Australia 2013 - Results thread

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I'm startled at how well the ALP held in Western Sydney overall - good to see Mike Kelly looks like he'll hold

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I thought Solomon was the ALPs best chance in the whole country for a gain...

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Most tonight - the rest later...

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Labor looks like putting Palmer in Parliament. Good news being, the more seats Labor retains, the less they'll risk a DD on the Carbon Tax.

I'd obviously disagree with that ... it gives Tony far less room to risk, considering the usual historic results of what happens to parties that call DDs

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

BTW - what did I say about PUP/KAP preferences being badly handled by pollsters?

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Rightly so Anton! I never doubted Kelly.

Thanks be the Senate is safe - I believe we've got a decent chance to make significant in-roads in 2016 ...  it's a smaller margin than 1996 so easily retrievable and quite close to 2004...

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I don't understand how Dobell remains so close...

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

ABC seems to be saying the Greens have won the second ACT Senate seat ...

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Rudd win not seek the leadership ...give it 12 months he'll retire

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Don Farrell made a big mistake allowing Penny Wong to take his number one spot on Labor's senate ticket. What a shame.

Considering she's a voice for progress - no doubt you'd hate her.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

It can be undone in two-terms, if the ALP gets its arse in gear.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Why did Tasmania swing so hard away from the ALP compared to the rest of the country? Is there some sort of government policy that's particularly unpopular in Tasmania right now?

Obviously their attempts to legalise gay marriage and abortion-on-demand haven't gone down well.

The degree to which people DON'T CARE about that cannot be described - it's the economy, Tasmania is really struggling and the ALP has been in power for 15 years ... people are frustrated and venting at anything ALP.

As usual you're looking through your own backward view...

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

The swings are really interesting - the swing will be under 1% in QLD, 3% in NSW... Al's point about looking where the swings were before ... which was my reasoning for Lingiari holding, was important wherever the ALP over-performed in 2010, they got walloped.

In the ACT, the Greens also got hit, their Senate primary vote slipped by almost 2%, the primary in Fraser was hit by more than 5% (both the ALP and Libs lost 1% of their primary) and they lost nearly 6.5% in Canberra...

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

2010 was the Green's high-water mark, and it was a large protest vote, everything was suggesting that this was NEVER going to be a good election for them, on paper.

Having said that getting Bandt to 43% primary is ASTOUNDING - but their national vote is slightly above their result from 2007. Palmer, as mentioned, was the recipient of the protest vote this year, but he drew from both sides (although from the ALP more, but it varied).

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Mirabella's primary is pretty stubborn ...

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

So what's the final tally exactly? The ABC website is stuck on 81-51.

It's looking like 57-89-3-1 (but there's still fluidity) - some electorates still have a lot of counting to do.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Current status of crazy close seats...

Capricornia - ALP 140
McEwen - ALP 73
Barton - ALP 62
Eden-Monaro - Lib 254
Petrie - LNP 600
Reid - Lib 619

Eden-Monaro has been updated by the AEC, and now it's Lib 634. Petrie and Reid haven't actually been updated since election night. I don't know if that means the count is complete or if there are still a significant number of ballots out?

Still a LOT of counting left to do...

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

It's early... but 57/103 booths counted and McGowan has a tiny lead over Mirabella (it won't hold but it's GLORIOUS to see)...

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Is there anything we can from these numbers outside of the fact that Mirabella is getting thumped on preferences?

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

That sounds pretty ominous for the she-beast

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Any word on demographics yet? I'd be interested to see the gender split.

Our exit polling isn't that great - so anything would have have to be an educated guess... women probably JUST leaned ALP - men supported the Coalition by a decent margin.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

We'll see them in a while - we've gone into detail on the Greens - go back a couple of pages

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Why are the north suburbs of Sydney so conservative? I understand that's where Howard was from too.

I looked at Google Street View and they look pretty, you know, generic. Not like the type of very affluent places that would vote that way.

It's been blue-ribbon Liberal land for decades... even areas that don't look that 'affluent' are still very much Liberal voting. There's a lot of 'generation Liberalism' people who were raised in it, never left the area, so continue to vote with the herd. I use the big 'L' liberal deliberately - as many are not as socially conservative as those in parts of Western Sydney or in the country - for example, these seats, and those in Eastern Melbourne along with Wentworth have quite socially progressive views, they're very highly educated, higher income but they are economically conservative, they like low taxes etc etc. Plus US perceptions of what an affluent area looks like, can be very misleading.

I should also stress that this area's average age is considerably higher than the rest of the city - there are pockets where the population is shifting towards high-density, younger people who commute into the CBD...

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

While I know it's not Thomson running - I still stunned at how small the margin in Dobell is... 807 votes and closing.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

McGowan's lead in shrinking down to 759...