2022 Federal election

I think we had an election topic last time, so let's see how long it lasts...


The thing that had me wanting to start this topic are the new tv commercials by clive palmer this week, because it is making me frustrated that someone can claim things that he can't realistically deliver, but would convince a lot of worried or angry un-educated voters to believe it and vote for him (using trump's playbook, because those people who don't know how things work, will believe anything that sounds plausible).

One commercial has him claiming that if his party was in power, he would cap home loans to 3% for 5 years.
There is so much wrong with that...
- firstly, the government doesn't own the banks, nor does it regulate the homeloan market... the banks are non-government businesses, so if the government was wanting to dictate home loan rates, the government would need to subsidise the banks or "nationalise" them (take over control of the banks), because as noted, they are non-government businesses.
- if the government did take over the banks to force them to stick to 3%, the shareholders would sell off their shares, making their shares worthless, which would cripple most people's Super funds (most Super funds have billions of dollars invested in the share market, with the major banks being a primary investment of your Super fund money).
- the banks get their money from global markets which is dictated by Reserve Banks and their official cash rates, so if the official rates are expected to go up by 3-4% over the next couple of years due to the rebounding economy post-covid, the Banks have to raise their own rates on everything to keep making money (for their own operating costs and their shareholders' profits)... to prevent Banks from raising their own rates would result in banks going out of business, or raise fees and rates on other things like savings accounts or Super funds. Stopping homeloan rates from going up just means home owners will pay for the difference in some other way.
- Finally, if the government did nationalise the banks (take them over or buy them out), or if the government subsidised the banks to offset the money they would be losing from being forced to have 3% homeloans, our taxes would be paying for it, and taxes would have to go up... so again, home owners and the rest of us would still have to pay the difference in some other way.


Meanwhile, another commercial from clive palmer (who is noted on these commercials as the UAP's Treasury Advisor, when he clearly has no idea about how economics work), has him saying that all Australian Super Fund money invested overseas should be forced back into Australian investments. In theory it would be a great way to boost the Australian economy when there is a recession, as well as fund more necessary infrastructure projects, but with the Australian economy now already overheated (inflation is climbing), pouring Billions more dollars into the Australian economy right now would push inflation (and prices) even higher, which will push up the Reserve Bank's official rates to levels we saw in the 1980s (good for savings accounts, but bad for anyone who has a credit card, home loan, personal loan, etc).
The thing to remember is that when you (a business) invests money somewhere, it is to make back more in return. So if a business (or Super Fund) is investing billions of dollars overseas (like in the US or UK Stock Market), it is generating money that comes back into Australia while the original investment remains overseas to continue earning money. Removing that invested Billions of dollars means that Billions of their foreign money (the profits over many years) doesn't come into the Australian economy. All he would be doing is giving the Australian economy a short lived "sugar hit" of the investment money, but then no more of the annual profits from foreign investment comes in (which most Australian Super funds need, for them to keep increasing in value by 10-20% each year).
So if he was in power, our Super funds would be getting a double hit, which he doesn't care about because he has hundreds of millions of dollars and doesn't need a Super fund.


Tonight I saw a new one, saying that we need to buy new submarines now (and not wait for the nuclear ones that are still about 10 years away).
Okay... how are we going to pay for that? If he wants them purchased immediately (this year), that's Billions of dollars that needs to be spent from the budget (with our tax dollars... taxes that he doesn't pay thanks to accountants and tax deductions), and then more money spent on the Nuclear ones that would already be committed, and to pay for (like the French ones that still cost us over a Billion dollars just to cancel the contract to get the nuclear ones).


The problem with clive palmer is that he is only in it for himself, which he proved last time he was elected - he helped get some tax cuts go through for the rich that he benefited from, and then didn't show up for 95% of the 3 years he was a member of federal parliament, because he didn't care about anyone or anything else.
He just sees how much money can be made through politics by watching the American system of government being run by the big money lobbyists, and that it only takes a small amount of people with limited education to get elected. Very few people would understand or have an interest in understanding the complexities of national and global economics, so if you promise the general public things that they want instead of the things that they need, you can essentially "buy" votes without even having to worry about making it happen, because you just claim that your opponents have sabotaged your efforts if you did win, or that the election was rigged if you don't win.


There is endless material on Morrison online and on the news, so I don't need to go into any of it for now, as this election is deciding if the alternative is better or worse... so for Albo, how can you be the leader of a party that is likely to be in power at some stage eventually and not know the two primary economic numbers of the country (employment rate and Reserve Bank official rate). They are two tiny numbers, so they aren't hard to remember if you are in that line of business (a federal politician who wants to manage the national economy). His new glasses and hair may have given him a new look on all the visual media around an election, but he really needed to study up, not just the basics, but all of the specifics as well, because he would not do any good in a live debate, that the pair should be doing at some stage. (his umming and arrring when he talks all the time, makes him look like he doesn't know or understand much, which he really needs to fix if he wants to inspire confidence from voters)

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Originally Posted by griffin

Tonight I saw a new one, saying that we need to buy new submarines now (and not wait for the nuclear ones that are still about 10 years away).
Okay... how are we going to pay for that? If he wants them purchased immediately (this year), that's Billions of dollars that needs to be spent from the budget (with our tax dollars... taxes that he doesn't pay thanks to accountants and tax deductions), and then more money spent on the Nuclear ones that would already be committed, and to pay for (like the French ones that still cost us over a Billion dollars just to cancel the contract to get the nuclear ones).

