Nominations having closed on Friday, it emerges that the Western Australian state election has attracted a record number of candidates, details of which are outlined by Antony Green. The big news today and yesterday has been the Liberals’ preference deal with One Nation, which sees One Nation get Liberal preferences not just ahead of Labor, but also ahead of the Nationals. I have a paywalled piece on this in Crikey today:
Albany is a normally conservative seat that has been held for Labor against all odds by Peter Watson since 2001, when One Nation preferences were an important factor in helping him over the line. If history repeats itself in reverse in Albany, and the Liberals can hang on in Wanneroo, it might just be that the One Nation deal will indeed save Barnett’s bacon. However, the electoral implications don’t begin and end with the narrow question of preferences flows … it’s hard not to conclude that the deal is a destructive long-shot gamble by a government that believes itself to be in desperate straits.
The deadline for the parties to lodge their group voting tickets closed today – you can see the results in detail at the Western Australian Electoral Commission, or in somewhat more digestible form on the ABC site. Below is an attempt to boil most parties’ tickets (excluding independents, of which there are a great many), by considering the placement only of those candidates whose election is up in the air – in other words, excluding certain winners and certain losers. This means assuming Labor and Liberal win at least two seats in the three metropolitan regions. Other notable assumptions (in a lot of cases it wasn’t necessary to make any) are identified below. It’s entirely possible that a micro-party that has been given short shrift below may in fact prove to be in contention courtesy of preference snowballing – hopefully Antony Green will have results calculators in business soon to add a bit of clarity here.
Highlights: the Nationals effectively has the Greens ahead of the Liberals in Mining and Pastoral and South West; Family First has Labor ahead of Liberal (but not Nationals) in the three non-metropolitan regions.
Agricultural
Assumes the Nationals will win at least one seat.
Labor: Greens, Shooters, Nationals, Liberal, One Nation.
Family First: Nationals, Labor, Liberal, Greens, Shooters, One Nation.
Australian Christians: Shooters, One Nation, Liberal, Nationals, Labor, Greens.
Shooters Fishers and Farmers: One Nation #1, Nationals, Liberal, One Nation #2, One Nation, Labor, Greens.
Nationals: Shooters, Liberal, Greens, Labor, One Nation.
Greens: Labor, Nationals, Liberal, One Nation.
Liberal: Shooters, One Nation, Nationals, Labor, Greens.
One Nation: Shooters, Liberal, Nationals, Labor, Greens.
Liberal Democrats: Shooters, Nationals, Labor, Liberal, One Nation, Greens.
East Metropolitan
Daylight Saving: Greens, Labor, One Nation, Liberal.
Liberal: One Nation, Greens, Labor.
Liberal Democrats: Liberal, One Nation, Greens, Labor.
Family First: Liberal, Labor, Greens, One Nation.
Greens: Labor, Liberal, One Nation.
One Nation: Liberal, Labor, Greens.
Labor: Greens, Liberal, One Nation.
Shooters Fishers and Farmers: One Nation, Liberal, Labor, Greens.
Australian Christians: One Nation, Liberal, Labor, Greens.
Mining and Pastoral
Assumes the Nationals and the Liberals each win at least one seat.
Shooters Fishers and Farmers: One Nation #1, Nationals, Liberal, One Nation #2, Labor, Greens.
Australian Christians: Shooters, One Nation, Liberal, Nationals, Labor, Greens.
Labor: Greens, Shooters, Nationals, Liberal, One Nation.
One Nation: Shooters, Liberal, Nationals, Labor, Greens.
Greens: Labor, Nationals, Liberal, Shooters, One Nation.
Liberal: One Nation #1, Shooters, One Nation #2, Nationals, Labor, Greens.
Nationals: Shooters, Greens, Liberals, Labor, One Nation.
Liberal Democrats: Shooters, Nationals, Liberal, Labor, One Nation, Greens.
