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.
Briefly if you are around what the hell happened in Hasluck, there were bigger swings in comparable places in Pierce where there wasn’t even a Labor campaign. Part of me wonders if Leadbetter met too many people!
I suspect Tony will have the numbers to roll Malcolm in the firat party room meeting after the election is declared.
Will he wait or pull the trigger immediately?
Here we go Insiders what will they say – all talking independents not the fact that the Libs have lost a heap of seats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That should be ‘first’ of course
Laura Tingle: ‘It was Pauline Hanson wot did it. Not Labor.’
!!!
Can she just naff off!?!
Straight after the last election the Coalition was threatening a DD. They threatened a DD for three years. Then they triggered a DD. They got the mother of all cold showers and what does Sinondinos do? He starts talking about another election. The only way they can force that is another DD.
they really are struggling to state the obvious…we had an election and no one won, wow this lot are BITTER!
I’d blame Turnbull’s DD for Hanson. She’ll keep that seat for 3 years unless there’s another DD.
Savva virtually saying that Australians will get what they deserved as a result of this vote.
Atkins sinking the slipper into Turnbull for his speech.
Guys… Albanese supporters destabilising Shorten. Already.
Sky banging on about labor leadershit of all things, parsing Tanya’s apparently ambiguous support of Shorten last night.
Talk about “look over there, a unicorn!”
She actually said that Boerwar……this lot are just like being in a coalition party room there is no analysis.
They are actually quoting the press that was wrong as the reason to attack Shorten ….seriously they are as out of touch this lot on the ABC as the Coalition are!
Blaming the poor unwashed for what has happened
Malcolm Turnbull is no Steve Bracks or Robert Menzies!
Wow Niki Savva looks very downcast!
They do not realize that C@Tmomma
Josh Frydenberg joins the denial club……this is unbelievable
Tony Abbott, the ‘Dead maggot on a table’.
Thanks, Amanda Vanstone. : )
Turnbull is toast.
The ABC election panel really could be improved with another psephologist as a guest for input (not supplementing Antony Green) and a non-major party guest (maybe Xenophon or the type) instead of that many ABC personalities.
wewantpaul @ #101 Sunday, July 3, 2016 at 9:11 am
Dunno. The Libs campaigned very hard in Hasluck as well.
Wow interesting result so far.
Well played ALP especially with medicare.
1,500,000 postal votes to go. Last election they broke in favour of the Coalition by 5%.
Wow, Coalition relying on the remainders to help them hobble over the line.
Averaged out across all seats that is a gain of around 500 votes per seat for postals.
Credlin was great last night. Another big job winner out of last night’s shindig?
Mr Turnbull’s speech last night seems to have been based on this Downfall parody.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEOwfMo38Os
Scoutdog:
Not so unbelievable. How long can Turnbull last is the ultimate question.
j k @ #111 Sunday, July 3, 2016 at 9:18 am
Piss off you Lib troll.
Frydenburg looks shattered
Started listening to Malcy’s speech from last night and when he got to “culture of intimidation” I burst out laughing and had to stop it, because this was obviously gonna be a good one. I wanted to wait for the right mood and savour it, like watching Star Wars for the first time.
‘Turnbull put his best foot forward.’
And his shoe has a big hole in it.
Yes confessions but some acknowledgement that they have lost a heap of seats.
Poor ol Josh is just so bitter, the more they talk about Medicare the better ask the question do you believe in universal healthcare the answer to that is what people want to hear
Raaraa @ 9.15am: At the moment One Nation has more than a progressive quota in Queensland, and if that holds through to the end, and if long and short terms are allocated using order of election, Ms Hanson will be there for six years, not three.
Sprocket
Just thinking exactly the same thing.
The talk on Insiders about Labor leadership is pretty funny. To me Albanese looked positively gleefull on TV last night as the results started rolling in for Labor. He was having fun. I saw zero sign of a challenge to Shorten even being hinted at. And Shorten made a point of thanking the whole Labor leadership team in his speech, including Albo and Plibersek, and speaking of unity.
In fact, the issue of party unity is a stark contrast right now in a bad way for the Liberals. Conservative spruikers raising it against Labor is an own goal. It only highlights the glass house they are living in. I had said before the election that if Labor lost the election it was proper to have a leadership ballot, but Shorten, having performed well, might well win it. I would say after this result he would easily win it, if he was not PM. I wonder if Turnbull can say the same?
Does the Coalition deny that the GPs were going to get a 6 year freeze on their Rebate?
That Pathology tests etc would now have a Co-Pay?
That a Medicare Privatisation Task Force was set up?
[Dunno. The Libs campaigned very hard in Hasluck as well.]
Well when we have the rerun in 6 months or so if the clowns in HQ in Perth could pick a good candidate for Pearce and Hasluck there are in with a real shot of both.
rummel @ #126 Sunday, July 3, 2016 at 9:26 am
I was scrutineering so didn’t get to see much of the coverage and even at the post election party, it was too noisy to hear much and too crowded. The mood was one of jubilation!
I have always thought Credlin was an impressive woman and a formidable opponent. Pity she is on that side of politics.
Ms Hanson’s party, I mean.
In Herbert, Labor is ahead by about 1,000. About 6,000 postal votes to count.
In Gilmore, Liberals ahead by 405. About 5,000 postals to count.
In Hindmarsh, Liberals ahead by 380. About 7,800 postals to count.
In Chisholm, Labor ahead by 25. About 11,800 postals to count.
Amazing that with everything going on, there are still Labor right flogs here banging on about the evils of the Greens.
It would be far less tedious to hear about what happened to Labor in WA, Queensland and Victoria.
A shame the Greens couldn’t take Higgins, but that was always going to be a big ask.
pedant @ #134 Sunday, July 3, 2016 at 9:30 am
Oh, my bad. You are correct. I’m going to check that against both conventions.
Dastaryi rubbing Fool Gilbert’s nose in it with Gilbert’s lame arse coalition winning margin.
I like Sam, he takes the piss out of these fools in the msm superbly.
Bemused
I agree on Credlin. Like Howard I do not like her, but I have to respect her authority. This is where the conservative Liberal rump’s misogyny shoots itself in the foot. They will not consider their most capable person for a leadership role if she is a woman. No Margaret Thatcher allowed for the Aussie right wing boys.
The Battle for Middle Ground Lord of the Rings spoof is a cracker.
Wow Lord of the Rings video editing is actually not too badly done.
[Does the Coalition deny that the GPs were going to get a 6 year freeze on their Rebate?
That Pathology tests etc would now have a Co-Pay?
That a Medicare Privatisation Task Force was set up?]
They try to avoid facts and details inconsistent with the spin they are running at a given point of time.
There is another winner in this election – the Union movement. The ABCC and Registered Organisations bills will not be passed. Nor will further anti-union legislation will be possible.
Interestingly, the Lib booth organiser with whom I passed the day yesterday works in the construction sector. His view is that most operators – employers, contractors – in the building industry are opposed to the ABCC bills in any case.
The CFMEU have fought strongly and have engaged others to fight with them and have won. They will be very happy today.