Sunday morning.
So far as the party representation is concerned, there are clear results in Brindabella (three Liberal, two Labor), Kurrajong (two Labor, two Liberal, one Greens) and Yerrabi (three Labor, two Liberal), and seats in doubt in Ginninderra and Murrumbidgee, where Labor and Liberal have won two each, and the final seat is respectively down to Labor-versus-Greens and Liberal-versus-Greens. Both major parties thus stand to win 11 or 12 seats, with the Greens on at least one and perhaps as many as three. Thanks to the magic of electronic voting, the ACT Electoral Commission has been able to take away a lot of the guess work about the preference redistribution, by publishing an indicative result showing how things would look like if only the electronic vote counted. This amounts to perhaps a quarter of the total, electronic voting being available in the six pre-poll voting centres, which also function as ordinary polling booths on election day. The electorates in turn:
Brindabella. As the ACT Electoral Commission projection makes clear, the threat to the third Liberal from the Sex Party is apparent rather than real. On the primary vote, the Liberals currently have 2.4 quotas and the Sex Party has 0.5. However, the projection has the Liberals gaining 1.4 quotas as preferences are distributed, while the Sex Party can only manage half that much. Non-electronic voting slightly boosted the Sex Party and weakened the Liberals, but not by nearly enough to make a difference. The result will clearly be three Liberals (Andrew Wall, Mark Parton and Nicole Lawder) and two Labor (Mick Gentleman and Joy Burch).
Ginninderra. The projection shows Vicki Dunne and Elizabeth Kikkert of the Liberals both elected at the point where they are the party’s only two candidates left standing, leaving four seats to be divided up by the three leading Labor candidates plus Indra Esguerra of the Greens. Esguerra need finish ahead of only one of the Labor candidates, but the projection has her on 2208 versus 2629 for Yvonne Berry, 2522 for Tara Cheyne and 2436 for Chris Bourke. Bourke fell back in late counting and now trails Gordon Ramsay, but that is unlikely to change the general situation. The overall primary vote count for the parties is currently all but identical to the electronic vote count used for the projection, so a Labor win for the final seat would appear more likely than not. Clearly Yvette Berry will be one of Labor’s three, but otherwise there is very little to separate the other four candidates. Vicki Dunne will be re-elected for the Liberals, with Elizabeth Kikkert and Paul Sweeney all but tied for second place.
Kurrajong. The quota totals here are Labor 2.35, Liberal 1.77 and Greens 1.18, making it all but certain that the result will be 2-2-1. Andrew Barr polled a quota in his own right, and his 0.3 quota surplus could theoretically shape who wins second. However, the projection suggests Barr’s surplus divides between the other four candidates in the same proportion as their primary vote shares, which is to say in favour of second-placed Rachel Stephen-Smith over third-placed Josh Ceramidas. Stephen-Smith ends up leading 2345 to 1556 at the key point in the projection – this is based on a base primary vote of 5.4%, compared with 5.8% in the count overall, while Ceramidas remains on 4.7%. Newcomer Elizabeth Lee looks set to win the first Liberal seat, and the second is likely to go to incumbent Steve Doszpot, although the latter has another newcomer in Candice Burch at his heels. On the projection, Doszpot starts with 7.0% and Burch starts with 5.7%, after which both receive the exact same amount of preferences. Burch has since slightly narrowed the gap on the primary vote, now at 6.8% to 5.8%. Nonetheless, the likely final result here is Barr and Stephen-Smith for Labor, Lee and Doszpot for Liberal, and Shane Rattenbury the election’s only clear winner for the Greens.
Murrumbidgee. Labor and Liberal have a clean two seats apiece with Liberal fighting it out with the Greens for the last seat. The projection gives it to Greens candidate Caroline Le Couteuer, who nudges out a third Liberal by 2176 votes to 1802 at the key point of the count. The count this is based on is slightly less favourable to the Greens than the total count, with the Liberals on 42.0% of the primary vote rather than 41.7%, and the Greens on 11.1% rather than 10.8%. If the Liberals can only manage two, one will certainly be Jeremy Hanson, who has matched his Labor rival in recording 1.3 quotas, and the other will be incumbent Giulia Jones or newcomer Peter Hosking, who are respectively on 7.2% and 7.0% of the primary vote. Jones stands to benefit from the pro-incumbent vote that makes up Hanson’s surplus, and is likely to stay in front. Labor had no incumbents on its ticket, and its winners will be Chris Steel and Bec Cody.