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The electric-diesel engines on our submarines are disgustingly filthy things. We would be better off waiting for the cleaner nuclear powered subs, plus it means not being left with a new fleet of subs running on dirty old engines. Surely we don't want to repeat the same mistake that was made with Australian broadband; going with upgrading copper wire instead of replacing with fibre optic cables. :rolleyes:

Clive Palmer's plans do not need to be based in reality. His purpose is to pick up votes from "mah freedoms" people and funnel them back to the LNP.

That redneck theme song tho :D :p
Every UAP ad I see makes me want to vote for them less.

Also, kudos to the lady who egged Craig Kelly in Melbourne. Considering the number of lives this public anti-vaxxer has endangered, being pelted by a pair of eggs is nothing.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/unit...08-p5ac45.html

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Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime

Also, kudos to the lady who egged Craig Kelly in Melbourne. Considering the number of lives this public anti-vaxxer has endangered, being pelted by a pair of eggs is nothing.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/unit...08-p5ac45.html

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It is still assault and that should never be commended, because where do you draw the line on what is okay to throw at people?
It certainly plays into the hands of supporters who would then be even more likely to ignore rational criticism of the UAP.
We also don't want to make it a tradition for politicians to be targets of objects because it will escalate beyond eggs really quickly.
And what if he (or someone else later) had a deadly allergy to eggs and even he didn't know it, and some of it got in his mouth... he might be a horrible person but killing him like that is not a good idea.

So what is the ALP and the Greens promising this election on a national scale? I know locally they are promising big investments to get the region away from reliance on coal.

ALP: fix aged care.
Greens: put dental under Medicare.

I believe both will establish federal anti-corruption commission, something the LNP promised and failed to deliver.

Hahahhaha liberals implementing anti corruption body after everything they have done

It is puzzling to see that Labor have had 3 years to prepare for this election, to build strategies and policies that would be ready to go from the beginning of this year, as the fake election campaign began by Morrison as he started touring the country (and everyone, especially Labor, knew that an election needed to be called by May)... but what is being announced is vague and almost being thrown together on the run. What have they been doing in the last three years, to give the people an idea of what they will be like as the ruling party, and how it will specifically differ to the current ruling party.
Did they think that Morrison was so unpopular that they just had to sit back and walk it in?
The poll numbers tell two opposite stories - Morrison would win if this was a presidential election, as he still seems to be more popular in spite of all he has done or not done (when it comes to demonstrating compassion to others), but the Liberal party as a whole are not expected to win enough seats to maintain a majority government (their primary numbers are significantly lower than the last election, which they only just scraped home... but I think more preferences are going to flow back to them this time as more attention is given to a new alternative like clive palmer or one nation). The UAP targeting labor last time probably helped the LibNats maintain power, but with UAP targeting all other parties this time, it could go either way (depending on how the individual voters give out their preferences based on their reasons for voting for UAP this time).

With four weeks to go, Labor lost the first week, even though Morrison didn't really do much or announce much (at least, nothing significant for the mainstream media to focus too much on).

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Originally Posted by griffin

It is puzzling to see that Labor have had 3 years to prepare for this election, to build strategies and policies that would be ready to go from the beginning of this year, as the fake election campaign began by Morrison as he started touring the country (and everyone, especially Labor, knew that an election needed to be called by May)... but what is being announced is vague and almost being thrown together on the run. What have they been doing in the last three years, to give the people an idea of what they will be like as the ruling party, and how it will specifically differ to the current ruling party.
Did they think that Morrison was so unpopular that they just had to sit back and walk it in?

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I gather - having been a politics junkie for most of my life and having been watching it closely for a fair while - that they're very much going on a 'small-target' strategy after they put out a whole bunch of policy last time, against basically Morrison solo who ran on a virtually policy-free platform of 'Bill Shorten is bad', and then lost what was widely seen as an unlosable election. On the one hand it's tactically sound and it's evidently what works these days, but also it is pretty disappointing for people like us who would like to know - and this applies to both major parties - what the plan is for the next couple of years.

It's also worth noting that Labor have been out there announcing policies, but they're not really getting any attention. Albo's Treasury Trivia Night failure took place at a nursing home when he was doing a media conference about his aged care overhaul plans, which is actually kind of a big deal and something we literally had a damning Royal Commission into not that long ago, but the only news that came out about it was Albo Flubs His Stats Quiz. And as that Greens guy pointed out, you can pretty much fix that with a Google search - it's bad optics, sure, but that's really all it is.

It's all pretty disappointing what with there being so many major real problems atm, from floods to fires to a still-ongoing worldwide plague to massive geopolitical instability to people just not being able to afford food and petrol and a roof over their head. It's like the question of who's going to run the country for the next few years is just another reality TV show these days. :(

I'm so tempted to just write 'F yas all!!!' on my ballot this election, but probably won't. So tired of fear campaigns and people being swayed by lies (or 'spin')...maybe I will throw my vote away:)

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Originally Posted by Bemblebuu

I'm so tempted to just write 'F yas all!!!' on my ballot this election, but probably won't. So tired of fear campaigns and people being swayed by lies (or 'spin')...maybe I will throw my vote away:)

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That's pretty much how I feel. But I'll probably do a propper vote for Labour and the Greens. Surely they can't be any worse than the idiots in conservative parties.

