Preference flows and by-elections (open thread)

A look at preference flow data from the 2019 and 2022 elections, and the latest on looming by-elections in the Northern Territory, Tasmania and (sort of) Western Australia.

Something I really should have noted in last week’s post is that the Australian Electoral Commission has now published two-candidate preferred preference flow data from the election, showing how minor party and independent preferences flowed between Labor and the Coalition. The table below shows how Labor’s share increased for the four biggest minor parties and independents collectively (and also its fraction decrease for “others”) from the last election to this and, in the final column, how much difference each made to Labor’s total share of two-party preferred, which was 52.13%.

Note that the third column compares how many preference Labor received with how many they would have if preference flows had been last time, which is not the same thing as how many preferences they received. Labor in fact got nearly 2% more two-party vote share in the form of Greens preferences at this election because the Greens primary vote was nearly 2% higher this time.

State and territory by-election:

• Six candidates for the August 20 by-election in the Northern Territory seat of Fannie Bay, in ballot paper order: Brent Potter, described in a report as a “government adviser, army veteran and father of four”, for Labor; independent George Mamouzellos; independent Raj Samson Rajwin, who was a Senate candidate for the United Australia Party; Jonathan Parry of the Greens; independent Leah Potter; and Ben Hosking, “small business owner and former police officer”, for the Country Liberals.

• Following the resignation of Labor member Jo Siejka, a by-election will be held for the Tasmanian Legislative Council seat of Pembroke on September 10. Siejka defeated a Liberal candidate by 8.65% to win the eastern Hobart seat at the periodic election in 2019. There will also be a recount of 2021 election ballots in Franklin to determine which of the three unelected Liberals will replace Jacquie Petrusma following her resignation announcement a fortnight ago. As Kevin Bonham explains, the order of probability runs Bec Enders, Dean Young and James Walker.

• Still no sign of a date for Western Australia’s North West Central by-election.

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.

1,594 comments on “Preference flows and by-elections (open thread)”

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  1. The ABC had a segment on the Reef that included graphs of the northern and central sections coral cover over the last couple of decades (?).

    If I heard it right, the ‘coral’ cover includes areas covered by sponges and algae. I may have misheard that. (Needs confirmation). I had heard that algae is replacing coral on the substrate of singnificant areas of the northern part of the northern region of the Reef. (Needs confirmation).
    But the graphs of coral cover percentages of the past while are showing one thing quite clearly for both the northern and central regions of the Reef: the amplitude of coral cover percentage is increasing significantly. It is not clear to me how that works, unless the increasing proportion of staghorn corals allows for this signal.

  4. Thanks Boerwar. I hope I do not go too far in mocking the Liberals, though given their total lack of compassion for the poor, the jobless, the old, the sick and any immigrant not from England, I find it hard to hold back.

    Still, some LNP members obviously work so hard representing their electorate that exhaustion from an honest day’s toil catches up. Take Barnaby here for instance. Worked himself stupid.

    Caption suggestions?

    Nap time at kindy?

  9. Emelius van der Lubben at 12.33 pm

    Did you see the comments at 9.50 pm last night on previous open thread re Swedish election?

    Polling graph for current term at:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2022_Swedish_general_election

    Cleaner version is at: https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/sweden/

    Magdalena Andersson has greatly improved the Social Democrats’ polling in past 9 months and hence their chances of leading a new government after the election, even if Greens are below 5%.

  12. Good.

    —-
    Sen. Kyrsten Sinema signed off on sweeping Democratic legislation Thursday that would provide new spending to mitigate climate change and extend health care access while taxing corporations.

  14. @ Dr Doolittle

    Interesting. Similar to the AfD the Sweden Democrats have only risen and risen in Sweden since they burst into the Riksdag. I wonder if this will be their plateau, like the AfD in the last German federal election. Very worrying that the right has broken their cordon sanitaire with the Sweden Democrats. I reckon the key to the next Riksdag will be whether the Left and Centre can work together. I think an increased Left vote and a decreasing Centre vote in Sweden generally as the polls are sort of suggesting has interesting implications. Would the Liberals be more willing to join a centrist to centre right coalition with the Centre, Christian Democrats and Moderates than a coalition with the Moderates and Sweden Democrats, do you think? I know the Centre has leaned toward Social Democrats in recent years but the Sweden Democrats basically being dead, uncoalition-able seats until now has made it hard for majority governments to form in Sweden.

