceptions noted below. Whatever’s left over is distributed between the smaller parties in proportion to their share of the vote in 2013.
With those starting primary votes and assumptions about preference behaviour, it becomes possible to simulate an overall result. I must stress that I wouldn’t go betting the house on any of this, as a lot of the factors involved are tied to the last election result, and there is good cause to expect things will be different this time. The cast of minor parties is assumed to be the same as last time, and only in South Australia has the Nick Xenophon Team been accommodated. Nonetheless, this is a useful starting point for exploring how the Senate result might look, and will be refined over the rest of the campaign as more information becomes available. The results look a little something like this:
Now here’s the fine print, followed by a display showing key points in the projected counts:
NEW SOUTH WALES: I’ve arbitrarily clipped 6% off the Liberal Democrats and handed it over the Coalition, based on my guesstimate of how many of the party’s voters were confusing them with the Coalition when they drew first spot on the tablecloth ballot paper in 2013. That still leaves them 1.3% clear of the Christian Democrats as the fourth best polling party, which changes little through to Count 54, at which point the Australian Christians drop out and leave the last three positions to the three candidates remaining in the count: Coalition #5, Labor #5 and, taking the twelfth spot, David Leyonhjelm.
VICTORIA: The Sex Party survives to the final count, but lands around 3% short of Labor’s fifth candidate when it gets there. To cover that gap, it would need to improve on its 1.9% primary vote from 2013, and/or have Labor do a few points less well than the 35.5% projected for it. Family First makes it to the second last count, but the Coalition vote is strong enough on this accounting to ensure a monopoly on the five right-of-centre seats in Victoria.
QUEENSLAND: The projection has Coalition #5, Labor #4 and Katter’s Australian Party in a very close race for the last two seats, as indicated in Count 46, with Labor losing the game of musical chairs. However, Katter’s Australian Party ran a very high profile campaign in 2013 with a name candidate in country singer James Blundell, who was long thought a shoo-in before being elbowed aside by Clive Palmer and Glenn Lazarus. It’s hard to say if the party now stands to decline as a result of dwindling publicity, or clean up as voters desert Palmer United. Perhaps the more important lesson to be drawn from this is that the projection rates a base vote of 3.3% as a potential springboard for victory.
WESTERN AUSTRALIA: I’m dubious about the 10% swing against the Coalition in Western Australia recorded by BludgerTrack, and doubly so about Senate projections based on its results, since it reduces both major parties to the twenties. This inflates the minor and micro-party vote to cover the loss, which includes the Nationals and doesn’t include the Greens. For what it’s worth though, this results in a seat for the Liberal Democrats and also one for the Nationals, who may indeed by a show, but probably not with the level of certainty indicated by the model.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA: I haven’t made any adjustment at all to the 2013 election result, since the Nick Xenophon factor renders meaningless any comparison between the Senate result then and House swings now. The result effectively becomes a three-way tie for the past two seats between Liberal #4, NXT #4 and Family First, as indicated at count 44. The projection has Family First dropping out, but clearly it could have gone any which way.
TASMANIA: I’ve dealt with Jacqui Lambie by leaving her vote and preference structure from 2013 intact, which is possibly a little generous to her, but it will do for a start. That leaves her very close to a quota, and once she’s there, all that’s left is for the micro-parties to be weeded out until Greens #2 gains the final spot.
Can comments on this thread please be on topic — the Newspoll post is still the general discussion thread.
Great analysis William.
I would expect more preferences from the minor parties to major parties than in 2013. A lot of disengaged people vote 1 above the line for a minor party as a protest vote, if they like the sound of it. In previous years they then accepted the group ticket, this year I expect they’ll put their least disliked major party in the 6 preferences they’re instructed to fill out.
2013 below the line voters had to be very engaged, so they’re not a good guide to how disengaged voters will act this year.
