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 interesting take from the latest in the series of reports about the behaviour of the generals is that it is not the left which saved democracy in the US during Trump’s presidency.
    It was the generals.

  2. NSW MP John Sidoti has been suspended from parliament after he was found to have engaged in serious corrupt conduct.
    __________
    They’re on a roll!

  3. Griff:

    Tuesday, August 9, 2022 at 2:13 pm

    [‘Mavis @ Tuesday, August 9, 2022 at 11:09 am

    And do you take your own medicine? ‘]

    Of course not. Light relief aside, causation & justification are often misconstrued and/or conjoined. Dr Doolittle correctly I think identified causation but didn’t justify it, referring to Putin as a fascist yet was nevertheless unjustly criticised by some.

  4. Boerwar @ #1452 Tuesday, August 9th, 2022 – 2:29 pm

    The interesting take from the latest in the series of reports about the behaviour of the generals is that it is not the left which saved democracy in the US during Trump’s presidency.
    It was the generals.

    In point of fact is was probably mostly Pence and Raffensperger that did it. Right-wingers both, yes, but it’s like…you fault the left for not being in a position to stop Trump’s coup? As if they were integral parts of Trump’s administration and the state election apparatus and empowered to do (or not do) things just like Pence, Raffensperger, and the generals actually were?

    Of course the people already in position to stop the coup are the ones who stopped it. That’s the only way it can work.

    If you want to see left-wing people stopping a coup in the US, you’d need to have a left-wing government attempt one first. Hasn’t happened. Not going to happen. Their standards are above doing coups in the first place.


  5. Rex Douglas says:
    Tuesday, August 9, 2022 at 2:24 pm

    I have faith that Albanese and Burney will reach out to Bandt and Thorpe and a unified position will be reached.

    This of course will NOT please partisan Labor barrackers who only now scoring political points for their team.

    How can you have a unified position with two people who believe they, and only they should represent first settlers? What a couple of wackos.

  6. England: It has been the driest year since 1976 across swathes of the country, statistics have shown, with hosepipe bans expected to last until October.

    South-east England has had 144 days with little or no rain – the most in nearly half a century, according to Met Office figures.

    The second heat health alert of the summer has been issued for southern and central England from 6pm on Tuesday into the weekend, with temperatures expected to rise into the mid-30Cs in central and southern parts of the country.

  7. ar
    My point is that if the generals had followed Trump’s (attempted) orders then there would be no democracy in the US today.
    A related point is that the left is almost both axiomatically and ideologically critical of generals.
    A brief discussion with Jordan Steele-John would elucidate some interesting responses in this line.
    At its very simplest, ‘boys with their toys’.

  8. FitzSimons needs to pull his bloody head in.
    Ordinary Australians can’t stand bullies. Especially towards female members of Parliament.
    Let’s just wait for the pile on from the left condemning his behaviour.

  9. The irony of the Greens who claim to support consensus decision making allowing Greens policy on Indigenous Affairs to be decided and dictated by one individual. It’s absolutely clear now that federal Greens policy on Indigenous Affairs = Lidia Thorpe’s personal views to the exclusion of all others. Hypocrites!

  10. I think I raised this first and I agree with me as well on this. This should be an easy referendum win changing schedule 2

    “Australian Republic Movement
    @AusRepublic
    ·
    4h
    Polling released by Essential Media today has shown Australians don’t want the parliamentarians they elected swearing allegiance to the Queen, with 75% of Aussies saying the oath should instead be to Australia and its people. #AusPol #AusRepublic”

  11. Boerwar says:
    Tuesday, August 9, 2022 at 2:51 pm
    ar
    My point is that if the generals had followed Trump’s (attempted) orders then there would be no democracy in the US today.
    A related point is that the left is almost both axiomatically and ideologically critical of generals.
    A brief discussion with Jordan Steele-John would elucidate some interesting responses in this line.
    At its very simplest, ‘boys with their toys’.

    The Apostasy are LINO…left in name only. They are a swindle.

  12. BK

    “NSW MP John Sidoti has been suspended from parliament after he was found to have engaged in serious corrupt conduct.”

    I’m shocked!

