Candidate nominations unveiled

More candidates in the House, fewer in the Senate, and some luck for the Liberals and One Nation on the ballot paper draw.

Yesterday was the day on which candidate nominations declared and ballot paper draws conducted. The electorate pages in the Poll Bludger election guide now feature full lists of candidates in ballot paper order, though the job is still half finished for the Senate guide. House of Representatives nominations are up, with the average number per electorate being almost exactly seven, compared with 6.6 in 2016. However, there are fewer Senate nominations, presumably because a half-Senate election offers small players less prospect for success than a double dissolution.

To my eye, the two points worth noting about the ballot paper draws is that the Liberals and One Nation have both enjoyed good fortune in the Senate (I don’t think the fabled “donkey vote” in the House of Representatives worth dwelling on, as it really doesn’t amount to very much). The Liberals (taken to include the Liberal National Party in Queensland) has drawn a more leftward column than the Liberal Democrats in all six states, reducing their chances of voters confusing the two. One Nation have drawn second column in Queensland and the first column in Western Australia, although the advantage in the former case is diminished by the fact that the United Australia Party, who would seem to me to be fighting over the same turf, are right next to them in the third column.

Over the fold are presentations of House of Representatives candidate numbers for each party; the number of groups and candidates in the Senate; and how they have changed from 2016.

House of Representatives nominations

Senate nominations

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

750 comments on “Candidate nominations unveiled”

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  1. If the Liberals win this election as a country we are stuffed. Don’t cry for me Argentina comes to mind. A corrupt little country that should have done a lot better.

    We are definitely seeing Murdoch pulling out all stops; his papers have moved to unhinged; we will find out for sure if his time has come to pass. I think it has.

    I am still going for 53 all the way. I just hope the noise gives us a result better than 53 this time; otherwise the panic merchants will become seriously unhinged.

  2. ‘It will kick in from tomorrow. ‘

    Okay then.
    But that’s it. Labor fires up from tomorrow…..look foraward to that.
    Tomorrow.
    Tomorrow it is then.

  4. brett says:
    Thursday, April 25, 2019 at 4:23 pm

    …

    I’m pretty sure we just elect RWNJs and send them to Canberra in the hope that they’ll spend less time in Queensland.

    So you guys gave the current Government the idea of exporting problems onto others. 🙂

  7. Those on $250,000- are paying the tax they are due to the tax scales

    Simply, the more you earn the more you pay and that has been the case time in memorial

    But, until you tip those on high incomes upside down to see what falls out their circumstances are unknown

    Life style follows income including the house (and mortgage), the vehicles (and the leases), the private school fees etc etc etc

    The old story is that you spend what you earn

    Hence the bleating?

    And what happens when interest rates increase, which they will

  8. I wonder if the Auditor General has ever done an investigation into the Cambodian re-settlement deal?

    That would be interesting reading.


  9. brett says:
    Thursday, April 25, 2019 at 4:23 pm
    ….
    I’m pretty sure we just elect RWNJs and send them to Canberra in the hope that they’ll spend less time in Queensland.

    ROFL
    How come you get so many on offer?

  10. “First Dog has lost the plot on twitter, just another libling tool “…. He lost the plot in The Guardian too. Those Tasmanian carrots must be truly toxic.
    My theory is that his brain is tilting under the fear that the Greens will go backwards, and he has decided that Shorten is to blame…. so he goes hard against him…. Can somebody tell First Dog that if the Greens are going backwards he should blame Di Natale?

  12. I remember the election that tossed out Bjelke-Petersen. The night it happened I felt sick with relief. I hadn’t realized how tense I had been. It took time to accept. Joy was hoarded. Just in case. Silly, immature perhaps. I had grown up under that government and in equal measure both accepted and resented the world as it was. I’m embarrassed now that there was a vicious triumph in the air too.

    Right now feels a lot like the weeks leading up to that night. Quiet desperation. (I feel for First Dog.) To echo an earlier poster, we need polls.

  13. Barney in Da Lat says:
    Thursday, April 25, 2019 at 4:31 pm
    MM says:
    Thursday, April 25, 2019 at 4:04 pm

    Without disputing that those making $250k/yr are clearly in a comfortable position and far from being in need, the pile-on attack for a salaried high-earner questioning income tax policy is exactly why the other side accuses the left of the politics of envy.
    …
    It’s not the “politics of envy,” it’s actually about protecting our progressive system of taxation.

