Thursday morning
I’ve now taken Gaven, Cook and Burdekin off my watch list, the first two credited to Labor, the latter to the LNP (see below for further detail on Burdekin). That gets Labor to 45, which then becomes 46 if Margaret Strelow is right to have conceded defeat in Rockhampton, which she presumably is (more on that below also). To get to 47, Labor would need one out of the following: to retain Macalister, which will happen if independent Hetty Johnston can’t close a 3% gap against the LNP on preferences (which I would rate somewhat likely); Townsville, which is going down to the wire with Labor very slightly behind; and to be the beneficiary of Scott Emerson’s defeat in Maiwar, which seems somewhat more likely to go to the Greens. The ABC computer is predicting 48 for Labor, but I’m not sure why, because it only projects them with leads in 47.
The latest iteration of my results table looks as follows, with explanatory notes to follow:
Rockhampton
The big news of the day was independent Margaret Strelow’s concession that she is not going to win, contrary to most back-of-envelope projections to this point. The kicker is apparently a very tight 60% flow of preferences from the LNP to the One Nation, which will cause the latter to overtake Strelow at the second last exclusion, by a fairly comfortable margin of around 400 votes on my reckoning. One Nation would need about 55% of Strelow, LNP and Greens preferences to overtake Labor, and evidently Strelow’s are favouring Labor enough that this is not going to happen. It seems a full preference count will be conducted today.
Macalister
The count here seems unusually advanced, so there will presumably not be much change to the current results – which is good for independent Hetty Johnston, who has been getting smashed on postals. The key to the situation is the LNP’s 26.66% to 23.33% lead over Johnston, which she needs to close to poach the seat from Labor. The sources of the preferences will be the Greens on 6.54% and three minnows on 6.82% between them. Out of a three-way split of preferences, Johnston’s share will need to be about 25% higher than the LNP’s. Buried deep in a typically eyeroll-inducing report from the Courier-Mail is the news that Labor is very confident that this won’t happen.
Townsville
Not much progress in the count yesterday, with 90 postal votes breaking about evenly, and Labor clawing back about 30 on rechecking of booth votes. I still have the LNP a few dozen votes ahead, but there are perhaps 2000 absent votes that are yet to be counted, which might turn up something for Labor – though they were in fact slightly favourable to the LNP in relative terms in 2015. The same goes for maybe 700 outstanding out-of-district pre-poll votes. Also to come are around 600 declared institution, polling day declaration and uncertain identity votes, whose idiosyncrasies cancelled each other out last time.
Maiwar
All that was added yesterday were 130 postals, which increased the Greens’ primary vote lead from 37 to 43. Still to come: about 1500 absent votes, which are historically strong for the Greens; about 400 out-of-district pre-polls; a trickle of postals and 200 or so odds and sods. With scrutineer talk of a strong flow of Greens preferences out of the 737 votes for independent Anita Diamond, Labor will need to do extremely well on the outstanding count to get their nose in front.
Burdekin
My projection that the LNP would pull away here is looking pretty good after 652 postals were added to the count yesterday, breaking 430-222 to the LNP if preferences behaved as before. I’m projecting a 637 vote LNP win, and while this is probably inflated by an overestimate of the number of outstanding postals, I’m no longer regarding it as in doubt.
Hinchinbrook
Not really anything to follow here, as we won’t know the real situation until the preference distribution. However, it looks very much to me like One Nation’s narrow lead over Katter’s will be eliminated by Labor preferences, and that Katter’s will then ride home over LNP member Andrew Cripps on One Nation preferences. That’s unless Labor gets a strong flow of preferences from independent Peter Raffles and the Greens (3.04%), in which case Labor will close a 21.02% to 18.83% deficit against Katter’s, causing the latter to be eliminated in fourth place. In this case, there would need to be a Labor preference share around 30% higher than that to the KAP – plausible in the Greens’ case, but there doesn’t seem any reason to think preferences from Raffles, who wants statehood for north Queensland, will not go strongly to Katter. As top candidate on the ballot paper, some of Raffles’ vote would be of the donkey variety, and that vote won’t harm Katter’s.
