Thursday, March 27, 2025

Legislative Council Voting Patterns 2021-25

A strange thing happened in the LegCo on the 20th of November last year.  In debate about the Expungement of Historical Offences Amendment Bill 2024 the major parties differed in their approach to setting compensation for victims of Tasmania's infamous former anti-gay laws (which were repealed in 1997).  The Greens had successfully moved an amendment regarding compensation levels to the Government's Bill in the Assembly and the Goverment wanted to move a different amendment on that subject in the Council.  Ruth Forrest moved that the issue be referred to the Gender and Equity Committee but Labor disagreed, arguing that the Council should be able to deal with the issue itself.  In the end the referral motion passed 8-5 with Government support but three independents joining Labor.  

What is unusual about that?  Well, in the last year it was one of only two cases I could find where the ALP, the official "Opposition", had voted against the Rockliff Liberal Government on the floor of the Council. the other being an attempt by the government to adjourn a debate on Development Assessment Panels (nobody but the government wanted to adjourn it).  A year in which the Government and Opposition voted together on 90% of recorded divisions in the Council highlighted an increasing trend towards "Laborial" politics in Tasmania, something I also picked up on last year and that has been growing since 2020.  There are signs of a similar dynamic downstairs though I haven't yet assessed the voting patterns there.  When independent Kristie Johnston declared recently for the second time that she had no confidence in the government, the charge to attack her for supposedly undermining business confidence with stunt motions was led not by the Liberal Party but by Labor's Josh Willie.  

As usual as a curtain-raiser for the Legislative Council season I have prepared an assessment of voting patterns in the Council covering the previous four years.  Last year's elections (the first with three vacant seats on the same day since 1909) saw the Liberals retain Prosser after Jane Howlett won an Assembly seat in Lyons, the Greens' Cassy O'Connor easily win the party's first ever Council seat on the retirement of left independent Rob Valentine, and former Glenorchy Mayor Bec Thomas win the seat of Elwick from Labor on Willie's successful move to the lower house.  

The 2025 Council elections have recently been postponed by three weeks to May 24th to avoid a possible clash with the federal election.  I believe this is the first time legislation allowing the government to set any Saturday in May as the date has been used, though there are previous cases (eg 1999 for redistributions and 2020 because of COVID-19) of the date being moved by special legislation.  With the current numbers standing at Liberals 4 Labor 3 Green 1 Independent 7, the elections for Nelson, Pembroke and Montgomery are again very important both for the major party balance in the chamber (on those rare days when they actually disagree) but also for the balance between party and independent MLCs.  

The methods for this article are the same as in previous years.   I look at the last four years of data on a rolling basis.  Where a given Bill or other matter has multiple votes, I include the divisions that are different to each other, up to a maximum of ten divisions per Bill.  I count two .  While there are very rare conscience vote cases where members of a major party can be found on both sides of a vote (none this year), in general I treat "Labor" and "Liberal" as a single actor, and treat a party as absent for that purpose in the case of a split vote (there were no splits on either side this year).  I exclude lone dissents (there was one this year by Cassy O'Connor over forestry, though she was joined by others on other votes in the same debate). 

Note that Labor gives up a vote on every issue because Craig Farrell is the President.  So far all the very few casting votes (three more this year) that he has had have been exercised in line with neutral chairing conventions though he has quite rightly outlined that he would not necessarily be bound by them in a house of 15 members.  This missing vote matters because it means that in the committee stage, where the President is absent, the party MLCs combined cannot pass an amendment or a vote that a clause stand part of a Bill if it is opposed by all seven independents.  Nor can the seven independents pass such things if Labor and Liberal are both opposed.  The major parties also cannot succeed where they have one independent onside but O'Connor disagrees with them.  I've said it before and I'll say it again - whatever one thinks of particular "Laborial" motions it is not democratic that one fifteenth of the population are constantly losing representation because of the absence of the President from the committee stages.

In this year's rolling sample there are 88 divisions, of which 20 are new.  New divisions included such issues as presumptive sentencing, forestry, the above-mentioned Development Assessment Panels debate and approval of the Stony Rise development.  

Agreement matrix and left-right sort

The chart below shows how often each pair of Legislative Council entities (an entity can be an independent MLC or a party) agrees with each other on the contested divisions in the sample.  For instance this year's table finds that Armitage and Labor agree with each other 62% of the time.  

There are a couple of clusters with fairly to in cases very high agreement percentages.  Firstly there's O'Connor and Webb who have nearly always voted together so far, joined to a lesser extent by Gaffney and Thomas though Gaffney and Thomas haven't often voted with each other in the small sample of Thomas voting.  Secondly there's a very high agreement rate between Rattray and Harriss and these two also fairly often vote with Armitage.  Forrest fairly often votes with some MLCs from either of these groups (Gaffney, Rattray and Harriss especially) but doesn't display very strong voting patterns with or against anybody.  The major parties don't vote particularly strongly with anybody but do hardly ever vote with O'Connor, and strikingly the Liberals and Webb have now only agreed on six percent of votes in my sample.  (No wonder they are desperate to blast her out of Nelson!)  As in last year's article Labor votes with the Liberals more often in my sample than they do with anybody else.  


The "Score" column is given by dividing each MLC's average agreement with the side they most often agree with with the side they least often agree with.  A green colour indicates they agree with the left grouping more often and a blue colour indicates the right grouping.  (Forrest very slightly more often agreed with the left grouping but I have given her a different colour as she is clearly best placed as centre.) 

"Strongly Right" in the table above doesn't mean far right; this is Tasmania where the Liberal Party is rather moderate at state level.  These things are relative.  What is very striking here is that this is the first time Labor has showed up as "Right" in my sample, with a ratio of 1.62.  I assessed Labor's voting pattern in previous editions as Left in 2012, Strongly Left in 2013 through 2020, Left in 2021 and Centre in 2022, 2023 and 2024 (they were close to making Centre-Right in the latter).  

Also of interest here is the position of the newest independent Bec Thomas.  On the campaign trail Thomas ran a generally uncontroversial centre-left indie style campaign. Some left-wing and local-government based detractors alleged she was a secret government asset (see background here) although her campaign was also supported by Webb.  So far based on her voting behaviour Thomas is actually who her campaign told us she was, and her voting in the chamber has been a lot less helpful to the government than if Labor had retained the seat.  

The score figures above place O'Connor as substantially to the left of Webb, but I think this is not to be trusted as it mainly reflects Labor's shift towards the Liberals compared with the days when Labor used to vote with Webb more often.  If I remove Labor the gap closes to 2.67 to 2.36 but O'Connor is still to the left of Webb based mainly on Webb's higher agreement percentages with Rattray and Armitage (though Armitage's position has also moved somewhat over time).  A possible left-right sort of the current Council is O'Connor, Webb, (Gaffney and Thomas in some order), Forrest, Rattray, Harriss, Labor, Armitage, Liberals.   With Labor voting with it so often the government has hardly lost a thing in the past year, though Development Assessment Panels was one case where it couldn't get its way with no support outside Labor.  Its other loss was a committee stage tie on presumptive mandatory sentencing for sexual offences towards children, where it was joined by Labor and Armitage.

For this year's elections Nelson is an obviously very big deal, the Liberals would be extremely keen to turn Meg Webb's 6% agreement with their positions into 100% by electing Marcus Vermey.  Nelson is a seat that used to always be occupied by Liberal-friendly independents and its loss to a left independent is still stinging six years later.  Pembroke has been an easy hold for Labor in the recent past while Montgomery sees a mess on the right as Government Leader Leonie Hiscutt's son Casey runs for the seat against a Liberal candidate in former Senator Stephen Parry.  The elections will be overshadowed by the federal election to a large degree, but not on here!  I will be rolling out guides to all three seats in the coming weeks and covering these elections live on the night of May 24.  

Monday, March 24, 2025

Poll Roundup: Coalition Support Slides In Pre-Budget Polling

2PP Aggregate (Last-Election Preferences) 51.1 to ALP (+1.5 in last four weeks)
With One Nation Adjustment (Recommended) 50.5 to ALP
If polls are on average accurate, Labor would almost certainly win election "held now", probably in minority





In the four weeks since my previous instalment there's been a substantial shift in national polling and Labor has recaptured the lead in both versions of my 2PP aggregate.  Although not every poll in that time has supported the shift, the trend is overall so well supported that when Morgan came out with a 54.5-45.5 to Labor outlier on Monday, the three polls later in the week did scarcely anything to peg back the gain in my aggregate that Morgan produced.  Looking at primary vote aggregates the culprit here is the Coalition primary.  Of the six polls that polled at least once both prior to 25 Feb and since 25 Feb, on average the Coalition primary is 1.6% lower since 25 Feb, though much of the gain went to independents and non-Green minor parties.  The most recent polls are carrying a heavy weighting in my aggregate because there are so many of them, and the suggestion for now is that Labor's lead is continuing to build. However it is Budget week, and these are not the best of times for trying to use a Budget to fuel electoral success as the Coalition has often done in the past. One of the reasons that I want to put this article out now (and update it with polls that come out entirely before the Budget) is to have a clear baseline for where things stood before the Budget did its thing.  (A brief refresher: Budget bounces in polls rarely happen - on average following a Budget a government goes slightly backwards).  

