Queensland election: late counting

A post tracking the progress of the late count for the Queensland election.

Click here for full Queensland election results updated live.

Tuesday evening

In the two days since my last update, Labor’s narrow lead in Bundaberg has worn away, with the LNP sneaking ahead by four votes at the close of play yesterday. However, they continue to hang on grimly in Nicklin, where a slight edge on absents cancelled out their usual deficit from postals, leaving their lead at 67 compared with 84 the other night. Neither I nor the ABC is calling Currumbin for the LNP, where their lead has nudged from 268 to 302, but I imagine the addition of a two-party count on absent pre-polls will take care of that. Similarly, there is no LNP call yet for Clayfield, where counting is proceeding slowly, but there assuredly will be when the postal two-party votes are added.

Three seats are being called that weren’t as of Sunday night: Hervey Bay, now rated a Labor gain after an outstanding pre-poll result came in, and they further managed a remarkably strong result on postals; Burleigh, which is now confirmed LNP with their lead at 582; and Coomera, where the LNP now has a clearly decisive lead of 901.

Monday afternoon

A piece I wrote for Crikey that they didn’t have room/money for:

As the world braces for an electoral convulsion of one kind of another in the United States, Australia has maintained its COVID-19 era habit of endorsing the status quo with Annastacia Palaszczuk’s re-election in Queensland on the weekend.

It was a good night for the political left, with a Labor government returned, the Greens’ inner-city empire expanded, One Nation rebuffed, Clive Palmer saved from humiliation only by his lack of shame, and the Morrison government denied a return on the capital it spent taking Labor on before and during the campaign. In a parliament of 93 seats, Labor seems most likely to make a net gain of two or three on the 48 it won in 2017, with the negative side of its ledger consisting of former Deputy Premier Jackie Trad in South Brisbane defeat by the Greens in South Brisbane.

The demographics of the seats that have actually or potentially been gained point to Labor’s success among a cohort whose support it probably shouldn’t get used to, namely seniors. The three clearly gained by Labor are Hervey Bay, Pumicestone and Caloundra, which rank second, third and eighth out of the state’s 93 seats by median age (it is no doubt also notable that each was being vacated by a retiring LNP incumbent). In the retiree-rich and normally solid blue Sunshine Coast region, Labor’s performance was of an equal with the Peter Beattie landslides of two decades ago.

Relatedly, Labor seemed to do better than expected among the many greying legions of One Nation deserters, which helped blunt the LNP’s much-touted attack in central and north Queensland. The LNP had plotted a path to victory that ran through as many as seven Labor-held seats in these regions — among them Mackay, which the party did not even win in its epochal landslide of 2012 — but emerged completely empty-handed.

At the other end of the age spectrum, the Greens added South Brisbane to a trophy wall of youthful inner-city state seats that includes Balmain and Newtown in New South Wales, Melbourne, Brunswick and Prahran in Victoria, and Maiwar in Queensland — none of which the party held a decade ago. Reflecting the situation in Sydney and Melbourne, the Greens’ footprint is expanding into the inner urban periphery, adding Campbell Newman’s old seat of Cooper (then known as Ashgrove) to McConnel in the CBD as a potential target for future elections. However, such prospects may depend on the grace of the LNP, which gave the Greens an unusual fillip on this occasion by putting Labor last on its how-to-vote cards.

The resulting transformation in the Greens’ share of LNP preferences in South Brisbane — from about 40% in 2017 to 68% on the latest numbers — had Labor’s election night panellists crying blue murder and Anthony Albanese complaining of an “LNP-Greens coalition”. Had preference flowed as they did in 2017, South Brisbane would be going down to the wire, compared with what looks to be a Greens margin of around 5%.

The other fly in the Greens’ ointment was that their success was very much limited to inner Brisbane. They were not spared the exodus from the minor parties elsewhere, resulting in a drop in their overall vote from 10% to 9%. This raises the possibility that a focus on the very particular kind of seat the party can win at state elections, in terms of both campaign resource allocation and policy orientation, is weakening it elsewhere and imperilling its hold on Senate seats that are determined by the statewide vote.

