At the end of the evening, a surprising election result hangs in the balance, with a remarkably long list of seats still up for grabs. What looked a slightly disappointing result for the Coalition early in the evening kept getting worse as the night progressed, with a number of seats that looked okay for them early on moving Labor’s way late in the night. Anything is possible, but I would now rate a hung parliament of some kind the most likely outcome, and it’s by no means impossible that it won’t be the Coalition forming the minority government.
At the 2013 election, the Coalition won 90 seats, Labor won 55, and others won five: one each for the Greens, Palmer United and Katter’s Australian Party, and two independents. Redistributions then took place in New South Wales, which lost a seat, and Western Australia, which gained one. In New South Wales, the Labor seat of Charlton in the Hunter region was abolished, but in the resulting reorganisation, Charlton’s neighbour Paterson went from Liberal to notional to Labor, as did Dobell on the Central Coast and Barton in southern Sydney. The three notionally Labor seats are now actual Labor seats, bringing the Coalition down to 87. In Western Australia, the new seat of Burt had a notional Liberal margin of 6.0%, but Labor blew the hinges off that with a 14% swing. Now let’s take a Coalition-centric look at what happened state by state.
In New South Wales, the Coalition has lost Eden-Monaro, Macarthur, Macquarie and Lindsay, and are going down to the wire in Gilmore. That brings them down to 83, with one on the endangered list.
In Victoria, there is little or nothing in it in Labor-held Chisholm and Liberal-held Dunkley. So that brings the endangered list up to two, but also brings one on to what I will call the opportunity list (which won’t be getting any longer).
In Queensland, Labor has won Longman and, following a late-evening turnaround, Flynn. Capricornia and Herbert look better for Labor than the Coalition, but I’ll nonetheless assign them to the endangered list, along with the genuinely lineball Forde, and Dickson where Peter Dutton will probably but not definitely make it over the line. Not surprisingly, Fairfax, which Clive Palmer won in 2013, goes back to the LNP. That brings them to 82, and intensifies the headache in trying to assess the situation by making it six on the endangered list.
In Western Australia, besides the previously noted Burt, Cowan could go either way. Now we have seven on the endangered list.
In South Australia, Mayo has gone to the Nick Xenophon Team as expected, bringing the best case scenario for the Coalition down to 81. Furthermore, the endangered list gets still longer with Hindmarsh lineball; Grey looking to me like a show for the NXT, with their candidate second and the Liberal member on an unconvincing primary vote of 41.6%; Boothby a less likely but still possible gain for NXT, if their candidate overtakes Labor by doing 4.6% better than him when the 13.4% Greens-plus-others vote is split three ways on preferences. Now our endangered list blows out to ten.
Tasmania at least is neat and tidy, with a surprisingly poor result for the Liberals costing them all of the three seats they gained in 2013, with Bass going on a second consecutive double-digit swing. And Labor won the Darwin seat of Solomon in a result that bodes ill for the Country Liberal Party government at their election in late August.
That brings the Coalition down to 77, which they can hope to push up to 78 if they win Chisholm. But then there’s that intimidatingly long endangered list of ten, and while they can hope to rely on the traditional tendency of postal votes to favour them, they would need to be very lucky to make it to a majority.
As for the cross bench, Andrew Wilkie, Cathy McGowan and Bob Katter were easily re-elected; Adam Bandt retains Melbourne for the Greens, and the NXT wins Mayo; and both NXT and the Greens could gain an extra two seats each with a bit of luck (quite a lot of luck actually, in the Greens’ case).
Ultimately, the spread of possibilities for the Coalition ranges from 69 to 78, while Labor’s is only slightly weaker at 63 to 75. If Labor falls below 65, it will do so by losing seats to the Greens, who would assuredly favour them to form government.
Now for the Senate.
In New South Wales, the Coalition wins five, Labor four, the Greens one and One Nation one, with the last seat up in the air. Based on my somewhat speculative preference model, Labor gets enough preferences for their fifth candidate to compete with the Liberal Democrats for that seat, but that may be overrating the Liberal Democrats preference flow based on their strong performance from top position on the ballot paper last time. The other possibility is that it goes to the Christian Democratic Party.
In Victoria, the Coalition and Labor get to four; the Greens should make it to two; and Derryn Hinch has won a seat. The last seat is anyone’s guess, but I’m inclined to think it will be a fifth seat for the Coalition.
