After having nothing to say about the Senate count since election night, I now finally break the drought with the following analysis of results that will not be finalised for at least another three weeks. This is based on the current party vote shares from the count, which is lagging about 10% behind that for the House of Representatives, and preference flows from the 2019 election. The latter makes use of the ballot paper data files published by the Australian Electoral Commission, recording every voter’s full order of preference numbering.
The last seats are generally thought to be in doubt in three states: Victoria, which could provide either a third seat for Labor or the Coalition, or the only seat in the parliament for the United Australia Party; Queensland, where the last seat is down to Pauline Hanson or a third seat for the Coalition, the early excitement about Legalise Cannabis’s prospects having faded; and South Australia, which could provide a third seat to either Labor or Liberal or a seat for One Nation. My analysis leads me to conclude that the outcome of these races will be third seats for the Liberals in Victoria and South Australia, and Pauline Hanson will prevail in Queensland.
The full accounting of my projections can be found on this spreadsheet, with one sheet for each state. A bit of creative thinking will be required to ascertain exactly what I’m up to here: exclusions proceed horizontally across the top of the page, grouped together in four columns recording the flow of preferences based on 2019 (depending on the size of the state, I’ve sampled every tenth or fifth ballot paper or used the whole lot), followed by the size of the transfers and the projected totals from the relevant point in the count. Parties disappear beyond the point where they cross the threshold of a 14.3% quota. Only in the case of the Greens in South Australia did I think an elected candidate’s surplus big enough to warrant the trouble of transferring.
To summarise the situation in turn:
New South Wales
The Coalition and Labor win two seats each off the bat, with the Greens close enough that they get there with 41.4% of Animal Justice preferences, 29.3% from Legalise Cannabis and 36.2% from sundry left-wing minor parties. The third Coalition candidate, Jim Molan, starts the race for the final seat with 8.5% to One Nation’s 4.2%, which widens slightly by the end of the count to 12.9% to 8.4%.
Victoria
As it stands, my model has the Coalition and Labor with two seats each right off the bat and the Greens close enough to one that small left-wing party preferences are enough to get them over the line. The race for the final seat starts with the Coalition’s number three on 4.2%, the United Australia Party on 4.0% and Labor’s number three on 3.3%. The UAP drop out after everyone else is excluded, at which point the third Liberal, Greg Mirabella, is on 8.1%, Labor’s number three, Casey Nunn, is on 7.5% and the UAP are on 6.7%. The preferences of the latter and all who fed into them then get Mirabella ahead by 10.8% to 8.5%.
However, it might be argued that the increase of the UAP primary vote from 2.5% to 4.0% will be matched by an increase in preference flows, such that my method of projecting 2019 flows on to the result is short-changing them. For this reason, my final columns show “Scenario 1”, outlined above, and “Scenario 2” which puts the UAP ahead before the final count. This doesn’t look all that promising for the UAP either, showing Mirabella prevailing over the UAP candidate by 9.9% to 7.3%. However, this doesn’t completely resolve the issue, as here too flows to the UAP may be being underestimated.
Queensland
The Coalition wins two quotas off the bat and Labor one, with the Greens close enough that they get there round about the point where Clive Palmer and Campbell Newman are excluded. Next out are Legalise Cannabis, from whom Labor get enough preferences to push their second candidate, Anthony Chisholm, to a quota. This just leaves Pauline Hanson and the third Liberal National Party candidate, Amanda Stoker, in the race for the last seat, which Hanson wins by 12.1% to 10.8%.
Western Australia
As in Victoria, Liberal and Labor get two quotas off the bat and the Greens start close enough to get over the line on the preferences of minor candidates. One Nation are the last minor party standing when the count whittles it down to the third Labor and Liberal candidates, at which point I have them dropping out with 6.5% to the Liberals’ 7.4%. By that time though Labor is on 10.7%, which is too far ahead for the Liberals to close the gap with the One Nation’s exclusion, suggesting Labor’s Fatima Payman should become the first Senator ever elected from third on Labor’s Western Australian ticket at a six-seat election.
South Australia
Here too, Liberal and Labor both elect two Senators off the bat; the Greens do it a little less comfortably off an 11.9% primary vote, but 50.0% of Animal Justice and 40.3% of Legalise Cannabis preferences push them over the line. In the race for the final seat, One Nation drops out with 6.8% to the Liberals’ 9.0% and Labor’s 7.1%, after which the third Liberal, Kerrynne Liddle, makes it home by 10.9% to 9.0%.