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Originally Posted by Bemblebuu

I'm so tempted to just write 'F yas all!!!' on my ballot this election, but probably won't. So tired of fear campaigns and people being swayed by lies (or 'spin')...maybe I will throw my vote away:)

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I live in the Kennedy electorate, my vote is essentially worthless until Bob is legally declared insane.

At this rate we are going to end up with a hung parliament again, like in 2010, the year that Gillard replaced the more popular Rudd, and got punished at the election, needing the support of 4 people on the Crossbench.
As it stands, just as the election was called, Morrison was in Minority after losing 2 people to defections (one to palmer's party, the other to one nation), which means that he needs to win at least one seat just to get back into guaranteed power (although, enough left leaning people on the crossbench would still support him if he kept the same number of seats after this election).
The number needed for a technical majority is 76, out of 151 seats... but with the role of the Speaker usually coming from the ruling party, the majority now needs to be 77.


Going back to the crazy proposal of UAP fixing home loans to below 3% for 5 years - I saw some of clive palmer's campaign launch on the news the other night, and he explained that he would be able to do it by changing the constitution, to have control over the banks.
Okay... changing the constitution would require a referendum, which is a state-based vote AND a national popular vote (each of the 6 state votes separately and a majority of states must vote in favour, as well as the majority of Australians), and that is after both federal houses of parliament support the referendum. Polling suggests that he has zero chance of winning enough seats in the house and senate to be able to have the power to instigate a referendum. Even if he wasn't delusional to think that he would sweep into power winning 76 seats of the lower house and all 40 seats in the senate (to gain a majority there too), it is irresponsible to be offering things that aren't realistic just to sucker people in... even if it is legal to claim anything that is technically possible (like I've noted, a government could force the banks to restrict their rates... but it would be a bad idea for the economy, and very unlikely that he would win government to do it).
But aside from that, it goes back to the real outcome of the Banks collapsing if they are not able to set their own rates based on the national or global rates, which cripples the superannuation industry, because of how much of your Super fund is currently invested in the share market, and the banks are a hefty share of the stock market. Something he doesn't care about, because he doesn't need a Super fund.


The history of clive palmer's party is a trainwreck, but people have short memories... or, as we have seen in the modern era, people don't believe facts if they aren't from the people that they listen to. If the people they listen to says something untrue, they don't go and see if it is true, they accept it and dismiss everything else as fake news, and that they are "doing their own research".
It notes that his party is expected to put all sitting members last on preferences, unless the sitting member supports craig kelly's wreckless views... which will hurt the coalition more than labor this time (at the last election, the coalition managed to gain two seats from labor thanks to preferences from clive palmer's party)
At least we only have to worry about him once every three years now, as he is only focussing on Federal politics, as he has de-registered his party from all states for state-based elections.

I'm watching the results come in on the AEC's site. No idiot talking heads, just numbers.

So it seems that the Independents have taken over the Northern Beaches in Sydney. After the last election I'm not suprised, considering howpopular Zali Stegggall has been, and how her LNP counterpart probably shouldn't of ran.

(this was started while WA results were yet to be included, as it was still less than an hour into counting, so some details may change, but not expected to be by much)

I'm so glad that all of that money and all of that bright yellow in-your-face advertising by Palmer and his party didn't translate into votes again. It might actually mean that Australians in general are more intelligent than Palmer was expecting, with all of those election promises that he either couldn't practically deliver or shouldn't deliver if we didn't want the economy to collapse.

I guess the protest vote still had to go somewhere, but both One Nation & United are (only) ending up with 4-5% each, but (fortunately?) Greens and Independents are absorbing about 25% of the total vote between them as the main protest vote, with the two major parties down to a combined 67% (36% to Coalition and 31% to Labor).

The polls were mostly accurate to everyone except Labor, who was projected to be closer to 35%... and are nationally down from the last election*, which means that they aren't going to "win" the election, but the Coalition will "lose" the election, and Labor is only really gaining from preferences that are flowing from the Coalition through other candidates who were the protest votes (as the Coalition was down more from last election than Labor, but that loss didn't flow directly to Labor).
(* early results from WA has Labor with a higher primary vote than the Coalition, so that could get Labor closer to the polling projection)

The talking point is the inner city seats of the three largest cities going against the major parties (to Greens in Brisbane and "Teal" to Melbourn and Sydney), resulting in 3 corner contests in most of them that won't be decided for at least a week, because of preferences being needed when none of the candidates gets more than 35-40% of the primary vote and traditional preference flows do not apply to the on-the-day calculations.

There looks to be a record number of members on the crossbench this time, so if Labor doesn't get a majority (76 seats), they will need support of some on the crossbench... and we saw how difficult that was last time when Gillard was Prime Minister.
And as we saw with the Government (the Coalition only just had a majority at the start of the last term and ended in technical minority at the end), if you don't have a buffer majority of at least 5 seats, it only takes a couple of scandals and controversies to lead to by-elections or ejection to the crossbench to essentially neuter the Government. With the Senate still likely to remain held by the Coalition, who will block most of what Labor will want to pass, a Labor minority government would have trouble passing legislation in the lower house to begin with, without compromises to Greens or independents.

