Various developments on the Victorian election front:
• Antony Green’s eagerly awaited Legislative Council calculators are open for business.
• Today’s Herald Sun leads with a video conference recording showing micro-party preference negotiator Glenn Druery plying his trade. While most of its “bombshell” revelations are old hat, it does show Druery discussing a deal ahead of the 2018 election in which the CFMEU scored preferences for Andy Meddick of Animal Justice and micro-parties got Labor preferences ahead of the Greens, and describing the Restore Democracy Sack Dan Andrews Party as “one of mine”. It was noted here on Monday that the latter party’s preference tickets were not appreciably harsher towards Labor than the Coalition, although both are consistently near the bottom of the pile. Druery was also in the news this week after Animal Justice reneged on deals with his network to instead direct preferences to Labor, the Greens, Reason, Legalise Cannabis and Victorian Socialists.
• Further detail from the RedBridge Group poll published in the Herald Sun on Monday: 73.3% rate that the health system is in crisis, with only 14.5% actively disagreeing; 54.7% think “Matthew Guy and the Coalition” better placed to fix it, strikingly far ahead of Daniel Andrews and Labor on 24%;, 64.9% support the Coalition’s plan to delay construction of the Suburban Rail Loop to divert the money to the health system, with only 18.5% opposed; and 36.4% rated cost-of-living pressures the most important determinant of vote choice, ahead of health on 15.5%, climate change on 10.6% and COVID health and management on 7.8%. It needs reiterating here that the poll’s voting intention question showed Labor on track to win the election. The field work dates, which I said in my previous post were not provided, turned out to be October 31 to November 6.
• Bianca Hall of The Age reports disquiet in the Liberal Party over its decision to direct preferences to the Greens ahead of Labor in Northcote, Richmond and Albert Park. A member of the party’s administrative committee, Ian Quick, blamed the decision on Matthew Guy, party president Greg Mirabella and state director Sam McQuestin. The Age reported on Tuesday that the Liberal candidate for Richmond, Lucas Moon, had bucked the directive by handing out how-to-vote cards with Labor ahead of the Greens, but “later switched to handing out the party’s official how-to-vote cards with Labor last”.
• Neil Mitchell of 3AW related on Tuesday that “leaked” Labor polling had the party “very edgy”, expecting to lose Hawthorn and Oakleigh to the Liberals, Albert Park to the Greens and Point Cook to an independent. Tim Pallas was said to be in danger of losing Werribee (to whom is unclear); and Daniel Andrews would survive only narrowly in Mulgrave, where independent Ian Cook is said to be gaining traction; and there was a “swing against the government” across regional areas. (UPDATE: Kos Samaras is not convinced).
• Clay Lucas of The Age reports Melissa Lowe and Sophie Torney, teal independent candidates in Hawthorn and Kew, are preparing legal challenges against a Victorian Electoral Commission determination that election material directing supporters to make up their own mind beyond the first preference fell foul of the law against misleading voters in relation to the casting of their vote. A VEC spokesperson told The Age that “visuals of blank boxes next to candidate names” could “mislead the voter to cast an informal vote”, whatever the material’s actual intention.
• The Age reports the Liberal candidate for Ashwood, Judah Asher, appears to be behind a how-to-vote card advocating a first preference for an independent and a last preference for Labor, while how-to-vote cards being circulated in Northcote direct Liberal supporters to put Labor ahead of the Greens, contrary to the party’s official recommendation.
• Police are investigating an incident in which a Labor activist’s leg was broken during an alleged assault by an opponent of the government’s COVID measures in Wodonga, and both parties to an incident at a Werribee pre-poll booth involving Treasurer Tim Pallas and Freedom Party candidate Mark Strother have lodged harrassment complaints.
• The Victorian Electoral Commission’s site records that just over 400,000 votes have been cast in the first three days of pre-polling, compared with a total of 1.36 million in 2018. The VEC is actively encouraging early voting due to concerns about COVID, with plans to allow those who had tested positive to vote by telephone having been scuttled when the state’s remaining isolation rules were lifted.
