Australian Federal Election- July 2, 2016

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Former New England Independent MP Tony Windsor is considering a political comeback.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-09/tony-windsor-considers-political-comeback-in-light-of-mine/6606022

I cannot begin to tell you how much I want this to happen.

he's in!

How much of a chance does he have? I can't imagine the Gillard government is remembered fondly there.

We are officially on double-dissolution watch.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-21/malcolm-turnbull-brings-budget-forward-threatens-election/7262898

so in a double dissolution, 12 senators are elected from each state? does this not mean that the quota come down from 14.3% to 7.7%? resulting in even more microparties in the crossbench?

God willing!

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Labor needs ~51%-ish on the national 2PP to win, right?

It also seems to me that the NXT is likelier to hold the balance of power after the election than the Greens are, especially in the House but possibly in the Senate as well.

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Pretty terrible interview on ABC Radio National from Adam Bandt condemning Labor for getting a deal with the Libs that they were trying to get. This puts a pretty significant dent in the Green's aspirations for anything beyond retaining Melbourne.

Terrible as in Bandt embarrassed himself, or terrible as in accusatory?

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Reading with great interest, morgieb!

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My predictions were horribly, terribly off in 2013 and are likely to be so again, but here goes nothing:

Queensland:
HoR: Fairfax from PUP to LNP; Capricornia, Forde from LNP to ALP. Total: LNP 21 (-1), ALP 8 (+2), KAP 1 (-), PUP 0 (-1).
Senate: 5 LNP (-1), 4 ALP (-), 1 Greens (-), 1 ON (+1), 1 GLT (-).

New South Wales:
HoR: Werriwa from ALP to Coalition; Paterson, Barton, Dobell, Page, Robertson, Eden-Monaro, Macarthur from Coalition to ALP; Cowper from Coalition to independent. Total: ALP 23 (+5), Coalition 23 (-7), Independent (Oakeshott) 1 (+1).
Senate: 5 Coalition (-1), 4 ALP (-), 2 Greens (+1), 1 LDP (-).

Victoria:
HoR: Murray from Libs to Nats; Batman from ALP to Greens; Chisholm, Bruce from ALP to Coalition. Total: Coalition 18 (+2), ALP 16 (-3), Greens 2 (+1), Independent (McGowan) 1 (-).
Senate: 4 Coalition (-1), 4 ALP (-), 2 Greens (-), 1 NXT (+1), 1 Derryn Hinch (+1), 0 John Madigan (-1), 0 Ricky Muir (-1).

Tasmania:
HoR: No change. Coalition 3 (-), ALP 1 (-), Independent (Wilkie) 1 (-).
Senate: 4 Coalition (-), 4 ALP (-1), 2 Greens (-), 2 JLN (+1).

South Australia:
HoR: Mayo, Barker, Grey from Coalition to NXT; Adelaide from ALP to Coalition. Coalition 4 (-2), ALP 4 (-1), NXT 3 (+3).
Senate: 3 Coalition (-2), 3 ALP (-), 3 NXT (+2), 2 Greens (-), 1 FF (-).

Western Australia:
HoR: Burt, Cowan from Coalition to ALP. Coalition 11 (-1), ALP 5 (+2).
Senate: 5 Liberal (-1), 4 ALP (+1), 2 Greens (-), 1 National (+1), 0 PUP (-1).

Territories:
HoR: Solomon from Coalition to ALP. ALP 4 (+1), Coalition 0 (-1).
Senate: 2 Coalition (-), 2 ALP (-).

HoR total:
Coalition (Malcolm Turnbull) 80 (-10)
Labor (Bill Shorten) 61 (+6)
Nick Xenophon Team (Nick Xenophon) 3 (+3)
Greens (Richard DiNatale) 2 (+1)
Katter's Australian Party (Bob Katter) 1 (-)
Palmer United Party (Zhenya Wang) 0 (-1)
Independents 3 (Rob Oakeshott, Cathy McGowan, Andrew Wilkie)

Senate total:
Coalition (Malcolm Turnbull) 29 (-4)
Labor (Bill Shorten) 25 (-)
Greens (Richard DiNatale) 11 (+1)
Nick Xenophon Team (Nick Xenophon) 4 (+3)
Jacqui Lambie Network (Jacqui Lambie) 2 (+1)
Liberal Democratic Party (David Leyonhjelm) 1 (-)
Family First Party (Bob Day) 1 (-)
One Nation Party (Pauline Hanson) 1 (+1)
Glenn Lazarus Team (Glenn Lazarus) 1 (-)
Justice Party (Derryn Hinch) 1 (+1)
Palmer United Party (Zhenya Wang) 0 (-1)
Manufacturing and Farming Party (John Madigan) 0 (-1)
Motoring Enthusiasts Party (Ricky Muir) 0 (-1)

[Vosem]

What percent chance does Shorten have of becoming the next PM?

