Preferences and preselections

More data on One Nation voters’ newly acquired and surprisingly forceful enthusiasm for preferencing the Coalition.

The Australian Electoral Commission quietly published the full distributions of lower house preferences earlier this week, shedding light on the election’s remaining known unknown: how close One Nation came to maybe pulling off a miracle in Hunter. Joel Fitzgibbon retained the seat for Labor with a margin of 2.98% over the Nationals, landing him on the wrong end of a 9.48% swing – the third biggest of the election after the central Queensland seats of Capricornia and Dawson, the politics of coal mining being the common thread between all three seats.

The wild card in the deck was that Hunter was also the seat where One Nation polled strongest, in what a dare say was a first for a non-Queensland seat – 21.59%, compared with 23.47% for the Nationals and 35.57% for Labor. That raised the question of how One Nation might have done in the final count if they emerged ahead of the Nationals on preferences. The answer is assuredly not-quite-well-enough, but we’ll never know for sure. As preferences from mostly left-leaning minor candidates were distributed, the gap between Nationals and One Nation barely moved, the Nationals gaining 4.81% to reach 28.28% at the final distribution, and One Nation gaining 4.79% to fall short with 26.38%. One Nation preferences then proceeded to flow to the Nationals with noteworthy force, with the final exclusion sending 19,120 votes (71.03%) to the Nationals and 28.97% to Labor.

Speaking of, the flow of minor party preferences between the Coalition and Labor is the one detail of the election result on which the AEC is still holding out. However, as a sequel to last week’s offering on Senate preferences, I offer the following comparison of flows in Queensland in 2016 and 2019. This is based on Senate ballot paper data, observing the number that placed one major party ahead of the either, or included neither major party in their preference order. In the case of the 2016 election, this is based on a sampling of one ballot paper in 50; the 2019 data is from the full set of results.

It has been widely noted that the Coalition enjoyed a greatly improved flow of One Nation preferences in the lower house, but the Senate results offer the interesting twist that Labor’s share hardly changed – evidently many One Nation voters who numbered neither major party in 2016 jumped off the fence and preferenced the Coalition this time. Also notable is that Labor received an even stronger share of Greens preferences than in 2016. If this was reflected nationally, it’s a phenomenon that has passed unnoticed, since the flow of One Nation and United Australia Party preferences was the larger and more telling story.

Other electorally relevant developments of the past week or so:

• Laura Jayes of Sky News raises the prospect of the Nationals asserting a claim to the Liberal Senate vacancy created by Arthur Sinodinos’s appointment to Washington. The Nationals lost one of their two New South Wales seats when Fiona Nash fell foul of Section 44 in late 2017, resulting in a recount that delivered to the Liberals a seat that would otherwise have been held by the Nationals until 2022. Since that is also when Sinodinos’s term expires, giving the Nationals the seat would restore an order in which the Nationals held two out of the five Coalition seats.

• Fresh from her win over Tony Abbott in Warringah, The Australian reported on Tuesday that Zali Steggall was refusing to deny suggestions she might be persuaded to join the Liberal Party, although she subsequently complained the paper had twisted her words. A report in The Age today notes both “allies and opponents” believe Steggall will struggle to win re-election as an independent with Abbott out of the picture, and gives cause to doubt she would survive a preselection challenge as a Liberal.

• Labor is undergoing a personnel change in the Victorian Legislative Council after the resignation of Philip Dalidakis, who led the party’s ticket for Southern Metropolitan region at both the 2014 and 2018 elections. Preserving the claim of the Right faction Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association, the national executive is set to anoint Enver Erdogan, a workplace lawyer for Maurice Blackburn, former Moreland councillor and member of the Kurdish community. The Australian reports former Melbourne Ports MP Michael Danby has joined the party’s Prahran and Brighton branches in registering displeasure that the national executive is circumventing a rank-and-file plebiscite. Particularly contentious is Erdogan’s record of criticism of Israel, a sore point in a region that encompasses Melbourne’s Jewish stronghold around Caulfield.

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.

1,628 comments on “Preferences and preselections”

Comments Page 2 of 33
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  2. @Victoria

    You misunderstood the stupidity of the human race.

    Humanity has always voted to punish themselves, Mother Nature one day will get sick of it, by saying fuck you all.