Trent says:
Friday, November 18, 2022 at 1:05 am
Are they not just preaching to the choir then?
——————————–
All campaigns do that up to a point and its also aimed at trying to entice Liberals that swung to Labor in 2018 to come back to the Liberals.
I really have no idea do I, Jeremy?
My point, to be clear, was not that scare campaigns like franking credits don’t work.
It was 100% about the EXECUTION of this one. Put simply, it’s a shit last minute ad that doesn’t cut through, and doesn’t very clearly articulate the threat they are trying to convey.
The franking credits campaign had months of national coverage and debate, town hall meetings with pensioners explaining the risks, the “threat” was rammed down voters’ throats for months.
All I’m saying is that a single new pretty weak ad that isn’t even particularly clear in articulating the issue, debuting 9 days out from the election, is not as effective as that months long scare campaign was.
If you’ve seen it though and think that 15 second ad is equally as effective as the months long multi-faceted, multi-channel franking credits scare campaign that was the centre of national debate with massive media coverage, then you’re entitled to think so.
Let’s just agree to disagree: I think the franking credits scare campaign was more effective because it was executed very well over a long period of time and over many channels; you are saying that this 15 second ad will have the exact same impact as a months’ long national scare campaign with media backing. 🙂
I guess the federal Libs really wasted their resources on all the effort they put into that franking credits scare campaign in 2019, if as you say yourself, a last minute 15 second ad only 9 days out from the election that didn’t really explain the issue or risks would have had the same impact!
Labor has been the party of government at state level in Vic for a generation and people aren’t enthusiastic about Guy as some great money manager. This isn’t a Federal election. As usual, assume the State Libs are stupid and you’ll not go far wrong.
Comparing the franking credit scare which was worked up over many months by Tim Wilson and co, with lots of time and money and visibility, to some desultory throwaway line in a campaign ad 8 days out? Pitiful.
Arky: “the franking credit scare which was worked up over many months by Tim Wilson and co”
… including ‘expert’ testimony from his dad’s cousin.
Voting Below the Line for Upper House.
Victorian Friends, In NSW elections there are options available regarding how to complete a valid vote:
1. Vote 1 against the candidate of your choice 0r preference as many candidates as you choose.
2. Vote 1 above the line for the Upper House candidate/ party of your choice or vote, below the line for the candidates in your order of preference. You may preference as many as you choose or the entire ballot.
My question to my Victorian friends, regarding your Upper House ballot, if voting below the line – to avoid preference deals etc – do you have to preference every candidate, or only a minimum number of candidates similar to choices available when voting for the Aust. Senate?
Jeremy, I note that you consider both Yan Yean & Footscray vulnerable to a change of hands. I would like to see the polling which would support such a hypothesis, particularly as Yan Yean has a 16.9% margin and Footscray, the safest Government seat in the House has a margin 0f 27.6%.
Macca RB says:
Friday, November 18, 2022 at 6:34 am
Voting Below the Line for Upper House.
My question to my Victorian friends, regarding your Upper House ballot, if voting below the line – to avoid preference deals etc – do you have to preference every candidate, or only a minimum number of candidates similar to choices available when voting for the Aust. Senate?
———-
Macca – if you’re voting BTL, you need to number at least 5 preferences to vote formally – equal to the number of seats in each Upper House district
Again it shows
The lack of medias’s opinion polls after all the propaganda and personal attacks on Labor/Andrews is doing nothing in changing the minds of the Victorian voters
Which is the corrupt lib/nats and their propaganda media units are in deep trouble of stopping the flow against them Lib/nats number of seats heading backwards to low 20’s or high teens , Labor may get more than 56 seats
Annika Smethurst’s speculation as to limited Teal successes in Victoria (pretty much as I’d expect based on the fundamentals) – bolstered by some questionable “Teal sources say…” reportage (which I give little credence to):
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/teals-temper-their-city-seat-hopes-but-independents-on-rural-rise-20221116-p5bype.html
Sextus
The only assumption I’ll question is that of the Federal indis having any relevance to the State.