If things hold as they are now, the ALP will lead the Coalition 73-72 with 5 independents who would mainly prefer Shorten to Turnbull. Later counts seem to be going against the Coalition, with the ALP gaining. I might say Shorten is narrowly favored at this point over Turnbull.

If the ALP can gain one more seat in later counts (Gilmore seems likeliest?) and the NXT pulls it off in Grey, then they'll lead the Coalition 74-70, with strong pressure on the NXT to back the ALP. They'll even be able to keep their promise of not coalescing with the Greens.

Of course this depends on guessing what the late returns will be like and what the crossbench will think, so it's all very unclear.

In the Senate, assuming preferences won't shift the margins between parties around by more than 0.15 quotas (which I think is a pretty safe assumption in most circumstances), then the following results seem baked in:
Territories: 2 Coalition, 2 Labor
NSW: 5 Coalition, 4 Labor, 1 Greens, 1 One Nation, 1 unclear (tossup between LDP/CDP)
Victoria: 4 Coalition, 4 Labor, 2 Greens, 1 Derryn Hinch, 1 unclear (extremely unclear; One Nation seems best-placed on first prefs, tho)
Queensland: 5 Coalition, 4 Labor, 1 Greens, 1 One Nation, 1 Liberal Democrats
Western Australia: 5 Coalition, 4 Labor, 2 Greens, 1 One Nation
South Australia: 4 Coalition, 4 Labor, 3 Nick Xenophon Team, 1 Greens
Tasmania: 5 Labor, 4 Coalition, 2 Greens, 1 Jacqui Lambie Network

Total:
29 Coalition
27 Labor
9 Greens
3 Nick Xenophon Team
3 One Nation
1 Liberal Democrats
1 Jacqui Lambie Network
2 unclear (but 2 more minor right seats of some sort seem likeliest)

Point is, ALP+NXT+Greens is very likely to be a majority in the Senate, as well, which could influence how the House crossbenchers pick the next Prime Minister.

[Vosem]

Some pretty awful postal flows in Queensland - Flynn 65/35 LNP, Herbert and Longman 58/42 LNP. Could just be a bad batch, but if they continue the Liberals will probably end up gaining majority government. And the Liberal government will be far smoother sailing than what I thought earlier this week.

Is this likely to continue? If the remaining vote looks like postal numbers then the LNP will have ended up not losing a single seat in Queensland after all the sturm und drang. (As an aside, it looks like the margin in Hindmarsh -- which didn't shift at all in 2013 -- has been halved).

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So, have you guys seen the Senate forecasts on the website blog.geeklections.com.au ? The author seems very bullish on preferences flowing to the Nick Xenophon Team -- he's very confident of Luke Bolton (the top WA NXT candidate) overtaking Rachel Siewert on preferences, and seems to think Aidan Dalgliesh (the NSW candidate) has a very real chance of defeating David Leyonhjelm for the last seat.

He also thinks a Shooters Senator is likely to be elected in Tasmania (God willing), but that forecast might be off because the very high levels of BTL voting aren't being taken into account, and only 1 Green Senator being elected off of 1.46 quotas seems like an unlikely result to me.

How likely are Bolton/Dalgliesh/Allen to actually win?

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Oh ffs, this still isn't over?

Except for those that reached a quota on Election Night, we still know basically nothing about the Senate composition.

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When is the button going to be pressed on some of these Senate races?

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Button pressed in Tasmania. 5 Labor (notably including Lisa Singh, elected ahead of Catryna Bilyk), 4 Liberal (not including Richard Colbeck, who didn't make it), 2 Greens, and 1 Jacqui Lambie. Last seat was between second Green and first One Nation candidate. Nothing too surprised, but at least movement is finally happening in the Senate.