There are a few likely reasons why the Coalition is tanking.  One is that there have been a series of policy announcements that have been poorly received and/or badly communicated - insurance company breakups, bans on public servants working from home and a very off-key proposal to hold a referendum on deporting dual citizens.  What's strangest about the latter is that when Peter Dutton shelved his proposal to hold a second referendum on Indigenous recognition should the Voice fail, he said "it’s clear that the Australian public is probably over the referendum process for some time", and slammed the government for wasting money on the referendum that could be used on cost of living issues.  Now throwing money at another confusing and doomed referendum would be good?  Overall the Coalition has seemed in the last few weeks to sorely lack campaigning match fitness, and this is no surprise since while Dutton has held the show together remarkably well for much of the term, he has been carrying a frontbench who are mostly just not up to it or going through the motions. 

The second is that there could be some "Trump drag" effect.  The first Trump presidency was chaotic but fairly harmless where Australia is concerned, but version 2 is destabilising expectations by slapping tarriffs on historic allies (including us) and sucking up to conventional rivals and Cold War foes in Russia.  Some voters may be nervous about an opposition that they fear might be too compliant with Trumpism. Dutton isn't actually all that Trumpy lately (he was very sharp in distancing himself from Trump over Ukraine for example), but some will still think it's an act, or overplay passing similarities.  But at the same time while Trump is at least faintly toxic for most Australian voters, there are voters on the right who want the Coalition to go down the MAGA path and are supporting minor right parties because it isn't doing so.  These votes will not reliably return as preferences.  For this reason while some would have seen Clive Palmer buying into the pre-existing Trumpet of Patriots party as bad news for Labor, I think it was actually more annoying to the Coalition.

The third is that Labor has had a pretty good run of things for several weeks now with the interest rates cut followed by a series of trouble-free policy rollouts, although general voter sentiment polling (right direction/wrong direction) still remains bleak (a dire 29-51 result in the recent Redbridge).  Going forward, I think the cyclone-induced shift away from an April 12 election has actually helped Labor in that they can make going the full term look like the right thing to do rather than desperation.  While the Budget may be a very hard sell, to put out a Budget anyway and say 'this is how it is and we are making the mature decisions' should look better than running away from the Budget for no easily explainable reason.  

This is flowing through to leadership polling too.  After a long run of mostly having worse net satisfaction ratings than Peter Dutton, Anthony Albanese has had a better rating than Dutton in the most recent Newspoll, Freshwater and Essential polls with the latter his first net positive rating from anyone since the Voice referendum loss (albeit only +1 and from Essential which tends to be mild).  Dutton has however continued to beat Albanese on net rating in YouGov except for one tie.  Albanese is also tending to do slightly better on preferred PM polling compared to earlier in the year, though his leads remain in single digits (historically below par) with a best so far of 9% in Newspoll.  

Aggregation Details

I don't think it's necessary for me to keep posting primary vote details from individual polls when these are mostly available on Poll Bludger, Wikipedia etc but I do want to give some examples of how my last-election preferences 2PP aggregate is handling some of the current polls.

This week's Morgan at 54.5-45.5 (by both last-election and respondent preferences) raised eyebrows concerning Morgan's bounciness and historic cases of Morgan skewing to Labor at election time, although for much of the term Morgan has not been that bouncy and hasn't skewed to Labor at all.  My last-election preferences conversion for this poll was also 54.5, but especially following a few other good Morgans in recent weeks for Labor, my aggregate decided Morgan could have developed a leaning compared to other polls and processed the poll at 53.4.  A reason why Morgan's house effect could vary over time is its partial use of SMS polling which may be prone to motivated response bias compared to online surveying.   At times when Labor voters are more motivated and Coalition voters less, it may be the former are more likely to take part.

This week's Essential was 47-47 by their "2PP+" method using mostly respondent preferences, which is the same as 50-50.  My last-election conversion was 50.5 to Labor but Essential has been strong for Labor lately.  My aggregate therefore credited Labor with just 49.9. 

Last weekend's Freshwater was 51-49 to Coalition.  It is unclear what preferencing method Freshwater is currently using.  My last-election conversion for their primaries was 50.4 to Labor, from a poll that has been somewhat Coalition-leaning though in recent polls that effect on last-election converted estimates has reduced.  My aggregate credited Labor with 50.9 by 2022 preferences.

This week's Redbridge was 51-49 to Labor. My last-election estimate was 51.1 and currently my aggregate doesn't think this figure for Redbridge has a house effect either way, so it went in at 51.1.

This week's YouGov was 50-50 by YouGov's modified preferences (based on respondent prefs and an unstated number of previous elections).  My last-election estimate was 51.5 but YouGov has for whatever reason (or perhaps no reason) been good for Labor since they switched from Newspoll-style readouts that list parties that ran last time in a seat to a new ranked generic ballot method similar to Resolve.  My aggregate therefore credited Labor with only 50.5.

The Newspoll of two weeks ago was unusual in not showing any real recovery in Labor's position, producing another 51-49 to Coalition by modified previous-elections preferences.  This went into my aggregate as 49.8 for Labor, the same as the previous Newspoll.  

If my aggregate did not include adjustments for polls that appeared to be falling on one side of the current estimates or the other, and did not include accuracy or frequency ratings, its estimated last-election position for Labor could be even higher (around the mid-51s).  That said, last-election preferences are likely to be overestimating Labor's position, and for seat modelling purposes I am using the One Nation adjusted version (currently 50.4 to Labor after at one stage falling to a precarious 49).  

Anyway aside from a very brief and small lift for the stage 3 tax cuts, this is the first sign of a real lift in Labor's polling position all term at a time when there were enough polls for it to be meaningful.  This is significant in that if Labor falls behind again, at least we know now they are capable of bouncing back.

What would this mean?

If the polls are broadly accurate, the government is now again in a winning position - potentially an ugly win but the chance of the Coalition forming government if the current polls were reflected would be low.  An election "held now" with a 2PP of 50.4 to Labor (my One Nation adjusted figure) would be expected to deliver Labor 2PP wins in 73 or 74 of the seats included in my classic-2PP model, assuming swings varied only randomly with the exception of personal vote effects.  Even if the swings landed badly for Labor as both the most recent YouGov and Redbridge MRP models predicted, Labor would still be likely to win the 2PP in about 70 of these seats.  There would be risks of actually losing a few of these to the Greens, but on the other hand there would be prospects of taking some of the Brisbane-area seats from said party.  It's just very hard off a 2PP of 50.4-49.6 to get the Coalition to as many seats as Labor, and if we get a really hung parliament with both sides mucking around in the high 60s I suspect Labor stays in government anyway.

Believers in the theory that Labor is going to get whacked in the outer suburbs have taken succour from large swings in the WA state election in some areas, and have especially argued the case for the Liberals taking Pearce.  Thst's fine but if you take from Column A you have to take from Column B.  The WA election must be seen in the context of an eight-year old federally dragged government coming off a remarkably lopsided pandemic-politics election.  A massive swing back to the Opposition was inevitable and for the Liberals to only pull back about 12% 2PP in the circumstances was poor  For sure, state factors including leadership disunity and poor strategy played into it, but the result said nothing bad overall about the condition of the Labor brand in the state.  If one wants to argue that the results in the outer suburbs were warning signs for Labor, then at least by the same token the inner-suburban results in Perth were dire for the conservative forces, who failed to win back seats that should have been absolute gimmes and barely got over the line in Nedlands and Churchlands that they should have won 60-40 in their sleep.  Magnify that failure nationally and it means that a shift away from Labor primaries supposed to cause teal seats to fall won't happen and that the Coalition should be nervous about its own remaining inner-city marginals (classic-2PP or otherwise) at least outside Victoria.  I'm not saying this is how things will actually play out - just that one can't spin the WA result as a clear positive for the Coalition federally, and I don't recommend trying to spin it as a positive at all.  

Labor's deep problems in Victoria mean that even on a national swing of less than 2% there could be casualties in the range of Bruce, McEwen (already widely written off alongside Aston and Chisholm), Holt, Hawke, Dunkley.  But if Labor is getting 50.4% 2PP but copping the swing needed to really get into the second-tier seats like Holt, Hawke and Dunkley then that would most likely mean little or nothing was happening outside Victoria and on that basis it's very hard to get the Coalition into government.

Polls Are Snapshots Not Predictions (etc)

The surge in Labor's polling is likely to give rise to optimism and even premature hubris among some of the faithful online but we still have between six and eight weeks to go, which is still heaps of time for things to change back.  Or get better.  Or the current polls may not collectively be super-accurate anyway - federal polling has overestimated Labor in some way (primary and/or 2PP) in four of the last seven elections, though there is no evidence of a similar effect at state level.  What I do hope the recent shifts back and forth highlight is that there has been overconfidence throughout the term about the chance of a hung parliament.  A hung parliament of some kind still looks likely, but isn't a certainty yet and never was.  Also there are hung parliaments and hung parliaments, and while the range of possible non-majority parliaments includes some that could be unstable messes, it could also be a NSW 2023 like situation where no-one gets a majority but it's obvious on the night which side has won and the dramatic connotations of "hung parliament" don't really apply. 

Betting - What On Earth Isn't Going On

I like to keep an eye on betting markets although they are not reliably predictive.  The behaviour of the markets lately has been quite strange, with no response to Labor's improving polls until very recently, and even then the markets still have the Coalition narrow favourites.   It's possible the lack of movement in Newspoll is a factor here and bettors aren't taking the other polls seriously (in some cases with good reason) but it was surprising to still last week see Labor at only around a 36% implied chance (now around 45%).  An ALP majority has come in from a ridiculously long $15 to $6.50 yet there has been virtually no movement in seat betting at any time since it commenced: markets still expect Labor to lose Aston, Chisholm, McEwen, Bennelong, Robertson, Paterson, Gilmore, Tangney, Bullwinkel, Lyons and Lingiari and the Coalition to gain Curtin, Ryan and to have the best chance in Brisbane (though no-one is odds on in the latter).  