We had indies run in the State seats covered by Indi last State election. They did OK but not brilliantly.
Of these, Jacqui Hawkins is running again. She’s young and enthusiastic and the media are giving her a good go, so she might get up – but she’s not the middle aged professional woman type which seem to make successful Teal candidates (her whole pitch seems to be based on ‘young and enthusiastic’ — there doesn’t seem to be much other than that).
The Teals did well federally because there were real concerns about a hung Parliament or a narrow Morrison victory. Women’s issues, climate change and integrity were thus lines which resonated – the third might with Andrews but that’s mainly a cooker thing.
So there’s no REASON to vote for a Teal in Victoria. There’s no worry that the Libs might get in and Labor is covering the bases the Teals based their Federal campaigns on.
Jacqui might get up – because the local media has decided to spruik her – and so might one or two in the eastern suburbs, but the ‘vibe’ isn’t there in the same way it was in the Federal election.
RE: Upper House Voting
Thanks Max, so obviously the more considered voters would vote below the line and thus negate the preference deals of political or third parties.
Macca RB says:
Friday, November 18, 2022 at 7:20 am
RE: Upper House Voting
Thanks Max, so obviously the more considered voters would vote below the line and thus negate the preference deals of political or third parties.
————-
Absolutely
As Ben Raue says, “Friends don’t let friends vote above the line in Victoria”:
https://www.tallyroom.com.au/50292
The rate of BTL voting has been inching up over recent elections, but unfortunately it’s still very much the exception rather than the rule. We can only hope that the shabby revelations about preference whispering over the last few days will shame the next government into doing something about it. I’m not at all confident about that unfortunately.
The 27.6% margin in Footscray means nothing because it will be the Greens in second. Either Daniel Mulino is a terrible MP or a sophomore boost means nothing to the people of that area because his primary vote was down 10 points and under 40% in many of the federal booths that cover Footscray. Mulino scored 40.34% in the Footscray prepoll of over 15000 votes, down from 52% in 2019. Unfortunately the postals can’t tell the whole story because federally Footscray is lumped in with Sunshine and St. Albans, which saw single digit prepoll numbers for the Greens. I can’t imagine the Greens would’ve ran some amazing campaign in that seat because Sunshine and St. Albans have too low of a vote for the Greens to target. Even if the Greens don’t run a big campaign in Footscray I would expect to see that margin in single digits regardless.
Justin
Sort of irrelevant who comes second in Footscray, Labor should win it on primaries.
But Zoomster, Trent says the possibility of a hung government would have people running to the major parties. Who to believe, you or Trent? I believe you Zoomster. You a Labor party supporter but admit it. Trent a Labor stooge and deceives people.
Going on 2022 federal booths they will not win it on primaries, they were struggling to top 40% on primaries. Any sophomore boost that can be applied to Katie Hall clearly did not apply to Daniel Mulino.
Justin
Had a quick look at the results for Fraser
https://results.aec.gov.au/27966/Website/HouseDivisionPage-27966-321.htm
I’m assuming the swings shown are for Mulino (it really makes little difference, as they’re not large…)
There are both swings to Labor and swings away in the Footscray booths, which basically even themselves out.
Might be more a case of people switching the booth they voted at (which happens…if the queue’s ridiculous, or you can’t get a parking spot…) than anything significant about Footscray.
Yes, there was a thumping swing against Mulino, but there were a couple of new players in the game, and he still won the 2pp comfortably. If there was the same swing at State level, Labor would win comfortably on primaries.
Don’t see where you got your numbers on the prepoll from, they’re wildly different from the ones on the AEC site.