Last but not least, the election was also the first serious test of Australian opinion polling since last year’s federal debacle, and in particular for YouGov, which has since assumed the job of conducting Newspoll for The Australian. The result was a qualified pass: the election eve Newspoll got the winner right and nailed the LNP vote, but tested its margin-of-error by short-changing Labor by three points and understating the decline of the minor parties.

Sunday night

This post will be progressively updated with news on the late counting for the Queensland election. My live election results pages now include the preference flow by candidate data that the ECQ is uniquely publishing progressively, in a rather more user-friendly and easy-to-locate form than on the ECQ’s site. Here you can readily find the answers to such questions as how many LNP preferences are flowing to the Greens in South Brisbane (the current answer being 67.8% of them).

The ECQ separately publishes the election night count of the primary vote and what other jurisdictions would describe as the “recheck”, on which work began yesterday. This means I have a choice between publishing the election night or the recheck results, and I will be sticking with the former until the latter are largely or entirely completed.

My results system is calling 49 seat for Labor, 30 for the LNP and cross-bench of seven, with seven Labor-versus-LNP contests in doubt. However, some of these are not really so, as will be explained when I consider them in turn shortly: one of the seven should probably be counted for Labor and four for the LNP, leaving only two generally in doubt. And another reminder that the extensive effort that has gone into all this can be rewarded via the “Become a Supporter” button at the top of the page.

• The ABC is calling Hervey Bay for Labor but my system is a hair’s breadth away from doing so. It probably should, because one of the two pre-poll booths has 7639 votes that have so far reported only the primary vote, and which will boost Labor’s 760 lead to by about 375 when its two-party count finally comes through.

• Labor leads by 277 in Bundaberg, but this is without a two-party count on 2833 postals, which by my reckoning should slightly more than halve that. That flow of about 52.5-47.5 to the LNP on postals presumably indicates there is a good chance last postals will wear away what remains of Labor’s lead.

• Labor leads by 84 in Nicklin, and could get a fillip when absents are added, if 2017 is any guide. Against that will be the usual trend to the LNP on late postals.

• The LNP leads by 268 in Currumbin, but there probably aren’t that many votes outstanding, so there would been to be some surprises here on absents and late postals for Labor to win.

• The LNP leads Labor by 547 in Burleigh, which late postals will presumably widen.

• The LNP leads by only 365 in Clayfield, but 5441 votes from the Clayfield early voting centre and 6743 postals should blow that out when they have two-party as well as primary votes reported. The ABC is calling this for the LNP.

• The LNP leads by 814 in Coomera, without much remaining to be added, so you can put down your glasses there.

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.

49 comments on “Queensland election: late counting”

  1. From The Guardian:

    Queensland Liberal-National Party leader Deb Frecklington says she is standing aside as leader of the LNP in Queensland, following the party’s election loss on Saturday.

    “Once all of the results are finally declared, I will convene a party room meeting and I will ask my colleagues to appoint a new leader of the Liberal National Party. I will not be a candidate in the leadership contest. Whoever the new leader of the LNP is will have my full support and my full loyalty. I will assist them in any way possible to help this party move forward.”

    This came after she said she would stay on as leader on Saturday night.

  2. There were was a suggestion before the election the Nationals would lock in behind Deb Frecklington even if she came up short. The magnitude of the loss must have been too great for some to overlook. The name I’m hearing is David Crisafulli. Tim Mander may be a possibility as well. The problem for Mander is he has been deputy on a losing ticket. Some in the party may feel they need to break away from that which is what you will get with Crisafulli. Crisafulli is still very young though.

    Only a guess here but Crisafulli as leader, and a regional MP such as David Janetski as deputy may be the way the LNP travel forward.

  3. One wouldn’t want to bet on One Nation being down and out, though as Senator Hanson is getting on in years now one might wonder whether the party is sufficiently robust to carry on without her. Their main problem at this election was probably that the issues which have worked for them in the past had been pushed to the side by bigger ones. A bit like the DLP in 1974, whose preoccupations at the time had once been described as “The Red Menace, the Yellow Peril and the Blue Movies”. But changes in the wider world made those issues much less relevant, and it’s not clear that that will be the case with One Nation’s traditional points of focus, once the dust settles a bit from the Covid-19 storm.

