The ECQ now has “two candidate results after distribution of preferences” for 77 out of 93 seats, with the only theoretically doubtful ones outstanding being Thuringowa and Mundingburra, where the chance of One Nation victories is being used by Tim Nicholls to justify not conceding defeat. Failing that, Labor will emerge from the election with 48 seats out 94, which is exactly what they notionally went in with, based on 2015 election results adjusted for new boundaries in a parliament enlarged from 89 seats, and ignoring seats lost through carelessness and misfortune. However, it has got there in a roundabout way, compensating for losses in the regions with wins in the city.
Partly this was a correction after 2015, when Labor performed strongly in the regions to pick up historically tricky seats like Maryborough and Bundaberg, while falling short in bellwether city seats. It’s also to do with changing preference flows, for which the government’s decision to reintroduce compulsory preferential voting played a substantial part. In regional seats where Labor-versus-LNP data is available for comparison, the LNP received 53% of all minor party preferences this time, compared with 2015 results of 41% for Labor and 17% for the LNP, with 42% exhausting. This was certainly enough to cost Labor victory in Burdekin, and perhaps also Whitsunday (although the preference flow there was almost even).
Labor’s two regional defeats were in Mirani, where Stephen Andrew emerged One Nation’s (apparently) sole winner, and Bundaberg, where Leanne Donaldson failed to replicate a surprise win in 2015, going down to defeat at the hands of David Batt of the LNP. In Mirani, Andrew landed clear of the LNP candidate to take second place on the primary vote, and then secured victory over Labor with what must have been something like 80% of LNP preferences. Labor also suffered a notional regional defeat in Burdekin, but this was an artefact of the redistribution, with LNP incumbent Dale Last successfully defending his seat despite the handicap of One Nation directing preferences against him.
The LNP also appear to have lost two seats in the regions, although only one has been finalised on preferences. Independent Sandy Bolton unseated Glen Elmes in Noosa by a handy margin of 11.5%, having topped the primary vote with 31.4%, then received over three-quarters of Labor, One Nation, Greens and independent preferences. Bolton seems to have poached a lot of support from the Greens, who finished second in 2015, but this time dropped from 21.8% to 11.6%. Katter’s Australian Party is claiming victory for Nick Dametto in Hinchinbrook, at the expense of LNP incumbent Andrew Cripps, but there is no published result yet. One Nation (22.0%), KAP (21.0%) and Labor (19.0%) were closely matched for second place behind Cripps (30.1%), but with Labor bowing out first, its preferences look to have pushed Dametto ahead of One Nation, whose preferences in turn decided the result for Dametto.
In south-east Queensland, the LNP lost three seats — Aspley and Redlands to Labor, where Tracy Davis and Matt McEachan were unseated by Bart Mellish and Kim Richards, and Maiwar to the Greens, which Michael Berkman has won from outgoing Shadow Treasure Scott Emerson. Another two LNP incumbents, Ian Walker in Mansfield and Tarnya Smith in Mount Ommaney, were defeated in seats that had been made notionally Labor by the redistribution. The opposite happened in the seat of Pumicestone, which Simone Wilson won for the LNP with a certain amount of help from the disendorsement of Labor member Rick Williams, who ran as an independent.
The Greens’ win in Maiwar, which is their first ever at a Queensland state election, has been confirmed by a margin of 1.6%, after Berkman kept his nose in front of Labor throughout the late count, then received 79% of the preferences of Labor and an independent. A swing to Labor in Aspley of 4.3% eliminated a pre-election margin of 3.1%, which seems to have been partly filtered through One Nation, whose 9.6% primary vote was a close match for the 10.3% drop in the LNP vote. No final score is available from Redlands, but the pre-election margin of 1.2% has been easily accounted for by a swing of 4.3%.
Labor’s win in Macalister has been confirmed, but we won’t know exactly how close run it was until they publish the full distribution of preferences. The reason the seat was in doubt is that independent Hetty Johnston would have won if preferences had pushed her ahead of the LNP on the primary vote, on which she trailed 26.6% to 23.2%, with preferences needed from the Greens (6.6%) and three minor candidates (6.9%) to close the gap. The other late count cliffhanger of Townsville was decided in favour of Labor incumbent Scott Stewart by 214 votes, a margin of 0.4%.
