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. Putin should have left politics in 2008, instead he installed himself as the leader for life, which means he is a dictator who doesn’t care for a rules based order.
    It is clear he was always gonna invade Ukraine.

    He has said as much, when he has made it clear that he doesn’t consider Ukraine a real country, same for Georgia, Poland and any former soviet country for that matter, to him its Russia’s country and so they have the right to take it back however they see fit.

    Thats why they still are going even when they have lost over 40k soldiers and have murdered countless innocent people and destroyed many towns and cities.
    Why anyone try’s to excuse Russia needs a hard look at themselves.

  2. Rest in Peace, The Finnigans. His avatar was usually a dolphin.He was a regular on Pollbludger but as a one-eyed Labor supporter he got in hot water for being somewhat unfriendly to perceived non-Labor folk and Labor folk he thought were not up to scratch

    He was very active on Twitter and I kept in touch with him there. He spread the Labor message far and wide.

    Vale Finnigans, you were Labor supporter to the bone. May your atoms swim free in the Universe, Dolphin.

  5. Hi Puffy, are you sure? He seems to be still tweeting as of 15 minutes ago. Do you mean Frank, who did sadly die recently?

  8. Frank Calabrese, Finns and George Bludger were all entertaining PB contemporaries who migrated to Twitter.
    They certtainly tended to entertain WB at times!

  12. Bert
    Yes, I did update, but it only allows one to read but not copy text. In Firefox if the reader view is used the text becomes copyable. The cartoons are not accessible though.
    I am confident it will be fixed within a few days.

  21. Cronus at 1.55 pm and Ven at 4.11 pm

    Yes, the US has, after the isolationist era, always liked an enemy. It’s amazing how many people got worried about Islamic terrorism when you assess the objective risks. Julie Bishop as FM even thought it was a geopolitical problem, bigger than Ben-Hur, which of course it wasn’t. For the evidence see:

    https://sci-hub.hkvisa.net/10.1080/09546553.2018.1530662 (Terrorism and Bath-tubs)

    That’s an article by John Mueller and Mark Stewart (the latter of Newcastle Uni in NSW) who compare the risks of dying from terrorism (outside of war zones) with the risks of drowning in a bath-tub.

    See also: https://sci-hub.hkvisa.net/10.1162/ISEC_a_00089 (The Terrorism Delusion from 2012)

    For some interesting anecdotes, here’s a 2016 interview (with a few typos):

    https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/rethinking-intelligence-interview-john-mueller-and-mark-g-stewart

  23. yes i think the prair should be ditched from parliament to all ways ironic that the loudist aponents off gay rightsbeing tought at school want scripture forced to studdents in school andthere is no need for the prair in parliament oralegents to the queen inwhen elected to parliament

  24. the barilarow scandle is getting worse hope this brings down perrettegovernment on the prair wish it was removed in federal parliamentthe most vocal criticks off gay rights in school believe in scripture in school which i dont think is nesesary would off prefered to learn abbout the differt religions and want they believe in stead off being preached to

  25. How does a suspension from parliament work? The Govt has two members currently suspended. Does that mean their respective constituencies are completely disenfranchised in the meantime? I find that situation deeply uncomfortable.

    Does anyone know how it all works?

    I am also a little concerned that a Police charge and or finding of an administrative body such as ICAC can prompt Parliament to enforce such a suspension?

  26. Parliament should open the day with a pledge to conduct its deliberations with diligence, honesty, good faith and dignity on behalf of the Australian people. Then a minute’s silence to contemplate the meaning of the pledge and, for those who wish it, silent prayer.

  27. Aaron newton at 5:48 pm disregard for
    I think they should kick off with them all reciting an oath to be truthful and honest in the upcoming proceedings. Will it improve their behavior ? Not likely but it will highlight how little some care about honoring promises and show the true value of their word. It should also be fun watching some of them trying to limbo under that bar.

  29. a r @ #1498 Tuesday, August 9th, 2022 – 4:41 pm

    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.

    Exactly. Be inspired by the man in Tiananmen Square standing in front of a tank.

  30. C@tmomma at 6:02 pm
    That you dismiss someone such as him shows your ignorance. He authored the US’ Containment Policy against the USSR What has your contribution been ?

  31. Glenn Kirschner teased an interesting point. Why hasn’t Rudy Giuliani been charged with any crimes by the DOJ? Especially after his home was raided over 12 months ago. Coincidentally, the DOJ probably have a co-operating witness. 😉

  32. Roy Morgan @RoyMorganAus

    ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence drops by 3.8pts to 80.3 after RBA raises interest rates for fourth straight month #AusPoll #AusBiz

  33. poroti @ #1530 Tuesday, August 9th, 2022 – 6:10 pm

    C@tmomma at 6:02 pm
    That you dismiss someone such as him shows your ignorance.

    No, it shows that I am independent of mind and don’t fawn over people because of past positions they may have held. Like you. Though I’m interested to know whether you agree with him?

    “I hate the rough and tumble of our political life,” he wrote, in 1935, to a sister, Jeanette, to whom he was close. “I hate democracy; I hate the press. . . . I hate the ‘peepul’; I have become clearly un-American.” In the draft of an unfinished book, begun in the nineteen-thirties, he advocated restricting the vote to white males, and other measures designed to create government by an élite.

