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.

Peel thunder: match line-ups

The Western Australian Electoral Commission has unveiled the candidates for the February 3 Peel by-election, who are listed below in ballot paper order. More information will be added here as it becomes available.

Brian McCarthy (Citizens Electoral Council). Amanda Haines of the Mandurah Mail reports that McCarthy is "a powerhouse operator with Alcoa for 30 years until his recent retirement, he also served as a convenor for the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union for almost 10 years". He is the chairman of the party’s state executive committee and was its candidate against Kim Beazley in Brand at the 2001 federal election, and in the new seat of Murray at the 2005 state election.

Robert Woodward (Independent). The Mandurah Mail reports that Woodward "owns and operates a customised taxi service catering to community members with disabilities and has also been employed in public transport and banking".

Brent Tremain (Christian Democratic Party). A Port Kennedy resident and owner-manager of a brick paving business, Tremain was also the CDP’s candidate for Peel at the 2005 state election. He has a campaign website called VoteSmartPeel.com.

Gerard Kettle (Independent). A Rockingham city councillor and manager of the Warnbro Fair Shopping Centre, Kettle came to notice during the 2004 election when he ran as an independent against Kim Beazley in Brand, after originally nominating for Liberal preselection. Styling himself an "independent Labour" candidate, the ALP argued that Kettle was in fact running at the behest of the Liberals. Roger Martin of The Australian reported that Kettle was sub-leasing half of his campaign office at Rockingham City Shopping Centre to the Liberal candidate, Phil Edman.

Paul Papalia (Labor). Papalia is a counter-terrorism expert and decorated former navy diver who served in Iraq during the 2003 war and with the United Nations Special Commission in 1992 and 1993. His preselection has attracted numerous comparisons with that of Peter Tinley, the former SAS major endorsed as Labor’s candidate for the federal seat of Stirling. Graham Mason of The West Australian reports that Papalia won an administrative committe vote eight votes to six ahead of Pamela Kay, a Left-backed candidate of apparently low profile. The committee is normally dominated by an alliance of the Left factions and the two members of the "New Right", but Alan Carpenter succeeded in securing backing for Papalia from the New Right members and Senator Ruth Webber. Webber had become alienated from her AMWU Left faction after losing a winnable spot on the Senate ticket, when the faction shifted its support to East Metropolitan MLC Louise Pratt. Kwinana mayor and Police Union solicitor Carol Adams had earlier been mentioned as the front-runner.

Craig Bradshaw (One Nation). Bradshaw is the proprietor of an engineering business and one of the party’s three state vice-presidents.

Dawn Jecks (Greens). The Mandurah Mail reports that Jecks has "a background as a geotechnician and laboratory business manager in WA’s resource development industry", has "worked on the Preserve Point Peron for the People campaign", was "a founder of the Rockingham Anti-Nuclear Group (RANG)", and "helped to oppose the proposed Waikiki electricity sub-station". Jecks has been busy recently writing letters opposing uranium mining to publications including the Sunday Times and The Bulletin.

Graeme Coleman (Liberal). A local businessman and former head of the South Coast Business Development Organisation, Coleman was preselected after what was described as a "four-way battle". Others mentioned as potential Liberal candidates were Rob Brown, the candidate from 2005, and the aforementioned Phil Edman, the federal candidate for Brand in 2004.

New South Wales election: open thread

New reader "Politically Correct" has weighed in at my last Peel by-election post with some unrelated thoughts on the New South Wales Liberal Party, mostly concerning the state election that will be held on March 24. I have relocated it to this post to give it a more suitable home, and hopefully to stimulate further election-related discussion among the Poll Bludger community. A form guide to the February 3 Peel by-election will follow either tomorrow or the day after, depending on how good a time I have this evening. I am also making good progress on my seat-by-seat New South Wales election guide, which is optimistically scheduled for launch at the end of January.

Merry Christmas

Activity at this site will be pretty light in the coming month or so, as I will be hard at work on my guide to the March 24 New South Wales election (among other things). I will at some point knock together a preview of the by-election to be held for the Western Australian state seat of Peel on February 3. For those seeking an overview of the recent Victorian election, you could do a lot worse than this effort by Nick Economou of Monash University, brought to you by the good people at Democratic Audit.

Upper house results: take two

Andrew Landeryou reports that the upper house recount for Northern Metropolitan has indeed overturned the shock DLP win and delivered the final seat to Labor’s Nazih Elasmar, putting the upper house numbers at ALP 20, Liberal 15, Nationals 2, Greens 2, DLP 1. However, the roller-coaster ride might not be over yet – Landeryou also reports that the recount in Western Metropolitan, where the provisional result was decided by a 76-vote margin at a vital point in the count, might yet deliver a seat to the Greens’ Colleen Hartland at the expense of Labor’s fourth candidate Henry Barlow. This should be resolved within the hour (for the record, it’s currently 2.46am EST).