Tasmania
The Liberals win two quotas off the bat and the Greens win one, while Labor falls slightly short of a second quota but get there soon enough as minor candidates are excluded. By that point the Jacqui Lambie Network has grown from a base of 8.4% to 10.8%, which shortly grows to a quota off One Nation and other preferences. The defeated third Liberal is Eric Abetz; I have heard nothing to suggest his below-the-line campaign will overturn the order of election from the Liberal ticket.
I am in no doubt that independent David Pocock will unseat Liberal Senator Zed Seselja in the Australian Capital Territory, or that the Northern Territory will deliver its usual result of one seat apiece. Assuming I’m right about everything else, Labor and the Greens will have half the numbers between them, and be able to pass contested legislation with the help of either Pocock or the two Jacqui Lambie Network Senators.
Thanks William very informative. Teh earthquake in the Senate is almost as big as HOR.
The 38 projected for the ALP+Greens is significant- with Lambie or Pocock giving an absolute majority on any motion.
The other majority is 26 ALP with 28 Liberals (or 13 of them) on certain issues. Otherwise the Greens have a blocking number.
Of interest for most will be the sixth spot in QLD – Hanson vs Stoker
It’s a pity that one of Hanson and Stoker will end up being returned to the Senate!
Yes, it will be very interesting with Labor always dependent on the Greens. That won’t prove contentious for “mandate” kinda stuff like health, aged care and a FICAC, but will be interesting for many other things.
I can sniff the Green testosterone already.
Queensland! Come on.
Thanks you William. The next few days will be nail biting.
Thank you William.
Twelve seats would be the biggest Senate representation ever achieved by the Greens. Next highest was ten in 2013.
It is also more than ever achieved by the Australian Democrats. Their high water mark was nine seats in 1998.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Democrats#Electoral_results
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Greens
Outsider
“It’s a pity that one of Hanson and Stoker will end up being returned to the Senate!”
True but we can rejoice in two things:
1. At least one of Hanson or Stoker is not going back to Canberra.
2. Whichever one remains faces years of irrelevance because Labor won’t need their votes.
I think between Pocock and/or Lambie Labor can get most things passed.
“I can sniff the Green testosterone already.”
***
Strange thing to say, since most of the Greens in the Senate, both current and new, are women. The Greens Leader in the Senate, Larrisa Waters, is also a woman.
Current/continuing: Senators Larissa Waters, Sarah Hanson-Young, Janet Rice, Dorinda Cox, Lidia Thorpe, Mehreen Faruqi, Peter Whish-Wilson, Nick McKim, Jordon Steele-John. 6 women, 3 men.
New Green Senator-elects: Penny Allman-Payne, Barbra Pocock (yes, there will be two Senator Pococks!), and the mighty David Shoebridge. 2 woman and 1 man.
So the Greens will have 8 female and 4 male senators once the changeover happens.
“I think between Pocock”
***
We’re going to have to call him David and the new Greens Senator-elect for SA Barb so we can tell which Senator Pocock we’re talking about!
“It’s a pity that one of Hanson and Stoker will end up being returned to the Senate!”
***
I feel yucky for saying this but I really hope Stoker wins. Cannot stand her but Hanson is worse and getting rid of her would set PHON back quite severely.
It will be interesting to see how senate preferences flow this time. I’m not sure we can assume that they’ll flow similarly to 2019.
One of the bigger question marks is Victoria. Among other things, UAP haven’t run an anti-Labor campaign this time around, and neither Labor nor the Liberals are preferenced on their Victorian senate HTV (the Liberals were preferenced second in 2019, and Labor sixth). Obviously, a lot of people who voted UAP probably didn’t have HTV cards, but it makes a point.
While I wouldn’t go so far as to call it likely, I think there’s a path for Labor to take the final seat. It involves more PHON and UAP preferences exhausting than usual, and some higher flows to Labor than usual.