This is where I got my prepoll numbers from https://results.aec.gov.au/27966/Website/HousePollingPlaceFirstPrefs-27966-91831.htm
Socialists will transfer to the Greens especially when the ALP member is of the Right (as it is federally and state)
Now look at the prepolls for St Albans and Sunshine and see why Fraser is so deceiving (none of these areas are in the state electorate of Footscray)
St Albans https://results.aec.gov.au/27966/Website/HousePollingPlaceFirstPrefs-27966-82787.htm
St Albans South https://results.aec.gov.au/27966/Website/HousePollingPlaceFirstPrefs-27966-105517.htm
Sunshine https://results.aec.gov.au/27966/Website/HousePollingPlaceFirstPrefs-27966-38309.htm
Justin
Ah, I see! The ones I’m citing are apparently 2PP. (Apologies, early morning and I’m multi tasking…)
Point still stands – Mulino had thumping swings against him and still won easily.
There’d need to be at least an 8% swing against Labor for them to need to rely on preferences. It would have to be much much bigger than that for them not to get over the line.
There is no evidence at all that this is going to happen, but I suppose people like to dream.
…the Socialists were one of the new players in Fraser. They got 619 votes.
He won easily because the swings against him were to different parties at the opposite ends of the electorate. In the state election, St Albans (which swung heavily to the Libs and the Greens are weak) and Footscray (which swung heavily to the Greens and would put them ahead of the Libs if not outright then on Socialist transfers) are separated. Libs are preferencing Greens. Socialists are preferencing Greens. Greens have the donkey vote as top spot on ballot paper. If ALP poll around 40% on primaries again they are in trouble. The 2PP btw in Fraser was Libs vs ALP, in Footscray it would be Greens vs ALP, so looking at 2PP is completely irrelevant. The postals can’t be analysed because St Albans and Sunshine are both mixed in and neither are in the Footscray state electorate.
What do you mean the Socialists got 619 votes? I don’t see that anywhere. They got 1,120 in the Footscray prepoll alone.
Justin
‘ If ALP poll around 40% on primaries again they are in trouble..’
If.
You’re also not factoring in a very likely drop in the Liberal vote, and a very likely refusal by the remaining Liberal voters to follow the HtV (there has already been a lot of chatter about this) and preference the Greens.
Apologies again, I must really go and have a coffee. Yes, across the whole of the Federal electorate they got nearly 4000 votes. So we can assume that they won’t get more than 2000 across Footscray.
Jeez .after only 7 and a half hours the nasty little mud slinging turd is up again and casting nasturtiums at others.I feel sorry for the other kiddies at day care that have to put up with his horse shit.
Justin
And all the way through, I’ve been looking at primaries. Labor wins on them, even with a large swing against them.
And you can’t do a simple transference of Libs to Greens, because – as I’ve already said – the Liberals vote is far more likely to fall than the Labor vote, and the Liberals are also far less likely to follow the HtV and direct their preferences to the Greens.
More on South-West Coast
Roma Britnell, sitting member for 7 years (after by-election) has 6.3k followers on FB
Carol Altman, new independent, has 6.6k followers on FB, i expect most due to this campaign.
James Purcell, the previous top independent, has 1.2k followers, and has made one post in last 4 years.
Kylie Gaston, the ALP member has 210 followers on FB (not a typo).
I think Labor is running dead in lower house, but in upper house a Warrnambool local in #1 in LC
Warrnambool has been ruled by LNP at state and federal level since 1955, in the 70’s a federal Labor senator had there office here.
Change will be a massive win if it happens, we nearly got it at the federal election, there is a mood for change stemming from demographic changes.
I believe Altmann already had 6000 followers on FB having been active on that account since 2011 for journalism purposes. Regardless she got a head start far before the other independent candidates in that electorate and is well known in Warrnambool. The challenge for her (like it was for Alex Dyson) is can she get enough votes outside of Warrnambool.
And if FB followers meant anything, the freedom parties would have a majority.