  16. Cat at 12.05 pm re Moir

    A good cartoon, a bit complicated for Moir. The spider-webs are a good touch but to be more accurate they should be closer to Putin’s brain. Two minor, pedantic corrections: 1) the hammer and sickle is not appropriate – Moir uses it only because of Cold War style cliches. The appropriate emblem would be the double-headed eagle of imperial Russia. The grandiose dictator compares himself to Peter the Great, certainly not to revolutionaries or even counter-revolutionaries like Stalin. Putin is a ruthless, bloody Tory. His pathetic ideology for the past 20 years has been home-style conservative nonsense, of the kind promoted by Fox News (no accident they are his cheer-leaders in the US). 2) the West is not really bored, nor would Putin think that. Finally, the US and UK have recently directed sanctions against his mistress, Alina Kabaeva. The issue is not boredom but whether Ukraine’s Western backers can remain relatively united as economic pressures increase, particularly in the Northern winter. See:

    https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/the-war-in-ukraine-heading-south/

    There is at least one error in that article. This is the claim that if Russia annexes southern regions of Ukraine, then “it will become much harder for Ukraine to regain control of them”. Annexation by itself is a legal fiction, of no necessary consequence. What is important is the seasonal timetable. It will be easier for Ukraine to regain Kherson during spring than in winter. However, the scale of the task of recapturing it should not be underestimated, nor should its significance for the wider war. If Ukraine can recapture Kherson before winter, that would expose Putin’s lies more than anything else.

  22. Emelius van der Lubben at 12.55 pm re Sweden

    Clearly the Liberals (who are in a historic decline, seen in the long-term) would join with Moderates, Centre and Christian Democrats, but on current polling that only gets to 38%, less than the Social Democrats and Left at 40%. The recent improvement in the Liberal polling to get above the threshold of 5% coincides with their replacement of a black woman as leader by an old white man from a rural town. In the end two factors will be important: 1) the appeal of Magdalena Andersson as a relatively new PM, which may mean the Social Democrats will get a higher vote than current polling suggests (31%); 2) how desperate are the three RW parties (Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals) to get into government in difficult economic times (because of Putin’s war)? If they are desperate they will want to do a deal with the Pariah party, but the Centre party won’t be part of such a deal. So if the RW parties are desperate and lucky their combined vote + the Pariah party vote will exceed the votes of the Social Democrats, the Left and the Centre party, assuming the Greens are below the threshold. If that happens and Andersson loses it will be a move of desperation by the right that could backfire. But given polling trends for the last 9 months it is possible the Social Democrats will get above 32%. At the 2018 election the Social Democrats + Left had 35%; now they are 40%. Trend is their friend.

  23. @ Dr Doolittle

    As an outside observer I always thought at least the Liberals would shy away from the Sweden Democrats. How sad. If that really is the only feasible mandate, then that’s upsetting. Based on current polls though it seems that Andersson is in a good position.

    Is a grand coalition considered a remote possibility in Swedish politics, between the Social Democrats and Moderates?

  25. On Ukraine……things are on the move a bit. Ukrainians seem to be pushing in two areas, near Kharkiv (Izyum) and in the south. Seems at the least to be making the Russians redeploy. Funnily enough this is all going to come down to sustainment and the Russians just dont seem to have the capacity for that people thought they would have.

    Taiwan?? Who the fuck knows whats going on. I think that if there are no major “miscalculations” the current conniptions will pass. Chinese have made a pointless point that yes they can launch missiles to around Taiwan, and they can impose trade sanctions….like everyone didn’t know that already. 🙁

    Blockade Taiwan?? Nope. Taiwan too important an economy for others to let that happen. The Chinese would have to shoot first and find themselves losing a number of high value, high visibility assets pretty quickly if they try that stunt.

    Next thing will maybe be Xi doing a Putin and allude to nukes?? Will see what lessons people are taking from the Russia / Ukraine war. 🙁

  26. If Matthew Guy didn’t forward the email from his CoS, then how was businessman Jonathon Munz in a position to reject the proposition …?

    This stinks !

  28. Emelius van der Lubben at 1.35 pm

    The Swedish Liberals started to move towards accepting the Pariah party (neo-Nazi “Sweden Dems”) a few years ago, even under their previous leader, Nyamko Sabuni, whose father was a left-wing political exile from Zaire. She said the murder by a neo-Nazi of an African refugee in 1995 partly motivated her to join the Liberals. The closest parallel to her is perhaps Kemi Badenoch. There was clearly a coup within the Liberals to get rid of her in April when she stupidly said she would flee to Norway if Sweden was ever invaded. She clearly cannot think quickly, as the obvious answer by then, when Putin had already retreated from Kyiv, was that Putin is now busy failing to conquer Ukraine. Her replacement, Johan Pehrson, is a small town lawyer who joined the Liberals in 1985, when they were the third biggest party with 14% of the vote, already past their glory days that won’t return.

    Grand coalition in Sweden? Unlikely, because the Moderates are Tories. They don’t like a junior role.

  31. Emelius van der Lubben at 1.35 pm and threshold in Swedish elections

    Correction: threshold in Sweden is 4% not 5%. On the latest poll Greens are at 4.8% and Liberals at 5.7%. Here is the report of the former Liberal leader’s embarrassing gaffe and her resignation:

    https://www.thelocal.se/20220408/nyamko-sabuni-resigns-as-leader-of-swedens-troubled-liberal-party/

    Clearly the Swedish Liberals have been chronically failing, and, rather than address their failures, they have decided it would be best to leave open the option of supporting the neo-Nazi Pariah party.