Yerrabi. The quota totals are Labor 2.66, Liberal 2.12 and Greens 0.43, which can only mean three Labor, two Liberal. The elected members will certainly include incumbent Meegan Fitzharris and newcomer Michael Pettersson, and almost certainly a second newcomer in Suzanne Orr, who leads incumbent Jayson Hinder 7.3% to 6.3% and gets a better flow of preferences on the projection. Alistair Coe is a clear winner of the first Liberal seat, and looks set to be joined by James Milligan, whose 7.5% to 6.2% lead over Jacob Vadakkedathu is projected to widen on preferences.
Saturday night
10.06pm. Labor have slipped back in Kurrajong, which probably scotches that vague possibility of three seats there. The ABC computer is saying Labor 11, Liberal 10 and Greens one with three undecided, which would refer to Brindabella, where the Sex Party continues to incrementally improve, but faces the difficulty that the third strongest Liberal, Nicole Lawder, is slightly outpolling the combined Sex Party vote; Ginninderra, where the last seat could go to a third Labor or to the Greens; and Murrumbidgee, where the last seat could go to a Liberal or the Greens.
9.29pm. The ACTEC’s provisional preference counts are giving me a headache, but Kevin Bonham points to big preference leakage after Andrew Barr’s election, which diminishes the possibility I canvassed of a 3-1-1 result.
9.02pm. Sex Party strengthening still further in Brindabella with 74.0% counted: 0.50 quotas to 2.45 for Liberal. Surely a big chance now of two Labor, two Liberal, one Sex Party.
8.58pm. Far from fading with the counting of the ordinary vote, the Sex Party in Brindabella is up from 0.45 to 0.48 with 68.6% now counted.
8.52pm. I’ve been taking for granted a 2-2-1 result in Kurrajong, but in keeping with their overall poor show, it may be worse than that for the Liberals – they have 1.59 quotas versus 2.51 for Labor, suggesting 3-1-1 can’t be ruled out. That might even get them to a majority, if they can pull ahead of the Greens in Ginninderra.
8.50pm. Antony’s matched primary votes swings: Labor up 1.%, Libearl down 3.9%, Greens down 0.5%.
8.48pm. Still a lottery for the second and possibly third Labor seats in Ginninderra: Gordon Ramsay 3200, Tara Cheyne 2960, Kim Fischer 2845, Chris Bourke 2754.
8.42pm. The Ginninderra count has just shot up from 37.2% counted to 64.8%, and Labor is up from 2.52 quotas to 2.53, and the Greens are down from 0.59 to 0.57. Incumbents Yvette Barry (Labor) and Vicki Dunne (Liberal) are home, but the intra=party contests are otherwise extremely tight.
8.30pm. The latest update in Murrumbidgee, where 34.1% are now counted, is slightly to the advantage of the Liberals, who are up from 2.50 quotas to 2.54, but the Greens are on 0.64 and Antony Green rates them more likely than the Liberals to get the last seat. Brindabella and Yerrabi counts are now over 50%, and aren’t bearing out hopeful Liberal talk of a dramatically different trend on polling booth votes.
8.20pm. Regarding my musings concerning the Sex Party in Brindabella, Antony Green points out they have a problem in the even spread of support for the various Liberal candidates, which will make it difficult for them to pull ahead during the preference distribution.
8.10pm. Yerrabi count now up to 44.2%, and it’s clearly Labor three, Liberal two. Meegan Fitzharris and Michael Petersson will win two of the Labor seats, but the third is up in the air, with Suzanne Orr leading and incumbent Jayson Hinder struggling. James Mulligan likely to join Alistair Coe as the second Liberal.
7.52pm. The ACTEC has published interim preference distributions suggesting Labor rather than the Greens will get the last seat in Ginninderra, and the Greens rather than the Liberals will get it in Murrumbidgee. That suggests a final result of Labor 12, Liberal 11 and Greens two.
7.44pm. I haven’t had much to say about the strong Sex Party performance in Brindabella, but with 26.9% counted they’re well clear of the Greens (7.1% to 5.2%), and it’s entirely possible that they could win the seat at the expense of the third Liberal on Greens preferences – assuming polling booth votes don’t prove very different from pre-poll ones, which they may well do.
7.33pm. In Murrumbidgee, Jeremy Hanson is re-elected for the Liberals, but Giulia Jones isn’t quite shaking off Peter Hosking, although it’s possible both will win. Bec Cody and Chris Steel are firming as the Labor members. The Greens candidate who’s in the hunt is Caroline Le Couteur.
7.31pm. In Yerrabi, Labor’s Meegan Fitzharris is re-elected and will be joined by Michael Petersson, but it’s anyone’s guess who the third Labor member will be. For the Liberals, Alistair Coe has been re-elected and looks likely to be joined by James Milligan.