If 2013 had been a double dissolution and the votes cast had been counted by the new method, the results would have been:
NSW VIC QLD SAU WAU TAS ACT NTE
LP 5 LNP 5 LNQ 5 LP 4 LP 5 LP 5 ALP 1 CLP 1
ALP 4 ALP 4 ALP 4 XEN 3 ALP 4 ALP 4 LP 1 ALP 1
LDP 1 GRN 2 PUP 1 ALP 3 GWA 1 GRN 2
GRN 1 PUP 1 GRN 1 GRN 1 NP 1 PUP 1
PUP 1 KAP 1 FFP 1 PUP 1
Typically about one quota would have exhausted during the count (apart from the one quota left over at the Declaration)
Mmmmm-kayyyy…. What primary did you start the Lazarus-Walters football team on in Qld, Will? I would have thought they’d do at least as well as Katter, and will probably get the Brick reelected. Otherwise all very interesting and rational speculation. I’m sure the actual results will be equally interesting.
In Victoria 2014 state election Liberal Democrats got the best minor party vote at 3.06%, ahead of Sex Party at 2.63%, i suspect that is a better guide than the last federal election.
LDP have a foot in the door due to Leyonhjelm keep their name fresh.
SEX have a representative in the Vic state upper house, so that should help with campaigning.
Family first, DLP, and Shooters and Fishers will be knocked out earlier IMO.
Hmmm – better look into NXT SA senate candidates No 3 (Skye Kakoschke-Moore) and 4 (Tim Storer).
https://nxt.org.au/candidates/south-australia/senate/
They have had zip media scrutiny so far.
Good analysis. However, I am wondering why the figures for the Greens in WA is so low. I know the 2014 by-election was an oddity, but they scored 15.61% then. That’s more than 2 quotas.
So if thinking about Balance of Powers, the question is whether the Coalition can team up with Xenophon and LDP/Katter/ex-PUPs to form a majority to the exclusion of the Greens (and obv the ALP)… pretty much the same situation as now really?
The absolute max for the major + minor left seems around 35-36, the greens need to do better in NSW (~10%) and try and compete for a 2nd seat at the expense of a rightish minor.
best hope for Qld 12th seat is Lazarus rather than Katter? Lambie looking good in Tas.
SA likely to be 4-4 or 5-3 coalition -xenophon, so prob for the best that xenophon wins it? WA all over the place with final 2 seats up for grabs, but would expect to go one leftwards and 1 rightwards.
I cant see the Greens holding sole balance of power here… if anything it looks far more likely that Xenophon is going to be the most powerful player in the country!
As a recent returnee and v unfamiliar with SA, i cant work out where Xenophon plots exactly on the ideology spectrum… fairly centrish????
peter murphy @ #7 Tuesday, May 24, 2016 at 9:13 am
There is no way under the sun the G’s will get 1/6 of the vote in the coming DD in WA.
Mmmmm-kayyyy…. What primary did you start the Lazarus-Walters football team on in Qld, Will? I would have thought they’d do at least as well as Katter, and will probably get the Brick reelected. Otherwise all very interesting and rational speculation. I’m sure the actual results will be equally interesting.
Katter Australia Party received 1.93% at the last Queensland state election (2015) down from 11.53% they received in (2012) . Although it must acknowledge that KAP only ran 10 candidates in 2015. There is an article today that suggests that the last seat could be a toss up between Pauline Hanson and Glenn Lazarus. I think William is overstating Katter’s chances, he has definitely gone a down a peg since he first started.
I’m not convinced the LNP are going to receive 6 senate seats, as there are reports today the LNP are making moves to try and neutralize Pauline Hanson.
Greens are the most obvious loser out of the DD, they will suffer for a number of reasons
– As voters tune in and take things more seriously they are more likely to switch to LNP or ALP, greens always fade in the polls, and they are always over sampled because they are are more desperate to be counted. Prior to the last election IPSOS had then at 22% IIRC, but it was one of their first polls.
