South Australian Politics – Page 21

Newspoll: 54-46 to Labor in SA

Mike Rann’s South Australian government has joined in on the end-of-year Newspoll fun, bouncing back in the latest quarterly survey to the 54-46 lead it enjoyed in April-June before slumping to 50-50 in July-September. However, it owes the recovery to preferences from the Greens, who have soared five points to 13 per cent directly at the expense of the Liberals, who have slumped to 35 per cent (UPDATE: Hair-splitters in comments resent the implication that Liberal votes have gone to the Greens. This is obviously not so). Labor’s primary vote is up one to 39 per cent. Rann’s approval rating is up three points to 44 per cent, while his disapproval is down six to 39 per cent. Liberal leader Martin Hamilton-Smith’s ratings are 43 per cent (steady) and 26 per cent (down five), but he is down four points as preferred premier to 26 per cent, with Rann up two to 50 per cent.

UPDATE: The following charts track Labor’s two-party vote and the various leaders’ approval ratings since the federal election. Western Australia has been excluded partly due to incomplete data, but mostly because of the complication of the change of government.

As I’ve noted previously, federal Labor’s vote has very closely tracked Kevin Rudd’s approval rating except since Malcolm Turnbull became Liberal leader, since which time it has increased less sharply (the most recent poll notwithstanding). This can be chalked up as a win of sorts for Turnbull. The other thing the data strongly suggests is that the end-of-year boom in the federal government’s popularity has pulled up the various state governments, whose improved performances bear no relation to their leaders’ approval ratings. I would infer from this that the governments in question shouldn’t get too comfortable.

Frome by-election (South Australia): January 17

This post will be progressively updated with news on the South Australian state by-election in Frome, to be held on January 17.

January 16

One day to go: this site will be providing live coverage from shortly after the close of polls at 6pm local time tomorrow. Antony Green lays out the officially registered how-to-vote cards, which have been lodged by all candidates bar the Greens. The Flinders News reports that “No Pokies Senator Nick Xenophon and Member of the House of Assembly Kris Hanna are rallying behind (Geoff) Brock to help him become the next local parliamentarian”. Xenophon’s support for Hanna was instrumental in his surprise success in retaining his seat of Mitchell after quitting first Labor and then the Greens during the previous term.

January 14

The Australian’s Jamie Walker breathlessly reports that Labor’s direction of preferences to Geoff Brock has “thrown the contest wide open”, as if the alternative – preferences to the Liberals – had been in any way in prospect. The Liberals are “taking this remote possibility seriously”, “spending heavily on advertising and working the electorate to get local policeman Terry Boylan over the line”. We are also told that “the ALP can’t be discounted, either”, though I’ll stick my neck out and say that they can be. The Independent Weekly reports the Greens are not directing preferences. The ABC reports a record 1700 early votes have been received along with 2200 postal vote applications, which the State Electoral Office puts down to the number of people away on holidays. Antony Green has a new post on Frome, mostly focused on the historical record of governments winning seats from oppositions at by-elections.

January 12

Former Port Pirie resident Michael Gorey in comments notes that the Nationals are not even putting the Liberals ahead of Labor on preferences: they are issuing a split ticket between the two for third preference behind Geoff Brock. Gorey says we should not rule out the prospect of a Nationals-fuelled Brock overtaking Labor and perhaps achieving an upset with their preferences.

January 2

Mike Rann’s tip: “My expectation is that it’s a safe Liberal seat and will continue to be a safe Liberal seat”.

December 29

Jamie Walker of The Australian reports Geoff Brock and Neville Watson have arranged to swap preferences.

December 24

Russell Emmerson of the Adelaide Advertiser reports that radio ads featuring Mike Rann explaining cuts of 1600 jobs in the government’s recent mini-budget are “under scrutiny” to determine whether they are “electoral material”, and thus in breach of regulations. One very much doubts that the regulations would encompass public information advertising of this kind – what’s more, the ads were broadcast only in the metropolitan area, notwithstanding the opposition’s line that “the footprint for most of these radio stations extends well into the Frome electorate”.

December 18

Nominations have closed, and there are no further candidates to those already noted. The ballot paper order is John Rohde (Country Labor); Neville Wilson (Nationals); Terry Boylan (Liberal); Joy O’Brien (Greens); Peter Fitzpatrick (One Nation); Geoff Brock (Independent Your Voice). Antony Green has gone to town on the by-election here. Along with many other facts and figures, he notes something that had previously escaped my notice: that this is the first state by-election in South Australia since 1994. He also observes that Frome was expressly created to serve as a marginal electorate for purposes of the state’s counter-productive arithmetic test of electoral fairness, which he gets stuck into here.

December 17

The Northern Argus reports Hallett resident Joy O’Brien and Dublin resident Peter Fitzpatrick will respectively run for the Greens and One Nation. Clare and Gilbert Valleys Mayor Allan Aughey, who has “previously been a Labor Party candidate” (not sure when), has denied rumours he will run as an independent.

December 10

The ABC reports that the mayor and deputy mayor of Port Pirie, Geoff Brock and Neville Wilson, will contest the by-election – the former as an independent, the latter as Nationals candidate. Nominations close on Thursday, December 18.

November 28

The State Electoral Office has a Frome by-election page up. Its map and profile of the electorate can be viewed here.

November 25

Channel Nine News reports nominations will close on December 18.