In Queensland, there should be five Coalition, four Labor, one Greens and Pauline Hanson, and another tough call for the last spot. The Liberal Democrats are a surprisingly good show, but I wouldn’t rule out Family First.
In South Australia, four Liberal, four Labor, three NXT, one Greens. Surprisingly, Bob Day of Family First doesn’t look like he’ll make it.
Western Australia I expect will be five Liberal, one Nationals, four Labor, two Greens. In Tasmania, five Labor, four Liberal, two Greens and Jacqui Lambie.
I wish the AEC had a better list of serats in doubt. They seem to think that a 0.5% margin is all that is relevant, whereas I rather think at this stage of counting a 1.5% margin is closer to the mark. For example until the big prepoll booths are in it is pretty silly and wherever there are lots of preferences it is also very unclear or where there are a lot of absentee votes.
The lines at Tinternvale Primay School in the outer east of Melbourne were long. I spoke to an AEC worker who said the line stretched right down the road earlier in the day. That ridiculous Senate Ballot paper must have had something to do with it. It was so unwieldy it took me ages to fill it in. And I was only voting above the line. Still, I picked a quiet time and only had to wait around 15 minutes.
Morning all. Beautiful day here in Adelaide, birds singing. You can almost smell the democracy in the air. Sadly we still have Chris Pyne here in Sturt, but I think Turnbull’s grip on the lodge is worth about as much as Sophie Mirrabella’s chances.
Apart from all the other factors, a lot of the Australian people clearly were not happy being dragged out of their homes in the middle of winter to vote on a DD for a trumped up set of reasons. They got subjected to the longest campaign on record with no new major policy announcements in it either. Why??
Well done to all the Labor campaign team. Shorten did a fine job, and also gave a fine speech. The contrast to Turnbull’s empty claims of victory was marked. To me Turnbull sounded not victorious but broken. He knew it, but he just could not say it.
The Greens and NXT campaigns also help. It is hard to see where any Liberal leader can scrape up a stable governing majority, and in the Senate they are sunk.
Chinda63
‘Did anyone else experience huge queues and/or horrendous waiting times to vote yesterday?’
Yep. It wasn’t as bad as you describe (the queues vanished around 4.30) but, for this booth, they were bigger than usual.
Ironically, there are two small booths within 10 minutes drive which were virtually deserted – those of us handing out kept recommending to dismayed voters that they go there to vote (indeed, one of the Greens guys led by example, jumped in his car and drove the 10 minutes, voted, and came back to find the queue had hardly moved), but no one seemed keen on the idea.
When you got inside, there were far fewer officers doing the rolls than I remember from past elections, in a much smaller space.
The AEC seems to have got it badly wrong – I have no idea why they kept these small booths open whilst closing others, or why they understaffed the main polling booth.
I also wondered whether the higher number of voters on the day here was because they didn’t have a prepoll in town this year. It seems unbelievable that the AEC wouldn’t have taken this into account when doing their planning.
This was also a new polling place, with the AEC abandoning the booth they’ve used for 25 years (which was considerably more spacious). There was virtually no notification of the change, and people coming to vote were very bitter about the fact that there was no signage at the old booth to tell them where they needed to be.
Off topic: we didn’t see a booth officer all day. We started off with an agreed assumption as to where the entrance was, but over the course of the day moved the line by about 10 metres (using another entrance as our guide). We kept expecting to have a booth officer emerge to clarify things for us, but it never happened.
Regarding NXT winning Mayo, I thought on a night of bad tempered resentment from many in the conservative camp, this set the benchmark for poorest form:
“Mr Briggs has tweeted a concession.”
What a coward! He loses a seat that was a Liberal sinecure for 100 years, and could not even face the cameras or thank his campaign team for their efforts.
How is this a shock or confusing to anyone?
The polls had been suggesting 50-50, too close to call for weeks.
Many Australians are simply fed up with the major parties.
Off topic: does anyone have an opinion on pre-polls? My first thought is that it should be curtailed as being not quite kosher, not in the spirit of the democratic process. Or is it just a matter of saying times change, let’s all embrace it, and we finish up with voting month in lieu of voting day.
‘It confused the entire ABC coverage..’
I kept flicking between SKY and the ABC – I had expected the ABC coverage to be better, but SKY was far more informative, using the sidescreen to constantly show the state of play in various seats.