Family First: Nationals, Labor, Liberal, Greens, Shooters, One Nation.
North Metropolitan
Labor: Greens, Liberal, One Nation.
One Nation: Liberal, Labor, Greens.
Daylight Saving: Greens, Labor, Liberal, One Nation.
Family First: Liberal, Greens, Labor, One Nation.
Greens: Labor, Liberal, One Nation.
Liberal: One Nation, Greens, Labor.
Animal Justice: Greens, Labor, One Nation, Liberal.
Liberal Democrats: Liberal, Labor, One Nation, Greens.
Australian Christians: One Nation, Liberal, Labor, Greens.
Shooters Fishers and Farmers: One Nation, Liberal, Labor, Greens.
South Metropolitan
Socialist Alliance: Greens, Labor, Liberal, One Nation.
One Nation: Liberal, Labor, Greens.
Daylight Saving: Greens, Labor, Liberal, One Nation.
Labor: Greens, Liberal, One Nation.
Shooters Fishers and Farmers: One Nation, Liberal, Labor, Greens.
Australian Christians: Liberal, One Nation, Labor, Greens.
Liberal Democrats: Liberal, One Nation, Greens, Labor.
Greens: Labor, Liberal, One Nation.
Animal Justice: Greens, Labor, One Nation, Liberal.
Liberal: One Nation, Greens, Labor.
Family First: Liberal, Labor, Greens, One Nation.
South West
Assumes One Nation aren’t in contention for a second seat, unlike Agricultural and Mining & Pastoral.
Shooters Fishers and Farmers: One Nation, Nationals, Liberal, Labor, Greens.
Family First: Nationals, Labor, Liberal, Greens, One Nation.
Labor: Greens, Shooters, Nationals, Liberal, One Nation.
Greens: Labor, Nationals, Liberal, Shooters, One Nation.
Australian Christians: Shooters, One Nation, Liberal, Nationals, Labor, Greens.
Liberal: One Nation, Shooters, Nationals, Labor, Greens.
One Nation: Shooters, Liberal, Nationals, Labor, Greens.
Animal Justice: Greens, Labor, One Nation, Nationals, Liberal, Shooters.
Liberal Democrats: Nationals, Shooters, Labor, Liberal, One Nation, Greens.
Nationals: Shooters, Greens, Liberal, Labor, One Nation.
The so-called Christians are quite happy to preference the racist One Nation. Jesus would not be happy.
Diabolical stuff by the Nationals to send token preferences to the top Lib (who will probably pull quota and be elected straight off the top) and thus disguising that they are really preferencing the Greens in those two regions. But given the provocation who can blame them?
I hope the WA Upper House gets an electoral system one of these days as opposed to a malapportioned Group Ticket demolottery.
And so, one hopes, the scales fall from the eyes of all the “anti-establishment” voters who just loved themselves some Hansonism, to stick it to The Man and so on….hopefully, they’ll see that she’s just another grifting happy-clapper.
Toorak Toff, what race is One Nation against?
What if people want to put One Nation last in a group ticket box?
Across All LC Regions; Family First, The Greens(WA) and WA Labor put One Nation last. Additional Options by LC Region are
Agricultural: Ind. – Williamson
East Metro: no other choices that put One Nation last
Mining and Pastoral: no other choices that put One Nation last
North Metro: Ind. – Ruzzi
South Metro: Socialist Alliance, Ind. – Freeman, Ind. – Heslington,
South-West: Flux the System, Ind. – Hartley, Ind. – Higgins,
Seems if you are Conservative voter who wants to put One Nation last but does not want to fill in the whole shebang, Family First might be for you. Or just vote Green 😉
Toorak Toff
Monday, February 13, 2017 at 10:40 pm
Note that Family First is preferencing One Nation last.
Kevin Bonham
“I hope the WA Upper House gets an electoral system one of these days as opposed to a malapportioned Group Ticket demolottery.”
