The Liberals have finally managed to piece together a victory in South Australia, at the third successive election at which they won the statewide two-party vote. The election was actually won for them in the redistribution, which made four seats won by Labor in 2014 notionally Liberal, with only one going the other way. If the 2014 election had been held under the new boundaries, the Liberals would have made it to 25 seats out of 47 (albeit with a 0.1% margin in Newland), which as likely as not is where this election will leave them when the dust settles.
The Liberals only went into the election with 20 of the 22 seats they won in 2014, having suffered two defections to the cross bench: Troy Bell in Mount Gambier, who was re-elected yesterday as an independent, and Duncan McFetridge in Morphett, whose seat has reverted to the Liberals (UPDATE: Make that 19 – I forgot about Martin Hamilton-Smith, whose seat of Waite went back to the Liberals with his retirement). To the resulting base of 21 seats, the Liberals have certain gains in two of the four notionally Liberal seats, Colton and Elder. They are ahead in a third, Newland, and are likely to go down to the wire in the fourth, Mawson. With a further gain likely in the new seat of King, they appear all but certain of making it to a majority.
However, the Liberals have once again struggled to gain decisive swings against sitting Labor members. The three actual or potential Labor casualties were all in notional Liberal seats, and there were swings in favour of two of them, albeit insufficient ones. The other very likely gain, the northern Adelaide seat of King, was a new electorate contested by a neophyte Labor candidate. Furthermore, Labor may make a gain in the seat of Adelaide, where Liberal member Rachel Sanderson ended the night 67 votes ahead.
Of the 33 seats where Liberal-versus-Labor counts have been conducted, there has been an average swing to Labor of 1.8%. This suggests the Liberals’ final two-party vote will be around 51.2%, which is slightly lower than they scored at both the last two losing elections. The distortion created by SA Best may have been a bit of a factor here, but the effect overall was modest: Labor scored an average 2.0% swing out of 24 seats where SA Best had candidates, and 1.3% out of nine seats where they didn’t.
SA Best wasn’t the only minor party who had a disappointing night. Cory Bernardi’s Australian Conservatives has flunked its first electoral test, going backwards compared with Family First’s performance in 2014 and almost certainly losing one of its two upper house seats. Its vote fell an average 2.7% out of the 33 lower house seats it contested, reducing to 1.1% in the four seats where they didn’t face competition from SA Best. The Greens vote was little changed, dropping by 0.2% overall, but increasing by 0.6% in the 11 seats that were uncontested by SA Best. The party will clearly retain its upper house seat, maintaining its representation of two seats overall.
There are five seats I have identified as potentially in doubt where I will continue to monitor late counting, which will advance substantially when pre-polls are counted on Monday. If the Liberals win all of these seats, which they certainly may, they will end up with 26 seats. That still leaves open a worst case scenario of 21 seats, with Labor on 22, three independents and one SA Best – hence my suggestion last night that Jay Weatherill was a little too quick to concede. I’m probably being generous to Labor in rating Newland and King in doubt, but with so much of the vote yet to be counted, prudence would seem in order.
The chart above shows the two-party booth votes on the left, which are all that has been counted to this point; projected declaration votes in the centre, based on the difference between booth and non-booth results at the 2014 election; and the sum of the two to produce projected totals on the right. Only the first of these is provided in the case of Heysen, where the Liberals are fighting SA Best, for whom 2014 offers no guide. It’s usually the way of late counting that the Liberals are favoured, and that’s what’s anticipated here of the three seats where they are narrowly ahead. Furthermore, it’s projected that Labor’s narrow lead in Mawson will disappear, although the 2014 precedent may not be a guide here, as Labor’s ground game would have been lacking in much of the electorate last time.