November 15

Conservative firebrand Christopher Pearson weighs in in his regular column for The Weekend Australian:

The rural electorate of Frome has an industrial end, the city of Port Pirie, where Nyrstar’s mainland lead and zinc-smelting operation is based. Either directly or by way of contractors, the smelter accounts for about 800 jobs and another 600 flow-on jobs. Without them, the city would have no economic reason to exist. Its present unemployment rate is 6.2 per cent. If the plant were to close, it’s estimated the rate would nearly double. On Wednesday, Nyrstar announced it was considering shutting down Pirie’s smelter and its zinc operation in Hobart. Under the eligibility formula in the Rudd Government’s green paper on emissions, Nyrstar is not eligible for assistance as an emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industry. The prospect of a $40 per tonne carbon price, envisaged in Treasury modelling, would drive smelting operations offshore …

On Tuesday there was some doubt over whether Labor would field a candidate at the by-election, despite Kerin’s margin being a low 3.4 per cent. South Australia’s new Country Health Plan has been very poorly received and the Government had resigned itself to a rebuff in a pre-Christmas poll. By Thursday evening, SA Labor had decided to deprive the Liberals of an easy win by postponing the vote until January 17 and running a campaign on the theme of Premier Mike Rann standing up to Canberra and fighting for local jobs. SA Opposition Leader Martin Hamilton-Smith had been expecting a December 13 poll. At first he complained about the delay, which will keep the under-resourced Liberals on a war footing throughout the festive season. However, he seems to have warmed to the task in the wake of reports that the launch of Climate Change Minister Penny Wong’s white paper had suddenly been delayed. Federally, the Coalition welcomes the campaign as a mini-referendum on the design and timing of the Rudd Government’s emissions trading scheme.

November 13

House of Assembly Speaker Jack Snelling has set January 17 as the date for the by-election. This has displeased the Liberals, who wished for it to be held on December 13. The accompanying ABC report confirms that John Rohde will contest the seat for Labor.

November 12

Thanks to Max in comments for alerting us to the following tidbit from The Advertiser: ”(Premier Mike Rann) said Labor was likely to contest the by-election. Labor’s candidate is likely to be John Rohde who ran for the seat at the last election.”.

November 11

Former SA Liberal Premier Rob Kerin has announced his retirement, effective immediately. This will initiate a by-election in his seat of Frome, where his margin fell from 11.5 per cent to 3.4 per cent at the March 2006 election. Kerin had already made it known he would note contest the election, and Port Pirie policeman Terry Boylan was preselected to succeed him in May. Labor also has an election candidate in place – postal worker John Rohde, who also contested in 2002 and 2006 – but the struggling Rann government probably won’t be game to take on a mid-term by-election in a normally safe Liberal seat. Unless a strong independent candidate emerges, Boylan is likely to go untroubled. My election guide entry described the electorate thus:

Frome was created when a redistribution before the 1993 election removed Port Pirie from Stuart, which it had previously dominated along with Port Augusta. Port Pirie is an industrial town whose principal attraction is Pasminco’s lead and zinc smelter, and it provided Labor with a safe seat in the days when it formed an electorate in its own right (which ended when rural vote weighting was abolished in 1970). There has since been a decline in both Port Pirie’s relative population and Labor’s share of the vote. It is now included in Frome as part of a 50 kilometre stretch of the eastern Spencer Gulf coastline, from which the electorate stretches south-eastwards through the Clare Valley wine country to Tarlee, about 50 kilometres north of Adelaide. More than half the electorate’s voters are in small country towns such as Gladstone, Crystal Brook and Clare, which have kept the seat in Liberal hands since Rob Kerin became its inaugural member in 1993.

UPDATE: I note Greg Kelton of The Advertiser reported the following on July 23:

SENIOR Liberals are hatching a plan which would force the Rann Government to face a “super Saturday” of by-elections on the growing political row over changes to country health services … The move would involve three Liberal MPs in rural seats – who are all due to retire at the next election – stepping down to force by-elections. The MPs, Rob Kerin in Frome, Liz Penfold (Flinders) and Graham Gunn (Stuart), have all been outspoken in their criticism of the Government’s planned changes to rural health services … Mr Kerin told The Advertiser the by-election idea had been “mentioned a few times’” but he had not spoken to anyone about stepping down in Frome which he holds with a 4.2 per cent margin. He said he would not rule out the idea … (Gunn) ruled out stepping down to force a by-election in his seat of Stuart which, with a 0.4 per cent margin, is the most marginal Liberal seat in the state. Ms Penfold, whose vast Eyre Peninsula seat of Flinders is the safest Liberal seat in the state, said normally she would not support any moves for a by-election. “But this is such an important issue I will reserve my judgment,” she said.

Perhaps I’m underestimating the desire of locals to vent their fury about country health services, but this strikes me as foolish in the extreme. Sykesie in comments notes that the government released its draft Country Health Care Strategy just last week.

Sunday Mail: Labor “holding firm” in SA marginals

Adelaide’s Sunday Mail newspaper has conducted a poll of 1600 voters across the state seats of Mawson, Adelaide and Light, which shows much more encouraging results for Labor than recent surveys from Newspoll and The Advertiser. Labor is reportedly set to increase its 2.2 per cent margin in Mawson to 6 per cent and its 2.4 per cent margin in Light to 5 per cent, while in Adelaide its margin is set to be cut only from 10.2 per cent to 9 per cent.