  32. Rex Douglas says:
    Friday, August 5, 2022 at 2:05 pm

    If Matthew Guy didn’t forward the email from his CoS, then how was businessman Jonathon Munz in a position to reject the proposition …?

    This stinks !
    —————-
    Didn’t the COS approach Munz for the donation to the COS business.

  36. I would have thought that the analysis:
    1. would have included the cost effectiveness of the intervention
    2. the opportunity cost
    3. how much of the Commonwealth’s spend on the card ended up in private provider’s pockets
    4. what were the negative financial impacts of the forced lack of consumer choice
    5. how much of the Commonwealth’s spend went back to the Liberal and National Parties by way of political donations.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-05/fact-check-cashless-debit-card-gambling-reduction-improved-lives/101299336?fbclid=IwAR2fsmW52c3tLaFBOIS8Y8-BPpkAAXrnOyAX2ZPLGLpkD7EW4Ey5mulCLI0

  38. Emilius van der Lubben

    Take heart.

    Re: Morwell division of the Victorian electorate.

    Since Russell Northe’s retirement, Labor has a chance, with a great candidate.

    2PP after the 2018 election was:

    Russell Northe 51.84%
    Mark Richards (Lab) 48.16

    Labor’s candidate for the forthcoming election is Kate Maxfield, Doctor Kate Maxfield, that is, daughter of the former member for Narracan, Ian Maxfield.

    Unfortunately for Narracan, even with the retirement of Lib Gary Blackwood, there’s only the stronghold of Motown to mount any sort of resistance to Howard’s legacy of “aspirationals”.

  43. Mavis

    The riding instructions appear to have been to deny, delay and destroy – perhaps a more fitting set of instructions to the uniforms than to the suits.

    There was, and presumably still is, a huge backlog in vet’s claims cases. There simply were not enough Vet Affairs bureaucrats to process the claims.

    I understand that Labor during the campaign committed to employing additional staff to process the claims but am not sure where that is at.

  44. I wouldn’t hold out much hope that blocking websites will have much of an impact on cheating.

    Too much whack-a-mole, too easy for websites to shift to new addresses, and any measures we introduce won’t stop cheaters using VPNs to get around anything done here.

    The education sector just needs to get better at doing assessments of student performance; who knows, having more contact between the students and the educators so the educators know what’s going on might result in better educational outcomes too…

  45. I know where we can pick up three sub engines.

    It turns out that we are in the same boats as Thailand: on dry land.

    Here is one for Bludger’s boat commanders.

    https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/explained/article/3176532/thailands-chinese-submarine-deal-why-it-stuck-limbo-and-will-it?utm_content=article&utm_medium=social&utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=GME-I-retarget-au-scmp-fb-uv-returned_interest&utm_id=fb_cmp-6234506231292_adg-6258686306292_ad-6275660301892&fbclid=IwAR1l8rdMgcAfi68cIFH1ER7PMCAgb8Nv58NSeG5eHE6XZod4xtrxTm2LaFM#Echobox=1651719205

  46. Labor, the Teals, and Pocock fatally wedged the flagman on the environment. Will the flagman pay back in kind by destroying the Voice? The ball is in flagman’s court.

  47. Jackol
    I would have guessed that there is enough processing power, AI, and dinky algos to pick up any and all cheating.

  48. Boerwar:

    Friday, August 5, 2022 at 3:21 pm

    [‘Mavis

    The riding instructions appear to have been to deny, delay and destroy – perhaps a more fitting set of instructions to the uniforms than to the suits.

    There was, and presumably still is, a huge backlog in vet’s claims cases. There simply were not enough Vet Affairs bureaucrats to process the claims.

    I understand that Labor during the campaign committed to employing additional staff to process the claims but am not sure where that is at.’]

    As with some who pursue compensation of any nature, there’s sometimes a tendency to exaggerate the harm done. And while not implying Lambie did,
    if suspicion arises, it’s incumbent upon the relevant authority to validate the claim.

    Yes, there’s quite a backlog of claims by ex-servicemen & women, and veterans – some 30,000 I believe. Labor has promised to speed up claims, and under Keogh & Thislewaite I’m confident that they’ll get on top of it.

  49. rex the only reason she ccoould viset tiwon is to build support foor a run at the presidentsy she after all has been house speaker for a while and a senyor democrat leader and with bidon and haris weak th democrats need a aulturnative presidential run pilocie must be triying to shake her progresive image to winn swing seats that or to be secretary state it is aa unnecesery viset for no reazon

  50. Boerwar – sure, and I’m sure they’re doing a lot of that now. That makes sense; trying to block websites not so much.

    Of course it then becomes an AI race – can the people making money off of cheating develop algorithms to produce better essays or whatever which can’t be detected as copies by the current generation of cheat-detection AI.

    Regardless, my point was that if the educators have a closer relationship with their students they will both be able to have a better grip on whether their students are cheating as well as actually being able to do the job of educating better. Of course it requires more resources – more time devoted to direct contact, lower student to staff ratios etc, hence why there is a preference for doing things the same way they have always done them with added ‘cheat detection’ to paper over the changed nature of the world since the internet really became a thing.

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