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

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Griffith is coming up on 8 February. There are 11 candidates:

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And yes, it really is that Anthony Ackroyd.

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FTR I merged an earlier thread into this one. Let me know if there any other Ozzie by-election threads out there which could be consolidated...

I noticed - thank you! I deleted the start of my post, which read "I don't think there's another of these threads out there?" or words to that effect, once I saw you'd merged.

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I'm surprised by the lack of leaked internal polling I've seen for Griffith.

I'm not - internal polls are always leaked for a purpose, and sometimes I doubt whether the poll was actually in the field... If Labor is ahead by more than the MoE, nobody is going to want to leak it - Labor would fear that it might let their voters become complacent, and the Liberals would fear that it would discourage their voters from voting for them. Only if internal polls were especially close, would there be any point in a leak.

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Indeed, as MaxQue said, although state Parliaments are different (federal and each state are governed by their own constitutions, which set out the maximum length of time). Federally, it's a maximum term limit of three years and based on the date from which the new Parliament meets for the first time. Queensland also has three-year terms. I believe all other states and territories are four-year terms, and I think all of them are fixed four-year terms, in which the Constitution sets out precisely when the election is to be called (along the lines of, using Victoria as an example, "the last Saturday of November"). In the case of fixed term states, elections can occur earlier, but it would not be in the Government's interest to trigger an early election, because it basically revolves around a Government losing the confidence of the House... which will either look disasterous, or at the very least, look like the Government manipulating the system to take advantage of polling data in a way that would be seen very cynically by voters.

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I won't speculate on percentages, but I agree with the 3/2/1 Liberal/Labor/Greens that the others have mentioned.

As for PUP, my gut tells me that they were never more than a protest party. Even most of their voters didn't want them to win, and now that they've won seats, voters no longer see them as simply a protest party. That's why Palmer's vote went up (according to publicly released polls) as he became more outlandish - the more outlandish he became, the less likely he was to be elected (in voters' minds) and the more likely they were to vote for him. They won seats, and their vote seems to have collapsed since then, in a manner more reminiscent of a deck chair under the party leader's great girth.

That final sentence sounds vaguely familiar - possibly about him, or possibly about someone else, but a search of "deck chair" on this site, and more generally "collapsing deck chair" on Google didn't turn up anything relevant. I feel as if I read that imagery (possibly about Palmer) in an op-ed somewhere. If anyone can find the original reference, I'd be grateful (mainly in order to edit this post).

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So ... this isn't technically an election of the current Federal Parliament - but there is the risk that if the NT Country Liberals do not win the Blaine by-election today - since they'd technically go into minority status (12/25) it could trigger a motion of no-confidence and an immediate election be called.

There's only been one poll (electorate-level polling caveat considered) and it has the CLP up 51-49 (off a previous CLP margin of 15%)... so a big swing it probably on, how big and it's impacts remains to be seen.

Antony Green also discussed it. Electorates are exceptionally small, so relatively few voters can result in massive swings, hence why margins up there are notoriously poor indicators of potential performance in a by-election. Personal vote is very important, too, for the same reason, so a by-election (or other retiring member at a general election) typically sees a strong swing against. Bearing in mind this was one of the few seats the CLP held in the landslide loss a few elections back, and the retiring member is the former Chief Minister (for foreign posters, the Territories don't have Premiers, they have Chief Ministers).

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The writ for the by-election in Gippsland South has be issued. Here's the timetable:

Close of Electoral Roll - 24 February
Final day for nominations - 27 February
Election Day - 14 March

So far, three candidates have nominated:

Legislative Council member and former Peter Ryan staffer Danny O'Brien (National)
Shire of Wellington mayor Scott Rossetti (Liberal)
Public servant and activist Andrea Millsom (Greens)

For those who don't know, the Victorian Liberals and Nationals have once again ended their coalition agreement, hence why they're running against each other.

The Coalition Agreement hasn't ended, Liberals and Nationals together form the Shadow Cabinet. The Age reported (regarding a Liberal candidacy):

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