Newspoll: 50-50 in South Australia

Newspoll today brings more evidence that Labor’s moment in the sun at state level is passing, with Labor and Liberal in a two-party preferred dead heat in South Australia. The Liberals are in the lead on the primary vote for the first time since the election of the Rann government in February 2002, with 40 per cent to Labor’s 38 per cent. The previous quarterly Newspoll survey from April to June had Labor leading 41 per cent to 35 per cent on the primary vote and 54-46 on two-party preferred. Mike Rann’s approval rating has plunged 10 points to 41 per cent while his disapproval is up nine points to 45 per cent, on both counts his worst results as Premier. However, Liberal leader Martin Hamilton-Smith’s approval rating is also down four points to 43 per cent, while Rann maintains a 48 per cent (down six points) to 30 per cent (up three points) lead as preferred premier

Drawing the lines

The South Australian Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission has today unveiled its draft redistribution of state electoral boundaries, to take effect when the next election is held on March 20, 2010. South Australian redistributions tend not to be greatly momentous, as they are conducted every term. Their other distinguishing feature is that the commissioners are obliged to meet the demands of "electoral fairness", which they endeavour to achieve through boundaries that will deliver a majority to the side of politics that wins the majority of the two-party preferred vote, assuming a uniform swing. Since Labor won 56.8 per cent of the two-party vote in last year’s election, and the Labor side was deemed to have won 30 of the lower house’s 47 seats (including the independent-held seats of Mitchell and Fisher, more on which shortly), their objective was to produce boundaries in which seven seats on the Labor side would fall in the event of a 6.9 per cent swing.

This of course requires the commissioners to work around the vote for independents and minor parties, which in the South Australian context includes the Nationals. This was done by re-calculating preference distributions in seats that did not produce Labor-versus-Liberal two-party results, so that Labor and Liberal candidates were not eliminated at earlier points in the count. On this basis, the independent-held seats of Mitchell and Fisher respectively produced Labor margins of 14.7 per cent and 8.5 per cent, while Mount Gambier produced a Liberal margin of 6.1 per cent. A re-calculation was also necessary in the Nationals’ sole seat of Chaffey as the final two-party result was between the Nationals and Liberal candidates; it produced a Liberal majority over Labor of 21.9 per cent. The Liberal Party’s submission to the commission argued that Chaffey and Mount Gambier should be treated as Labor seats on the grounds that their members, Karlene Maywald and Rory McEwen, have been part of Mike Rann’s cabinet since the pre-election period when Labor did not have a parliamentary majority. If the commission had agreed to this, it would have been required to bring the margins in two extra Labor seats below the level where a uniform swing would have given the Liberals a two-party preferred majority. Since both seats are overwhelmingly conservative by nature, the commission was quite right to reject this self-serving proposal.

Based on the result of last year’s election, the Liberals would have needed a uniform swing of 9.5 per cent rather than 6.9 per cent to win seven seats and government, so the commissioners needed to cut the Labor margins in Bright (9.5 per cent), Morialta (8.0 per cent) and Newland (6.9 per cent) to bring them below the latter figure. To this end, it has been proposed that Bright move north along the coast to take in North Brighton and the southern part of Somerton Park from the Glenelg-based Liberal seat of Morphett, while the industrial area of Lonsdale and the Labor stronghold of O’Sullivan Beach to the south will be transferred to Kaurna. This has cut the Labor margin by 2.6 per cent, making sitting member Chloe Fox the redistribution’s biggest loser. Morialta combines Labor-voting outer eastern suburbs with lightly populated conservative territory in the Adelaide Hills beyond – here the margin has been cut to 6.8 per cent through a transfer at the suburb of Paradise to Hartley in the west, while in the south a stretch of hills territory from Skye east to Basket Range has been added from Bragg and Heysen. Newland, which is immediately to the north of Morialta, has been pulled eastwards into Upper Hermitage, Lower Hermitage and Paracombe by population growth in the outer suburbs, which has done the commission’s job for it by cutting the Labor margin from 6.9 per cent to 5.2 per cent. The Labor members to suffer from these changes are Lindsay Simmons in Morialta and Tom Kenyon in Newland.

Other amendments have been driven by changes in the population distribution, and are only of political interest at the bottom end of the pendulum. The eastern inner-city seat of Norwood, which produced a markedly below-average swing to Labor at the election, has expanded south-eastwards to take Kensington from the safe Liberal seat of Bragg, cutting the Labor margin by a potentially significant 0.6 per cent. There is better news for Labor in Hartley, where Grace Portolesi defeated Liberal member Joe Scalzi last year. The aforementioned transfer at Paradise from Morialta has expanded the electorate’s Labor-voting northern end, while a part of the Liberal-voting southern end at Kensington Gardens will now be wasted for the Liberals in Bragg. The Gawler-based seat of Light, won for Labor at last year’s election by Tony Piccolo with a margin of 2.6 per cent, has been trimmed in three places due to population growth, adding 0.2 per cent to the Labor margin. The other significant marginals, Liberal-held Stuart and Labor-held Mawson, have respectively been changed very little and not at all.

These proposals will now go through a public consultation process, for which the deadline for submissions is 5pm on Monday, February 26.

UPDATE: Greg Kelton from The Advertiser’s take on this is that "Labor’s chances of staying in power at the 2010 state election have been bolstered by changes to electoral boundaries". Further, a "senior Labor source" is quoted describing the redistribution as "a disaster for the Liberals". This conclusion is reached mostly on the basis that Liberal MP Graham Gunn’s seat of Stuart has been made "even more marginal", and is thus "almost certain to go to Labor" when he takes his personal vote into retirement with him at the next election. This highlights a source of confusion that I had glossed over in the above post. Appendix 9 of the draft report tells us that these supposedly calamitous changes to Stuart affect a grand total of 33 voters, in Oodnadatta and William Creek. However, Appendix 11 tells us that the margin in Stuart has indeed been cut from 0.7 per cent to 0.4 per cent. Similarly, other seats that are mooted as being unchanged in Appendix 9 – Mawson, for example – are listed with altered margins two appendices later (Mawson having gone from 2.3 per cent to 2.7 per cent). Unless someone can explain this to me in the next few days, I will attempt to get an explanation from the State Electoral Office on Monday.

