By-elections of the 44th Australian Parliament (2013-2016)

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I don't know if Labor's plan to make this a referendum on Tony Abbott is smart...in the highly likely event that the Libs do better than last time surely that would show that their opinion on Tony Abbott has improved then according to this logic?

All by-elections in Australia turn into referenda on the Government. The more I think about it, the less sure I am there will be any improvement on the Lib performance from September.

[Talleyrand]

I think I'll go with 50.5% LNP on this one, even though the internal apparently shows the ALP on 53%. The Liberals might just be trying to downplay expectations by claiming they have "no chance".

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I think I'll go with 50.5% LNP on this one, even though the internal apparently shows the ALP on 53%. The Liberals might just be trying to downplay expectations by claiming they have "no chance".

Thank God, if you'd picked the ALP, I would have been worried.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Polls have closed in Griffith

[Wake Me Up When The Hard Border Ends]

2 booths are in (Holland Park West and Murrarie), with Labor first preference changes of -2.3% and 2.1% respectively.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I don't pay attention until 5-10% of votes are in.

[Wake Me Up When The Hard Border Ends]

I don't pay attention until 5-10% of votes are in.

Neither do I really, you can never go off incredibly early returns. Unless it's incredibly close, I have a fair idea of how a seat will fall after a quarter to a third of votes are in.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I'm calling it...

[Wake Me Up When The Hard Border Ends]

I'm calling it...

And it looks like Terri Butler is the new member for Griffith, got this one wrong.

Just beat me by a few seconds!

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I wish I'd have kept my original final prediction of 52.6% ALP

[morgieb]

What would the result mean? Status quo yeah?

[Hifly]

What would the result mean? Status quo yeah?

That's what I think. Neither a win for Labor nor the Libs, although the Libs have the advantage of bragging that they improved their vote from last time despite grim national polls.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

My gut reaction was that there would be a swing to the LNP, but I over-thought it and pushed it out, but it will be interesting to see where postals go, because it doesn't look at the moment, like they'll be as strong for Glasson as they were in September.

My base views on this was
* Griffith is not a naturally ALP seat (affluent, suburban, very small non-English speaking pop'n), if it were in Sydney or Melbourne, it would be a Liberal seat.
* Rudd's personal vote hadn't completely evaporated in 2013 but it's those kinds of personal votes that keep seats when they normally wouldn't hold
* Glasson had more money and had been campaigning for 18 months for the seat - 2 months ago, no one had any idea of who Butler was...
* Plus, electorates tend to punish those who force them back to the polls too soon, look at the Cunningham by-election in 2002... although it should be noted that the swing to Labor in the Wannon by-election in 1983 after Fraser quit was bigger than the TPP swing last night.

So I was of two minds - I saw plenty of reasons for a swing against the ALP (albeit not enough to lose it) and at the same time, found it difficult to see how the LNP could out-do September with everything going for it.

I think there's a reasonable argument to look at the actual results, and the votes for minors/independents are equal and more so, than the primary vote slippage from the ALP. Which explains why the ALP is down 1.6% on primary, but 0.7% on TPP.

So it's not anything for either party to crow about... and Brandis' "well, the ALP would need 58-59% of the TPP for this to not be a disaster for them"... ugh

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Glasson is refusing to concede.... despite needing 70% of remaining votes to win... Glasson won postals 52-48%, but Rudd won the other categories. However, I'd note that there were no absentees this year and those who wanted to vote absentee would either have to pre-poll or postal and it looks like the pre-polls that are out have a slight swing to the ALP.

So... Glasson frankly looks ridiculous.

[Hifly]

So... Glasson frankly looks ridiculous.

Not as ridiculous as Butler who had a reasonably piss poor performance when you consider the national level of support for the government.
Looking at the headlines this seems like a mild win for the LNP.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

So... Glasson frankly looks ridiculous.

Not as ridiculous as Butler who had a reasonably piss poor performance when you consider the national level of support for the government.
Looking at the headlines this seems like a mild win for the LNP.

I outlined the internal seat and demographic challenges. It wasn't as simple as all that and you know it.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Glasson has conceded.

[Wake Me Up When The Hard Border Ends]

Not a by-election per se, but it looks like my fellow Western Australians and I will be going back to the polls soon:

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/latest/a/21534031/high-court-orders-new-senate-poll-for-wa/

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

The High Court has voided the WA Senate results and ordered a fresh election for all six seats

[Vosem]

The High Court has voided the WA Senate results and ordered a fresh election for all six seats

Obviously the results are unknowable, especially before the above-the-line preferences have been made public, but in which direction will first-preference votes probably go for the big players (Lib, ALP, Green, PUP, Nat)? Up or down?

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I would be very very surprised if the Lib primary goes anywhere else but down, everyone else will likely go up... but I think people might be over-estimating the PUP.

I think we'll end up
3 Lib
2 ALP
1 GRN

[YL]

How likely do you think it is that there's another minor party (or the Sports Party again) benefitting from a preference cascade?

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I think there will be drops in the votes for micro parties, the electorate won't want to mess about with protest votes.

[BaconBacon96]

I can see the Sports Party gaining primary votes, but the other minor parties losing votes.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

We've had the first attempt at a poll for the WA Senate vote...

The results are as expected, massively increased support for the usual suspects, collapses in the smaller parties... keep in mind the quota for a seat is 16.7%

This is primary vote only.

LNP: 45% (+6 on 2013)
ALP: 32% (+5  " ")
GRN: 12% (+3 " ")
PUP:  1% (-5 " ")
Others: 10% (-10 " ")

Based on this, the LNP would have 2 quotas outright and be short of the third by 5%, the ALP would be 1.4% short of 2 quotas. The Greens would struggle on those numbers (almost 5% short of a quota)... but it depends on the make up of preference flows from the micro-parties.