It seems that overall betting markets took the Trump victory in the US as a big signal (it happened there, could happen here) but don't seem to be taking so much of a counter-signal that it happening there could disadvantage the chances of "it" happening here.  I struggle to see what isn't going on here as logical and suspect the seat markets especially don't have a lot of money in them.  

Seatpoll-Shaped Objects

While seat polls or bracketed polls of groups of seats are starting to emerge there is not much to see at this stage as most are not neutrally commissioned and all are being poorly reported by usual suspects.  The News Corp tabloids breathlessly announced polls of seats of Green interest conducted by Insightfully for Advance.  While I have seen some people praise Insightfully's internal polls, I can only examine public polling and the two Insightfully public polls known to me (one of rural seats in the NSW election and a Tasmanian one of the Voice) were both inaccurate; the Tasmanian Voice one was right re the state result but with electorate breakdowns that were obviously way too similar to each other.  

The numbers are supposed to show the Greens winning only Melbourne but these are presumably based on respondent preferences, which are especially likely to be unreliable in seats where Labor candidates are excluded because of the higher rate of how-to-vote-card following among Labor voters.  On my read of the pathetically incomplete primary vote data supplied by the perennially useless Herald-Sun, the Greens would retain Griffith and win Macnamara provided that Labor did not recommend preferences to the Coalition, and probably retain Ryan unless the Labor flow to the Greens weakened sharply, while Brisbane would be clearly won by Labor (it seems the poll only bothered canvassing a Liberal/Green 2CP).

News Corp tabloids also published a poll of six teal seats by Freshwater which collectively found what they claimed to be a 5% swing (taking into account the redistribution it was actually 6%).  They reported primary votes of teals 33 Liberal 41 Labor 7 Green 7 but hopelessly failed to report the identity of the remaining 12%.  The overall sample size of 830 doesn't enable any useful conclusions about specific seats and the YouGov and Redbridge MRPs had significantly different outlooks for these seats, so I wouldn't place too much weight on this one at this stage.  Although the poll is described as "conducted exclusively for News Corp", I've heard they were given it for free as sometimes occurs with Redbridge, rather than paying for it.  

Climate 200 seat polls have also been "reported" with the Saturday Paper uncritically acting as a dropoff point for claims that Climate 200 backed candidates are winning Cowper 53-47 and Bradfield 52-48 and trailing in Forrest 49-51 and Flinders the same.  However the Forrest mention refers to the vote for Nola Marino, who is well kown to be retiring.  The Saturday Paper doesn't even bother to state the name of the pollster or provide any method details whatsoever.  Climate 200 had some especially successful Redbridge polling with advanced modelling at the 2022 election but if this is uComms automated polling with simplistic age/gender weightings it requires a lot of caution as it may be over-capturing engaged/educated voters.  That said it has not appeared in uComms' APC disclosure statements yet.

I'll update this article and the graph at the top with tonight's Morgan and anything else that comes out that is entirely pre-Budget and then start a rolling post-Budget roundup post once the first post-Budget polls appear.  

Morgan Update Monday:  Morgan came out with another very strong poll for Labor if such things can be believed, this came to 54-46 by last-election preferences (53 respondent-allocated).  With two of these in a row my aggregate is now even more convinced that something has sent Morgan on a red team bender, so only credits Labor with 52.3 for this one, but even that put it up another tenth of a point to 51.1.  

Thursday, March 13, 2025

Western Australia 2025 Legislative Assembly Postcount

SEATS WON ALP 46 LIB 7 NAT 6 
(Liberal win in Kalamunda subject to recount)

This is a relatively brief thread to update where the WA 2025 lower house postcount is at.  Because I was playing chess all weekend and then spent a day recovering from dehydration (oh yes chess is a sport) I have been slow getting onto this, but given how slow the counting is, I've hardly missed anything! 

As I start there are 51 seats the ABC has called (42 ALP 5 Lib 4 Nat).  I don't see any reason to doubt any of these (there is some weirdness in Geraldton where the Independent Shane van Styn might be more of a threat to the Nationals had not both the Liberals and Labor recommended preferences against him).  Of the eight the ABC shows as in doubt, I am also firmly expecting Labor to win:

Fremantle (ALP vs GRN 14.4%)  Here independent Kate Hulett won the ordinary booths 51.9-48.1 vs Labor's Simone McGurk but her chances have been wrecked by absent votes (56.8 to ALP - "absent" in WA includes out of electorate prepolls) and postals (59.8 to ALP).  These are common weak spots for independents but this is an extreme case because the Liberals recommended preferences to Labor.  Hulett is 342 behind (50.8 to ALP) and isn't likely to break even on remaining postals either.  She has flagged a possible challenge, I believe over voting day issues such as booths running out of ballot papers.  [Update Friday: 491 votes the margin now.]

South Perth (ALP 10.1%) In the official count yesterday Labor's Geoff Baker's lead narrowed by about 140 votes to 189 on the basis of a correction in the Challenger Reserve booth, but as William Bowe has noted the correction was apparently incorrect.  My usual checking graph confirms this; the outlier is the "corrected" booth, where Labor are only getting a third of preferences despite getting close to two-thirds elsewhere.

Also, Labor has benefited from absents today and are 300 ahead in the official count; if that's really 440 or so as it appears to be then that's Labor ahead just shy of 51-49, which won't be coming back all the way on late postals, especially not after the weak break on the early ones.  

On the other hand I'll be heavily surprised if Murray-Wellington (ALP 17.4%) comes back into play.  It is the case that in 2021 prepolls were a few points better for Labor than the votes overall here but the Liberals' David Bolt is 52.1-47.9 ahead and I'd expect that to be too much to make up. [EDIT: Indeed it hasn't, the absents advantaged the Liberals]

This leaves five seats that I think may still have life in them, which I will update roughly daily when anything has happened:

Albany (ALP 11.0%) 

Labor has conceded Albany and the question is whether the Nationals' Scott Leary or the Liberals' controversial candidate Tom Brough wins the seat.  Labor's Rebecca Stephens has 30.2% which will not be distributed, Leary has 22.2% and Brough 22.1%.  The remainder is Greens 7.5% Lionetti (IND) 7.1% Aus Christians 5.1% ON 2.6% LCP 2.3% and SFF 1.0%.  While their how-to-vote cards won't be followed much it is interesting that both Lionetti and Aus Christians recommended preferences to Brough.  Brough might do especially well out of Australian Christians after his comments on abortion laws.  A 3CP distribution would provide great clarity but we'll probably have to wait for the distribution of preferences.

Thursday 20th: Preferences were apparently to be distributed today; I haven't seen an outcome.

Friday 21st: The Nationals have won.

Saturday: I understand via Dylan Caporn that Brough jumped ahead in the distribution but was passed by Leary on the preferences of Lionetti despite Lionetti's how-to-vote card ranking Brough higher.  Most likely few voters saw this card and IND voters don't follow cards much anyway.  Brough lost by 135.

Kalamunda (ALP 14.3%)

A standard 2PP contest with the twist that the seat doesn't have a within-district prepoll booth.  After a bunch of absent votes today did next to nothing, the Liberals' Adam Hort leads Labor's Karen Beale by 98 votes, with one small booth with a high Nats vote not yet counted to 2PP (it might very slightly increase the Liberal lead when it is).  Postals so far have broken only weakly to the Liberals (just over 52-48) and the count is only at 76.6% (in 2021 it reached 89.3%).  Late postals tend to be weaker for the conservatives than early ones (hence might even slightly favour Labor) and if there are more absents to add then this can still easily go either way.  Poll Bludger currently projects Labor ahead.  

Tuesday: The Liberal lead shrunk further to 88 votes but it is not known how much more is left because of an additional enrolment on the day option.

Friday: The margin has been shrinking in late counting, now to 64 votes, but there is still no count of provisionals (of which there may be a few hundred) and one polling place is still missing a 2PP.

Friday: A gap of 95 votes is now showing (the automatic recount threshhold is 100, though recounts for seats near the threshhold almost never change the outcome.)  I expect Labor to pull back about 17 votes on one booth and mobile votes for which no 2PP is available.  Provisionals are now included so I believe the Liberals will win subject to recount or any errors that might be caught during the full distribution, and to there being no other missing votes.  Adam Hort has said the full distribution will occur on Sunday.  

Sunday: Recount tomorrow after the Liberals won the distribution of preferences by 83 votes.   The Liberal lead at one stage got out to 131 but I believe there may have been a transposition of 2PP figures in one booth that would have affected that lead by 50 votes if correct.  

Kalgoorlie (ALP 11.4%)

Here Labor's Ali Kent currently has a 51.5-48.5 lead over the Liberals' Rowena Olsen but the count is only at 64% (2021 final 78%) and the Poll Bludger prediction is for the lead to drop to 50.9.  While Labor should have the Liberals covered here it's also not quite clear that the Liberals are the opponent as Olsen leads the Nationals' Tony Herron by 4.8 points (20.7 to 15.9) and there is a massive 28.8% for other candidates, headed by independent Kyron O'Donnell on 13.1%. O'Donnell is the former Liberal MP for the seat (2017-21).  He's recommended preferences to the Nationals and has also polled well in booths where the Nationals were more competitive with the Liberals.  One Nation has also recommended preferences to the Nationals (via O'Donnell), for what it's worth, and I'd not completely discount the bloke vote factor in preferencing here either.  This one is interesting because it could be that the Nationals are more of a threat than the Liberals if they make the final two, but also the gap to second is a little bit larger than seems comfortable to overhaul.  Probably need to wait for the preference throw for this one, though the 2PP winner should be clear before that.

