Ghosts of Kennett Past: Victorian State Election (Final Results)

[AustralianSwingVoter]

The crowd is chanting "S! A! C!" after Dan Andrews was bringing it up.

S *E C (State Electricity Commission)

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The crowd is chanting "S! A! C!" after Dan Andrews was bringing it up.

S *E C (State Electricity Commission)

Ah. Thanks for correcting my error.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Polwarth - I'm going bold and saying this has all the tools for an upset. The redistribution hurt the Liberals position here. Much of the Surf Coast is only being more left-wing by the day. Labor's candidate seems strong and is running a decent campaign here. The only question is whether the Liberals statewide vote improves by enough to drag this seat along with the tide. I think it just might, especially because there's still a lot of very conservative small towns here. But it's certainly a seat to watch.

Very good pick 👏👏👏

Edit: I'm pretty certain Labor would've won Polwarth in 2018 on these boundaries. The redistribution knocked the Liberal primary from 51% to 45% and the margin down to 2.0%. Labor would've gone all in with Torquay as a base compared to their minimal campaign irl.

https://twitter.com/kevinbonham/status/1596464669966802944

womp womp. oof

[AustralianSwingVoter]

The greens are being utterly slaughtered on late counting as if they still can't figure out how to organise for it. To big surprise Northcote has flipped back to a solid Labor hold. Footscray, Preston and Pascoe Vale have firmed up and they've fallen well out of reach in Albert Park.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The greens are being utterly slaughtered on late counting as if they still can't figure out how to organise for it. To big surprise Northcote has flipped back to a solid Labor hold. Footscray, Preston and Pascoe Vale have firmed up and they've fallen well out of reach in Albert Park.

So Labor net gain looks quite possible at this stage.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Labor			Coalition			Crossbench
Seat	Margin	+Swing	Seat	Margin	+Swing	Seat	Margin	+Swing
Hawthorn	0.6	—2.3	Hastings	0.0	—1.3	Mildura	0.0	—0.9
Nepean	0.7	—7.4	Caulfield	0.0	+2.0	Melbourne	1.7	+8.5
Northcote	1.7	—1.5	Sandringham	0.4	+4.7	Brunswick	2.0	+11.5
Ashwood	2.0	+4.2	Brighton	0.5	+3.7	Shepparton	5.3	—12.1
Pakenham	2.2	—1.8	Bayswater	0.6	—4.7	Prahran	9.0	+3.0
Ripon	2.7	+0.2	Bass	0.9	—1.0
South Barwon	3.0	+6.8	Glen Waverley	0.9	—4.2
Box Hill	3.1	+4.1	Croydon	1.0	+0.4
Ringwood	3.2	+4.3	Eildon	1.0	+6.0
Morwell	4.0	—8.4	Berwick	1.3	+3.5
Melton	5.0	—0.4	Evelyn	1.8	+3.4
Richmond	5.8	—13.2	Polwarth	2.0	—0.2
Monbulk	7.1	+0.5	Benambra	2.6	—1.6
Werribee	9.2	+1.3	South-West Coast	3.2	+4.8
Cranbourne	9.3	—0.3	Warrandyte	3.8	+0.4
Eureka	9.6	—2.7	Kew	4.7	—0.7
Frankston	10.2	—1.5	Mornington	5.0	—4.3
Geelong	10.2	+4.4	Rowville	5.4	—1.8
Narre Warren North	10.4	—1.3	Bulleen	5.5	+0.4
Narre Warren South	10.4	—1.9	Malvern	6.0	+2.4
Eltham	10.5	—1.5	Narracan	10.0	——
Wendouree	11.0	+2.4	Ovens Valley	12.1	+5.9
Bellarine	11.4	—3.0	Gippsland South	14.0	+1.2
Bentleigh	11.5	—3.4	Euroa	15.3	—5.4
Carrum	12.0	—2.0	Gippsland East	17.6	+6.3
Bendigo East	12.1	—1.2	Lowan	21.0	+0.6
Ivanhoe	12.3	+0.4	Murray Plains	24.0	—0.8
Niddrie	12.5	—5.4
Point Cook	12.8	—4.4
Albert Park	13.1	—1.9
Macedon	13.4	—3.8
Mordialloc	13.4	—5.2
Sunbury	14.5	—8.1
Clarinda	14.9	—4.6
Essendon	15.8	—2.8
Mulgrave	15.8	—5.6
Oakleigh	16.1	—2.6
Bundoora	16.3	—3.5
Yan Yean	16.9	—12.4
Sydenham	17.7	—9.0
Tarneit	17.9	—5.3
Bendigo West	18.6	—4.2
Lara	19.1	—3.0
Williamstown	19.9	—7.3
Kalkallo	20.9	—4.4
Preston	21.2	—19.2
Greenvale	22.0	—15.1
St Albans	22.0	—12.4
Pascoe Vale	22.3	—20.3
Dandenong	23.1	—4.0
Laverton	23.4	—5.4
Mill Park	24.9	—13.5
Broadmeadows	25.2	—9.8
Kororoit	25.3	—11.1
Thomastown	27.4	—11.4
Footscray	28.7	—13.9

