Australian Federal Election- July 2, 2016

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Only finished this at 5:58... had hoped to upload it before polls shut, but have been having internet issues of late.



I used Antony Green's calculated margins, except for Fairfax.

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Results are from a downloaded .csv from the AEC website, except where there are non-traditional candidate counts, where I used Antony Green's figures.


Edit: I've also merged the Liberal and National results into a single "Coalition" blue colour tone, because of the chaotic minor parties winning single seats here and there, and requiring primary vote analysis maps later.

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In this table:

First preferences by vote type

What are "Ticket Votes" and "Unapportioned"

Are "Ticket Votes" an Above-The-Line first preference for the group; and "Unapportioned" a Below-The-Line first preference for one of the candidates of the group?

Ticket Votes are generally 20%-25% of the votes for the group.

A few exceptions are:

Smaller Parties with full slates of 12 candidates (Greens and Christian Democrats) had Ticket Votes in the teens. But ALP and Coalition were in the typical range.

Science Party/Cyclist Party was in the teens - perhaps voters could make no sense of the joint group.

One Nation was over 30%.

Yes, Ticket Votes are the technical term for Above-the-Line votes (for the party/ticket, rather than for an individual candidate).

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Booth results in SEQ (primary vote plurality)

Obviously, these are still preliminary, since recounts continue.

As always, bigger version in gallery.

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Booth results in SEQ (primary vote plurality)

Obviously, these are still preliminary, since recounts continue.

As always, bigger version in gallery.

The Voronoi diagram is a really interesting way of presenting this data! I don't know if I've ever seen that before.

I think our friend, Homelycooking, has done that a bit, which is where I got the idea. Antony Green also did it on his site a while back, but Homely definitely did it first. I just adjusted the transparency so you could see the electorate boundaries in the layer underneath, and also added in the points for the Lat/Long coordinates of the booths. I've been working on NSW and Vic tonight, although not quite finished. I'll upload maps once they're complete.

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Booth results in SEQ (primary vote plurality)

Obviously, these are still preliminary, since recounts continue.

As always, bigger version in gallery.

Could you explain the demographics behind the voting patterns?

There is a strong ALP vote along an east-west axis. Is that in Brisbane? Then to the north of that it begins trending Coalition. But north of that along the coast is an area that is more mixed, with a small ALP advantage. But the coastal area north of NSW is Coalition. Has Queensland had an influx like in Florida and California where the population was attracted by the climate (once air conditioning was available).

Why is there the concentration of support for One Nation to the west? Banjo Belt? To the west of that there is a small concentration - some sort of regional center?

And then the rural areas are Coalition.

I'll update the map down the track - I think it might be better to switch the order around, so that the booth strength is more vibrant, and make the boundary map transparent/no colour over the top, which will mean that the electorate boundaries are a bit darker. I'll also change the Hanson colour, since I typically use that yellow colour ramp for the Nationals (and while that's not a factor on the Queensland maps, it makes it confusing to compare other maps from the same election).

I'll discuss the voting patterns, as you've asked, but you'll probably want to refer to Google Maps regarding place names. One thing to note before we get started, remember that these are primary vote plurality - in some areas near the downtown, the left vote is split between the Greens and Labor. In some of the rural areas in Wright and possibly Blair, the right vote is split between the LNP and Hanson. Some of the voting patterns may shift once I post 2CP maps (I've done a bit of work on them, but they haven't finished these counts in some of the electorates where it was unclear who would finish second vs third).

The East-West Labor vote is typically just to the South of Brisbane, starting at about Beenleigh, in the East (maybe South-East), through to Ipswich in the West. The strong Labor area near the centre of this band is Inala. The strong Labor area in the East is Woodridge/Slacks Creek and probably down to Marsden. These areas have all been traditional Labor-voting areas. Ipswich itself is in Blair (the N-S aligned seat with many Labor booths in the South, although it used to be in Oxley (the seat that looks a little like "^" just to the East of Ipswich. The Eastern half of Oxley is within the Brisbane city limits, the Western half is in Ipswich. The next seat to the East is Rankin, which is based predominantly on Logan city. Ipswich and Logan can really be considered part of "Greater Brisbane" - they are linked to Brisbane by freeways and commuter railway lines. The electorate to the North of Oxley and Rankin is Moreton. The Labor vote in the middle is around Rocklea and Moorooka, and up through Yeronga and Yeerongpilly.