Tuesday evening
The ECQ have unhelpfully pulled the notional two-party counts from their site. That makes it particularly difficult to track Burdekin, where Labor today picked up a bonus I hadn’t been factoring in: a strong pre-poll booth at Collinsville, which would have narrowed Labor’s two-party deficit from 366 to about 150. However, I’m still projecting the LNP to gain a couple of hundred votes on remaining postals.
Labor had a much better day today in Townsville, getting 35.3% of the primary vote from a batch of 635 postals, compared with 28.5% from the earlier batch of 885. The LNP’s 37.7% vote in the first batch fell to 33.2% in the second. Based on earlier reported preference flows, I’ve got Labor paring their deficit back from 78 to 31, and the projected losing margin down from 312 to 154 – and with perhaps 3000 voters yet to come, there’s a fairly substantial margin for error on that.
In Maiwar, the Greens are now 37 votes ahead of Labor on the primary vote, pending the unknown quantity of the preferences of independent Anita Diamond, who is on 734 votes. Kevin Bonham hears scrutineer talk that the Greens are getting a strong flow of preferences from those votes, to the extent that they should boost them by about 200. The two main outstanding categories of vote are absent votes, both of the pre-poll and polling day variety. If these favour the Greens like they did in 2015, I’m projecting the margin to increase by 135 votes. That does not factor in what will presumably be a few hundred outstanding postals, which have so far been fractionally more favourable for Labor.
Monday evening
A better day for Labor today, with three indicative two-party counts in seats where the ECQ had picked the wrong top two all bringing good news. In short:
Cook. A Labor-versus-One Nation throw records One Nation receiving 64% of preferences, when they need more like three quarters. The only remaining question is whether it will indeed be One Nation facing Labor in the final count, the other possibility being Katter’s Australian Party, who might get a better flow of preferences. However, there are likely to be only about 2500 votes left to be added to the count – in which case KAP would need to outpoll One Nation by nearly 10% of the outstanding vote, when they are closely matched at present.
Maiwar. Labor will clearly defeat the LNP’s Scott Emerson if it make it to the final count ahead of the Greens (I’m not actually clear in this case why the ECQ wasn’t conducted an LNP-Labor count all along). Presumably Labor preferences would go even more strongly to the Greens, to the outstanding question is who gets over the hump. The Greens currently have a lead of 19 votes, subject to the slight impact independent candidate Anita Diamond’s preferences will have.
Burdekin. Previously identified as a technical LNP gain, meaning a retain in a seat the redistribution had made notionally Labor. With a Labor-LNP throw now conducted, it has emerged that Labor has enjoyed a strong flow of One Nation preferences, and trails by only 34 votes. The seat is prompted me to add it to the summary chart below, where it constitutes a potential Labor to gain to compensate for the fact that I’ve now called Pumicestone for the LNP along with a detailed projection. The latter suggests today’s development is a false alarm for the LNP, who have a huge advantage on postals that is yet to flow through to the published two-party count.
Not featured in today’s two-party throws: LNP versus KAP in Hinchinbrook; Strelow versus Labor in Rockhampton; Johnston versus Labor in Macalister. Next to nothing happened today in Gaven and Townsville.
Sunday evening
Today’s counting has yielded two notable developments, both of them unfavourable to Labor. The LNP has roared back into the race in Townsville, performing very strongly at the city’s pre-poll centre and in the first half of postal votes. Postals have swung to the LNP by 8.9%, pre-polls by 6.8%, with the latter doubling in number since 2015. Some activity of the Defence Force that I’m not aware of may have had a bearing here.
Labor’s lead in Aspley has also withered from 2.2% to 0.6%, with postals swinging to the LNP here as well. However, that seems to most of the postals accounted for – most of the outstanding votes now are absents, which are likely to favour Labor.
