So far as the outcome on seats is concerned, two questions from the federal election remain to be answered: who wins Macquarie, which could potentially deliver the Coalition a 78th seat, or – more likely – a 68th for Labor; and who gets the last Senate seat in Queensland. No new numbers have been added to the count in Macquarie since Wednesday, apparently because they’ve been gathering everything together for one last heave. Labor leads by 282; I make it that there are about 950 votes outstanding; the Liberals will need nearly two-third of them to close the gap. Their more realistic hope, if any, is that an error shows up during the preference distribution, but that’s highly unlikely after all the checking that’s been done already.
Out of the other lower house seats, I’ll be particularly interested to see the results of the preference distribution in Joel Fitzgibbon’s seat of Hunter, where there is a chance the One Nation candidate might draw ahead of the Nationals candidate to make the final count. The Nationals have 23.5% of the primary vote to One Nation’s 21.6%, but by applying Senate preference flows from 2016 to allocate the minor parties, I get this narrowing to 27.1% to 26.3%. If nothing else, One Nation making it to second will provide us with hard data on how Coalition preferences divide between Labor and One Nation, a circumstance that has never arisen before at a federal election. The result in the seat of Mirani at the Queensland election in 2017 suggests it should be a bit short of 80%. If so, Fitzgibbon should emerge with a winning margin of about 2%, compared with his 3.0% lead in the Labor-versus-National count.
As discussed here last week, I feel pretty sure Labor’s second Senate candidate in Queensland will be pipped to the last seat by the Greens, though God knows I’ve been surprised before. That will mean three seats for the Coalition and one apiece for Labor, One Nation and the Greens. We probably won’t know the answer for about a fortnight, when the data entry should be completed and the button pressed.
There are other questions we’re still a while away from knowing the answer to, like the final national two-party preferred vote. All that can be said with certainty at this point is that it will be nowhere near what the polls were saying, but the most likely result is around 52-48 to the Coalition. The AEC’s current count says 51.6-48.4, but this doesn’t mean much because it excludes 15 seats in which the two-candidate counts are “non-classic”, i.e. not between the Coalition and Labor. Only when separate Coalition-versus-Labor counts are completed for those seats will we have a definitive result.
We will also have to wait until them for a definitive answer on exactly how many United Australia Party and One Nation preferences flowed to the Coalition. This has been a contentious question for the past year, since pollsters recognised recent federal election results were unlikely to provide a reliable guide to how they would flow this time, as per their usual practice. As Kevin Bonham discusses at length, this was one of many questions on which certain pollsters exhibited an unbecoming lack of transparency. Nonetheless, their decision to load up the Coalition on preferences from these parties has been more than vindicated, notwithstanding my earlier skepticism that the split would be as much as the 60-40 used for both parties by Newspoll.
Thanks Barney. Even while posting that comment I was thinking I should check the primary source.
Anyway, it does look well safe as an ALP retain now.
Firefox
I wasn’t ‘blaming the Greens’ – I was countering an ‘attack’ on Labor.
Aren’t we allowed to defend ourselves, now? And – particularly – aren’t we allowed to point out when something doesn’t accord with the facts?
The fact is that the performance of parties is usually assessed by their performance in the House. The Greens do this, too – that’s why they’re so keen to pick up Lower House seats.
I can’t say I noticed a campaign which focused purely on getting Greens elected in the Senate. If the Greens had a strong campaign whose aim was to increase (by 1.5%) their Senate vote, I missed it, so I’d appreciate your elucidation of the tactics used to gain this result.
My operating thesis is that they didn’t have any such campaign, and the (slight) increase in the Greens vote isn’t due to their campaigning strategy.
Lest we forget the 1961 Federal election:
Labor won popular vote 50.5 to 49.5 (with a swing of 4.6%) despite the Democratic Labor Party having bled out its primary vote share of 8% in preferences to the Coalition.
Menzies’ victory is in doubt many days until Liberal Jim Killen wins the seat of Moreton due to 93 Australian Communist Party preferences.
I wonder how the moderate Libs are feeling about their Party being hijacked by the religious right.
A message from ScoMo to the people of Australia: “Thanks for the votes, suckers!”
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2019/06/03/tax-cuts-scott-morrison/?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Morning%20News%20-%2020190604
On the tax cuts, surplus and drought/no water allocation, Labor’s only task is to point out that these failures are all because of “Liberals, Nationals, Liberals, Nationals, Liberals, Nationals”.
This happened in June.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/judge-reprimands-minister-over-nz-man-s-deportation-20190529-p51s9i.html
If Joel Fitzgibbon, MP for battlers on $250K, is correct, then I’ll be voting Green next time.
“Labor made a “huge error” in failing to talk about its support for coal projects during the election campaign, the shadow minister Joel Fitzgibbon has said.
