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 22 of 33
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  1. Nicholas
    Don’t know if it will work here or not but sometimes I find if I paste a picture to a word document then copy it from the word document before pasting it then it appears but I have not tried it on this site.

  2. George Pell — he ran the “Melbourne Response” back in the day, which was supposed to address victims of child sex abuse.

    But this is the killer line as per the Farrah Tomazin piece from 30 June 2019:

    ‘The Church’s own figures reveal that between 1996 and March 2014, the archdiocese spent $34.27 million to run its so-called Melbourne Response, but only $9.72 million – or 28 per cent of it – was used to compensate 307 child sex abuse victims.’ ($31,000 each)

    Only 28 per cent went to victims. From all reports, those victims who did finally get a payout were put through hell to even get the minuscule amount they finally put out and terrorised by Church lawyers with odious terms in their contracts.

    The lawyers and Pell himself got the rest. Christianity, isn’t it wondrous.

  5. If we are going to have age limits, I propose that anyone born this century should have a ‘P’ plate symbol superimposed. We could start with Lars.

  9. Biden’s big advantage is his name recognition,

    OK. Better to compare Santorum, Gingrich and Paul to Warren, Harris and Buttgieg. Santorum, Gingrich and Paul were about 10pts behind Obama.

  13. stststan says:
    Sunday, July 7, 2019 at 5:55 pm

    apologies if anyone has suggested it before, but would it be feasible for the alp to offer to make the tax rate for all those on up to the average wage, zero and to compensate by progressively increasing the rate above.it would certainly wedge the tories and guarantee an election win

    Well the Gillard Government raised the tax free threshold from $6000 to $18,200 for 2012-13 financial year.

    That didn’t seem to have a positive effect on Labor’s vote.

  15. Hi Sprocket, I think it would be great to legislate a Basic Income that is fixed at the level of a full-time minimum wage worker’s earnings and that is targeted at people with illness or injury, people with disabilities, and people of retirement age.

    I would lift the minimum wage from $19.49 per hour to $25 per hour because that is what the wage would be if it had kept pace with average labour productivity growth since 1970.

    I would combine the targeted Basic Income with a Job Guarantee that makes an unconditional offer of flexibly and creatively and custom designed minimum wage employment to anyone who wants it.

    If, on the other hand, we implemented a Universal Basic Income that is fixed at the level of a full-time minimum wage worker’s earnings, people’s brains would be brimming with resentment at the massive tax increases that would be necessary to render the increased spending non-inflationary. Even with massive tax increases it is likely that there would be big price increases and shortages of certain goods and services because of people withdrawing from the labour force, causing output to fall. So annoyance about those issues would occupy a lot of space in people’s brains.

  18. A respite to this witless war briefly, others continue with:

    ‘Tell me where is fancy bred?

    Oh in the heart or in the head?

    ….

    Reply, reply.

    It is engendered in the eyes,

    With gazing fed, and fancy dies

    In the cradle where it lies

    Let us all sing fancy’s knell

    I’ll begin it – Ding, dong, bell

    Ding, dong, bell.’

    And Yates:

    Wine comes in the mouth

    And so love comes in at the eye;

    That’s all we shall know for the truth

    Before we grow old and die,

    I lift the glass to my mouth,

    I look at you and I die.

    [Poetry on PB]

  19. Local TV News.

    The Federal Government has instituted a program to stop us being ripped off :?!

    Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes ❓

    I’m expecting the loot to protect the Great Barrier Reef will be returned any day now.

  20. Diogenes says:

    I’m sure there’s really good research to show that UBI graphic is realistic.

    Fully peer reviewed by the Barnaby Joyce SInstitute of Advanced Phrenology

  21. I step away for a short while and you sneak in with a craven attack little sprocket.

    Don’t forget I own you now.

  24. Good point, I hadn’t thought of it that way. Someone else wrote the other day that he just free ranges in speeches, lies, makes stuff up, and then afterwards explains it away somehow. This time though, blaming the teleprompter just reflects on him.