Agreed
And I do hope, as a Green voter, that Nationals preferences elect Robin Chapple and Diane Evers. Poetic justice.
Jacob HSR:
“What race is One Nation against?”
The human race.
It’s sophistry to suggest that One Nation is not racist because they are against Muslims, and Islam is a religion not a race. This is like saying the Nazis were not actually racist because Judaism is a religion.
Kakuru…wonderful comment! Says is all really.
The Australian reports Liberal polling points to a 14% swing.
Calculators now live http://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/wa-election-2017/guide/calculator-upper/
Some serious preference harvesting going on by Fluoride Free WA
Anthony Green’s tweet on Flouride Free WA, on which his comment here epitomizes brevity being the soul of wit, suggests that they could win a spot in East Metro as a result of Greens preferences off a primary vote of 0.2%.
Outrage ensues, divers alarums.
Disasterboy
The most significant political force for reunification of church and state in Western Australia resides within the WA Division of the Liberal Party (as reported by the West Australian), not Family First, so I think Toorak Toff’s comment stands.
I’ve got:
* Confirmation of Antony’s result re Fluoride Free WA though it took me 6-7 goes to get it.
* That Australian Christians can win in E Metro (instead of Fluoride Free) off 2.2% even with PHON on 10% and Greens on what they got last time.
* That Flux The System! can win in Mining and Pastoral off 1% with Shooters winning off less than 4% at the same time, and this can happen because Family First have preferenced Flux ahead of Australian Christians. One would not think Flux could actually get 1% and one would hope that there is not one person in a hundred who would vote for it but who knows …
* That Family First could win off 1.3% in South West Region.
These are of course only possibilities. The 2013 result (Truth Seeker modelling etc) showed that one can predict chaos but not who its agents will be.
As for Fluoride Free WA I would not single out the Greens. Not a single party has preferenced FFWA below both majors and the Greens, and only the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers have preferenced them below both majors.
So, we could end up with a right-wing biased version of the senate. Yippee!
Kevin (or anyone else): say if you could fix exactly one thing about WA’s upper house – remove GVTs, or end malapportionment – which one? I’m kinda undecided. I hate the fact that the Libs/Nats (or other assorted fruits and nuts) have a permanent majority, but if it wasn’t like that, then the Shooters would have the balance of power. (Then in alterna-2013, people would’ve been asking “who the hell is Rick Mazza, and how the hell did he get elected with 2618 votes?”)
Anyone reckon Julie Matheson or the Micro Business Party have a chance? I’ve never heard of either of them, but they seem to have some cash behind them. Full page ads in the West, and the MBP have more lower house candidates than any other party except Labour, Libs and Greens. Kinda like the No Land Tax party in NSW in 2015.
Rewi. I hear you. There are so many so-called Christian political units, that it’s really not clear which collection of them was being referred.
I was noting the exceptional splinter, merely for collegial information, rather than to wholeheartedly naysay Toorak Toff.
☺
Antony’s calculator is brilliant!
Playing around a bit, if the Lib LC vote falls sufficiently, ON will struggle to collect the prefs they need to win seats. So the obvious strategy is to implore Lib-leaners not to vote Lib this time in the LC…..may well work.
In South Metro I found a scenario where Aus Christians with 2% beats One Nation with 12.2%. I was looking at this because #2 PHON in South Metro has just had his super-grotty social media history exposed.
bird of paradox @ #17 Thursday, February 16, 2017 at 1:43 am
If you gave me abolition as a third option in preference to keeping one of GVTs or malapportionment, I’d take it! That’s although I’m generally in favour of having two houses.
If I could kill just one of GVTs and malapportionment right now I think I’d have to kill malapportionment. It’s a really tough decision but I see more hope for a GVT situation to resolve itself through bipartisan agreement (especially if this election throws up something really really stupid) than for the conservatives to agree on fixing malapportionment.