In the Legislative Council, Labor and Liberal have a clear three quotas each with SA Best on two, with the remaining three seats likely to land with the Greens and the number four candidates of Liberal and Labor. Australian Conservatives is on 3.6% of the statewide vote, compared with 4.4% for Family First in 2014, which no doubt reflects the success of SA Best in scoring 19% of the vote. This amounts to 0.43 quotas for the party’s struggling incumbent, Robert Brokenshire, compared with the 0.56 quotas that will be left to Labor after the election of its third candidate. To elevate past Labor from losing twelfth place to winning eleventh, Brokenshire has to close a gap of 1% in late counting and preferences, the most likely path to which is a weak showing for Labor in late counting. Preferences are unlikely to feature, as neither Liberal nor the Greens will be fully excluded at the point where either Brokenshire or Labor’s number four are excluded.
Wakefield says:
Sunday, March 18, 2018 at 11:33 am
There is a clear distinction to be made between G-voters and the G-party. G-voters tend to be Labor-positive and socially liberal. The G-party basically despise Labor. They set out quite cynically to exploit the sensibilities of Labor-positive voters.
briefly 11.40 – that statement is nonsense related to the Greens and Labor in SA over recent years.
As an Observer, I should be briefly bemused by the boerwars that go on this blog. But I am not. In Tasmanian election and SA election ALP got 32-33% of primary vote each. No party wins elections with that kind of primary vote. Also a party that wins election from opposition when their party is in power federally normally wins reelection. Yesterday Anthony Green provided examples of them.
Today morning MT already claimed victory for NEG with defeat of Weatherill government I. e. Indirectly claiming victory for defeat of ALP government. IMO NEG objective is biggest motherhood statement in recently times.
Confessions time for ALP that they are doing badly instead of patting themselves on the back for honourable loss
The Liberals will split with defectors bringing the government down
That is their DNA
Given the swing to Labor their margin in seats on the floor of the Lower House is a minimum hence the first defection will see an unworkable government
Labor needs to take note of Andrews in Victoria, assuming leadership and maintaining focus
I note that the Murdoch press has the result in Batman hidden away on the inside pages with just a few lines under the headline that Labor won a seat they expected to lose
Murdoch, hey?
And he runs the local Leader press as a branch office of the Conservatives
Defeated premier Jay Weatherill says he will resign as Labor leader after losing this weekend’s election to the Liberals.
Mr Weatherill visited Government House late on Sunday morning to officially resign as premier, then spoke with reporters.
He said he planned to see out his term in State Parliament.
Ven,
The deluded Malcolm Turnbull is likely to share your views, I invite him to feel the alleged good news for the Liberals and call a Federal election….
The ALP has won elections in Qld (twice), Vic, WA, NT, ACT…. and shrunk the Liberal majorities at both Federal and also State levels (NSW and Tasmania). They have lost Government in SA only, but the Libs suffered a swing against of -7.4%… and you call all that good news for the Liberals?
Ven: “Confessions time for ALP that they are doing badly instead of patting themselves on the back for honourable loss”
I don’t agree with this. Labor effectively “lost” in 2014, but the electoral boundaries kept them in power. They have had a very difficult four years in terms of SA’s continuing (and, I suspect, more or less permanent) economic malaise and all the electricity issues. And yet, they got a swing towards them. Weatherill was a competent leader and was respected as such by the public: even many who voted against him. That his party wasn’t crushed by the “it’s time” factor after 16 years in power is a credit to him and his team
Perhaps the most significant issue in this election is how uninspiring the voters appear to find the SA Libs. If they are competent in government, their popularity will no doubt improve. But I have my doubts…
I was wrong in thinking at the start of the campaign that Xenophon’s campaign would not falter like One Nation’s in WA and Queensland.
I was right in saying X had chosen the wrong seat to contest. My long-range forecast was derided by some but turned out a lot better than most.
Forecast: Lib 27, ALP 16, SA Best 1, Ind 3.
Possible result: Lib 26, ALP 18, SA Best 0, Ind 3.
Final observation: Steven Marshall is no Jay Weatherill.
Observer – has there been a lib govt in the last 50 years that didn’t split?
The news on the gender equality front is pretty grim. Labor looks like having 6/19 in the lower house and 3/8 in the upper, while the Liberals will have 4/25 and 2/8 (this is all assuming Labor wins Mawson and the Libs win Adelaide). Then there’ll be Frances Bedford, Tammy Franks and Connie Bonaros for a total of 11/47 and 7/22. Not sure but this might be the lowest in Australia?