It was noted on the ABC coverage - if Labor doesn't reach 76 and they stubbornly refuse to negotiate with anyone on the Crossbench (as they promised during the campaign - a promise both sides always break when they want to secure government), and if no one on the Crossbench wanted to support Labor as a minority government without getting anything in return, it would mean that the existing Prime Minister remains in power, no matter how small their minority is... they just would struggle to get anything done, resulting in another election very quickly.
(saying that, there is no way Labor would reject taking Government, just so that they can get rid of the Morrison government, no matter what they have to give up to enough Crossbench people to do it)


At about 9pm on the East Coast, enough seats (more than 76) were called to non-Coalition candidates to prevent the Coalition from reaching a majority. Now that WA results are coming in, Labor are doing a lot better than the national average... so it is getting more likely that Labor will reach 76, but maybe not much more. And I would predict that if Labor get any less than 80 seats, they will only be in power for one term, as scrutiny is always on the party in power (so even if there are scandals on both sides, it will hurt the Governing party more), while their internal factions will be more keen to fight among themselves to assert their dominance... and if popularity polls for Albanese aren't good after he is elected (he is starting from a below average rating, and it is harder to gain support while PM), it could see efforts to force him to step aside before the next election (he can't be easily deposed, after Rudd changed the rules for leadership changes, so he would need to be talked into falling on his sword "for the good of the party" ).

I wouldn't be surprised if Morrison's ego had him stay on as leader. There is no rule or requirement that the leader of the losing side has to stand aside, and on the Coalition side, Morrison didn't really let too many others step out of his shadow to make a name for themselves.
The two that were allowed to have significant public roles were Dutton and Frydenberg... and both could end up losing their seats (Frydenberg most likely, Dutton will depend on postal votes).
If both of those people lose, Morrison is probably guaranteed to stay on as leader so that the party has an experienced opposition leader to pick apart the newbie PM and improve their chances at the next election, and even if Dutton survives he (Dutton) is probably even less popular than Morrison... so party members would be less likely to install him as leader if they wanted to regain the protest vote.

Okay... Morrison just spoke, and said that he was stepping down as leader and won't re-contest it... but I think he has so much power over the party that he would still be nominated by his puppets to make it look like his party refuses to have anyone else as leader. Especially if Dutton and Frydenberg lose their seats, or if a "nobody" gets the leadership and fails to improve the party's popularity, Morrison will be "asked" to re-take the leadership, and hope to get the same "return to power" that Howard gained when he returned to the position of party leader in the 90s.


The good news (IMO) is that the two crazies who dropped out of the coalition to join UAP (Kelly in Hughes) and One Nation (Christensen was in Dawson but tried his hand in the Senate for ONP), didn't win their seats, so they will no longer be that distracting vocal minority voice injecting conspiracy theories and anti-science into the Government.


The extraordinary thing about the 2022 result is that if Labor does gain a majority, they are doing it from just 32% of the primary vote... less than a third of the population voting for the governing party who now makes decisions for two-thirds of the country that didn't vote for them.
It has been a long time since the winning party has managed more than 50% of the primary vote, but that 32% for possibly 76 seats compares to the last election requiring the Coalition to need 41% of the primary vote to get 77 seats. And if Labor had managed to get that same 41%, it would have gained 90+ seats... so it just goes to show that a preferential system can be difficult to predict, as Labor didn't win the popular vote, but through preferences they were the more preferred option of all options.

IMO I don't think Labor will be a one term government, because the reason people voted for the Teal Independents was they were over the government not doing enough on climate change. Unless the LNP changes their behaviour and actually does something, I imagine that even if Labor doesn't become a majority government, or doesn't get the 80 seats, we'll have at least 2 terms of ALP.

Not going to go too much into my personal feelings here, suffice to say I'm out and out Lefty scum who mostly follows politics for the schadenfreude so I'm enjoying the show. But in terms of long-term trends/probable future outcomes this has been an interesting one.

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Originally Posted by griffin

With the Senate still likely to remain held by the Coalition, who will block most of what Labor will want to pass, a Labor minority government would have trouble passing legislation in the lower house to begin with, without compromises to Greens or independents.

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Quick little correction here: the Senate is basically Hung as it usually is, with the Coalition usually getting their way through One Nation and whoever else they can wrangle votes from. At present there's a swing to progressive Independents and more greens, so Labor's issues are - based on current polling - more likely to swing the other way (i.e. they'll have to negotiate with more progressive Senators rather than the Coalition).
I've gotta say I'm really enjoying reading your take on things @Griff, cheers for the perspective/s. :)


Anyway, for me there were a couple of really interesting things that came out of this season. I was honestly expecting Morrison to sneak back into minority government (or at least a larger minority than Labor) on the back of UAP/One Nation preferences, with both majors losing seats and a large number of Independents. I still hope the Independents get the balance of power, I know both two-and-a-half major parties have been pushing the 'chaos and instability' angle but when you look at what actually happened with Gillard-Rudd2 there were a lot of good legislative results and having to actually negotiate policy with people who WEREN'T beholden to Party politics lead to better outcomes and a LOT more transparency and accountability. So I'm pretty pleased at the rise of more Independents. It helps that I live in Tassie these days and we've got a really good track record with people like Wilkie and even Lambie, she started off a bit wobbly but has turned out really well - effectively, having more 'regular people' in politics seems to deliver better results. :)

