This post delves into wonkish matters arising from last week’s report by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters into last year’s federal election, and can thus be seen as a sequel to my earlier post on that subject. That post has a stimulating comments thread that I would like to see continue if anyone has anything to contribute specifically concerning the matters covered in this post. However, the comments thread below this post will serve as the usual open thread for general political discussion, it being past time for a new one.
On with the show. Among the more surprising recommendations of last week’s JSCEM report was the introduction of optional preferential voting. Whereas committee recommendations very often die on the vine, the chances of something becoming of this one shortened last week when both One Nation and the Centre Alliance indicated it would have their support, potentially giving it the numbers in the Senate over the opposition of Labor and the Greens. This prompted me to dig into data from last year’s state election in New South Wales, which offers the most proximate and generally useful pointer to how such a reform would play out at a federal election.
The New South Wales Electoral Commission is the only electoral authority that conducts full data entry of lower house ballot papers and publishes all the data, something the AEC only does for the Senate. The broader utility of this has been limited by the fact of New South Wales’ peculiarity of optional preferential voting, but as noted, there is a chance that may shortly change. I have aggregated this data to determine how each party and candidate’s preferences flowed between the Coalition and Labor, which no one else had done so far as I could see.
For those with a professional interest, this spreadsheet lays it all out seat by seat and party by party — for the lay person, the following table should suffice. It shows the aggregated statewide results from the state election, inclusive of the rate of exhaustion (i.e. voters who availed themselves of optional preferential’s opportunity to number neither Coalition nor Labor boxes), and the equivalent results from New South Wales from the federal election.
The reform’s attraction to the Coalition lies in the 40.0% exhaustion rate for the Greens vote, which split 82.2-17.8 in Labor’s favour federally. That alone would have sliced nearly 1% from Labor’s two-party preferred vote. However, the high exhaustion rate among all other minor parties, whose preferences in aggregate tend to favour the Coalition over Labor (think Hanson, Palmer and the religious parties) would have pared that back by around 0.3%. Such a change would probably have made a decisive difference in Macquarie (which Labor held by 0.2%) and Lilley (0.6%, and with an above-par Greens primary vote of 14.0%), and made life still more uncomfortable in Cowan (0.8%) and Eden-Monaro (0.8%, followed by 0.4% at the by-election).
Douglas and Milko @ #3298 Friday, December 25th, 2020 – 5:58 pm
Christmas Greetings All. I think ‘peace on earth and good will to all men’ would just about cover it.
Interesting post D&M. I wonder about the Catholic Church and happiness, and I’m not sure that happiness is really on their radar. It seems to pivot on a principle of ‘salvation through sacrifice’, with happiness deferred, and critically needing to be earned, and never certain, in some projected future other (non) world.
I’m about to jump in the car and head out of town, so I can’t run with this little train of thought.
Anyway, here is some short loveliness for Christmas (I think I post it every year, if not here, then somewhere). From Britten’s Ceremony of Carols:
O my deir hert, young Jesus sweit
Prepare thy creddil in my spreit
And I sall rock thee in my hert
And never mair from thee depart
But I sall praise thee evermoir
With sangis sweit unto thy gloir;
The knees of my heart sall I bow
And sing that richt Balulalow!
https://youtu.be/o3s-Q1zyxYE
(I love the moment at 0:46 when something goes amiss)
Keep well and safe everyone.
ItzaDream
Friday, December 25th, 2020 – 6:30 pm
Comment #3301
😇😇😇😇😇
Thank you.
Douglas and Milko says Friday, December 25, 2020 at 6:15 pm
I grew up in a country town with very dark skies. Back when I was a young-un, and had much better eyesight, we used to see Pleiades on the way to cubs. We had no idea of the constellation’s name, so we called it The Kite.
The Japanese name for Pleiades is Subaru, the same as the car manufacturer. Which is probably why they have the constellation on their badge.
ajm @ #3295 Friday, December 25th, 2020 – 4:53 pm
Oh goodie! 😀
Wow, the more things change, the more they stay yje same with the Coalition. Aged Care, you say? 🙄
Douglas and Milko,
A Fun Fact for you. Senator Deborah O’Neill’s daughters were Australian Champion Irish Dancers and represented Australia in Ireland. 🙂
If they weren’t World Champions there is no way any of us would know!
Anyway, enjoy your holidays everyone.
I’m about to have my first festive beer.
Hope everyone’s had a great day.
Berejiklian doesn’t seem to be able to make a decision.
If it’s such an issue, why doesn’t she close shopping centres tomorrow?
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/dec/25/nsw-premier-calls-on-shoppers-to-avoid-sydneys-boxing-day-sales-as-covid-cluster-grows-to-108
[‘Interesting post D&M. I wonder about the Catholic Church and happiness, and I’m not sure that happiness is really on their radar.’]
Yes, as the Catholic-Right would assume – eg, old GG. Here I feel compelled to refer to the very conflicted Daniel Mannix, though there’s scant probative evidence that he was a kiddy-fiddler; just as there’s not with Pell.
Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #3307 Friday, December 25th, 2020 – 7:44 pm
It’s likely she has been mortally wounded politically by ICAC and will be gone when the report lands early next year. Even if she wanted to make a decision it would probably be ignored by others in the government.
Barney @ 2.44pm 25/12
I’m sure that Berejiklian has been kissed on the arse by a fairy. How else could someone so bloody useless hold down a job let alone premier of NSW.
LR:
[‘Christmas Greetings All. I think ‘peace on earth and good will to all men’ would just about cover it.’]
That’s about as saccharine as it comes.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-georgia/nearly-2-1-million-have-voted-early-in-u-s-senate-runoff-in-georgia-idUSKBN28Y1T2
It’s looking good for Democrats in the Georgia run offs. Early voting is favourable and the Republicans have split. Trump has declared hostilities with the Republican majority in Georgia and with McConnell. So hopefully the Republican turnout will sag while the Democratic numbers hold up.
Democratic victories will potentially be very important for the US, and for all humanity. Is it too much to hope they will finish in front in the State that once gave a base to George Wallace?
I feel for the fairy. 😐
Greetings Bludgers and merry christmas! I hope everyone’s had a good day.
We had a christmas orphan with us, a guy from OH’s work who’s on his own this year. He’s a fair dinkum conspiracy theorist who thinks the vaccine is just an excuse to experiment on altering our DNA. He said he won’t get the vaccine even if it’s offered free under Medicare. It was plain to see early on why the guy’s on his own 😆
The opportunity to cement our place in this market when Morrison thew those that were here to the wolfs.
Risking another outbreak won’t undo the damage.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/scott-morrison-should-act-as-international-students-stay-away-says-anu-chief-20201223-p56ppp.html
The market is done dusted and destroyed.
re Georgia run off s …. I think the result will be 1/1… if that is the case one republican dissenter can support the vote for the democats on an issue. But 2/0 or 0/2 is also possible
Mick Quinlivan says:
Friday, December 25, 2020 at 10:48 pm
re Georgia run off s …. I think the result will be 1/1… if that is the case one republican dissenter can support the vote for the democats on an issue. But 2/0 or 0/2 is also possible
You have your bases covered for sure.
The Oz has Newspoll quarterly aggregates: Coalition leads 51-49 in NSW and SA, 53-47 in WA and 57-43 in Queensland, Labor leads 55-45 in Victoria.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/bloke-blues-anthony-albanese-fails-to-sway-men-bluecollar-workers/news-story/f05101aedbe8e780fcdd21dfd6bb45e6?utm_source=&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=&utm_content=&net_sub_uid=
They still love Smoko in QLD and WA.
If the Democrats don`t win both seats or appoint Republican Senators from states with governorships held by Democrats, Mitch McConnel will be Senate majority leader and they will get no votes on anything McConnel does not want and they will get nothing done. If they do both (giving them some hope on the filibuster), they might get something done.
Coal is history. One day it will sink into MiniTrumplanders.
steve davis says:
Friday, December 25, 2020 at 11:02 pm
They still love Smoko in QLD and WA.
It’s not the love of Morrison. Support for the Tories in WA, QLD and regional NSW preceded Morrison’s term and will probably outlast him too. Voters are motivated by jobs…financial security….prospects for family incomes and prosperity. In QLD in particular this translates into electoral support for the Federal LNP.
Labor have been campaigning against themselves in QLD to particular effect in recent years. Nothing has happened since the last election to greatly mitigate this.
Tom the first and best says:
Friday, December 25, 2020 at 11:05 pm
If the Democrats don`t win both seats or appoint Republican Senators from states with governorships held by Democrats, Mitch McConnel will be Senate majority leader and they will get no votes on anything McConnel does not want and they will get nothing done. If they do both (giving them some hope on the filibuster), they might get something done.
Will the Faux campaign for the Democratic candidates? Prolly not.
Non
A high early turnout is to be expected. The fact that Trump is turning on the Republicans can only be a good thing, but to win the Democrats need a few percentage points shift on turnout relative to November.
Tom
The only hope is that McConnel gets hit by the proverbial and someone a bit more in tune with the human race takes his place.
The Democrats really need enough to be able to expand the Supreme Court, with some of the more moderate Democratic Senators not supportive of the idea, otherwise much of what they do will be ruled unconstitutional by the Republican-appointed majority on the Supreme Court.
Tom the first and best says:
Saturday, December 26, 2020 at 12:13 am
The Democrats really need enough to be able to expand the Supreme Court, with some of the more moderate Democratic Senators not supportive of the idea, otherwise much of what they do will be ruled unconstitutional by the Republican-appointed majority on the Supreme Court.
So that be a Nah, the Faux will not campaign for the Democrats.
I control no American campaigning.
The vast majority of anti-Republican forces seem to be uniting behind the Democratic candidates:
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/12/democrats-civil-war-cease-fire-georgia-senate-runoffs-election-444633
New thread.
Happy NYE, everyone, and best wishes for a good and safe 2021.
It will be Trump-less. so that is a good start! If only our own crime minister and UK’s boris could go the same way!