Kevin, for all the attention that On are getting, most voters are totally aghast at the idea they will hold any power in the WA parliament. If the Lib PV drops enough, they will have too few prefs to pass on to ensure the election of ON candidates. Perhaps the proliferation of small parties and independents, the likely improvement in the Labor, NP and Green PV, the shambles that is the ON campaign and the disgust with the Libs will all work to prevent ON securing any seats. Of course, this will mean that minor voices will also replace Libs. This will be no bad thing either!
In 2001 One Nation polled 22.0% in Agricultural Region, 13.9% in Mining and Pastoral and 14.2% in South-West. They are currently polling higher than the vote recorded in 2001. One Nation is going to elect members on first preferences and they don’t need Liberal preferences. The question in some regions is whether One Nation gets a second seat on Liberal preferences.
In Agricultural Region and Mining and Pastoral Region, the quota for election has been reduced from 16.7% in 2001 to 14.3% today. In South West it has increased from 12.5% in 2001 to 14.3% today. A repeat of 2001 sees One Nation win three seats with ease.
The most likely issue with PHON is that unless their polled vote implodes because their campaign is a shambles, then they will win a couple or so of the rural LegCo seats off raw quota or close enough to be put over on Liberal preferences. In the areas where their vote is well below quota they will probably get beaten by preference-harvesters or mainstream parties.
I don’t know if being a rabble will cause the PHON vote to implode. A few years ago I would have said yes but if there is a dose of the Trump-voter mood going round then the usual bets on things like that are off. If it does implode then where those votes might go is hard to say.
Anyway I think the preference harvesters are the bigger problem.
(NB my post was in reply to Briefly’s, I didn’t see Antony had posted in the meantime.)
So is a result from 2001 a good guide to voting intention in 2017? In itself, not at all.
Will the agricultural region record a protest vote? I doubt it. The rural sector is enjoying some of its best years ever in WA. Beef and lamb prices are at high levels. Wheat prices are down a bit but volumes are huge. If there is a zone where protest effects will be muted it is Agriculture. The contest there will be between the Libs and Nationals, as ever.
Personally, I think the ON campaign will be highly repellant for most voters. There are angry/rejector voters….for sure….are they 1/5 or 1/6 of the total….meaning they are drawing up to 2/5 or 1/3 of the past-Lib constituency? Nup. They are totally over-rated.
Of the voters I’m talking too (it is not a random sample, or even ‘every house in that street’ as it once was) there is quite a lot of ‘no we wont tell you who we are going to vote for but we certainly know who we are putting last. I don’t see any reason the one nation vote would collapse from the levels we’ve seen in the polling but by linking themselves to Colin ON may well have lost some votes (to other protest parties but if these people are telling me the truth they are not going to come back to the Liberals before the bottom of the ticket). Although ON could benefit from an influx if the love match between Colin and Pauline means more grumpy liberal voters now see ON as a safe proxy / protest stop on the way back to vote liberal. The count will be interesting, I had hoped to never be stuck in the booth for the count ever again, preferring the drinking at the party, but if I get the opportunity to watch the count in one of the booths that were ‘mine’ back in the day I might.
I posted a comment on this the other day on the main thread. Latest unemployment figures put WA worst in the nation for unemployment (6.5%), worse even than SA and Tasmania. This is on top of increasing part time employment and falling participation rate. The trend is pretty lousy too.
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6202.0
Is this making political news in WA? Even if One Nation were not befouling the air, you would think a State government facing an election would not be keen to have figures that bad. Also as I said, it shows beyond doubt that, having had the largest mining boom in Australian history, the WA Libs have either squandered it or let a bunch of mostly foreign billionaires wander off with the loot largely untaxed. They opposed the mining tax, then failed to apply a local levy of any significance. The only winners live in Peppermint Grove. So now there are no jobs and there is no money left to restart the economy either. Have I missed something? (I do not get WA news, so I am genuinely curious how people are reacting to this.)
West Australian is touting a ReachTEL they have coming out tomorrow.