EDIT: As an aside, the race for the last seat between Nick McKim (Greens) and Kate McCulloch (One Nation) was very close -- the margin was just 21247-21106, or 141 votes. (McKim was elected under quota, as the quota was 26,090). On an amusing note, Singh actually reached the quota on preferences from Colbeck. Some voters voted for the ideologically-opposite dissidents from both major parties. Lol.

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The button has also been pressed in Western Australia; the result is 5 Liberal, 4 Labor, 2 Greens, and 1 One Nation, with all those elected having made it over the quota fairly comfortably and only one unsuccessful candidate mustering up even half a quota (Kado Muir of the Nationals). Amusingly the final Labor Senator made it over the hump on preferences from Shooters candidate Andrew Skerritt (and One Nation and the Greens both made it off the elimination of the Nationals).

There seem to be questions about the eligibility of the elected One Nation Senator Rod Culleton connected to a larceny incident; if he were deemed ineligible, the party would be able to recommend a replacement. #2 on the WA ballot, and the likely replacement, is a certain Peter Georgiou, the brother-in-law of the elected Senator.

In terms of term length, either of the two discussed methods seems to give 3 Liberal, 2 Labor, and 1 Green longer, six-year terms while 2 Liberal, 2 Labor, 1 Green, and One Nation get three-year terms.

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First big SURPRISE of the Senate button pressing, in a little-predicted outcome -- Senator Bob Day of Family First, who sued to stop the changes to the voting system, was nevertheless reelected! South Australia has returned 4 Liberals, 3 Nick Xenophon Team, 3 Labor, 1 Green, and 1 Family First.

4 Liberals, 3 Labor, and 2 NXT were elected off direct votes, leaving the final three seats to be filled by preferences.

At the critical moment in the juncture after the elimination of the fifth Liberal, Sean Edwards, 5 candidates remained in the race for the remaining three seats -- in order, Sarah Hanson-Young of the Greens, Skye Kakoschke-Moore of the Xenophon Team, Anne McEwen of Labor, Bob Day of Family First, and Steven Burgess of One Nation. Edwards' preferences go heavily towards Day (who had previously been barely a few hundred votes ahead of Burgess), causing Burgess to be eliminated; Burgess' preferences are mainly split between Kakoschke-Moore and Day, but enough leak to elect Hanson-Young (along with comfortably getting Kakoschke-Moore over the hump). Kakoschke-Moore and Hanson-Young's surpluses both strongly go to Anne McEwen, but it isn't quite enough, and Day beats her for the final seat by 72,392-68,849, and is therefore elected while remaining well short of a quota.

Hard to say how many people followed it, but the Liberal how-to-vote (which recommended #2 Family First) certainly played a large role in Day's election; he started off behind One Nation, and while he got ahead of them after the distribution of preferences from Matt Attia (Christian Democratic Party), it was basically a case of there being several hundred votes between them right up until Liberal preferences were distributed, when Day ballooned out to a larger lead and leapfrogged the fourth Labor candidate.

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In more late-counting results, full distribution of preferences has revealed to Melbourne to be a Greens v. Liberal seat (just like Warringah ), and has seen Maranoa revealed to be non-classical as well, with One Nation making 2CP, not Labor, after preferences.

EDIT: And Port Adelaide is a Labor vs. NXT seat.

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Two candidates in Victoria eclipsed half a quota without being elected; the final two eliminated, Peter Bain of Family First and Meredith Doig of the Australian Sex Party. Even though the last elected Senator (the final Liberal) was well under quota, he still led Bain by more than 20,000 votes, so it wasn't that close. Amazingly, Bain (Family First) eclipsed five different minor parties on preferences -- the Australian Sex Party, the Nick Xenophon Team, the Liberal Democrats, the Animal Justice Party, and One Nation -- but it was still not even close to enough.

Unusually, instead of all the Senators being elected at either the very beginning or very end of the count, as was the case in all the other states, 2 Senators were elected midway through (4 Liberals, 3 Labor, 1 Greens won straight-away, and 1 Green and 1 Liberal won at the end; the fourth Labor candidate won on Count 671 of 825 after the elimination of the lead candidate of the Jacqui Lambie Network, while Derryn Hinch won Count 781 after the elimination of the Animal Justice Party).

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Button presses in Queensland and NSW, as reported by Kevin Bonham.