Regarding Footscray. Katie would’ve recieved a boost in primary votes last election because she wasn’t Marsha(previous ALP member). Now that locals know she is no better than Marsha l believe we will see a reverse sophomore effect. This seat is in play. Footscray has evolved last four years into a young educated renters playground. My prediction(guess) would be for Labor to get a primary of low to mid 40’s. Can’t see enough preferences getting Labor across the line. Greens campaigned in this seat regarding their pokies policy and Labor started to finally take the truck problem in parts of electorate seriously(that tells me Labor worried). Redistribution very kind to Greens. And the Greens don’t have a rappist rapping about rape this time. And looking like the Green vote is surging statewide.
South Brisbane in 2020 QLD had the Liberals preference Greens above Labor along with some fevered opposition to a Labor MP (Jackie Trad). The split in Liberal preferences was 64-36 between Greens and Labor. It seems fair enough to assume a similar vote split for most of the Labor-Greens contests given the similar demographics of most of those seats to South Brisbane and the strident anti-Dan messaging among Liberals.
Justin, love your posts but in regards to Facebook followers, Carol’s would nearly entirely be within electorate of SW Coast. To have potentially over 10% of voters as followers is quite impressive. Do we know what the other independents are suggesting with preferences?
bug1, keep posting please.
@max: The Smethurst piece roughly dovetails with what I’ve been saying all along. Most of the teals are not genuine threats to win. The key factor in every Teal seat win Federally was that they were going against a Liberal incumbent where Labor and the Greens were seen as no chance to win in their own right. That’s why Monique Ryan won in Kooyong but neighbouring Higgins was a fight between Labor and the Greens to be the one that toppled the Libs with no serious independent challenge in sight.
Seats like Hawthorn and Caulfield are just not good territory for a “teal” independent campaign.
Kew has the unique factor of Drunk Driving Mess Tim Smith as the departing Liberal MP. MPs leaving under a scandal cloud (and even worse when they shoot their mouth off all over the place on the way out) usually drag down the party’s vote in their seat for one election. I still haven’t seen any polling to show that the independent rather than Labor is actually the beneficiary there of voters disgusted with Smith but it’s certainly conceivable.
I am not in Mornington and have no connections there – I haven’t really heard it talked up as a teal win before this but at least it fits the profile better than Caulfield!
Being on the ground in the seat of Hawthorn I continue to insist that the buzz and visibility for the indie’s campaign is about 10% of what Monique Ryan had and neither Labor nor the Libs will be running dead. Pesutto only needs a relatively small percentage swing against Labor from last time to get back in and if he doesn’t get back in it means the Liberals are copping Danslide 2 – Electric Boogaloo.
Regional electorates are always more vulnerable to independent (not specifically “teal”) challenges and South-West Coast overlaps with a Federal electorate that nearly went indie this year and Benambra overlaps with Indi which has been, well, indie for a few Federal election cycles, so both of those are clearly possible.
Arky
Being in the seat of Hawthorn, what do you think the teals primary will be in that electorate?
The head of the AEC just ended Guys political career.
She confessed to Neil Mitchell – under pressure – that Guy was one of the people who had not fully answered questions about payments allegedly made to his former chief of staff, Mitch Caitlin.
It’s going to dominate the last week.
Dan won’t get involved.He won’t need to. The AEC, during caretaker period, have done his job.
Al Pal. The corruption gauge of Liberals and Labor are off the charts. Labor don’t deserve re-election and Liberals are unelectable. That Green vote could crack 15%. WOW. And Independent vote will surely smash the previous record. Fascinating election.
Justin;
I just assumed of Altmans followers joined recently, your probably right.
Some population (all, not voting age) statistics from ABS (SGA)
South-West Coast, 65.9k
Warrnambool, 35.7k (most urban, has a mortgage belt)
Portland, 11.2k (working class)
Port Fairy, 3.4k (teal zone)
Other, 15.6k (conservative, farming influence)
She was one of a few contributors to a local magazine (bluestone) around Port Fairy (typically greens strongest booth), so she will be known in the general area and should go well.
