Federal election live: day four

What now seems a certain Labor win in Bennelong leaves them one short of a majority, with a further three in-doubt seats as candidates to get them over the line.

Click here for full federal election results updated live.

The count failed to progress yesterday in many of the seats I rate as in doubt, but my system yesterday called Lingiari for Labor and Bradfield for the Liberals. It is clear Bennelong won’t be far off, with the second batch of postals reducing the Labor lead at the same insufficient rate as the first. That will leave Labor needing one further seat to get a majority, which might (or might not) be provided by Lyons, Brisbane and Gilmore, on which we are today none the wise.

The fresh two-candidate count in Cowper has dispelled any doubt that Nationals member Pat Conaghan will hold out against independent Caz Heise, whom he leads with 53.2% of the two-candidate vote. I’m projecting that come down to around 52-48 when the two-candidate count has caught up with the primary votes. The fresh count in Ryan records a slight lead for the LNP with about 12% completed, but this is because the booths counted so far lean conservative. My projection of a 2.6% winning margin for the Greens is based on the fact that preferences in the booths added so far are breaking nearly 70-30 in their favour. It is by the same logic that an 11.2% Greens margin over the LNP is projected in Griffith.

New batches of postal votes further shortened the odds on Liberal wins in Deakin, where Michael Sukkar has opened a 55-vote lead; Menzies, where the Liberal lead increased from 624 to 1748; and Sturt, where it increased from 723 to 982. My projection that Labor will ultimately win a squeaker in Deakin fails to properly account for the clear trend on postals, about 40% of which are still to come. That should add around 1000 votes to Sukkar’s margin, only about half of which Labor is likely to recover on absents. I should acknowledge though that I have no idea what the electronic assisted voting results have in store, which will include those in COVID-19 isolation, but my best guess is that they will be few in number.

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.

1,248 comments on “Federal election live: day four”

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  1. Arky @ #1194 Tuesday, May 24th, 2022 – 11:00 pm

    @alias : “Could any referendum succeed in the social media age?”

    The marriage equality vote got a majority in EVERY state, so yes. (I’m aware it was neither compulsory nor a referendum but it’s the best example we have).

    I think a s44 referendum could get bipartisan support and pass. It has been a problem for both majors AND the Greens.

    I am less confident about a Voice referendum with Dutton and News Corp hell bent on describing it as a boondoggle giving Indigenous people More Say Than You, Yes You There. Yes even after the election we just had.

    I think the election put paid to that argument. Most people, I think, believe it’s not going to be as harmful as has been made out previously. Also, it’s up to the federal government to successfully prosecute the case for it. That’s their job, after all.

  2. I agree about ‘eligible’ for foreign citizenship, but on what conceivable basis is it unreasonable to expect people to renounce actual foreign citizenship if they want to govern this country?

  3. Patrick Bateman,
    You break it you bought it. You shouldn’t be able to get elected then get another citizenship afterwards. you should be stuck here in the mess you’ve created.

  4. south, you can never eliminate that completely. I have no connection to the US but I can apply for a green card tomorrow.

  5. I don’t agree with with the constitution being amended by a super-majority of Parliament, it could lead to constitutional changes that don’t necessarily have the direct majority approval of voters in a majority of states.

  6. I lost a lot of respect for Malcolm Turnbull when he dismissed the “Voice” with the Right Wing lie that it would have been a 3rd chamber of Parliament.

    He probably thought that the rabid right (i.e. much of his front bench, most of his backbench, the extractive industries and Murdoch) would go completely spare at the prospect and organise to chuck him out.

    Certainly it won’t be easy, especially with Dutton as Opposition Leader. That’s why I favour a legislated solution to start with, with enshrinement in the Constitution to come later.

  7. I’m not convinced why we need a Voice to Parliament enshrined in the Constitution if it’s little more than an advisory body. It seems little more than symbolic and ultimately meaningless. Happy for it to be legislated first and see what it might achieve.

  8. Patrick Bateman – it might seem a perfectly reasonable ask to make people give up any dual citizenship. But I’d suggest that it probably seems a lot more reasonable for people who don’t have to do it. As I noted previously, nearly 50% of the population is eligible for dual citizenship (even if they might not know it), and it’s safe to say that a large proportion of those simply aren’t prepared to make that sacrifice. After all, in an increasingly interconnected world, dual citizenship is quite an asset. The practical upshot of this is a significant proportion of the population simply remove themselves for consideration. Personally, I think we should be trying to maximise the range of people seeking election to Parliament, and not trying to find ways to disqualify them.

  9. xkcd (Randall Munroe) is a smug mediocrity who can’t draw.

    (And a particularly US American type of humourless smugness which I personally can’t stand.)

  10. (Caveat: I am not a lawyer!)

    Section 44 doesn`t ban people with an unused ability to apply for a foreign citizenship or discharged bankrupts. It bans people who are entitled to the rights or privileges of the subject or citizen of a foreign power (like those who, without holding British Citizenship, hold the Right of Abode in the UK (through descent or marriage pre-1983)) and undischarged bankrupt (i.e. still under supervision, hence subject to official influence).

    https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Australia_Constitution_Act

    https://www.gov.uk/right-of-abode/commonwealth-citizens

  11. Yes, I don’t like the intrusion of overrated/overshared US American popular culture into Australian blogs/fora. So I’ll slap down references to the revolting Game of Thrones franchise and the various idiotic superhero films too. I also hate their bastardisation/americanisation of Tolkien’s works. But I’ll shut up now.