I’m far from being Rex’s biggest fan and don’t agree with him at all where Shorten is concerned, but I do agree that the vitriol he is recieving from Briefly today and from others in the Batman thread last night is going too far.
And it really would be swell if Briefly could stop calling every single person who doesn’t vote 1 Labor in every election a Tory.
is anyone willing to estimate how much effect = votes % = seats cost to SA by shorten’s stupid announcement of the dividends tax matter a few days ago. the pub test suggests many think it represents wider changes in super and tax – and even that bowen suggested it did – whether of not the perception is correct it is the perception and shorten did create confusion that could be widespread and arguably affected one or more SA seats. with friends like that
The idea that imputation tax rort changes hurt Labor is bullshit.
In SA, ALP got a swing on 2PP. In Batman, defeated Greens who allied with Liberals on the policy. The rest is bullshit media narrative.
Gorks – 100 per cent right. The disconnect between the media and voter-land is profound. Malcolm and Sco-Mo fell into a big trap when they started screaming – and I mean screaming – about Labor ripping off pensioners. Thanks for the mature discussion guys. At that point most voters probably decided Labor was onto something. Indeed, Labor joined sides with the voters against the politicians.
Geoffrey
I don’t think Shorten’s dividends tax matter would have made much difference because many people did not understand it and who ever understood it are normally LP voters. But Oakden certainly would have made difference in a couple of seats
Kate Ellis for Adelaide or Norwood next election?
For the likes of Geoffrey attacking the Franked Divudend Offset policy announced by Labor:-
Prior to the announcement to the rewinding of the Howard amendment, how many Australians would have even known of Franking Credits and, indeed, how many Australians directly own Shares (that is outside their Superannuation funds the great majority of which are in pooled funds with Fund Managers?
In regards receiving cash remittances from the ATO, how many Australians would have known of this outcome and how many would have known if not told by a Financial Planner?
And then deliberately managed their financial affairs to receive the cash back?
What is the impact of the continuing malaise of the Australian economy and where interest rates sit, given these rates are at emergency levels and the lowest ever with Term Deoosits with a 2 in front? In other words, if the interest rates on Term Deposits reflected the cost of funds plus inflation, so say 5% and not 2% how many would risk principal (because Share Markets fall) to obtain a yield of under 5%?
Bear in mind also that Allocated Pensions paid at even the lowest legislated rate of payment rely on dividend incomes PLUS draw down on Capital So why is the constituency complaining given they, unlike other fully and partly self funded retirees in pooled funds are consistently drawing down on Capital in accessing their Allocated Pensions? Why is this constituency not also obliged to draw down on Capital but defend retaining Capital and enjoy a 5% PA return on funds?
Why are this small number of people, deliberately structured to recurve a tax refund when they have paid no tax not be forced to draws from Capital to fund their retirement?
But this problem of manipulation is greater
I know a couple, in retirement and partly self funded, also part pensioners who sold their residence and purchased a far more expensive residence to retain their access to a part pension
AND they receive a $4,000- PA cash back from Franking Credits, having no taxable income and paying no tax
They make the comment that they paid tax when in the workforce
But I paid tax when I was in the workforce also and, as a fully self funded retiree in pooled investments with Fund Managers I now receive absolutely nothing from government
Mind you, I also don’t have Centrelink involved in my private life
Those defending the receipt of a tax refund when you have not paid tax in the first instance and who have deliberately structured their affairs to receive such a payment should rightly be considered scabs on society, driven to yield in a Low interest rate environment and just plain greedy
Luckily they will be of such an age that they cannot sell their mothers – because they are dead
The Social Security criteria and intent needs review as does the taxation system
Shorten has signalled he will do this and that is the win win outcome Australians have and will embrace
The mistake Shorten made was to not announce the policy prior to the most recent 2 by-elections in safe Coalition seats
If there had have been a Liberal Party candidate in Batman the vote against that candidate would have exceeded 80%
If the questionable dividend imputation credit, or the just clearly wrong cashback for the dividend imputation credit were nearly as unpopular as people suggest the Govt and other opponents wouldn’t need to lie about it, yet that is what they are doing.