Dont know how well she is known in Portland, which is more progressive than Warrnambool, its ALP strongest centre, and the local council issue with the ALP candidate will be less of an impact there. So Altman will struggle there, but she should still get strong preference flows ahead of Libs.
Roma is a farmer, was head of a dairy industry group, so her strength is that 15k farming influenced vote, but i dont think Altman is seen to be progressive, so she could still pull some votes from Libs there, but thats probably just going to keep up with what Purcell did previously, so not a gain compared to last election.
Justin says:
Friday, November 18, 2022 at 7:52 am
Even if the Greens don’t run a big campaign in Footscray
—
They’ve made close to zero effort.
Jeremy
The Greens polling is presently around 13%. They typically get less than polling predicts, so they’re unlikely to get more than that.
‘Other’ was the reverse in the lead up to 2018, picking up a couple of percentage points on predictions – but the current polls has them on 8%, lower than any polling figures leading into 2018. *
It might be an exciting election in a couple of seats, but most of it will be boring.
*The Teal types were around during the 2018 State election, and there seemed to be more hype about them then than there is now.
Arky, I’ve had similar thoughts too about the teals.
Even before any teal candidates were announced, my thoughts had been that Kew is their best bet precisely because just like the federal seats, it’s the one Labor are least competitive in.
Caulfield, Brighton & Sandringham I never thought were very realistic simply because in the federal election, the teals got 2/3 of their vote off the Labor & Greens primaries (much moreso than the Libs) as a tactical vote to unseat the sitting Liberal MP, but if the margin is under 0.5% then there’s much less motivation to do that.
The other thing I had mentioned too is the demographics of those seats. Both Goldstein and Kooyong are almost entirely “blue ribbon” territory, both just have pockets of more marginal suburbs (like Hawthorn in Kooyong or Bentleigh in Goldstein) but neither had any really strong or solid ALP/Greens turf. Kew sits entirely within Kooyong so also doesn’t contain any strong left-wing areas.
However, Brighton & Caulfield are not contained within Goldstein. Both overlap with Macnamara which changes things up a bit. 20% of Brighton’s electors are in Elwood, a solidly left-wing suburb where the Labor 2PP ranges from 66-76% and the Liberal primary is sub-20%; and in Caulfield about 20-25% of the voters are in Balaclava & St Kilda East, where the Labor 2PP is more in the 70-80% range these days.
Elwood, St Kilda East and Balaclava just aren’t suburbs suited to a teal, or that would likely swing to a teal. The demographics and voting patterns are more similar Richmond than they are to suburbs like Kew, Brighton and Camberwell. A more inner-north type of demographic comprising 20-25% of the electors in Caulfield & Brighton is just a huge hurdle that didn’t exist in any of the federal teal seats.
In regards to Caulfield specifically, you can break the suburb down into 4 groups/parts:
– The southeastern part (Glenhuntly, Ormond) is more traditional suburban ALP v LIB turf
– The southern part (Elsternwick) and secular voters in Caulfield are more of a teal demographic
– The western part (Balaclava & St Kilda East) is solid left-wing, more like St Kilda & Richmond
– The central part (the ‘Caulfields’, especially Caulfield North) has a huge Jewish population that is not your usual teal demographic either, they’re more socially conservative than teal voters, but also not adverse to voting for a strong Jewish MP from the Labor Right (like Josh Burns) who they feel represents their community well.
I’ve always found the classification of Caulfield as “blue ribbon” a little misleading because of that. Yes, it’s been held by the Liberals forever. But it’s just a different *type* of Liberal seat than those usually classified as “blue ribbon”, and is made up very differently to seats like Brighton, Sandringham, Malvern and Kew, with some vastly different communities of interest within it.