I now have detailed projections for the three seats I am reading as straightforward Labor-versus-LNP contests, which are Gaven, Pumicestone and Townsville. These suggest Labor is in real trouble in Townsville and has little chance in Pumicestone, but will most likely win Gaven.
Not much has happened in the count today in Gaven, so what it says below is much the same as yesterday. In Pumicestone, Labor had a raw vote lead of 309 last night, but I was calculating this would become a 53-vote deficit when primary votes in the count were added on two-part. I then projected a 228 winning margin for the LNP on the final count, with the LNP to gain 341 on postals and 217 on absents. Once again though, postals have been bad for Labor, swinging against them 4.5%, such that I am now projecting the LNP to win by 535.
Including Gaven and Aspley, I can see a clear 44 seats for Labor; losses in Cook or Macalister I would still rate as unlikely, but they simply cannot be ruled out given the lack of hard information about preferences. That leaves them still needing an extra seat to reach the magic 47, for which their best chances are squeezing out the Greens in Maiwar or hanging on in Townsville.
Saturday evening
As I see it, in the race for 47 seats, Labor is on 43 and the LNP is on 38; there are at least two for Katter’s Australian Party, one for One Nation and one independent; and then there are eight seats that I’m treating as up in the air in one way or another. First up, there are eight seats that I’m treating as having changed hands. No doubt I’ll be proved wrong about some of them, but I figure you’ve got to start somewhere.
Aspley. Labor has held a stubborn lead of a bit over 2%, which doesn’t look like being overturned.
Redlands. Surprisingly, Labor’s only entirely clear gain from the LNP, off a swing of 6.3%.
Noosa. Independent Sandra Bolton seems to have surprised everybody by topping the primary vote in Noosa. Bolton appears to be exquisitely inoffensive, so there is no chance of the LNP chasing her down on preferences.
Nicklin. With the retirement of independent Peter Wellington, Nicklin returned home to the LNP.
Bundaberg. Gained by the LNP from Labor on a 1.2% swing, putting them 0.7% ahead, which will surely increase on late counting.
Mirani. This looks very much like a case of LNP dropping out and deciding it for One Nation over Labor on preferences. It may be within the realms of possibility that One Nation would tank so badly on late counting they finished third, in which case they might push the LNP ahead of Labor. But I’m putting that in the long shot column for now. For one thing, I’d think veteran Labor MP Jim Pearce would do okay on preferences.
Burdekin. In a seat held by the LNP, but made notionally Labor by the redistribution, this is a near three-way tie on the primary vote. If Labor drops out, the LNP wins. If One Nation drops out, I guess Labor has a chance (its preferences were directed to them). If the LNP drops out, One Nation wins. But the LNP does in fact have a slight lead, which will presumably increase on late counting. So for now I’m calling it an LNP gain from Labor.
Maiwar. Lost by the LNP, but not known whether to Labor or the Greens.
Then there are a further seven seats that I really don’t care to call, for one reason or another. I will be adding summaries of the situation in these electorates as I complete them. To start with though, here’s what I see as a summary of the situation:
UPDATE: For now, I have completed my analysis/projection of Gaven – the others I plan to do will have to wait until later today. The table below shows actual results in the first four columns, and my best attempt at projections in the last two columns. This requires estimates both of the number of outstanding votes, which involves at least as much art as science, and the two-party split. In the case of postals, for which about half the anticipated total have been counted, I have projected the results from the counted votes on to the uncounted. This is bad for Labor, as postal votes were weak for them to begin with, and appear to be recording no swing.
For other types of vote, it is assumed they will observe the same idiosyncrasies as in 2015. On this basis, Labor is projected to do well enough on absent votes to hold back the tide on postals, which largely reflects a strong Greens vote on absents in 2015.