FURTHER UPDATE: Antony Green (who else?) has the answers in comments. It turns out that the commissioners must go so far as to project the electoral impact of population trends over the next three years in calculating a "fair" outcome (which in this case go against the grain of the last election, when the Liberal vote held up remarkably well in Stuart). So Kelton is wrong to say the redistribution has significantly harmed the Liberals in Stuart. Antony makes another point that occurred to me: this system punishes marginal seat holders who do their job well and build up a personal following by taking their gains away from them, the very popular Chloe Fox being a case in point.

Also from Greg Kelton comes an opinion piece reporting a "strong feeling among political observers" that "the time has come for a new system". This is a defensible proposition as far as it goes, but most of the assertions that follow are head-scratchers of one type or another. To deal with them in turn:

• The present system of redistributions following each election is "resulting in many MPs not living within their respective electorates or having to change addresses every three years". This sounds at best like an exaggeration. The current redistribution affects about 60,000 out of a little over 1 million voters, or 5.7 per cent of the total. On this basis, the likelihood is that two or three sitting members will be moved a very short distance out of the electorates they represent. If party rules make this a problem (there is no law demanding that MPs live in their own electorates), they should probably be relaxed.

• The "consensus" is that the Electoral Reform Society’s proposal for seven multi-member electorates chosen by proportional representation "would be much fairer". Coming from anyone other than The Advertiser, this assertion would not cause my eyebrows to raise quite so. But this is the paper which in November 2005 editorialised in favour of abolition of the upper house, saying those who believed in "checks and balances, particularly in the form of minor parties and independents" were suffering a "fundamental misunderstanding of the strength of our democratic system", having failed to notice that elections were held every four years. It now proposes that those checks and balances be duplicated in the other chamber.

• Under such a system, "boundaries would not have to be redrawn after each election". Why ever not? The capital’s share of the state’s total population will continue to grow, and that of remote areas will continue to decline. It would accordingly be necessary to redraw the boundaries of the proposed seven regions so equality of representation was maintained.

• "A Liberal voter who lives in Treasurer Kevin Foley’s electorate of Port Adelaide might as well not bother voting because he has no chance of getting a Liberal candidate up in the area. The same applies to a Labor voter in the safe eastern suburbs seat of Bragg". This is at best partly true, so long as those voters also have an upper house to elect. Furthermore, complacent, corrupt or incompetent members in safe seats can be dumped in favour of independents. The threat of this occurring gives members an incentive to observe minimum standards of performance, and parties to withdraw endorsement from those who fail to meet them.

• "The major parties oppose multi-member electorates because it would end the system of putting party loyalists into Parliament and it would give minor parties a much better chance of winning seats". South Australia’s upper house, which the aforementioned Advertiser editorial told us was "a haven for underperformers, union hacks and those gripped with the politics of self-delusion and self-importance", is elected from just such a system. In fairness though, the Electoral Reform Society model under discussion proposes rotating ballot papers that would avoid the problem of unloseable positions for party favourites at the top of the ticket, although Kelton neglects to explain this (presumably being mindful of the need to avoiding boring his readers senseless with technical minutiae of the type that is the Poll Bludger’s stock in trade). It would however create a more complex voting system and a sharp upturn in the informal vote.

South Australian election wrap-up

The South Australian election guide has now been put to bed with each electorate entry appended with a detailed post-match summary. For the first time, I have taken the effort to carefully scrutinise booth results in each seat. Heavy-duty hair-splitters might care to note that I was compelled to base these comparisons on incomplete election night figures from 2002 as the State Electorate Office did not update the two-party preferred booth results on its website beyond that point. They could only be obtained from the Statistical Returns document which, being a PDF file, could not readily be pasted into Excel. As a result, booth comparisons might be out by 1 per cent or so. As you’re all no doubt aware, the last two seats that were in doubt resulted in the re-election of the Liberals’ Graham Gunn in Stuart and Labor-turned-Greens-turned-independent MP Kris Hanna in Mitchell. To the best of my knowledge, the only observer who publicly predicted the latter outcome was Poll Bludger commenter Dave S.

The upper house has passed without comment on this site since the days immediately after the election, but the final result was as predicted then – four Labor, three Liberal, two No Pokies, one Family First and one Greens. The SEO doesn’t have a breakdown of the preference distribution, but we can always plug the results into the election calculator at Upperhouse.Info, bearing in mind that it irons out the complication of below-the-line votes. All but the Family First and Greens candidates were elected off the primary vote, after which Family First had 0.60 of a quota, the Greens 0.51, the third No Pokies candidate (who reportedly promised his wife he had no chance of winning) 0.46, the fifth Labor candidate 0.31 and the Australian Democrats 0.21. Family First were boosted to a quota after distribution of preferences from minor candidates and the fourth Liberal. That left the Greens on 0.56, the Democrats and No Pokies on 0.48 and Labor on 0.41. If the Democrats had been able to persuade Labor to put them ahead of No Pokies, Labor’s subsequent elimination would have put Kate Reynolds ahead of the Greens and subsequently back into parliament with No Pokies preferences. Instead, Labor’s elimination left the Democrats well to the rear of No Pokies and their own preferences delivered victory to Mark Parnell, the first South Australian Greens candidate ever to win a seat at an election.

One day, I will get around to producing retrospective guides to the South Australian upper house and the Tasmanian election. Speaking of Tasmania, the next item of business is the periodical Legislative Council elections for the seats of Rowallan (a lay-down misere for independent incumbent Greg Hall) and Wellington (a taller order for Labor member Doug Parkinson), which will be held on May 6.