Final Result – 93 seats TCP
ALP Vs LNP 65 (ALP 35 Wins/LNP 30 Wins)
ALP Vs ONP 13 (ALP 12/ONP 1)
LNP Vs ONP 8 (LNP 8/ONP 0)
ALP Vs GRN 1 (ALP 1/GRN 0)
LNP Vs GRN 1 (GRN 1/LNP 0)
ALP Vs KAP 1 (KAP 1/ALP 0)
LNP Vs KAP 3 (KAP 2/LNP 1)
LNP Vs IND 1 (IND 1/LNP 0)
Still, pretty impressive result for One Nation – one of top two candidates in 21 seats (22.6% of seats), even if they lost 20 out of 21 contests. Katter Party did very well considering all the One Nation hype. I wonder how relations between these two parties will progress as they strive to out do one another as the party of the regions. Could Stephen Andrew (ONP – Mirani) be tempted to join up with the Katter team, if things in his party go helter skelter?
The name of the game is winning seats and One Nation will struggle to keep the same momentum in the next election 2020 with one MP.
LNP really were bailed out by some of the seats they went up against One Nation through Labor preferences. The only seat One Nation won was off Labor was through LNP preferences they directed to One Nation in Mirani.
However, the bright spot for One Nation is they will be well on track to win a senate in the next federal election. I wouldn’t call it a complete implosion for One Nation, but its more then a flesh wound then Hanson suggests.
They can still hang around in the senate for a while yet, but being the third force in state politics in Queensland now is likely over.
There’s few assumptions here:
1) That people would vote the same under FTP as they do under STV (I doubt this is true).
2) If the primary vote only was counted it would the result would benefit the smaller parties.
Labour led the primary vote in 47 seats, LNP in 44 and KAP in 2
Preferences saw:
– The ALP win an additional 4 seats and lose 3 (2 to LNP, 1 to ONP), net gain 1
– The LNP win an additional 2 seats and lose 7 (4 to ALP, 1 each to KAP,GRN, IND), net loss 5
– The GRN,KAP,ONP,IND win 1 each
The LNP are between a rock and hard place – they need to collect seats that went conservative and seats that went progressive. Can they win the 4 conservative that went KAP/ONP? Probably not all them and won’t be enough to win the election at any rate. So chase suburban seats help by the ALP and risk losing more rural seats to KAP/ONP. Then the is problem if the suburban seats think there is chance of an LNP/ONP coalition they likely don’t get the progressive seats anyway.
@Craig
I suggest that you check your numbers. Ind. (Noosa) led LNP on PV 31.4 to 29.5, according to QEC.
@Political night watchman
I agree that One Nation needed to make a good showing at this election to keep its momentum (2nd ‘flop’ in a row, in a manner of speaking, after WA) . I’m also suspecting that this may be the beginning of the end, but we’ll have to see.
I should also note that the 28/93 seats that saw a non-traditional 2PP outcome makes up more than 30% of all seats. I don’t know if this is particularly notable by Qld standards, but it would certainly be quite remarkable in any other Aust. state.
I would just like to add that in the election in question, 1972, according to the research of Colin Hughes, he estimates the 2-party preferred vote was 50.8% National-Liberal Coalition and 49.2% Labor, so in effect, the Coalition did not lose the 2pp vote during their rule from 1957-1989.
Hmmmm – just noticed that of the northern and central seats won by “damn the major parties” candidates, Mirani was the one that the Katters didn’t run in. So if they had, maybe the votes would have been similar to those in Hinchinbrook, and it would be Katters 4, ON zero. Maybe.
Kirsdarke
Thanks for the correction. I was just estimating based on the raw figures.
UpNorth
I’ve heard this furphy about Wujal Wujal before. It seems its the only thing proponents of the gerrymander claim can come up with. WW only has a couple hunderd voters so not particularly significant in any case . To put the matter to rest, here’s an extract from the current Wikipedia article on Wujal Wujal..