I found the ABC’s map of Australia totally ridiculous, and am not sure what they thought having a journo wandering around an empty building added to the campaign coverage.
Speers, Fool Gilbert and Laura Jayes were going ape droppings at Marles over the Medibank SMS.
This issue about the Medicare text – I wonder how many people actually received one? If it was thousands, then perhaps investigating, but if not it just shows desperation by Turnbull.
Amazing how the Coalition is always ready to blame someone else and not look inwards to themselves. Shows a soft underbelly.
zoomster
The Sky coverage was quite good I thought. Keneally and Credlin helped make it so.
What a beautiful set of numbers.
Along with Malcolm Turnbull, the other big loser is Rupert Murdoch.
Apart from having his influence over the electorate evaporate, he now has to work out whether a hung parliament means the ‘Labor losing $600,000 bonuses’ to his editors needs to be paid.
Paul ‘The Ratbag’ Whittaker to Rupert: “But boss, you said don’t let Labor win and you can bank the bonus.” The Ratbag is about to find out what happens to non-blood family when you cross Omerta.
The 1987 election was in winter
1984,was december
And a beautiful set of names in many cases.
‘The last one was Hawke in 1984 and he almost lost that.’
The last winter election was Julia Gillard’s in 2010…and she almost lost that.
How good was it to see costello confidently say the Libs were home early in the night only for it all to go to hell in a hand basket? All tip, no iceberg indeed.
Confusing to view the AEC summary. They have 5 “close” seats which are impossible to predict.
In their 7 “Not yet determined” they have 2 WA seats which are between CLP and Libs as well as Albo’s & O’Dwyer’s seats (incumbent v Greens?). Then there are 2 SA seats maybe between Lib & Nxt and Oakshott’s seat.
Summing up, without doubt, William’s analysis is a far better one than the AEC which simply tells who is in front and the few they claim are marginals. A hung parliament is a very strong possibility but the LNP could still get to 77.
Well done William with your excellent summing up.
Looks better in the morning, AEC currently shows ALP on 72, LNP 6, OTH 5, undecided 7.
Could it be that ALP form a majority.
ALP ahead in Chisolm by 27 votes, would be ‘neat’ if ALP won that, in which case they lost no seats. The late Pre-Polls must have favored ALP, still postals will bring it back. (but only 65000 votes … which doesnt look right)
I think its a stretch to call a 2nd GRN seat in WA, could also be ONE or NXT, the partial quotas look like they are heavily weighted to conservatives, and with this new system preferences are exctremely unlikely to swap from right to left (or left to right)
Ok so now we can see the narrative – it was the text message that did it!
Sky was miles better than ABC. I wish they would ditch the hacks on the panel who lie all night. Keneally and Credlin were very good. They need to work on more informative graphics, unless you were quick enough to watch the “swing needed” figure that flashed in small type then seeing the needle move was useless.
Now to hear what Pontificating Paul Kelly and PvO have to say about it all.
(duoh meant LNP 66)
Shellbell and Zoom
Thank you for the historical correction, both examples point to why elections to come will be in warmer months.
I thought I may not be back, but the drama has drawn me in, at least for a few more days. I was reasonably happy with the result last night when I went to bed, but this morning I’m over the moon about it. I now have the tally sitting at 70 each with 5 in doubt. Of those 5 only 4 have the Libs in with a shot as Batman is amongst the 5. So I’m confident that the LNP have absolutely no chance of forming a majority.
Jubilation aside, the number of issues to complain about with this whole fiasco is unparalleled in my book:
1. ABC coverage was woeful. Channel 9 streets ahead.
2. Even now, the journos are continuing with the trend of appalling bais. Their still going down the “mediscare” route, they were still crapping on about Shorten’s leadership, still assuming the LNP are the only ones that can form govt.
4. Polling booth wait times was unacceptable.
5. Turnbull’s ungracious attack in his acceptance/concession speech on Labor scare tactics when the LNP are the master of lies in this election and all others.
6. AEC website makes it very difficult to accurately understand the state of play.
Liberal Playbook 101: Determine what the LNP’s worst trait is, and accuse Labor of the same thing. Do it first, and turn valid criticism into a childish shouting match.
This one is for ‘The President of the Solipsist Society’, ‘Phoenix Green’, and especially,
‘Pegasus’:
http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionPage-20499-199.htm
Batman! Nananananana! Feeney! : D
So what will the headlines be?