UPDATE: If you’re looking for more of a big-picture view of the South Australian election, you could do a lot worse than this paper by Geoff Anderson and Haydon Manning of Flinders University for the Australian National University’s Democratic Audit. Of particular interest is the graph on page three indicating a clear long-term trend of increasing minor party voting in the upper house. Upperhouse.Info sheds more light on this with a table outlining the "desertion rates" of parties’ supporters switching their vote in the upper house. In view of all this, it is clear why Mike Rann would like to abolish the chamber through a referendum he plans to hold in conjunction with the next election. It is equally clear that while The Advertiser might be dopey enough to support abolition, the public will not be.

Super Saturday live

11.28pm. Okay, one last thing – Geoff Lambert notes in comments that Labor’s surplus over the fourth quota for the upper house is going steadily down, which suggests it will be their preferences that decide the final spot. If so, it will go to the Greens rather than the third No Pokies candidate. Keep your eye on the comments thread, where Geoff will hopefully keep you posted on further developments.

11.26pm. That will do for me for now, although I might come back later to crunch some Tasmanian numbers. I believe the SEO has wrapped things up for the evening – on present indications, it seems my election guide called all seats correctly except for the independent victories in Mount Gambier (certain) and Mitchell (likely). Not a bad effort, if I do say so myself. No doubt that scoundrel Charles Richardson at Crikey (the only other person silly enough to publish seat-by-seat predictions, to my knowledge) went one better, but I cannot say because my Crikey email mysteriously failed to arrive on Friday.

10.58pm. Graham Gunn is now behind in Stuart by 1.0 per cent, on the reckoning of both the SEO and Antony Green. I’m guessing that the Port Augusta booths followed the broader trend more closely than the small rural and remote booths that were coming in earlier.

10.54pm. Antony Green has Liberal leading by 1.4 per cent in Unley, compared with 0.5 per cent at the SEO.

10.48pm. Finally, some new figures for Mitchell – the count is now up to 73.1 per cent after being stuck on 50.4 per cent for about an hour. The figures haven’t changed much – Kris Hanna is on 25.8 per cent compared with 20.8 per cent for the Liberals, with Labor on 40.7 per cent. Wisely, the SEO has scrubbed its old Labor versus Liberal 2PP figure, but it hasn’t replaced it with anything. Those still look like winning figures for Hanna to me. Antony Green’s computer still has "ALP ahead" on the basis of out-of-date figures. An ABC news report reveals Labor’s candidate sounds less than confident.

10.42pm. I’m still getting a seat for the Greens, and so are the default entries at Upperhouse.Info which have been updated on the basis on recent figures. Geoff is saying almost all Democrats preferences will need to go to the Greens if they are to stay against Labor’s fifth candidate and No Pokies’ third. As useful as the Upperhouse.Info calculator is, it suffers a weakness in that it assumes all Democrats votes will do so. In fact, the total number of candidates is much smaller than at the 2002 election, which means there will be more votes going below the line this time. I would think that more below-the-line Democrats voters would favour No Pokies than Labor – enough to close the narrow existing gap of 0.56 to 0.53, assuming most of them don’t favour the Greens. That third No Pokies candidate is not out of the hunt yet.

10.30pm. Geoff Lambert, who is way better with numbers than I am, questions my earlier calculation that the Greens are up for the eleventh upper house seat. Time for me to do another calculation I think.

10.20pm. I made a good call with my last-minute decision to provide live commentary. I believe we’ve broken a record for most comments on a Poll Bludger discussion thread.

10.12pm. SA: The SEO has the Liberal lead in Unley at only 0.5 per cent on 2PP. Antony Green’s computer, which is rarely wrong from 72.8 per cent of the vote, still has it down as Liberal retain. But could it be that it’s underestimating the strength of preferences to Labor? Does the SEO have actual rather than notional preference figures?

10.06pm. Tasmania: Interesting to hear the victory and concession speeches. Where these are usually given to the party faithful, in Tasmania they are conducted before a crowd of all comers at Wrest Point Casino, and hoots and jeers can be heard amid the amidst the applause.

9.57pm. SA: Things are strangely quiet on the Mitchell front, as far as News Radio and the SEO go. Does anyone know anything? Graham Gunn’s lead in Stuart has weakend to 0.7 per cent on 2pp.

9.44pm. SA: Second-hand reports say the ABC computer has upper house figures with more than 60 per cent counted, and the No Pokies vote has more than held up.

9.37pm. SA: I’ve done my own calculations on the upper house so the percentages make sense. Only two No Pokies now; Labor four; Liberal three; Family First one; Greens take the seat that went missing from No Pokies.

9.28pm. SA: About 18 per cent counted in the upper house – bizarrely, the SEO’s percentage figures add up to more than 100. I have tried plugging them into the Upperhouse.Info calculator regardless and I get THREE seats for No Pokies, who are on a spectacular 19.3 per cent, only three for the Liberals, four for Labor, one for Family First.

9.20pm. SA: Bob Such’s excellent performance in Fisher has been called to my attention. He’s on 49.4 per cent of the vote and the Liberals are in third place, and in no danger of closing the gap over Labor. The SEO’s 2PP figure is Such versus Liberal – understandable, but wrong.

9.17pm. SA: The SEO 2PP figures have added a bit more fat to Graham Gunn’s lead, now on 1.3 per cent. He actually trails 44.4 per cent to 46.6 per cent on the primary vote, but is obviously doing well out of preferences from Family First’s 4.0 per cent (or perhaps, is expected to do well – not sure if the preferences are actual or notional).

9.13pm. SA: They’re about to interview Rory McEwen on ABC Television. Dean Jaensch is pretty much calling Mount Gambier for him.

9.11pm. Tasmania: Another commenter notes that the Labor vote in Bass is boosted by Michelle O’Byrne’s left-wing support base, and that many of these votes will leak to the Greens. So Kim Booth’s position might be brighter than it appears at first glance.