“Wujal Wujal is a small Aboriginal community on the north and south sides of the Bloomfield
River in northern Queensland, Australia. It has an area of 19.94 square kilometres of land. At the
2006 census, Wujal Wujal had a population of 326.[1]”
“It is located approximately 30 kilometres (19 mi) north of Cape Tribulation and 60 kilometres
(37 mi) south of Cooktown. Access to the community is via sealed road from Cooktown, or by the
Bloomfield Track, an unsealed road from Cape Tribulation which is only suitable for four wheel
drive vehicles. This is due to the gradient of the terrain and the many streams and rivers that
make up the Daintree drainage basin which cross the path at very regular intervals. During high
waterflow the road from Cape Tribulation is impassable.”
Note: Cooktown is and always has been the major centre in heavily indigenous electorate of Cook. So proponents of the gerrymander claim are saying it should have been placed in the electorate of Barron River, with which there was no reliable road connection instead.
Further Wikipedia extract: “On 16 February 1980, the Bloomfield River mission was officially
renamed Wujal Wujal.[26] On 29 October 1987, the Aboriginal reserve held by the Queensland
Government was transferred to the trusteeship of the council under a Deed of Grant in Trust.[27]
[3]. On 1 January 2005, under the Local Government (Community Government Areas) Act 2004,
Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Council became the Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council.[3]”
This means that WW was NOT part of the surrounding Douglas Shire and was in fact granted autonomy as a seperate LGA by the National Party Aboriginal Affairs Minister, Bob Katter (who to this day is still strongly supported by the Aboriginal communities in his electorate). It made perfect sense on the basis of transport links, community of interest, heritage and local government boundaries to place it in Cook rather than Barron River, which was oriented south along the coast covering the beach resorts and suburbs north of Cairns.
@Peterjk23 “WW only has a couple hunderd voters so not particularly significant in any case .” There you go, same line that Joh used.
Were you were one of those so called “independent” Commissioners who drew the maps as Sir Robert Sparkes dictated and couldn’t explain at the time why this occurred?
Every vote is sacred and to excise a whole community from the middle of one electorate and place in in another because of race is a Gerrymander. No more No Less.
@UpNorth
One vote one value isn’t the solution to problems. Its disingenuous to use such a system in this State, and is a form of gerrymandering to Labour/Libs at the expense of KAT/Nat’s. That’s why it was done by Goss, not as a savior of the people, but as a political tool.
Is it ok for Government to win by pandering to the interests of 5% of the area of Queensland?
Its ok to have world class public transport, digital bus information, tunnels, separate bridges etc etc while a fair chunk of Queensland hasn’t got any transport?
Its ok to develop one area and lock up the other areas of the state to enrich one area at the expense of the others? (Name one developer in SE Qld who has tree clearing laws to worry about!)
The voting in this election is a sign of a two speed state, which politically is going to get worse.
NorthQ – utter rubbish. The ALP is in Government in its own right because of its vote in regional Queensland. The myth that there are two states for Labor voters was busted when Labor kept all its Townsville seats and won back FNQ seats. The LNP was the party that let down regional QLD when Newman culled jobs and services. That is why they only have two seats North of Bundaberg.
Upnorth
The Bloomfield Track is the only road linking Wujal Wujal to the Barron River electorate. It was only constructed in the Mid 1980’s against much opposition. It was very controversial. Before this there was NO road south from Wujal Wujal to Barron River. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomfield_Track
Have you got any (better) examples of this so-called gerrymander? Surely in 32 years and 82 electorates you can come up with something else?
If WW was artificially excised, how many other times did this type of thing happen? Exactly Zero.
In any redistribution its possible to find something that looks strange, but it has to be part of an overall pattern to be a gerrymander.
For example, it could be claimed the inclusion of Moranbah in Burdekin, which flipped the seat to notionally Labor before the recent election, looks strange. What connection does the strongly Labor inland mining town have with Proserpine, Ayr or Bowen? It could also be said the flipping of 3 LNP seats (Mansfield, Mt Ommaney and Burdekin) to the ALP looked suspicious.
However in my opinion that would be incorrect. The recent redistribution seemed very balanced to me, even though I disagreed with some of the renaming decisions.
@NorthQ
Your statements about developers in SEQ not having to worry about tree-clearing laws is rubbish. My son is a Town and Urban Planner and he’d disabuse you of that rubbish statement.
As for your comment about looking after 5%( land area) of the State- well that is where the majority of people live. Are you asking politicians to ignore the majority of the population and electorates for the rest of the State?
I have family living ,on the land, outside Proserpine. I thoroughly support their needs for services and infrastructure.