Queensland: 5 Coalition, 4 Labor, 2 One Nation, 1 Green. My LDP boy Gabe Buckley didn't make it
NSW: 5 Coalition, 4 Labor, 1 One Nation, 1 LDP, 1 Green.

Full distribution of preferences isn't posted yet. Australia-wide total:
30 Coalition
26 Labor
9 Greens
4 One Nation
3 Nick Xenophon Team
1 Liberal Democrats
1 Family First
1 Derryn Hinch
1 Jacqui Lambie

Labor+Greens+NXT have 38/76, enough to block any legislation.

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I wouldn't add One Nation into the L/NP Coalition, the L/NP don't like them

It doesn't matter whether they "like" each other.  What matters is that the Turnbull-Hanson agenda is going to be disastrous for this country.

That's very disingenuous considering nothing can possibly get through the Senate without support from Labor, the Greens, or the NXT, who together hold sufficient votes to block any legislation (such as from, say, the "Turnbull-Hanson" agenda).

Turnbull-Xenophon would probably be more accurate.

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I wouldn't add One Nation into the L/NP Coalition, the L/NP don't like them

It doesn't matter whether they "like" each other.  What matters is that the Turnbull-Hanson agenda is going to be disastrous for this country.

That's very disingenuous considering nothing can possibly get through the Senate without support from Labor, the Greens, or the NXT, who together hold sufficient votes to block any legislation (such as from, say, the "Turnbull-Hanson" agenda).

Turnbull-Xenophon would probably be more accurate.

Except the union bills, which only require passing the House and a common sitting of both houses.

114 votes would be needed to pass anything through a joint sitting; the Coalition has 106. One Nation has 4. Let's assume all 110 of those can be relied upon to vote in favor; that's still 110 and requires four more votes from somewhere. Xenophon can provide those votes, or alternatively Turnbull could turn to the crossbench, where Day and Leyonhjelm are probably sympathetic, while Lambie, Katter, and Willkie are all more left-wing on economic matters. If Hinch and McGowan can both be persuaded to come along, that does allow Turnbull to push through the legislation without ALP, Greens, or Xenophon support, but that is a very tight squeeze.

So, yeah, getting Xenophon onboard is still probably the path of least resistance even in the event of a joint sitting (and if Day, Leyonhjelm, Xenophon, and every PHON Senator does support it, it would be simpler to just push it through the regular Senate; if Turnbull does want to go the "appeal to individual independents" route then a joint sitting would have to be convened).

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I wouldn't add One Nation into the L/NP Coalition, the L/NP don't like them

It doesn't matter whether they "like" each other.  What matters is that the Turnbull-Hanson agenda is going to be disastrous for this country.

That's very disingenuous considering nothing can possibly get through the Senate without support from Labor, the Greens, or the NXT, who together hold sufficient votes to block any legislation (such as from, say, the "Turnbull-Hanson" agenda).

Turnbull-Xenophon would probably be more accurate.

Except the union bills, which only require passing the House and a common sitting of both houses.

114 votes would be needed to pass anything through a joint sitting; the Coalition has 106. One Nation has 4. Let's assume all 110 of those can be relied upon to vote in favor; that's still 110 and requires four more votes from somewhere. Xenophon can provide those votes, or alternatively Turnbull could turn to the crossbench, where Day and Leyonhjelm are probably sympathetic, while Lambie, Katter, and Willkie are all more left-wing on economic matters. If Hinch and McGowan can both be persuaded to come along, that does allow Turnbull to push through the legislation without ALP, Greens, or Xenophon support, but that is a very tight squeeze.

So, yeah, getting Xenophon onboard is still probably the path of least resistance even in the event of a joint sitting (and if Day, Leyonhjelm, Xenophon, and every PHON Senator does support it, it would be simpler to just push it through the regular Senate; if Turnbull does want to go the "appeal to individual independents" route then a joint sitting would have to be convened).

Except than joint sittings can only be used for the bills that were used for the double dissolution, namely the 3 anti-union bills. All other bills need to pass the House and the Senate.

Xenophon already indicated it would only support those union bills if they were amended in ways he liked.

If it's permissible to amend those bills in a joint sitting and Xenophon and the Coalition both support, then there are 110 votes, and the path to 114 doesn't seem too difficult. The basic point of my posts have been to point out that Turnbull/Hanson isn't enough to pass any legislation, and that realistically Xenophon almost certainly holds a veto over any government policy that needs to go through the Senate or a joint sitting.