9.09pm. SA: I misunderstood David Walsh’s earlier point. The significance of the high Greens vote in Kavel is not that they will have Family First last behind Liberal, but that they will feed preferences to Labor that will deprive Playford of second place.

9.07pm. SA: Dean Jaensch on ABC Television via News Radio notes a remarkably good overall performance for Family First and the Australian Democrats down by two-thirds.

9.05pm. SA: Hold the front page – a possible shock in Mitchell. Thanks for commenters for pointing it out, I haven’t heard it mentioned elsewhere. Independent incumbent Kris Hanna holds second place over the Liberals by 25.5 per cent to 21.0 per cent, with Labor on 40.7 per cent. Those look like winning figures for Hanna for me, unless Family First (5.1 per cent) and Dignity for Disabled (2.1 per cent) run very heavily against Hanna.

9.01pm. SA: The SEO 2PP from Mount Gambier is making more sense now. McEwen leads the Libs 56.1-43.9 – only 36.8 per cent counted, but it probably still answers my earlier question.

8.59pm. Both: A summary of remaining points of interest. Will Labor win a third seat from the Greens in Bass? Will the Liberals win one from Labor in Franklin? Will Graham Gunn hold Stuart for the Liberals against all odds? Will independent Rory McEwen hold Mount Gambier? What have I missed?

8.52pm. Tasmania: Haven’t heard much about Denison. Apparently Michael Hodgman will win the only seat certain to go to the Liberals. Peg Putt to be returned but her running mate Cassy O’Connor has not pulled a rabbit out of the hat, but the big Greens surplus will presumbly get a third candidate up at the expense of the Liberals’ second.

8.51pm. Tasmania: Someone on ABC Radio, I think Nick McKim, says he’s still confident Kim Booth will hold his seat in Bass.

8.49pm. SA: Maybe those SEO 2PP figures from Kavel were right after all – David Walsh notes in comments that the Greens are on a substantial 9 per cent in Kavel, and these are presumably running hard against Family First.

8.44pm. SA: I’ve been quieter lately because News Radio has been giving us the second half of a call-of-the-board from ABC Radio in Adelaide. Here we go: Labor swing of 5.1 per cent in Morphett. Antony Green says Rory McEwen is likely to retain Mount Gambier (damn – my only wrong call, but the look of it). Labor swing of almost 10 per cent in their safe seat of Napier. Swing to Labor of 12.9 per cent in the formerly Liberal seat of Newland. Labor swing of about 5 per cent in Norwood. Swing of 14.8 per cent in the safe Labor seat of Playford. Swing of only 4.0 per cent in safe Labor Port Adelaide. Mike Rann’s seat of Ramsay swings 7.1 per cent. Reynell, formerly not that safe, swings 14.0 per cent to Labor. Safe Liberal Barossa Valley seat of Schubert swings 7.1 per cent, with Labor’s primary vote up about 14 per cent. A surprise against the trend in Stuart, with Antony’s computer showing Liberal mega-veteran Graham Gunn holding his seat from an initial margin of barely 2 per cent (if so, another wrong call). It’s being noted that a solid One Nation vote from last time has disappeared. Safe Labor Taylor swings 8 per cent. Safe Labor Torrens swings 13.8 per cent. Liberal to hold Unley. Waite stays with the Liberals despite a swing of 8 per cent. Safe Labor West Torrens swings yet further. Marginal Labor Wright swings heavily to Labor.

8.42pm. Tasmania. Charles Richardson corrects me on Bass. It seems Labor are winning that seat from the Greens, not the Libs. The Greens will be down to two seats if so.

8.34pm. SA: Not sure how seriously to take these 2PP figures from the SEO (neither is one of the commenters), but Labor’s margin in the formerly Liberal seat of Light is 14.1 per cent.

8.27pm. While in SA, the star female performer has been Chloe Fox, who has won Bright with a swing of nearly 15 per cent.

8.25pm. Tasmania: At last – I can hear Antony Green on News Radio (they’re flitting around from radio to television coverage, and Antony’s on the latter). It indeed looks like the Liberals might drop a seat to Labor in Bass. He seems to be backing Labor to win a seat off the Liberals in Bass and is not writing off their third candidate in Franklin. The star of the evening looks to be Michelle O’Byrne, who might just end up being responsible for an increased Labor majority despite an overall 2 per cent drop on the primary vote and a 4 per cent increase for the Liberals. Christine Milne sounds very unhappy about the Exclusive Brethren business.

8.22pm. SA: Commenter Scott says Kevin Foley has said Labor leads every booth in the marginal Liberal seat of Morialta on the primary vote. An extraordinary result – Labor had put it about earlier in the campaign that they weren’t doing so well there.

8.19pm. SA: You may recall talk of Tom Playford, Family First candidate and son of the legendary Liberal Premier, might win the seat of Kavel. The Liberals are on 47.0 per cent, so it’s not likely, but he is at least looking good to clear the first hurdle as he leads Labor 20.0 per cent to 19.6 per cent. I’m not sure about these SEO 2PP figures – they have the Liberals leading Playford 64.4-35.6. Still, there’s only 11.2 per cent counted and maybe they’re factoring in booth variations. Yet more talk of extrordinary results for Nick Xenophon in the upper house.

8.17pm. SA: Nationals candidate Kym McHugh has faded in Finniss and now trails Labor 20.6 per cent to 29.4. The SEO 2PP has McHugh ahead of Liberal 1.9 per cent, but it’s looking like the final contest will in fact be between Liberal and Labor, with McHugh’s preferences giving it to the Libs.

8.15pm. SA: The SEO has Labor ahead just 50.1-49.9 on 2PP in Stuart.