  4. ‘He’s 41! Not particularly young.’

    Well considering John F Kennedy is the youngest US president to hold office at 43. I would consider 41 to be young rather then ‘not particularly young’ as you state.

  5. According to the Courier Mail its likely to be Burdekin MP Dale Last as deputy if David Crisafulli gets up as leader.

  6. 41 isn’t particularly young for a state leader. Springborg was only 34 when he became opposition leader, Borbidge was 36, Beattie and Palaszcsuk were 43 and 42 respectively.

  7. Asha, I think fretting about his age 4 years out is called “managing expectations”, for when AP sees off yet another lightweight LNP contender in 2024….

  8. Maybe Crisafulli’s arrogance which saw him as a vociferous supporter of Cando and a big face in that ignominious government. He was almost candoes mini me to a fellow who was also very diminutive. I work in the Qld public service where the drunken hubristic machinations of these turkeys will never forgotten. Crisafulli lost his north Qld seat and abandoned the sticks for LNP heartland on the coast. This won’t go down well up there. Proofs in the pudding though 76 seats to 34 in 3 elections, wonder if they can go any farther backward.

  9. The next Qld LNP leader will be a man. Palaszczuk saw to that on Saturday with her comment, wtte how civil the election had been with a woman leader as her opponent. And when the new man gets nasty she’ll have a buffer, along the lines of “he’s just being nasty.”

  10. “41 isn’t particularly young for a state leader. Springborg was only 34 when he became opposition leader, Borbidge was 36, Beattie and Palaszcsuk were 43 and 42 respectively.”

    One of the examples you provided was Lawrence Springborg. Yeah well Springborg wasn’t exactly that successful as an opposition leader either losing three elections. And I still think my point stands as there has been some younger flameouts Mark Latham at 42 and Alexander Downer at 43. I acknowledge that Latham was always quite an unpredictable character who has now turned out to be a political rat to the Labor party. But have always wondered if things may have turned out differently if he waited then taking the Labor leadership at a relatively young age.

    David Crisafulli 41 compared to Tim Mander at 59 is still quite young.

  11. I can see in fifty years time Labor people saying about some candidate once walked past a library that in a long forgotten book had a two word reference to Campbell Newman, so you should not vote for that person.

    Lets not remember that Labor are the only party in Queensland to sell major state assets and our current premier was instrumental in selling the port of Brisbane and large parts or QR leading to massive blue collar job losses. Nothing to say Palaszcuk will not decide to sell major assets this term as she has supported such actions in the past.

    It is about time you people found some new scaremongering. The newman scaremongering is getting quite old. Palaszczuk has shafted plenty of people as well. I will be surprised if she even lasts beyond three years. Dick will shaft her when she becomes unpopular due to the house of cards she has created.

    One major issue the LNP does have but Labor currently does not have is a complete lack of loyalty to the party. Currumbin a classic example. Even if Labor shaft their own members, they say Please Sir may I have another.

    As for Mander. Yes lets choose a highly religious person for leader in 2020. I half expect the LNP will create Springborg V3.0. Version 2.0 performed exactly as designed but is now retired.

  12. Paul, people remember what Newman and his would-be successors did in govt. The collective memory of Joh’s hillbilly dictatorship isn’t by any means dead either. Hence, with Palmer bankrolling the whole shit-show and poor candidate and leadership choices eating them alive, the Qld LNP is in a world of hurt for a long time to come. The lame and increasingly ineffective Gladys pile on and her blatant bullying of Qld (0n Sco-Mo’s orders) are making matters even worse for Qld LNP supporters

  13. Late Riser @ #14 Monday, November 2nd, 2020 – 6:45 pm

    The next Qld LNP leader will be a man. Palaszczuk saw to that on Saturday with her comment, wtte how civil the election had been with a woman leader as her opponent. And when the new man gets nasty she’ll have a buffer, along the lines of “he’s just being nasty.”

    And I forgot, it also gives credence to the LNP’s women problem.

  14. ‘It is about time you people found some new scaremongering. The newman scaremongering is getting quite old. Palaszczuk has shafted plenty of people as well. I will be surprised if she even lasts beyond three years. Dick will shaft her when she becomes unpopular due to the house of cards she has created.’

