Australian federal election, 2019

[Deleted]

Macquarie now confirmed for Labor so final shares are Coalition 77 ALP 68 others 6. With a speaker from the Coalition benches this gives them a floor majority of 2.

Albanese has appointed his shadow cabinet and among the more notable names is former NSW Premier Kristina Keneally at home affairs.

[Andrew_S]

Interesting how postal votes favoured Macquarie this time.

[Andrew_S]

Do Jehovah's Witnesses get fined in Australia for not voting?

[timmullen1]

Jun 8, 2019 0:09:07 GMT Andrew_S said:

Do Jehovah's Witnesses get fined in Australia for not voting?

Probably not appears to be the answer. The Electoral Act provides for a religious exemption from compulsory voting, but then doesn’t appear to specify the religions/faiths covered by that exemption. In response to a Freedom of Information request the AEC appears to suggest that any such voter has to vote, and at the same time complete a Declaration Certificate, which, if accepted by the AEC then removes the vote from being included in the count. There’s numerous legal opinions online that indicate that a voter can appeal a fine (obviously) but would have to convince a court they were genuine adherents to the exempted religion and weren’t just using it as an excuse not to vote.

[timrollpickering]

According to a JW forum, Jehovah's Witnesses give their religious stance as their reason when sent a letter about their non attendance and this seems to be accepted as a valid reason as it's never followed up with fines. (Another that never seems to cause problems are people who are overseas during elections.)

[timmullen1]

The AEC have formally declared the result in Macquarie; Labor held on by 371 votes or 0.19%.

[timrollpickering]

The Senate results have been finalised this week.

Nationally:

Coalition 19 (+16 not up)
Labor 13 (+13)
Greens 6 (+3)
One Nation 1 (+1)
Jacqui Lambie Network 1 (+0)
Centre Alliance 0 (+2)
Australian Conservatives 0 (+1 *)

(* Gained by defection of a long term Senate seat. The Conservatives absorbed Family First but the sitting, short term, Senator instead ended up in the Liberals.)

Each state saw the Senate seats split 3 Coalition, 2 Labor, 1 Green with the following exceptions:
* Queensland - One Nation took a seat instead of Labor
* Tasmania - Jacqui Lambie Network took a seat instead of the Coalition.

The two territories, yet again, both split 1 Coalition, 1 Labor.

This is the first regular half-Senate election since the abolition of Group Voting Tickets and the introduction of optional preferential voting. All elected Senators started ahead, none overtook unsuccessful candidates on transfers.

The national result is relatively proportional with every party that polled above 2.5% nationally winning seats and only one below that doing so. The Coalition and Greens generally converted partial quotas into Senators on preferences whereas Labor usually had left over partial quotas that didn't convert so well.

One Nation got the most disproportional result, 1 Senator (2.5% of those up) for 5.4% of the vote nationally but this is mainly because Jacqui Lambie won a seat in Tasmania that might otherwise have gone to One Nation.

[timrollpickering]

The Australian Conservatives had a terrible result and Cory Bernardi has opted to wind up the party, saying that the results aren't good enough and since Scott Morrison replaced Malcolm Turnbull much of the ACs' raison d'etre has disappeared. Bernardi may try to rejoin the Liberals or else quit the Senate altogether; if the latter then the Liberals have the constitutional right to nominate a replace Senator.

When they broke away two years ago and started absorbing some of the smaller right-wing parties (Family First, some branches of the Australian Christians, the sole Democratic Labour Party elected member), there was speculation the Australian Conservatives could become the nucleus for a mirror to the Greens, and also that with group voting tickets being abolished (both federally and in South Australia), small right-wing parties could no longer easily stand against each other and rake in ticket preferences. But instead all the Australian Conservatives seem to have achieved is to remove Family First out of consideration.

[Foggy]

Jun 21, 2019 17:20:36 GMT timrollpickering said:

The Australian Conservatives had a terrible result and Cory Bernardi has opted to wind up the party, saying that the results aren't good enough and since Scott Morrison replaced Malcolm Turnbull much of the ACs' raison d'etre has disappeared. Bernardi may try to rejoin the Liberals or else quit the Senate altogether; if the latter then the Liberals have the constitutional right to nominate a replace Senator.

When they broke away two years ago and started absorbing some of the smaller right-wing parties (Family First, some branches of the Australian Christians, the sole Democratic Labour Party elected member), there was speculation the Australian Conservatives could become the nucleus for a mirror to the Greens, and also that with group voting tickets being abolished (both federally and in South Australia), small right-wing parties could no longer easily stand against each other and rake in ticket preferences. But instead all the Australian Conservatives seem to have achieved is to remove Family First out of consideration.

In such an instance, would I be correct in saying the Coalition would then only need the votes (or constructive absention) of the Centre Alliance and Jacqui Lambie in order to get its business through the Senate? 

[timrollpickering]

If Labor, Greens and One Nation all vote against and Centre Alliance & Jacqui Lambie both abstain then Coalition including Bernardi's seat is defeated by 1.

[Foggy]

Right you are. They need a positive vote in favour from either Lambie or team Xenophon, then.

Or else they have to propose bills that would be attractive to Pauline Hanson...

[Richard Allen]

Excellent Senate results for both the Coalition and the Greens. At 35 seats the Coalition now have their strongest position in the Senate for over decade and there are clear opportunities to get their business through the chamber.

[timrollpickering]

There was a by-election in the seat of Groom (Toowoomba plus rural hinterland) today.

Being a rock solid safe Liberal National seat where Labor would need the biggest by-election swing in history to take it with no prominent independent challenger and the biggest questions for the commentariat being whether two smaller party candidates (Liberal Democrats and Sustainable Australia) could save their deposits and which would come last it's fair to say this has been a bit of dull contest. The result so far suggests a 3.5% 2PP swing to Labor which is in the "nothing to see" range.

This seat was named Darling Downs until 1984. Its first member was William Groom who was the first federal MP to die in office. The by-election was won by his son Littleton Groom (after whom the seat is now named) who was several times a minister and then the Speaker whose casting vote brought down the Bruce government. Intra-right contests have historically been the main interest in the seat with the younger Groom losing as an Independent to the Nationalists in 1929 but regaining the seat in 1931 before (re)joining the now United Australia Party. The Country Party took it from the UAP in 1937 then yielded it to the Liberals in a candidate agreement in 1949 (the expansion of seats made this less surprising) before gaining it back in 1972 only to lose it to the Liberals in a 1988 by-election with Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen backing the Liberal candidate. The Liberals managed to change MP in 1998 without a National challenger and the 2008 merger has put an end to Liberal-National contests in Queensland (otherwise the by-election could have been interesting) so for the last dozen years successive LNP MPs have sat in the Liberal party room.

The most prominent former MP is Arthur Fadden (1937-1949) who was Prime Minister in 1941 and he said like the Flood he "reigned for 40 days and 40 nights".