Live publication of results, updated by the minute with full booth results, swings and probability estimates, can be found here. Commentary of the progress of the count follows below.
12.50pm. John Pesutto now leads by 53 votes in Hawthorn, and I’m also now projected the Liberals to hold Caulfield. So without wishing to take anything away from the scale of Labor’s win, a big part of the election night story is that Liberal voters voted early. I’ve now got Sandringham back down as a confirmed Labor gain, but with no pre-polls or postals there yet, I certainly wouldn’t take that for granted. I will be off line for the next half an hour, and my results won’t be updating in that time.
12.18pm. Things continue to look less bad for the Liberals. My model now has the Liberals with their nose in front in Mount Waverley and Nepean, and is no longer giving away Sandringham, Bayswater and Hawthorn — though it’s still calling it for Labor in Ringwood, Caulfield and Box Hill. Over the past hour, the statewide Labor swing has come down from 3.7% to 3.2%.
11.35pm. The notion that some of the more freakish results would be overturned on late counting is looking good. The Liberals are now home in Brighton, after hardly any swing was recorded on pre-poll and postal votes. My seat projection has come down over the last few hours from 59 to 56 (which really means 60 to 57, because a bug is awarding Preston to the Liberals — though equally, it may be wrong about the Greens winning Prahran).
9.30pm. The Greens, as ever, are living on a knife edge — they could win four, they could win nothing. The ABC projects them with leads of 2.2% in Melbourne and 1.0% lead in Brunswick, while they’re 1.0% behind in Northcote. The only thing the Prahran two-party count tells us is that they will definitely beat the Liberals if that’s what it comes down to, but with nothing to separate Labor, Liberal and the Greens, they may drop out in third, or lose to Labor if it’s the Liberals who do so. The one thing that is clear is that they have not won Richmond, despite the Liberals’ decision to give them a leg-up by not fielding a candidate.
9.07pm. Plenty to feast on in the ABC’s seats in doubt list, on which twelve seats are listed. Labor has only the gentlest of leads in Brighton, which one suspects will not stick; they are slightly further ahead in Sandringham, which remains very much in doubt; a Labor win in either would be astonishing. Both were vacated by sitting members, and male candidates (a conservative young turk in the case of Brighton) were chosen for both of them.
9.02pm. There are nine seats listed on the ABC’s “changing hands” list – Bayswater, with a 2.0% Labor lead and 42.8% counted, may not be nailed down yet, but the others look fairly solid. The only ones that were widely thought a shot for Labor in advance were Bass, South Barwon and maybe Burwood. The others are remarkable for being affluent and historically blue-ribbon Liberal seats: Box Hill, Caulfield, Mount Waverley and Ringwood. Then there is Nepean, which is a semi-rural seat neighbouring Bass, where the Liberals had a retiring sitting member and may, as in Bass, have been hampered by the retirement of the sitting member, not to mention the party’s uninspired choice for his successor.
8.24pm. Rather extraordinarily, the ABC computer has Labor ahead in Brighton and Sandringham. Either the backlash against the Liberals by well-heeled voters has taken on hitherto unanticipated dimensions, or the high pre-poll vote is turning up static.
8.08pm. Labor has retained Richmond, where the Greens showed characteristic persistence with a dud candidate, but the ABC has the Greens retaining Melbourne and Northcote. Brunswick has been going back and forth — currently it’s down as Labor retain. Prahran is a three-way contest that will be determined by the candidate who drops out in third.
7.53pm. Burwood took a long time to report a result, but not it has, it’s looking like another possible gain for Labor … and indeed has been called for Labor by the ABC as I type.
7.49pm. Ringwood and Mount Waverley looking very solid for Labor now, and Labor looks to have gained South Barwon. The ABC calling Box Hill and Nepean for Labor, but I wouldn’t give those away yet. Less unexpectedly, Labor to gain Bass. Looking close in Ripon, which was thought a lot more likely to go to Labor than the aforementioned.
7.48pm. The ABC computer is now calling Mildura an independent gain, but it shouldn’t be because it’s far too close.
7.38pm. Independent Suzanna Sheed comfortably returned in Shepparton. The ALP is calling Mildura a Nationals retain, but it looks close to me, with independent Ali Cupper a show. The ABC computer apparently doesn’t expect Darryn Lyons to get very strong preferences in Geelong, but I’ll be keeping an eye on it. Ditto Benambra, where Jacqui Hawkins looks competitive against Liberal Bill Tilley. Independent Tammy Atkins is running second behind beleaguered Nationals member Tim McCurdy in Ovens Valley, but his primary vote of 43% looks high enough.