Monday: Only news here is that a reader on Poll Bludger has correctly spotted that the number of 2PP-counted mobile votes exceeds the number counted to primary.  

Friday: The Lib to Nat gap has grown to 5.4% as we await the distribution of preferences which will happen on Saturday.  

Saturday: Antony Green reports Labor has won.  

Pilbara (ALP 18.5%)

The issue with this one is that while Labor's Kevin Michel is ahead on estimates from ABC (51.3-48.7) and Poll Bludger (51.5-48.5), there isn't a 2PP count as the seat finished Labor vs National at previous elections (it has since been redistributed).  Also the count at 51.4% is not that advanced (though this is a low turnout electorate that only made it to 69.7 last time).  In this case the Liberals clearly are second.  A 2PP count would be nice.

Saturday: Postals have significantly weakened Labor's position on primary votes here and given the bizarre lack of an actual 2PP after a week it's hard to be sure what is going on.  The ABC now projects 50.5 to ALP and Poll Bludger 50.8.  Current primaries are Michel (ALP) 35.9, Amanda Kailis (Lib) 24.3, Kieran Dart (Nat) 17.0

Thursday 20th: Preferences were apparently to be distributed today; I haven't seen an outcome.

Friday: Antony Green reports Labor has claimed victory.  

Warren-Blackwood (ALP 2.2%)

In Warren-Blackwood it looks like the Nationals (Bevan Eatts) should win as they are currently leading Labor 52.3-47.7 in a reasonably well advanced 2PP count (over 70% of enrolment is in) and they are leading the Liberals on primaries in the race to make the final two, albeit only by 0.6%.  The seat is unusual in having a three-cornered major party contest but also having a very high Green vote.  In 2017 when the Greens were excluded far more of their preferences went to the Nationals than the Liberals.  One Nation also have 4.1% and have recommended preferences to Nationals.  For what it's worth, the donkey vote (usually <0.5%) will flow to the Liberals via Australian Christians and the Greens. 

Saturday: Absents helped Labor slightly but not enough; they also helped the Liberals relative to the Nationals but the Nationals remain just ahead on primaries.  

Thursday 20th: Preferences were apparently to be distributed today; I haven't seen an outcome.

Friday: Antony Green has said the Nationals have won.

Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Western Australia 2025 Legislative Council Postcount

WA LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL: 37 SEATS
EXPECTED SEATS ALP 15 LIB 10 NAT 2 GRN 4 ON 1 LCP 1 AC 1
Apparent final three seats battle: Labor (16), Moermond, Animal Justice, One Nation (2), Liberal (11), Greens (5), perhaps Sustainable Australia.  

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Donations welcome!

If you find my coverage useful please consider donating to support the large amount of time I spend working on this site.  The sidebar (scroll down and click on "view web version" if viewing via mobile) has Paypal or PayID instructions or email me via the address in my profile for my account details.  Please only donate if you are sure you can afford to do so.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------
Updates (Scrolling to the top)

Wednesday 2nd: After several days of inaction a sudden dump sees the count advance to 83.14%, suggesting something around 2.3% could be BTLs which is more in line with expectations.  This has seen the Liberals jump back into 36th place ahead of Moermond but with the reservation noted by Antony Green.

Saturday 29th: Not much has changed in the last week with the count stalled at 78.12%.  This raises the question, are there more ATLs to be added to the count or is the remaining c.7.3% BTLs or other types of votes that for some reason didn't make the ATL count?

Sunday night: It's got worse for the Liberals with the ATL count jumping to 75.73% of enrolment.  The leaders (bearing in mind three seats are to be filled) are now Labor 15.721 Q, Moermond 0.467 AJP 0.455 PHON 1.401 SAP 0.375 and then the Liberals on 10.370.  The Liberals could even fall behind SPPK now on 0.359.  Of note the Greens are now on 4.172 and the Nationals 2.084.  

Saturday night:  Antony Green suggests a possible risk to Labor's 16th seat - if differences in below the line rates are as stark as in 2021, even a slight proportional rediction on Labor's quota total could drop Labor back from the 15.7s to the 15.4s which could place them at risk of losing to, for instance, three of Moermond, AJP, One Nation and a fifth Green.  (In this scenario the Liberals most likely wipe out).  We don't know whether the differences will be that extreme or whether the Greens, who were dedicated BTL voters in 2021, were less inclined to use BTL this time.  Even so in a preference race Labor would probably beat at least some of these other parties anyway.  

Saturday morning: The count is now at 69.43% of enrolment and a fairly big change has happened in the last few percent.  The Moermond group (0.469 Q) leads Animal Justice (0.445), the Liberals (10.409), One Nation (1.376) and Sustainable Australia (0.371).  What is significant here is that the Nationals have fallen back to 2.125 so the Liberals may now have difficulty overtaking anyone else on their preferences depending on the rate of exhaust.  So I think it is now competitive for the final two seats.  

Tuesday: Very little progress with the count now at 65.45%. The numbers have however changed to the extent that the Moermond group (0.471 Q) has passed the Liberals (10.456) but is also being closed in on by Animal Justice (0.437).  

Saturday morning: The count is now at 62.66% and the numbers are changing very little.  Liberals 10.503 Q, Moermond 0.475, AJP 0.431, One Nation 1.350.  Sustainable Australia (0.365) are doing the same thing they often do in NSW postcounts of sitting on a potentially vaguely competitive total but then not making further progress, so I doubt they are in this.  

Thursday: Some improvement for the Liberals today, now up to 10.512 Q with 58.93% counted.  See Tally Room here for more detail about the issues with this count.  

Wednesday:  With thanks to Ben Raue and the WAEC I've been able to have a look at the booth data and some useful things can be seen.  The data don't list booths by electorate so I haven't checked to see if any booths are missing, but I can say that there don't seem to be many booths missing, about three prepolls and a handful of regular booths.  Postals are well represented in the count at about 8.3% of total, and have so far favoured both majors at the expense of nearly every minor party (one exception is AJP).  No absents are included.  

On the less useful side, I understand that BTL votes won't be reported until the final button press, which is not at all helpful for those of us trying to project the election.  But I have noticed that in general the number of formal and informal votes combined for the Council for a given booth is a few to several percent short of the count for the Assembly, which makes me wonder if the difference is below the lines or if there are other explanations.  (There are some booths with very incomplete counts.)  Anyway this is more work than I have time for at the moment but I note it for the interest of others.

As for the ATL count, it's at 57.00% of enrolment.  The last 1.1% of count has been good for ALP, Greens and Moermond and bad for the right, with the Liberals on 10.493 and Nats on 2.207 and the Moermond group up to 0.475 and in with a shout of passing the 11th Liberal into 36th place on primaries soon.  The count has been shifting quite quickly here and could well do so more when absents come in.  For now the Liberals would be fine on Nats preferences (and would also beat AJP anyway); AJP and SAP have barely moved.  One Nation is down a bit to 1.338.  Anyway for now I've upgraded ALP 16th to expected win status.  

NB I did not have time to do a lower house thread tonight.  

-------------------------------------------------

Intro (Tuesday Night)

Tonight I am putting up a thread on the WA Legislative Council postcount and tomorrow I will try to do one on the seats in doubt downstairs.  I have been updating Fremantle on the live count thread but have not had time and energy yet to look closely at the rest.  I've decided to put the Legislative Council thread up separately as I often find that these can get quite long - though in this case I don't have a lot of detail.

As I start this post the count is at 55.9% of enrolment and the best place to view party totals based on above the line votes only appears to be here.  At this stage I don't see any doubt that Labor will win at least 15 seats, Liberals 10, Nationals 2, Greens 4, One Nation, Australian Christians and Legalise Cannabis one each.  Labor are currently on 15.783 quotas (Q) and should win a sixteenth seat.  The Liberals have been falling back and are on 10.538, and can probably count on a good flow from the Nationals' surplus should it survive (the Nats are currently on 2.232).  Unless the Liberals collapse they should win an eleventh seat, leaving a fight for the final seat between IND (Moermond Group) 0.467, Animal Justice 0.426, Sustainable Australia 0.366 and One Nation 1.346.  Parties that currently don't appear competitive are SPPK 0.328, SFFPWA 0.281 and Libertarians 0.234 but these will be quite important as preference sources to the extent that their voters bothered to preference.  The Greens, Legalise Cannabis and Australian Christians are all on more or less full quotas for their seats and at this stage won't be significant on preference flows, but that can change.  

The count at this stage includes no below the line votes.  I have seen speculation that the below the line rate would fall to 2%,  but it's not obvious to me that this is logical with the reduction of the number of BTL squares needed to 20 (even if the main reason for voting BTL is gone, not everyone would realise that).  Assuming the 2% estimate was true, for parties fighting out the apparent final spot, if the party's BTL rate was actually 4% then that would mean a party on .400 Q would instead be on about .408 Q, so it wouldn't be a massive difference.  Experience in NSW suggests that minor parties will have higher below the line rates than major parties, which could be a problem for the Liberals should they fall back into the group of parties fighting for the final seat.  The independent Moermond ticket might have an especially high BTL rate even if the candidate who changed his name to "Aussie Trump" doesn't get anything to speak of.  

The rate of above the line preferencing is an unknown.  WA voters are used to being unable to give preferences above the line in Legislative Council elections, but are also used to giving preferences above the line in Senate elections, which has driven an increase in above the line preferencing rates in NSW.  I welcome any scrutineering data on this question.  Probably as with NSW, preferences are capable of switching the winner of the final seat if it is close.  

