Victorian State Parliamentary Election - 29 November 2014

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Amusing Council update:

Labor 14
Liberal 13
Green 3
Sex 3 (!!)
Shooters and Fishers 2
Nationals 2
Country Alliance 1
DLP 1
PUP 1

So a GreebLabSex party is enough for 20 votes!

[Hifly]

It looks like the Liberals will retain Prahran, thankfully sparing the Labor caucus from Neil Pharaoh 😃.

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It looks like the Liberals will retain Prahran, thankfully sparing the Labor caucus from Neil Pharaoh 😃.

googles to see what's so awful about this guy.

"...As a young gay man..."

ah, makes sense. One-track mind, man, one-track mind.

[Hifly]

He is a completely talentless hack who came third in the branch preselection ballot with only 9 votes. That's just as embarassing as his own performance in the general election.

No, I do not oppose candidates based purely on their sexuality. Mike Michaud was one of my favourite candidates of the US 2014 cycle.

[Barnes]

The result is Prahran is in no way definite. Clem Newton-Brown's lead is now 11 votes, and Labor is requesting a recount.  There's still votes to be counted, as well.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victoria-state-election-2014/labors-neil-pharaoh-calls-for-prahran-vote-recount-20141208-122slc.html

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greens seem to have won the first count of Prahran !!

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Yup the VEC has declared the Greens as having won Prahran

[Hifly]

What a disastrous campaign for Labor in this seat, coming third in a seat they held until the last election! Hopefully they'll choose a proper candidate next time.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

What a disastrous campaign for Labor in this seat, coming third in a seat they held until the last election! Hopefully they'll choose a proper candidate next time.

Bit melodramatic.

Labor has held this seat for 16 out of the last 59 years... so it's not like this is Labor heartland. Plus this is a seat that has had a strong Greens presence for a number of years. So considering the surge around Melbourne to the Greens at the expense of Labor... it's hardly shocking.

[Barnes]

What a disastrous campaign for Labor in this seat, coming third in a seat they held until the last election! Hopefully they'll choose a proper candidate next time.

Bit melodramatic.

Labor has held this seat for 16 out of the last 59 years... so it's not like this is Labor heartland. Plus this is a seat that has had a strong Greens presence for a number of years. So considering the surge around Melbourne to the Greens at the expense of Labor... it's hardly shocking.

Exactly.  This isn't some earth-shattering breakthrough.  As long as Labor can hold an overall majority in the lower house (which they already have, of course), another Green is fine.

[Hifly]

Daniel Andrews will face serious issues in the Legislative Council though.
And with a handful of the 13 Labor MLCs being of a moderate nature, nothing too extreme should be able to become law.

[Knives]

Hifly your insight is as about as useful as your prediction  that Labor will lose Macedon. Just face it you know nothing.

[Hifly]

Hifly your insight is as about as useful as your prediction  that Labor will lose Macedon. Just face it you know nothing.

I said, and I quote, that Labor was "in serious danger" of losing Macedon. That was not a prediction. This was a notion that was acknowledged at the time by many political pundits both within & outside of Labor.

My only prediction was that the Liberals would pick up at least one ALP-held seat, and I was right in that (see Ripon).

Also, don't you have me on ignore? If you don't, please put me back on ignore so you don't have to read my awful posts, and I won't get your nonsense replies ever again.

[Hifly]

ALP will win popular vote like 53/47 but lose in seats or a minority government.

I would just like to point out this little gem; what an awful prediction. It's quite sad actually because Victoria is your home state, so one would naturally expect you to have at least a slightly deeper insight.

But I guess you should carry on with your drivel, since you're the man with all the answers.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well, Ripon was lost due to boundary changes and was only held last time due to a personal vote.

[Hifly]

Well, Ripon was lost due to boundary changes and was only held last time due to a personal vote.

Yes indeed; I think I already mentioned that. It's astounding how much popularity Joe Helper retained since apparently he was the least active MP in Parliament.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Country people don't care whether their representatives are active in Parliament. Other things matter more...

[Platypus]

Labor members are bound by an extremely strict policy of not ever crossing the floor, at the risk of expulsion from the party should they do so on anything other than one of the very rare conscience votes.