UPDATE (4.09am): I’m off to bed, so those seeking the late mail on Western Metropolitan will have to look elsewhere.

UPDATE (12.53pm): I’m awake now, and Colleen Hartland indeed bumped out Henry Barlow after the margin at the key point in the count shifted 100 votes the other way. So the scorecard reads ALP 19, Liberal 15, Greens 3, Nationals 2, DLP 1. Nazih Elasmar’s win notwithstanding, the net effect of the recount is not good for Labor – unless you take the view that what’s good for the Greens is good for Labor (or at least the broader Labor cause), which it seems many do. Before they could have got legislation through with the support of the Greens, the DLP or the Nationals. Now only the Greens or the Nationals can give them more than a blocking majority. Bragging rights go to blogger Aaron Hewett of Urban Creature, who tipped the result perfectly on November 16. I wrongly tipped Liberal 3, Labor 2 in Western Victoria, and Labor 4, Liberal 1 in Western Metropolitan.

Re-Groupers

The button has been pressed on the Victorian upper house election, producing a shock result: the DLP has won TWO seats, in Northern Metropolitan as well as Western Victoria. Evan Thornley has just got over the line in Southern Metropolitan. So the final numbers are Labor 19, Liberal 15, Nationals 2, Greens 2, DLP 2. The defeated Labor hopefuls are Elaine Carbines in Western Victoria and Nazih Elasmar in Northern Metropolitan, while Thornley’s seat comes at the expense of the number three Liberal candidate, David Southwick. Hat tip to Antony Green and Andrew Landeryou.

UPDATE (6.25pm): I am informed that the ALP doesn’t think the Northern Metropolitan result looks right and have called for a recount, whatever that might entail.

UPDATE (10.02pm): Andrew Landeryou reports: "ALP strategists are convinced now that the VEC has made a serious error in the northern metropolitan count. It appears that there might be an issue with the calculation of Democrats preferences. VEC sources tell the OC they have hired hundreds of people for re-counting tomorrow".

UPDATE (13/12/06): Alternatively, Antony Green notes the apparent last-minute counting of 8000 above-the-line votes that overwhelmingly favoured the Liberals. This would have increased the quota and reduced the size of the Greens surplus flowing to Labor, leaving them just short of a third quota and allowing the DLP to mop up the remainder.

UPDATE II (13/12/06): Antony Green again, with a potential explanation for those last-minute Liberal votes: "The VEC believes up to 6,000 Liberal votes in Northern Metropolitan may have been double counted. With the integrity of the count in doubt, an entire re-count is being undertaken".

UPDATE III (13/12/06): Via Andrew Landeryou, the following memo to Northern Metropolitan candidates from electoral commissioner Steve Tully:

Following a thorough check of the count sheet for Northern Metropolitan Region, I am sufficiently concerned about the underlying integrity of the Liberal vote in that region to require a recount of all ballot papers.

It is my preliminary view that the Liberal Party vote is overstated by about 6,000 votes and that such an overstatement could have a profound effect on the result.

In order to give parties and candidates time to arrange scrutineers, this recount will commence at 6:00 pm at MECC and will probably conclude around 3 am. The result following the recount will be recalculated.

This recount is in addition to the recounts where arrangements are already in place for Western Victoria and Western Metropolitan Regions.

I have scrutinised the count sheets and ballot paper reconciliations for the other 5 Regions and consider that there are no issues to consider. These will proceed with the current declaration arrangements.

Further, it remains the intention that the recounts will be conducted in time so as not to delay the previously arranged declarations.

Steve Tully
Electoral Commissioner

UPDATE IV (13/12/06): I have heard rumours of a VEC data entry error which saw a 0 entered as a 6, explaining the mysterious late surge in the Liberal vote in Northern Metropolitan; and also of another problem with the original distribution of preferences that had no bearing on the result. However, the ABC reports that "Commissioner Tully has rejected suggestions the Northern Metropolitan result has come from a computer error". But an explanation of some sort is required for those 8000 votes, three-quarters of which went to the Liberal Party, appearing in the count on the final day. The recount is expected to be completed very late this evening, perhaps in the wee hours of tomorrow morning.