    Serious question – how much of a majority does Perrotet have left?

  13. Spread the word…

    Reason Australia
    @reasonaustralia
    ·
    8m
    CONGRATS to Wagga City Council for taking the excellent step of ditching prayer at Council meetings in favour of a secular reflection about Councillors’ responsibilities to the community. Good! That’s why you’re there! #auspol

  14. The interesting take from the latest in the series of reports about the behaviour of the generals is that it is not the left which saved democracy in the US during Trump’s presidency.
    It was the generals.

    That’s the thing, in a democracy a soldier can have a political view of the left, centre or right BUT at the end of the day the soldier serves at the behest of the government of the people and will go where and when directed.
    When it comes to January 6th it was blatantly obvious to the Generals where their duty lay and it wasn’t with Trump.
    The same goes for Pence.

  15. simm0888 says:
    Tuesday, August 9, 2022 at 3:00 pm
    The irony of the Greens who claim to support consensus decision making allowing Greens policy on Indigenous Affairs to be decided and dictated by one individual. It’s absolutely clear now that federal Greens policy on Indigenous Affairs = Lidia Thorpe’s personal views to the exclusion of all others. Hypocrites!

    Thorpe’s position is founded in anger. True to say, there is much to be angry about. Many, including Thorpe, might well carry that around with them for many years to come. The Statement from the Heart is not about nursing anger but the passage from it. It is about dignity – about recognition, forgiveness, redemption and reconciliation.

    Thorpe will find herself on the same side of the argument as the Lying Reactionaries…as the exponents of and heirs to depravity. This is a very sad thing. There will be no relief from anger, remorse, malice and sorrow as long as the Reactionaries run things.

  16. For anyone interested, there are some Engineers Australia presentations on specifics of building nuclear submarines that go into the details of what skills, work and infrastructure is involved. They make clear that building SSNs at ASC is a doable task, and many of the skills required are already here, except reactor construction. There is a cost if you are not an EA member.

    This one features a former RN SSN commander and a nuclear engineer from ANSTO who talk about the sub components and skills needed and what capability already exists locally.
    https://eaondemand.engineersaustralia.org.au/Play?pId=56fae085-506d-4943-97e7-8b0bf45d2dd4

    This one features Chris Skinner talking about how SSNs could be acquired.
    https://portal.engineersaustralia.org.au/event/2022/04/defence-engineering-and-aukus-how-should-we-prepare-42016

    In both cases, especially the first, it becomes clear that the UK Astute Class is by far the most feasible option to build in Australia. From the first presentation and ANSTOs work with French LEU fuel this is followed by the French Barracuda SSN. For constructability the US Virginia class is last (virtually none of the firms in the USN supply chain are represented locally).

    I posted these because there is some commentary emanating from ASPI and others that implies this is such a difficult task Australia can’t do it. As with the Collins Class, that is false. What is needed is a government willing to make a long term commitment to doing it.

  17. ” CONGRATS to Wagga City Council for taking the excellent step of ditching prayer at Council meetings in favour of a secular reflection…”

    That will upset the usual suspects.

  18. frednk at 1.44 pm

    I have listened to that talk by Alexander Stubb. He describes the end of the Georgian war grandiosely, in the manner of Bob Hawke, who once claimed (in a talk at ANU) that he had a role in ending the Cold War, which of course he didn’t. Dr Stubb is not bad as a debater, but he’s not a historian’s bootlace.

    Dr Stubb was not the mediator of the Georgian war. That role was performed by the (latter-day) little crook, Nicholas Sarkozy, who went to Moscow, then took Putin’s conditions to Saakashvili in Tbilisi and told him he had no alternative but to accept Putin’s ultimatum. Dr Stubb is wrong about the US position. The key US statement was made not by Bush or Rice, but by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who said very clearly that the US would not be intervening in that war.

    Dr Stubb made 5 arguments:

    1. Russia is always aggressive. An oversimplification. Gorbachev wasn’t aggressive. Something went badly wrong under Yeltsin, who paved the way for Putin. Lots more complicated than Stubb claims.