Minor party how to vote cards will have negligible follow rates but for what it's worth neither SPPK nor SAP recommended preferences.  Libertarians recommended preferences to SFFPWA, SPPK, One Nation, Moermond, Legalise Cannabis, National and Liberal in that order.  SFFPWA recommended preferences to Libertarians, Christians, One Nation, National and Liberal.  

In the Senate it has generally been the case that the major parties, Greens and One Nation outperform everyone else on ATL preferences.  In One Nation's case they will do well on minor right preferences whether a minor right party recommends preferences to them or not.  But in the NSW LegCo Animal Justice has at times done very well on preferences because it tends to benefit from left voters being more likely to vote through.  The difficulty here is that there really aren't a lot of left-wing preferences for AJP to benefit from if they remain behind the Moermond group.  

What would be of most use here is a stronger indication of where the counted votes did and didn't come from.  This is something I have not found on the WAEC website.  Four seats that had no within-division prepoll booth are likely to be undercounted (Baldivis, Butler, Forrestfield, Kalamunda) and a couple of these are good for One Nation, but they may not be especially undercounted cf others.  If anyone sees a link to progress by district that would be handy.

Another point is that the quotas are so small!  I am used to 0.1 Q being a big lead in such counts but in this case it's only 0.26%, which can easily come and go, especially for a major party.  The Liberal vote dropped by 0.016 Q in the time it took me to write this article.  For the minor parties the vote shares tend to move around less through the count.  While I've kept Sustainable Australia in the mix for now they are in a similar position to one I've seen in NSW Legislative Council counts, in which arena they've consistently done nothing and lost.  But because the quota is so small and there are a lot of uncertainties I think we should be cautious about assuming that only the last seat is in play.

No matter what, Labor and the Greens appear set for a combined majority.  I think Labor would like AJP to take the final seat as that gives them AJP + Legalise Cannabis as a possible route to majority that doesn't need the Greens.  

  



Saturday, March 8, 2025

Western Australia 2025 Live

WA 2025 - STARTING POSITION (Notional) ALP 54 Nat 3 Lib 2

LABOR RE-ELECTED, Lib/Nat on track for about 13 seats

Seats appparently changing: 

Lib/Nat gain from ALP: Churchlands (2.2%), Carine (4%), Kalamunda (15.1%), Albany (10.7%),  Geraldton (9.3%),  Nedlands (3.0%)

Labor projecting behind in own seats: Murray-Wellington (17.3%), Warren-Blackwood (2.2%)

Interesting: ALP vs IND Fremantle (I project ALP ahead)

Updates will appear below the dotted line, scrolling to the top.  Refresh every 10 mins or so for updates

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tuesday night: Legislative Council thread has now been posted here.

Tuesday night Fremantle update: Trying to find time to write a full article but Hulett is now 238 votes ahead on the votes counted to 2CP, similar to my projection.  However, she has done appallingly on absents (as independents often do) and Labor will gain 399 off the primaries.  On preferences my variable swing model expects Hulett to pull back 94 meaning that I put her 67 behind, if absents follow the pattern that candidates who poll poorly on primaries in a pool of votes will also do poorly on preferences.  [Update: Hulett did slightly better on preferences off the absents than my model expected but is still 31 behind.  A challenging position to come back from since there are more postals coming.]

Legislative Council update Monday: Current totals are Labor 15.782 Q Liberal 10.6 Green 3.969 Nats 2.17 ON 1.342 LCP 1.028 AC 1.004 IND (Moermond) 0.464 AJP 0.427 SAP 0.367 SPPK 0.329 SFFPWA 0.282 Ltn 0.236.  The count is still very incomplete at about 54.9% of enrolment so there will still be a lot of movement.  Also the count does not include any below the line votes.  No major changes there.

Also a quick update re Fremantle: Kate Hulett is doing better on preferences than expected at least by the ABC and is 98 votes ahead in an ongoing realignment.  I project that lead to increase to 284 based on votes that are at this stage in the count, but that does not include absents and remaining postals (both of which are sore points for most indies).  

Note re Geraldton: although the independent Shane van Styn is on 20.7%, both the Liberals and Labor have recommended preferences to Nationals above him so it will be a heroic effort if he manages to win.

Sunday morning: The Liberals and Nationals improved in some seats late at night and are now tracking for about 13 but the count is incredibly slow and there is still a long way to go in some of them.  They may still be in the hunt in a few others, but for the moment the gains are confined to the very low hanging urban fruit and some rural-regionals on middling to large margins.

In the Legislative Council, Labor and the Greens will get a combined majority.  With about 47% counted, Labor have 15.68 Q (quotas) Lib 10.611 Nat 2.127 Green 4.108 ON 1.296 LCP 1.056 AC 0.988 IND (Moermond group) 0.474 AJP 0.422 SAP 0.369 SPPK 0.331 SFF 0.273 LTN 0.246.  At present Labor would win 16, the Liberals 11, Nat 2 Green 4 ON 1 LCP 1 AC 1 and the remaining one would go to Moermond or AJP, but as the count comes up it may well be that one or both of the majors gets ahead of some of the micro tickets.  Very long way to go there. [Edit Monday: I had the wrong quota in the previous numbers when this was written; have edited it to the correct numbers at the time but will post updated numbers soon]

9:30 Winding up coverage for now as I have to get up early tomorrow, the picture is not changing much and the count is sloooooooooooow.   More comments tomorrow as time permits.  In a sign of how bad it is for the Liberals, Nedlands which earlier appeared won for them has flipped back and is now one of many close seats in doubt.

9:12 Overall this is remarkably poor for the Liberals and Nationals in seat terms so far though the 2PP is about where the late polls had it.  The swing seems to be landing unevenly and they are struggling at this stage to pick up even some of the supposedly easy seats.  

9:08 ABC reporting preferences in Churchlands are really bad for Zempilas and he is projecting behind!  

8:54 A few other seats with prepolls in where they showed less difference to the booths. 

8:46 Not great that there are still seats with no figures after nearly three hours.  

8:35 Scarborough also good for Liberals on prepolls, not that it is saving them.

8:31 The upper house count is very slow and very unrepresenative.  One Nation are currently over a quota in the live count, and Aus Christians and Legalise Cannabis have most of a quota. The "independent" ticket (Moermond etc) is not doing too badly so far.

8:28 A big prepoll is in in Bateman.  The major party swing was about 4% stronger than in the booths.  Also prepoll much stronger than booth swing in Landsdale.

8:17 Hulett is close to losing the primary vote lead now.  Preference flows will be interesting when we get some.

8:00 In Fremantle the independent Kate Hulett is off to a flier and is leading on primaries after two booths! Some excitement after a poor night for independents so far.  However, the Liberals recommended preferences to Labor over Hulett in this seat so when more booths come in Labor could be much more competitive.  

7:54 The swing in Pilbara has come down to make it now a close contest.  ABC is now calling Bateman and Scarborough for Labor, we'll see if those are correct when prepolls come in but that we are even talking about Labor holding Bateman (6.7%) is not good for the Liberals.  As more booths are counted there is not so far any improvement as the evening goes on.

7:36 Basil Zempilas doesn't need much swing in Churchlands which is just as well for him because so far he's not getting a big swing either.  

7:30 Liberals struggling in Scarborough so far - I mentioned this seat as one that might be risky if there was an uneven rural/urban swing, but without a huge amount of optimism about that as I'd not seen it mentioned.  

7:24 The ABC is projecting a close contest between Sandra Brewer and independent Rachel Horncastle in Liberal-held Cottesloe.  This may settle down when less favourable booths come in for the Liberals.  

7:12 Labor doing very badly in early booths in Pilbara (17%) - four booths in already.  However this is a weird seat that may swing unevenly, especially with a redistribution.

7:10 Teal independent not much chop in Nedlands.  (The Nedlands votes are postals, and do project to a Liberal gain, but again with a modest swing).  

7:05 Generally a weak start for the conservative parties - very few projected gains at this early stage but the booth votes may not be representative (we have seen this problem in a few elections.)

6:53 There's a huge swing showing against Rita Saffioti in West Swan but it's a new out of district booth.

6:46 The first booth in Kalgoorlie (11.9%) is in and it's a bit unremarkable too - 15% against Labor on primary but spraying to minors and Kyran O'Donnell.  Be interesting to see a 2CP count on these and also if O'Donnell can do better than the starting 10%-ish in other booths.

6:40 Two actual booths in in the Nats seat of Central Wheatbelt, with a modest (by the standard of this election) primary swing from Labor to Liberals and minors.

6:30 Votes detected in Scarborough!  A tiny sample of mobile votes with a quite small swing (ignore for now).  Likewise Dawesville.  A bigger swing on mobile votes in Morley.  Aside from the tiny sample size in these I don't know if the voting locations for the mobile booths have stayed the same.

6:10 It exists and I'm not necessarily promising much too more than that but here is a few hours of live commentary of the WA election!  I'm aiming to stop not later than 11 pm WA time.  A summary will be posted at the top of the page as things happen.   There are some useful comments about what we will and won't get at Pollbludger - including that we won't get prepolls for the possibly interesting seat of Kalamunda tonight because the district had no prepoll booth.  I will keep an eye on the Legislative Council if anything useful arrives but I'd expect the count there to be very slow and whatever we get tonight will be skewed in ways that won't be easy to unpick quickly.  (That's a forensic job for coming days.)