Also interesting is which electorates have had the lowest counts of senate ballots, as this may inform the balance of the current count. At present, Ballarat, Wills, Cooper, Macnamara, Calwell, Menzies, and Higgins have less than 60% of eligible voters counted (ordered by current counted, lowest to highest). The following are the percentages of Labor/Liberals/Greens/UAP/LCA/PHON/LDP primary votes in each electorate:
Ballarat – 35.05 / 26.53 / 14.27 / 3.73 / 3.82 / 3.31 / 2.42
Wills – 34.24 / 15.39 / 29.45 / 2.99 / 2.43 / 1.46 / 1.56
Cooper – 36.60 / 16.21 / 27.11 / 3.06 / 2.31 / 1.77 / 1.85
Macnamara – 29.93 / 27.46 / 29.45 / 1.61 / 1.92 / 0.98 / 1.78
Calwell – 40.20 / 23.58 / 7.61 / 7.61 / 3.85 / 2.92 / 2.35
Menzies – 31.65 / 36.89 / 13.95 / 2.89 / 2.06 / 1.61 / 2.95
Higgins – 28.26 / 36.10 / 22.98 / 1.58 / 1.83 / 0.75 / 1.85
Current count (to one dp) – 31.9 / 32.9 / 13.3 / 4.0 / 2.9 / 2.9 / 2.3
Now, what I’m noticing, here, is that the Liberals are underperforming in most of these, and Labor is overperforming in many, while the Greens are overperforming in all bar Calwell (which is the only bright spot for UAP). More importantly, all bar Menzies are Labor seats (with the obvious asterisk on Macnamara, pending further counting).
Looking further in the list, the next least counted electorates are Melbourne, Chisholm, Mallee, Maribyrnong, Fraser, Jagajaga, and Bruce (all under 70%). Of these, only Melbourne and Mallee aren’t Labor seats at this election (and Melbourne might as well be, for the point I’m making – Liberals, UAP, PHON, and LDP all well below their Victoria-wide percentages).
I suspect that further counting will bolster Labor’s position (and move Greens closer to the full quota mark), while reducing Liberals, UAP, and PHON somewhat. This may take a bit of time to kick in, as some postals are still being counted, and they’re likely to better favour the Liberals – but I think Labor will end up ahead of Liberals on primary vote, based on this.
Combining the likely Labor shift (at least relative to Liberals) in remaining counting, the exhaustion of a lot of right-wing minor party preferences before they reach Liberals, the likely higher leakage of right-wing minor preferences to Labor than in 2019, and reduced absorption of preferences by the Greens (due to being closer to a quota), I think it’s plausible for Labor to grab the final seat.
Firefox @ #10 Monday, May 30th, 2022 – 11:23 am
I’m more conflicted. On the one hand, I’d love it if Hanson were never heard from by the public again, because she’s pushed to irrelevance. On the other hand, the more damage done to the right wing of the Liberal party, the better.
I still hold out hope that preference flows to LCA will be strong enough to carry them to victory. The path is very narrow – LCA needs to gather a heap of preferences from people who didn’t want to vote for any majors, to push them ahead of PHON. Then PHON preferences need to leak to them strongly enough to push them past LNP. It helps that PHON and UAP both didn’t put LNP among their HTV preferences.
Looking at the undercounted electorates in Qld (similar to what I’ve said about Victoria in my last post), we’ve got Rankin below 60%, then Capricornia, Forde, Flynn, Moreton, Moncrieff, McPherson, Fadden, Griffith, and Brisbane under 70%. No surprises that Rankin is doing well for the Left. Capricornia and Flynn are mostly doing well for PHON. Forde and McPherson are basically a wash, Greens and Labor doing well in Moreton, Moncrieff and Fadden naturally favouring LNP, Griffith and Brisbane naturally favouring Greens. I’d call this fairly balanced, unfortunately, so I don’t see the balance shifting a huge amount.
“I still hold out hope that preference flows to LCA will be strong enough to carry them to victory.”
***
Would be wonderful if it happens.
The thing about Stoker is that there’s no shortage of people like her in the LNP. If she loses, they’ll just replace her with someone similar on the ticket next time. If she wins, she will just be a opposition Senator sitting on the backbench.
There is no replacement for Pauline in PHON though, as the entire party revolves around her cult of personality. Take away Hanson and PHON will fade and probably fade pretty quickly. We’d still be left with Roberts in the Senate for another 3 years of course but the numbers should make him irrelevant anyway.
Firefox @ #13 Monday, May 30th, 2022 – 12:17 pm
True, but let’s be realistic – Hanson will get Roberts to resign so that she can replace him. Which is a win of its own, in a way. But it’ll take more than Hanson losing to Stoker to get rid of Hanson.
Firefox
“We’re going to have to call him David and the new Greens Senator-elect for SA Barb so we can tell which Senator Pocock we’re talking about!”
