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 5 of 33
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  1. Billie,

    Labor rightly has policies on those issues relating to women. However in an election campaign emphasis should be on wider issues. Dont get bogged down on policy details.

    One problem for Labor is women tend to be the least politically engaged.

    It is all good to talk about these issues during the early stages of electoral cycle but as elections grt closer you should focus more on bread and butter topics.

    Labor voters in suburbs and regions arent talking about womens issues, aboriginal issues, climate change or gay conversion therapy.

    Dan Andrews for example has a lot of progressive policies but Vic Labor campaign was very focussed on jobs, building things and competent management.

  2. Briefly

    Forgive me but my memory is atrocious. I forget most things after about 5 minutes.

    Could you please tell me what you think of the Greens.

  3. Gorks
    I am not sure that is right, from my experience women tend to be more politically active than men are.

  5. Van Badham’s latest:

    As soon as I saw this on The Guardian’s website I thought to myself, ‘I bet Pegasus lights upon this like a vulture upon carrion’. And you know what? I was right.

  6. This is, to me, the tragedy of it. Simple soundbites win.

    This election was shaped by the sharply divergent characters of the two leaders, one defined by certainty and the other by its opposite. While many have won elections on the kind of confidence our prime minister regularly projects, with Shorten’s defeat, Australia also lost the opportunity to expand its definition of what constructive leadership could be.

    The Saturday Paper

  8. Lizzie
    Soundbites have always been central to election campaigns. The secret to their success is to align them to the policy objectives. This is why if the ALP were going to campaign on a fair go then there should have been a newstart policy.

  9. a r says:
    Friday, July 5, 2019 at 1:49 pm

    Simple soundbites win.

    Yep. The left needs to embrace this rather than fight it.
    ——-
    Ironically one of the best soundbites of the last fifty years was “its time”

  10. mexican

    The otherday you wrote that you don’t like the word aspiration.

    I disliked Albo using it because it was in effect copying Morrison. I want Labor to differentiate itself.

    The ‘sophisticated’ concerns of the left, all the socially progressive ideas, are mocked by Morrison, who is pitching to the ‘everyday Australian’., who may be religious, not politically correct, doesn’t have too much time to think about policies, etc. Howard’s battlers??

  12. Lizzie
    Agree that the ALP needs to avoid becoming a pale copy of the Liberals, they need too offer something different and to some extent they do offer a number of policy differences and need to play on those strengths. Just take the NBN and NDIS, two areas this government has poorly managing and should be called out for it. For a government that promised to reduce waste, their actions on the sale of water rights or some of the contracts connected to Dutton’s department should be front and centre of any attack ad campaign.

  13. ar

    “I agree. Shorten should have tried it on.”Time for change” is another good one.”

    I disagree. Most people don’t want change. It scares the horses. The Libs played on that fear.

    The last time the ALP won federally was 2007. The Rudd campaign made a virtue of how little change it was offering.

  14. Mexican

    Yes, there is ample room for criticism. 🙂

    Meanwhile, in NBN land.

    Acma chair Nerida O’Loughlin said that when connected via cable to the NBN connection many of the devices performed similarly, but the results varied wildly when switched to wifi. She said this is something consumers should be informed about.

    “Telcos and modem suppliers need to provide good advice to consumers about the features and performance of individual modems, especially wifi performance,” she said.

    “Consumers should also ask their telco about the performance they can expect from the modem supplied to deliver their service.”

    But the modems can’t solely shoulder the blame for poor connections. Those tested dropped in speed significantly once the length of the copper used in the connection exceeded 450 metres. However, NBN Co typically doesn’t use copper lines in excess of 1km.

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/05/slow-nbn-speeds-modems-partly-to-blame-for-poor-performance

  15. Labor had policies that appealed to women but many women disliked Shorten. . . . who knows why?

    For all the rah rah in the touted tax cuts, many will miss out:
    Newstart recipients
    People with outstanding HECS debt earning over $42,000
    Self funded retirees with taxable incomes under $35,000 , so sad

    Only 14% of Australians are on incomes over $90,000

    This will not impress those who miss out

    Australia population policy
    Lizzie noticed the discrepancy in population projections and permanent resident quotas. I think Australia is setting up a class of temporary workers who will never get citizenship like the Maori and Islander factory workers around Dandenong who will find they can’t get Aged pensions when they turn 67

  16. Kakuru
    I think it depends on what the change is.

    If you played a clip from Joyce’s interview with PK and said time to change from this childish government to a government with a strong mature team then it might have worked.