Friday, March 7, 2025

Western Australia 2025: Final Polls Predict Another Drubbing

Note for Saturday night:  I have a clash with a chess tournament on the weekend and it is not clear whether or not I will be able to do live coverage or how much, though the time difference helps. If there is live coverage it may start late.  If I can do live coverage there will be a thread that I will keep open for a few days and then aim to have a more detailed look at how the Legislative Council contest is going (if still interesting) on Monday evening or Tuesday.  

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This will be a pretty quick post but I should note the two polls released today re the WA state election.  The campaign opened with a 56-44 Newspoll and some degree of narrowing from there would not have been a huge surprise, but two polls out today have slightly more lopsided readings.  The two sets of numbers are in fact as good as identical:  Newspoll has 57.5-42.5 off primaries of Labor 44 Liberal 29 Nationals 5 Green 10 One Nation 3 others 9.  DemosAU has 57-43 off Labor 43 Liberal 30 Nationals 5 Greens 11 and others (which includes One Nation) 11.   So between them about a 12.5% swing back.  

For a 2PP in this range my seat model estimates that Labor will win the 2PP in 44 seats and the conservative parties in 15 (one better for Labor than a simple pendulum expects); some small number of either might actually be won by independents, regarding whom there's just no data.  Major party sources have been reported as considering the pendulum-predicted gain of 11 seats to be at the low end.  

There has been some speculation about a non-uniform swing, ie that Labor might get a bigger swing against it in the bush and less in Perth.  If that happens, that can make things dicey for the Liberals in the seats around or just below the swing line where Labor has sophomore effect (Scarborough, South Perth, Riverton, Dawesville) but it doesn't bring much joy above the expected swing line until one gets up to seats like Pilbara (ALP vs Nat 17%) and Murray-Wellington (ALP vs Lib 17.4%) both of which were won by Labor in 2017.  Labor sources are even making somewhat optimistic noises about Albany though the opponent there might have something to do with it.  If the result comes out about what the current polls are saying, the Nationals could win at least five seats (from their present base of three) with some prospects of a couple more.  Australian Election Forecasts with its more bells-and-whistlesy version has a projection of around 40 Labor, 14 Liberal and 4 National (doesn't sum to 59 because of rounding) but that does assume a slight narrowing to 56.6% as a final 2PP (which would not be unusual historically), and also expects reversions from previous swings to work in the Liberals' and Nationals' favour.  

So remarkably low are the expectations that the Newspoll has been greeted by The Australian describing ten seats won as an "internal pass mark" for the Liberal opposition to an eight-year old federally-dragged state government - though such a result would be the worst for any state opposition in that situation since Victoria 1967.     

The election as a whole has seen a great shortage of polling, with nothing between the start and the end of the campaign.  The shadow of the federal election and the perception of a done and very boring deal have not inspired media clients to shell out.  Two final polls aren't a lot of data and if Labor does underperform by a modest amount there will be acres of newsprint wasted on federal speculations or talk about the impact of Premier Cook giving JD Vance a character reference.  (The latter in fact happened while both polls were still in field).  I haven't even seen a complete set of seat betting though one set of a few seats had Labor narrowly favourites in Albany and Darling Range and narrowly trailing in Geraldton, Kalamunda (which is on 15.1%) and Kalgoorlie, and more significantly trailing in South Perth.  

While the Liberals appear uncompetivive, Libby Mettam is polling very respectable personal ratings, a net +1 in Newspoll and a reasonable showing on Better Premier in both polls (34-53 in Newspoll and 32-47 in DemosAU - the indicator favours incumbents).  Roger Cook's Newspoll net rating has barely budged at net +17 (55-38, down one point from the start of the campaign).  Some Labor internal "polling" showing Liberal aspirant Basil Zempilas on net -12 with women and net -3 with men was doing the rounds on radio today as an explanation for the party seeing him as a negative for the Liberals, but these numbers are hardly fatal if true.  

The only other thing to mention here quickly is the Legislative Council.  I had a rough go at projecting this in the previous episode, and not a great amount has changed.  On the recent polls Labor would get around sixteen seats, the Greens four, Liberals about eleven, Nationals a fair shot at two (but maybe only one), One Nation at least one (a fair shot at two since they are not contesting all Lower House seats so their Legislative Council vote should be higher) and about three for other minor parties - Legalise Cannabis, Australian Christians and maybe SFFPWA if anyone works out what that is.  

Wednesday, March 5, 2025

Prospects for the 2025 Senate Election

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Donations welcome!

If you find my coverage useful please consider donating to support the large amount of time I spend working on this site.  The sidebar (scroll down and click on "view web version" if viewing via mobile) has Paypal or PayID instructions or email me via the address in my profile for my account details.  Please only donate if you are sure you can afford to do so.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is a general (and maths-heavy) piece giving assessments of the 2025 half-Senate election in each state and territory and overall. A detailed Senate guide for Tasmania will be released soon after the announcement of nominations for the state.  Firstly, a look at which Senate seats are up for grabs at this election and which are continuing until 2028 (barring a double dissolution):


At present Labor holds 25 of the 76 seats.  Labor can pass legislation supported by the Greens (11 seats) and any three of a crossbench of 11.  The crossbench consists of David Pocock, ex-Greens defector Lidia Thorpe, ex-Labor defector Fatima Payman, Jacqui Lambie, ex-Lambie defector Tammy Tyrrell, two One Nation Senators, Ralph Babet (UAP, which still exists for parliamentary purposes), and two ex-Coalition defectors. The ability to block enquiries, motions and disallowances in the Senate is also very important and hereLabor and the Greens combined need two votes.

As I start this article polling is pointing to a substantial two-party swing in the House of Reps to the Coalition but either side could form government, probably in minority and perhaps deeply so.

If Labor wins narrowly then it could be little changes.  On the optimistic side they might improve by one by winning two in Queensland at the expense of the LNP, but that is no sure thing (see Queensland below).  

If the Coalition wins narrowly - or at least not by more than in 2019 - then upstairs could be a problem for them.  The left won a 19-16 majority in the 2022 election state slate (I have counted Tyrrell as neither, though a reader informs me that since splitting from JLN she has voted with the Governnent a lot).  It seems very difficult for the right to win more than 18 state seats even assuming that it wins four in Queensland.  Even if the Liberals recover their ACT seat, that then only gets the right to 36 and needing at least three votes (or two and an absence) out of Lambie, Tyrrell, Thorpe and Payman.  They can need Pocock as well if he gets re-elected at their expense, and if they also don't get a four-seat set anywhere they can need all five.  There's potential here for a double dissolution to get rid of the 2022 slate and get things moving well before the end of a first Coalition term, but that's very likely to throw a few Coalition seats to the minor right, so that's not ideal either.  

Resources

For this article, I mostly treat the 2022 election as the default result, and look at how much needs to change for something else to happen.  I'll add in mentions of Senate polling if I see any later, but Senate polling at recent elections has been pretty useless, outside the 2022 ACT contest where it did correctly point to a likely Pocock win.  The problem with Senate polling is it's very difficult to replicate the experience of a voter choosing between 20-25 different parties.  Minor parties that are named in Senate polling readouts tend to get higher vote shares than they actually poll.  Senate polling also tends to be conducted by low-quality outfits.  

For the purposes of this article I assume the current Reps polling is broadly correct - if there is a big shift in the leadup to the election or a polling error then some results will be different.   In current House of Representatives polling there is about a 3% two-party swing from Labor to the Coalition, assuming a modest degree of preference-shifting since the 2022 election.   By purely last-election preferences the swing is about 2.3%, but by purely pollster-released 2PPs it's approaching 4%.  The Coalition's primary vote is clearly up and Labor's down, but polls vary wildly in estimates of the Labor primary.  The Greens seem to be roughly holding steady.  One Nation appears to be polling very strongly (running at around 7.5, up 2.5 points on 2022, and in some recent cases hitting 9%) but its vote is probably being inflated by the use of "generic ballot" polling where it is one of the options listed but other minor right parties are not.  Another source of confusion regarding where the minor parties overall are sitting is the inflated Independent vote in some polls.  Independent-style campaigns aren't significant in the Senate, Pocock excepted, so it's hard to get a read on where the other minor parties might be travelling.

The minor party polling mix has also been unsettled by the disppearance of the UAP which polled 3.5% in the 2022 Senate election.  However, following its failure to get reregistered under its name, the UAP operation has transplanted itself to Trumpet of Patriots (a pre-existing rebadge of the Australian Federation Party which polled abysmally in 2022, but likely to behave more like the UAP in spending terms and garish yellow ads).  Other Senate lineup changes include the registration of the new Family First, which has polled 1.3% in NSW, 2% in Victoria and 3% in South Australia in state upper house elections, and the registration of Fatima Payman's Australia's Voice, an unknown quantity.  Eleven parties that ran in 2022 have been deregistered without being replaced, but in general these did not poll much.

A general rule in the Senate is that seats are mainly determined by primary votes.  Preferences are important around the edges but only change who gets elected about once in each half-Senate cycle.  The Coalition, Labor, Greens and One Nation tend to be the best performers on preferences (not necessarily in that order) and tend to outperform or overtake all other parties, except that David Pocock gets very strong preference flows in the ACT.   2022 saw an increase in preference flows between One Nation, the then UAP (now Trumpet of Patriots) and the then Liberal Democrats (now Libertarians) off the back of COVID-based discontents with the major parties and campaigns to increase preference flows between the mostly spuriously so-called "freedom friendly minor parties" (FFMPs).  How to vote cards have little influence, outside of those for major parties in the rare cases where a major party candidate with a substantial remainder gets excluded.   If you see a Senate model that uses how to vote cards as a major input, ignore it.  