– They made enemies of all the minor parties (except NXT) by pushing these senate changes, so likely will get historically low preference flows from them
– Conservative voters will likely not give them a number at all, so they wont get a vote at all from conservative ALP haters, who would preference them ahead of ALP just because …
– They have angered ALP voters more and more with their battles for Lower house seats, and i suspect ALP voters will struggle more than they ever have to put GRN above LNP.
I think they will be reduced from their current 10 senators down to 6, in this DD, i dont think they will get the 2nd in Victoria, and there is a chance of an upset in one of the other 5 seats.
Next election they will have a chance to increase their numbers again, but micro parties arent going to just sit back and take this “reform” lying down, expect them to aggregate into minor parties that will challenge the greens.
Question re: ACT
They aren’t mentioned in the text, is this because the territories were excluded from the analysis? Or because the analysis was too boring to bother discussing?
Even though the DD has no impact on ACT, and the assumption that people only preference 6 will matter less when there are only 13 candidates.
Just looking at the change in HOR primary vote, it would seem like ACT should finally go Labor+Green? The Greens ended up at 0.9485 quota at the last count, 3.43% behind the Liberals. With Greens primary up and Liberal down, I would assume that Greens should get ahead.
However, the exhaustion of votes is likely to hinder Greens more than Liberals – the Libs barely got any preferences flowing to them anyway.
So in other words, the smart money is on a hung Parliament/minority government?
Also, “i suspect ALP voters will struggle more than they ever have to put GRN above LNP” – Don’t agree with that. Much as I despise Di Natale for seemingly being in bed with the LNP, there’s still absolutely no way I’d preference LNP ahead of GRN. I’d sooner have my vote exhaust than throw it behind an LNP candidate. Not giving a number to either party seems like a better option. GRN can have my preference back when they remember that the LNP/Coalition is the real enemy here.
AR;
If you choose not to preference GRN or LNP, greens are still in a worse situation than they where before, as previously if you voted ALP above the line preference would have flowed to GRN before LNP, now they wont.
How they allocate the long & short term seats & the effect this will have on the next half senate election will be interesting. Can any one enlighten me on possible & likely scenarios?
@ Kev – It goes based on what the Senate votes for, but assuming it goes as it has in the past, this would end with long senators elected as follows:
Coal/Lab/Greens/NXT/others
NSW – 3/2/1
VIC – 3/2/1
QLD – 3/2/1
WA – 3/2/1
SA – 2/2/0/2
Tas – 3/2/1
So total long senators would be 17/12/5/2/0
Total short state senators would then be 13/15/3/2/5 (total short senators would be 15/16/4/2/5, but these aren’t really relevant as the territory senators have to be allocated as short).
So taking long minus short for each party we have 4/-3/2/0/-5. That is, the Liberals and Greens do well out of this system, and Labor/minors do poorly.
Taking Sex as left wing and the other minors as right wing, then each wing of politics has exactly as many Short state senators as Long ones.
Labor and the minors (the parties disadvantaged by this system) are likely to have 31-32 senate votes, which means that unless they can convince either Lib or Greens to vote against both precedent and self interest, then it is likely that this is the system that will be used.
Description of system
http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2016/04/how-long-and-short-terms-are-allocated-after-a-double-dissolution.html
Note: There could easily be changes to the order.
For example, in NSW the Greens are on 1.05 quota on count 1. This means that they are elected in position 3, after a Lib and then a Lab. If they were to drop down to 0.999999999 quota on count 1, then they would be reduced from 3rd position to 9th, the order would become Coal->Lab ->Coal->Lab ->Coal->Lab ->Coal->Lab ->Greens as the two largest parties get 4 senators elected each before any preferences are allocated.
SA could easily flip to 2/1/1/2 if Greens get to 1 quota on first preferences, and VIC/NSW could easily become 2/3/1 if Labor gets ahead of Coalition on first preferences.
Jacquie Lambie will get 2 Tasmania Senate places.