What garbage. Labor lost the election in Qld and Tasmania. Tasmania was not about coal. If Labor had made a clearer statement about coal (no new mines and power plants and existing to be phased out over a decade with support to workers) it would have won enough seats in Vic and NSW to win the election. They lost all the votes in coal seats anyway. Labor needed to offer an economic redevelopment and employment strategy in north Qld, which it failed to do.
I have already posted here before that Adani jobs are either a mirage (probable) or a zero sum game, robbing the Bowen basin and Hunter Valley of jobs to exist. That is no solution. Joel Fitzgibbon’s statement was not leadership.
Socrates @ #550 Tuesday, June 4th, 2019 – 10:46 am
The thing is, Labor could have done all of those things during the election campaign. Which would have been a lot more effective than trying to do them now, 3 years before the next election. For whatever reason, they didn’t.
The Coalition has a plethora of failures and scandals on offer. Labor has 3 years to learn how to exploit them properly.
Jesus Christ…
Labor did not lose because of the Greens. Yes, the Adani convoy was a massive self-congratulatory agitation of nervous people in the Qld marginals, that’s a fact and yes it impacted. But Labor didn’t just lose those coal-belt seats.
We couldn’t win Chisholm or Robertson or Reid off the Libs. We LOST Bass and Braddon and Lindsay. The “vulnerable” WA libs got swings to them… This was national.
I’m a proud member of the ALP and admit that I was allowing my hope to cloud my nervousness about the agenda and the campaign that was run.
Labor lost this election by poorly prosecuting a significant reform agenda to a naturally ‘c’ conservative electorate.
lizzie says:
Tuesday, June 4, 2019 at 10:47 am
So that’s at least 4 Members of the Government that have shown contempt of our legal system.
J341983
says:
Tuesday, June 4, 2019 at 10:55 am
Labor lost this election by poorly prosecuting a significant reform agenda to a naturally ‘c’ conservative electorate.
____________________________
And by being led by a prospective PM that the people didn’t trust or like.
‘Firefox says:
Tuesday, June 4, 2019 at 9:42 am
I’m not going to get into a back and forth with the usual suspects who constantly attack the Greens over anything on this site. I honestly just can’t be bothered right now. You’re all angry and upset about the result. I understand that because I am too. But blaming the Greens for Labor’s failure will not help change anything. ‘
I know it is difficult for Greens to walk and chew gum but here is the thing:
1. Labor made mistakes.
2. The right wingers spent over $600 million messaging lies.
3. The Greens spent three years criticizing Labor over the right wingers at a rate of about 4:1.
4. The Greens spent the election campaign wedging Labor. Di Natale spent more time attacking Shorten and undermining Shorten than he did Morrison. The Adani Convoy undoubtedly shifted undecided voters to the right wingers. The Greens sent 20% of their preferences to right wingers.
It is what it is. The Greens are what they are.
izzie
I think the ‘moderates’ are well used to it by now. From waaaaay back in 2005. Scrott is just an end result of………
God Under Howard: The Rise of the Religious Right in Australian Politics
(pbk ISBN 1741145686) is a 2005 book by Marion Maddox. Maddox argues that, from 1996, John Howard’s Liberal Party slowly imported US Christian right values and that the Australian media reported little about this shift in social and public policy. Maddox suggests that the line between church and state became blurred, as happened in America.
Examining how Australian Prime Minister John Howard has harnessed the conservative social agenda and market-based ideology of American fundamentalists,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_under_Howard
Following on from Socrates comment, the Labor party is meant to be the workers party. There are now more jobs in renewables than coal and it is very easy to show that this ratio will only increase into the future. The Labor party needs to be making this case strongly while also showing that they are making plans on how to look after workers affected by the decline of the coal industry. Have they done that? Not that I have seen at a federal level (there has been some work done in this area by the more successful state Labor governments).
Really, the Labor party needs to get its act together. Be a workers party and not a union apparatchiks party (there is a difference).
Socrates, the Greens are a Rightist Party. They are an element in the reaction against the flower of the 20th century, Social Democracy. They politically exploit coal-miners and working people in general in ways that transfer support away from Labor and to the Liberals. This shift has been occurring since at least 2004. It is now quite stable and at the recent election was taken even further. The Liberals are intent in dismembering the organs of the State that deliver social justice. The Greens facilitate this.
Can we call a truce between the Popular Peoples Front of Judea and the Peoples Popular Front of Judea for long enough to have a bash at the Romans ?
Barney
I trust you are enjoying Makasser. We had the best time there. After a very bibulous evening that involved ingesting pig’s ears, we were invited by our host to a wedding by one of the local very wealthy persons. What would the wedding be like, we wondered? The bit that put us off was where the guests throw their credit cards onto a blanket so that the happy couple can choose their gifts…
The other bit that was excellent was where a local guide drove us around the district and provided local commentary.