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Numbers speak louder than words. This is the dumbest, stupidest, most painful and inefficient result a party can get. Great job at getting monster swings in the safest of Labor seats, if only you could've got a pinch of that in the marginal seats that actually matter. This is a perfect South Australia 2010 redux.

Also in case it's confusing; first two columns are seat and 2018 margin, third column is the swing, party gaining votes is coloured and positive/negative is whether swing is towards or away from incumbent. Bolded seats are changing party.

[JimJamUK]

Numbers speak louder than words. This is the dumbest, stupidest, most painful and inefficient result a party can get. Great job at getting monster swings in the safest of Labor seats, if only you could've got a pinch of that in the marginal seats that actually matter. This is a perfect South Australia 2010 redux.

I’m guessing the geography of the swing looks a lot like the federal election earlier this year (notably Labour losing quite a lot of votes in outer suburban/non-white safe seats)?

[GoTfan]

One thing to note here is that the Liberals kicked an own goal with their 'put Labor last' strategy. A good chunk of the seats that have been lost by Labor have been to the Greens, which of course means that Victoria's Parliament has moved further to the left.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

So, can someone explain the performance of the Victoria Socialists?

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Matthew Guy has resigned. God only knows why he didn't jump on the night though.

[warandwar]

So, can someone explain the performance of the Victoria Socialists?

Good slogans, preference deals with the weed party and the porn industry lobbying group. It's a few percenfage points in a regional election in Australia, not much to read into.

[Ebowed]

The gains that the Liberals made in safe Labor electorates were easily offset by gains for Labor among Chinese-Australian voters in seats like Ringwood, Box Hill, etc.  This cohort abandoned the Liberals federally and appears to have made the switch on the state level as well.  This is a big problem for the Liberals.

[Ebowed]

One thing to note here is that the Liberals kicked an own goal with their 'put Labor last' strategy. A good chunk of the seats that have been lost by Labor have been to the Greens, which of course means that Victoria's Parliament has moved further to the left.

I disagree that it was an own goal.  The point of the 'Put Labor Last' strategy was not necessarily about ideology, but the dangers of Andrews' centralised and autocratic leadership style.  Anything that can provide a check on that impulse would have been useful, so even a minority Andrews government propped up by the Greens would have been better than the actual result.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Maps, glorious maps!

[AustralianSwingVoter]

With ~40% counted we now have a decent picture of the Upper House:

Western Metropolitan
last election 3 Labor, 1 Liberal, 1 Hinch
2 Labor, 1 Liberal above quota
the final two seats will clearly split one each to left and right, with left elected first and their surplus deciding the right winner
Left: this is chaos. eventually it's a three way tussle between Labor, Socialists and Legalise Cannabis. Neither of the latter go to Labor so one way or another they're eliminated, who split their ticket between the two (lol). One of the Socialists and Legalise Cannabis survive, overtake the Greens on the others prefs, and are then elected with a massive surplus thanks to Greens prefs. Greens look on despondent wondering why nobody likes them.
Right: a straight fight between the Liberals 0.5 quota, fed by the far-right and cookers, and expelled Liberal turned Labor DLP Bernie Finn, the recipient of the Druery spiral and christian parties. with both still below quota the race is decided by the massive left-wing surplus. this count is a mess, you might give the Liberals a slight edge thanks to microparty leakage and more favourable surplus transfers.
2 Labor, 1-2 Liberal, 0-1 Legalise Cannabis, 0-1 Victorian Socialists, 0-1 Labor DLP it looks like chaos but at the end of the day it's 3 left/2 right.
Legalise Cannabis or Victorian Socialists gain from Labor
Liberal or Labor DLP gain from Hinch

Northern Metropolitan
last election 2 Labor, 1 Liberal, 1 Green, 1 Reason
2 Labor, 1 Liberal, 1 Green above quota
final seat is a straight fight between the right-wing+Druery spiral around ex-Labor czar Somyurek of the DLP and the left-wing spiral around iconic ex-Sex Party, now Reason, Fiona Patten. With only 31% counted we just need to wait and see, but you'd give a narrow advantage to Patten on current figures.
2 Labor, 1 Liberal, 1 Green certain, fight between Reason and Labor DLP for final seat.
either no change or Labor DLP gain from Reason

North-Eastern Metropolitan
last election 2 Labor, 2 Liberal, 1 Transport Matters
2 Labor, 1 Liberal above quota
left-wing micros all funnel into Reason but that's still nowhere near enough to matter, they peak at ~0.4 quotas vs the Greens base of 0.65 and promptly elect the Greens with a small surplus.
the final seat comes to a messy multi-way fight. basically it's one lucky right-wing microparty vs the Liberal's 0.8 quotas. the contenders (the first two are much more likely):
Labour DLP - they only get one "big" transfer. family first. currently leading but usually hurt on late counting.
Liberal Democrats - if the transport matters spiral fails they hoover up most of it through the health party. they'll be hurt by BTLs leakage.
Family First - currently falling 0.9% behind at critical exclusion, if they can make up the gap with Labour DLP they sweep up their prefs and are in prime position. they suffer the fewest leakage to Libs of the four thanks to One Nation and Freedom party.
Transport Matters - the incumbents are the anointed Druery spiral. one problem, they're current polling dead last (lol, lmao). if they can just improve to second last, they get the Druery spiral going, leapfrogging all the above mentioned.
Liberals probably beat any of the four but it's nowhere near clear to be certain. Family First would be in the strongest position, Transport Matters in the weakest.
2 Labor, 1-2 Liberal, 1 Green, 0-1 Labor DLP, 0-1 Liberal Democrats, 0-1 Transport Matters, 0-1 Family First pls just get more votes libs to end this chaos
Greens gain from Transport Matters
unlikely but possible Labor DLP or Liberal Democrats or Transport Matters or Family First gain from Liberals

Southern Metropolitan
last election 2 Labor, 2 Liberal, 1 Sustainable
1 Labor, 2 Liberal above quota
1st Greens at ~0.9 quotas, certain to be elected off far-left microparties
Druery preference spiral built around Sustainable Australia incumbent, however combined microparty vote below 1 quota and no source of additional transfers
2nd Labor at ~0.8 quotas, will be last elected on elimination of Reason or Legalise Cannabis
2 Labor, 2 Liberal, 1 Green certain, no realistic challenger
Greens gain from Sustainable

South-Eastern Metropolitan
last election 3 Labor, 1 Liberal, 1 Lib Dem
2 Labor, 1 Liberal above quota
the Druery spiral is on Hinch but it's going nowhere. they instead consolidate around the Liberal Democrat incumbent, but the cookers all leak to the Liberals which is more than enough to hand them the seat. especially once BTL leakage comes into play.
for the left Legalise Cannabis look secure. they'd need a massive collapse on late votes, needing to fall behind both Labor and the Greens on the exclusion count (they'd then elect the greens). but that seems too unlikely at current.
2 Labor, 2 Liberal, 1 Legalise Cannabis near certain, no likely challenger
Legalise Cannabis gain from Labor
Liberal gain from Liberal Democrats