7.36pm. The ABC computer has wound Forest Hill back from Labor gain to Labor ahead, but the Labor leads in Mount Waverley and Ringwood look rather formidable.
7.34pm. Prahran now looking a near three-way tie on the primary vote, as it was in 2014. The Greens are struggling to hold Northcote; still early days in Melbourne and Brunswick; nothing yet in Richmond.
7.32pm. The ABC computer is calling Benambra Liberal retain, but this assumes a Liberal-versus-Labor contest, and independent Jacqui Hawkins is well ahead of Labor in second place. With a primary vote barely north of 40%, Liberal member Bill Tilley is another in trouble.
7.31pm. Small swing to the Greens from the first booth in Melbourne.
7.30pm. Antony Green picking three unheralded Labor gains in the eastern suburbs: Forest Hill, Mount Waverley and Ringwood.
7.27pm. The ABC guesstimate says Labor shouldn’t be troubled by Darryn Lyons in Geelong, but the primary vote numbers look pretty soft for them to me, being just north of 40% and with Lyons clearly placed to finish second.
7.24pm. I’ve been tending to focus on boutique regional contests, but the big story is of overwhelming success for Labor in eastern Melbourne. They’re bolting it in the sandbelt seats, and putting the Liberals under pressure in normally solid seats. Though I reiterate the note of caution that there may be a lot of Liberal vote outstanding in the pre-polls, which will come through later in the night. Even so, it’s clearly a question of how far Labor.
7.18pm. Labor’s good early figures in Ringwood, which I found hard to credit, appear to be sticking.
7.16pm. One bit of good news for the Liberals is there’s an early swing to them in the endangered country seat of Ripon.
7.15pm. The Liberals look like they will run third in Prahran, rendering the notional Liberal-versus-Greens preference count academic. So the result will come down to the flow of Liberal preferences between Labor and the Greens.
7.13pm. The second booth in Brunswick is better for Labor than the first – there is now a 1.0% swing in their favour. Nothing else in from the other potential Greens seats.
7.10pm. The ABC is covering Geelong, where it actually seems to me that independent Darryn Lyons is doing a lot better than he deserves — he’s matching it with the Liberals on the primary vote, and Labor is only on 36.2%. However, the primary vote swing to Labor is 3.5%, which would keep them safe if consistent.
7.07pm. An interestingly huge swing to Labor in the first booth in from Albert Park, whose Wentworth-ish demographic might not be too thrilled with the Liberals right now. The Liberals came close to knocking it over in 2010 and 2014, but not this time by the look of it.
7.06pm. First booth in from Brunswick is a 3.7% swing to the Greens, which exceeds the 2.3% Labor margin.
7.04pm. Independent Jacqui Hawkins polling strongly in Benambra with 25.1%, and Bill Tilley’s 43.1% is low enough to make it touch-and-go for him after preferences.
7.03pm. Early days, but Nationals member Peter Crisp is under pressure from independent Ali Cupper in Mildura.
7.00pm. The first electorate with over 10% counted is Gippsland South, with a 3.7% swing to Labor. It should be cautioned here that the dynamic in play may be that the upsurge in pre-poll voting has disproportionately involved conservative voters. If so, some of these swings will come back later in the evening.
6.58pm. The ABC election results page (they need to make this stuff easier to locate) paints an impressive picture of across-the-board swings to Labor in all those electorates where two-party votes are in.
6.56pm. Russell Northe, the Liberals and the Nationals are almost exactly level in Morwell, all on around 17%, with Labor on 28.3%. Only a few small rural booths, 1.5% counted.
6.53pm. James Purcell, the upper house micro-party member trying to win South-West Coast as an independent, trails Labor 21.2% to 17.2% with 4.3% counted. The Liberal is on 42.0%, so he might be competitive if he closes that gap.
6.50pm. The ABC’s booth-matching is picking up a 6% to 7% drop in the Coalition primary vote, although there is only 0.6% counted.
6.35pm. A few peculiarities with the VEC’s approach actually, such as media feed updates only coming through every five minutes. However, they have picked the notional two-party counts I would have expected, having been guided entirely by what happened last time. So Nationals versus independent counts in Shepparton and Mildura, Nationals versus Labor in Morwell and Liberal versus Greens in Prahran.
6.25pm. An unforeseen peculiarity in the way the AEC does its media feeds means I won’t be able to get my results reporting facility to work until every electorate has a two-party preferred result in, which should take a while.