  12. The Revisionist at 10.36 re Macnamara count…

    Phenomenal work! I love the conclusion! If only I understood how you got there…(Please don’t explain. It won’t help.)

  13. Tom – I can give you at least one high profile example of an entitlement that the bearer was completely unaware of: Barnaby Joyce was disqualified when it was discovered that his father (who came here in 1947, before BJ was born) brought NZ citizenship with him and then passed it to BJ.

  14. mjsays:
    Tuesday, May 24, 2022 at 11:27 pm

    The whole point, as I understand it, is that if it is just legislated it can be gone with a stroke of a pen, very dependent of the government of the day (just as so many first nations advisory bodies have met their end). Constitutionally, it’s in.

    Personally, I think it’s a hard sell. Something needs to be done, but a referendum is a very hard thing to pass.

  15. Re Teals
    @Honest Bastard

    Don’t be so naive mate .The biggest issue facing Australia is how we are going to continue to fund, let alone expand our welfare state in the face of a shrinking tax base.

    We also need working tax credits to provide a living wage to unskilled and semi skilled workers and the money can only come from a progressive tax agenda.

    The Teals world is a world of 30k a year private schools European vacations, beach houses, investment properties and self managed super tax fiddles.

    These people are not politically disengaged, they understand politics, they are turkeys who are not gonna for vote Christmas despite a noblesse oblige facade..Any chance of the progressive tax reform this country badly needs died on Saturday night.

  16. Tom the first and best @ #1219 Tuesday, May 24th, 2022 – 11:54 pm

    (Caveat: I am not a lawyer!)

    Citizenship of the Republic of Vietnam (a.k.a. South Vietnam) may still count as ever having a held foreign citizenship, even if it did not lead to citizenship of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, within the meaning of Question 10 of the Candidate eligibility checklist. Dai Le answered Question 10 with by ticking the NO box.

    https://aec.gov.au/election/files/data/qc/27966_NSW_H_FOWL_36240_LE.pdf

    Ruh-roh

  17. https://www.pollbludger.net/2022/05/24/federal-election-live-day-four/comment-page-25/#comment-3923930

    Barnaby Joyce was an NZ Citizen by decent. Unlike Australian Citizenship by decent, New Zealand Citizenship by decent is automatic (at least when at least one parent was born in New Zealand). (On a side note, if Australian citizenship by decent was automatic, there wold be less of an issue with deportation to NZ because some of the more controversial deportations have been of people with at least 1 Australian born Australian parent who were unaware they were not Australian Citizens until the character test for adult applicants for citizenship by decent blocked them.)

  18. While i look at Dutton becoming the Liberal leader with slightly smiling anticipation…….. 🙂

    Well….everybody though Abbott becoming Liberal leader was a bit of a joke as well……:(

    Ok, very different circumstances. But it will certainly give the RWNJobbies in the Liberals a rallying point, that might be a good thing as well. Its will of a certainty encourage more in the like of “Teals”, particularly at upcoming State elections in the East. Interesting times wot?? 🙂

  19. imacca,
    Hard conservatives had literally 3 ranches of government in the US and In Australia starting with Abbot they had huge mandates and most of the state governments. YET all around the world the conservative governments delivered a big fat nothing to the people they serve.

    I dare to dream we may be on the cusp of a bigger rather than smaller stretch of progressive government.

  20. Player One @ #873 Tuesday, May 24th, 2022 – 4:06 pm

    Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #792 Tuesday, May 24th, 2022 – 5:17 pm

    Player Onesays:
    Tuesday, May 24, 2022 at 4:04 pm

    From the Guardian live blog …

    Albanese was asked if he, like Thatcher, would close coal mines, and if he would sign the Cop26 pact to phase out coal.

    “No,” Albanese said.

    This is why the Teals and Greens did so well at the election … and will continue to do so.

    How much did the amount of coal being, burnt to produce power, fall by in the UK as the result?

    Do I have to do all your research for you?

    The UK has almost completely eliminated coal from their energy sector – total domestic consumption is down from 108 million tonnes per annum in 1990 to about 8 million tons by 2020. It is probably even less now – see https://www.statista.com/statistics/223493/uk-coal-consumption/

    More interesting is the decline in emissions directly as a result of this change from the energy sector in the same period. From 217 Mt CO2e in 1990 to 80 Mt CO2e in 2020. And again, it is probably even less now – see https://climate-change.data.gov.uk/emissions

    The overall reductions in GHG emissions seen from 1990 to 2020 were driven largely by a switch from using coal and heavy-emitting fuels in the energy supply and manufacturing industries to lower emission fuels such as natural gas and, more recently, renewable sources.

    The reductions are simply massive – the UK has reduced their emissions from the energy sector by an amount approaching our total emissions from the same sector.