  3. lizzie @ #24 Friday, July 5th, 2019 – 9:18 am

    BK

    I just spent a sickening 60 seconds watching Trump at his military parade. Images of Benito Mussolini came to mind.

    As soon as he puts his head to one side in that strange poncy way and talks in his whiny voice, I wonder how anyone can bear to listen.

    Ivanka does it too! As someone characterised it the other day, her breathy porn star voice.

  5. Meanwhile +30 degrees Celsius expected every day next week over most of Alaska, including Fairbanks and Anchorage, for which the latter would be an all-time record……

  6. Paul Bongiorno@PaulBongiorno
    18h18 hours ago

    The first question time in the Reps, the most edifying in years. Less hyperbole more substance. @AlboMP managed to put the government on the spot with precise questions. @ScottMorrisonMP managed to answer most and dodge a few.

    I disagree. From what I saw, Morrison had been well prepared and dodged direct answers for most.

  7. Andrew_Earlwood @ #46 Friday, July 5th, 2019 – 9:18 am

    Labor wasnt going to give the LNP a rod to beat its MPs over the back with at the next election “Joe Blogs MP voted AGAINST your tax cut”.

    “The opposition’s job is to oppose” or “Labor doesn’t believe that in a failing economy millionaires need tax cuts” are both adequate replies. I mean, I at least thought that Labor had a clear and well-known policy on tax cuts for the rich, so pointing out that they voted according to their own policy should not make much of a weapon.

    The rods will come 3 years from now regardless of whether or not Labor provides any factual basis for them. What the Libs might campaign on in 2022 shouldn’t be the primary motivating factor of what Labor does now.

    If Labor can’t stand up for something and show a point of difference, what’s the point?

    Labor would have been better obstaining from the final vote.

    Yes, abstention would also be fine. Abstention is not explicit (or even, implicit) endorsement.

    By all means try to amend the package to separate out the okay stuff from the awful stuff. Try to amend it so that the okay stuff happens sooner rather than later. All of that’s fine.

    But when that fails and the government steps in and says “it’s the awful stuff or nothing”, don’t put your name down as supporting the awful stuff.

  8. Cameron C. says:
    Friday, July 5, 2019 at 9:20 am

    Australia will have a conservative government in perpetuity.

    Australia has not had a successful reforming government since Bob Hawke’s. The Liberals have won 7 of the 9 elections since 1996 and pulled a draw in one. Labor have won just the one. The Lib-Green game is working. The Greens are driving Labor support away to the Right, including to the National Socialist/ON Party. This is very deliberately done by the Greens.

    We already have an effective one-party State at a Federal level. As the Liberals carry out further repression in the economy and the labour force, this will get worse.

    The economy, the environment, the living standards of working people are all deteriorating at the same time. This will suit both the Liberals and the Greens, who profit from fear.

    The very depressing reality is that even if Labor were to win a house election, the balance of numbers in the Senate means they will not be able to enact their program. The Greens and the Tories will have the numbers to obstruct a Labor Government. They will do again what they did to Gillard. Count on it.

    Dysfunction is now inevitable.

  11. briefly @ #57 Friday, July 5th, 2019 – 9:35 am

    Cameron C. says:
    Friday, July 5, 2019 at 9:20 am

    Australia will have a conservative government in perpetuity.

    Australia has not had a successful reforming government since Bob Hawke’s. The Liberals have won 7 of the 9 elections since 1996 and pulled a draw in one. Labor have won just the one. The Lib-Green game is working. The Greens are driving Labour support away to the Right, including to the National Socialist/ON Party. This is very deliberately done by the Greens.

    We already have an effective one-party State at a Federal level. As the Liberals carry out further repression in the economy and the labour force, this will get worse.

    The economy, the environment, the living standards of working people are all deteriorating at the same time. This will suit both the Liberals and the Greens, who profit from fear.

    The very depressing reality is that even if Labor were to win a house election, the balance of numbers in the Senate means they will not be able to enact their program. The Greens and the Tories will have the numbers to obstruct a Labor Government. They will do again what they did to Gillard. Count on it.

    Dysfunction is now inevitable.

    We’ll all be rooned!

