South Australian state election - 17th March 2018

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Back in the 90s Norwood, the predecessor of Dunstan, would take a few hours to come in because the returning officer would have to ride his bike to the Town Hall to give the official numbers.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Sorry about the interlude, just had to eat dinner, however while I was gone it seems that Antony's called it. I don't think the Liberals getting 26 seats was anyones prediction.

Certainly not mine! Underestimated the likes of King (had that as a Liberal gain earlier), Hartley and Newland to name 3.

Also, Light seems to be a safe Labor seat now - Tony Piccolo must be made of gold, and/or Gawler is trending red.

Light's been moving leftward for a long time, however not just because of the transformation of Gawler from a regional town to a dormitory suburb. Light has, over the years, been shedding the rural areas and taking ever bigger chunks of salt-of-the-earth working class Munno Para

[AustralianSwingVoter]

ABC projection
LIBERAL MAJORITY OF 5
LIB: 26
LAB: 18
IND: 3

What happened to Team Xenophon?

What happens to all third parties in FPTP. It flopped.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

ABC projection
LIBERAL MAJORITY OF 5
LIB: 26
LAB: 18
IND: 3

What happened to Team Xenophon?

They haven't done near as well as people expected, they're pulling 18% in the seats they are running in, and 14% statewide. They have come second in quite a few seats, but they have been destroyed on preferences.

Parties like Xenophon's can get to 20% without too much difficulty, but always struggle to get to the point where the floodgates would open, like at 25-30%

Also I think Xenophon could've broken the floodgates if the election had been a month ago, at the start of the campaign but the campaign has been brutal to them. Both Labor and Liberal have preferenced against them by and large and since the ad just about everything has gone wrong.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

King is the only seat which has flipped compared to the notionals, and that was, on Antony's notionals, the most marginal seat with a margin of only 0.1 for Labor. Essentially, this is a no change election, it's just that the boundaries were changed enough that the Liberals should have won on them last time.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Jay Weatherhill is conceding.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

I've calculated some early Legislative Council numbers

Liberal	31.78%	3.814	3-4
Labor	29.56%	3.548	3-4
SA Best	18.94%	2.273	2
Greens	5.63%	0.675	0-1
Conservatives	3.53%	0.423	0
Liberal Democrats	2.49%	0.299	0
Animal Justice	2.19%	0.263	0
Dignity	1.89%	0.227	0-1
Child Protection	1.71%	0.206	0
Stop Population Growth	1.26%	0.156	0
Amrik Singh Thandi	0.48%	0.058	0
Advance SA	0.42%	0.051	0
Racing means Jobs	0.05%	0.007	0
Honest Transparent Accountable	0.04%	0.005	0
Danig	0.01%	0.002	0

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Looking like it could be 4 LIB, 4 LAB, 2 SA-B, 1 GRN in the upper house. Sad that Dignity lost their only seat in the upper house.

Also, eww, Marshall calling Howard a good PM.

On dignity it's worth noting that since 2010 their vote has gone up 0.7%, from 1.2% to 1.9%. So I'm not ruling them out, or the Conservatives.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Something extremely important which I only just noticed, for the first time since 1997, Nick Xenophon does not have a seat in an Australian parliament.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Updated Legislative Council figures

Liberal	31.6%	3.80
Labor	29.6%	3.55
SA BEST	19.0%	2.28
Greens	5.9%	0.71
Conservatives	3.6%	0.43
Liberal Democrats	2.4%	0.29
Animal Justice	2.1%	0.26
Dignity	2.0%	0.24
Child Protection	1.5%	0.18
Stop Population Growth Now	1.2%	0.14
Amrik Singh Thandi	0.5%	0.06
Advance SA	0.4%	0.05
Racing means Jobs	0.1%	0.01
Honest Transparent Accountable	0.0%	0.00
Danig	0.0%	0.00

[AustralianSwingVoter]

On the Independents:

Florey and Mount Gambier are just pre-selection disputes
Florey - There's a good chance Frances Bedford will rejoin Labor, but even if she doesn't she has promised to take the Labor whip.
Mount Gambier - Troy Bell was kicked out after an ICAC inquiry resulted in 20 counts of theft and six counts of dishonestly dealing with documents being brought against him. Obviously, corruption is bad so he was kicked out, however he is quite popular, has been re-elected and will quite possibly rejoin the Liberals if they allow him back.