5.30pm. Half an hour before polls close, a YouGov Galaxy exit poll gives Labor a lead of 55-45. While exit polls don’t have a brilliant record in this country, this does add to a formidable picture of a strong result for Labor. For my part, I’m currently sweating over how my live results reporting and projection facility is going to operate in a real world environment, so stay tuned for that. It should be up in one form or another at about 6:15pm, with the first results to come through shortly after.
Has to be said that the Greens result is actually surprisingly good considering how bad the campaign was. With a better campaign without the negatives they probably would have had an exceptional result. As it is, they are in with a good chance of handing Labor it’s only loss of the night in Brunswick. Considering the thumping Labor victories across the state, that would be a massive win for the Greens in the circumstances.
More broadly, if Labor think this result will translate federally in relation to the Greens, they should think again. The Andrews gov is the most progressive Labor government in the country, with the one exception of the Green/Labor ACT gov. Federal Labor is far more to the right, is dominated by the right faction, and is lead by a right winger in Shorten. Federal Labor is a far cry from the Victorian version of the party. As progressive as Vic Labor is and as terrible as their campaign was, the Greens still look to have managed over 10% statewide, have received swings in some key seats, and could possibly win one off Labor.
Make no mistake, the Vic Greens need to up their game, but there are some promising signs if they do so.
A batch of new pre-poll results just got added to Caulfield where the first 10,000 or so had no swing whatsoever. Also the weird 2PP is fixed now because the old one didn’t have a 2PP counted for the pre-polls yet, so the ALP only lead 51-49 on 2PP now, which would likely project to a LIB Retain because no postals have been counted.
The good news though is that the second batch of pre-polls, albeit much smaller than the first batch which had no swing, had a -13% Liberal swing on their primary vote.
I certainly wouldn’t rule out the ALP because there are still more pre-polls to trickle in which could have a similar swing to the second batch, and then there are also absentee votes as well, so the combination of them could very easily counter the postal results.
Caulfield now at 50.4 % to Labor with postals still to come.
I wouldn’t rule out the ALP in Hawthorn yet either, again because of absentee votes.
The Liberals currently only lead by 53 votes but if there are just as many (or more) absentee votes to count as there are postals remaining, and their results are similar to the ordinary vote trend, that could be enough to put the ALP back in front.
Firefox
Federal Labor is far more to the right, is dominated by the right faction, and is lead by a right winger in Shorten. Federal Labor is a far cry from the Victorian version of the party.
This is just wrong. In substance, coast to coast, Labor is one brand, one set of values, one open offer to voters.
https://www.pollbludger.net/2018/11/24/victorian-election-live-4/comment-page-14/#comment-3010625
The outgoing MP did not stand for re-election (quite possibly because he was in Parliament before the pension reforms and thus will get a generous parliamentary pension and thus, unlike post reform MPs, doesn`t get a redundancy payment if he looses), which is often a cause of vote splitting in cases of where MPs and their parties part company during a term (See Craig Thomson in 2013).
Sandringham now 50.5% to Labor with postals to come.
michael – In 2014 there were almost 3300 absentee votes in Caulfield which went 57-43 in Labor’s favour. Add a further swing to that result and the absentee votes (plus more pre-polls to trickle in) could possibly compete with the postal results.
https://www.pollbludger.net/2018/11/24/victorian-election-live-4/comment-page-14/#comment-3010635
The Greens are certainly odds on to hold their seat in Southern Metro.
I think the absentee votes for Caulfield, Mount Waverley, Hawthorn & Sandringham could very well have the same huge swings the ordinary votes did, and they usually number in the thousands so I still wouldn’t rule any of these seats out for Labor despite the pre & postal results evening the results up back up at the moment. Postal votes for some of these seats are half counted already so the absent votes could weigh heavier on the final result.
UPDATE: Caulfield just had almost 4000 postal votes counted. With likely only 1000 or so postal votes still to come, but possibly 4000 absent votes which should favour the ALP, it could still be close…. But I can see the lead is now out to 1700 votes which may be too much to overcome.
Caulfield just flipped to the Libs. But agree Trent, absentee votes are still to come and the later votes always more favour Labor because left-wingers vote late.