WWP – You know the Libs have no argument when they scream “class warfare”. That phrase is music to Labor’s ears.
I am always surprised when we get a little back from franking credits from the ATO. It’s as though they have made a mistake, in our favour for once.
If they disappear, it won’t bother me in the slightest.
I’ve just been crunching numbers in the Florey booths, doing a direct comparison between 2014 and 2018. A few fascinating factoids for your rumination:
1) The overall vote for “Others” (Family First and Greens in 2014 and Australian Conservatives, Greens, Dignity and Animal Justice in 2018) was almost identical, decreasing by only 0.1%;
2) The Liberal Party has suffered HUGE swings against it – particularly in parts of the electorate that Bedford has worked over many years. In six booths the swing was in excess of 15%; in two of these it was over 20%;
3) The Labor Party has suffered similar swings against it; moreso in “old Florey” than in “old Playford”, but as this appears to have gone directly to Bedford, the practical upshot has been …
4) … an average booth swing of 15% TOWARDS the “ALP”, compared with the last election. Hearing anecdotally from Liberal voters that they’ve always wanted to vote for her, but couldn’t because she represented the ALP is one thing; seeing the evidence before your very eyes is kind of surreal;
5) In the two booths where you can directly compare the 2014 ALP-endorsed Bedford vote with the 2018 Independent Bedford vote (ie where the booth “circumstances” haven’t changed), her primaries went from 46% to 44.7% in one, and from 43% to 42.2% in the other. That’s one hell of a personal vote!
I’m not sure who would be more disappointed by these figures, Labor or the Libs. But Frances is pretty bloody happy, that’s for sure!
From Antony Green on Twitter: “My best information is that Labor is now 125 votes ahead in Adelaide after preferences on the check count, but that’s probably not far enough ahead to last through the count of declaration votes.”
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2018/03/2018-south-australia-election-wrapup.html
South Australia 2018: Election Wrapup and Postcount
Includes comments about polling accuracy – or more pertinently lack thereof – one of the more lacklustre results for polling in a state election in quite a while.
Hello various posters – a stray dividend imputation seems to landed on the SA election page. Could someone send out a search party and return to owner?
Rex I think you will find the people of South Australia overwhelmingly support renewable energy and are quite proud the state is leading the way in this regard. Weatherill has done a great job and he has pretty much Marshall-proofed it, so that even if Marshall wanted to he would find it pretty difficult to divert the state from the 75% target.
However, as someone who has never voted anything but Labor I was almost tempted to sway my vote this time for the sake of the health system. Granted they were delivered an almighty sh!t sandwhich by Abbott, but even so Transforming Health was a disaster and Jack Snelling was a terrible choice to oversee it.
Their investment in quality infrastructure, the shift to renewables and Malinauskas taking over health and already doing some good things was enough to keep my vote.
Marshall would be a fool to think this is some sort of madate on renewables.
It’s pretty simplistic to say Labor lost over RE or that voters rejected it. Labor had a swing to them. Labor lost lots of votes on;
Oakden
TAFE shambles
Health-Transforming Health, nRAH overspends, ramping, ED patients waiting days, elective surgery blowouts, radiotherapy and chemotherapy underdosing
Child protection (a whole department moved as a result)
Economy-high unemployment and taxes
The 24 hour blackout
Frankly to get as close as they did is amazing
Asha Leu says:
Sunday, March 18, 2018 at 1:32 pm
I’m far from being Rex’s biggest fan and don’t agree with him at all where Shorten is concerned, but I do agree that the vitriol he is recieving from Briefly today and from others in the Batman thread last night is going too far.
And it really would be swell if Briefly could stop calling every single person who doesn’t vote 1 Labor in every election a Tory.
Oh, I doubt that I’ve directed any vitriol towards Rex. He was whinging about the people of SA, saying “[they] have again proven how backward and strange they are…” He was mildly rebuked for this.