The only real Independent is re-elected Geoff Brock in Frome.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

The numbers at the end of the night:

House of Assembly

Liberal	24	(+2)	(+5)	(-2)	(+1)
Labor	18	(-5)	(-5)	(-1)	(-1)
Independents	3	(+1)	(-2)	(+1)	(-2)
Seats in doubt	2	(+2)	(+2)	(+2)	(+2)

note- brackets on left indicate change from last election, brackets in centre left indicate change from close of parliament, brackets on centre right indicate change from notionals of last election, brackets on right indicate change from notionals taking into account by-elections and defections.




Legislative Council

Liberal	8	(±)
Labor	7	(-1)
SA Best	2	(+2)
Greens	2	(±)
Conservatives	1	(-1)
Advance SA	1	(±)
Dignity	0	(-1)
Seats in doubt	1	(+1)

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Can't say this for sure until they release a TPP number (which SA are constitutionally bound to do) but there's actually a pretty good chance that the overall TPP swing is towards Labor - I'm basing this on a cursory look at the swings that are available at the moment so I could be wrong.  Even considering that the fact that the Liberals have won is hardly a surprise: the redistribution because of the Fairness Clause screwed over the ALP and while they've managed to overcome it the last few elections there naturally comes a point where you've reached your max in certain communities and that may well be what has happened.  Its actually a reverse of the last few elections where there were big swings towards the Liberals but Labor were able to hold onto (well "notionally gain" would probably be more accurate) to places that had been redistributed in the Liberals favour while in this election things are a bit all over the place because of Xenophon but broadly Labor have at worst held up and at best moved forward slightly but they've not been able to gain more support in those redistributed seats hence why they've lost government.  Its not good for them - losing never is good - but its hardly a disaster and the Xenophon thing was a much bigger disaster.

This might be duplicating someone else in the thread but I tried reading it all and then realised that its the same person posting over and over and over again basically filibustering the conversation and that's never interesting to read.

Labor will gain on TPP, but let's be realistic here, they won in 2014 on a TPP of just 47%. 53% TPP would usually be a near-landslide for a party.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

I mean that's obvious but its just interesting that an incumbent government has been defeated despite likely having a swing towards them: I can't think of any historical example of this from any country that uses an electoral system with Single Member seats.  There are reasons for this as explained in my post but, well, even then its one of those odd things that should be noted as a potential first.

I can't think of specific examples off the top of my head, however I'm certain it's happened a few times in Australia. At minimum there are countless examples of parties gaining net seats despite suffering a swing against them.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Someone messed up in Adelaide, and after being corrected Labor now has 50.4% of the vote here. Despite that, the Liberals are notoriously strong on Declaration Votes in Adelaide, and when they're counted tomorrow they'll easily put the Liberals back in the lead.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Per Antony:
The rolls for Adelaide, Heysen, Mawson and Newland have been scanned today, allowing Dec votes to be counted tomorrow. This allows any duplicate vote to be dealt with in the declaration vote count.

So tomorrow we'll be getting just about the final figures in Adelaide, Heysen, Mawson and Newland, the four closest seats in the state.
In Adelaide the declaration votes will easily put incumbent Liberal Rachel Sanderson back in the lead.
In Heysen the declaration votes probably won't change the margin, however they will eliminate SA Best's only chance of a comeback here.
Mawson is the only seat to watch tomorrow, as the declaration votes will substantially favour the Liberals, however it's on the tipping point of whether or not it will put the Liberal's over the line.
In Newland the declaration votes will increase the Liberal margin slightly, however Labor's chance has already gone here.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

On SA Best, a good article from Ben Raue at The Tally Room with some great graphs and maps:
http://www.tallyroom.com.au/33110

[AustralianSwingVoter]

The only two remaining seats in doubt are Adelaide and Mawson. Adelaide's small Labor lead will evaporate tomorrow, and the seat will be called for the Liberals, taking them to 25. In Mawson, however, it's truly line-ball and probably won't be called tomorrow, but rather when the result is certified.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Per Antony:
The rolls for Adelaide, Heysen, Mawson and Newland have been scanned today, allowing Dec votes to be counted tomorrow. This allows any duplicate vote to be dealt with in the declaration vote count.

