Australian Federal Election- July 2, 2016

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

ABC predicting 78 Coalition seats if they don't have any losses in WA... I still think it'll be around 80 in the end.

OK ...

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Any idea where what's left will go?

NFI but the Government has a hellish job ahead of them.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I don't buy this challenge nonsense. Shorten deserves another crack, even if the Libs fall over the line

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I think Shorten has a decent chance. Turnbull is still in the driver's seat, but I wouldn't be at all confident about the outcome.

What percent chance does Shorten have of becoming the next PM?

Most of the in doubt seats were projected as Liberal gains/Liberal ahead earlier, just that the ABC turned off their predictive software and now are using the current votes. I doubt Shorten wins.

There's a reason why the predictive software was turned off, it's because the modelling isn't being matched by the outcomes.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Well... my take.

Despite predicting a hung Parliament (that's not discounting a decent move on postals to help them to 76) I'm surprised by a few things as to how it may have come about.

1. The swing in Tasmania, which NO ONE saw coming. I know the Libs started pumping money into Bass, but I did think Braddon was more of a danger... but there you go.

2. Without doubt the story and the biggest factor was the performance of the ALP in NSW, and especially Sydney. Not only did they see large swings 7%+ in their own safe seats, they got decent swings in seats that were viewed as vulnerable to the Libs, such as Parramatta and Greenway as well as the scale of the swings in Lindsay, Gilmore etc.

3. Despite suggestions about the Libs sand-bagging marginals, it really seems Labor had the overall stronger marginals campaign.

4. The biggest surprise was the under-performance in Victoria and Queensland. In both, incumbent ALP members increased their margins, but, especially in VIC they just couldn't crack most marginals (largely because there are so few) but Dunkley remains in the danger zone for the Libs and obviously, so does Chisholm for the ALP. But the BIGGEST shock to me wasn't that the ALP couldn't flip Brisbane... I did think it was likely to be a bridge too far, but to have a swing TO the LNP in both central Brisbane seats (Brisbane and Griffith) was kind of mind-boggling.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Shorten outright winning isn't out of the cards yet, but we'll see. Hard to see how there isn't another election soon, since it might end up with a byelection or two costing the government their majority.

It pretty much is. Labor needs to flip decent leads in some seats that would be huge upsets, in addition to winning every seat they're only just ahead in. 72 is kind of the best I can expect for the ALP ...

Labor just pulled ahead in the National 2PP.

They were ahead this morning then the Libs got it back. But I think the best case scenario is something like 50.4-6 for the Libs in the end.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

If Shorten gets toppled now, the ALP really needs to reform its leadership selection process.

They already did that.

Indeed, the reform is the reason for this. The mechanism allows for the leadership to automatically vacated after an election loss, if there is no other candidate the leader then re-assumes the leadership, if there's a rival then there's an election.

Albo claimed in 2013 that he only ran to provide an alternative.

I'll put it this way, I think Albo even considering a challenge of any kind after Shorten's performance would be a self-inflicted blow of massive proportions.

But it won't happen.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I think Grey is a LONG way from settled. I wouldn't give it to NXT at this point. Unless something goes horribly wrong/right on postals etc 72 I still see as the ALP best case scenario.

For academic purposes, IF that ended up being the chamber I think the ALP becomes favourite. Largely because the only natural ally of 'others' that the Libs have is Katter and that only gets you to 73. The challenge becomes who can get to 76 OR show the GG they have the ability to guarantee supply. NXT has said his key criteria is who can best deliver stable government - that includes the Senate. So far, you'd say that the ALP/GRN bloc is stronger in the Senate than the LNPs right now.

So
ALP - 72
GRN - 1
Wilkie - 1
NXT - 2

With McGowan as Speaker? - equals 76+speaker vs 73 (LNP+Katter).

The reality is, the LNP needs to be at 74-75 to be able to be sure they can get over the line, the ALP can be as low as 71.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Nationwide in 2013, the inclusion of non-ordinary votes (i.e. absent, provisional, pre-poll, and postal) only increased the coalition's first preference vote share by 0.14 points, and decreased Labor's by 0.44. Greens increased their vote share by 0.24, mostly due to a very strong performance among "absent" votes.

Sounds like Batman could get closer and maybe flip.

I'd be shocked if Batman flipped at this point.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Just heard from a Labor person they are confident of getting to at least 70, Flynn was a BAD postal result for the ALP in 2013, but they don't expect it to be anywhere near that bad this year.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Oakeshott is now AHEAD in Cowper according to the Guardian!?!?!?!?!?!

It's a total of about 1400 votes TPP, that should shift back to Nats.