For the other seats I’m listing as doubtful, just the briefest of rundowns for now:
Maiwar. The Greens have a raw 0.7% lead ahead of Labor in the race to finish second and, presumably, win the seat from the LNP on the preferences of the other. No absents or postals have been counted; the former should be good for the Greens, the latter bad, and there should be roughly equal numbers of each. So the Greens would seem favoured, but it’s certainly not done and dusted.
Pumicestone. Labor has a raw lead of 309 votes (0.9%) on the two-party count, but there won’t be much of it left when votes that have presently been counted only on the primary are added to two-party preferred. Postals should as usual favour the LNP, but Labor’s big hope is that the LNP tanked on postals in 2015. None of either have been counted yet.
Cook. With Labor on 39.3%, and a crush of others just shy of 20% (One Nation 18.9%, LNP 17.9%, Katter’s 17.6%), one of the latter will need a strong flow of preferences from the other two to make it home. I would expect that a Katter candidate in the final count would be most threatening to Labor, followed by One Nation, followed by the LNP.
Macalister. Labor faces a threat here from independent Hetty Johnston, but it’s a long shot — she trails the LNP 26.4% to 24.2% on the primary, which she needs to chase down with either preferences or an unusually strong late count performance for an independent.
Rockhampton. With Labor’s vote on only 31.8%, independent Margaret Strelow would seem assured of taking this if she finishes second. However, the LNP looks like bowing out before One Nation, who it had second on its how-to-vote card. So it would seem possible that Strelow will actually run third, in which case I imagine her preferences would decide the result for Labor. For all I know though, there may be a One Nation surprise lurking in wait here. Labor could wear a defeat at the hands of Strelow, a Palaszczuk-backed Labor preselection candidate who could potentially be lured back to the party, or perhaps made Speaker.
Thuringowa. The order here clearly runs Labor, LNP and One Nation about even on second, and Katter’s fourth, with the latter’s preferences presumably set to secure second place for One Nation. The question then arises as to whether LNP preferences go cleanly enough to One Nation to finish the job for them. UPDATE: They don’t – what I had thought was an ABC estimate is actually a real preference count that makes clear One Nation can’t win. So the only conceivable threat to Labor is the LNP, and that’s a long shot.
Hinchinbrook. The LNP incumbent here is on 30%, and then there’s a crush of One Nation, Katter’s and Labor around 20%. Provided Katter’s can stay in the count when the field is reduced to three, they would seem set to take the seat. Otherwise, the final count looks like being LNP versus One Nation, with Labor preferences saving the day for the LNP.
For a first term government Palaszczuk did well. Many have a larger swing against.
It looks like people who voted for Palmer last election and disaffected lnp voters are the Hanson base.
As usual the greens found it difficult to person polling booths, none at Ninderry pre poll for instance.
Actually, it would also presumably get them increased public funding and publicity, which is generally very hard for minor parties to get, apart from the free publicity ride that PHON seems to get all the time.
Agree that Palaszczuk did well, especially when you consider the disparity in donations compared to the LNP, and the Courier Mails continuous crusade against the ALP.
bakunin @ #348 Monday, November 27th, 2017 – 9:01 pm
Wanker hipsters sprouting sweet nothings are people I avoid.
John Goss,
If Labor wants to remain a major party they need to stop ignoring the warning signs before it’s too late. Because if their vote keeps trending down, and they keep saying it doesn’t matter, sooner or later it will cross a critical limit and it will be too late.
I think they generally avoid people from the Cori Bernardi wing of the ALP so you should be right.
bakunin @ #356 Monday, November 27th, 2017 – 9:19 pm
They tend to avoid people that live in the real world. I see them as the snails of politics. Only good for stepping on!
Ante Meridian
I agree the ALP has problems with its low primary vote. Though I agree with John Quiggin, that if you want to see the trend in the centre-left vote, you need to add ALP and Greens together!
The ALP is working hard on its low primary vote, and these days there is much more agreement about the changes that need to be made. Unfortunately the troglodytes still have a lot of influence -though more of them are dying out. Perhaps the ALP needs a meteor to finish them off.
