Queensland State Election- November 25, 2017

[IceAgeComing]

The last few polls generally have the ALP leading the LNP on the primary vote by a few points; One Nation between 15% and 20%: and the two-party preferred number (as useless a stat as that is when you have a small party polling near a fifth of the vote) is generally close.  Historically One Nation's preferences have never really gone anywhere that strongly; certainly nowhere near as strongly as Green preferences have gone to the ALP (something like 85% of Greens votes flow to Labor in Compulsory Preferential Voting, the One Nation number to the LNP is a lot lower).

One big difference between this election and the last one (and also 1998, for what its worth) is that this election is the first since Compulsory Preferential Voting was reintroduced - basically from 1992 (I *think*) and 2015 voters could elect to number as many candidates as they wished: they could only preference one and let their vote exhaust while now they have to number every candidate for their vote to count.  When the ALP government introduced this it was seen as a politically motivated attempt to change the voting system in their favour (before the One Nation surge the Greens were the only major third party, and a big factor in the 2012 LNP landslide was a lot of Greens voters electing to not preference Labor and let their vote exhaust while in 2015 they started preferencing the ALP at normal levels again) while now because there's this huge One Nation share no one really knows who benefits - other than One Nation.  Antony Green (who's ABC elections blog is very good and basically where I get my knowledge of Australian elections from) suggests that the ALP benefitted from optional preferences before 2006 when One Nation and their various splitter groups were around getting small vote shares that would have been enough to give the LNP a few more seats had less of their voters exhausted their votes; and after then was when the situation in the rest of Australia - namely the Greens being the biggest third group - became a thing in Queensland.

The issue that the LNP have though is that they rely in a fair few places on a number of voters who really don't like One Nation - it ought to be remembered that One Nation are more akin to, say, the Front National or more disreputable far right groups than some populist rights movements in Europe and historically the perception that the Coalition has cut a deal with One Nation has tended to hurt them in elections.  The most recent historical example of this was in Western Australia earlier this year: the Liberal Party, in a last-ditch effort to save their government, agreed a deal with One Nation that basically involved the Liberals putting One Nation higher in both their how-to-vote cards and Group Voting Tickets than either Labor or the Nationals (the coalition doesn't exist in WA in the same way that it does in almost every other state in that the two parties are separate parties rather than effectively being different names for the same force that never work independently) provided that One Nation did the same: the idea being that they'd get the 5% or whatever One Nation got in the lower house seats: One Nation would get eliminated in lower house seats so Liberal votes would never end up there anyway and, hey, the polling suggested that they'd probably win Upper House seats anyway so us giving them the remnants of our vote won't change anything.  The political impact of this was that it didn't work: a bunch of local One Nation candidates either resigned their candidacy (although remained on the ballot since the deal was made after nominations closed) or refused to distribute the how to vote cards which preferenced the Liberals number 2 (which had a noticeable impact on how One Nation votes transferred, which shows the power of trying to organise preference flows): it alienated more liberal, eh, liberals who really didn't like One Nation and hated the idea of working with them and the result was the Labor Party winning the biggest majority government in the history of Western Australia - traditionally a very conservative state.

Now Queensland is very different to WA in that One Nation has historically been stronger there (in 1998 they won 12 seats and got 22% of the primary vote) and the whole LNP/One Nation deal was done before (in 1998: where the ALP formed a minority government after the election supported by an independent) so it might be seen as less shocking if they do it but I don't know.  However compulsory preferential voting forces them to make a choice between either preferencing One Nation above Labor or vice versa and both would be decisions that would annoy someone - the former might cause the same issues that we've seen before and is generally seen as being a bad strategy; however in the latter One Nation would naturally be furious and they'd not be overly willing to give their votes to the LNP afterwards.  With optional preferential voting they could have simply done the "Just vote 1 LNP" thing and kicked the can down the road but they can't do that anymore and that's an issue for the party.  Its not an issue that really anyone else has - the ALP has tended to put One Nation last everywhere and that's generally what the party think is the right thing; as have the Greens and god knows what the Katter party will do although I assume that they'll only really be relevant in the seats that they currently hold.  Perhaps someone who knows more about Queensland political geography could cover things in more detail?