    2. Putin isn’t rational (as claimed by Mearsheimer). This point had some substance but was expressed poorly. Stubb did not mention Putin’s paranoia (mostly about being poisoned). Putin is a dunderhead strategically. E.g. why not invade Ukraide in Nov 2019? Stubb should have emphasised that more.

    3. The morality section: Ukraine has the right to choose its allies. Fine in abstract, but in reality you need to consider the consequences of provoking a nearby thug, even if he is a military dunderhead.

    4. NATO expansion. Stubb, along with many others but not Dr Fiona Hill (who knows much more about Putin and Russia than Stubb), is in denial about the legacy of NATO expansion. This often happens in politics, people hold on to a shibboleth no matter what evidence is presented, and distort the evidence to suit their dogma. E.g. Dr Hill said (before Dr Stubb’s talk) that leaving any prospect of NATO expanding to Ukraine on the table in 2008 was “a strategic blunder”. Whatever Dr Stubb says, it is the US that runs NATO, not a mere Finnish PM or Foreign Minister. The intelligence advice to President Bush for the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest was given by Dr Hill, who recommended foreclosing the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO, at least at that time. The US Ambassador to Russia, William Burns (now CIA Director) had the same view. He expressed it very clearly to Dr Rice:

    “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”

    For background (and that quote) see this article by an esteemed historian, Ronald Suny:

    https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-follows-decades-of-warnings-that-nato-expansion-into-eastern-europe-could-provoke-russia-177999

    For Dr Hill’s view see: https://ip-quarterly.com/en/one-mans-war-one-mans-choice

    President Bush (hardly a genius, since he could not tell OPEC from APEC) and Dick Cheney thought they knew better than their expert advisers in Dr Hill and Mr Burns. How wrong they were. Dr Stubb entirely ignores the comment from Dr Hill about the US “strategic blunder” in 2008. In the realm of serious policy debate, not armchair debate, that renders Dr Stubb’s view much less than impressive.

    5. Dr Stubb has a dig at Obama, claiming he was weak whereas Dubya Bush wasn’t and Biden isn’t. This is hard to follow, particularly because there were hints from Biden before the invasion that a localised attack in the Donbas might not be treated the same as a full invasion, i.e. the former might have been tolerated whereas the latter could not be. Had Putin attacked Kiev when Obama was in office, the reaction would have been at least as strong as Biden’s reaction. For Dr Stubb to criticise Obama in this way is very disingenuous, although it’s a partial point of agreement between Dr Stubb and Professor Graeme Gill, who claims (in the talk you found challenging) that Obama’s failure in Syria was something that emboldened Putin’s militarism. It wasn’t clear what Obama could have done in Syria in 2015 without making an already terribly bad situation there even worse. The Syrian opposition made a bad mistake when they militarised their justified political struggle against Assad.

    Dr Stubb is a fit guy who runs marathons. I would back him in a marathon against any politician or ex-politician from Russia. But as an analyst of Russia he’s no expert (his Ph.D was about the EU).

  19. [‘The Justice Department has been probing the discovery of boxes of records containing classified information that were taken to Mar-a-Lago after Trump’s presidency had concluded. The Washington Post reported the National Archives and Records Administration said it had retrieved 15 boxes of records containing classified information from Mar-a-Lago earlier this year. Trump has previously maintained that presidential records were turned over “in an ordinary and routine process”.

    Depending on what the search uncovers, the issue could be a powder keg for Trump due to a section of the US Code that makes it a crime if someone who has government documents “wilfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies or destroys” them.

    Those convicted under the law face up to three years in jail and disqualification from holding office.’] – SMH

    If convicted, Trump’s second attempt to destroy America would be in tatters.
    Far better to proceed this way than to risk a trial on seditious conspiracy, as it would be hard to defend a charge of improperly dealing with documents that are the property of the National Archives and Records Administration.

  20. I was about to say 3 SFF in NSW lower house but:

    “On 3 March 2022, {Helen} Dalton resigned from the Shooters Fishers and Farmers due to disagreeing with the party’s Legislative Council members not showing up to vote against a bill regarding water usage that she believed would “disadvantage communities and irrigators in the lower Darling and Murray river system”.[26]”

  21. No time to bludge @ #1475 Tuesday, August 9th, 2022 – 3:31 pm

    simm0888 says:
    Tuesday, August 9, 2022 at 3:00 pm
    The irony of the Greens who claim to support consensus decision making allowing Greens policy on Indigenous Affairs to be decided and dictated by one individual. It’s absolutely clear now that federal Greens policy on Indigenous Affairs = Lidia Thorpe’s personal views to the exclusion of all others. Hypocrites!