I am a regular reader of this website and have enjoyed following the election count this evening. I live in the seat of Melton, and although it hasn’t gained much attention in the results, would I be correct in saying that it’s no certainty for Labor at this point? Labor’s primary vote is down to 34%, the Liberal primary vote is down to 18% and independent candidate Ian Birchall, currently in third place, will pick up plenty of preferences from others who are excluded before him. All the computer models are assuming a Labor v Liberal finish, the Labor candidate has claimed victory on Facebook and the local paper says “Melton remains a safe Labor seat”. Assuming one of the independent candidates manages to finish in the top two, could this still cause a surprise?
Antony like rangers!
Looks like carnage from here.
On Murdoch one of my best friends has a great friend who was Lachlan’s PA at 10. Said he was very nice until you asked personal questions eg about his wife then he shut down. Take that for what you will but my take is he will move Fox to the left a bit. Isn’t a fan of neo-con.
Actions speak louder than words though. Wait til Rupert retires.
https://www.pollbludger.net/2018/11/24/victorian-election-live-4/comment-page-15/#comment-3010647
I agree, the Greens vote has held up well considering their campaign troubles and leaves them in a good position for next time, when hopefully they will have a decent campaign.
Guy ran his whole campaign from the Herald Sun office and Sky News commentators.
Tells you everything you need to know about the Murdoch’s ability to influence this election.
@Briefly
***
This is just wrong. In substance, coast to coast, Labor is one brand, one set of values, one open offer to voters.
***
It’s not wrong at all. Labor, like all parties, is made up of factions. Shorten is from the Labor Right faction, Andrews is from the Left. The Labor Right faction has a stranglehold on the federal party and largely determines it’s direction. Just look at how the rank and file voted for Albo (Labor Left) as leader but the parliamentary vote gave it to the Labor Right candidate, Shorten. The Labor Left have next to no influence or power in the federal party, which makes it vastly different to Vic Labor. Federal Labor is a centre-right party that occasionally adopts a left wing policy, usually taken from the Greens. Vic Labor is centre-left. Likewise they too adopt many Greens policies.
Caulfield safe for Libs now. Have 1700 lead
Guy concedes. Bad news for Bolt et al hoping for a hidden surge because of racism, bed wettting and attendand laundry cost.
No run on trips to dry cleaners from incontinence needed ecxept in Bolt, Jones and Dutton household. Wait til they find out most Uber drivers are not white. Might be straight jacket time.
sandringham just flipped. Libs lead by nearly 600 votes now.
Victoria Electoral Commission has Labor leading on 2PP in following doubtful seats Ripon 50.1, Brunswick 50.11, Nepean 50.95, Mount Waverley 51.31, Morwell 51.89 and Box Hill 52.01. Depending on absentee votes Labor should be favourites to win at least 4 of these seats.
This comment by John Pesutto had the comrades in stitches at our Party.
“We did a lot of things right but obviously something has gone horribly wrong,” Pessuto said. “So we’re going to clearly have to do a root and branch review. We shouldn’t be in this position.”
A lot of spin coming from the Greens at the moment.
“But the Greens were headed towards a disappointing result, with Brunswick on a knife-edge despite the party running a comprehensive campaign there and predictions they would gain they seat. The party was also projected to lose Northcote and in difficulty in their seat of Prahran. Albert Park and Richmond, also seats where the Greens had hoped to make gains, were seeing swings towards Labor. The party’s hopes of forming minority government were dashed”.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/nov/24/labor-secures-stunning-victory-in-victorian-election-as-voters-reject-fear
https://www.pollbludger.net/2018/11/24/victorian-election-live-4/comment-page-15/#comment-3010651
Australia`s states and territories have different political cultures, different political issues, different electoral systems and different politicians.
If the ALP were exactly the same coast to coast, it would get smashed at state and territory elections. It is relatively successful in state elections because has differences in policies and people between states.
Richmond – the only seat the Coalition didn’t run in. I think they were worried that a very poor showing (much less than their 20% in 2014) would demonstrate the unpopularity of their safe injecting room policy even in the actual area.
But I was quite happy they weren’t running, and would be quite happy to see them abandon all these inner city seats and leave them as ‘drag races’ between Labor and the Greens. I believe it would create a certain clarity in otherwise “Liberal” voters’ minds. It is one thing to vote 1 Liberal and then preference Labor or the Greens, it is another at gut level to vote one of Labor or Greens ahead of the other with no vote for the party you actually want to support.
It would seem at first glance in Richmond that maybe more ‘Liberal’ voters voted for Labor than had previously preferenced Labor.
@ Hard Yards
Absentees should help the ALP in all of them except Brunswick, although I would note that the VEC probably has the final two wrong in Morwell, so who knows what the actual count is there.