8.13pm. SA: Does anyone know anything about Mount Gambier? The SEO has the Liberals leading Rory McEwen 55.1-44.9 on 2CP, but that’s not my reading from the primary vote with McEwen well ahead of Labor and only slightly behind the Liberals.

8.11pm. SA: First, very small figures from the upper house reportedly show an extraordinarily high vote for Nick Xenophon and the Liberals, in the words of Chris Schacht, possibly struggling for a fourth seat – an unprecedent failure if correct.

8.10pm. Tasmania: Big figures now up in Franklin, with nearly 70 per cent counted. Labor’s primary vote is now down to 47.0 per cent while the Liberals are on 31.2 per cent – so Labor are 3.0 per cent short of a third quota and Liberal are 2.1 per cent of a second. I personally would not be writing off Labor from holding off a third seat, but that doesn’t seem to be the general perception.

8.04pm. Tasmania: ALP apparatchik David O’Byrne says Labor is likely to win a seat off the Greens in Bass because the popularity of his sister, Michelle O’Byrne, is likely to bring another member across the line at the expense of Kim Booth. That member would almost certainly be Steve Reissig. So the most likely overall outcome as far as I can see is that the Labor loses a seat to the Liberals in Franklin and gains one from the Greens in Bass, and the total goes from 14-4-7 to 14-3-8.

8.00pm. Tasmania: Taking a step back, the only variation from the status quo that anyone is discussing is the possible loss of a Labor seat in Franklin. So unless I’m missing something, Labor look likely to retain their majority.

7.58pm. SA: Newland is clearly a shocker for the Liberals – a third of the vote counted and Labor on 61.2 per cent of the primary vote.

7.57pm. SA: It’s certainly not clear that Labor will win Stuart, from what I can see. The website has 16 per cent of the vote counted and Graham Gunn on 51.9 per cent. But that could be because the big Port Augusta booths are not in yet, and the tide will turn heavily when they are.

7.55pm. SA: Early figures from Mount Gambier, 6.0 per cent, and independent member Rory McEwen is doing better than expected with 46.2 per cent of the vote. It’s hard to see how he could lose from there, given that Labor are on 22.3 per cent. The ABC computer apparently predicts two independents, which I gather does not include Karlene Maywald. It also has Labor on 29 seats, which suggests that one of my calls for Labor is not looking certain. No idea which one though.

7.53pm. Tasmania: Finally more figures from Franklin, the count up to 17.9 per cent. Labor are down to 48.9 per cent, so still at least some chance of retaining three seats, although Paula Wreidt is definitely in danger. The Greens’ Nick McKim looks secure. Vanessa Goodwin would most likely be a new Liberal member.

7.51pm. Tasmania: The ABC says the swing against Labor is fading from about 4 per cent to 2 per cent, with the Liberals up 4 per cent, with the Greens down 2 per cent.

7.51pm. SA: Clearly my guess about that early Unley booth was on the money. Commenter Scott says the swing is only 3 per cent (from just 3.2 per cent of the count) and Dean Jaensch is saying Liberal retain.

7.5opm. Tasmania: Bearing in mind that the ABC has twice as many votes counted as are being published on the Electoral Commission site.

7.49pm. Tasmania: Labor’s vote is coming down in Bass, now down to 48.9 per cent. A 2-2-1 result is looking more likely, but 3-1-1- is still possible.

7.47pm. Tasmania: Results are slow to come through in Denison and Franklin. ABC Radio says 26 per cent is counted and Labor’s total vote is down about 4 per cent and the Liberals up about 6 per cent.

7.45pm. SA: A commenter (onya Scott – anyone else out there?) says the swing to Labor in the marginal Liberal seat of Mawson is a relatively subdued 5 per cent, still enough to cost them the seat.

7.44pm. SA: Only 3.2 per cent counted in Unley, but Labor leads 47.0 per cent to 40.5 per cent. Maybe this is from the Labor-leaning Goodwood area of the electorate. Liberal Hartley MP Joe Scalzi is on ABC Radio and doesn’t sound too confident. One of his interviewers is telling him he’s lost.

7.42pm. SA: Antony Green’s computer says the overall swing to Labor is 8.4 per cent, and their commenter is talking of 30 seats which is what I had predicted.

7.41pm. SA: Chris Schacht is only talking of a maximum of 28 seats, although he may be restraining himself. He says Hartley is not in the bag.

7.40pm. SA: The Liberals are all but conceding defeat in Norwood, which had been the subject of excited talk of a Liberal gain in the past few days.

7.36pm. Tasmania: Greens member Nick McKim says they are confident they will hold their seat in Bass.15 per cent in from Lyons – Labor holding up well, down only 1 per cent, but the Liberals are up 7 per cent. Perhaps this is where that overall swing is coming from. Labor will win three seats if they stay above 50 per cent, so it’s possible that the Greens will lose their seat despite a solid 14.2 per cent. A second Liberal winner would most certainly be Geoff Page. Someone has just said on ABC Radio that the Greens will not win a seat in Braddon, the only electorate where they do not do so currently, and that it will again by three Labor, two Liberal.

7.33pm. ABC Radio is talking about an overall Liberal increase of 7 per cent, which is more than what I’m seeing.

7.32pm. Tasmania: We’re now up to an almost meaningful 16.5 per cent of the count in Bass. The Liberals have only picked up about 1 per cent from Labor and the Greens are down 1 per cent. Last time the Liberals were very lucky to win two seats here, and may only narrowly do so again. If there is a third Labor winner it is likely to be Steve Reissig. On the Liberal ticket, Peter Gutwein leads former party leader Sue Napier 1386 to 990, with Napier having an uncomfortably narrow lead over David Fry, a former member who lost his seat in 2002.