    Max BootVerified account@MaxBoot
    11h11 hours ago
    Airports? In the Revolutionary War? Trump’s excuse—that the teleprompter went out—made the mistake worse. It suggested that it was not Trump’s speechwriters but Trump himself who thought that airports existed a century before the birth of the Wright Bros.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/07/06/twitter-mobs-show-worst-people-also-best/?utm_term=.4f28cc8ee3df

  26. It’s become a bit boring here.
    Now that nobody really cares anymore what the ALP says or doesn’t say and most posters accept that the foreseeable future is Scrotties Circus there just doesn’t seem to be anything really to talk about. Except slagging off the Greens.
    It’s a bit like what happened to Loon Pond, why bother anymore…

  27. It’s become a bit boring here.
    Now that nobody really cares anymore what the ALP says or doesn’t say and most posters accept that the foreseeable future is Scrotties Circus there just doesn’t seem to be anything really to talk about. Except slagging off the Greens.
    It’s a bit like what happened to Loon Pond, why bother anymore…

    A breath of fresh air? More like a fart in the face.

  28. Fess

    Meanwhile an interesting development

    Caroline Orr
    @RVAwonk
    #BREAKING: Billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was just arrested in NY for allegedly molesting and sex trafficking dozens of underage girls in New York and Florida between 2002 and 2005.

    Arraignment set for Monday.

  31. Fess

    Yes. There are going to be lots of nervous people including Trump.

    It’s taking a long time for the wheels of justice to turn, but turn it does….

  36. Vic:

    Epstein has already pled guilty and served time for child prostitution, and the then Florida based US prosecutor who brooked that plea deal back then which has apparently received so much blow back is now serving in Trump’s cabinet.

  37. Lars Von Trier @ #1085 Sunday, July 7th, 2019 – 8:10 pm

    If its 52-48 to the ALP in Newspoll tonight at 930pm (if there is one) – would anyone believe it?

    The interesting bit is how will the CPG react to the polling.

    They have previously framed their whole editorial line on the polls so I wonder if they will change this approach.

  38. Rex Douglas says:

    Sunday, July 7, 2019 at 8:14 pm
    Lars Von Trier @ #1085 Sunday, July 7th, 2019 – 8:10 pm

    If its 52-48 to the ALP in Newspoll tonight at 930pm (if there is one) – would anyone believe it?

    The interesting bit is how will the CPG react to the polling.

    Privately…..

    For teh audience

  40. Rex I would say there is a fair argument that Labor needs Newspoll, good, bad or indifferent. It helps to distract from the inherent policy contradictions in Labor.

  42. Vic:

    If they can bring legitimate comfort and justice to his victims and families of his victims it will be a positive.

  48. Steve
    It’s actually quite an honest appraisal of his failings by Bernardi. I was always surprised by the lack of support he got from people like Bolt, Price and Newscorp in general. They definitely make a decision to cut him off at the knees.

  49. P1 will be disappointed.

    I guess Wood Mac wouldn’t have a business model if people knew stuff.

    US$1.3tn worth of LNG developments planned across the globe went ahead they would do at least as much to drive the world into climate catastrophe as new coal investments, possibly more. Australia is a significant player in this drive, with $38bn in investments on the books – fourth behind only the US, Canada or Russia.

    So $38 billion of $1.3tn. Doesn’t seem very significant to me. And what is that $38 billion doing on top of the (I’m estimating don’t @ me) $300 plus billion, invested in LNG in Australia over the last 10 years?

    Australia’s problem is that, unlike say the US, we didn’t start the switch to gas, away from coal 10 years ago. Mainly because we preferred conspiracy theories funded by evil and spread by Murdoch to like real actual science. It is very interesting to watch, but I wouldn’t be betting more than the price of my Thursday night lotto ticket that more than a third of that $1.3 trillion gets spent.

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