  14. Cameron C. @ #49 Friday, July 5th, 2019 – 9:20 am

    What a deplorable move from Albanese, I thought Shorten was bad and now this.
    Reserving the right to repeal stage three of the tax cuts if they win the next election? Okay, as if they’re going to win the next election.
    The ALP in its present iteration is simply going to wither away. Australia will have a conservative government in perpetuity, unless the remnants of the ALP with the “sensible” elements of the non-Labor politic somehow form a new “social-liberal” centrist major party. Then future elections may be a contest – between neoliberalism and neoconservatism.

    As I said last night. The next LIEberal campaign just wrote itself.
    Labor has a secret plan to take away your tax cuts.

  15. Z

    What the article was actually about – Please Enjoy Janet Rice Pulling Faces Behind Malcolm Roberts As He Says Stupid Shit

    https://junkee.com/janet-rice-malcolm-roberts/212345

    Roberts seems to have had no idea she was there — he was quite busy trying to argue that black lung disease is not actually caused by coal.
    :::
    In any case, the bigger picture here was actually a motion to support Adani’s Carmichael coal mine project, which the entire Senate (except for the Greens) ended up voting to support. Black lung only came up in the first place because the Greens were pointing out a whole heap of reasons not to support the mine.

    “The Carmichael mine is not the way to deliver jobs for regional Queensland,” is how Greens senator Larissa Waters put it. “What it will deliver is more support to a tax-dodging multinational coal company, who have said they want to automate this project from pit to port. So, more robots, and if there are any workers then they’ll be suffering from black lung disease, which is back in Queensland as you well know, and starting to kill coal mine workers.”

    “Not to mention the fact that half of the reef has already been killed from climate change, which is driven and turbo-charged by coal. We can have jobs in the regions, we can have prosperity, we can keep the lights on, and also save the planet, if we actually fund renewable energy projects rather than coal projects.”
    :::
    The fact that the only part of that speech that Malcolm Roberts could argue against was the black lung bit is pretty telling. And the fact that the Senate went ahead and voted to support Adani anyway is, quite frankly, depressing. Thanks to Janet Rice for at least bringing a bit of levity to her protest today.

  16. a r,
    Sorry to say but the Murdoch tabloids wouldn’t do that sort of nuance if Labor tried it. They would just scream at the people about Labor wanting to take back YOUR tax cuts. In one hundred point bold front page headlines.

    I think they need a new approach which involves targeting what could only be plainly described as the corruption in the system that accrues to Coalition mates and largesse given to those who don’t need or deserve it. Anecdotally this theme resonated with the electorate, but the line that Labor doesn’t want to give you a tax cut and wants to tax you to death resonated more strongly. So best to leave that 3 letter 3rd rail alone for the time being.

  17. mundo @ #64 Friday, July 5th, 2019 – 9:41 am

    Cameron C. @ #49 Friday, July 5th, 2019 – 9:20 am

    What a deplorable move from Albanese, I thought Shorten was bad and now this.
    Reserving the right to repeal stage three of the tax cuts if they win the next election? Okay, as if they’re going to win the next election.
    The ALP in its present iteration is simply going to wither away. Australia will have a conservative government in perpetuity, unless the remnants of the ALP with the “sensible” elements of the non-Labor politic somehow form a new “social-liberal” centrist major party. Then future elections may be a contest – between neoliberalism and neoconservatism.

    As I said last night. The next LIEberal campaign just wrote itself.
    Labor has a secret plan to take away your tax cuts.

    But do they have to make it quite so easy for the LNP and their media lackeys?

  19. mundo….the sense of unreality on the Left is extraordinary. The Right are winning. Look around. Take notes. Consider, since the end of the 1980s not one single issue has been durably resolved on terms that favour working people. Not one. And things are getting worse.

    The 20th century was not great in many ways. This one is off to a very bad start. The Reactionaries have the ascendancy. They will do as they please.

  20. briefly @ #34 Friday, July 5th, 2019 – 8:53 am

    mundo says:
    Friday, July 5, 2019 at 8:35 am
    lizzie @ #17 Friday, July 5th, 2019 – 8:17 am

    @iMusing
    4m4 minutes ago

    lol Morrison is telling ABC radio that his “plan” has “always been to strengthen the economy”. That’d be the same economy he lied about throughout the election campaign. The economy that has been flailing throughout his time as Treasurer.
    A point Labor has been hammering for the whole time…oh, wait

    The Libs have spent the last 40 years depicting themselves as the party that creates jobs, and who will do anything to do that. This means they will smash wages, break unions, cut social spending, cut taxes, wreck the environment….they will do ‘whatever it takes’ to be seen as job-creators. Every time they make a decision that hurts the environment they are implicitly declaring they care more about jobs than natural values.