Of course, when it comes to Tories and the Tory-like, I distinguish between voters and Parties….but enough of that. The Parties that did poorly yesterday were the Gs, the Cories and the SABs. They should reflect on their respective missions and their methods.
Anyone know what’s going on in Heysen? As several commentators above have pointed out, it’s gone from a definite Liberal to a definite SAB (52.3% TCP) in the space of a few hours.
Observer you have zero understanding of tax law. Perhaps you should ask a tax accountant before writing so much rubbish
If you look for the 10 component of good tax policy. Shorten got it wrong on 9 of them.
If the franking refund is so bad. Why do unions still receives them under shortens policy.
If franking is so bad. Why is someone on $100k income still receiving their whole franking rebate back while someone with $20k income won’t.
This policy is an unmitigated disaster written by incompetent policy maker
Mrodowicz – no change to Heysen on the ABC seat figures – where are your figures from?
observer et al
i am not discussing merits of the dividend policy only to hasty ill timing announcement before two election
and yes i have heard from enough folk to know that it would have been a factor in election – as i said many feel it is part of general reform of tax and super, and someone thought Bowen had said as much.
perhaps 1 or 2 percent difference in SA. do seat calculations from there
this site is bit of shorten /Labor cheersquad – if people can’t even consider the issue that he got timing wrong, and it might have factored in election, without personal insult and long digressions on tax policy, then what purpose does it serve?
ABC had Heysen back in the SAB column for a bit, now back to in doubt
Heysen seems to have been a computer glitch. It flowed through to the ABC briefly then was reversed. Possibly a transposed data entry.
As of Sunday evening the ABC website has dropped the confirmed Li eral seats back to 23 – 1 short of an absolute majority. Undecided seats have risen to 3 – there were 2 this morning. I wonder what has changed? There haven’t been any votes counted today have there?
BTW – According to Anthony Green there was only 1 undecided last night, but I realise he uses a slightly different methodology.
Are the Libs home? I expect so, however why the change. Is it just an overly “conservative” model?
Dewans,
The electoral commission made an error and accidentally transposed the 2PP for Strathalbyn in the seat of Heysen. This mistakenly changed Heysen from ‘Lib win’ to ‘SAB win’, hence the reduction to 23 seats.
You can clearly see the mistake. The Libs won nearly 50% of primary vote at Strathalbyn, but their 2PP is given as 34% vs 66% for SAB. Clearly, the 2PP vote should be the other way around.
Once it’s corrected, it will show Heysen being won by the Liberals again, and will got back to 24 seats.
I’ve just been looking through all the new MPs, and I must say that (apart from the inexcusable lack of women) the new Liberals don’t look THAT bad. Quite a lot of them seem to have had genuinely impressive careers, and I have noticed that a few of them do have noticeably moderate characteristics (Matt Cowdrey interned for the RINO-est RINO in Congress, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen; Josh Teague is the son of Baden Teague, a famously progressive former Liberal senator; and Andy Gilfillan, if he wins Mawson, is the son of former Democrat MLC Ian Gilfillan). Hope for a comparatively moderate Liberal government? My understanding of the internecine factionalism of the SA Libs is limited, so others with more knowledge may be able to disabuse me of this notion.
For what it’s worth, Labor’s new MPs seem to come heavily from the party staff, as is often the case with old governments. Of their five definite newcomers, three are direct from Jay Weatherill’s office, including his chief of staff AND deputy chief of staff.
…. and now back to 24 seats and a bare majority for the Libs. ???
“Observer you have zero understanding of tax law. Perhaps you should ask a tax accountant before writing so much rubbish
If you look for the 10 component of good tax policy. Shorten got it wrong on 9 of them.
If the franking refund is so bad. Why do unions still receives them under shortens policy.
If franking is so bad. Why is someone on $100k income still receiving their whole franking rebate back while someone with $20k income won’t.
This policy is an unmitigated disaster written by incompetent policy maker”
As a tax guy who thoroughly supports the removal of the ridiculous cashout and who would also lean strongly towards removing dividend imputation entirely, as an investment incentive that is no longer needed.