I read somewhere that we had 50%, possible as much as 58% (I forget the number, think it was 50.8%) pre-polling day votes cast. A certain amount of that is probably due to Covid, which is still around and we're doing about as poorly at as we ever have despite it not rating a mention much in the campaign, but voter comments suggest a fair amount of that was also an 'I'm sick of it' factor. That's pretty incredible, especially since the LNP government actually made it harder to cast an early vote - they cut down the time you could do so and really pushed people to vote on polling day. So yeah, that's a pretty significant shift there, and changes how campaigns are likely to be run in future as well as reflecting (in a negative-for-mainstream-politicans way) a significant level of voter disaffection and/or hostility towards politics in general.
It was also quite interesting to see a lot of public hostility to the 'gotcha' journalism we saw so much of over the past 6 weeks, especially since voter questions during the public forums were a lot more substantive and concerned with actual policy. So it's not just the pollies who are on the nose.

Lastly, there's doubtless going to be a really interesting ****fight over future direction in the Coalition over the next few weeks/months/years. The much-diminished 'moderates' have been decimated and will point to the Coalition's incredible march to the Right as the cause, while the Nationals (who have been largely responsible for said march) have kept all their seats and will doubtless blame not pushing far-right enough as a result (likely as much/more for political jockeying's sake than out of genuine analysis). Barnaby's already out there starting to lay the narrative, and the Nats are always pushing for more power/influence within the Coalition even if it means trading off national-level electability. If Dutton gets back in (oh please oh please oh please let him lose his own seat, it'll so satisfying to watch) then he'll almost certainly be the new leader, and it'll probably mean yet more Trumpification rather than the 'return to the Centre' the already-ignored-and-now-even-less-powerful Moderate wing are already pushing for. Given that they've just barely squeaked into power with both wings for the past two elections, and that support for the two majors has been going steadily downhill for a long time, it's hard to see how 1) they can reconcile the two camps and 2) win a majority again if they don't. I personally doubt we'll see 'the End of the Coalition' exactly, both sides know they can't win on their own, but where it gets interesting is that Party loyalty only ever lasts as long as their own personal survival isn't at stake, so what we might (probably IMO) see if/when the Coalition lurches even more to the Right is a few of the remaining Moderates decide that going Teal themselves is a better bet than staying as a hostage/accomplice to the likes of Barnaby and Matt Canavan. And that's before seeing what happens with the Morrison/'center-Right'/Pentecostal camp, who are/were the weakest camp in terms of numbers but have enjoyed a lot of power and influence under Morrison and were the 'compromise' group. It's hard to see them just lying down and giving all that up, and Morrison personally (if he even stays in Parliament) and his apparently-very-loyal team isn't likely to enjoy copping the blame for losing, much less losing so comprehensively. Which is tricky because just about everyone else hates the smarmy fat smirking git and were apparently already gearing up to throw him under the bus ASAP. I can't wait to see what the next lot/s of leaked SMS messages are like.:D

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Originally Posted by Ode to a Grasshopper

Quick little correction here: the Senate is basically Hung as it usually is, with the Coalition usually getting their way through One Nation and whoever else they can wrangle votes from. At present there's a swing to progressive Independents and more greens, so Labor's issues are - based on current polling - more likely to swing the other way (i.e. they'll have to negotiate with more progressive Senators rather than the Coalition).

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Labor had shown in the past that they were better negotiators than the Coalition when it came to dealing with a split Senate (while simultaneously dealing with a Hung Parliament as well). They got a lot of what they wanted during the Gillard/Rudd 2nd term.
If they are able to replicate that and get the results they could be ok.

We'll just have to see if the Greens get a solid block to hold the balance of power in their own right or not. I think they have shown an unwillingness to take partial victories a bit too often making them more obstructive than they should be. If they play smart they could push Labor and get part of what the Greens want. It wouldn't be everything, or as far as they want, but it would be something to build off down the line. Effectively ratchet things over time like the Right does.

Glad for the change of government, I'm not sure a minor Labor government is such a bad thing, I think the independents and greens would keep Labor honest and ensure they follow through on some of their promises, especially with climate action and a federal ICAC.

So Labor didnt win, Liberal lost. But Labor is the new government. Lets hope it works to better the country

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Originally Posted by Ode to a Grasshopper

Quick little correction here: the Senate is basically Hung as it usually is, with the Coalition usually getting their way through One Nation and whoever else they can wrangle votes from. At present there's a swing to progressive Independents and more greens, so Labor's issues are - based on current polling - more likely to swing the other way (i.e. they'll have to negotiate with more progressive Senators rather than the Coalition).

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Yes, the Senate was indeed hung in the last session, but the Coalition only needed 3 of the 6 crossbench to pass legislation, and as difficult as One Nation is to dealing with anyone, the coalition was more likely to try to court Hanson's support because of how much her party polled at the last few elections, and if they could keep her happy and try to keep Palmer on side, that would have been a big block of votes coming back to the Coalition at the next election (2022) in preferences... as it did in 2019 - which was the "miracle" that Morrison talked about, as their primary vote went down from 2016 but their 2-party vote (from preferences, which wins seats) went up, as Palmer was not secret about making sure Labor didn't win in 2019.