    Everything the Greens do is depicted as destroying jobs. So when the Liberals compare Labor to the Greens, they are implying that Labor will also destroy jobs. The Greens know this. They spend a lot of effort claiming to be Labor-like. They reinforce the Lib-lies. They use Lib-lies to campaign against Labor.

    So when Labor campaign on jobs….no-one believes they are as good at it as the Liberals. The messaging about Labor is all totally false, but it is what people believe.

    Mundo, you also obviously believe it too. You do not hear Labor messages on jobs and the economy. You are deaf to them. You prefer to believe Lib-lies than to listen to Labor. Why is this so? Because you hate Labor. You are Lib-like with respect to your willingness to tune into Labor.

    My ALP membership says otherwise you paranoid fuckwit.

  21. @Peg

    I know what the article was about, I don’t need a greenie to tell me otherwise.

    Stop defending Janet’s childish pulling faces routine.

  22. adrian @ #67 Friday, July 5th, 2019 – 9:43 am

    mundo @ #64 Friday, July 5th, 2019 – 9:41 am

    Cameron C. @ #49 Friday, July 5th, 2019 – 9:20 am

    What a deplorable move from Albanese, I thought Shorten was bad and now this.
    Reserving the right to repeal stage three of the tax cuts if they win the next election? Okay, as if they’re going to win the next election.
    The ALP in its present iteration is simply going to wither away. Australia will have a conservative government in perpetuity, unless the remnants of the ALP with the “sensible” elements of the non-Labor politic somehow form a new “social-liberal” centrist major party. Then future elections may be a contest – between neoliberalism and neoconservatism.

    As I said last night. The next LIEberal campaign just wrote itself.
    Labor has a secret plan to take away your tax cuts.

    But do they have to make it quite so easy for the LNP and their media lackeys?

    Well, no.
    Which is why I have a problem with the way the ALP has failed miserably to take the fight up to Scrotty.

  24. Well, on a lighter note, the name “Albanese” suddenly sounds remarkably similar to his erstwhile predecessor “Sleazeby”.

  27. briefly says:
    Friday, July 5, 2019 at 9:35 am
    “The Greens are driving Labor support away to the Right, including to the National Socialist/ON Party. This is very deliberately done by the Greens.”
    As a Greens member who knows something of their policies I can emphatically announce to a stunned audience that this is total bullshit.

  28. Following on from last reply, in the email I got from Labor HQ this morning Albo ends by saying; ‘And we’ll keep taking the fight up to the Morrison Government – because our economy can’t afford to keep going backwards.’

    Don’t tell me the economy is going backwards, tell the punters, the one’s who believed Scrott’s bullshit during the election and probably still do.

  29. Bill Shorten@billshortenmp
    20h20 hours ago

    Great visit this morning at UnitingCare’s Early Morning Centre where the extraordinary staff and volunteers serve about 1000 breakfasts a month to the needy. As Shadow Minister for Government Services I will keep working hard for these often forgotten people. #auspol

  31. The tax cuts have passed, including Stage 3. If Labor intends to repeal them, do what the “Liberals” do – keep schtum, lie if asked about them, then do what they want to do once in office.

    In the meantime, attack the Government at every turn, block any cuts they want to make and as far as possible make their lives miserable. It’s not as if there’ll be any lack of bad stuff to criticise.

  34. We already know how much we will get, LNP just sink the economy even further down the drainage pipe by focusing on tax cuts.

    No matter what Labor does there will be idiots like Peg and co blame Labor.

  35. Steve777 @ #80 Friday, July 5th, 2019 – 9:58 am

    The tax cuts have passed, including Stage 3. If Labor intends to repeal them, do what the “Liberals” do – keep schtum, lie if added about them, then do what they want to do once in office.

    To late. Both Scrott, Fryborg and their ABC are making a point of Labor’s decision to consider the 3rd stage before the next election. The next LIEberal campaign writes itself.
    Labor should really focus on 2025 and try not to FUCK IT UP.

  36. In celebration of my eternal optimism and hope for a new beginning for the forces of good vs the evil ones – I have ordered a new mug to replace the one I cleverly (after release from hospital still bombed) placed on the kitchen counter – displace by about 20 cm – whereupon it descended to the floor under the gravitational pull of the Earth (in spite of new Orstrayan Physics).