7.30pm. SA: A talking head on ABC Television (I’m hearing this from News Radio so I can’t see who it is) is stalking as if Liberal veteran Graham Gunn is going to lose Stuart. The figures on the website have Gunn on 55.4 per cent, but that’s from 6.2 per cent of the vote and probably from booths away from the big towns.

7.28pm. Tasmania: About 5 per cent counted in Denison and the Greens are leading the Liberals, by enough to put a second Greens candidate (Cassy O’Connor) well into contention if it keeps up. Labor’s vote has plunged from 51 per cent to 39 per cent, but it’s too early to reach definite conclusions.

7.25pm. A closer look at Finniss: the Nationals are ahead of Labor, 19.9 per cent to 17.9 per cent, and presumably will pull in most of their preferences. The Liberals are on 41.2 per cent, still a winnable position, but this seat is one to keep an eye on.

7.23pm. Chris Schacht says there is a double-digit swing to Labor in Newland, held by the Liberals by about 5.5 per cent. Clearly we have a massacre on our hands here.

7.23pm. A bombshell from Finniss: Chris Pyne says Nationals candidate Kym McHugh is taking it right up to the Liberals.

7.22pm. Antony Green now on ABC Radio reeling through consistent Labor swings across various electorates of between 6 and 14 per cent.

7.20pm. SA: Stuart (the outback plus Port Augusta) reportedly swinging only slightly to Labor. The margin’s roughly 2 per cent, so this one could be tight.

7.17pm. Tasmania: 5 per cent now in from Franklin, and Labor’s primary vote is actually unchanged on 51 per cent despite the talk from earlier exit polls. Also little change for the Liberals (up about 1 per cent to 24 per cent) and the Greens (up about 1 per cent to 21 per cent). So talk of either Paula Wriedt or Lara Hiddings losing their seat may have been premature. Hiddings leads Wriedt, so the latter is indeed likely to be the casualty if there is one.

7.15pm. Pyne concedes the booth in question (the info here is from scrutineers, so these figures are not through yet) is quintessential middle class, and Chris Schacht says Labor has not won it in 20 years.

7.13pm. Federal Liberal MP Chris Pyne says there is a double-digit Labor swing in the marginal Liberal seat of Bright. Goodnight Irene.

7.13pm. South Australia: talk of a 7 per cent Labor swing in the marginal Labor seat of Croydon.

7.12pm. Still no meaningful results from Franklin in Tasmania, but now up to 7 per cent in Lyons. That exit poll’s looking good – Labor is indeed down by 5 per cent, but the Liberals are up 7 per cent and the Greens are down 1.5 per cent, but again, these are probably conservative booths. The distribution of the Labor vote among the candidates has remained the same.

7.09pm. Only 2.6 per cent counted, but in South Australia’s safest Liberal seat, Flinders, the Nationals vote is doubling from about 8 per cent to about 16 per cent. But Liberal member Liz Penfold is still well over 50 per cent.

7.05pm. In South Australia (I’m using Tasmanian time here, I’m afraid), former Labor Senator Chris Schacht says the Collinswood booth, in the only area of Enfield that is not extremely safe for Labor, is widely seen as a litmus test, and has swung heavily to Labor.

7.03pm. 2.73 per cent counted in Lyons. Labor incumbent Heather Butler is only slightly ahead of the other two Labor candidates, whereas Michael Polley and David Llewellyn look sure to be re-elected. Incumbents from the other parties (Rene Hidding for Liberal and Tim Morris for the Greens) comfortably lead their tickets. Overall, Labor are down 4 per cent, Liberal up 9 per cent and the Greens down 3 per cent, but these are probably conservative booths.

7.00pm. With 2.45 per cent counted in Braddon, there is no indication yet that either of the two Labor newcomers overcoming sitting member Brendon Best, as has been suggested. The main story in this seat is whether the Greens can win a seat, which they did not do last time. Overall, Labor is well down here and the Liberals well up, such that the Liberals lead 47.2 per cent to 40.5 per cent, but this is almost certainly because the results are from small conservative rural booths.

6.54pm. Results are starting to trickle in in Tasmania, though only 1.04 per cent counted. Michelle O’Byrne leads out of the Labor ticket in Bass with sitting member Jim Cox second and daylight third. On the totals, Labor are down about 3 per cent to the Greens with the Liberals stable. No idea where these booths are unfortunately.

6.48pm. Liberal Senator Guy Barnett is conceding Labor is likely to retain three seats in Denison, as they will need an extra 10 per cent of their vote. So the return of Labor’s David Barnett and Graeme Sturges and Peg Putt seems a foregone conclusion. There will be intra-party contests between a number of Labor candidates and Michael Hodgman and Fabian Dixon of the Liberals.

6.46pm. That exit poll reportedly has Labor down 5 per cent across the state and the Liberals up 3 per cent.

6.35pm. What the hell, I’ll do live commentary. I might get bored and give up, but we’ll see how we go. Polls closed in South Australia five minutes ago, and in Tasmania 35 minutes ago. ABC Radio says exit polls show Labor will lose one of their three seats in Franklin. The talk is that Paula Wriedt is more likely to lose her seat than Lara Giddings – obviously Paul Lennon is safe. If Labor loses two seats, they will lose their majority.

Last orders

Peter Brent at Mumble tells me that I have tipped Labor to win 29 seats from 47, which I had never bothered to tally up before. Make it 30 – a quarter of an hour from the close of polls, be it noted that I have also thrown in Newland. A Labor insider quoted in The Australian today expressed amazement that the Liberals have been "doing f..k all" in the electorate – I can only speculate what the missing two letters might have been. That leaves 15 for the Liberals, one independent (Bob Such to be returned in Fisher) and one Nationals (Karlene Maywald to be returned in Chaffey).