7.30pm. So to summarise: 3-2 to Liberal in Brindabella; 2-2 in Ginninderra, with the last seat Labor versus Greens; 2-2-1 in Kurrajong; 2-2 in Murrumbidgee, with the last seat either Liberals or Greens; and 3-2 to Labor in Yerrabi.
7.28pm. Shane Rattenbury has clearly been re-elected, but beyond that the Greens have only two possibilities, being in a struggle with the Liberals for the final seat in Murrumbidgee, which will determine whether the Liberals finish on 11 or 12, and with Labor in Ginninderra.
7.25pm. Big leap forward in the Yerrabi count, now at 35.9% counted, and it’s all but confirmed now that Labor will win three seats to the Liberals two, which closes the door on the possibility of a Liberal majority.
7.16pm. Resulting firming in Kurrajong: two Labor (Andrew Barr and Rachel Stephen-Smith, although the latter might yet get displaced by a Labor colleague), two Liberal (Elizabeth Lee and Steve Doszpot) and one Greens (Shane Rattenbury).
7.13pm. A slight update to the Ginninderra numbers pushes the count over 30%, and it’s still clear the Liberals won’t get a third seat there. Still unclear which Labor and Liberal candidates will win seats, except that Vicki Dunne looks very likely to be one of the Liberals. Yvette Berry has a slight edge among the Labor candidates.
7.10pm. Now we’ve hit a lull in reporting of results after the electronic pre-polls. The laggard is Yerrabi, which just nudged from 8.2% counted to 11.3%, with the others around 25%. The Liberals have actually gone backwards on the updated Yerrabi numbers, which is bad news for them as their only path to victory involves them winning a third seat there. That’s certainly not going to happen with 2.09 quotas. Labor looking more likely to win a third seat than one going to the Greens. Still a long way to go though.
6.59pm. Now 8.2% counted in Yerrabi, and it’s not looking great for the Liberals on these numbers. So far, it looks the same as Ginninderra, with the final seat coming down to the Greens and a third Labor candidate, leaving the Liberals on two. Unless that changes, the Liberals look doomed to fall short.
6.57pm. Ginninderra still looking grim for the Liberals with nearly 30% counted. Result looks like either Labor three and Liberal two, or two each with one for the Greens. So the Liberals need three seats in Murrumbidgee and Yerrabi.
6.56pm. Brindabella looks settled: Wall, Parton and Lawder for Liberal, Burch and Gentleman for Labor. So the question remains whether the Liberals can make it to three in any two out of Ginninderra, Murrumbidgee and Yerrabi.
6.54pm. Murrumbidgee looking very important to the result, with a close race looming between a third Liberal and the Greens to win the final seat. Bec Cody and Chris Steel leading to win the two Labor seats.
6.53pm. Rachel Stephen-Smith leading the field to join Andrew Barr as Labor’s second member in Kurrajong.
6.52pm. Rapid progress now as the electronic pre-polls report. As noted, very little differentiation between party candidate votes in Ginninderra.
6.50pm. ABC computer quickly went from 4% to 11.3% counted in Kurrajong, and now the result looks as anticipated, with two Liberal, two Labor and one Greens. Elizabeth Lee looking to join incumbent Steve Doszpot (she is outpolling him) as the second Liberal.
6.49pm. Very, very close race between the Labor candidates in Ginninderra, with little differentiation between the two incumbents (Yvette Berry and Chris Bourke) and the three newcomers.
6.48pm. Surprisingly good early result for Liberals in Kurrajong, where I had simply assumed before they wouldn’t win three seats, but it’s probably a function of where the booth is.
6.48pm. ACTEC site isn’t coping and ABC doesn’t give booth results, so I’m flying blind as to where these results are coming from.
6.45pm. Comparing that Woden pre-poll result for Murrumbidgee with the overall Woden pre-poll in 2012 (remembering that pre-poll booths are set up to receive votes for all districts), Labor is down 4.5%, the Liberals are up 1.6%, and the Greens are all but unchanged.
6.43pm. FIrst result from Ginninderra didn’t look brilliant for the Liberals. Very early days, but if that continues the Liberals will have only one path to victory, with Yerrabi as well as Murrumbidgee needing to come through for them with a third seat.
6.40pm. Antony discussing a result from Brindabella, which does little to disturb the expectation that the Liberals will win three here and Labor two, although the Australian Sex Party is polling well with 6.6%. As anticipated, Mark Parton looks placed to become the third Liberal, with all four incumbents looking to be returned.