    ☮☕

  37. ICANCU says:
    Friday, July 5, 2019 at 9:55 am
    briefly says:
    Friday, July 5, 2019 at 9:35 am
    “The Greens are driving Labor support away to the Right, including to the National Socialist/ON Party. This is very deliberately done by the Greens.”
    As a Greens member who knows something of their policies I can emphatically announce to a stunned audience that this is total bullshit.

    The effect of Green campaigning is to shrink the Labor vote in ways that send their support to the Right. This is not news. This is done knowingly by the Greens. It’s reasonable to conclude it’s deliberate. The Greens don’t really care where Ex-Labor votes go, as long as Labor’s vote is reduced. This is a primary goal. They want to get their own candidates elected, but beyond that they hope to diminish Labor’s chances.

    The Greens despise Labor. They have never denied it. They set out at all times and in all places to defeat Labor.

    This is dysfunctional, but it is the political paradigm of the times. It contributes to the success of the Right.

  38. Zoidlord @ #84 Friday, July 5th, 2019 – 10:00 am

    We already know how much we will get, LNP just sink the economy even further down the drainage pipe by focusing on tax cuts.

    No matter what Labor does there will be idiots like Peg and co blame Labor.

    Hey, I can do this too!

    No matter what Labor does, idiots like briefly and Zoidlord and co will blame the Greens.

  39. Can’t believe anything any more. The media only report the latest shiny thing.

    @FacelessMan13 14h14 hours ago

    Just saw @ScottMorrisonMP claiming that since the election he’s been meeting with the State Premiers.

    He spent 2 weeks on hols, went to the Solomon Islands and to the G20.

    That doesn’t leave a lot of time to have met with the State Premiers.

    And with zero media coverage?

  40. mundo says:
    Friday, July 5, 2019 at 9:56 am
    Following on from last reply, in the email I got from Labor HQ this morning Albo ends by saying; ‘And we’ll keep taking the fight up to the Morrison Government – because our economy can’t afford to keep going backwards.’

    Don’t tell me the economy is going backwards, tell the punters, the one’s who believed Scrott’s bullshit during the election and probably still do.

    The voters are very well aware the labour market is in trouble. Just ask them. Their response was to vote for the Right. This will get worse before it gets better.

  41. Stephen Koukoulas@TheKouk
    8m8 minutes ago

    Something overlooked in the glib commentary on income tax cuts is that they have nothing, zero, to do with stimulating the economy. They were announced and planned when the economy was “strong” and never did the govt once say they were designed to boost otherwise flagging growth

  42. The government of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating started reducing the top marginal tax rate in 1986-87 as part of sweeping changes to other taxes that included the introduction of capital gains and fringe benefits taxes.

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/first-abolition-of-a-tax-scale-in-three-decades-as-system-simplified-20190704-p5244m.html

    This is the sort of thing Labor need to think about doing instead of reintroducing the upper level tax rate.

  45. KJ,
    1. Total teeth = 12, that’s 4 teeth each, so Bubba got 1 and Mumma got 3.

    2. Lipstick red with perspiration stains.

    3. Bubba Jnr because it’s a longer name.

    4. 8 hours and 20 minutes.

    5. C. Both

    6. D. The bible tells us we are all family.

    7. False. Pigs live in a sty, mullets live in water. 🙂

  49. How about the Queensland Labor Secretary for the new ALP National Secretary? If they can bring Labor back from the dead in Queensland they could do it nationally.

  50. Lol. Conservative commentator, Jennifer Rubin:

    President Trump has crushed political norms and constitutional barriers, whether by his incessant, brazen lying or his defiance of Congress in executive power grabs or impeding the Mueller investigation or smearing our intelligence community or taking monies from foreign governments in violation of the emoluments clause (according to two district court judges). But now, he has really done it.

    Absconding with the most American of holidays, Independence Day, he plans to run a Soviet-style military display on the Mall; and just like the Soviets of old, he’ll have rich apparatchiks … er, donors, in preferred seats, because nothing says Fourth of July like preferential treatment for rich toadies.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/07/02/trumps-celebration-himself-is-perfect-reminder-why-he-must-go/?utm_term=.98e82ab027d3

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