I think the Labor Party is moving in the right direction…further to the left, but on the real issues that matter to real Australians. That being health, education, workplace relations etc. There are lots of suburban votes that Labor can soak up, providing they stay away from the faux left identity politics issues. Leave those to the self indulgent inner urban luvvies who support the green Tories.
Talk is emerging about de-merging the LNP is missing the point. It wasn’t the merger that causes LNP to find themselves in the state they are today, it is largely Campbell Newman. He burnt through 36 seats and single handily cost the LNP 10-15 years in government. It cost MP’s of the LNP from getting long term ministerial experience and future leaders of the party have been called upon to lead quicker then they should have been. LNP have never recovered from the loss and the damage Newman did to the party its still being felt today. Unlike their Federal counterparts they have never cemented themselves in Brisbane and naming a safe LNP seat in Brisbane is about hard as finding
a Where’s Wally in a children’s book.
Merging the LNP stopped three way contests, indecision and bickering between Libs vs Nats on who would lead, and makes it possible for a Liberal to lead from South East Queensland. De-merging will go back to the old days where a rural/regional Nat will stay leader (ala Lawrence Springborg) and will fail to be relevant to voters in Brisbane and Gold Coast it’s that simple.
The thing is John at this election Labor plus green falls well short of fifty percent, Labor are back because one nation preferences don’t follow ideological straight lines like the greens do
My guess is the one nation vote is a bit like the UKIP vote was in England where you had blue kippers and red kippers.One nation are tapping into some really old school right wing Labor voters, who are then directing their preferences to Labor.
Labor are clearly going to have to re engage with regional voters and I think Clem Atlee best sums up how to go about it.
I agree Charles kind of politics. What Clem is saying is in line with what I was saying some hours ago. Identity politics is actually fading somewhat in importance, but there will be issues around Indigenous/Australian/non-Indigenous identity. Neither the Left nor the Labor Right nor the extreme Right have good policies in this area, so work needs to be done. The Labor Right mantra of jobs, jobs, jobs is a good starting point for Indigenous policy, but issues of reconciliation and self-determination that works need further attention.
So as things stand at the moment, is it still looking likely Labor will reach 47 seats?
@William
For the Monday evening update
Re: Maiwar
Looks like the ECQ did pick Labor vs LNP for the provisional count (there’s a partial ALP vs LNP 2PP shown) . They seem to have stopped when it wasn’t clear if it was actually Green vs LNP (which was where it was sitting on Saturday night before postals put the ALP back in on Sunday, and it seems absentees have reversed that today).
One Nation preferences went everywhere because they do not have the organisation or volunteers to give out how to vote cards at many booths.
Combine this with no directions from Ashby to information poor voters the results are obvious.
Young people want to vote Greens. They want independent intellectual thought in politicians not the head nodders, shoe polishers and benefit takers that most currently are. They want a change to the tired old party system that only looks after their union or business donors and if you step outside the party line you get your head kicked. I’m not young but I’m certainly with them 100%. The QLD ALP Premier is very deceitful and can’t wait to polish Adani’s shoes again. Hope she doesn’t get a majority as she has done nothing to deserve it as the overall decline in vote % indicates. Being the least worst is nothing to gloat about.
Re Primary Votes, living in the UK with FPTP where 30% can get you a win in a seat and 70% don’t want you is a non representative voting system for single member electorates. Add to that non compulsory voting you get a government that is representative of those that voted for the winning party. Compulsory Pref Voting at least means the winner is preferred by at least 50% plus 1 voter of an electorate and has greater legitamacy.
2PP is the true indicator of where public opinion lies. Those ON voters preferencing Labor do so deliberately and in effect are at least non LNP voters.
Plus la Difference.
Ruawake went:
Hey mate, how’s things?