Good point! In fact I have met Barbara Pocock in Adelaide and i have to say she seemed a very competent person and I am happy she was elected.
And yes, Labor will be talking to both Pococks quite regularly now I expect 🙂
“True, but let’s be realistic – Hanson will get Roberts to resign so that she can replace him. Which is a win of its own, in a way. But it’ll take more than Hanson losing to Stoker to get rid of Hanson.”
***
Would be funny to watch the little civil war unfold as Hanson tried to take the seat off him. I’m not sure he’d be as willing to give it up as she would be to take it lol.
If Hanson loses to Stoker, does anyone know if she qualifies for a lifetime pension? There’s your answer about whether or not she will ‘ask’ Roberts to resign. For her, it’s always been about the money.
“If Hanson loses to Stoker, does anyone know if she qualifies for a lifetime pension? There’s your answer about whether or not she will ‘ask’ Roberts to resign. For her, it’s always been about the money.”
***
I don’t think so. She would have if she had been continuously re-elected since 1996 when she first entered parliament as a Liberal in Oxley, but she was out of the parliament altogether form 1998-2016, and they changed it in 2004 so that those elected afterwards were no longer eligible for that huge lifetime pension. Not 100% but I don’t think the 2 years she spent as the MP for Oxley was enough to qualify her for it, thankfully. Tax payers forking out $250k a year for the likes of Bronwyn Bishop is bad enough as it is.
It will be interesting whether Barbara Pocock and David Pocock can actually get on in a civil way. David Pocock is a progressive on social issues but is probably centre to centre-right, at best, on economic issues and equality. Barbara Pocock, at least in her writings to date, seems strictly left-wing.
Let’s pray that they at least get on more politely than Senator Pauline Hanson and Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.
Freya Stark @ #8 Monday, May 30th, 2022 – 7:54 pm
Is he, though? Or is it just assumed because of the Teal factor? Because as far as I understand it, Holmes-a-Court identified independents he wanted to back, and offered them support. I don’t think they are required to be centre or centre-right.
I suspect that he’s slightly left of centre, based on how things are listed on his policy pages. But it’s hard to tell – he doesn’t spend much time on economic issues.
He’s representing Canberra, not Wentworth. There won’t be any pressure for him to lean to the right on economic issues. Based on his roots in activism (his wife is also a former staffer for SHY) his personal views are probably completely at home with the Greens.
So, I decided to do a quick projection of what the Victorian senate vote would look like if you rescaled each electorate’s current count based on turnout percentage at the 2019 election (obviously, not perfect, as there was a redistribution, but it’s the neatest estimate), by downloading relevant data, and then processing quickly to get what the current quotas would be if each electorate looked at the end of the count like it does now. So obviously, factor in your expectations for swings as the counts continue.
Party – Adjusted quota (Official quota)
L/NP – 2.2776 (2.3095)
ALP – 2.2419 (2.2325)
GRN – 0.9601 (0.9255)
UAP – 0.2742 (0.2767)
LCA – 0.2010 (0.2032)
PHON – 0.1978 (0.2038)
LDP – 0.1623 (0.1633)
AJP – 0.1032 (0.1042)
Others – 0.5821 (0.5813) – these are the ones on less than 0.1 quota each.
So what I’m seeing is that L/NP are down about 0.03 quotas while ALP are up about 0.01 quota. Greens are also up over 0.03 quotas, with the remaining drop in quota being spread more evenly among the remaining parties.
Parties that come out ahead: ALP, Greens, Reason, Democrats, Vic Socialists, Fusion, Socialist Alliance, and technically the Ungrouped, Citizens Party, and the Independents of Group Y.
Using the percentages found in WB’s analysis as a quick ballpark, everything mostly looks the same, except that the L/NP final number comes out lower – 10.48% rather than 10.8%. Labor comes out marginally higher (8.57% rather than 8.5%).
More interesting is that Labor and Liberals are neck-and-neck at the 3 candidate point – 7.6% to 7.8%. Which brings in the interesting detail – in 2019, UAP put Liberals number 2 and Labor number 6 on their HTV. In 2022, they didn’t put either party on there at all.
Which leads to an interesting possibility – that UAP preferences could actually go more to Labor than in 2019, and exhaust more at this point. Also interesting is that PHON has UAP on their HTV this time, where they didn’t in 2019. This could mean that more preferences flow to UAP.
I’m actually not convinced that Labor couldn’t pick up the final seat, if the conditions play right.