Perhaps you should expand on some of your claims about it failing 9/10 tests. Or are you just making it up?
Max, could you perhaps elaborate on the ‘Marshal-proof’ 75% RE target?
“this site is bit of shorten /Labor cheersquad – if people can’t even consider the issue that he got timing wrong, and it might have factored in election, without personal insult and long digressions on tax policy, then what purpose does it serve?”
Well the timing might have been all ballzed up, it is possible, but it is more likely that it was timed for Batman to be the more progressive of the parties running into the battle yesterday. Also having SA go liberal isn’t a bad thing for Shorten. If you guys want to be driven back to coal mining and power generation and have your very high prices locked in (I think it was the liberals building of an interconnector too soon that was a threat to the development of more competitors in SA) then that helps Shorten rather than hurts him. Also assuming Shorten is going to win the more liberal states to kick the better. And then there is the possibility that having a liberal state government drives a higher SA labor vote at the Federal election.
There is also the possibility that the timing had nothing at all to do with either SA or Batman and that both were expendable in the greater scheme of winning Federal Government, and was in fact timed as part of the timetable, in the late preparation of the budget, likely to be an election budget.
With all the ‘expert’ and ‘media’ going for their tried and untrue ‘kill bill’ scenarios it isn’t very imaginative of you to suggest somehow it never occurred to us that it was a misstep, of course it could be a misstep.
“Max, could you perhaps elaborate on the ‘Marshal-proof’ 75% RE target?”
I’m not Max but with existing and already pencilled in developments it is an almost certainty. Even if Marshall stops any new renewable project it will hit the high 60s / low 70’s in this term of Government. The 75% was one of those, this will almost certainly happen anyway but most people don’t know that, promises. Like when I ran for Council promising to push for a sports stadium that was already effectively locked into the budget and in late planning stages, a no brainer.
WWP thank you. I would also hope Marshall is not so bad as to stop any new project. Would he even have that much power?
When you look at Mawson and Adelaide in particular, this was a very tight election indeed. Any federal announcement that might have tipped even a handful of votes away from Labor should have been avoided. Basic common sense, you would think.
Going back to the Greens (I know, I know) for a second, I want to use them to point out a genuine flaw in SA’s electoral system. A lot of people have been saying the Greens did poorly – and that’s as may be. But the fact is they could have done twice as well in votes in both houses (i.e. roughly 12% in both), and they would most likely have ended up with exactly the same number of seats. (Maybe they might have been in the hunt for a second LC seat. Maybe.) Look at SA Best, who have done more than three times as well as the Greens for only one extra seat. SA is really too small for single-member seats (like NT) and should look at a Tasmania-style Hare-Clark situation. Failing that, though, the Legislative Council should be elected all at once. Get rid of these ridiculous 8-year terms and that will go some way to fixing the problem.
I am going to wait until some declaration votes are counted and a more final picture re: the close races is clearer before analysing. There was a comment earlier about media commentators being in a bubble vs. the voter – I agree with that sentiment. I’d further say this place is inside that bubble too. Not just because of any ideological/partisan bias but fanciful overanalyses of factors that did not play as largely as some believe.
And I also want to address that comment made by dovif on the previous thread about being a Green because I advocated a PR-based system. Firstly, when I advocated the Hare-Clark-type system, I specifically said not a single list like the upper house, so your point about it being just like the upper house was completely pointless. Secondly, I am not a Green (not that it matters) – I am one of those people who believes you don’t design a system just to get a specific result, you design what best does the job over all and make the actors inside the system adapt (rather than make the system adapt to the actors) and it’s a much more reasonable reaction to popular-vote/seat disparity than gerrymandering the hell out of single member districts until you get the desired results – regardless of the quality of the MPs representing those districts.
Also, a PR system like the ones I tentatively proposed allows the MPs to still represent specific regions’ interest and gives voters in those regions “local MPs” and has the benefit of ensuring that voters in deeply Liberal or deeply Labor areas who are supporters of the other party do get representation. And yes, if a third party gets a quota, they should get a seat as well, as that is the will of the voter.
