Australian General Election

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Lingiari, called earlier in the night quite confidently for the Country Liberal Party, has now only 113 votes in it and Warren Snowdon is clawing his way back as the tiny bush mobile polling stations report.

[Deleted]

The ABC's definition of a 'safe hold/gain/whatever' can be a bit flaky and they often retract their projections as more votes come in.

[Sibboleth]

Sept 7, 2013 13:00:28 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

Can't help but notice that the electorate with the biggest swing to the ALP at the moment is the one where the Liberal candidate is Vietnamese (Fowler, NSW).

There was a big swing back to the ALP in Fowler this time because there was a huge swing away last time; candidate selection was extremely messy in a way that reflected poorly on the Party (and Labor did better on the Senate vote, which is almost unheard of in an urban seat). Labor actually polled a bit better in the 2011 NSW election than the 2010 federal there...

[Sibboleth]

Sept 7, 2013 12:02:29 GMT @strinity said:

No reference to Gillard at all in Rudd's speech.

Rudd really is an absolute cunt. The sooner he leaves public life, the better for the ALP (and the universe generally).

[Sibboleth]

Kingsford Smith is a very good hold for Labor.

[Sibboleth]

While Bandt was easily returned in the division of Melbourne, progress for the Greens is basically negligible elsewhere.

[Richard Allen]

Lingiari now looking like an ALP hold.

[Sibboleth]

Much of the swing seen at the last Territory election had already happened federally. Still too early to call it though.

[Deleted]

Sept 7, 2013 14:09:33 GMT Sibboleth said:

While Bandt was easily returned in the division of Melbourne, progress for the Greens is basically negligible elsewhere.

Yup, right back to almost 2007 vote share wise. Although having been in Government I suppose it could have been worse!

Still, thanks to the vagaries of the senate system they may end up with 10 seats overall, which would be their highest number ever, despite looking like they're going to miss out on a seat in ACT by a few hundred/thousand

[Richard Allen]

In the last 30 minutes or so ABC have flipped a dozen seats back to "in doubt".

[Sibboleth]

Finished a map of provisional results here: uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/GALLERY/8_07_09_13_10_38_29.png

The scale is basically just designed to show us what we need to know (i.e. where is close and where is super close) rather than the full picture in All Its Questionable Glory. Because there's no point doing the latter for a while yet.

[iainbhx]

Sept 7, 2013 15:07:51 GMT Richard Allen said:

In the last 30 minutes or so ABC have flipped a dozen seats back to "in doubt".

I'd guess that the pre-polls have proven to be different to what was expected.

[Andrew_S]

I've been through all the individual results and this is what the target list looks like.

If the result is closer than 52-48 in a constituency with less than 80% declared I've left it blank:

docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0At91c3wX1Wu5dERmb2NsbmpUNmlyOHplOTNOTE9iZVE#gid=0

[Andrew_S]

Too close to call IMO, with latest figures:

Moreton: Lab 52.0%, 72% reporting
Banks: Coa 51.8%, 77% rep.
Petrie: Coa 50.4%, 75% rep.
Reid: Coa 50.4%, 76% rep.
Lilley: Lab 51.1%, 76% rep.
Capricornia: Lab 50.1%, 79% rep.
Lingiari: Lab 50.9%, 68% rep.
Eden-Monaro: Coa 50.6%, 80% rep.
Parramatta: Lab 50.8%, 74% rep.
Dobell: Coa 50.7%, 80% rep.
Chisholm: Lab 51.7%, 70% rep.
Hindmarsh: Lab 52.0%, 75% rep.
Barton: Lab 50.1%, 77% rep.
Bruce: Lab 51.3%, 73% rep.
McEwen: Lab 50.4%, 73% rep.
Bendigo: Lab 51.2%, 78% rep.
Lyons: Coa 51.8%, 77% rep.
Kennedy: Kat 52.0%, 72% rep.
Solomon: Coa 51.1%, 79% rep.
Fairfax: no 2PP information available, 76% rep.
Indi: no 2PP information available, 77% rep.

The Australian Electoral Commission also has a list of close seats:

vtr.aec.gov.au/

[Andrew_S]

Current 2PP:

Coalition: 53.33%
Labor: 46.67%

There are roughly another 2.5 million 2PP votes to be counted so it's possible the final result could be 54-46.

vtr.aec.gov.au/

[erlend]

Some of the Senate results are quite amusing. Not many places that an electoral system will elect someone on 0.22% of the vote (WA) or even 0.52% (VIC). And clearly Labor hate Nick Xenophon, his number 2 was beaten by a Liberal on Labor's transfers for the last SA seat. And although the gap has widened a bit that second seat in the ACT was going down to the wire.

