Old, new, borrowed and blue

The AEC contentiously green-lights a party called the New Liberals, plus the resolution of the Tasmanian state election and Upper Hunter by-election.

Four entirely unrelated items of electoral news after a week without new poll results:

• The Australian Electoral Commission has approved the registration of a party called the New Liberals. In doing so it rejected a 55-page Liberal Party submission that included CT Group polling to support its argument that voters would confuse the new party with the old. The judgement cited the similarly unsuccessful bid to deny Liberals for Forests in 2001, in which it was determined that a ban on words as generic as “liberal” and “labour” demanded “clear language” from the Electoral Act – although it conceded the name New Liberals landed “much closer to the line”. The Howard government’s dissatisfaction with the 2001 ruling resulted in a new clause targeting names implying a “connection or relationship” with an existing party, but the AEC has ruled this doesn’t catch the New Liberals. The judgement also expressed reservations about the CT Group survey, in terms implying a dubious attitude to much of the modern practice of opinion polling. The Liberals can now apply for an internal review, followed by an appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

• The count for the Upper Hunter by-election has been finalised, confirming a 5.8% winning margin for Nationals candidate David Layzell and a two-party swing to the Nationals of 3.3%. Antony Green crunches the ballot paper data (a welcome feature of NSW election counts) to determine how each candidate’s preferences divided between Nationals and Labor, which in aggregate was very similar to the 2019 election.

• Resolution also for the Tasmanian state election, which had a post-script after elected Adam Brooks was charged with firearms offences the day after his election was declared, prompting him to decline his seat. This was resolved through Tasmania’s recount procedure for lower house vacancies using the ballots that elected the outgoing member, which naturally went overwhelmingly to other Liberals. The result was a win for Felix Ellis, a member of the previous parliament who initially failed to win re-election, finishing the distribution with 5881 votes (53.4%) to Stacey Sheehan’s 5132 (46.6%). The party numbers remain Liberal 13, Labor nine and Greens two, with one independent.

• I had a paywalled piece in Crikey yesterday on the recently launched Australian Polling Council’s new code of conduct. Both council and code draw inspiration from the British Polling Council, though to my own disappointment it does not follow the British example in requiring members to publish full breakdowns and weighting bases for each poll. However, pollsters will be required to publish a range of other detail that is often absent from media outlets’ reporting of polls they commission, including margin of error calculations that account for demographic imbalances in the sample. The nine pollsters who are members of the council include most of the familiar names, but not Resolve Strategic and Roy Morgan.

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.

1,573 comments on “Old, new, borrowed and blue”

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  1. zerlo

    Given you very distorted view of China and the rest of the world I m surprised you have traveled. In my case I have spent 1/2 my life outside of Australia. China I have been to twice, once in the exciting times when things were developing and more recently as Xi started screwing it up. I am actually quite sad I will not get a chance to go again, but the bamboo curtain is rising again with all the consequences that brings.

  2. poroti says:
    Sunday, June 6, 2021 at 8:57 pm
    I wonder how many more doses they have tucked down the back of the seat ?
    .
    .
    Won’t affect NSW supply’: Victoria to get more than 300,000 extra vaccine doses
    https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria-gets-extra-vaccine-doses-without-taking-away-from-anybody-20210606-p57ykc.html

    Isn’t CSL supposed to be churning out one million doses of AstraZeneca each week? At that rate, the extra 300,000 doses to Victoria would be only about two days production. So it’s easy to give Victoria extra supply. But it raises the question: what’s happening to all that supposed production because it’s certainly NOT (edit) going into Australian arms.

  3. It is strange how some choose to engage in full-throated support for either China or America day after day no matter what they do. Neither are deserving of such unwavering devotion.


  4. Green Machine says:
    Sunday, June 6, 2021 at 9:21 pm

    It is strange how some choose to engage in full-throated support for either China or America day after day no matter what they do. Neither are deserving of such unwavering devotion.

    Well I’ll be. For once we agree on something, neither deserve our unwavering condemnation either.

  5. frednk says:
    Sunday, June 6, 2021 at 9:17 pm

    zerlo

    Given you very distorted view of China and the rest of the world I m surprised you have traveled. In my case I have spent 1/2 my life outside of Australia. China I have been to twice, once in the exciting times when things were developing and more recently as Xi started screwing it up. I am actually quite sad I will not get a chance to go again, but the bamboo curtain is rising again with all the consequences that brings.

    —————–
    “Given you very distorted view of China”
    — Sure Sure, Freddy.
    “China I have been to twice”, in recent times I guess not? Where have you been in China?

    I have been all over, from north to south to major centres like Chengdu, the more recent developments such as Wavey Valley in Shanxi.

    You keep saying Xi has stuffed up but you never said what.

    “bamboo curtain is rising again”

    This doesn’t say anything at all, infact, sounds like some sort of dodgy 4 word slogan by a focus group of Donald Trump.

    You know like the supposed fraud of the USA election, bamboo laced ballots from china.

    You’re story sounds fake as it is.

    Your total arrogance, ignorance.


  6. Zerlo

    You know like the supposed fraud of the USA election, bamboo laced ballots from china.

    It’s always the same isn’t it mate. Instead of considering China’s short coming you focus on something else, unrelated and when compared to the dictatorship in China, irrelevant.


  7. Benjamin Law | 羅旭能
    @mrbenjaminlaw
    ·
    22h
    Spent my entire childhood kinda embarrassed about my race but last night I was asked for ID to buy wine and I’m almost 40 and I’ve decided being Asian rocks

  8. frednk says:
    Sunday, June 6, 2021 at 9:28 pm

    Zerlo

    You know like the supposed fraud of the USA election, bamboo laced ballots from china.

    It’s always the same isn’t it mate. Instead of considering China’s short coming you focus on something else, unrelated and when compared to the dictatorship in China, irrelevant.
    ————-
    Don’t join the argument, then. The thing with comparisons, they are relevant, considering how much less America is at being a democratic country over the years, and will be due to the two extreme sides of politics. The stability of America is like a Ocean with 12 foot high waves.

    And you only say it’s irrelevant because you don’t want to talk about it, hear about it, and above all compare it.

  9. Parties level pegging but Morrison slides

    The Coalition has drawn level with Labor on a two-party-preferred basis for the first time since February, but Scott Morrison’s popularity has plunged.

    (Benson in Oz)


  10. Zerlo says:
    Sunday, June 6, 2021 at 9:33 pm

    And you only say it’s irrelevant because you don’t want to talk about it, hear about it, and above all compare it.

    Can’t vote unless your a member of the communist party on one hand, the Republicans trying hard to restrict voting on the other.

    China has the system the republicans want. Americans can still ask “do we want a dictatorship”. China can no longer ask the question. What is there to compare?

    I’m in the camp that believes that China has a system that sucks and the republicans do also.

  11. Sprocket
    The Libs didnt take any policy to the election except tax cuts. It was an open book in what they would do and wouldnt do afterwards, and thats what the dozy punters voted for.A govt free to do anything they fucking wanted to.

  12. frednk,

    China is similar to the US.

    They have the Primaries likethe US, but then they don’t have to worry about an election. 🙂

  13. poroti

    covid19data are pretty reliable. Here’s their figures..
    https://www.covid19data.com.au/vaccines

    5 million doses given
    7.1 million distributed (whatever that means)
    11.1 million doses delivered to Australia (whatever that means)

    So what, the Feds are hanging on to second dose and keeping it in reserve? Quite unnecessary at this point. Also, I’ve never unravelled the difference between “delivered” and “delivered and accepted by the TGA” (I don’t know if this differs depending on whether its locally made or imported).

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