Honest Bastard
Be a workers party and not a union apparatchiks party
Spoken like a Lib. The Liberals pose as a workers’ party these days. They likewise attack unions. Unions are an expression of workers’ quest for dignity and equality, for the redress of powerlessness.
The Labor Movement is single-handedly responsible for the construction of modern Australia. The campaign against unions is conducted by the Right – by the Liberals and their clones, including the Greens. The Tories hope to entirely undo the egalitarian measures of Curtin, Chifley, Whitlam and Hawke. They will probably succeed.
Simon² Katich® says:
Tuesday, June 4, 2019 at 9:47 am
…”This area of the Hills has settled nicely into its winter holding pattern. For the past week the temp has been between 3 and 9°C”…
http://www.bom.gov.au/qld/forecasts/cairns.shtml
I’m packing the car now, you’re invited, don’t forget to bring beer. (or you’ll be uninvited)
Thanks, Poroti……!!
Hear, hear.
Not Sure @ #565 Tuesday, June 4th, 2019 – 11:12 am
https://www.weatherzone.com.au/radar/nsw/sydney/128km
Not that flash here either.
Apparently not; they can’t even agree to disagree.
Meanwhile, the Romans fiddle while Australia burns.
C@tmomma says:
Tuesday, June 4, 2019 at 11:16 am
…”Not that flash here either”…
Well it’s a bit drizzly in Cairns too, but that’s the best thing about the tropics, when it rains in winter, it gets WARMER.
One opinion (not me):
briefly @ #563 Tuesday, June 4th, 2019 – 11:10 am
Sometimes yes, other times no.
Look no further than the ridiculous solar-panel installation laws that QLD government rammed through at the behest of the ETU (and against the advice of pretty much anybody else, including actual electricians; many of whom have no interest in doing hours upon hours of tedious manual labor mounting thousands of solar panels) if you want a counterexample. There’s no quest for dignity and equality there. Just nest-feathering and an attempt to keep the powerless, unwashed masses out.
Luckily the courts declared it invalid.
poroti, the Lib-kin are Roman alternates. They are Rightists. They are instruments of reaction. They are ever-lurking at PB, proxies for the the Lib-Libs. I feel quite at liberty to depict the Greens as they actually are. They lie about Labor. I will tell the truth about them.
If the Greens really wanted to help get rid of conservative governments they would stop standing candidates in the House of Reps divisions. A protest party doesn’t need to be in the house of government.
Jaeger says: Tuesday, June 4, 2019 at 11:18 am
Meanwhile, the Romans fiddle while Australia burns.
******************************************
Meanwhile, the Romans fiddle while Australia – AND Scott Morrison – burns. …… we are sooooo lucky
( sarcasm )
Between them, the Right in Australia can muster around 2/3 of the primary vote. If working people – the beneficiaries of social justice policies enacted by Labor through the 20th century – do not get their shit together, this plurality will be used to disenfranchise them in every possible way.
Sarc alert!
Lizzie wrote:
I wonder how the moderate Libs are feeling about their Party being hijacked by the religious right.
Ever been to a wedding reception and been assigned a seat sitting next to the inevitable Happy Clapper? If not one of them, then try the YouTube Conspiracy Nut, or the Trump Worshipper.
I was placed next to all three combined into one person last wedding I went to, and the previous two as well. Same bloke (there were three daughters, hence three weddings).
Now, I am also known as a bit of a haranguer according to occasion, but compared to the relentless “Steve”, I am as a shrinking violet, all the fire and passion gone from me as he drones on about Trump bring Christ’s Vessel (with YouTube links shared “live” to my phone as we sit there).
It’s almost as bad as being forced to exchange elbow’s length pleasantries with your Liberal-lovin’ mother-in-law (although, to her credit, even she drew the line at Bronwyn Bishop).
Her Indoors can dance as well as I can’t (and that’s a lot), so off she wafts to find the equally always present spare prick at the wedding to exhaust in admiration of her moves. Leaving me to bear the full brunt of The Steve. He has a 30-year plan to convert me, and we’re only 20 years into it. My one hope is no more daughters.
I’ve often thought the best thing about wedding receptions was the bit where you walk to your car and drive off in it.
But at least “Steve” is quiet.
Morrison’s intensity is of the noisy type. Combine fanaticism with faith, add in a large dash of Happy Clapper, a cup of marketeer’s omni-confidence, drizzle with an ability to talk through dry cement (while breathing through your ears), bake for 10 minutes, and by that time you’d have any self-respecting MP heading for the car park.
Eventually the reality of winning with an essentially status quo result – in the full knowledge that it probably was a miracle of sorts (and that even the media will latch onto this, given time) – will see sane Liberals (of which there are a few left – and only one is needed) thinking independently.