I am not quite sure but assume that for the on the 'on the night' counts they assume everyone votes the ticket and will sort out 'below the line' (?)votes later. So I would keep an eye on the SA result in case the Xenophon number 2 picks up a bit. Although that does apply both ways, some of Xenophon's vote may have leaked as well.

[Deleted]

Sept 7, 2013 12:46:16 GMT iainbhx said:

Sept 7, 2013 12:43:32 GMT Richard Allen said:

What caused the massive swing in Tasmania?

A pretty inept coalition of Labour and the Greens at the state government level.

Also Tas has a higher proportion of anti-Green Labor voters than other states, so the state coalition has damaged the Labor brand somewhat.

[timrollpickering]

Sept 7, 2013 15:04:50 GMT @rlemkin said:

Sept 7, 2013 14:09:33 GMT Sibboleth said:

While Bandt was easily returned in the division of Melbourne, progress for the Greens is basically negligible elsewhere.

Yup, right back to almost 2007 vote share wise. Although having been in Government I suppose it could have been worse!

Actually they weren't - they were in confidence & supply. They are, however, in government in Tasmania and the ACT although that may not always be a good thing.

Still, thanks to the vagaries of the senate system they may end up with 10 seats overall, which would be their highest number ever, despite looking like they're going to miss out on a seat in ACT by a few hundred/thousand

Any aspiring artist want to draw Zed Seselja as a joey being bounced over the line by an adult kangaroo?

The Senate result doesn't bode well for any attempt to reform the system because there'll be a whiff of persecuting smaller parties who've broken through. As well as Nick Xenophon and two Palmer Senators (and the DLP continuing Senator), there appear to now be Senators for:

* Family First
* Australian Sports Party
* Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party
* Liberal Democrats

The Sports Party result is a wonderful/dreadful example of coralling whereby a party with 0.22% of the vote has managed to sponge up transfers from all over (and may well disappear with more votes). Are some of the other "parties" fronts?

I'd guess most of these would support repealing the Carbon Tax but they may well make a price to stop any reform of Senate voting that could undermine their chances of election in future. So perhaps multi-rowed ballot papers will get through but it'd be harder to pass restrictions on getting party names onto the paper or upping the number of candidates and deposits required for a GVT, let alone anything that undermines the ability of micros to direct preferences.

Sept 7, 2013 17:56:30 GMT erlend said:

Some of the Senate results are quite amusing. Not many places that an electoral system will elect someone on 0.22% of the vote (WA) or even 0.52% (VIC).

Isn't STV wonderful? /sarcasm

And clearly Labor hate Nick Xenophon, his number 2 was beaten by a Liberal on Labor's transfers for the last SA seat.

It may be down to the percived disposable nature of the candidate and their unknown quantity. I doubt anyone expected a Xenophon running mate to last long and saw him as just a way to get a Group Voting Ticket. But also in the past in the state parliament Xenophon got re-elected with such a surplus it brought a running mate in and then after he went federal another "member" was co-opted. So the SA Parliament now has two people in it purely because of former association with Xenophon - and he's fallen out with at least one. Sending peferences to another unknown quanityt isn't encouraging.

I am not quite sure but assume that for the on the 'on the night' counts they assume everyone votes the ticket and will sort out 'below the line' (?)votes later. So I would keep an eye on the SA result in case the Xenophon number 2 picks up a bit. Although that does apply both ways, some of Xenophon's vote may have leaked as well.

In past elections the state with the highest below the line vote tends to be Tasmania - a combination of a smaller number of candidates and the state parliament using STV with no GVTs (and restictions that make How To Vote material difficult to produce and even harder to get into voters' hands at the voting booth) means voters are more used to preferencing this way and could do it. In 2004 below the lines worked against the Labor-Christianist parties deal and prevented it from taking one of the seats. However c55 candidates may be high for many voters this time.

The ACT also uses that system and has only about 27 candidates so there may be some below the line surprises there.

[Deleted]

Assange was knocked out of the Victoria count before Rise Up Australia, the Australian Democrats, Family First, the Sex Party, Palmer United and the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party. Popular guy.

[Deleted]

Sept 7, 2013 20:43:41 GMT timrollpickering said:

The Senate result doesn't bode well for any attempt to reform the system because there'll be a whiff of persecuting smaller parties who've broken through. As well as Nick Xenophon and two Palmer Senators (and the DLP continuing Senator), there appear to now be Senators for:

(...)

* Liberal Democrats

They're being transported already? I thought that was only a manifesto pledge at this point.