Victorian State Parliamentary Election - 29 November 2014

[MaxQue]

Quick forecast. Only three seats not called yet (Morwell (NAT-LAB), Prahran (LIB-LAB-GRN??) and Richmond (LAB-GRN)).

[MaxQue]

An independent will apparently win in Shepparton. Not a great election for Nationals.

[MaxQue]

Oh, I see hifly issue. A gay Labor candidate, a Green candidate adversizing on Grindr and a pro-gay rights Liberal. Would that division cover the gay neighbourhood of Melbourne?

[MaxQue]

The senate is going to be a mess.

ABC currently forecast:

Liberal 14
Labor 13
Green 5
Shooters and Fishers 3
Nationals 2
Family First 1
Country Alliance 1
DLP 1

Surely that is very off?

[MaxQue]

The senate is going to be a mess.

ABC currently forecast:

Liberal 14
Labor 13
Green 5
Shooters and Fishers 3
Nationals 2
Family First 1
Country Alliance 1
DLP 1

Surely that is very off?

It'll be interesting because if I am correct in assuming it is the first election where not all boxes had to be marked to count when voting below the line? Which would mean that minor parties may miss out on more but I'm not sure.

Antony Green's blog is saying than, below the line, at least 5 preferences are needed. But, it's was the case in 2010, too.

[MaxQue]

Family First was replaced by the Sex Party, in their recent forecast. How ironic!

[MaxQue]

Of th 713 votes cast, we had less than 40 as valid below the line

How is that possible!?

I assumed than the 670 others were above the line.

[MaxQue]

So, the Greens have claimed Melbourne yet their lead with 52% counted is only 1.2% - is this all a bit premature?

ABC uncalled it. It's now "in doubt GRN ahead".

The 8 uncalled seats are in two categories, "in doubt" and "likely".

In doubt: Bentleigh (ALP), Frankston (ALP), Melbourne (GRN), Prahran (LIB).
Likely: Carrum (ALP), Morwell (NAT), Ripon (LIB), South Barwon (LIB)

[MaxQue]

With the exception of Shepparton, this is a very unsurprising election.

even the legislative council?


I don't really understand why voting "above the line" and the preference flow still exists. I mean the only reason it was brought in was because people understandably didn't want to fill in like a million boxes. Now you only need to fill in eight or so, surely this weird Australia-specific absurdity is redundant?

The solution is not to abolish "above the line", but to transform "above the line" in a preferential vote for parties, where you number every party.

[MaxQue]

Not a great day for my side of politics, I expected Labor to win, but by a slightly smaller margin and also surprised that Mulgrave did not swing that strongly to Labor either.

Also, what happened in Shepparton?

Shepparton was one of the seats I was told to watch. The ALP knew they had no chance, but that the pretty visible Independent had been learning a lot from Cathy McGowan's win at the Federal level in Indi. But I still found it odd that she actually won so cleanly.

Overall, what seems to have been unexpected, at least from the perspective of the people I spoke to, was how emphatic some of the wins, especially those around Geelong and Ballarat were (South Barwon and Rippon were always going to be very tough for the ALP).

And as the NSW experiment shows, having the Hunters and Shooters in control of the Upper House is NEVER a good thing.

That sounds pretty reasonable, it goes to show that the Nationals cannot take rural Victoria for granted. Also, as you may have figured, we disagree considerably on the Hunters and Shooters Party (I quite like them myself), and their presence in the Legislative Council (assuming current numbers hold), will be interesting.

This is because Labor will only have 13 seats in the new Council on current figures, and will need to negotiate with the Greens (18 seats between them, still 3 short of a majority), and the 6 councillors from the following: Shooters, Family First, Country Alliance, and the *** Party (I'd rather not type that name out) to get legislation passed.

It's not Family First, it's DLP which is winning a seat right now.

[MaxQue]

and the Preference Whisperer strikes again! Something called "Vote 1 Local Jobs" with 0.2% of the vote is in the Council.

That seat was attributed to Shooters and Fishers (which are now at 2, instead of 3) in previous counts. Bad, since their whole program is let's raise taxes on Melbourne to give tax cuts to country and less money for Melbourne, more for country.