Thanks Scott
When do they decide on which method to use? Do they all get sworn in before they can vote on this? Surely a party with pure ideals like the Greens would not just vote in self interest 🙂
I wouldn’t be surprised if Pauline Hanson gets the last seat in Queensland, a lot of LNP voters who don’t like Turnbull for being to center are looking for a senate candidate which represents the more conservative. Also recent events have defiantly seen more people move towards these parties. As someone from a family of very conservative voters I also see a lot of support for Australian Liberty Alliance on facebook but doubt they will actually get any senate seats – largely due to lack of media attention – does anyone other than me know that Angry Anderson is running with them? Anyone else agree?
I’m curious why you think this would be just voted for out of self interest by the Greens. There is significant precedent for its use, and in this example produces relatively reflective results (of the general left-right balance, of course, the major-minor balance is off).
Whilst it is vogue on PB to accuse the Greens of selling out (accuse early, accuse often), I don’t see how this would be a sell out for them?
Also, I made a mistake in the working there (conclusion remains the same, although getting 12 long and 13 short senators, I now suspect that Labor would just waive through the half a senator they were ‘robbed’ by.)
Labor should be 12 short 13 long in the states, I forgot to remove the territory senators from the state senator count.
So the actual deltas are
Liberals have +4 long
Right wing minor have -4 long
Greens have +2 long
Labor have -1 long
Left wing minor have -1 long.
And I am not sure when the vote happens sorry.
Simon Katich
Looking at their bios, both K-Moore and Storer look alright and seem qualified (much better than some of the nuts that have been nominated for HoR, purely on “they’re everyday folk” value) – it’s Stirling Griff who seems most unpalatable of Xenophon’s running mates.
Of course, that’s just their bios. They might have some dodgy opinions or beliefs dwelling under the surface
With good reason, because I’d made an error there. They were supposed to be on 13.1%, and now that I’ve run it again they take the seat off the Sex Party. All corrected now.
CM
Going by his twitter account it seems the NXT SA No4 is on the left end of the NXT spectrum. And he seems to support the NSW Waratahs so other than long suffering, he must be alright.
How the NXT will work in practice with power will be interesting.
With William’s edit, the long vs short count under the ‘typical’ system becomes
Greens have 1 more long than short, Labor have 1 less.
Liberals have 4 more long than short, and the right wing minors have 4 less.
Scott I was just responding to what was in your post which I read to mean that you expected the Libs & Greens to not vote against self interest or to put the other way, to vote in their self interest.
“Labor and the minors (the parties disadvantaged by this system) are likely to have 31-32 senate votes, which means that unless they can convince either Lib or Greens to vote against both precedent and self interest, then it is likely that this is the system that will be used.”
Given how close the Greens ran it last time, and that the Liberal vote will be down and the Labor and Greens votes will be up, I reckon they’re a decent shot for taking the second seat ahead of the Liberals in the ACT, but I definitely agree that Simms is in serious trouble in SA, given the pressure NXT has put on the political landscape there.
I did a similar simulation and came up with the last place in NSW going Christian Democrats or perhaps shooters and SA going Family First. In many ways you can treat it as an election between 6 groups LNP – Lab – Green – Family First/Christian – shooters/recreation – Sex/Hemp and 3 individuals Lambie – Xenephon – Katter.
Now that people have seen the Liberal Democrats in power, I suspect the votes are going to swing more to single issue parties.
The Greens will definitely poll better than this simulation is predicting in SA and TAS. Tas Greens will exceed that estimate by several points at least, I think it would be shocking if the Tasmanian Greens failed to get 2 full quotas.
Simms is facing a very tough fight in SA, but I wouldn’t count him out. SA Greens will definitely poll better than the 7% you’ve got set (Seriously, even less than 2013? Doubt it). I think a realistic expectation for Greens in SA now is about 10%, another point or two if they campaign really well.
Great model, some of the Green primaries just look off to me.