“Turnbull turns Abbott disaster around in gutsy contest”
“Shorten facing Albo challenge after another failed scare campaign”
Laurie Oakes said that Shorten was just as ungracious as Turnbull, so we’re in for a nasty time. Everyone sees events through their own biased spectacles.
All Libs all morning – Labor are frauds. They are liars.
They’re falling apart.
Brandis trying to verbal Paul Kelly and he’s not having a bar of it.
As BK’s links highlighted, some of the election night coverage was a story in itself. I did not watch the Channel Seven coverage, but the Jones/Turnbull speech stand-off was bizarre.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016-opinion/suck-on-that-kerry-obrien-leigh-sales-joke-caps-off-a-bizarre-night-of-election-tv-20160702-gpx91t.html
Many people will have missed Turnbull’s speech last night but when they see it on tonight’s news Turnbull’s personal credibility will fall even further.
Another question om media coverage – where does this leave Leigh Sales? She was clearly pro-Turnbull and hostile to Shorten. Shorten is not going away now; he could still be PM. How will Sales handle future interviews in her job?
Thank you to all the people who gave a description of Turnbull’s speech (I fell asleep before that).
Whatever the final seat tally, we are looking at very “interesting times”.
I see Insiders has Denis Aitkens on this morning. This guy on Friday predicted the Coalition would get around 90 seats. Lets see if he fesses up or someone asks him a question.
Well said Steele Blade…….Turnball reminded me of a little kid having a tanty, everyone keeps saying he is a smart man I do not believe he is ’emotionally smart’ he can not handle a challenge not good trait for a leader to have.
Just watched Mark Riley, his take was that voters have gone to independents did not acknowledge the fact that Labor has won a heap of seats. The narrative is set that voters are sick of both parties ……they can not acknowledge the fact that they are WRONG!!!
“What a shock result!” – Polls 2PP are almost identical to the actual 2PP. No shock in the result. The shock is because people understandably believed the media who they trusted to cut through the spin. Disgraceful.
Brandis saying the DD strategy was not a failure! (They must have planned for an indecisive result all along…)
As for the Senate, the Greens deal has delivered us Hanson.
BTW, I saw at least 4 ballot papers with penises drawn on them.
Up 50% on the previous election 😉
Oh and look, Kelly O’Dwyer didn’t even have to go to Preferences in Higgins.
PV 51.50%
http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionPage-20499-215.htm
The Greens talk loud and say nothing.
chinda63 @ #87 Sunday, July 3, 2016 at 8:58 am
I saw one with Donald Trump pencilled in to the candidates HOR list.
One more congratulation for the election – to William and the psephologists! This election the result was very clearly a score of Psephologists 1, Pundits 0.
Well done! Also thanks William for the clear concise summary this morning.
Have a good day all.
ALP still $7 at Sportsbet by the way
Good to hear Bill Shorten state that Malcolm Turnbull will have nothing like a mandate. Even if he does lead a Coalition government.
Labor senior figures calling Albanese to contest the leadership according to Speers.
Oh FFS Labor. Why don’t you just go and f*ck it up deliberately. What a joke.
Meher
Well you are the only PBer so far to admit that you were way off.
Thanks and congratulations for saying so.
Interesting to see some PBers here who were dead set Hanrahans and swallowed the MSM and CPG predictions hook line and sinker have since last night been criticising the MSM and CPG and calling on them to admit how hopeless they were.
This morning, I have already found 1 person in my community who has taken Turnbull’s words wholesale that there is already a victory… Silly.
This is actually a good read:
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016-opinion/suck-on-that-kerry-obrien-leigh-sales-joke-caps-off-a-bizarre-night-of-election-tv-20160702-gpx91t.html
Actually says one A Jones had to chase Turnball to face the people……it actually like a reality TV show that you would not believe.
I agree with others here the difference between the two is highlighted by their speeches…Turnball all shrill and defensive, Shorten positive and giving confidence.
One way to look at the upper house is we lose Lasso and Muir and replace them with Hanson and Hinch. An improvement… not.
Ab
“ALP still $7 at Sportsbet by the way”
Ah Yes! And as for those who with such certainty claimed (and verbosely explained) for the last 7 weeks how the mug punters and the betting companies knew it all ………
And who got it pretty right in the end …… the Friday polls.
Well, Well, Well.
I was calling a Shorten win for over three months and that is now tantalisingly close.
There’s never been a more terrifying to be a Turnbull.