    Yeah Paul where was your criticism about the Liberal party for the federal election? Where there was one big scaremongering campaign against Bill Shorten.

    I actually don’t think your critique of Annastasia Palaszczuk departing is off the mark either. The only difference is that she won’t be shafted and there is no guarantee she’s will be unpopular either. Generally premiers tend to go after 8 years or so. Peter Beattie left after being premier for over 8 years. If Palaszczuk contests the next state election she will be premier for over 9 years. I just can’t see it happening and I think there will be a succession plan.

    There is a view Colin Barnett should have not contested the 2017 state election for the Liberals after 8 and a half years as WA premier. As he has had been there too long and it was time for renewal. From what I understand that may have had happen if Christian Porter hadn’t departed state politics for Federal Politics.

  15. “Yeah Paul where was your criticism about the Liberal party for the federal election?”

    About the same yours is of palaszczuk. But like I said. Labor has sold big state assets and palaszczuk was instrumental in the sale of most of them as transport minister at the time. Where is the scaremongering there?

    “Paul, people remember what Newman and his would-be successors did in govt.”

    Well what did they do? Other then going too gung ho on thinning down the public service by offering generous redundancy payouts. He bought in some other stupid stuff as well, but on a par nothing worse then palaszczuk has done.

    If you have had much to do with the public service you would know how awful it is to deal with, also how incompetent it can be. In the future a government is going to have to be strong and sort out this mess palaszczuk has created. Go to Qld transport and do something out of the ordinary and you will see what I mean. I was taken for a drive the other day and saw a huge area of untouched forest completely destroyed by aerial bombardment with chemicals. Completely illegal yet you can be sure the wonderful department responsible for enforcing those laws will not do anything, yet they go after some poor bastard to the tune of $700 000 who put in firebreaks after getting burnt out.

    The public service bureaucracy portion management, hierarchy and policy creators needs a huge purge in Queensland. I remember when the public service was an admirable service to be part of. When their role was to help business and Queensland. These days the bureaucratic part of it does nothing but hinder all of Queensland. The doctors, nurses, teacher, police, fire and rescue all others who do actual good work need the government’s support and get rid of the idiots hindering them with paperwork and diversity targets and just plain stupid policy. We just lost 5000 rural volunteer firefighters thanks to a stupid policy palaszczuk refuses to fix.

  16. Paul @ #21 Monday, November 2nd, 2020 – 9:22 pm

    “Yeah Paul where was your criticism about the Liberal party for the federal election?”

    About the same yours is of palaszczuk. But like I said. Labor has sold big state assets and palaszczuk was instrumental in the sale of most of them as transport minister at the time. Where is the scaremongering there?

    “Paul, people remember what Newman and his would-be successors did in govt.”

    Well what did they do? Other then going too gung ho on thinning down the public service by offering generous redundancy payouts. He bought in some other stupid stuff as well, but on a par nothing worse then palaszczuk has done.

    If you have had much to do with the public service you would know how awful it is to deal with, also how incompetent it can be. In the future a government is going to have to be strong and sort out this mess palaszczuk has created. Go to Qld transport and do something out of the ordinary and you will see what I mean. I was taken for a drive the other day and saw a huge area of untouched forest completely destroyed by aerial bombardment with chemicals. Completely illegal yet you can be sure the wonderful department responsible for enforcing those laws will not do anything, yet they go after some poor bastard to the tune of $700 000 who put in firebreaks after getting burnt out.

    The public service bureaucracy portion management, hierarchy and policy creators needs a huge purge in Queensland. I remember when the public service was an admirable service to be part of. When their role was to help business and Queensland. These days the bureaucratic part of it does nothing but hinder all of Queensland. The doctors, nurses, teacher, police, fire and rescue all others who do actual good work need the government’s support and get rid of the idiots hindering them with paperwork and diversity targets and just plain stupid policy. We just lost 5000 rural volunteer firefighters thanks to a stupid policy palaszczuk refuses to fix.

    PB welcomes Campbell Newman to the blog!