The North has good reason to complain about poor services and infrastructure but your comments do their needs an absolute disservice.
National party did win those elections, on popular vote and the gerrymander was not completely the reason Labor was out of power all those years. Queensland have had a long history of long-term state governments and ineffectual oppositions with Labor in power for forty years before the Nationals came to power in 1957 and had 32 years in power.
But anyone who suggests it was not gerrymandered only needs to take alot at the electoral maps of 1989 and look at National party seats such as Balone (turnout 7,797), Flinders, (Turnout 9,549) and Gregory (Turnout 7,195) to tell it was definitely gerrymandered.
Labor also had the higher primary vote in the 1989 election, then it did in 2001 election and managed to win 54 seats compared to 2001 where they won 66 seats. One of the reasons they didn’t win by more seats in 1989 was because of the gerrymander.
There are those on the LNP side who are now privately wondering whether they are going to endure another long spell in opposition again. The 78 seats majority they had should have had them in power for a a generation. Jeff Seeney even had the hide tell Annastasia Palaszczuk that Labor will be in opposition for at least 15 years. They sure did blow it.
@Peterjk23. Classic Example of Gerrymandering – Burdekin pre EARC implementation. Contained Lower Burdekin area then skirted Labor voting areas in Townsville to take in Paluma about 80 km to the North of Townsville. Did you mate Sir Robert Sparkes draw that beauty as well??
I recently read an argument — it may have been from Graeme Orr — that Bjelke-Petersen engaged in gerrymandering not because he was after the electoral advantage, but as a kind of proto-Trumpian thumbing of his nose at metropolitan elites, that played to his broader image.
If non-SEQ Queensland/FNQ does not want to be governed by a majority SEQ led government, it should pursue separate statehood (this is an argument with some merit, Brisbane is the capital the furthest from the centre of the state or territory it governs of any state or territory in Australia and also the smallest proportion of a state population of any mainland state).
All TCP results were released yesterday except for Capalaba, Mermaid Beach & Toowoomba South. I expect these will be provided very shortly.
The full distribution of preferences across all seats will be interesting to see. Does anyone know when this information will become available?
Also, will the Qld Parliament be sitting this year with only a few weeks left to Christmas?
The full distribution of preferences is available for some, if not all seats, now.
@Fargo61
Where can I find these? All I can see at present is the ‘Two Candidate Results after Distribution of Preferences’ for 90 out of 93 seats. Can’t find a full distribution for any seat.
@Fargo61
OK – I’ve found it now. Thanks for letting me know.
Ned Hanlon instituted the “gerrymander” in a midnight raid in the Q parliament in the late 1940s. At the time the ALP dominated outback electorates . The Nats just kept it and refined its operation a bit.
The SA and WA malaportionments were worse.
To a certain extent and recognizing that Queensland is the most decentralized State in the Commonwealth a small malaporionment still exists in Queensland.
Under the Act electoral districts that exceed 100,000km2 carry a provision which calculates a notional sum of electors equal to 2% of the total area of the district and adds the on to the number of actual electors.
This Gregory had 24,862 Electors at the election vs 35,418 in a seat like Thuringowa.
I don’t understand the great hoo-ha. There used to be malapportionment and gerrymandering. Now there aren’t, apart from that 100,000 km^2 provision that presently affects four electorates. The current state of affairs is far superior.
JBL – exactly.
The biggest effect of the malapportionment in Queensland was the dominance of the Country Party/Nationals because it favoured them over urban Liberals and thus increased their proportion in the Coalition. The Country Party got fewer votes than the Liberals and their predecessors but more seats from 1944 until 1974 (although some of those earlier results when the ALP were in government may have had different party totals if all seats had been contested).
@ William Bowe – the Gerrymander also made sure the Country/National Party won more seats than the Liberals thus making sure the Nats were the senior coalition partner. Joh sometimes hated the small l Libs more than Socialist Labor types.
Perhaps William ought to open a new thread on the history of Bjelkemandering & malapportionment in the history of Qld, to keep you guys happy. I’d much rather focus on the results of this election and the implications of these for the future – which incidentally, I find to be a far more fascinating topic. I was hoping that contributors would be willing to share their insights on the current state of affairs, rather than obsess about what Joh did 40 years ago. Joh was an a**hole – let’s leave it at that, PLEASE!
