Victorian Election November 06 - Final Results

On November 24 I ran an introductory post on the Victorian elections followed on 26 November by a report on the preliminary outcomes. I then had to do a hasty part recant on 28 November as some apparently certain results became uncertain.

I thought that I should round all this off by providing the final results as I understand them drawn from the Victorian Electoral Commission.

Lower House Results

The ALP ran in all 88 Lower House seats, gained 43.06 per cent of the vote (previous 47.95) and won 55 (previous 62) seats, thus comfortable retaining Government if with a significantly lower vote.

The Liberal Party ran in all 88 Lower House seats, gained 34.44 per cent of the vote (previous 33.91) and won 23 (previous 17) seats.

The National Party ran in 20 regional seats, gained 5.17 per cent of the vote (previous 4.30) and won 9 (previous 7) of the seats.

The Greens ran in all 88 seats, gained 10.04 of the vote (previous 9.73) but failed to win any seats.

Family First running for the first time ran in all 88 seats, gained 4.29 of the vote, but also failed to win any seats.

The number of independents in the Lower House fell from two in 2002 to one.

In the Lower House the big winner was the National Party whose previous decline in seats had put them at risk of losing official party status. Labor will be happy to be back in Government, while the Greens will be disappointed at their failure to win a seat.

The Liberals will not be happy at their vote with Family First siphoning off votes that would otherwise have gone to them. On the other hand, they also ended up with more seats than first appeared might have been the case on election night.

Upper House

After a very long and incredibly complicated count culminating in several recounts, the ALP won 19 seats in the Upper House, the Liberals 15, Greens three, Nationals two and Democratic Labor Party one, the first time that this last has held a seat in Parliament for decades.

While the ALP and DLP are traditional enemies, the winning DLP candidate has indicated that he proposes to support the Government because he was elected on ALP preferences.

The Upper House count was an incredibly messy if interesting process.

Keeping it very simple, under the proportional representation system you have to get a quota to be elected. Preference votes are distributed via a complex process until the requisite number of quotas have been achieved.

Each party nominates a preference list. Voters have two options. They can vote above the line, simply ticking a relevant party box. In this case, their preferences simply flow through as determined by the party preference list. Alternatively, they can vote below the line. In this case, they number individual squares to indicate their personal voting preference.

Most people vote above the line. This makes preference deals between parties extremely important in determining outcomes, leading to some very strange bed fellows indeed. A and B may hate each other but still combine against C if C is perceived as a threat to both.

A much smaller number who do not like being dictated too - me included in Senate voting- vote below the line. Normally this has little impact. However, in very close elections like some of the Victorian Upper House contests, the small number of below the line votes can suddenly become critical. Now the problem here for Party organisers is that it almost definitionally follows that below the line votes do not follow tickets and hence can go all over the place.

We saw all this worked through in the Victorian voting.

Finally, congratulations to Evan Thornley for finally making it through and upon his appointment by the Premier as Parliamentary Secretary for the National Reform Agenda. I suspect that Evan will make a major contribution here.

Victorian Elections - a further postscript

I must say that I find the Victorian Legislative Council election processes complex because of the preference flows.

I also feel embarrassed at the fact that, based on the ABC site early Sunday, I congratulated Evan Thornley on his election when in fact it now appears far from certain. I am not personally an ALP supporter, but still hope that Evan will get in because he has a lot to contribute.

The Victorian Electoral Commission site has the latest figures. Those interested in the complexity of this and other elections might consult the Poll Bludger site.

Victorian Election Results

Postscript one: In preparing this story I forgot to congratulate Evan Thornley on his election to the upper house as an ALP member for Southern Metropolitan. Evan gave this year's Drummond Oration at Armidale and also recruited my wife into the Fabian Society.

Postscript two 27 November: I see from later information that the final Council results will be a a little different from those I presented here. I will include full results once they have been finalised.

With 75 per cent of the votes counted, the ALP has held Government comfortably, with the ABC predicting (seven seats are still in doubt) that the ALP will win 56 (down 3) of the 88 Legislative Assembly seats as compared to 23 Liberals (plus 3), 8 Nationals (plus 1) and 1 (down 1) independent.

Labor has, however, lost control of the Legislative Council under the new proportional voting system in use for the first time. If my maths are correct here, the new Council will have 17 ALP, 14 Liberal with 3 each for the Nationals and the Greens.

Looking at the individual party votes:

• The ALP ran in all 88 seats gaining 43.7 per cent of the Assembly primary vote, down 4.3 per cent. Labor will be happy with this result.
• The Liberals also ran in all 88 seats, gaining 34 per cent of the vote, an increase of just 0.1 per cent. The Liberals are not happy with this outcome.
• A key reason for the small swing to the Liberals is the presence this time of the Family First party (a Christian, family values party), which also ran in all 88 seats gaining 4.3 per cent of the vote. Family First will not be happy at its failure to gain representation in the upper house.
• The Greens ran in all 88 seats, gaining 9.6 per cent of the primary vote, down 0.1 per cent. This was not a good result for the Greens. The Green vote appears to have been largely concentrated in Melbourne, giving them a member in three of the five metropolitan upper house provinces. While they will be pleased with this outcome, they will also be disappointed at their failure to win any lower house seats and especially the seat of Melbourne where they were given a strong chance prior to the election.
• The National ran in 20 regional seats, giving them 5.4 per cent of the total primary vote, an increase of 1 per cent. I suspect the main National Party reaction to the result will be one of relief. Facing a challenge this time from the Liberal Party in every National held seat, the Nationals managed to hold all their seats while also winning an additional one back from an independent.

Victorian Elections

A short note for the benefit of my international readers with an interest in Australian politics.

The Victorian State elections will take place tomorrow, 24 November with electors casting votes for both the lower house or Legislative Assembly (districts) and the upper house or Legislative Council (provinces).

Under Australia's Westminster system, the party or coalition of parties obtaining a majority of seats in the lower house forms the Government. At the last state elections, the Australian Labor Party won in a landslide ending with 62 of the 88 Assembly seats as compared to 17 for the Liberal Party, 7 for the National Party with 2 independents.

Voting is compulsory in Australia, so well over 90 per cent of the electorate will vote. Compulsory voting reflects the mix between the individualist and collectivist in the Australian character that sometimes confuses outside observers. Because we are a democracy, every citizen must vote!

Preferential voting is used in the lower house to elect candidates to single member seats. This makes second or even third preferences important. The phrase "two party preferred vote" is used to describe the final outcome after distribution of preferences. The practical effect of preferential voting is to ensure that the electorate takes into account not just their favourite but also those they oppose least among the rest.

Since the last election new constitutional arrangements have been introduced for the Legislative Council. This includes multi-member regional seats elected by proportional representation on a system like the Australian Senate. This advantages parties such as the Greens who get a reasonable vote across the state if below the level required to win an Assembly seat in their own right. It disadvantages parties such as the Nationals whose vote is highly concentrated in particular geographic areas.

The public opinion polls suggest the the Labor Government will be returned, although the Liberal Party appears to have clawed back some ground. The key things to watch in the election are:

1. The extent to which the Liberals can recover seats.
2. The performance of the Greens in the Assembly (they have been preferenced by the Liberal Party in some seats) giving them a chance in a small number of otherwise Labor Party seats and in the Council. In my view, this is a make or break election for the Greens
3. The performance of the Nationals. There is no coalition agreement in Victoria, and the Liberal Party is running against them in every seat.

Australia is fortunate in having good on-line election coverage. The ABC site is especially good here. The pre-election analysis by Antony Green is especially good for the outsider.