7.1% is what the Greens got in SA in 2013 – I haven’t changed the results there at all. Maybe you’re thinking of the 8.3% they got in the House, but they didn’t have Xenophon to contend with there.
NSW was not the only state where ticket position assisted the Liberal Democrats. Their strong vote in WA probably owed a lot to drawing second on the ballot with the Liberals at the far bottom end. Even if they repeat the dose I expect the advent of logos to knock their vote down further in such cases.
Re Tasmania: what you have there is also what I’m expecting, though with some possibility the majors will be closer. I really can’t find realistic hope for anyone outside Labor, Liberal, Greens and Lambie here.
Oh and reposting the link to my Hanson piece for those interested:
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/does-new-senate-system-advantage.html
Very interesting simulations!
I rather suspect the Lib Dems’ chances depend entirely on whether they draw ahead of the Liberals on the ballot paper, and the inclusion of party logos may have dampened even that. As far as I know they have never shown any ability to draw a vote in any other circumstance (except in the electorate of Gippsland where they have a candidate with a profile). Also if the number of parties goes down they might be disadvantaged, although I think it might take an election or two for that reduction to filter through.
On the Greens, I think there’s a bit of wishful thinking from both sides in the comments here – it’s ludicrous to think they could fall below 7, but I think they will be doing very well if they go above 8 or 9. I think Simms would need a minor miracle in SA and I suspect WA might be on the tight side as well. My suspicion is that the ACT is the one place where the voting system really has ruined Green chances; they were really only ever a chance when every other party preferenced them against the Libs, and even there they never really got close.
Carey, can you point me in the direction of more info on Stirling Griff and the other NXT candidates? I haven’t heard much about them, and as you say at least one, most likely two, will be senators in a month and a bit.
The WA text needs to be updated to match the new figures.
But
‘They have angered ALP voters more and more with their battles for Lower house seats, and i suspect ALP voters will struggle more than they ever have to put GRN above LNP.’
Even nastier for the Greens, they don’t have to put ‘below’ the LNP – something most ALP voters would be reluctant to do.
I would expect that ALP voters who don’t like the Greens simply won’t have them (or the Liberals) in their 6.
And after a result that’s anything like that (and it will surely be something like that, even if different in some details), no Prime Minister will EVER dare to call a double dissolution again! NOT EVER while the Commonwealth lasts!
i am just wondering if you have weighted the major party’s too heavily given that early polling has first preference for anybody other than the majors at 30.5%, up from 21% at the last election. If those numbers hold or increase (strong possibility given the length of the campaign) then would not that indicate that both ALP and Lib/Nat’s would suffer losses in the Senate ?
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2016/05/24/simulating-the-senate/#comment-2402072
Nothing is forever. The 1914 DD defeat for Cook made DDs look like a bad idea, to the detriment of the Scullin Government (which should have called one and was destroyed as a consequence), but we have since had 5 more.
dusty penman @ #38 Wednesday, May 25, 2016 at 10:42 pm
That early polling was a single Morgan, which has been very prone to overstate the Green vote compared to other pollsters. Other polls have generally had the total non-major vote in the low 20s.
Yes Tom the Not Very Modest, but since the last DD we have the explosion in support for minor parties and now a voting system that allows people to express their own choices. I still think this will be the last DD, if not forever, for a verrrrry long time. The results after July 2 will demonstrate that they are a very bad idea.
If the Government are able to get back and have a joint sitting majority, possible but nowhere near certain, and then they successfully use it, then the DD will be seen as useful.
The Australia Card Bill was only not passed because it, unusually, would have come into force by (Senate blockable) regulation rather than the usual executive proclamation and that regulations were key to its implementation. All that was needed was implementation by proclamation and for the Legislative Instruments Act to be amened to allow regulations made under Acts passed at joint sittings only to be blocked only by the HoR or a joint sitting, which the Senate could call or force to be called (presuming this would be constitutional).