From our long term stuff leading into the election, we found One Nation was a disorganised rabble on the basic messaging to the point where major party voters moving to One Nation basically preferenced back from whence they came. They only real movement underneath as far as potential (and from the results, actual) preference flows appears to be the broad ‘Others’ vote they picked up along the way, like the old PUP, FF, and various “anyone but” voters. And that group has been a dogs breakfast for 20 years.
What was the One Nation messaging stuff like up in your neck of the woods on the ground close to election day? Apparently there was resources put into the place up your end.
I saw a couple of seats down here in the outer north where they supposedly put resources into, and I couldn’t tell the difference between them and the places they didn’t.
I think the most likely result is 46 ALP, 1 Green, 40 LNP, 2 Independent, 3 Katter, 1 One Nation.
Maiwar will almost certainly go to the Greens, as even if ALP ahead of the Green by quite a few votes at the end of first preferences, the preferences of the Diamond candidate, based on past preference distributions, will add up to 95 votes to the Green/ALP margin, so meaning that the ALP candidate will be eliminated.
Townsville is totally lineball at present and just favours the LNP, but with more postal votes it is likely to end up with the LNP. This does remain though Labor’s best chance of getting to 47.
There seems to be a fair amount of dispute about Rockhampton as to whether it will go to the ‘Independent’ Strelow or to the ALP. Antony Green is predicting Independent 54.4% ALP 46.6%, but is counting it as Labor in his predicted results.
Of the rest of the doubtfuls, Pumicestone, Burdekin and Bonney likely to be LNP, Gaven and Aspley likely to be ALP, and Hinchinbrook likely to be Katter.
PS. Cook has been moved by Antony Green out of ‘Seats in Doubt’ to ‘Seats won’ by the ALP. I agree with him. The QEC have done the 2PP distribution between ONP and the ALP for 20,275 of the 22,604 formal votes. It is showing ALP 10,295 (50.8%) to ONP 9,980 (49.1%). This is only 315 votes, but I think its enough to indicate that ALP will hold/win this seat.
So their voters make up their own minds who to preference rather than follow a htv card
Their preference flows will go like this, in the big coastal towns where Labor has always had a fairly strong vote Labor will pick up a lot their preferences, in rural areas and small towns where the Labor vote has always been weak the LNP will get the lion share
Increasingly voters are being strategic with preferences, they know that they can send some rockets to the majors without necessarily not ending up voting for them at 2PP stage.
Hetty Jonston is probably still in with a chance in Macalister. She has a less than 700 vote gap to get to second place with over 3,000 vote to be distributed as preferences and favourable preference direction from 2 of the candidates/their parties.
Stan I am not sure cpv produces results more democratic than fpp, For eg at this election one nation and the greens have a combined vote of about 23% and they will end up with two of 93 mp’s.
If anything cpv entrenches the power of the two major parties because it forces you to vote for one of them indirectly.Under either system the barriers to entry for new players are incredibly high.
Labor with 36% of the vote will end up with about half the mp’s PPR is the most democratic no doubt about that.
Single member CPV is definitely more democratic than single member FPTP (where a 32/32/36 ALP / Green / LNP split elects the LNP) . It’s just that Single Member systems has a relatively low upper limit of vote share representation unless voters self sort to counter it and advantaged parties have an incentive to.self sort to counter that. Single member systems are more for relatively stable government (within a term) as they will produce large majorities off small swings.
You need fairly large numbers of proportionally elected people to represent vote share well. Pick whatever you think minimum vote share for representation is and work backwards to get the the numbers from there (so if 5% , you want 19 slots to give a 5% quota).
Great to see meher, RUA and Possum posting.
Travelling so unable to post but here are some comments.
1. Anastasia did very well considering
2. The ON vote is a protest vote and draws from BOTH parties but most return to their original voting pattern for preferences.