There's also been a redistribution: the new house will be 93 seats rather than 89.  The partisan affect of that is simple: ALP have a net gain of four to notionally be defending 48; LNP 42, KAP 2, and one Independent.  The re-emergence of One Nation makes it all but pointless to look at what TPP swing the LNP would need to win a majority; since the impact that they will have dramatically changes the map (for what its worth; they'd need to gain five seats to win an overall majority of 1 and a uniform swing of 1.4% would give them that).

[IceAgeComing]

I'm pretty sure that the ALP get a majority when all of the votes are counted; the ABC currently has 43 ALP, 38 LNP, 2 Katter and 10 undecided: one of the undecided seats (Macalister) is one where there's an independent in third that might go into second and who the other parties all preferences above Labor but I think that its incredibly unlikely that they win.  When you look at the other seats in doubt you have to think that the ALP win Cook (on 39.3% with the Greens on 8.4%; the remaining vote is split equally between Katter, LNP and One Nation and that strikes me as something that might leak some preferences to Labor) and are currently leading in Gaven, Pumicestone and Thuringowa and are competitive in lots of the other seats.  Add in the fact that Maiwar is effectively a Labor/Green contest (LNP leading, but whoever finishes second eliminates the other and the LNP don't have enough votes to prevent preferences electing that person) and that Rockhampton is a contest between the ALP and an Independent who seeked Labor pre-selection and it looks hard for the LNP to form a government.

Katter hold their two seats and will probably win Hinchinbrook which is a bit of a mess (the highest candidate is the LNP on 29.2%; and the ALP and One Nation preference Katter above them); the Greens like I said above have a shot in Maiwar although not in the Brisbane seat that they were targeting; there's the Independent likely to win Rockhampton (which the ALP held in 2012, which should tell you how safe it usually is); there'll be another Independent in Noosa (don't know exactly what they are like, they preferenced the Greens and the ALP above the LNP and put One Nation last for what that's worth).

One Nation were really hurt by the ALPs decision to put them last everywhere and the LNPs decision to not always rank them above Labor, a fair few LNP candidates have needed Labor preferences to win and any LNP->One Nation flow is comparatively weak.  They will probably win Mirani but again its tight and if LNP preferences end up being very weak, Labor may well hold onto that seat.  They haven't a chance anywhere else; their leader lost their seat pretty conclusively; and the one that everyone thought that they might do well in (Maryborough; elected One Nation in 1998; voted for an Independents between 2001-2012 and had strong Independent and PUP votes in 2015) actually swung towards the ALP.  Basically its a mess - my hunch is a slight Labor majority; but it'll be close enough for them that they should be able to govern pretty easily even if it is a small minority.

At this point I'd say that its clearly at least 45 ALP; 38 LNP, 2 Katter, 2 Independents with one seat being Labor/Green (Greens currently in front), one being Labor/One Nation (One Nation leading) and a third being Labor/LNP (basically 50/50).  The ALP can probably get to 48 but no more (47 is the majority); perhaps 49 if Maryborough early/postal votes go in favour of them against the Independent.  Basically its a mess; but an ALP friendly mess.

[IceAgeComing]

You put the wrong state up.

No, I couldn't find a statewide map of the new Queensland boundaries, however I remembered that there is no map of the WA election results from this year.

i mean you could make it

[IceAgeComing]

You put the wrong state up.

No, I couldn't find a statewide map of the new Queensland boundaries, however I remembered that there is no map of the WA election results from this year.

i mean you could make it

I don't know how to make maps, or colour maps, or change images online.

I mean there's this thing called "paint" which is an application that's easy to find, and which makes it easy to colour things in