The Nats are on 46% primary... that should absolutely be enough.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Ugh - the degree to which Labor doesn't deal with postals drives me insane.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

The Coalition has taken the lead in Forde, bringing them to 74 seats. They're extremely likely to take Flynn and Capricornia, while Herbert and Hindmarsh look like decent chances too. They'll have a 76-78 seat majority in the end.

It's still way too early in the count. The first batch of postals were HORRIFIC for the ALP, then next clump was better (note I said better, not good). Such as in Herbert which started at 65-36, and now is 57-43.  We'll just have to wait and see.

My gut is that we'll see something about the expected result of the LNP on 74-76. The other thing to remember is that if the margin is still close-ish, the Labor is favoured in absentee, provisional and declaration votes.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

More than likely, if the Coalition form Government, which is pretty much guaranteed at this point, I think they'll stick with the current speaker, rather than trying to install a cross-bencher.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

  Ok, I'm happy now.  Flynn has been put in the seats in doubt category by ABC.

That makes you happy?

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Bob Katter throws support behind Coalition, if they do not gain a majority.

This is a given... but also does the expected, "I reserve my right to change my mind" thing.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Labor's lead in the national two party count has shrunk to less than 500 votes

Back up to 12,000

Looks like a majority of The People do not support the reckless and chaotic Abbott-Turnbull-Katter Government.  Sad!

The Libs are now up by 70 votes. 70 votes out of just under 10.4 million...  They were always going to win the TPP, but remember, Gillard's winning TPP margin in 2010 was 34,000.

EDIT: Now it's 193 in favour of Labor.

But let me repeat this point. It looks like the swing will be somewhere about 3.2-3.4% still the second highest TPP swing against a first-term Government since WWII. Only Howard's GST election in 1998 was higher AND that had a significant and unpopular tax reform attached to it... wtf did Turnbull gain from this spanking?

The point to remember is that 76, even 77 seats is still a DISASTER for the Turnbull agenda. The Senate is even worse for him, it looks like the centre-left and centre will actually control the Senate.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Had Turnbull called an election in the (Australian) summer of 2015, he probably would have gotten at least a big a majority as he had. Bet he's kicking himself for that.

Yes, the issue is however, not that reason for the Double-Dissolution is usually a big deal during the campaigns, but if Turnbull wanted a DD even as late as March (which he would have won) he would likely have needed to use an Abbott-era climate change Bill as the trigger, he would have been eaten alive for doing that. Turnbull needed his own trigger, he wanted the Senate voting reforms (slow clap for that one)... so he was kind of trapped in a f*** up of his own making.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Update on TTP: (as of 11:17 AM, July 8th)
LAB-5,151, 873/ 50.06%
LIB-5,139,700/ 49.94%

LAB +12,173 votes, Swing +3.35%

Liberal/National Coalition   5,199,066   50.00   -3.49
Australian Labor Party   5,199,351   50.00   +3.49

This is what the AEC has up now.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

First batch of absentees in Forde are breaking strongly to Labor. However, there's 4,700 uncounted postals and only 1700 absentees remaining.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Yup - Shorten conceded, but it was only a matter of time.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Labor at 50.06% of national 2pp, retaking the lead.

Not according to the AEC.

National two-party preferred
Turnout: 72.11%
Party / Coalition   Votes                         Vote %   Swing %
Liberal/National Coalition   5,354,596   50.13   -3.36
Australian Labor Party      5,326,493      49.87     +3.36

But, it seems there's been about a 2.3% increase in informal Senate ballots, code for "people didn't understand the new voting rules"

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Well this took a while to go downhill, but at last it didn't disappoint in in its disappointingness.

Not really, Labor came back from a landslide three years ago and considering everything this is still a good result, even if not the ideal.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Well this took a while to go downhill, but at last it didn't disappoint in in its disappointingness.

Not really, Labor came back from a landslide three years ago and considering everything this is still a good result, even if not the ideal.

Considering the Coalition had the legacy of two years of Abbott to testify against it, Labor should have been able to win this. Just because Turnbull came in at the last minute shouldn't erase what happened.

Australians are 'c' conservatives on the whole, we don't change governments readily (except QLD... obviously). Mix that into Labor not really being able to prosecute the two-pronged arguments against incumbents (they're bad and we'd be better).

Abbott's mess wasn't enough and enough people wanted to give Turnbull a chance.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

In relation to the North Shore seats, it's been a slowly emerging trend that in many places the Greens are the second party. There are times when these seats swing, but since the stronger emergence of the Greens in the early/mid-2000s, Labor has been an afterthought. Those areas are as much anti-Labor, as they are pro-Liberal. There are times when they might not want to vote Liberal, but they certainly won't be voting Labor.

Plus, despite living in the area, Abbott was not considered part of their tribe and a lot of Liberal voters, who are socially moderate/liberal and more pro-business than anything else were always made very uncomfortable by his social crusader status.