3. The Green vote was partly Adani but is now much,much more and is here to stay it seems
4. The ALP is far from being to the left of the voters and if anything is to the right. We really should use the terms left/right to talk ONLY of economic issues and the term progressive/conservative to talk of social issues. It is true that the ALP has moved to the progressive side on social (and environmental) issues but still not as far as the membership. On economic issues, the ALP has stayed pretty much in the middle and its membership has too, and I would argue BOTH are to the right of the electorate. The Katter vote is essentially an old style rural socialist vote, as is the ON vote to a lesser extent.
Elau
I think the easiest way to get a measure of PR would be to allocate 5-10 seats to “top up” where there is no representation. So in Qld with 93 seats you have another 6 or 8 that you allocate to the parties with greatest imbalance. So assuming ON gets Mirani, it got 13% of the vote but just 1 seat so is 11/12 seats short. Greens may be 9 seats short or 8 in they win Maiwar. So ON would be awarded 4 or 5 seats and the Greens 2 or 3. Not perfect but a step to the better.
I just don’t see how the LNP vote doesn’t push one nation above Strelow and elect the ALP. Antony’s computer is just doing projections based on the ECQ 2cp count, but that doesn’t take into account who the final two might actually be, hence why he’s overriding it result in his totals.
Areaman
I suppose whether that happens depends on what the HTV card for the LNP says. Would the LNP really put ON ahead of an independent, even if she was a Labor Independent?
The LNP have been wildly inconsistent with preferences to PHON this election, ranging from highly placed to less than Labor.
It’s PHON 2 in Rockhampton. None of the candidates are identified by party either. The question is will Rockhampton LNP voters buck that. And 8 ball says probably not hugely, Rockhampton is more Nat than Lib, so weaker discipline but more inclined to PHON anyway.
Meher Baba @11:29am:
“By most measures, inequality in Australia is not at a historic high.”
What rot! Here are some “measures” of inequality which disagree with your rather optimistic statement:
-> The Australian 1% have a higher share of household incomes (9%) than at any time since 1954.
-> Australia’s Gini coefficient (a measure of disparities of income, with 0 being total equality and 1 total inequality) is at a record high of 0.34.
-> Labour market inequality in Australia continues to broaden, with more and more Australians moving from the comfortable salaried into the ranks of the precariat.
-> Housing affordability is becoming a thing of the past for many Australians, with owner-occupancy rates falling by ~5% over the past 15 years – and those who do still pursue this dream are spending more of their income on mortgage repayments than their parents.
While we’re nowhere near US levels (yet), it’s actually pretty hard to find a measure of inequality which *hasn’t* gotten significantly worse over the past 20 years. And it’s been with Labor’s systemic approval; in some weird need to “prove” their fiscal conservatism, Labor Governments have joined Coalition Governments in chopping and pruning at the safety nets, cutting tax rates on the wealthy, coddling corporations and generally acting like Ronald Reagan’s wet dreams.
Sadly, they still seem to be wedded to neoliberal ideology, although I hear that they’re going to the marriage counselor’s at the moment. Perhaps this unholy union is finally on the rocks?
Incidentally, Bill: The Grauniad has published another Essential, which – past the verbiage – shows another 54-46 TPP between the two parties. Link: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/nov/27/most-australians-want-banking-royal-commission-guardian-essential-poll
Interesting agitations on a LNP split and I agree with night watchman that it will return leadership to a Nat, leaving them irrelevant in SEQ. Centre/right lib split precipitated from canberra may be libs best chance of making inroads in seq and would have many in the ALP nervous.
John Goss says:
Monday, November 27, 2017 at 11:49 pm
I think the most likely result is 46 ALP, 1 Green, 40 LNP, 2 Independent, 3 Katter, 1 One Nation.
Maiwar will almost certainly go to the Greens…
Sounds right to me. The only difference being that I expect the 2nd Independent to be Hetty Johnston in Macallister and the ALP to hold Rockhampton. Almost no chance for Strelow as she’d need a leakage of 35-40% from the LNP and since some of the leaking preferences will go to the ALP instead of Strelow, the total leak required is in the 40-50% mark, which won’ happen.