    Thorpe’s position is founded in anger. True to say, there is much to be angry about. Many, including Thorpe, might well carry that around with them for many years to come. The Statement from the Heart is not about nursing anger but the passage from it. It is about dignity – about recognition, forgiveness, redemption and reconciliation.

    Thorpe will find herself on the same side of the argument as the Lying Reactionaries…as the exponents of and heirs to depravity. This is a very sad thing. There will be no relief from anger, remorse, malice and sorrow as long as the Reactionaries run things.

    Partisan Labor rubbish.

    Treaty is the resolution and the unifier.

    They will support the Voice referendum and Burney will get the Treaty process underway.

  22. Steve

    “He doesn’t have one. The Government has 45/93 seats in the Assembly, Labor 37. There are three Green, two Shooters, five independents and one vacant.”

    Thanks. I’ll just wait for the Murdoch press to start up the cries of “no mandate!” a la their anti-Gillard pogrom.

    Sorry, silly me, I am imagining they are still capable of impartiality.

  23. In NSW the Liberals won 48 seats (out of 93) in the 2019 election, a small majority. They lost three members under a cloud, John Sidoti, Gareth Ward and Gladys’ boyfriend.

  24. These FBI raids appear to implying that things are getting very real for the MAGA’s.

    This is a terrifying development given the gun culture and the hypnotic hold the MAGA leadership have over their supporters.

  25. Dr Doolittle

    You selectively quote people who agree with your view,I selectively quote people who agree with mine.

    It really comes down to one central tenant, would Putin have invaded Ukraine if there was no NATO expansion. We will never know. My view is some other poor ex colony, that in now a member of NATO would have come first. But he would have got there if he wasn’t stopped.

    My own view is Ukraine is getting the support they are because they are showing a willingness to fight. They do not want to be a Russian colony again. As Stalin starved 2 million of them I am not surprised.

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

    Please don’t try and argue that Stalin killing a couple of million Ukrainians was the USA faults. That would move from the silly to not worth discussing the issue any further..

  26. Doc Doolittle

    Just read the article in the link I posted re the Holodomor famine. 3.5 to 5 million victims. I’m old, my memory of the lessons of my youth are failing.

    It really is quite perverse that some argue, we got here because other ex colonies wanted to and were allowed to join NATO.


  27. Cronussays:
    Tuesday, August 9, 2022 at 1:55 pm
    Dr Doolittle
    “As Michael Cox has written, “The idea that one day [the Cold War] might no longer be there was virtually inconceivable—as one academic discovered when he asked a group of leading American officials in 1985 whether or not we should be ‘looking ahead to the possibility that the Cold War might someday end’. According to the academic in question, John L. Gaddis, the ‘embarrassed silence [that] ensued’ was finally broken by a highly respected senior diplomat: ‘Oh, it hadn’t occurred to any of us that it ever would end’ (quoted in Gaddis 1992, vi).” [Gaddis, US & the end of the Cold War]”

    I had a friend (young US Army officer/analyst at the time) working in the Pentagon when the Berlin wall came down. He was working on the Russian desk (as so many were) and said that within a very short space of time, their work became redundant and they were almost all sitting at empty desks and subsequently reassigned. He said it was extraordinarily disheartening not having an unambiguous superpower enemy to plan for and assess daily. This changed on 9/11 when he spent three hours crawling out of the Pentagon, a new enemy had emerged.

    Cronus
    USA always needed an enemy to keep their folks united. When there was no they were interested in Clinton extra-marital affairs and his cigar or descended into Chaos like they did during Trump years.
    Trump exposed the world to real America and it was ugly.

  28. BiC
    The Greens have finally buckled to Indigenous majority opinion – and to Labor’s leadership.
    But not before doing some damage by getting into bed with Price, Bolt et al.
    They are disgusting.