Demographically, as I noted, the East-West band has been traditional Labor, Moorooka and Yeerongpilly and up to Dutton Park (this is where we start heading up into Griffith) had a sizeable community of Sudanese refugees settle there during the Howard era. Western Yeronga, however (the area in the bend of the river), is relatively "leafy" - tree lined streets, large blocks with renovated houses. The riverfront end obviously has river views. As you head further North, into Dutton Park and West End and Highgate Hill, these were traditionally inner-city Labor areas, which have now become more popular with uni students. The Liberal-voting areas to the West across the river are traditional Liberal areas, but also have many uni students (University of Queensland is there). You'll note the particularly strong LNP areas in the Western suburbs of Brisbane. This area is hilly, tree-filled, with large blocks and is quite affluent.

At the Eastern end of the Brisbane electorate, you can see Ascot/Hamilton/Clayfield. This area is again quite affluent, the horse race tracks are there, the houses are older Queenslanders that have been renovated inside (Google image search that housing type - or look on realestate.com). Again, quite a wealthy area. Back in 1996, this area was in Lilley, and West End was in Brisbane - which is why in Howard's landslide, Lilley and Griffith both went Liberal, but Brisbane stayed Labor, whereas now Brisbane is a Liberal seat and Griffith and Lilley are both in Labor hands. That's not a gerrymander allegation, just an observation. The current boundaries are probably more natural.

You can see the area around Bulimba (across the river from Hamilton), which has gentrified over the last... fifteen years, I'd guess, give or take a few years. The Labor areas in Lilley and across the river in Bonner are both industrial areas (as you might be able to gather from the lack of polling booths in the area, which are a defacto indicator of population density), and traditionally Labor. The mid-sized island at the mouth of the river is the Port of Brisbane. The strong Liberal area in the centre of Bonner is probably the "bible-belt" of Brisbane, in the somewhat-affluent, suburban manner, (as opposed to the Appalachian version).

Heading further North, the peninsula is Redcliffe, which is not part of Brisbane city (although is part of the Greater Brisbane area). It's been a long while since I've been in the area, I think the Northern end of the peninsula is affluent, the Southern end less so, but it may have been gentrifying. At the North-Western base of the peninsula, there are Labor voting suburbs. It may seem strange to have coastal Labor areas like this (compare with, say, Sydney's Northern beaches), but I think this area is more mudflat rather than beach. It may be similar on the South-Eastern base of the Redcliffe peninsula, around Sandgate. Like I said, I haven't spent much time in that area, there are many better beaches to visit if you live in Brisbane.

The cluster of booths North of this is Caboolture, in the heart of the Longman electorate. Commuter rail goes to Caboolture, although it extends North to the Sunshine Coast (but I believe runs to the Sunshine Coast on a less-frequent timetable). Bribie Island used to be holiday homes, I think, but has had a good deal of construction growth in the past twenty years, I guess. The mainland across from the Northern tip of Bribie is Caloundra, which is the Southern end of the Sunshine Coast. Further up the Coast is Maroochydore, and continues North to Coolum. That Hanson booth in the hinterland up there is probably around Kingaroy, I would guess, which was where Sir Joh had his peanut farm. Or maybe it's Gympie. Anyway, it's somewhere up that way.

Down South from Brisbane is the Gold Coast. It's commercialised, has a casino, many retirees, and is quite developed, especially around Surfers Paradise and Broadbeach.

The small concentration of votes in the West is the town of Toowoomba (the first "oo" is like "spoon", the second "oo" is like "book", Too-woom-bar). The University of Southern Queensland is located there. It's probably about and hour-and-a-half drive from Brisbane, you'd be unlikely to commute to Brisbane on a daily basis. It has an annual flower show, and is quite a pretty town. It's up the range, so you have to drive uphill to get to it.