Eastern Victoria
last election 2 Labor, 1 Liberal, 1 National, 1 Shooters
1 Labor, 1 Liberal, 1 National above quota
Shooters start a good distance back but have a spiral that looks unbeatable. while One Nation gets the Liberals surplus and hangs close behind Shooters in the late counts the final left-wing surplus all goes to Shooters giving them a massive margin that has no discernible threats.
onto that left-wing surplus: as always the greens have the strongest starting position, but get literally no prefs from anyone and fall out like usual. the key elimination count is with Labor, Greens and Legalise Cannabis bunched together around half a quota each. Legalise Cannabis are currently at the bottom, if it stays that way Labor wins. If Greens or Labor go out first instead, their prefs flow to Legalise Cannabis over the other. So Labor advantage but Legalise Cannabis possible.
1 Labor, 1 Liberal, 1 National, 1 Shooters certain, fight between Labor and Legalise Cannabis for final seat
either no change or Legalise Cannabis gain from Labor

Northern Victoria
last election 2 Labor, 1 Liberal, 1 Lib Dem, 1 Hinch
1 Labor, 1 Liberal, 1 National above quota
Druery preference spiral around Animal Justice (thanks to an incredible scam by them), cooker/far-right spiral around One Nation. With One Nation even getting Liberal prefs there's no possible challenger, meanwhile Animal Justice builds up such an incredible spiral from Druery as well as from far-left parties that they are certain to overtake the Greens with ease, who then elects them last over Labor.
1 Labor, 1 Liberal, 1 National, 1 One Nation, 1 Animal Justice certain, no realistic challenger
Animal Justice gain from Labor
National and One Nation gain from Hinch and Liberal Democrats

Western Victoria
last election 2 Labor, 1 Liberal, 1 Hinch, 1 Animal Justice
2 Labor, 1 Liberal above quota
2nd left seat is a straight fight between the Greens and Legalise Cannabis (who get Labor's surplus!). currently quite close at final cutoff, it'll come down to BTL leakage rates.
2nd Liberal at ~0.6 quotas, certain to be elected from One Nation & Family First prefs
Druery spiral goes to Hinch incumbent, however even on the calculator they don't have enough votes to challenge Liberals or the left spiral. and with BTL leakage/exhaustion the gap will widen
2 Labor, 2 Liberal certain, fight between Greens and Legalise Cannabis for final seat
Liberal gain from Hinch
Greens or Legalise Cannabis gain from Animal Justice

Totals
last election 18 Labor, 10 Liberal, 1 National, 1 Green, 3 Hinch, 2 Lib Dem, 1 Animal Justice, 1 Reason, 1 Sustainable, 1 Transport Matters, 1 Shooters (only technically Left 21-19 Right, yes it was really 22, blame Sustainable Australia.)

"Left" - 22-23 (don't read too much into this, this is not a bloc, Labor constantly works with "right-wing" crossbenchers instead of dealing with the Greens)
14-15 Labor (—3-4)
3-4 Greens (+2-3)
1 Animal Justice (±0)
1-4 Legalise Cannabis (+1-4)
0-1 Reason (—0-1)
0-1 Victorian Socialists (+0-1)

"Right" - 17-18 (don't read too much into this, this is not a bloc)
11-13 Liberal (+1-3)
2 National (+1)
1 One Nation (+1)
1 Shooters (±0)
0-3 Labor DLP (+0-3)
0-1 Liberal Democrat (—1-2)
0-1 Transport Matters (—0-1)
0-1 Family First (+0-1)

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Lower House Seats still "in doubt"

Bass
Labor leads by 0.4%. The VEC does this stupid thing where they don't break pre-polls down into the individual reporting centres. This is stupid. But it's clear enough that 1 of the 3 centres hasn't reported here. It looks like (and whispers indicate) the remaining pre-poll is the more conservative centre. The lead looks very fragile but the VEC's opaqueness means we can't be certain. Tilt Labor