    They are serious about reducing emissions. We are not.

    Lovely distraction. They have become serious about removing coal power from their grid, but this started after Thatcher’s time.

    This graph shows how coal usage quickly rebounded to prestrike levels and how the decline started in the 90s.

    https://www.ceicdata.com/datapage/charts/ipc_united-kingdom_coal-consumption/?type=area&period=max&lang=en

  21. Barney in Tanjung Bunga,
    They also fail to mention those pesky nuclear power stations that the UK has that we don’t
    The eight sites are:

    Bradwell, Essex.
    Hartlepool.
    Heysham, Lancashire.
    Hinkley Point, Somerset.
    Oldbury, South Gloucestershire.
    Sellafield, Cumbria.
    Sizewell, Suffolk.
    and Wylfa, Anglesey.

    I mean Ukraine still get’s a stack of Electricity from Nuclear powerplants that are sitting in the middle of a really serious war at the moment.

    But they don’t have the greens…. so

  22. Voodoo the teals yes they are from rich electorates and are mostly blue bloods themselves but they are generally far more socially conscious than the people they are replacing. They represent centrist Liberals as well as people who previously voted Labor and Green in equal measure. I think they’ll work well with Labor and I’m sure Labor will try to keep them onside. The teals wouldn’t likely support tax hikes but they’d probably support more community targeted spending rather than industry handouts.

  23. “They also fail to mention those pesky nuclear power stations that the UK has that we don’t”

    Funny that.

    Seems the French are into it too, while the Germans are wondering where the hell theirs went.

  24. Voodoo Blues says:
    Tuesday, May 24, 2022 at 11:55 pm

    Re Teals
    @Honest Bastard

    Don’t be so naive mate .The biggest issue facing Australia is how we are going to continue to fund, let alone expand our welfare state in the face of a shrinking tax base.
    ———————————-
    Tax revenue is not for funding the welfare state.

    The government does not have a revenue problem.

  25. Honest Bastard says:
    Tuesday, May 24, 2022 at 11:38 pm

    Yes, I don’t like the intrusion of overrated/overshared US American popular culture into Australian blogs/fora. So I’ll slap down references to the revolting Game of Thrones franchise and the various idiotic superhero films too. I also hate their bastardisation/americanisation of Tolkien’s works. But I’ll shut up now.
    —————————
    What do you consider good T.V?

  26. @mJ

    They will advance their class interests but hide it behind progressive veneers.

    Eg gender equality = free tax payer funded childcare for barristers ie indirectly a big tax cut.

    Enviroment – Anything noisy, smelly but needed, to be located where the proles live. I could ramble on all night long exposing this confidence trick but believe what you like.

  27. Voodoo Blues says:
    Wednesday, May 25, 2022 at 12:27 am

    @mJ

    They will advance their class interests but hide it behind progressive veneers.

    Eg gender equality = free tax payer funded childcare for barristers ie indirectly a big tax cut.
    ————————————
    Women today are entering higher income professions and they want support to balance work and family.

  28. We’ll see Voodoo, I don’t share your pessimism but we won’t know until we see them in action.

    Their clean energy platform suggests less smelly, noisy utilities will be required.

  29. New nuclear power is not viable in Australia for the same main reason that new coal power is not viable in Australia, the high construction costs require near constant operation generating revenue to cover them, while the advance of cheap renewables means that is not possible.

  30. @ mexicanbeamer

    So why bother with tax at all, lets just fund the whole thing by printing money, we can all be as rich as Teals, pony club for all?

    The Teal love in on here is so fuckin’ funny, as far I can tell me and Clem Attlee are the only ones willing to accept what they really are, although an evil part of me does admire fraud on a grand scale and the architecture of it all is quite brilliant.

    I think you will find mmt advocates do accept that there is a limit to what you can do with deficit spending before you simply devalue the currency.

  31. UK coal mine closures

    The Thatcher pit closures had nothing to do with climate change – it was simply that imported coal was cheaper than UK production, and of course her desire to bust the unions

    Many critics of the closures pointed out after the strike in 84/5 that for many years we were burning as much coal as before, it just wasn’t British coal (and it was ‘dirtier’ too)

    The drop in coal usage in the 90s wasn’t for climate reasons either, that was the famous ‘Dash for Gas’ where we burnt untold billions of cubic feet of North Sea gas reserves for the temporary sugar hit of cheap electricity and excess profits for the newly privatised Gas and Electric companies

  32. Voodoo

    Not just you and Clem, I’ve made the odd comment too 🙂

    I raised the issue of Negative Gearing last week – no way the Teals vote for a Shorten-2019 type cutback of NG, or any other middle class tax rort for that matter

  33. “dare to dream we may be on the cusp of a bigger rather than smaller stretch of progressive government.”

    hope so south. 🙂

  34. @ Ray (uk)

    When the Corbyn project hit the Brexit reef and Shorten lost in 2019 that was pretty much it for social democracy in the anglosphere, all aboard the Teal train brother.

  35. What’s the point of a legislated/trial run voice? We already had one. As soon as they were a problem for the government they got abolished. The only voice worth having is the one that has to be heard even when it says hard things to hear.

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