The Hanson area there, I think I sort of covered it up above, but yeah, it's rural but not especially wealthy rural. Others would certainly make comments about banjos, although I won't say that. Some of that area is actually quite pretty countryside - I went through there to visit some wineries over Christmas - I didn't expect to find any nice wine there, but some of it was quite good, they were growing grapes I hadn't heard of but that had been selected due to the warmer climate in the area. The man behind the bar at the cellar door of the first place had a bushman's beard (and was not a hipster) - the North American image would be of a lumberjack.

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Greater Sydney

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Snipping for clarity and responding beneath your questions.

primary vote plurality - "primary" refers to first preference? Does a candidate other than the first or second on 1st preferences, ever win? Do they even finish second?

Yes, in the Australian context, primary vote is synonymous with first preference vote. Candidates can come from behind - the best example is likely to be Prahran from the 2014 Victorian election. The Greens finished third, pulled ahead of Labor into second place on "all other" preferences, then took enough Labor preferences to finish first on 2CP, on primary vote, the Liberal candidate had finished first with 44.8% of the vote. I believe 1998 federal election in Blair was similar, with the Liberal candidate defeating Hanson on Labor preferences, but I'm not certain whether he finished second or third (I think he came third and pulled ahead of Labor on minor party preferences, but I can't be certain).


There appear to be a lot of industrial areas. was this the result of a deliberate development policy? South Brisbane is more competive, so this would be more white collar or service workers,and not the wealthy who headed to the higher ground. Does Brisbane flood?

South Brisbane (the suburb) used to be industrial and voted accordingly. The 1974 flood impacted greatly on that area, and it never fully recovered, although I think that was because it had already been slated for urban renewal. The Government then built Wivenhoe Dam, partially for water supply but mostly for flood mitigation. In 1988, Brisbane hosted World Expo '88, which was built over much of that industrial area. After the Expo ended, the site was converted into Southbank, which is mostly public open space, with some restaurants and bars and the like. Since then, there has been urban development in the streets surrounding Southbank, with many apartments being approved. This has led to the white collar workers you note - probably plenty of IT professionals and the like, young, hip, etc. West End and Highgate Hill are somewhat more bohemian, some run-down older houses shared by students (I haven't been in a while, this might be out of date). A few years ago, Wivenhoe was full and there was a large amount of rainfall, leading to another major flood.

I can't really answer the development question about the industrial areas. I forgot to mention that the airport is also in Lilley, which also explains some of the large, less densely populated area on the North side of the mouth of the river.
 

Downtown is on the peninsula with the Botanic Gardens on the tip? Or is it Fortitude Valley? Are some of the bridges to the south side transit or pedestrian bridges, they seem narrow.

Yes - the downtown area is that peninsula. There is another Botanic Gardens on Mount Coot-tha (not competing, I think they're both owned by the Council). The narrow peninsula opposite the gardens and downtown is Kangaroo Point, which has nice apartments. This picture from a real estate website is a nice shot showing Kangaroo Point and the Storey Bridge in the foreground, downtown in the midground, with Southbank across the river to the left behind the city, and the sun setting over Mt Coot-tha beyond. Out of shot, to the right (at the end of the Storey Bridge), is the Fortitude Valley, which has been gentrifying for probably the last 15 years, but used to have a seedy reputation, street prostitution, etc. At the end of this peninsula is New Farm and New Farm Park. There is a theatre there, built in a refurbished power station.


I had thought you wanted me to research "renovated inside". It appears that "inside" is used as a noun, "It has a nice renovated inside", rather than a preposition, "It is renovated inside". The houses with renovated insides appear to favor an open plan. Is this modern, and requires a tearing down of interior walls, and adding structural support; or is it characteristics of Queenslanders? The obvious characteristic of this type of house is the deep verandas (sleeping porches?), and the sometimes elevated foundation, both presumably to help circulate air before AC. But it would also help to have few interiors walls. The verandas would provide a visual expansion of space. What does "raising" refer to?