This is not a main general thread, so discussions of the results are unlikely to get lost and past Queensland politics is Queensland politics and not irrelevant to the present and future of Queensland politics. If you do not want to join in, don`t.
@Tom the first and best
The thread is titled ‘Queensland election endgame’ so maybe it’s a bit naïve of me to expect that most of the discussion will focus on the present and future. While the past history of Qld is in itself a fascinating topic (and I’m certainly not suggesting that the past has no place on this thread) I’m not sure what you and your colleagues are trying to achieve by harping on about gerrymandering. It’s a common known fact that gerrymandering and malapportionment was a significant feature of Qld elections and politics in the past. If there are one or two people on this blog who for whatever reason are not aware of this reality, it’s unlikely that anything you or anyone else will say, beyond what has already been said, that will convince them to change their views. You are better off conserving your energy and devoting your time towards discussing other political issues, such as finding something interesting you wish to talk about beyond Bjelke-Petersen and gerrymandering.
The notion of a separate State of North Queensland seems OK, provided that the new States of North Queensland and South Queensland are only allocated 12 senators between them.
The real gerrymander was the low enrolment seats mostly between provincial towns a different zone to the adjacent towns ,and seats which required no special allowance due to remoteness ie Beaudesert Lockyer Gympie barambah jbp seat app 12000 enrolled and many more along the coast Hinchinbrook Mirani whitsunday However mt isa( alp) had a high enrolment despite being remote
@ Pedant – NSW might stand a chance at winning State of Origin if QLD Splits.
No state with a population larger than Tasmania is likely to accept fewer Senators than Tasmania and as any subdivision of Queensland achieving statehood is likely to have more people than Tasmania, that means equal Senators from each new state with the other original states.
In Thuringowa at the last stage of exclusion the LNP preferences went 50.82 to ALP and 49.18 to ONP.
If ONP had got 65% they would of won.
The LNP HTV had ALP at 4 and ONP at 5 … anyone know why this is ?
ONP Candidate owned a sex shop???
Mundingburra also fascinating … at the last stage the LNP needed 68% of ONP and got 63% … despite ONP preferencing LNP ahead of the ALP
@Brisbane Bulldog
ONP Thuringowa candidate owned sex shop & featured sex advertising which made joke of domestic violence, or at least featured a joke which played down domestic violence. LNP was not going to risk preferencing ONP, because they feared ALP would hammer the issue which could potentially cost them seats elsewhere, so the risk wasn’t worth it.
Thuringowa aside, all the LNP had to do to prevent a majority ALP govt was to preference The Greens in South Brisbane, and preference ex-ALP, (turned Independent) Strelow ahead of One Nation in Rockhampton. ALP only achieved majority govt through LNP stupidity. It would be interesting to be a fly-on-the-wall at the LNP post-election review, and hear what their people are saying about the decision in hindsight.
Anyone had a go at calculating a statewide 2PP? After attempting estimates for most of the non-classic seats I end up with only about 51.5 to ALP. There are a small number of seats where estimating is more or less impossible using only the preference distributions, mostly based on KAP’s unfortunate trick of running in ten seats but not running third after preferences in any of them.
@Kevin Bonham
Kevin, I’m glad someone’s having a crack at that. Unfortunately, I would struggle to do it with a degree of reasonable accuracy. Can you give us a range at this stage for the final score. Final Newpoll had the ALP at 52.5% and were almost spot on with primaries. Any chance it could go as high as that?
It’s been revealed in the Courier Mail that LNP executive decided to put Labor last in South Brisbane. But it was overturned by Tim Nicholls and Deb Frecklington because Frecklington was worried she may face retribution by Labor putting her last in Nanango.
I’m not sure if that would have happened, Labor are pretty militant about putting One Nation last. There were reports they were facing disagreements with some unions about the strategy because the LNP were preferncing One Nation over Labor in the regions.
Looks like Hetty Johnstone ended up being 491 votes behind the second place LNP when she was knocked out, not an insignificant figure.
“No state with a population larger than Tasmania is likely to accept fewer Senators than Tasmania”. Tom, it’s not just a matter of what a proposed new State will accept, it’s a matter of what the MPs for all the other States are prepared to concede them. It’s a bit like the UK “demanding” terms for Brexit – they don’t hold the strongest hand!