We did a lot of things right but obviously something has gone horribly wrong,”
Really???!!! This wasn’t the plan? No sh1t Sherlock.
@Greensborough Growler
No spin from me (a member of the NSW Greens). The Vic Greens had a truly shocking campaign. It was a nightmare. Considering that, and considering that Victorians have given Andrews a big endorsement, the Greens result was actually pretty good. Their vote pretty much held up. After the campaign I was preparing myself for a complete collapse of their support but that just hasn’t happened. They continue to be extremely strong in inner city Melbourne and remain highly competitive in seats they are targeting.
Besides, any election where the Liberals get smashed is a good election lol.
Firefox @ #727 Sunday, November 25th, 2018 – 1:31 am
Smashing the Greens are the steak knives for me!
That ratio of cubes rule for current TPP of 56.3 v 43.7 gives 60 seats v 28
William’s current estimate is close at 58-30 (broad L/R with indies on R). Antony’s is same.
William – love the ‘speedo’ dials (though never saw them in action as was too busy at gathering watching tv, chatting, not following much online on phone except a few specific seats from ABC)
– and also the board at the bottom – excellent visual summary, especially now on desktop.
– “You’re not going to let him see the Big Board?”
Just on the issue of the Liberal vote in Labor v Greens contests, it’s become clear that when the Liberals sit out a contest or run dead most of their vote goes straight across to Labor. The idea that the Liberals not contesting seats somehow helps the Greens is a myth and just isn’t reflective of reality. We’ve seen it in the Batman by-election, the Super Saturday by-elections in WA, and now in the Vic election. When there is no Liberal candidate, Liberal voters either vote for a far right micro or go straight across to Labor.
@Greensborough Growler
Better put those steak knives back in the draw then because the only party that received a smashing tonight was the Liberals. And it was a pretty big smashing at that.
Sunday Herald-Sun front page
Legislative Council result to date on the abc looks weird.
19 Lab, (only) 1 Green, 9 Lib, 1 Nat, 10 Others!
Below the line counting may fix some of this tho’.
Looking at the VLC results (thus far), it seems clear that Hinch’s mob was the micro-Party which paid Glenn “Preference Whisperer” Druery the best; they’re going from 0 to 4 Legislative Council seats at this point in counting, with the following results to credit for it:
North Metro: 1.66%
Northern Victoria: 4.33%
Western Metro: 6.77%
Western Victoria: 3.81%
At least they’re not a complete joke like the “Transport Matters Party” – 2 Leg Council seats, off 0.61% (Eastern Metro) & 1.15% (SE Metro) of the vote. Sigh.
…Can we perhaps put in a mandatory minimum percentage of the vote required to get a Legislative Council seat? Say, 2% of the vote? As it is, this is a farce – as little as some people here like the Greens, I’m sure we can all agree they got dudded in the LegCo preference whispering…as per usual. When the Gs are missing out in regions with 13% of the vote because “Sustainable Australia”(!) pips them from a start of 1.35% of the vote…this stinks. And it’s happening in election, after election, after election, that Druery gets a say in (by now reduced to WA & Victoria LegCo elections).
Goddammit, Druery – what’d the Gs do to you, step on your dog or something?
As for the upper house, Greens often have to wait days or even weeks to find out the results there. It’s the same in almost every election. The micro party preference whispering is a complete joke though. Thank god we implemented those Senate reforms federally to cut back on all those preference flows from a thousand micro parties electing some obscure candidate with a tiny primary vote.
@Greensborough Growler
Whether you like them personally or not, the Greens perform an important function in Australian politics – reminding the ALP that it ignores the progressive left vote at its peril. This is precisely as it should be in a healthy democracy. If the Greens did nothing but act as a counterweight on the left for the opposition forces coaxing Labor’s policies further to the right, they would still be an important addition to the political landscape.
How big was the shadow cabinet before the election? Could be a very small back bench…
Along with the 8-15% of BTL voting these totals don’t seem to include preproll, so you can expect them to swing back a bit toward the LNP as has happened in the lower house. I’d expect the micros to lose one to the coalition in Northern Vic and Western Vic and the third ALP to end up with the Libs in northern metro.
@Centrist: Precisely, but I see them all too often playing right into the Libs’ hands – thus being counterproductive.
Whatever I think of them, their leadership or their campaigning however – their vote held up well this time ’round, which means there’s a certain amount of it rusted on now.
Just came back home from a night out in town, Labor is going to regret preferencing these populist nuts over the Greens.