Hastings
Labor leads by 0.7%. It's narrowed since the night, but the first batch of postals was very weak for the Liberals (51%!) which is nowhere close to what they need to win. With favourable Absents still out and weak postals this looks all but locked up. Likely Labor

Hawthorn
Liberals lead by 0.7%. Pesutto is all but home after his shock defeat last time. The first batch of postals were very favourable and singlehandedly built the current lead. It's only not called in case of a counting error on pre-polls, as the independent needs a miracle on late postals on absents to survive. Extremely Likely Liberal

Mornington
Liberals lead by 0.2%. It's the same story every election. Independents collapse on before the day ballots. Liberals have treaded water on pre-polls and done very well with postals. However Absents were very nasty here last time, so you can't quite call it. But it's inevitable the Independent will get a much weaker swing on them. Likely Liberal

Northcote
Labor leads by 1.2%. On the night this looked gone, all locked up by the Greens. Then came Postals that were brutal even by Greens standards and it looked like Labor was safe after all. Then the pre-polls came in and it looks a bit closer. Greens do exceedingly well here on Absents and Provisionals so they do have a chance. But they need to get much better numbers on remaining postals first. Likely Labor

Pakenham
Labor leads by 8 votes. Eight. The count is fairly low at only 71%, and looking under the hood the preference flows are oddly weak to Labor. As this is a brand new seat we really don't have enough of an idea of reporting patterns to make any educated guesses til more votes flow in. Pure Tossup

Preston
The night count of Labor v Greens is worthless. Per scrutineering local independent Gaetano Greco will go up against Labor. His entire campaign was based on saving the Preston Market from redevelopment. Currently Greco would need to win 75% of preferences. For comparison the Greens were winning 70.4% before the VEC cut the count. So not impossible but an unlikely hill to climb. Likely Labor

(+ the deferred election in Narracan thanks to the death of a candidate. safest Liberal seat going in, should be an easy Liberal hold)

In total
55 Labor (±0) (lol)
19 Liberals (—2)
9 Nationals (+3)
4 Greens (+1)
0 Independents (—3)
1 Pure Tossup (??)

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The story of the leader of the Animal justice party pretending to be on Glenn Druery's side until like the last five minutes where he faked an urgent appointment and quickly filed his party's ballot to harvest his preferences to the left is so funny.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Labor DLP might end up with nothing. Hilarious.

[Logical]

The story of the leader of the Animal justice party pretending to be on Glenn Druery's side until like the last five minutes where he faked an urgent appointment and quickly filed his party's ballot to harvest his preferences to the left is so funny.

Also a good reminder that GVT elections are neither free nor fair.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

The story of the leader of the Animal justice party pretending to be on Glenn Druery's side until like the last five minutes where he faked an urgent appointment and quickly filed his party's ballot to harvest his preferences to the left is so funny.

Also a good reminder that GVT elections are neither free nor fair.

A small price to pay for the comedy of situations like North-East Metro. Where the party currently running dead last on 0.24% would possibly win an upper house seat if they can just improve to second last on 0.29%.

[warandwar]

I think you could make a case that the collective 1 quota of people who vote for parties like "JOBS AND TAXIS FIRST" are a constituency unrepresented in any other country's parliament and thus the system actually is pretty democratic

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Maps, glorious maps!

Crazy how many Labor+60% TPP seats there are on the Frankston Line. Of course, it makes sense in context, but imagine telling that to someone a decade ago...

[Ebowed]

Looking like promising results for Legalise Cannabis (appropriate, too, that they would flip seats off Labor after Andrews shelved the legalisation inquiry's findings).  Very funny that the Greens and Labor both direct preferences to Cannabis ahead of each other, too.

[Ebowed]

Lower House Seats still "in doubt"
Preston
The night count of Labor v Greens is worthless. Per scrutineering local independent Gaetano Greco will go up against Labor. His entire campaign was based on saving the Preston Market from redevelopment. Currently Greco would need to win 75% of preferences. For comparison the Greens were winning 70.4% before the VEC cut the count. So not impossible but an unlikely hill to climb. Likely Labor

Interesting.  Do you know if the Greens were directing their voters to preference Greco above Labor?