Full house? (part three)

With another Victorian upper house thread having extended beyond 200 comments, a further update would appear in order. At the time of the last post, Labor’s hopes for an upper house majority appeared to hinge entirely on Southern Metropolitan. Since then, the chances of a DLP win at Labor’s expense in Western Victoria – always possible, but somehow too bizarre to contemplate – have increased considerably. The DLP scored 2.6 per cent of the primary vote in this region, which is subsequently engorged by preferences from the Country Alliance and People Power, putting their candidate Peter Kavanagh fractionally ahead of Family First. Family First preferences in turn get Kavanagh ahead of the Nationals, unlocking enough Coalition preferences to get him ahead of both the Greens and Labor. At this point of the count, the Greens hold the narrowest of leads over Labor (130 votes, according to Antony Green); if they stay ahead, Labor will go out and their preferences will push Kavanagh over a quota. Otherwise, the Greens will go out instead and their preferences will deliver the seat to Labor incumbent Elaine Carbines. Another alternative scenario that might thwart the DLP is if what Antony describes as "a big whack of postals from a seat contested by the Nationals" put them ahead of the DLP at the earlier point of the count.

Southern Metropolitan remains on a knife edge, except that the Greens’ position has firmed in late counting – so it now looks like a contest between Labor (Evan Thornley) and Liberal (David Southwick) for the final place, rather than the three-way contest for the last two places that was in play earlier. According to Antony Green, the ticket votes alone leave Thornley 3844 short of a quota after the addition of preferences from Democrats, People Power and independent Rita Bentley, which the distribution of the Greens surplus should cut to around 2500; while David Southwick is 2934 votes short after receiving preferences from Family First and the DLP. However, there are more below-the-line primary votes for Liberal than Labor (5602 versus 4961), and in particular, there are more for Southwick than Thornley (1683 versus 633). Then there are the 5,275 below-the-line votes for parties other than Labor, Liberal and the Greens. The destination of these preferences look set to decide the issue, bearing in mind that many will exhaust given that voters are required only to number five boxes.

Exit strategy

Owing to other distractions, I have yet to remark on the fact that February 3 has been set as the date for the by-election in Peel, the Western Australian state seat left vacant after the embarrassment surrounding Small Business Minister Norm Marlborough. It so happens that Peel is entirely located within the federal electorate of Brand, held for Labor by one Kim Beazley. If Beazley has his eye on a quick exit from the political stage – which few would begrudge him under the circumstances – the irritation of a by-election would be greatly reduced were it to coincide with the state poll. This would also offer dividends for a state Labor Party that would not be looking forward to the Peel by-election, given the difficulties that have recently bedevilled the Carpenter government. Simultaneous by-elections would muddy the state-federal waters and allow state Labor to benefit from the honeymoon period that awaits the new federal leadership team, potentially limiting the extent of the swing. There may be difficulties with this scenario that I am missing – for one thing, the timing of a by-election in Brand would be dictated by the Howard government rather than Labor (though a politically inspired decision to hold it on a separate date would not win them any friends). Nonetheless, the coincidence of the Peel by-election presumably shortens the odds on Beazley calling it a day sooner rather than later.

Full house? (part two)

By popular demand, I hereby open a new thread for discussion of the extraordinarily tight three-way race in the Victorian upper house region of Southern Metropolitan. Earlier expectations that the final seat would come down to a race between Labor’s Evan Thornley and the Greens’ Sue Pennicuik have been undone by an unexpectedly strong performance by the Liberals on postals, which has strengthened the hand of their third candidate David Southwick. Remarkably, the current result in quota terms is 3.00 for the Liberals, 1.99 for Labor and 1.00 for the Greens, making it a near-perfect three-way tie in the race for the final seat. The Greens have suffered the worst in late counting, such that the possibility has emerged of the Liberals winning the seat with a tiny surplus that helps elect Thornley, who will receive it as preferences ahead of the Greens’ Sue Pennicuik. The irony of Liberal preferences delivering Labor an upper house majority is being widely remarked upon, though their decision to put the Greens last always meant it was a serious possibility. Antony Green explains in comments that this is a rare occasion where below-the-line votes will prove decisive, so that "the models where you treat below-the-line votes as ticket votes" – such as the calculators at Upperhouse.info – "are too crude in such a close count":

What you need to do now is break the count into above and below the line votes. Add the tickets of Family First and the DLP to the Liberal vote. Add the Democrat ticket to the Greens, and People Power and Group C tickets to Labor’s vote. At this point, none of these three totals reaches a full quota, though the Greens are the closest. The balance is determined by the below the line votes. Unless the relative percentage of Labor, Liberal or Green increases against the other, none of these totals will reach a quota. The real unknown is what happens if enough BTL votes drift to the Greens. If this happens, then the Democrat ticket will elect the Green, and release a small number of ticket preferences for Labor … What Labor needs to win the last spot is for as many BTL votes to drift to the Greens before the Democrat ticket is distributed. Unless the relative %’s of the party change again, on the current count Labor will need a surplus from the Greens to win the last spot.