So tomorrow we'll be getting just about the final figures in Adelaide, Heysen, Mawson and Newland, the four closest seats in the state.
In Adelaide the declaration votes will easily put incumbent Liberal Rachel Sanderson back in the lead.
In Heysen the declaration votes probably won't change the margin, however they will eliminate SA Best's only chance of a comeback here.
Mawson is the only seat to watch tomorrow, as the declaration votes will substantially favour the Liberals, however it's on the tipping point of whether or not it will put the Liberal's over the line.
In Newland the declaration votes will increase the Liberal margin slightly, however Labor's chance has already gone here.

I don't know what the ECSA was talking about as we only have new numbers in from Heysen at current.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

ECSA have dumped the four marginals, and they only change is that the Liberals have, as expected, taken the lead with 51.5%, so they're now on 25 seats. Leon Bignell's lead in Mawson has been cut down to 50.5%, and so it remains the only seat in play.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Something important to add, of the 20 seats Labor is currently leading in 19 of them have a swing to Labor. Only in Taylor, which is complicated by SA Best, is Labor suffering a swing against it. That is why Labor is getting a swing towards it this election. This is a correction for the 2010 and 2014 elections, where Labor won on TPPs of only 48.4 and 47.0. In 2010 how this happened was in every safe Labor seat the swing to the Liberals was greater than the average swing of 8.4%, while in the 7 marginals which were designed to flip to the Libs on a 50.1% statewide margin in the two most marginal Labor saw the only two swings towards them, while of the other 5 the Liberals gained two on above average swings while Labor held three on below average swings. In total in seats with a Labor margin of 10% or more the Liberals got an average swing of 11.1%, there were no seats with a notional margin between 7% and 10%, while in the 7 marginal Labor seats there was an average swing to the Liberals of only 3.9% and in Liberal held seats there was an average swing of 8.5%.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Oh and the postals from Heysen completely close the door for SA Best.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

I ran the legislative council numbers through my very own Group Voting Ticket calculator, so it's obviously not perfect given at the final count there's nigh on a quota of informal votes from tickets the Independents and those which didn't preference the majors. However even with that caveat my numbers showed, firstly on top of the 3 LIB, 3 LAB and 2 SA BEST seats guaranteed by the quota the Greens will easily reach quota, as they have 0.98 quotas combined with Animal Justice, who they'll get a very strong flow from. After the Green is elected and their surplus distributed Dignity and the Liberal Democrats go. Dignity goes first, and could go before Animal Justice if they're unlucky, and they're preferencing SA Best 2, so Xenophon should receive the bulk of their votes. Liberal Democrat votes will split between the Liberals and the Conservatives, probably favouring the Conservatives however they could quite possibly push the Liberals over quota, and with precious few going anywhere else. Then SA Best and the Conservatives will fight over exclusion, and Conservatives will probably come on top because despite Xenophon's ability at drawing preferences in from everywhere the Conservatives start on a higher base with no opportunity for below-the-line leakage. With SA Best gone that leaves either 3 parties fighting for two seats or 2 parties fighting for 3 seats and with the 4th Liberal either just below quota or already elected with his surplus distributed and with Labor probably at about .75 quotas there is simply no way the Conservatives can overcome and win a seat.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

I guess this is really just a case of SA's fairness provision finally working as intended?

Yep, after 3/4 the four Labor wins happening despite losing the two-party preferred the fairness provision has, finally, worked.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

I guess this is really just a case of SA's fairness provision finally working as intended?

Yep, after 3/4 the four Labor wins happening despite losing the two-party preferred the fairness provision has, finally, worked.

How much of the two-party vote have the Liberals got this time around?

Looks to be around 51.5, so a 1.5% swing to Labor