Mrodowicz
From looking through the seat by seat distributions, it would appear the GRN to ALP distributions are at the lower end of expectations, whereas, ONP to LNP are at the higher end. Given that the primary results are pretty close to the polling assumptions, it would follow that the ALP TPP would be lower than expectations on the night.
PNW
I speculated about this before polling day. I actually believe there was a deal for the LNP to put the ALP ahead of ONP in Thuringowa and Logan and ahead of the Greens in South Brisbane. In return the ALP would promise not to run dead with their How to Vote cards in seats like Lockyer, Callide, Gympie etc where the LNP was under threat from ONP. Its too coincidental that preferences went this way in two of the best ON chances. The ALP polling told them where the threat was and those were the seats they asked for.
If the LNP hadn’t done this, the ALP would be on 46 and minority government. The LNP might be stupid, but they are not that stupid -they knew it would be close, so something else was obviously weighing on their mind. Just like with 9/11, you don’t need to see signed proof, all you need to ask is Cui Bono?
VC
Hetty was well placed to win, but the LNP candidate got 30% of Green preferences in a 3-way distribution. Go figure! The LNP candidate is the wife of the local federal member who was an ex-Family First candidate. I never would have expected such a high leakage. Some things you just can’t predict.
Mrodowicz: my estimate on the day after the election was 52.0. I think it’s unlikely to get to 52.5 but I’m going to try a different method today and see how it goes compared to yesterday’s.
Because the election used CPV, in theory it would be possible to use the ballot papers to determine an exact figure but I am not sure if anyone is going to do this.
Just noticed the ABC election site has Townsville back listed as doubtful despite no apparent change in the vote. I thought it was all finalised. Anyone know what’s going on here?
On the LNP preferences is Sth Brisbane, I thought I read somewhere (possibly in here) that it was part of a deal whereby ALP wouldn’t run dead in seats where ONP were a threat to LNP.
(EDIT: as per Peterjk23 above)
Also, as a resident of the former blue ribbon heartland seat of Clayfield, I can tell you that the hard core LNP faithful hate the Greens more than ALP.
From a preliminary look, it appears the ONP preferences were quite influential, swaying the result by 2-4% in quite a number of seats. Pumicestone (72% to LNP) is a clear cut case of an LNP win because of the ONP preference recommendations, while Redlands (49% to LNP), where the recommendation was to the ALP, was turned from a cliffhanger to a seemingly comfortable ALP win. ONP had 18% primary in Redlands and 23% in Pumicstone so that 20% variation would be worth 4% of the TPP. Quite massive really.
In Hervey Bay, one of the few where the ONP recommended preferences to the sitting member, the ABC prediction in the 10 days after the election was showing 56.0% to the LNP and I was suprised when the actual result turned out to be 59.2%. Turns out ONP preferences ran over 70% to Sorensen, so a significant impact if that figure was because of the recommendation.
I can see some seats though where the recommendation has not been followed: Toowoomba North, Glasshouse and Burdekin for example, so its certainly not a clear picture without knowing what was happening on the ground.
P23 – probably at least half of the 30% were “donkey” votes. Say 15 % of Greens votes going to LNP would be less surprising.
I’ve had another go at the 2PP with a more reliable method and now I get 51.2. It might be possible to jazz that up with some projections regarding the ONP preference flow and their strategy of preferencing against incumbents, which might aid Labor a little bit (I doubt it); on the other hand the unknown KAP preferences are possibly more pro-LNP than the known ones. I get the One Nation flow on distributed votes at 35-65.
Re Redlands, it’s the only seat in the state where preferences from One Nation flowed to Labor over the LNP, as far as I could find. However, it’s irregular. The One Nation preference flow includes votes from ex-LNP MP Peter Dowling – he of unorthodox wine usage fame – who helpfully put out a card preferencing One Nation then Labor. So it can’t be assumed that the ONP preferencing decision produced the strength of the Redlands flow all by itself.
Re federal senators, I thought I read somewhere (maybe from Antony Green) that the constitution provided for states that split to retain their original pool of 12, not double to 24. I don’t know if they get formally split, eg 8 and 4, or just continue to vote as one entity.