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Originally Posted by Ode to a Grasshopper

Anyway, for me there were a couple of really interesting things that came out of this season. I was honestly expecting Morrison to sneak back into minority government (or at least a larger minority than Labor) on the back of UAP/One Nation preferences, with both majors losing seats and a large number of Independents.

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I was probably the opposite, in that I didn't expect Morrison to gain more seats because the advertising from Palmer was targeting both major parties this time (so the Coalition were not likely to get back all of those votes as preferences), and there was a very large, targetted campaign by the "Teals", who were polling quite high in the weeks leading up to election day... which would be taking primary votes from the Coalition and not sending them back as preferences (as United Party did in 2019, and One Nation in general).

The numbers at 66.3% of the count (and the difference to 2019) as of Sunday...
Coalition - 35.4% (down 6%)
Labor - 32.8% (down 0.5%)
Greens - 12.1% (up 1.7%)
One Nation - 4.9% (up 1.9% - the national vote was only up because they had candidates in twice as many electorates, but their vote in their 2019 electorates was down)
United Party - 4.3% (up 0.8% - they contested all seats last time as well, which makes it a very negligible improvement for $100million)
Others - 10.5% (up 2.2%)

It is worth noting that on Saturday night when the count ended at about 56%, the total valid Primary votes that weren't for Labor or Coalition was actually more than the Labor Primary vote... which was extraordinary.
As of tonight at 72.6% of the count, the Labor Primary vote just snuck back above the non-major party vote... but it is still a massive third of the population not voting for Labor or the Coalition, when the previous record was 25% at the last federal election in 2019.
Coalition-35.7% - Labor-32.8% - Others-31.4%
The Two-Party figure - Coalition=47.8% v Labor=52.2% (it shows how much of the Coalition Primary vote went to other parties and Independents, and then flowed to Labor instead of back to the Coalition like previous years)

The current lower house seat count as of tonight on the AEC website...
Labor - 75 (up 7 so far)
Coalition - 59 (down 16 so far)
Others - 14 (up 6 so far)
Still undecided - 3
(total 151)

Some random info for those interested...
2010 was the last time Labor had a Primary vote above 35%, which was the last time they won a Federal election.
Before this year, the two major parties needed at least 38% of the Primary Vote to win, and only twice in the last 30 years was the winning total below 41%.
In the last 30 years of 11 Federal elections, Labor has only ever had a higher Primary vote over the Coalition 3 times - 2007, 1998, 1993.
Three of the last 11 Federal elections were won with a lower Primary vote than the opposition - 1998 (Coalition) & 2010 (Labor), 2022 (Labor)
Power of Preferences - only 2 of the last 11 Federal elections had a major party with a higher Two-Party number but not a higher Primary vote - 2010, 2022 (both were Labor).
Since 1993, Labor has only once had a higher two-party percentage, which was in 2007 (Kevin Rudd election) at 52.7%.
As such, the Coalition has only had a lower two-party percentage at that same election, and this 2022 election had their lowest Primary vote in over 30 years.
In the last 30 years, only one Federal election was been won with less than 50% of the two-party percentage, which was the Coalition in 1998.

As for the "Others" vote - the Primary votes that didn't go to Labor or the Coalition from the last 30 years (stats are from wiki pages)...
1993 - 10.8% - 2 seats
1996 - 13.9% - 5 seats
1998 - 20.4% - 1 seat
2001 - 19.3% - 3 seats
2004 - 15.7% - 3 seats
2007 - 14.5% - 2 seats
2010 - 18.7% - 6 seats
2013 - 21.0% - 5 seats
2016 - 23.3% - 5 seats
2019 - 25.3% - 6 seats (it was 6 at the time of 2019 election - then 2 Liberals became independents before the 2022 election to make it 8)
2022 - 31.4% - 15 seats so far

Before 1996 the "Others" vote shifted from the Democrats to the Greens, but remained fairly low (which is why we have/had the "two party preferred" statistic being so important... but probably not for much longer). 1998 saw a big increase, thanks to One Nation... and then it settled down to 15-20% for about 20 years, before the big increase this year.
If Labor doesn't do anything really stupid in the next 3 years, their more inclusive polices and agenda will reduce the protest vote of recent years, and limit the demand for female & environmental candidates that syphoned off a lot of votes from the Liberals. As such, I don't think the Others vote will increase at the next election, but we could see more consolidation of the Minor Parties to hold onto most of their vote from this year. And I think that the "Teals" need to form a formal party if they want to keep their support from going back to the Liberals, especially if they see the light and find ways of being more inclusive of women in their party and policies.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ode to a Grasshopper

I read somewhere that we had 50%, possible as much as 58% (I forget the number, think it was 50.8%) pre-polling day votes cast. A certain amount of that is probably due to Covid, which is still around and we're doing about as poorly at as we ever have despite it not rating a mention much in the campaign, but voter comments suggest a fair amount of that was also an 'I'm sick of it' factor. That's pretty incredible, especially since the LNP government actually made it harder to cast an early vote - they cut down the time you could do so and really pushed people to vote on polling day.