6.37pm. First result is the Woden pre-poll booth from Murrumbdigee. It provides no evidence of independents doing particularly well, and suggests Giulia Jones can’t take for granted being one of the two Liberals elected, if indeed there are are only two, with new Liberal Peter Hosking outpolling her. Antony Green’s projection says the Labor vote is down 6% to 7%.
6pm. Welcome to live coverage of the Australian Capital Territory election count, for which polls have now closed. Results can be followed here at the Electoral Commission site, or here at the ABC.
Raaraa:
Yes it does rob him of his killer points from time to time.
[William Bowe
Saturday, October 15, 2016 at 9:06 pm
Sex Party now “ahead” in Brindabella – 0.50 quotas to 2.54 for Liberal.]
And it wouldn’t have cost them much – their roadside signage was the same as for the DD election. Apparently you can’t go wrong promising to bring back the fireworks or to legalise cannabis.
Go the Sex Party!!
Interesting how far off a lot of the local media were – I read quite a few pieces confidently predicting a Liberal win (one thought Labor would only win one seat in each electorate!!), and a whole heap of independents.
Citizen,
Thanks for your reply.
Sorry I missed your original post first time. Labor does seem to be very good at what they do.
Cheers.
frickeg @ #104 Saturday, October 15, 2016 at 9:18 pm
I wonder if this explains why the Canberra Times endorsed the Libs.
Looking at the numbers on the Canberra Times website, the Left (Labor + Greens + Animals + Sustainable + Sex) have 56% of the vote. The Right (Liberals + LDP) have 37%, with the remainder (7%) degrees going to what look like community / single issue groups, some of whom are likely to be right-leaning. On those numbers, Labor’s got to be a shoe-in, possibly needing Green support.
No group wanting to court conservative votes would have ‘sex’ or ‘sustainable’ in its name, so I count those as ‘Left’.
They must have a better class of voter in Canberra. One Nation and other far right groups (apart from LDP, which is socially liberal) apparently didn’t think it worth their while running candidates there.
Well done ALP.
I know nothing about ACT politics.
slackboy72 @ #93 Saturday, October 15, 2016 at 8:57 pm
It’s a very cynical electorate. It is less easily susceptible to fear than to not believing things that can’t be true. Looking back (I thought the tram would have a bigger negative impact) it does seem clear to me that people were less motivated by fear of hugely rising rates, etc, than by cynicism that the Liberals actually had nothing to offer but a ridiculously high dividend promised on the cancellation of the light rail.
Doyley
The Labor ground campaign was much better than that of the Liberals, IMO.
I think the traditional media are becoming less and less relevant as the years go by. Who can forget the Fairfax media editorialising to encourage a vote for the then Abbott opposition? How did they feel when that all went to pieces within a year of their election?
I am not sure what’s the Animal Justice Party position on policies that are not to do with animals. Or do they look at all policies through its affect on animals?
PTMD
No battery chooks, no dishlickers and put surplus roos in padded trucks and export them to NSW.
For those interested in the politics of trams and light rail, two of the first modern systems built in the style of what Canberra is doing were Nantes and Strasbourg. The political history of their build decisions are well worth reading. To this day they remain among the most successful transport systems in the world. Both move more people per day than the entire Brisbane heavy rail system. Both have revitalised their entire cities.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nantes_tramway
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strasbourg_tramway
Kurrajong looks really tight for 2nd lib quota.
boerwar @ #111 Saturday, October 15, 2016 at 9:28 pm
That seems to be the general consensus, BW. Corflutes are OK for name recognition under the Robson rotation, but they do nothing to actually get people to vote for one party over another. I was doorknocked only once – and that was by Labor. I visited a conservative couple in a retirement village today who reported to me that they were doorknocked twice over the election period – both Labor. And so forth.
Nothing seems to be the personal connection.
Like for like?
Not!
Nantes has more than twice the population of the ACT.
Strassbourg more than three times.
In much greater densities.
I’m rooting for the Sex Party in Brindabella.
But seriously, the Victorian Upper house has benefitted from another progressive voice.
Boerwar,
Thanks for the reply.
Labor is very very good at the on the ground campaigning. Leaving the Libs for dead atm across Australia.
Cheers.
I’ve often wondered that. My reading is they are opposed to factory farming and greater protection of our native fauna. Outside of that however is anyone’s guess.
TPOF
I would hazard a guess and state that with Labor youth and enthusiam thrashed age and not-cunning!
Beginning to look awfully like only 10 for the Liberals, which is really a bit of a nightmare scenario for them.
Me too. I’d like to see the Sex Party become a genuine alternative minor party in our political spectrum, along with the Secular Party.