At the moment I'm assuming Australia's Voice won't be competitive and that Trumpet of Patriots at least will not do better than the UAP did in 2022 - should evidence emerge otherwise, I will adjust accordingly.   

Below I mainly give seat totals in terms of quotas (Q).  A quota is effectively one-seventh of the total vote in each state (c. 14.29%) and one-third in the territories.  Through the article I talk a lot about possible swings between two parties, but this need not be an even gain and loss from one party to another.  For instance, a 3% swing from Labor to Coalition does not necessarily mean Labor primary down 3% and Coalition up 3% - it could be Labor down 2 and Coalition up 4, for example.  And it does not necessarily mean voters are moving between those two parties, just that those are changes in the totals.  

New South Wales

SEATS VACATED: 3 COALITION 2 LABOR 1 GREEN
2022 RESULT: 3 COALITION 2 LABOR 1 GREEN

 The 2022 NSW leaders were as follows:

Coalition (L-NP) 2.571 Q
ALP 2.131
Greens 0.802
One Nation 0.289
UAP 0.237
Legalise Cannabis (LCP) 0.182
Animal Justice (AJP) 0.151
LDP 0.148

Early in the count it had looked like One Nation might be a threat to the Coalition but as the Coalition's position strengthened I called the seat a week after election day.  

In the preference distribution, surpluses and exclusions from the bottom occurred until this position was reached in the race for the final two seats (after the first two for the minors):

Greens 0.983 Q
L-NP 0.691
ON 0.391
LCP 0.307
UAP 0.302
ALP 0.245

The Labor preferences here put the Greens over quota.  Surpluses and exclusions continued with the Coalition eventually beating One Nation .861 Q to .694 Q, or a margin of about 2.4%.  

NSW is the most populous state, generally falls close to the national average and tends to hug close to the national swing.  The Coalition vs One Nation contest for the final seat in 2022 was the only thing that was even remotely close and here it is notable that One Nation closed the gap by .115 Q (1.6%) on preferences.  It's plausible One Nation will make gains here considering their polling, but the Coalition is making gains in polling too, so the most likely result appears to be the status quo.

One Nation might also not do so well here because of internal tensions - in 2022 the party had Mark Latham as a high-profile state MLC but since then all the state One Nation MLCs have quit.  The Libertarians will be led by the former MP for Hughes and Azerbaijan Craig Kelly who is at least prominent (even if he has now been a member of four parties in four years).  However the party tends to do poorly on preferences and would need a very good primary vote to reach and stay at the head of the minor right pack.

Outlook: Most likely 3 Coalition 2 Labor 1 Green

Victoria

SEATS VACATED: 2 COALITION 2 LABOR 1 GREEN 1 IND (ELECTED AS LIB)
2022 RESULT: 2 COALITION 2 LABOR 1 GREEN 1 UAP (GREEN SINCE DEFECTED TO IND)

The 2022 Victorian Senate count was the only one where a scenario that had looked plausible in a few mainland states happened: neither major party got much in the race for the last seat, and a minor right party snuck through the middle.  Sadly it was the UAP, whose Ralph Babet was elected fair and square  and was the primary vote leader for the last seat despite all the rubbish people spout about his below the line vote, preferences or whatever.  That link gives the key points of the count; for this one I thought I'd do it in a table.


The table is a simplified version of the count and doesn't show the two quotas for which the Coalition and Labor secured seats at the start of the cutup, nor the Greens who polled a primary vote of 0.97Q and crossed on minor exclusions.  The key points are on the right, where:

* Labor outlasts Legalise Cannabis by 0.046 Q to be the remaining left party seeking a fourth left seat (I treat Legalise Cannabis as left though this is not straightforward - they also have rural appeal to One Nation voter types and some members will have more right-compatible views on vaccines or climate change.)  
* The UAP is ahead of One Nation by just 0.034 Q (about half a percent) in the race to be the remaining minor right party seeking to beat the Coalition.  (If the UAP is excluded at this point, One Nation wins but less convincingly as they are not on the Coalition how to vote card)
* The UAP outlasts the Coalition by 0.136 Q (just under 2%) and then beats Labor by .149 Q (2.15%)

Victoria appears to be Labor's worst state in swing terms, with the Bludger Track aggregate putting it down 4% there, which may even be conservative.  The federal party seems to be being dragged by the state party, which is polling terribly, though it did manage to barely hang on in the difficult Werribee by-election.  It's likely Labor will fall below two quotas here, or even if they don't that they at least will crash out early.  This will most likely leave Legalise Cannabis as the left contender for a fourth left seat that has been rendered unlikely by Labor's poor performance.  (Legalise Cannabis are running former Sex/Reason state MLC Fiona Patten as their candidate - Patten is very media-savvy and will play well in much of the Melbourne metro, perhaps less well rurally).

What appears quite likely in Victoria is that a swing between the major parties lifts the Coalition ticket so far ahead of UAP, ON, Libertarians etc that none of those can catch them.  The Coalition does on the above figures need about a 1.6% gain relative to whichever of those parties is on top of the pile this time around but that at present that shouldn't be difficult.  If there is a minor right seat, One Nation seem the best chance but Libertarians, Family First and Trumpet of Patriots will also be vying for it should they disappoint.

Because neither major party had much left over, the 2022 figures suggest Legalise Cannabis could be competitive for a seat if it could roughly double its vote to about 6%, which isn't unthinkable with the party having gained a foothold in the Legislative Council.  But with Labor likely to be short of two quotas, Legalise Cannabis could be starved of enough preference sources.  

The view that voters are giving both majors the thumbs down in Victoria gained strength following the Werribee by-election, but this was in fact a misreading of what had occurred.  Although primary votes splattered in a large field there, there was not a strong thorough anti-majors sentiment and both major parties drew away from the Independent Paul Hopper in the preference throw.  For this reason I would not take Werribee as evidence against a swing to Coalition in the Senate.

Outlook: Probably 3 Coalition 2 Labor 1 Green though a minor right seat is possible

Queensland

SEATS VACATED: 2 LNP 1 ALP 1 GREEN 1 ON 1 GRPF (ELECTED AS L-NP)
2022 RESULT: 2 LNP 2 ALP 1 GREEN 1 ON

In 2019 Labor had a terrible result in the Queensland Senate race, winning only one seat as the Coalition elected three with One Nation winning as well.  In 2022 they won two again, but it was closer than the early media suggested.

Election-night returns suggested Legalise Cannabis were in the mix for a seat and that Pauline Hanson was likely to lose, but these were based on an unrepresentative vote count and also a lack of appreciation of the strength of One Nation's preference flows. By the time the primary count was finished, One Nation were obviously ahead.  

Leading primaries were:

LNP 2.467 Q
Labor 1.729
Greens 0.867
ON 0.518
LCP 0.376
UAP 0.293
LDP 0.175

After the exclusions of everybody below Legalise Cannabis, the Greens finally crossed quota and the quotas in the race for the final two seats were as follows:

ON 0.876
ALP 0.853
LNP 0.646
LCP 0.536

One Nation did almost as well off the leafy preferences as Labor did and the count finished with One Nation (Hanson) 0.996 Q Anthony Chisholm (Labor) 0.974 and Amanda Stoker (LNP) missing out on .720.  This means that Stoker lost by 3.6%.   The interesting thing here is that One Nation did so well on minor right preferences (othat they gained a whopping 3.3% on Labor during the count and overtook them.  

Projections of the Queensland Senate race that I have seen have normally been along the lines that nothing is happening in Queensland federal polling therefore nothing will change and the result can be locked away at another 2-2-1-1. However people seem to have forgotten that Queensland federal polling is often unreliable, most notably in 2019 when a swing to Labor was expected then an hour or two into election night we were all going "Blair?  Is that actually a seat?"  So there is room for something else to happen, which would most likely be Labor having another shocker and again missing out on a second seat.  This only needs a 1.8% swing but with voters having taken out their frustrations on the former Palaszcuk/Miles government it may be this is less likely now.

The 5.4% vote for Legalise Cannabis in 2022 was impressive but they would need to grow that to at least 9% and perhaps more likely 10% to win. 

Gerard Rennick is running at the head of an eponymous party Gerard Rennick People First after being disendorsed.  Rennick has a degree of minor right following online but is fishing in the same pool as One Nation and TOP and is probably not well enough known to attract a competitive vote in this mix.  

Outlook: Probably 2 LNP 2 Labor 1 Green 1 ON but second Labor seat could be at risk to LNP

Western Australia

SEATS VACATED: 3 LIB 2 ALP 1 GREEN
2022 RESULT: 3 ALP 2 LIB 1 GREEN (1 ALP SINCE DEFECTED TO AUS VOICE)

Labor's strength in Western Australia in 2022 resulted in a 4-2 left-right result though their third Senator Fatima Payman has since quit the party and formed her own.  These were the leaders in 2022:

ALP 2.419 Q
Lib 2.217
Green 0.998
ON 0.244
LCP 0.237
Aus Christians 0.152
UAP 0.149
LDP 0.135
WA Party 0.122

This quickly elected 2 Labor, 2 Liberal and 1 Green leaving the question of whether anyone could catch Labor for the final seat.  With four left quotas were:

ALP 0.595
ON 0.526
Lib 0.404
LCP 0.379

After excluding Legalise Cannabis:

ALP 0.712
ON 0.611
Lib 0.456

After excluding Liberal, Labor (Payman) won 0.853 to One Nation 0.745, a margin of about 1.5%, meaning that a 2PP swing of less than 1% woild overturn it.  The One Nation to Liberal margin was 2.2%.