William – I think there’s an error with the Elsternwick North 2PP results on your Caulfield page.
Primary votes have ALP 42.6% & Green 17.5% with Liberal only 33.4% (which looks correct and in line with the average swing), but the 2PP has Liberal 63.4% to Labor 36.4% which is less than their PV.
I think it might just have them the wrong way around – which also could be impacting the overall calculation & projection.
EDIT: It also looks like the swings are wrong in the seat summary at the top of the page because it’s indicating a +2.1% Liberal swing (resulting in the 57% 2PP projection).
I think it’s supposed to be about a -3.9% Liberal swing overall, which would project a 51-49 2PP.
@Matt
The Greens certainly do not help the Liberals. Just look at the federal Senate where they vote against the Coalition far more often than anyone else. Labor vote with the Coalition over three times as often as the Greens do in the Senate.
You are certainly right about the Greens having a core of rusted on support though. I’m happy and proud to admit that I am definitely a rusted on Green. A poor campaign and a couple of inappropriate candidates isn’t going to change that as the Greens still most closely represent my views and advocate for the issues I care about very strongly. I imagine that many Greens supporters feel the same way, although I cannot speak for them obviously.
@Firefox: It’s actually about twice as often, not three times – 30% to 15%, give or take.
However, it doesn’t matter how many bills you vote the same way on, but which ones. And I’m not going to forget anytime soon that it was the Greens who voted with Abbott to sink Rudd’s ETS, the Greens who voted with Abbott to sink Gillard’s attempt to defuse the asylum seekers as an issue (whilst also accepting several times the number into the country!), and the Greens who voted with PM Abbott to cut Australians’ access to the pension in their old age.
Most of the time, the Greens do the right thing IMO – they hold Labor’s feet to the fire, making sure that certain sections of the Party feel less pressure to cave to the (alt-)right wing the Liberals represent. And they raise issues that Labor wants to Do Stuff About, but cannot start if it wants to be taken seriously as a potential Government. But acknowledging their mistakes is a necessary step to becoming a better left-wing alternative to Labor.
Having said all of that: If these results hold up, the Greens will have my sincerest sympathies, with that ratbag Druery dudding them out of at least three LegCo seats.
Trent’s pickup looks legit to me, good catch. Anyone got a hotline to the VEC? That represents about a 600 vote swing to Labor, which tightens the contest a bit.
Regarding the Greens debate- my own view is that the national Greens brand has successfully rusted on about 10% of the vote, which saves the complete incompetents in the Victorian Greens from themselves. Whether it is the parliamentarians who manage to go through 4 years without making any impression at all on voters or the organisational side who somehow keep rolling out the same loser candidates in seats like RIchmond and Batman over and over again, the Vic Greens have the gift of the most progressive big state in Australia and proceed to make nothing of it.
Re: The Elsternwick North error in Caulfield, I don’t think the error is on your page, I think the VEC have just allocated the numbers in the wrong colunm because the ABC & VEC websites’ 2PP totals also match yours.
However, the ABC & VEC websites don’t break the 2PP numbers down by polling place, so the Elsternwick North error is actually hidden. Your feed has picked it up and highlighted that the ALP has less 2PP votes than PVs in that polling place, which is impossible.
2PP totals with Elsternwick North corrected should actually be 15647 Lib to 14546 Labor (51.8-48.2).
@calumniousfox: 25, according to the Victorian Parliament’s current list:
https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/about/people-in-parliament/members-search/list-all-current-shadow-ministers
So…yea, a kinda small “backbench”, of ~10 members. Between Assembly and Council, that is.
That difference could be important because Caulfield’s ordinary vote polling places swung -6.5% and if that is replicated across 4000+ absentee votes from today (and absent votes already broke to Labor in 2014 as it is), with the biggest batch of postal votes counted already, that 1.8% lead the Liberals have could be vulnerable.
It’s a significantly different scenario to the -2% swing being applied to the remaining votes on the ABC website, on an incorrect 2.9% margin.
@Matt
They aren’t the only ones making that kind of error. Labor preferencing right-wing micros over the Greens is similarly counterproductive, as strategically it’s in their best interests to fill non-ALP seats with left-wing and moderate candidates. I don’t know why parties do things like this, unless out of spite, which would be very stupid.
@ Centrist
The logic is to give them multiple pathways to pass legislation. While that may work this time (the ABC calculator makes it look like it will, but if a couple of seats change there will only be paths to the right) it’s “risky shit” and will blow up on more often than not.