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I'm of the opinion that we should have fixed terms that have a fixed election date (maybe for both Federal and State at the same time) that is a public holiday, so that we have most votes cast at the same time (most excuses for postal and absentee voting are then negated if no one is working, or not before noon like on Anzac day)... because a 4 week voting period can result in people voting early having a different opinion by election day if something significant had happened (globally, nationally, or even if there was a major scandal that pops up in the final week), and maybe regret their early voting choice. We also would have a much smaller pre-poll amount of votes to count, so that a result is known much quicker, as a close result (to be expected from now on) can leave the country without an effective government or speedy transition period. Or at the very least, have pre-polling votes be required to be received before voting day, and be counted on the day and are ready to be included on that night, so that we don't have to wait a week or two for final votes to come in to give us final results on the closer seats (especially if both major parties end up having similar amounts of Seats and neither side concedes to allow for a Government to form for a couple weeks, as we have recounts and court challenges).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ode to a Grasshopper

Lastly, there's doubtless going to be a really interesting ****fight over future direction in the Coalition over the next few weeks/months/years. The much-diminished 'moderates' have been decimated and will point to the Coalition's incredible march to the Right as the cause, while the Nationals (who have been largely responsible for said march) have kept all their seats and will doubtless blame not pushing far-right enough as a result (likely as much/more for political jockeying's sake than out of genuine analysis). Barnaby's already out there starting to lay the narrative, and the Nats are always pushing for more power/influence within the Coalition even if it means trading off national-level electability. If Dutton gets back in (oh please oh please oh please let him lose his own seat, it'll so satisfying to watch) then he'll almost certainly be the new leader, and it'll probably mean yet more Trumpification rather than the 'return to the Centre' the already-ignored-and-now-even-less-powerful Moderate wing are already pushing for.

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This I will also enjoy, as they have lost the factions that were their best chance at regaining public support, as their policies will be even more right-wing conservative, alienating everyone except the most loyal supporters (the closer to the "centre" you get, the more likely you gain the swinging voters and the protest votes of your opposing party). And as you noted with Barnaby, he has already been boasting that the Nationals didn't lose any of their seats... all 16 seats lost by the Coalition were Liberal seats, so he will will be in a position of greater power when they divide up the shadow portfolios, as the Nationals have a greater percentage of the Coalition seats this time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Golden Phoenix

We'll just have to see if the Greens get a solid block to hold the balance of power in their own right or not. I think they have shown an unwillingness to take partial victories a bit too often making them more obstructive than they should be. If they play smart they could push Labor and get part of what the Greens want. It wouldn't be everything, or as far as they want, but it would be something to build off down the line. Effectively ratchet things over time like the Right does.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dkaris

Glad for the change of government, I'm not sure a minor Labor government is such a bad thing, I think the independents and greens would keep Labor honest and ensure they follow through on some of their promises, especially with climate action and a federal ICAC.

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Traditionally, Labor uses Greens votes in Parliament and in preference deals, but publicly they try to distance themselves so that they don't get painted with the same policy brush, or be accused of being held hostage to the less popular or less practical Greens policies. I think the fact that we have so many Independents in both houses, Labor may not need to be too flexible, as they have a lot of different people and opinions available to fit the need of each item that they want passed in Parliament.
As of tonight, Labor are one short of majority, and it is a toss-up if they can win any of the remaining 3 that are in doubt... so if it remains at 75, they will only need one person of the 15 currently on the crossbench to vote with them, and could easily leave it up to the 15 crossbench members compete against each other to be that single vote in order to be the one who gets more back in return for them and their electorate.
The Senate will be a little different... at current estimates of number, The Coalition can't form a majority to automatically block Labor's bills from the lower house, but Labor will need the support of all Greens Senators and at least one independent to pass their Bills, and that means compromise. Sometimes compromise is in the best interest of the people if it drags a major party closer to the centre, but sometimes compromise can drag the major party away from centre if the only majority options are further away from the Centre, like One Nation (further Right) and the Greens (further Left).

The news programs are already claiming that Hanson and Palmer failed to get any seats in either House (a big news item for United, as Palmer is said to have spent $100million on advertising this time, on top of the $80million in 2019, with no seats to show for it), but I think that is premature. Only 38% of the Senate ballots have been counted, and 8 of the 40 Senate seats are still undecided, with 4 of those coming down to preferences, and that could take up to 2 weeks to work out.

Each of the states had 6 Senate seats up for grabs, while the two Territories had 2 each (equalling 40 in total at this election). The two Territories and two of the states can be comfortably worked out, while the other four states can only comfortably work out 5 of the 6 in each state, leaving 4 that could go a number of ways depending on preference counts.
One Nation are closest to securing 2 of those 4 seats (QLD & SA), United are closest to securing 1 of those 4 seats (VIC), and Jackie Lambie's team is closest in Tasmania.

The current numbers for the Senate...
(note - the "continuing number" is the Senators who were NOT up for re-election this time, as the State Senators have 6 year terms and only half of them are up at each 3 year federal election if there isn't a double-dissolution election... while the Territory Senators are up every 3 years)
Senate Total - 6 states with 12 senators each + 2 territories with 2 senators each = 76.
This election - 6 states with 6 senators each + 2 territories with 2 senators each = 40 (the other 36 are NOT up for re-election this year)

Listed by State/Territory...
(C=coalition - L=labor - G=greens - O=others - U=unknown)