  17. Only 66% of Greens voters have preferenced Labor in Bundaberg. Only 48% of folk who want cannabis legalised did so as well. Even when using Nicholas’s logic of what progressive voters should do when exercising a preference vote (which I actually ‘get’), folk who vote for a party like the greens or for a single issue of progressive reform like legalising cannabis and then preference the LNP (and let’s be blunt the LNP in Bundaberg is ole school national party with a dash of modern RWNJ thrown in for good measure) over Labor have a brain that’s gone completely broke.

  18. Maybe at the next election after Anna has retired, the horror of Newman’s reign and the taint on his LNP cohort has faded and there is no lomger (hopefully) a Federal government bullying the State government to ignore medical/scientific advice, the Labor government will be judged by the voters on its merits.

  19. Ha, the public service are incompetent? That has not been my experience, but I have encountered plenty in the private sector who are. Distributors are probably the worst. Sometimes I wonder if they even want to make any money, they are that bad.

  20. “Only 66% of Greens voters have preferenced Labor in Bundaberg. ”

    At 2.8% primary seems fair to suggest that Bundaberg is not Greens heartland. Presumably the non-ideological ‘pox on both’ voters make up a larger component of the Greens vote there.

  21. Political Nightwatchman:

    “There is a view Colin Barnett should have not contested the 2017 state election for the Liberals after 8 and a half years as WA premier. As he has had been there too long and it was time for renewal. From what I understand that may have had happen if Christian Porter hadn’t departed state politics for Federal Politics.”

    The WA Libs’ problem started before they ever won the 2008 election. Three of their safest seats had been held by independents for ages, while two more MPs had quit in disgust at Buswell’s antics – the sitting MP for Nedlands even ran against the Libs. By the time they sorted that out, Porter had gone federal, and their blue-blood heartland was held by a bunch of newbies. (There’s a reason Buswell kept on getting his job back.) In the end, there just wasn’t anyone to replace Barnett.

    Relevance to Qld: the LNP must’ve seemed like a good idea at the time. Longer-term, that one party has managed to lose seats variously to KAP, the Greens and independents (oh, and Labor). If they win in 2024, there’ll be half a dozen seats that should have experienced LNP MPs but won’t, and they’ll end up with a talent drought the same way Barnett did.

  22. The LNP is a broken organisation and needs some input from down south. These guys like Spence and McIvor are still right in the mix. Clive who is a 100% scoundrel is also in there. These guys have taken over an organisation pushed through by the essentially decent Laurence Springborg. He seemed like your average run of the mill conservative country god fearing guy. These LNP machine guys seem a bit more dastardly though,the LNP seems to think God and Jesus up in heaven will keep replenishing the earth’s resources no matter how we behave. LNP needs a huge kick up the b**kside from Charles Atlas. The libs need to try and appeal in the city and Nats back to the country. Libs need to be less religious and the Nats can cater to the god will provide crowd. Both sharing that binding love of making money and despising unions and letting the free market run riot.

  23. Paulsays:
    Monday, November 2, 2020 at 8:14 pm
    I can see in fifty years time Labor people saying about some candidate once walked past a library that in a long forgotten book had a two word reference to Campbell Newman, so you should not vote for that person.
    ———————————
    The reason the ALP still refer to the Newman government because the voters keep raising it with campaign workers. As long as that is happening it will keep being used.

  24. The reason the ALP still refer to the Newman government because the voters keep raising it with campaign workers. As long as that is happening it will keep being used.

    And one reason it is raised by voters is that Newman himself keeps popping up to tell everyone how good his administration was!

    The people disagree.

  25. Crisfaulli’s best and only chance is to immediately distance himself from Newman – admit he was part of a bad government that was drunk on power and deserved to be voted out. He needs to consign every element of the 2012-15 government’s crackpot, psychotic agenda to the scrap heap while adopting sensible centrist policies.
    He’s going to be hampered, however, by a diabolically incompetent LNP machine that keeps picking dreadful candidates, has NFI how to run a professional campaign and appears stacked with bible-bashing dropkicks. He’s also known for having a glass jaw, so needs to develop a toughness and resolve under fire, that we’re all yet to see

  26. Ultimately, attacking the Newman government would not work as a strategy if there wasn’t still a lot of residual anger within the state about what Newman did. And while Newman is the face of that bastardry, his agenda was enthusiastically endorsed by his entire party, with barely a hint of dissenting voices. It’s quite likely that much of what went down were more the babies of Nicholls, Seeney, and the like, with Newman the (initially) friendly face intended to sell it to the public.