  29. The Cold War always seemed like part of the general backdrop, like the sky. It had been going since before I was born and if I had been asked in the 1980s would have answered that I expected that it would continue for decades – if we’re lucky, that is, because there seemed to be no good alternative.

  30. Rex Douglas says:
    Tuesday, August 9, 2022 at 3:39 pm
    No time to bludge @ #1475 Tuesday, August 9th, 2022 – 3:31 pm

    Thorpe’s position is founded in anger. True to say, there is much to be angry about. Many, including Thorpe, might well carry that around with them for many years to come. The Statement from the Heart is not about nursing anger but the passage from it. It is about dignity – about recognition, forgiveness, redemption and reconciliation.

    Thorpe will find herself on the same side of the argument as the Lying Reactionaries…as the exponents of and heirs to depravity. This is a very sad thing. There will be no relief from anger, remorse, malice and sorrow as long as the Reactionaries run things.

    Partisan Labor rubbish.

    Not at all. Not partisan. It’s simply the irrefutable case….as long as the Reactionaries can prevent change, they will.

    The Treaty will be far more difficult to realise than Recognition and the Voice. Far more difficult. As it is, the chances of a Yes vote without the support of the Reactionaries are slender at best.

    There’s just no way that the defeat of Recognition and the Voice will be favourable for the Treaty process. Yet Thorpe has joined the Apostasy with the clowns of One Nation and the Lying Reactionaries. Too sad for words, really.

  31. This debate over whether the US’s NATO posture is responsible for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine reminds me of the debate over whether the Versailles Treaty caused WW2.

    It may well have had a role, but Hitler’s actions were all his doing – like Putin’s. Arguing about the precursor errors by the Allies then or NATO now is beside the point except for historians.


  32. a rsays:
    Tuesday, August 9, 2022 at 2:45 pm
    Boerwar @ #1452 Tuesday, August 9th, 2022 – 2:29 pm

    The interesting take from the latest in the series of reports about the behaviour of the generals is that it is not the left which saved democracy in the US during Trump’s presidency.
    It was the generals.

    In point of fact is was probably mostly Pence and Raffensperger that did it. Right-wingers both, yes, but it’s like…you fault the left for not being in a position to stop Trump’s coup? As if they were integral parts of Trump’s administration and the state election apparatus and empowered to do (or not do) things just like Pence, Raffensperger, and the generals actually were?

    Of course the people already in position to stop the coup are the ones who stopped it. That’s the only way it can work.

    If you want to see left-wing people stopping a coup in the US, you’d need to have a left-wing government attempt one first. Hasn’t happened. Not going to happen. Their standards are above doing coups in the first place

    After the discussions we had about Chomsky, Fisk, Pilger and Greenwald and Soviet union and Communists you still think their standards are above doing coups in the first place?
    Remember there are good and bad people on both sides of so called divide called Left and Right.
    Infact there is good and bad in each and every person. It is how we control our bad makes us good.

  33. Rex Douglas @ #1484 Tuesday, August 9th, 2022 – 3:45 pm

    This is a terrifying development given the gun culture and the hypnotic hold the MAGA leadership have over their supporters.

    No. They don’t get to terrify anything simply by being belligerent, unthinking, and armed. They don’t deserve power over you or anyone else. Stop giving it to them through fear that they might do something stupid and violent. Don’t appease simply because a threat of violence exists.

    If they do something stupid and violent, they’ll face the consequences. That’s good enough. No fear required. No appeasements, either.

  34. Steve777 at 4.18 pm

    No need to be embarrassed about your view of the Cold War in the 1980s, as you were not being paid to be an expert. But some, indeed many, should have been embarrassed. E.g. a prominent Russian expert at Columbia University, Seweryn Bialer, published a book with Michael Mandelbaum in 1989 that asserted: “the Soviet Union will continue to be … the preeminent rival [of the US] far into the 21st C” (Global Rivals p 5). I talked with him in 1985. Quite impressive, with a magnificent leather couch.

    Of course it is a basic error to confuse contingent man-made constructions, such as the Cold War and capitalism, as in any sense natural or comparable with such an eternal and changeable reality as sky.

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