How have you worked out the exhaust rate for Group O?
The reason I ask is that they are getting a quarter or more of their primary votes from BTLs. Which is naturally going to reduce the exhaust rate.
@_sprocket There is also a majority for ALP+GRN+Nat. Given the leaders each party has just elected, it would not surprise me if on some issues the Nationals were more progressive than the Liberal party.
As a Canberran, Pocock seems progressive to me (and to his many former Greens and Labor volunteers).
On Daviod Pocock, looking at his own website, he has a policy page. While not left wing, I would say it is at least centrist.
Apart from climate change he lists concerns and policy on issues like housing affordability and childcare. There certainly looks to be common ground Labor can work with there.
If the results pan out as predicted here — which seems quite plausible — then there is a good chance that after the next election the numbers will enable Greens to have balance of power in their own right.
Even though the Greens have now hit their ceiling of 12 Senators for the foreseeable future and will just have to focus on keeping their base vote high enough to not risk losing seats, Labor is well placed to finally repair the damage of their disastrous 2019 result in Qld and win an extra seat there. All other things staying the same (& assuming WA is a high watermark for Labor this time & things return to the normal scenario there next time of Labor only winning 2), then that would be enough on its own to deliver a passing majority with just Greens & Labor.
This would also be useful insurance, as being a Territory Senator, David Pocock only gets a 3 year term. It’ll be interesting to see whether he can build his support well enough over that time to keep the Liberal vote in the ACT suppressed. Without the drag of Morrison & Joyce, and assuming the ACT Libs don’t make the same mistake of putting up another totally unsuitable Abbott-style hard right type candidate, there’s some prospect the Lib vote will rebound enough to get them back near that quota. Having an ACT Senator that isn’t Labor or Lib is uncharted territory, so it’s hard to predict how it will play out.
If, and there a couple of big ifs in this, Hanson failed to be elected, and Roberts resigned his spot for her, then she would face election again in 2025. Except in a DD, I doubt PHON would get up two Senators from QLD.
She’s just turned 68. If she wins this time, she will be close to 74 when she faces election again. I’m not sure how many elections she has in her.
In terms of her pension, she was originally elected before 2004, so I think she might be entitled to the old scheme.
https://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/parliamentary_departments/parliamentary_library/pubs/bn/1011/superannuationbenefits
Does “has ceased to be a Senator or Member on four occasions” mean that they have been defeated four times, or that they have faced reelection four times? She’s only been in the Senate for six years, however she had just over two years in the HoR. I’m not sure if she can combine both of those to come up with eight yours or not as they are in different chambers. The page above seems to have sections for “Senator or Member” for Voluntary retirement or due to ill-health, but lists them separately for involuntary retirement. It’s also possible that she took her contributions when she lost office in 1998. I really have no idea.
Looking towards the next election, I’m interested in what the chances might be for getting more Teal independents elected to the senate. NSW would probably be their best chance, given the higher profile their several independent HoR MPs will give them. But if they win a seat next time, at whose expense would it be?
Honest Bastard @ #27 Wednesday, June 1st, 2022 – 7:10 am
I actually think Queensland would be their best chance – the strength of the Greens is noticeable, and they even managed to grab Ryan. There’s a big chunk of Liberal vote in south east Queensland that refuses to move to right wing minors when there’s dissatisfaction with the Liberals, but which might be tempted by a Teal.
Seats that I think would see a substantial vote for a Teal, in HoR or in Senate, that are currently held by Liberals, include McPherson, Moncrieff, Fadden, Bonner, Bowman, and Dickson, to begin with. With a little momentum behind them, I think they could manage to capture one of the Right seats. A look at 2016 reveals some latent possibility for a centre-right independent. In that election, Xenophon, Lazarus, and Katter, all of whom have mixed tendencies, between them got enough to be competitive if they were all blended into a single group – and that was during a One Nation high point. In 2022, One Nation has dropped, Greens have gained, and Legalise Cannabis has gained… but so has UAP.
I’d contend that a big chunk of UAP voters, and lots of those who voted Legalise Cannabis, would actually vote for a Pocock-like Teal. The absence of a moderate among the LNP’s usual top candidates would help to encourage this.
In hindsight Dickson at this election may have been a huge missed opportunity for a Teal Indie although the problem would be beating the ALP on primary, they wouldn’t have run dead there.