    This is what the Libs are seeking to destroy with the flattening of PAYE tax brackets.
    …

    So I take your point, but (1) it’s not clear that asking for tax relief is the same as advocacy for flat tax, (2) the Libs argument is about income broadly not just salary, and (3) flattening is a different argument than restructuring – the Libs plan is obviously an IPA-led starve the beast strategy – but that doesn’t mean changing PAYE taxes as part of broader tax reform is a bad idea.

    What’s progressive about someone paying more tax on $250k in salary than on $400k profit on their fourth investment home?

    Or for that matter someone paying a lower incremental rate in tax on each dollar over $5m in capital gains than they do on each dollar over $38k in salary?

    If anything, high taxes on salary serve as a moat to protect the wealth (and growing inequality) of those who’ve already got theirs.

  16. For those interested, ABC TV is broadcasting re-run of “Lest We Forget… What?”, a brilliant documentary by Kate Aubusson, who is now Health Editor of the SMH, but when she made it she was just a young journo with a family history of Gallipoli involvement. I have been a big fan of Ms Aubusson ever since.

    Really worth watching.

  17. I hope that the ALP makes a lot of noise about the Nats doing a preference deal with one nation in Tasmania – the home of Port Arthur…

  19. Late Riser

    To be honest I have volunteered to hand out how to vote on election day and to attend pre polls if they need me, but refused to door knock or phone bank. I care to much. Instead of arguing the case I think I would be tempted to ask them “what in the hell is wrong with you”. Would not be a good thing.

    I think the result was decided months ago and Murdoch will not move the needle.

  20. BK,

    It was sold a month ago, so when was it put on the market?

    Doesn’t feel like the actions of a man planning to spend much more time in Canberra. 🙂

  22. “Peter Dutton has sold his Canberra apartment, raising doubts about his plans to stay in parliament if the government loses next month’s election.”

    Yep, I have just seen it too in The Guardian…. I guess that Dutton is not just worried about his seat, but he wants to get ahead of the pack, before the excess of offer swamps the real estate market in Canberra and devalues his property…. It’s gonna be a massacre of Liberal politicians….!!…. 🙂

  24. He’ll always be able to buy an apartment cheap if he retains his seat.

    But actually, this is a pretty good indication he intends to scarpa, win or lose.

  26. Rex Douglas @ #385 Thursday, April 25th, 2019 – 2:45 pm

    Look, I think Labor will win easily all thanks to this self-destructive Govt, so Labor partisans needn’t fret.

    But Shortens unpopularity will come back to bite and not one Labor partisan should complain given his unpopularity in the wider electorate is long established and the fact he didn’t even win the rank and file share of leadership ballot.

    Shorten, whatever his faults, and everybody has some, has good self awareness and he will actively work to counter any negative attitudes.

  27. Jeez – made the mistake of watching SKY’s “jury” – a focus group of supposedly uncommitted voters.

    They were so ill-informed or uninformed it was gobsmacking! A reminder that not everyone is as interested as we are

  28. Unicameral State Parliaments

    Of course I support these under almost any circumstances. The State Upper Houses descended from the House of Lords and had some sort of property related qualification on the franchise; this was completely unacceptable and the most effective method to eliminate this injustice was to remove the Upper House. In Queensland this occurred at the earliest possible opportunity, created (only) as a result of the somewhat miraculous election to the Upper House of a majority opposed to the injustice it was intended to maintain. One must know when to strike whilst the iron is hot!

    Now all remaining State Upper Houses have been substantially (though not completely) reformed, meaning that the franchise is essentially the same as that of the lower house, but the election process is different. The former tends to generate replication of the lower house (which is pointless), whereas the latter tends (a fortiori) to elect members specialised for intransigence or even recalcitrance, which is usually undesirable and certainly biased towards conservatism, though usually of the true (i.e. Burkeian) variety, as opposed to the modern malignancy masquerading under that name .

    I don’t believe that retention of the Queensland Upper House would necessarily have restrained Joh. It might indeed have reinforced him due to the corrupted franchise. It is impossible to know for sure. In any event Joh was bad principally because he was bad, not as a result of the unicameral system.