Have not seen much of Jeremy Hanson. Unlikely we will see much more.
He appears to have had a charisma bypass.
Confession
They are actually quite anti-science when it comes to cuddling roos.
In the absence of predators the roos do serious damage to biodiversity in the ACT.
S
The battle of the leaders was how depressment. Barr is an thin-skinned introvert. Hanson is a lightweight.
Boerwar
Both are about double the Canberra population (not triple), and yes higher density (now). But the whole point is that building those systems stopped the trend of urban sprawl and started an increase in their density, due to inner redevelopment, which you can now see if you visit them. Canberra has absurdly low density, and building more freeways will only encourage that cycle.
Labor very slightly up; Greens very slightly down on primary votes. Libs murdered, with a swing against of 3.5% against, all of it going to other parties and independents.
Boerwar
Yes it was certainly no charisma contest! They make Barnaby look interesting 🙂
There is only one local media and that is the CT. It barely survives.
There were no published polls and I saw no articles at all that were confident of the outcome in any direction.
These guys…
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/experts-and-insiders-share-their-election-predictions-20161014-gs2tlr.html
What a pack of muppets.
Nantes has 900,000 people.
The Strassbourg conurbation has well over a million people.
Hanson finally concedes defeat! That is ten minutes of my life I will never get back.
Ah, yes, Michael Moore’s was the article I read. Pretty disappointed because, even without any polling, it seemed pretty pie-in-the-sky, and he’s normally at least moderately sensible.
Boerwar
I have personally been to both. The urban area of Nantes has a population of about 700,000; Strasbourg about 800,000. In both cases there are other satelite communities nearby in their jurisdiction but they are not part of the areas serv d by the LRT. They are 20 minute train rides away, in the same way as Queenbeyan is near, but not part of, Canberra.
S
I am not sure why you are allowing your bias to fiddle with the ACT realities in this way.
There is no further ‘room for urban sprawl’ in the direction taken by the Light Rail – unless protected areas are resumed which I assume to be be ultimate but unspoken gameplan.
The reason is that the burbs have hit the NSW border in that direction.
Meanwhile the plan is, instead, to extend the urban sprawl down the Molongolo Valley up the Bidgee with 20,000 dwellings in progress as we post. Most of these will be bungalow style in the utterly traditional Aussie sprawl.
As noted above the ‘reason’ for this is that one third of the ACT budget is based on land sales. It is future-eating stuff. And, as noted above, the result is that there are no ‘good’ options for transport. The population densities are far too low to support Light Rail as a viable option.
The next step will be to target trans Bidgee in the Tuggers zone.
You gotta give it to Jeremy Hanson. In some other states, the leader might still hold on to a unlikely chance of winning. Even Zed was in denial mode.
S
My figures are from wiki. I doubt that the figures in wiki are out by 300,000 in the case of Nantes or out by around 600,000 in relation to the Strassbourg conurbation.
But you may know better.
I certainly don’t.
Meant to say just states.
Sorry I’ve lost the thread of discussion. Are you referring to animal justice mob or sex party/secular party mob?
First time I’ve ever seen him. What a crashing bore he is.
“We have decided as a community that we don’t want to end up gridlocked like Sydney or Melbourne.”
Ouch.
Well, enough of this crouching to the screen as Thomas might have so poetically put it.
Four more years of excellence in budget management, urban development, transport planning brilliance and skyrocketing rates await us all.
Let’s just lie back and enjoy it.
Just noticed that the Labor seat tally has just ticked up by 1 on ABC.
slackboy72 @ #132 Saturday, October 15, 2016 at 9:41 pm
This is what you get when you don’t have polls. You get pundits.
I could really, really do without the boos when the leaders mention their opponents. The only speech I can recall without them was Kevin Rudd’s in 2007. At least Labor claps Barr’s good wishes for Hanson not too grudgingly. And they even spontaneously cheered the Greens!
Barr very positive about the Greens, confirms continuation of coalition. Would be nice if the two could work together as they have here a bit more cohesively in the other states!
Speaking of light rail, it seems the smallest city to have a function urban light rail system is Lausanne, with a population of around 124,000.
Sex Party are a serious threat to Lib-3 in Brindabella, though I suspect they’ll get done on postals even if they lead in an interim distribution or two. Labor are also a threat there if they pick up or the Sex Party and Liberals both fall back a bit (which is unlikely).
Just imagine 12-10-2-1 and the Greens and Sex Party each able to pass stuff alone. That would be an interesting parliament.
Wow. Good win Labor.
Perhaps lots of Public Servants holding a grudge against the fed libs and the on going pay issues.