    Many people gave up on liberal democracy in the nineteen-thirties, but Kennan, even after the war, and in his most widely read books—“American Diplomacy,” published in 1951, and the first volume of his “Memoirs,” which came out in 1967 and won a Pulitzer Prize—was blunt about his estrangement from American life and his antipathy to democracy. He believed that a nation’s form of government has little to do with the quality of life, and he admired conservative autocracies such as prewar Austria and Portugal under António Salazar. In the second volume of the “Memoirs,” published in 1972, he proposed that one of the few times American diplomacy had been conducted with integrity, and without political pandering, was the period from 1945 to 1949—which happened to be the years of his own greatest influence.

    The country he felt closest to—just to make the irony complete—was Russia. Russia was “in my blood,” he says in the “Memoirs.” “There was some mysterious affinity which I could not explain even to myself.” He wondered whether he had lived in St. Petersburg in a previous life. The Russia he loved, or fantasized about, was, of course, a pre-Bolshevik and pre-industrial Russia—the Russia of Tolstoy, whose estate, Yasnaya Polyana, he visited in 1952, feeling, he said later, “close to a world to which, I always thought, I could really have belonged,” and of Chekhov, whose biography he several times contemplated writing.

    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/14/getting-real

    No doubt the Russia of, um, Peter the Great.

  35. C@tmomma at 6:21 pm
    Following his plan saw the US win the Cold War. Dill arse hawks like you have led the US into shit time and again.

  38. I’m booked for my 2nd booster. Not looking forward to it. I was hoping Moderna, but Pfizer (again) this time. Umm, had a bad reaction with pfizer 1st boost.

    Sounds like two AZs and two Pfizers aren’t the best of combinations.

    PS. Chin up Finnigans. We still love ya.

  40. I just saw Chris Minns on Sky overnight and was quite impressed with his performance. It was the first time I had ever seen him interviewed and contrary to some of the scathing criticisms I have seen of him from some Labor supporters on this blog he spoke very well and really looked the part of a premier in waiting. I think he will do very well in the upcoming election.

  41. Sorry to hear the news about Frank Calabrese. While my history with him was mixed and, I won’t lie, full of friction, I will say that I admire the passion he held for his beliefs and will say that nothing he ever said online was ever just to troll or hurt someone for the sake of hurting them. At least he outlived the previous Coalition government. Rest in peace.

  42. kezza2 @ #1537 Tuesday, August 9th, 2022 – 6:49 pm

    poroti @ #1535 Tuesday, August 9th, 2022 – 6:29 pm

    C@tmomma at 6:21 pm
    Following his plan saw the US win the Cold War. Dill arse hawks like you have led the US into shit time and again.

    Wow, C@t, never know you had so much influence.

    Perhaps it’s time to seek out TikTok.

    AND Porrotti, WTF!

    I thought poroti would come out with ‘but the Cold War’. Predictable. Problem was, Kennan wasn’t happy when the Cold War ended:

    And when he imagined the day the Iron Curtain lifted, a day that his own policy recommendations were intended to bring about, he dreaded what would happen to the Russians after being exposed to “the wind of material plenty” and its “debilitating and insidious breath.” Although he long advocated the reunification of Germany, he took little satisfaction when it happened. It was just the result, he thought, of agitation by young East Germans motivated by the hope of “getting better jobs, making more money, and bathing in the fleshpots of the West.” He wondered whether this was what we had really wanted when we set out, more than forty years before, to wage a Cold War.

    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/14/getting-real

    You have to remember, poroti would be happiest if we just let Putin get on with the job of reconstituting the USSR and reimagining Russia in the image of Peter the Great. Which would also please George Kennan as well, should he still be alive.

  43. kezza2says:
    Tuesday, August 9, 2022 at 6:57 pm
    Sounds like two AZs and two Pfizers aren’t the best of combinations.

    ————————————-
    That was my combination.
    2nd Pfizer 2 months ago only a sore arm. AZ’s did knock me.
    Go well!

  45. Here in the UK actor David Jason (aka Sir David John White) was trending this morning, lots of people assumed he had passed away. Rumours to the effect…

  49. Trent Capelli
    @TrentCapelli
    Replying to
    @TheRickWilson
    Justice is arriving. Trump won’t have two Pence to his name. He’ll pass through the Gaetz of hell, like the little Mitch he is. There won’t be any Devin intervention. He will be alone to stroll in the Greene Meadows, Mnuchin on all the Big McEnanys he wants until the bitter end.

  50. kezza2 @ #1538 Tuesday, August 9th, 2022 – 4:57 pm

    I’m booked for my 2nd booster. Not looking forward to it. I was hoping Moderna, but Pfizer (again) this time. Umm, had a bad reaction with pfizer 1st boost.

    Sounds like two AZs and two Pfizers aren’t the best of combinations.

    PS. Chin up Finnigans. We still love ya.

    I just had my fourth shot, 2nd shot of Moderna after two AZs, never had a reaction to any of the previous shots, this one floored me for a couple of days.
    Doesn’t seem to be any pattern or reason.

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