Sorry, I'd been meaning for you to look for "Queenslanders" (as in the architectural style). I was specifically thinking of the "Interwar Queenslander" picture on the right hand side (in New Farm). You can see the garage door there, so it's been renovated, because originally they were built on stumps and that whole downstairs area would have been open (or more likely, behind boards like this one). As you note, the elevation allows for ventilation through the floorboards, due to the sub-tropic heat and humidity, along with the verandah, which yes, was used for sleeping when family sizes were larger.

Regarding your questions here, open plan is definitely something that is in favour at the moment, and has been for a while. It would have required the removal of interior walls, as you mention.


I don't see an obvious way to get across the river from Bulimba, so was an area that was originally more affordable because of lack of access, or were these more for port workers, whose jobs have moved further east or been automated. I'm not sure I understand where the Liberal area in the center of Bonner is: Carseldine, Bridgeman Downs, Aspley?

Explain Belmont? It appears to be agriculture, but the lot sizes (farms) are too small, but they are too large for an ordinary suburb.

Does Brisbane have plans for another airport? One runway seems to be small for an isolated capital city, with international flights.


Bulimba used to be working class/port workers, etc. There were ship-building facilities along the river there. I recall a large ship had just been built at the time of the 1974 flood, and broke its moorings and swung out across the river. They thought they might need to blow it up so it wouldn't create a dam, but they didn't need to resort to that.

Now the quickest way between Bulimba and the city would be via the CityCat - a high speed ferry service operated by the Council as public transport. It's quite popular with tourists, as it's a good way to see the city and it costs the same as a bus or train ticket.

Sorry, the Liberal centre of Bonner is around Carindale, and the Belmont area you ask about. Belmont and neighbouring Gumdale are acreages. Really, they're just large houses on large blocks, that were developed when that was probably near the edge of town. They'd be owned by professionals, I guess, who don't mind commuting (it's probably only five minutes to Carindale, and Carindale to the city, by bus, is only a little over half an hour.

I'm not sure about plans regarding the airport, it's been a long time since I lived up there. There is an airport on the Gold Coast, too, and since most tourists are heading to the Coast, that probably absorbs some of the air traffic.  

I was looking up some population data, and found that while Queensland and Western Australia had grown faster than NSW and Victoria, that this had been reversed in recent years. Is this a hiccup, or start of a new trend?

Queensland and Western Australia had doubled their population from about 1975-2010, while the other areas had required from around 1955-2010 (2.0% vs 1.3%)

Your map doesn't appear to include Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville, and Cairns. Are these all LNP areas?

You mentioned Sir Joh. Since his Country Party was able to dominate both the Liberals and Labor, why have the Liberals and Nationals formally merged in Queensland.
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As Polnut mentions, WA and Qld population growth was driven largely by the mining boom, which has since cooled.

In the 1970s and 80s, Queensland attracted retirees by abolishing estate taxes, so wealthy retirees moved up to avoid taxes when they slipped the mortal coil. This actually led to the other states abolishing estate taxes, in an example of competitive federalism.

As for those other cities - the top of the map shows the bottom of Fraser Island. Hervey Bay is a bit further North of there, a drive of about four hours from Brisbane. It's also only about halfway between Brisbane and Rockhampton, so to fit it in, I'd need to quite dramatically change the scale. People don't realise how large Queensland is - it's about 2.5 times the size of Texas in area. I can probably do smaller inset maps of those major population centres, though, I'll see how many booths are up there and whether it would be worth doing. Townsville is probably worthwhile, especially given how close Herbert is. Rockhampton is quite safe Labor.

The Liberals and Nationals competed against each other. Labor exploited this by introducing Optional Preferential Voting, which allows voters to number as many squares as they wish, rather than the previous compulsory preferential (like federal), where voters must number all of the squares. When One Nation further split the conservative vote in 1998, Peter Beattie ran a campaign with advertising heavily a strategy of "just vote 1." This tactic led to the merger, in order to stop the right-wing split. With the rise of the Greens, it is now the left that is split. Labor reintroduced compulsory preferential voting earlier this year.

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Bigger map in the gallery, etc.

House of Reps primary vote plurality in Greater Melbourne.