Although Labor had a remarkable 10.55% two-party swing to them in the Reps in 2022, generally Labor seems to be travelling OK in WA federal polling with the swing back looking like being only 2-3% (which is quite impressive if true).  That is, all else being equal, still enough to drop the seat to either One Nation or the Liberal ticket, but at the moment it is not clear who, and if Labor do slightly better than the current WA polls they could even win three again (seems rather improbable though as the WA polling is already at the better end of what seems credible).  The surge in the Liberal primary is enough at the moment to put them past One Nation - except that One Nation are also surging, although how much of that is real and how much is generic ballot polling inflating their vote isn't clear.

We should get a much better idea of how the One Nation brand is travelling in WA on the weekend and I'll amend this assessment if necessary then.  The other possibility here is Legalise Cannabis who might now have a more realistic path in WA than Victoria.  A plausible two-party swing of just over 1.5% puts Legalise Cannabis over Labor - this can be achieved with a LCP vote around 5%.  In 2022 the Liberals would have received more Labor preferences than Legalise Cannabis but that is because Legalise Cannabis were not on Labor's how to vote card.  Being listed on Labor's card for WA could in the very best case scenario be worth up to 0.85% for the party on preferences and could mean that 5% actually wins.  The dream scenario for LCP here is to just get over Labor then have One Nation excluded in a case where One Nation does not list the Coalition on their card.  A lot has to go right here and again we will also get a better idea of how LCP are travelling in WA on the weekend.

Outlook: 2 Labor 2 Liberal 1 Green with final seat probably either One Nation or Liberal, but possibly Legalise Cannabis

South Australia

SEATS VACATED: 3 LIB 2 ALP 1 GREEN
2022 RESULT: 3 LIB 2 ALP 1 GREEN

In SA in 2022 the Liberals had a small primary vote lead:

Lib 2.375 Q
ALP 2.259
Green 0.837
ON 0.281
UAP 0.212
Nick Xenophon 0.209
LCP 0.163
LDP 0.154
Rex Patrick Team 0.145
AJP 0.123

Former Senator Nick Xenophon had a blank above the line box, which results in miserable preference flows.  After his exclusion things stood at

Lib 0.628
Labor 0.518
ON 0.426
UAP 0.311

Now the UAP preferences put One Nation over Labor

Lib 0.668
ON 0.606
Labor 0.557

And the Labor preferences saw Liddle (Liberal) beat One Nation 0.868 Q to 0.668, a margin of 2.87%.

One would think from national polling that nothing is changing here; the Liberals would at worst hold station and again win three.  But at state level the Liberal brand is in terrible condition; the state party is being smashed in polling and has dropped two seats in by-elections to the government (the only previous real case of this happening coming in World War 2).  It is not just that it has lost these seats but also that it was slaughtered in the by-election for Black with a 12.6% swing.  Conversely One Nation have been polling fantastically in federal breakdowns in the state and their lone South Australian MLC Sarah Game, elected as a total unknown, has impressed.  Game's mother, Jennifer Game, is the lead SA candidate.  

The Liberal Senate preselection has also attracted criticism with Alex Antic, a Trumpy hard-righter who often votes with One Nation, Rennick and Babet, topping the ticket ahead of Anne Ruston.  While the Liberals could still get three (federal politics is not state politics after all) a straight read of the Bludgertrack Reps swings gives the seat to One Nation.  It's also not unthinkable that there could be a swing to Labor in South Australia so I wouldn't completely rule out the left bagging a four against the run of play (which would be a huge problem for the Coalition if it happened).  The swing wouldn't need to be large, around the 2% margin flowing through to Senate will do it.

Also of interest here is the performance of Family First.  The previous incarnation of this party often did well in South Australia and the new one wasn't too far behind One Nation so if One Nation implodes (as it does somewhere around the country on a regular basis) this party should also be considered in the minor right mix in the event that a seat is available.

Outlook: 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green, last seat One Nation seems a good chance, or possibly Liberal or Labor.

Tasmania

SEATS VACATED: 2 LIB 2 ALP 1 GRN 1 JLN
2022 RESULT: 2 LIB 2 ALP 1 GRN 1 JLN (JLN Senator defected to form own party)

It's a struggle to get excited about my home state.  The 2022 primaries were:

Lib 2.241 Q
ALP 1.893
Green 1.084
Jacqui Lambie Network 0.605
ON 0.271
LCP 0.212
LDP 0.136
UAP 0.114
Local Party 0.101

The Liberal vote was slightly inflated by a below the line campaign for then Senator Eric Abetz, who lost his seat after being demoted to third (he has since been elected to state parliament).  13.6% of Abetz's BTLs or 0.04 quotas leaked at 2 so were not really Liberal-ticket votes.

The gap between the top four is so wide here that a very great deal has to change for a different result.  After preferences JLN defeated One Nation 1.045 Q to 0.626 Q with some Liberal votes remaining that also favoured JLN, so they were running away with it.  For JLN to lose to any of the micro-parties they would have to lose at least half their primary vote, probably more.  The minor parties have basically no campaign presence in the state at present (Legalise Cannabis has named a candidate, that's about all).  

I suppose it is worth considering the possibility of the Liberals taking Lambie's seat but unless Lambie's vote goes down a lot, this would require a primary vote swing to the Liberals of something like 5%, and even that might not be enough as Lambie will tend to flog them on preferences.

The JLN outfit is looking and sounding battle-scarred.  In the past few years Lambie has seen Tyrrell defect, then three MPs have won election under her name to the state parliament, only for two of those to also defect.  However, support for JLN in state polling is still strong; JLN voters are often low-information types who probably don't care that the concept is a mess.  JLN billboards are prominent around Hobart though I've heard the candidate this time (Lambie herself) is not working the electorate as hard as in previous elections.  She did, interestingly, come out on the side of the Greens over Macquarie Harbour salmon management (a touchy point in parts of her best seat of Braddon), albeit in an amusingly sweary fashion.

Outlook: Probably 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 JLN

ACT

SEATS VACATED AND 2022 RESULT: 1 LABOR 1 POCOCK

The ACT was the only Senate contest in 2022 where a candidate who was trailing on primary quotas won.  The leaders in the primary count were (note: a quota is a third of the total in the ACT)

Labor 1.001 Q
Liberal 0.744
Pocock 0.635
Greens 0.309
Kim 4 Canberra 0.133
UAP 0.064
LCP 0.048

The Liberals had a lead of 3.6% but with the ACT having a very low exhaust rate, with 20.6% available in preferences and with Labor helpfully getting elected by themselves they were obviously going to get smashed here.  Pocock ended up winning with 1.090 quotas to Seselja (Liberal)'s 0.857 quotas, a margin of 7.77%.  

Pocock has had a successful first term and the Liberals have some issues going into the campaign.  Their intention to cut public service jobs looks like an obvious millstone and their candidate Jacob Vadakkedathu has faced branch stacking accusations that resulted in 40% of preselectors voting for a failed attempt to reopen preselections.  

Nonetheless early in the term there was speculation that Pocock might be such a runaway success that he might take enough votes from Labor for the seats to split Pocock-Liberal instead of Labor-Pocock.  Is this a real risk?

The best way to get a handle on this is via a Senate 3CP.  This is where the 2022 Senate preferences go between Labor, Liberal and Pocock:  

Labor 40.97%
Pocock 31.71%
Liberal 27.33%

This doesn't function the same way as a Reps 3CP.  In a Reps 3CP if you are third you lose, but in a Senate 3CP if the leader has more than 33.33%, then those votes are available to the other two.  In this case votes that didn't need to go to Labor because they had already won boosted Pocock by 3.39% out of 7.64%.  

If the Liberals get to 33.33% they win, but that requires them to take 6% from the other two.  They can also win by being ahead of Pocock by enough that he cannot beat them on the remainder, but if the Labor vote stays where it is that requires a 3.89% swing from Pocock to Liberal.

The scenario of Labor losing by fallinng below the Liberals requires at minimum a 6.82% swing from Labor to Liberal at the 3CP stage.  That could in theory be more a swing against Labor than to Liberal (eg Labor drops 11 points and the Liberals gain 3) but in that case votes are going to Pocock that can put him over quota and save Labor on preferences.  That suggests the swing required is even higher.  And in an election that has more of the inner city/outer city vibe that will benefit the broad left in most of the ACT that swing seems unlikely.  I'd probably not mind seeing the conclusion that Pocock will retain blessed by a reliable poll (the ACT being one of the few places where Senate polling even might work) but overall it's hard to see either path for the Liberals working.

Outlook: Probably 1 Labor and Pocock - in some order


Northern Territory

SEATS VACATED AND 2022 RESULT: 1 CLP 1 LABOR

The NT Senate would have been much more interesting this time around had it been expanded to four seats; that didn't happen.  The 2022 leaders were

Labor 0.989 Q
Country Liberals (CLP) 0.951
Greens 0.368
Liberal Democrats 0.278
LCP 0.187
Great Australians 0.132

Great Australians got a lot of the minor right vote in the absence of One Nation and UAP.  The high Liberal Democrat vote was because dumped CLP Senator Sam McMahon ran with them.  

There shouldn't be anything to see here.  The CLP should get quota, maybe easily.  Labor probably won't but will be way ahead of the Greens as the major competition.  Just in case something goes really pearshape for Labor (like it did in the NT election), the 2022 3CP was

Liberal 42.3%
Labor 38.4%
Greens 19.3%

So this needs a 9.6% swing from Labor to Green just to put the Greens into second on the 3CP, but even then the Greens still lose as the CLP preferences give Labor another circa 3.8% vs the Greens.  Not happening.

Outlook: 1 CLP 1 Labor