  17. Kakuru @ #212 Friday, July 5th, 2019 – 2:05 pm

    I disagree. Most people don’t want change. It scares the horses. The Libs played on that fear.

    Well, people want change when times are bad. You’ve got to tie it together with hope. So “hope and change” is another good one. Obama got a lot of mileage out of it.

    Hell, it worked for Trump too with “drain the swamp”, which is also an appeal for change.

    A good politician should be able to sell the idea of change, imo. It plays into part of the human condition. “The grass is always greener on the other side”, etc., etc..

  18. Di Natale just totally misrepresented Labor’s position on the tax rebates. He said Labor opposed them and then voted for them. No. Labor supported the 1st part, wanted parts of the second brought forward and wanted the third part excised from the bill.

    Just as Di Natale criticised Labor for “voting for something they previously opposed”, had they voted against the entire package they could have been criticised for voting against that part of the bill they supported and will do some economic good. They couldn’t “win” whatever they did.

    Di Natale and others seem to forget that they 46th Parliament is entirely different to the 45th. No precarious majority In the House and the Senate with enough conservative cross-benchers to enable this government to get its way with little difficulty. Once Lambie and CA were on board it was game over.

  19. ar
    “Well, people want change when times are bad. ”

    I’ll certainly concede that point. Times are not that bad… yet.

  20. A huge area of mangrove forest on the Gulf of Carpentaria coast experienced a die-off in late 2015 and early 2016, affecting about 1000 kilometres of coastline.

    Southern Cross University researcher Luke Jeffrey conducted physical studies following the die-off to assess the level of methane being emitted by the trees.

    He found an unexpected result – the dead trees were giving off much more methane than the living ones.
    …
    “It appears the dead trees were acting as a conduit – methane is generally produced deep in waterlogged sediments.

    “You picture all these dead trees sitting in this sediment, the methane was travelling from the sediment up the dead trunks and being released.”

    Methane is about 34 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, meaning much less of it can have a much greater impact on climate change.

    https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/gas-fears-from-mass-of-dead-mangroves-more-than-just-hot-air-20190704-p5247g.html

  21. Rick
    My wife just showed me on her Facebook how already people are pissed big time as many are only getting $250! They all thought they’d be getting over $1,000. Albo has no choice. Let tax cuts thru. Now all the fallout will be on the Government. Can’t blame Labor when economy tanks!

  23. lizzie

    I can see them taking the line that it is due to ‘foreign’ forces, those effing ‘head winds’ we keep hearing about and Scrott’s crew ‘saved’ us from it being much worse. Don’t expect the MSM to expose it as bull dust. That and of course It’s All Labor’s Fault©

  24. Poroti
    A six year old government can successfully blame the previous government but a nine year old government rarely gets away with it and its up to the ALP to respond. Don’t outsource the job to the media.

  27. The government should be hoping the ATO has all its IT, help line etc etc ducks in a row over the next few months.

    This government does not have a great record in the overseeing of its individual department IT services, staffing and procedures at times of peak demand and with the MSM over egging the great windfall that awaits all workers things could get a bit delicate especially if even one small hiccup occurs.

  28. Psyclaw says:
    Friday, July 5, 2019 at 1:30 pm
    Briefly

    Forgive me but my memory is atrocious. I forget most things after about 5 minutes.

    Could you please tell me what you think of the Greens.

    I post critique of the Green project. This is nothing compared to the endless sledging posted by RD, nath, Peg….and numerous others.

    I’m not sledging the Greens. I’m stating the plain-as-the-proverbial truth about the intent of their campaigns and the consequences. No Green has ever denied any of it.

    It is all true. It’s all fair comment.

    The Greens don’t like it. That is their problem, not mine.

  31. Rex Douglas says:
    Friday, July 5, 2019 at 11:48 am

    Labor are quite correct in seeking to reduce taxes on working people. The Liberals find ways to shift the tax burden onto the least-well-paid. It is a core purpose of Labor to resist this.