Final point, while we’ve already established your premise was a strawman, I do also observe that, even if I was advocating a single list like the upper house, the Greens would not hold the balance of power like you asserted, as they don’t in the current nor the next upper house. No points for you.
@Ven:
OK, that’s funny. Good start lol 😛
Really? One’s probably going to next Federal election; both Coalition & ALP primary vote seems to be stuck in the mid-to-high 30s. At that stage, it depends upon preferences from third, fourth and fifth parties.
Normally, such a Party isn’t a) running against a four-term incumbent Government; b) Running on boundaries set to favour them (as happened in SA, when the boundaries were redrawn after their 2014 shock loss), or c) Running
He would, wouldn’t he? Truffles is desperately in need of some more political capital, so he’s grabbing for all he can get. But note that he wasn’t anywhere near SA when he made the claim – he visited onceduring the election campaign to my knowledge.
Well, duh. Like 90% of Turnbull’s “policies”, it’s all grand-sounding words and motherhood statements with little to no substance behind them.
When was the last time a four-term Government – State, Territory or Federal – won a swing towards them of any level? It was Menzies in 1958, AFAIK, and he was greatly helped by Evatt’s increasingly erratic and inept leadership, as well as the as well as the ALP-DLP split which had torn Labor apart.
The “It’s Time!” factor is well-proven to exist; the longer a Government runs, the easier it becomes for the Opposition to win simply because popular sentiment tends to frown on long-running Governments of all political stripes. In the modern era, a Government lasting more than three terms is considered a sign of at least one of the following:
– Political genius on the part of the Premier/PM;
– A dysfunctional, stupid or otherwise unelectable Opposition; and/or
– Large-scale events or trends outside of the Government’s power working for it.
John Howard’s win in 2004 is a good example of all three being present: Howard was (in his time) an acknowledged genius at retail politics, Latham was…well, he was Latham, and the ongoing War on Terror was still a significant plus for the Government in public opinion, rather than a minus.
(The only other post-Cold War example would be the Beattie/Bligh five-term ALP Government, which was ably assisted by an uncharismatic Coalition leader, a strong national and local economy and Beattie’s immense personal aptitude for political strategy & campaigning.)
Despite my previous stated opinion on single member electorates, that argument is very flawed. It has nothing to do with population size. If that were the case, the system would have been a bigger mess in the past when the population was even smaller.
There’s just a healthy interest in third parties nowadays (across all of Australia, really) – which is fueled, in part, by disillusion in both major parties, and preferential voting enabling one to safely vote for third parties without spoiling a result (as well as a PR upper houses) and an entrenched two party system is counter-productive to that.
All parliaments should elect their members in some form of proportional representation. And stop the hysteria about coalitions and minority governments as well.
Also, I’m really over centrist Labor hacks here making everything about The Greens. Keep that boring shit in the toxic federal thread or your Eastern state threads. We have bigger fish to fry over here than that boring shit.
Also, Rex can go to hell. I don’t care about his opinion on Bill Shorten but the childish shit he said about South Australians was uncalled for and just helps any cause he’s opposed to. Mind you, he’s a troll, so what do I expect?
Rational Leftist
For a psephology site it’s amazing how many people here, eg Rex, have so much contempt for democracy/the majority of the population.
So Dovif, if my only taxable income is from a Negatively Geared investment and courtesy of that loss and a negitive taxable income, the ATO should send me a cash distribution covering the tax I did not pay because I made a loss?
And the likes of Qantas should have received a cash refund instead of carrying their losses thru future years negating any tax assessment?
Do you agree with what the likes of Qantas do?
And Private Companies with associated Companies as the inventory provider and the provider of Inter Company Loans being liquidated writing off the Trade Debtor as bad debt and the Inter Company Loan Account as bad debt, those losses giving a tax holiday for the foreseeable until the loss is expunged?
Because this is what happens
Then we have the Unsecured Creditors
Guess who wins, with a Phoenix Company arising from the ashes?