TBH I'd like a little bit more flexibility from both sides on member's rights to cross party lines. Not US levels, or even UK levels, but there should be more room to at least abstain based on personal convictions.

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VLC finalised:

Liberals 14
ALP 14
Greens 5
Nationals 2
Shooters 2
Sex 1
DLP 1
Vote One Local Jobs 1

looks interesting. Minority governments are always fun, especially the strange Australian system. I think this is the first victory for the Sex Party that I know of. The Shooters, of course, had fantastic luck with the preference flow - they actually had fewer votes than the Lib Dems, Palmer, Family First and the Animal Justice Party, but gained two seats.

Absolutely terrible result all over for the Nationals.

[Knives]

VLC finalised:

Liberals 14
ALP 14
Greens 5
Nationals 2
Shooters 2
Sex 1
DLP 1
Vote One Local Jobs 1

looks interesting. Minority governments are always fun, especially the strange Australian system. I think this is the first victory for the Sex Party that I know of. The Shooters, of course, had fantastic luck with the preference flow - they actually had fewer votes than the Lib Dems, Palmer, Family First and the Animal Justice Party, but gained two seats.

Absolutely terrible result all over for the Nationals.

This final result is an embarrassing example of how the way we vote for senate needs to change.

[YL]

VLC finalised:

Liberals 14
ALP 14
Greens 5
Nationals 2
Shooters 2
Sex 1
DLP 1
Vote One Local Jobs 1

looks interesting. Minority governments are always fun, especially the strange Australian system. I think this is the first victory for the Sex Party that I know of. The Shooters, of course, had fantastic luck with the preference flow - they actually had fewer votes than the Lib Dems, Palmer, Family First and the Animal Justice Party, but gained two seats.

Absolutely terrible result all over for the Nationals.

This final result is an embarrassing example of how the way we vote for senate needs to change.

After the federal election, there was talk of changing it, and I've found this story from May; has anything happened since?  The above the line preference deals really are the most awful feature of an STV based system that I know of.

[joevsimp]

could you not get rid of the need to preference every single candidate? doesn't seem to do northern Ireland or the republic any harm to have a few candidate elected on not quite a full quota and some people's votes becoming exhausted

[EPG]

could you not get rid of the need to preference every single candidate? doesn't seem to do northern Ireland or the republic any harm to have a few candidate elected on not quite a full quota and some people's votes becoming exhausted

Parties gain when they can control the destination of their voters' preferences.

Consider that intra-party transfer rates in those other STV jurisdictions are not very large: typically 20-45% of voters will stop preferencing, or preference a different party's candidate, when a same-party candidate remains. One author cites 67% and 58% intra-party transfer rates for Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil respectively in 2011 (http://www.ucd.ie/ibis/filestore/wp2011/109_hutcheson.pdf).

[YL]

could you not get rid of the need to preference every single candidate? doesn't seem to do northern Ireland or the republic any harm to have a few candidate elected on not quite a full quota and some people's votes becoming exhausted

That's what I'd do: just go to STV without the need to preference all candidates and without an above the line option.  The number of candidates would presumably decrease dramatically, as parties usually wouldn't stand more candidates than the maximum number of seats they think they can win (for the reason mentioned by EPG -- see SDLP, West Tyrone, 2007, for what can happen if they do stand too many), so the ballot paper would become less daunting.

As it happens, the Victorian Legislative Council already doesn't have the full preferencing requirement: you just need to number at least five candidates if you vote below the line.  But it does have the above the line option, which works the same way as for the federal Senate.

What I think was being suggested was to change the above the line option so that voters would number each party, and the preferences within each party's list would then be ordered according to the party's ticket.  (So inter-party preferences would be controlled by the voter, but intra-party ones would still be controlled by the party.)  As I say, I'd just get rid of above the line altogether, but doing this would deal with the worst feature of the current system, which is the inter-party preference tickets, and I'd assume would get rid of the more ridiculous results.

[Talleyrand]

I just did this quickly. I only saw Smid's Melbourne maps and an early results map by Htmldon in the gallery; apologies in advance if I missed a final results map in there.