  27. Andrew Earlwood:

    Only 66% of Greens voters have preferenced Labor in Bundaberg. Only 48% of folk who want cannabis legalised did so as well.

    Legalise Cannabis drew top of the ballot paper, and the Greens second. The LNP was above Labor, so it seems likely there’s a good number of donkey votes in those.

  28. Tim Mander has now ruled out contesting either leader or deputy leader position. Its almost certain the new LNP leader will be David Crisafulli now.

    The view is if its Crisafulli as the leader. Burdekin MP Dale Last will be the deputy. David Janetski and Ninderry MP Dan Purdie has been mentioned as other potential options as deputy.

  29. Clem Attlee:

    Ha, the public service are incompetent? That has not been my experience, but I have encountered plenty in the private sector who are. Distributors are probably the worst. Sometimes I wonder if they even want to make any money, they are that bad.

    Distributors make most of the money in many industries, and often in proportion to the disservice and incompetence they provide. That’s the way distribution monopolies work.

  30. put Last first, might end up being the LNPs slogan at the next election in 4 years time. In fact with the youthful appeal of these guys they may really do well in the election after this one?

  31. Clearly the Greens have had exceptionally strong victories in Maiwar and South Brisbane and I think its right that the Labor government reward these seats by honouring what the Greens voters supported.

    A public housing led recovery via major developments in West End and St Lucia.

  32. ‘Clearly the Greens have had exceptionally strong victories in Maiwar and South Brisbane and I think its right that the Labor government reward these seats by honouring what the Greens voters supported.’

    No. If you are going to be swayed by a minor party that can promise you the world. Then you have accept the realty that they can’t actually deliver anything for you.

    Labor also said no deals. They told voters that they would implement Labor policies not Greens policies.

    Labor also has a mandate of the majority seats in parliament. Winning two seats and suggesting thats a mandate for some Greens policies to be implemented is laughable.

  33. Political Nightwatchman @ #44 Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020 – 10:49 pm

    If you are going to be swayed by a minor party that can promise you the world. Then you have accept the realty that they can’t actually deliver anything for you.

    Labor also said no deals. They told voters that they would implement Labor policies not Greens policies.

    Ardern provides an example of how you might make minor parties accountable and cooperative. And KAP has a greater claim than the Greens. But in the end Labor, having said they would not enter into any agreement with a minor party, would be risking credibility to pursue it.

  34. 3z @ #43 Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020 – 8:56 pm

    Clearly the Greens have had exceptionally strong victories in Maiwar and South Brisbane and I think its right that the Labor government reward these seats by honouring what the Greens voters supported.

    A public housing led recovery via major developments in West End and St Lucia.

    Got some friends with land to sell in hose areas 3z? I expect them to increase investment in public housing in areas where it is required and makes most sense economically.

  35. Alan Jones has let rip on the LNP. I never thought I would say this but Jones is right. One of the biggest problems of the LNP is the deadwood that they have in their ranks. Fiona Simpson and Ray Stevens should really have been moved on. Its even kind of strange Tim Nicholls is hanging around in parliament when he’s time in the sun is well and truly over. Simpson who has been in parliament for 28 years I saw in an interview claim she believes in small and limited government. The claim is kind of funny considering she has made a very well paid parliamentary career funded by government.

    https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6206631986001

  36. Political Nightwatchman @ #47 Wednesday, November 4th, 2020 – 7:42 am

    Alan Jones has let rip on the LNP. I never thought I would say this but Jones is right. One of the biggest problems of the LNP is the deadwood that they have in their ranks. Fiona Simpson and Ray Stevens should really have been moved on. Its even kind of strange Tim Nicholls is hanging around in parliament when he’s time in the sun is well and truly over. Simpson who has been in parliament for 28 years I saw in an interview claim she believes in small and limited government. The claim is kind of funny considering she has made a very well paid parliamentary career funded by government.

    https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6206631986001

    One of the advantages of generous polly super, was it was a lot easier to move deadwood on.

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