BTW the ALP will hold Cook as the ECQ distribution does not yet include two big mobile booths which are 90%+ ALP.
Charles kind of politics.
I’m of the opinion that CPV (and to a certain extend OPV) is more democratic than FPTP in which there is no need to tactically vote.
About the entrenching of major parties, OPV gave us Campbell Newman’s super-majority, so there’s that.
Essential results
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/nov/27/most-australians-want-banking-royal-commission-guardian-essential-poll
If the LNP split the numbers would be likely to be something like 23 Nats and 18 Libs, making the Nat leader the Opposition Leader, and opening up preference leakage from any three cornered contests, so nothing for the ALP to be nervous about.
Of the seatsI prdict
Asply – LNP
Bonney LNP
Burdkin – too closeto call
Hinchinbrook – Katter
Gavn -too close-LNP
Maiwar -too clos to call
Pumiston -LNP
Rockhampton -Independent
Townsville – LNP
Cannot rule out McAlister going Indepndent
Mostly I feel the postals will go against ALP
They’ve added a lot of the postals already: 2000 in Gaven and 4000 in Aspley.
It’ll be unlikely that the LNP can make up the vote difference in the remaining postals.
Given the current federal situation, the LNP splitting into two separate parties again may well exacerbate the tension between the federal Liberal and National parties. Threats by the Nats to end the federal Coalition would hold a lot more weight, since an actual 1987-style separation would actually be possible, whereas the Queensland merger (and the CLP in NT, to a much lesser extent) currently makes ending the Coalition so messy that I imagine the two parties would just stick together no matter bad the relationship were to get.
And it would be hilarious if – after everything the QLD parties went through to merge in the first place – they were forced to split again just ten years later. Mind you, I doubt the Libs would go for it – it would mean ceding the premiership of QLD to the Nats again, and they probably wouldn’t want to give that boon up.
Haven’t been keeping up very closely with the count during the last day or two, but I notice that the ABC prediction has Labor at 48 seats again.
I think with Aspley and Gaven the ALP will get to 46, with one more coming from Rockhampton, Maiwar, Burdekin or maybe Townsville.
I think it’ll get to the magic number.
Seth that includes Macalister which isn’t a sure thing.
ABC’s had that on retain.
@ Seth – ABC is making an assumption on which are the last 2 candidates, and if that assumption is correct, it’s a retain. Will need to wait for the full preference distribution to know for sure.
Reading Antony Green’s thoughts on CPV, my favoured system would be OPV disguised as CPV wherein voters are asked, but not required, to number every box.
I think CPV with broad savings provisions is best for Lower House* ie require people to number every box and smack anyone who campaigns for not doing so but keep incomplete/partial ordering so people who just Vote 1 , or who Vote 1->2->3->3 get the 1->2 part kept. People tend to follow the ballot instruction and it preserves as much as possible of a voters intention when they screw up.
*I’d prefer it in the Senate too at least above the line but there’s too many parties at the moment.
@joeldipops
Do you have a link to Antony Green’s thoughts (or are these old ones ?). I checked his blog and twitter and didn’t see anything.
I’ve actually been wondering what happened to Antony Green’s blog for months now. It used to be at blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/ but I just get redirected to http://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/antony-green/3496478 and googling doesn’t tell me anything. If you can point me to where all his articles are now, I’ll see if I can find the comments on CPV.
Basically he said it’s undemocratic to force voters to choose between candidates they more likely than not know nothing about or despise equally. OPV allows voters to stop when they run out of opinions.
Here is Antony Green from 2013
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-10/green-the-case-for-preferential-voting/4459594
“There’s a strong case for moving to optional preferential voting on principle, but self-interest is also at play. The Coalition better be sure of its push for reform, argues Antony Green, because it could come back to haunt it.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-28/stephen-andrew-wont-be-last-to-win-seat-for-one-nation/9200052