Three years is a long time to be stranded at the wedding, sitting next to ScoMo.
Bloody hell, you can’t post a fb picture that starts with https:// and ends with .jpg! 😡
phoenixRED
And he burns every day !! How good is that ? 🙁
autocrat says:
Tuesday, June 4, 2019 at 11:23 am
If the Greens really wanted to help get rid of conservative governments they would stop standing candidates in the House of Reps divisions. A protest party doesn’t need to be in the house of government.
The Greens are no longer a protest party. This distinction belongs to ON, the front for National Socialism. The Greens are a part of the assembly that works to disable and destroy Labor. They are instruments of reaction, though they may not see it that way.
Beguiledagain
Two nights back you were preaching doom gloom with Mundo, and to one of my contra-posts you asked “what will change” (in the next 3 years to allow a Labor win).
It is possible that many things will change. But the most important one is that people start hurting, really hurting, and the Coalies will not be able to stop the hurt.
1. It is widely accepted that our economy and the world economy is moving downwards. Our key economic indicators say this, but the Coalies lie that all is well.
2. It is widely accepted that our climate change remedial actions are not working, and we are failing to meet our agreed targets, but the Coalies lie that all is well.
These are probably the two most important indicators of our national well being ……… the Coalies lied about them and continue to lie.
The electorate widely accepted the lies.
But with regard to the first, the failing economy will in the life of this parliament come crashing down and hurt the dumb voters who believed the lies. Sad, but it is self-harm. Even the dumbest creature instinctively moves away from things that are actually hurting them.
The second issue, climate change, will take some time yet to cause actual harm to dumber voters …… and snap them out of believing Coalie lies. The Coalies AGW lies all mixed up with “well the climate always changes …. there’s always been droughts, and floods and bushfires” will take a few more years to be rectified by enough voters feeling actual hurt.
Having said that I must admit being surprised and pleased by the growing number of sensible farmers who are featured on various media accepting AGW and working hard in their own spaces to remedy the causes.
The Libs certainly got back at Labor for Mediscare.
Bushfire
Oh what memories you bring to me. The boring companions of weddings and then ScoMo for three years. :shudder:
I just want Scott Morrison to burn in Hell.
autocrat:
Alternate view: By standing The Greens actually improve Labor’s 2PP vote. This is because there’s a certain segment of the electorate who are leftish and idealistic enough that they are unlikely to bother voting for a major party and would rather put in an informal vote if they showed up at all – however enough of them will take a Greens How-To-Vote and so end up putting in a formal vote that preferences Labor.
I think parties like One Nation and Shooters have a similar effect for the Coalition.
Diogenes @ #582 Tuesday, June 4th, 2019 – 11:29 am
They had to lie through their teeth to do it. Whereas, Labor were on the money of privatisation by a thousand outsourcing contracts and frozen Medicare rebates.
Diog
I’m told that every time Labor asked media outlets why they were allowing outright lies made by the Libs to go unquestioned, the response was “Mediscare”.
Zoidlord @ #468 Tuesday, June 4th, 2019 – 8:25 am
What?! Mediawatch is like the one decent thing they still have left.
Briefly
Please give up your anti- green ranting. We get the message. You don’t have to repeat it 30 times a day, day in day out.
As to your rubbish that conservos (Coalies and their Independants ilk) command 66% of the primary vote, if this was so they would own 66% of the Senate, and about 90 House seats. They don’t. Nothing like it!!!
Next election, like all others, will be decided by the 3 or 4 percent who are prepared to change their vote, usually because of self interest rather than national interest.
Honest Bastard
“There are now more jobs in renewables than coal and it is very easy to show that this ratio will only increase into the future.”
Agreed. Labor can’t claim to be a worker’s party and ignore this. And for the record, I voted Labor 1, Greens 2. I know several people in the renewables industry in one form or another. In my experience they vote Labor more reliably than coal workers do, as the Qld result demonstrated.
And I was annoyed at the statement by Joel Fitzgibbon, Labor MP for the Delusion Valley. The Greens had nothing to do with what he said.
Claude TaylorVerified account @TrueFactsStated
The last time I saw a fat Killer Whale it was called “Free Willy”.
…… a svelte 239 pounds to meet the Queen ……
I’m no clothing expert, but isn’t there something wrong with the jacket ?
zoomster @ #587 Tuesday, June 4th, 2019 – 11:35 am
Well, Labor better get with the project next time and go harder than the Coalition in a fact-free election campaign free-for all.
zoomster @ #587 Tuesday, June 4th, 2019 – 11:35 am
To which Labor should reply ok I’ll raise you one ‘debt and deficit disaster’
zoomster @ #587 Tuesday, June 4th, 2019 – 11:35 am
Labor should reply, I’ll raise you one ‘debt and deficit disaster’