(Definitely winning)
NSW - 2C - 2L - 1G - 0O - 1U
VIC - 2C - 2L - 1G - 0O - 1U
QLD - 2C - 1L - 1G - 0O - 2U
WA - 2C - 2L - 1G - 0O - 1U
SA - 2C - 2L - 1G - 0O - 1U
TAS - 2C - 2L - 1G - 0O - 1U
ACT - 0C - 1L - 0G - 0O - 1U
NT - 1C - 1L - 0G - 0O - 0U
(note that Greens should have 1 Senator from each state at this election, which is their best Senate result)

(Estimated winning - based on expected preference deals)
NSW - 3C - 2L - 1G - 0O - 0U
VIC - 2C - 2L - 1G - 0O - 1U (United Party has next highest allocation percentage, after the first five are deducted)
QLD - 2C - 2L - 1G - 0O - 1U (One Nation has next highest allocation percentage, after the first five are deducted)
WA - 2C - 3L - 1G - 0O - 0U (if this ends up being the final number for WA, I think it would be the first time that Labor won more Seats than the coalition in any state)
SA - 2C - 2L - 1G - 0O - 1U (One Nation has next highest allocation percentage, after the first five are deducted)
TAS - 2C - 2L - 1G - 0O - 1U (Jackie Lambi Team has next highest allocation percentage, after the first five are deducted - joining Jackie Lambi in the Senate)
ACT - 0C - 1L - 0G - 1O - 0U (an Independent has next highest allocation percentage, after the first one is deducted)
NT - 1C - 1L - 0G - 0O - 0U
Totals - 14C - 15L - 6G - 1O - 4U
(note - Pauline Hanson and former Liberal George Christensen were both listed for QLD for One Nation, so at least one of them will be gone, and if the sixth seat does NOT go to One Nation, two of the least rational people in Federal parliament would be gone, freeing up space for more educated and stable people)

Usually my estimates on the Senate lean away from the two major parties based on how the lower house preferences work, so my Estimates above could be completely out with the Unknowns.
That's because in the past, the Senate preferences after the first count seem to flow quite heavily back towards the major parties instead of going around the minor parties and independents first (which is what usually happens in the lower house, with preferences generally flowing through every other candidate before ending up in the opposing major party).

If the Estimated winnings list ends up being true, this would be the make-up of the Senate....

Coalition - last time 35 - continuing 17 - new 14 - now 31 (down 4)
Labor - last time 26 - continuing 11 - new 15 - now 26 (no change - a good indicator of how Labor's primary vote didn't go up, despite gaining lower house seats)
-
Green - last time 9 - continuing 6 - new 6 - now 12 (up 3)
-
One Nation - last time 2 - continuing 1 - new 2 - now 3 (up 1) (if they don't win any of the 4 undecided seats, they would end up being down to 1 with no new seats)
Jackie Lambie - last time 1 - continuing 1 - new 1 - now 2 (up 1)
United Party - last time 0 - continuing 0 - new 1 - now 1 (up 1) (if they don't win any of the 4 undecided seats, they would remain on zero)
Others - last time 3 - continuing 0 - new 1 - now 1 (up 1)

You can see that with 39 votes needed to pass items in the Senate, Labor and the Greens would equal 38, and Labor would need one more vote.
However, if the 4 remaining undecided seats do NOT go to any of the minor parties, we could assume that Labor and Coalition would end up with 2 more each...
Coaltion=33 - Labor=28 - Greens=12 - Others=3 (1 for One Nation, 1 for Jackie Lambi, 1 for Independent)
That still not be enough for the Coalition to be able to block the Senate, and enough Seats between Labor and the Greens to not need any of the 3 Others. Since there aren't enough Others to make up 39 votes, Labor can only use the Greens, which makes the 3 Others without any power at all.

The final results are in...

The lower house:
(need 76 for a working majority)

Labor - 77 (up 9)
Coalition - 58 (down 17)
Others - 16 (up 8)
(total 151)

The 16 "others" includes 10 Independents (up from 3), 4 Greens (up from 1), and 1 each to Katter and Center Alliance (was Xenaphon's party from South Australia).


The senate:
(need 39 to control the senate)

Coalition - last time 35 - continuing 17 - new 15 - now 32 (down 3)
Labor - last time 26 - continuing 11 - new 15 - now 26 (no change)
-
Green - last time 9 - continuing 6 - new 6 - now 12 (up 3)
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One Nation - last time 2 - continuing 1 - new 1 - now 2 (no change) (thanks to QLD voters it looks like we get pauline hanson in there for another 6 years - at least she won't have as much power now, as she won't be needed to make up a majority by labor - she will still be on various panels and inquiries though)
Jackie Lambie - last time 1 - continuing 1 - new 1 - now 2 (up 1)
United Party - last time 0 - continuing 0 - new 1 - now 1 (up 1) (unfortunately they scraped in with Victoria, so Palmer's party will be around for another 6 years, and will now be getting tax-payer funding for future campaigns, as well as political immunity to say anything untrue if said while in parliament)
Others - last time 3 - continuing 0 - new 1 - now 1 (down 2) (a single independent from the ACT, which is an amazing effort, since the two Territories require almost 3 times the amount of votes to get a senate spot, as there are only 2 senate spots on offer, compared to 6 in each State)

Even if all of the crossbench supported the Coalition in the Senate, Labor and the Greens can block anything they put up... but with Labor in power in the lower house, that would never happen. Labor will still need one more Senator to join them and the Greens to pass legislation from the lower house, so the Greens will have a fair bit of leverage, as they can block everything if they don't get what they want as well.