    Now the Senate is a completely different situation because the franchise is both different to that of the Reps and (of equally importance) not corrupt. The absence of a corrupt franchise makes it impossible to argue for abolition on the grounds of corruption. the presence of a different franchise makes it difficult to argue for abolition on grounds of irrelevance. Moreover the development of the estimates process in 1970s has demonstrated significant and valuable utility, which is not necessarily translatable to the State Upper Houses (their legal powers would be questionable, for example).

    As a result I favour retaining the Senate (shorn of the power to block supply via a referendum) whilst eliminating the State Upper Houses. Labor has an historical commitment to eliminate the State legislatures; the Tories of course are opposed. History (and money*) are moving against the States anyway, and eventually this will be reflected in system changes. The best way to manage this process is incremental and removing State Upper Houses as a sort of half-way point between the Labor and Tory positions would make a lot of sense.

    * As Nicholas will explain, the fiat currency issuing capability of the Commonwealth Government places it in an completely different category to those of the States.

  30. People. Dutton is obviously selling up because he plans on moving into the Lodge. Scotty is just there as leader for the election and then it’s outski. 🙂

  33. An early candidate for the Darwin Award.

    A volunteer sea rescue group is pleading for penalties for people who endanger their lives after a video of a tourist apparently hanging from notorious West Australian cliff face was posted to social media on Easter Sunday.

    The video, which appears to show a young man dangling by one hand 40 meters above the ocean, was uploaded to Instagram the same day two volunteer lifesavers drowned while rescuing a tourist near the 12 Apostles in western Victoria.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-24/tourist-endangering-sea-rescue-in-social-media-video/11043418?WT.ac=localnews_greatsouthern

  34. briefly
    I also make the point; in my view you can no longer judge the mood with door knocking. Once upon a time when you started at one end of the street, yes you got a good feel. But now it is targeted all you get a feel for is the target and the accuracy of the targeting.

    From you sad ass description it sounds to me the target is committed Liberal voters. You don’t do that if you think the election is in balance.

  35. I am happy the LNP has done a Preference Deal with Palmer which was almost a Certainty

    It should increase the LNP 2PP by 1% so now they need 1-2% more to get to 50/50

    Scott Morrison will need a Good Campaign to get this or more Probably Shorten having a Shocker

    Also Scott Morrison is more Popular Leader of the LNP than Malcolm Turnbull was maybe not Inner Suburbs but Outer Suburbs and Rural

    The thinking that the Opposition Leader must be Popular to be Elected is wrong it has happened many times on both sides

  36. “I am happy the LNP has done a Preference Deal with Palmer which was almost a Certainty ”

    I’m half wondering if the LNP / Clive Palmer thing may turn out a bit like the Lib / PHON deal in W.A. state level.

  37. DWH
    Yes, your are right. The ALP will win the election. All the noise won’t matter. The fundamental landscape hasn’t changed for a year. The voters generally get it right. It’s time for a change.

  38. EGT – a lot of fancy words describing, in my opinion, a load of nonsense.

    While state governments remain, and while they retain significant power, the exercise of that power via legislation is something that needs to be carefully balanced.

    While of course I agree that the creation of the state upper houses had serious problems, and Queensland’s was clearly a serious problem that needed to be remedied, abolishing the upper houses of the states – again, while they retain as much power as they do – is dangerous.

    Your use of the term ‘franchise’ seems incorrect to me. Necessarily if all voters in a State vote for both members of their lower house and upper house then the franchise extends to all voters in the same way for both, and this is the same Federally. If you’re referring to the federal malapportionment of the Senate, fair enough, but that’s a curious argument as to why the Federal Senate is legit while the State equivalents are not.

    The mechanisms around allocating the powers of government are not just about facilitating change. In large part they are about balancing change with inertia. Making change more difficult, but not impossible, is part of the point. My discussion of Newman’s scrapping of land clearing legislation above is one clear example – Newman won a single election, and had basically arbitrary power to change legislation with nothing to constrain his actions. I find that unacceptable in any system. With a staggered election system for upper houses (a la the Federal Senate or NSW upper house) a particular party will have to win big at 2 consecutive elections to get free rein, and that is fair enough, but allowing a single big election win to hand over all the power – executive and legislative – to one group due to arbitrary political circumstances at the time of a vote of the people … no thank you.

  40. Damo

    ‘It should increase the LNP 2PP by 1% so now they need 1-2% more to get to 50/50..’