Hawthorn I’m on the fence about because while I agree there’s little motivation for ALP/Greens voters to flip teal based on the seat being held by Labor, and there’s no way their primary vote will go to single digits like Kooyong (or even below 20%), I think the ALP & IND primary votes could be quite close in the low 20s due to a more energised campaign there.
I honestly believe that Malvern would have been the second best seat – after Kew – for a “teal” to run in. Higgins only didn’t have a teal because the western third (overlapping Prahran) is solidly Greens and the southeastern quarter (around Carnegie) is solidly Labor-leaning, neither area suits a teal, so it would have been hard for a teal to make the 2CP. In fact that’s very similar to Caulfield in a way.
But Malvern is basically just the perfect teal-suburbs from Higgins, with all the Labor & Greens parts removed. Missed opportunity I think.
Unfortunately, I fear that the only thing the presence of “teals” in Caulfield, Brighton & Sandringham might do is disrupt Labor’s effort and help re-elect the Liberal, because it offers disaffected Liberal voters (who may have otherwise voted Labor as their ‘protest’ vote) a place to park their first preference protest vote, but then preference the Liberals.
Typo above, meant to say “In regards to Caulfield specifically, you can break the *SEAT* down into 4 groups/parts”, not “suburb”.
Ole McMurdoch had a farm.
el lie el lie oh,
And on that farm
He had some cookers,
……
Al Pal says:
Friday, November 18, 2022 at 10:09 am
The head of the AEC just ended Guys political career.
She confessed to Neil Mitchell – under pressure – that Guy was one of the people who had not fully answered questions about payments allegedly made to his former chief of staff, Mitch Caitlin.
It’s going to dominate the last week.
Dan won’t get involved.He won’t need to. The AEC, during caretaker period, have done his job.
———-
Interesting….I’m surprised Neil Mitchell asked the question or didn’t hit the kill switch. I doubt though that it will cause much more than a ripple in a campaign that’s dominated by each side calling the other corrupt, and tallying up their respective IBAC appearances/referrals. But it certainly won’t help Guy’s messaging that he’s the white knight saving us from Dodgy Dan.
The Labor premiers are an extremely impressive lot. Their oppositions are woeful, devoid of useful ideas and poorly organised.
Looking on from afar, I can’t see the Victorian electorate being stupid enough to change horses at this stage and I expect that the Dan Andrews led Labor government will be returned comfortably. Further, the Greens are unlikely to increase their vote as the antics of the Voice destroyer will dampen any youthful enthusiasm for them.
The Herald Sun has a new headline that Andrews’ chief of staff has met with Glenn Druery before.
What they fail to mention, is that Glenn Druery was also a staffer employed by Hinch’s Justice Party at the time, and the meeting was in 2019 (3 years out from the next time any preference discussion would be relevant) and it was about, you guessed it, staffing resources.
That “news” outlet really has no limit the depths it will sink to. They just rely on people seeing their misleading headline and not bothering to look any further.
Dan should’ve just abolished GVTs like everyone else… sure its scummy reporting but Glenn would not have a job had the ALP just got it over with and did the right thing. We definitely wouldn’t have over 1100 candidates standing.
Guardian updates at 11:40
Poliphili
One of the really impressive things about McGowan and his victory was that it was of such a margin that Labor was able to win control of the Legislative Council for the first time and quickly move to dump the dodgy system of multi-member electorates weighted in favour of rural and regional areas to a Statewide one-vote one value system.
No GVT, no Druery …
If only Victorians could be as sensible.
We prepolled in the Sunbury electorate this morning around 11am.
Smooth process except ….
VEC had chosen an empty building on an extremely busy intersection, with very little parking, a horrible driveway and businesses around that needed their parking spots.
They have had to station a young man at the top of the driveway to only allow cars with disability permits and those attached to the businesses through.