  32. FalconWA says:
    Friday, July 5, 2019 at 2:15 pm
    Di Natale just totally misrepresented Labor’s position on the tax rebates.

    This is exactly par for the course for the Greens. They play tag with the Liberals in this respect.

    Once again, the Greens clearly thoroughly despise Labor. This has never been denied by the Greens.

  34. Mavis Davis says:
    Friday, July 5, 2019 at 12:00 pm
    Rex Douglas:

    [‘…Labors shift to the right to politically distance themselves from the Greens isn’t working.’]

    This is pure fiction. For a start, the Greens are not a Left band. They are a bourgeois sub-group; clones of the Liberals and their tactical allies. Second, Labor have not moved to the Right. The electorate is moving that way, but Labor remains wedded to its traditional positions.

  36. . They are a bourgeois sub-group
    _______________
    Yeah. we wouldnt want the children of ‘working people’ getting a good education and stop being ‘working people’ anymore. Shit, they might get a decent job, move to the inner city and vote green. Carthage must be destroyed!

  37. lizzie says:
    Friday, July 5, 2019 at 2:20 pm
    A huge area of mangrove forest on the Gulf of Carpentaria coast experienced a die-off in late 2015 and early 2016, affecting about 1000 kilometres of coastline.

    To the Bob Brown Coal Mine we can add the Bob Brown coastal wasteland/Green eco-zone.

  38. I’m still waiting for a Green to declare they do not despise Labor; to commit to working with Labor to replace the Reactionaries; to agree to suspend their anti-Labor campaigns.

    27 years on….and still waiting.

  39. The inference that the educated are not working people and that working people are not educated is just another Green/Lib sneer.

  40. Perhaps Briefly would like HECS to be abolished. Then, the children of ‘working people’ will never go to university and end up potentially living in the inner cities and voting green. Better for them to be apprenticed at their father’s manual labor job which they can inherit. Do we need to maintain the culture of ‘working people’ and stop the children of the working class from turning into greens?

  41. If the Greens did not exist, the Liberals would have to invent them, so useful are they to the Liberal message.

  42. Albanese must be getting blow back from Labor members and supporters.

    He has driven another wedge between left-leaning and right-leaning ALP members and supporters that will fester and forment.

  43. Of course many ‘working people’ wish nothing more for their children than they have a great career and success and cease being ‘working people’. Of course, the self appointed spokesmen of ‘working people’ such as Briefly dont like to talk about that.

  44. The Green/Liberals would deny the very existence of ‘working people’ as a group or class. They would green-ant or blue-ant the term from the lexicon.

  45. “I’m not sledging the Greens. I’m stating the plain-as-the-proverbial truth about the intent of their campaigns and the consequences. No Green has ever denied any of it.”

    You are spreading shit… With a big shit ladle.

  46. As Neville Wran said
    That’s what being in the working class is all about – how to get out of it

  47. Pegasus says:
    Friday, July 5, 2019 at 3:25 pm
    Albanese must be getting blow back from Labor members and supporters.

    He has driven another wedge between left-leaning and right-leaning ALP members and supporters that will fester and forment.

    I’m decidedly from Labor’s Left. There is no wedge. There is Green sanctimony.

    Labor did the correct thing. They voted for tax relief for working people. They called for more. The Liberals and the Greens are as one on this. There will be no stimulus for consumption and labour demand. They approve of repression. This is their gig. The prospect of economic retrenchment pleases the anti-Labor faces. They like it.

  48. nath

    It’s called ‘aspiration’ or the pursuit of individualistic self-interest, something both major parties are on a unity ticket in support of.

    Now, aspiration for the public good, public commons and a long-term vision for the good of the nation, is something else; a vision to carry everyone forward,together, now that’s something to be supported.

    Unfortunately, that takes the sort of leadership Australia is sorely lacking.

  49. [‘I’m still waiting for a Green to declare they do not despise Labor…’]

    Come on one of you Greens: put briefly to rest by declaring you don’t despise Labor.

  50. “The Green/Liberals would deny the very existence of ‘working people’ as a group or class. They would green-ant or blue-ant the term from the lexicon.”

    The Greens do deny the existence of ‘working people’. No such thing, unless you are meaning the people we describe as ‘Blerking People’

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