    More likely, Palmer will take 1% off the Libs primary and then return it. No gain.

  41. My thoughts on the polls….

    First of all, to the extent that there is any trend measure that is worth caring about it is probably BludgerTrack. That doesn’t mean it can’t be in error. Simply its the best we have to go on.

    What BludgerTrack says is that the current “true” state of polls is 52.5. On the present trend it will get to 52 or 51.9 by May 18. That’s a comfortable win for Labor.

    Secondly, the polls have been trending down over the last few months. We’ve seen the Turnbull shock mostly dissipate. What we are seeing now is something we always see – anger at the government being replaced with fear of change. The political circus over the past couple of weeks has nothing to do with this. Most aren’t paying enough attention.

    Can the Liberals make up over 2 percent in 3 weeks? Unlikely judging by past elections. The “last minute” effect rarely seems to account for more than a percent (imo – correct me if I’m wrong). Plus we’re going to see an unprecedented number of people vote early. Plus it really does appear as though this time we have more younger voters registered and despite what William says, I’m not sure this has been taken into account.

    Murdoch is in danger of being self-defeating. Yes, he’ll stir up some people. But this is not 2013. Back in 2013 the morons who read the Daily TellMeCrap and were spouting “I hate that ranga” noisily to their friends and colleagues are just not as empowered this time around and that’s what Murdoch is aiming at. Empowering the assholes in the community. They just aren’t as noisy this time around. This is going to be a much more sedate election. Its not going to be a huge landslide, but nor is it going to be close. There will be some surprises and I tip that the biggest swings will be against Liberals with comfortable margins (like Abbott).

    The Liberals are hoping for a black swan. Murdoch is going feral. But that’s actually going to motivate more sensible journalists. Some of whom are already pointing out some of the Liberal bullshit. This will be harder than it needs to be, but in the end, I’m not worried.

    As for the next poll, 52 would be in my opinion confirming what we already know. 51 won’t bother me. That’s noise. By the same token, 53 won’t mean much but added to BludgerTrack it will create a flattening. I hope we see a 54 because that would be more than just noise. That would mean voters have responded to recent events (notably watergate).

    Lets just wait and see. The fun part is about to begin..

  42. If the reporter can get it edited in time BK will be interviewed on the Adelaide ABC news bulletin this evening.
    It’s about a spate of copper wire thefts from sporting arena light towers,

  43. Speaking of Palmer. While its true that a lot of people voting for Palmer in the Reps won’t follow the how to votes, is this true of the Senate how to vote? Presumably that will give you six numbers and Palmer will be 1. How many Palmer voters will put a 1 down in the Palmer column and then reverse the Labor and Liberal numbers? Because a lot of these Palmer voters are still basically Labor voters.

    I wonder also how many will make their Senate vote informal by just going 1 to Palmer and then giving up.

  47. On the subject of small targets, Scott Morrison and his Government are at the centre of a dart board on the Moon. He’s got nothing except platitudes and slogans, sidling up to people in pubs and sporting events, looking Prime Ministerial and pretending to be a nice guy. The chaos in the Coalition parties forgotten, a Budget with more holes than a road sign on a country road in a One Nation stronghold, dodgy deals overlooked and forgotten (Helloworld anyone? Paladin? Reefgate?), a refusal to answer any questions and a profound policy vacuum – no worries.

    On the other hand, any Labor policy will be grossly misrepresented, any gaffe massively blown up, past missteps dug up and splashed across the front pages.

    The Government and Opposition are operating under very different media rules. So what do you do? Small target? Try to cut through? It’s a conundrum.

  48. Diogenes @ #410 Thursday, April 25th, 2019 – 3:20 pm

    EGT
    “He has a remarkable ability to remember people and get their name right.”
    I once read that is common trait of ultra highly effective political leaders. Otherwise it’s very rare.

    It certainly surprised me the last time our paths crossed and he greeted me by name. We had not encountered each other for many years and I am not a prominent ALP identity.

  49. BK
    Peter Dutton has sold his Canberra apartment, raising doubts about his plans to stay in parliament if the government loses next month’s election.

    He is probably moving into joe Hockey’s garage flat

  50. ‘I wonder also how many will make their Senate vote informal by just going 1 to Palmer and then giving up.’

    Doesn’t make your vote informal. Just means it stops there.

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