@bc
It’s not the biggest issue of the count, but even though Hanson was first elected in 1996, her single term in there wasn’t enough to qualify her for the old parliamentary pension (which is technically a defined benefit superannuation payment rather than a pension, but anyway).
She didn’t come back into the Parliament until 2016, well after the old scheme was closed to new entrants, so she doesn’t qualify for it.
Independents, teal or otherwise, won`t get anywhere in the Senate unless they get their names of ballot paper next to their ATL box. Otherwise not enough people will vote for and/or preference them. Bespoke eponymous parties are the other option (like the major ACT independents at this election, Lambie and previously (but not currently) Xenophon).
FWIW, Hanson will get media coverage even if out of Parliament, as she did all those many many years between being member for Oxley and entering the Senate. She rarely does anything in Parliament. She’s washed up – and arguably no worse than the average right wing Lib is these days. It isn’t 1996 anymore. And Hanson is Hanson, she’ll never have respectability for anything she says from 90% of the population.
Booting Stoker removes an energetic warrior for the religious right who has no platform for her bigotry and stunts without Parliament. Being a Liberal Senator gives mainstream respectability to her shit, being a spokeswoman for the ACL or whatever she’d go and do out of Parliament not so much.
https://www.pollbludger.net/2022/05/30/projecting-the-senate/comment-page-1/#comment-3931567
The primary defined benefit of that and many other defined benefit schemes is a pension. Most non-Antipodean Englishes would describe defined benefit scheme superannuation providing a pension as a pension scheme/plan/etc.. Defined benefits scheme pensions my even have some relevance to the constitutionality of superannuation compulsion by the Commonwealth, where the Commonwealth has not other constitutional power, given 51xxiii specifically gives legislative power in relation to old-age pensions.
Defined Benefit has one over-arching provision – that is, you are guaranteed that income until death (and in some cases, your dependents get it unto their death).
Typically indexed to CPI, not beholden to stock markets – the only risk is if Australia gets invaded and the government is overthrown (the actuaries model this..)
https://www.pollbludger.net/2022/05/30/projecting-the-senate/comment-page-1/#comment-3932219
Yes, the defined benefit is exactly what a pension is.
Sorry for deviating the Senate counting thread further.
I wonder if David Pocock’s Politics are close enough to the Australian Greens that Larissa asks him to caucus with them and if he would agree?
I am guessing from the fact he did not run as a Greens candidate but more in the mould of a teal independent (I know he wasn`t actually a teal, didn`t use teal in his ads and isn`t technically an independent because he ran for his eponymous party (non-party Senate groups get unmarked ATL boxes, which makes it hard for them to get primaries and preferences)), in a socially progressive but not particularly economically progressive centrist position aimed at peeling off enough moderate Liberal voters to unseat Zed Seselja. He is extremely unlikely to join the Greens` partyroom and the American Senate`s practice of independents “caucusing” is from a system with much weaker party discipline and not being set up to have a crossbench that creates a much different environment for independents compared with Australia`s Senate.
Tom the first and best @ #39 Friday, June 3rd, 2022 – 4:04 pm
Precisely.
That being said, I wouldn’t be surprised if the crossbench form a kind of “crossbench caucus” for the purposes of aiding in boosting their power to influence and negotiate, especially on issues they mostly all agree on. Not really needed for 6 house crossbenchers, but handy when there’s 16 house crossbenchers in addition to the 16-17 senate crossbenchers (although realistically, 15 senate crossbenchers that aren’t just Liberals by another name – looking at you, Pauline).
Of course, it’s not a caucus in the usual Australian sense, but I could definitely see them meeting regularly to discuss opportunities to act as a bloc on certain issues.
Hello William,
There’s an error in the updated spreadsheet. ON in SA has been entered as .4% instead of 4%. The correct updated number puts them ahead of the ALP at the last exclusion, which will not, as far as I can see, change the final outcome. I guesss though, if they’re not excluded they’re in with a chance.
Shaun.
Thanks Shaun – fixed.
Tom (O&B) & Glen O.
Yes , I didn’t mean caucus in strictly the Australian or American conventional sense. I probably should have put it in quotes. But yes in the way GkenO suggests. And I know the Crossbench cooperates and communicates already where they can.
But some kind of agreement to find common ground and ease negotiation. Possibly even include the Jacqui Lambie group. If the government depended on crossbench in the HoR then such arrangements shared across houses could have even more value.
Anyway, it will be interesting to see if anything more than ad-hoc comes to pass in the Senate.