For the Federal election they chose a Scout Hall nearby that seemed fine. I saw some claims about it being too small and poor lighting after dark. The empty shop seemed smaller if anything and lighting is not such an issue at this point of the year. A very poor choice that the locals were complaining about on Facebook almost instantly it was announced. There are other around they could have looked at
Well that’s how you deal with a ton of parties clogging up the ballot lower and upper house, and dodgy preference deals… just be 2021 Mark McGowan. Unfortunately for Dan, he is no 2021 Mark McGowan. WA had a huge amount of candidates in the 2021 state election and it did not matter, voters were only looking for the McGowan candidate and the rest of the numbers didn’t matter. It was a time when the right wing were at their very lowest point, One Nation’s 2017 upper house vote having completely collapsed from 8% to 1.5%. The right is going to take chunks off both majors primary in this election in both houses, the hard right basically didn’t run in the 2018 election. No UAP, no PHON, no Angry Victorians, no Freedom Party, no Family First, the DLP and LDP are running more candidates. And that doesn’t even cover AustraliaOne and various other flavours of cookers running as independents. I think some haven’t really taken notice that every single electorate in Victoria will have one or more candidates running to the right of the Libs and to the left of the ALP. The squeeze is on.
Justin I totally agree that if Labor had just abolished GTVs, then they wouldn’t be in this mess and opening themselves up to the more unwarranted and unjustified attacks.
Labor’s inaction on reforming GTV absolutely deserves criticism.
However, inaction on reforming the system that allows people like Glenn Druery to operate is very different to the charge being made by sections of the media, and the Liberal Party, that Labor are actively dealing in corrupt electoral “fixing” or are behind Glenn Druery’s schemes.
That said, just like you say they wouldn’t have opened the door to those sort of attacks if they had just reformed GTV in the first place.
The Age are now trying to claim that the Liberal Party have actively been pushing to abolish GTV the whole time. We all know that isn’t true. They are also implying – through the way they worded their ‘explainer’ – that Labor’s increased LC seat count in 2018 compared to 2014 was a result of benefiting from Glenn Druery, conveniently ignoring the fact it was a landslide election win where their upper house primary vote went from 33% (under 2 quotas per region before preferences, on average) to 39% (over 2 quotas per region before preferences, on average), therefore having far less reliance on preferences in the first place, while simultaneously the Liberal primary vote plummeted therefore making themselves more vulnerable to losing seats to Druery’s mob.
Druery’s system, theoretically, impacts all 3 of the main players (ALP, LIB & GRN) equally, if hypothetically all 3 had the same primary vote. The fact that Labor’s large primary vote protected them better from it than the other two is not a reflection on the system itself favouring them.
I’m really glad that GTV is in the spotlight and hopefully will result in a push to abolish it, and may also encourage more people to vote below the line.
But it’s disappointing that the media are misrepresenting the Druery “revelations” (none are “revelations” to us) as being some sort of conspiracy that Labor coordinated behind closed doors, or that it delivers Labor seats when it doesn’t.
Rossmcg @ #243 Friday, November 18th, 2022 – 1:23 pm
If Victorians could be sensible they would abolish the Legislative council a hangover from the times when only the landed gentry could vote.Look at examples like New Zealand and Queensland which work perfectly well without extra seat polishers sucking on the public purse.
Or as Paul Keating might say.Unrepresentative Swill.
Grime,
Queensland’s system does not work perfectly well when there’s a right-wing government that can do whatever it likes with no checks and balances, including gerrymandering the entire state.
And New Zealand currently uses proportional representation, making it very difficult for a single party to have absolute power. Cast your mind back to the time they had single member electorates for their only house and I think you’ll find it didn’t work quite so well.
Strong bicameralism improves governance by making it less likely a single party can have absolute power with no need for negotiation or accountability.
Rossmeg @ 1.23
Yes, McGowan moved quickly on the gerrymander. The scale of the win was such that it was an opportunity not to be missed and with no downside.
Not across the Vic situation enough comment on Dan’s inaction.
Didn’t respond earlier as I was following Nath’s latest agent provocateur activities on the other thread.