Eric Abetz And The 2016 Tasmanian Liberal Result

Advance Summary

1. The Tasmanian Liberal result at the 2016 federal election was very poor.

2. Not only was the Liberal primary low, but in the Senate race the Liberals failed to obtain preferences even from "right-wing" parties.

3. Liberal ticket leader Eric Abetz has offered a number of reasons for the party's poor results, some of which are clearly false.

4. In fact the Liberal ticket would have had more chance of winning five seats had a below-the-line campaign for Richard Colbeck been more successful, not less.

5. Although Senator Abetz polarises opinion and was the candidate most frequently placed last on Senate ballots, no conclusions about his popularity can be drawn directly from this result.

6. Historically, there is evidence that the Liberal Party performs worse in Tasmania (relative to the nation) when Senator Abetz is on top of the Senate ballot, but the difference is not quite statistically significant and could be caused by other factors.

7. There is no evidence in historic results that having Abetz on top of the ticket is an asset to the party's fortunes.

8. Tasmania is a historically Labor-leaning state, but this does not alone explain the poor result at this election.

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Tasmania Senate 2016 Button Press And Analysis

Result

Order 1 Abetz (Lib) 2 Urquhart (ALP) 3 Whish-Wilson (Green) 4 Lambie (JLN) 5 Parry (Lib) 6 Polley (ALP) 7 Duniam (Lib) 8 Brown (ALP) 9 Bushby (Lib) 10 Singh (ALP) 11 Bilyk (ALP) 12 McKim (Green) 
Colbeck (Lib) was passed by McKim and McCulloch and excluded
5 Labor 4 Liberal 2 Green 1 Lambie

I would like to thank all the AEC staff in Hobart for all their help with information on the count and congratulate them on their efficient and punctual delivery of the Tasmanian outcomes.

EMRS: Hodgman Government Would Lose Majority

EMRS July 2016: Liberal 37 Labor 32 Green 17 "Independent" 12 Others 2
Intepretation: Liberal 38.5 Labor 35.5 Green 14 Others 12
On this poll Hodgman government would clearly lose its majority
Seat projection 11-10-4 (Liberal-Labor-Green) or 12-10-3.
No seats are projected to fourth parties/independents as no prominent fourth parties are yet known to be running

Also now released EMRS May 2016: Liberal 41 Labor 29 Green 21 "Independent" 8 Others 1
Interpretation: Liberal 43 Labor 31 Green 18 Others 8
On this poll Hodgman government would have lost its majority in May as well
Seat projection for May 12-10-3

Aggregate of all recent polling 12-10-3 (no majority)

Seat Betting Improves, But Still No Miracle, At The 2016 Federal Election

Advance Summary

1. Seat betting markets, sometimes considered to be highly predictive, returned another modest result at the 2016 federal election, predicting thirteen seats incorrectly.

2. Seat betting markets did however improve as a predictor of total seat wins compared to the 2013 election, at which they greatly overestimated the Coalition's winning seat margin.

3. Seat betting markets also performed impressively in their predictions of "non-classic" seats, getting only one (Cowper) wrong.

4. Overall the predictions of seat betting markets were extremely similar to those of poll-based projections.

5. Large swings to Labor in outer suburban and low-income seats, generally missed in public seat polling, gave seat betting markets an opportunity to show superior insight.

6. That chance was, however, generally missed, showing that seat betting displays no superior insights.

7. In terms of seat totals, individual seat markets again showed no notable insights, and were again outperformed by betting markets dealing specifically with the number of seats won.

2016 Late Postcount And Expected Recount: Herbert

Yeah OK this is kinda closeish, this one ...

Herbert (LNP 6.2%, Qld)
Cathy O'Toole (ALP) ahead by 8 votes at end (?) of indicative 2PP count
O'Toole provisionally won recount by 35 votes.  
Following distribution of preferences O'Toole has won by 37 votes.
O'Toole will be seated and result can be challenged in court, but will retain seat until court (or by-election called by court) determines otherwise.
At least three incidents in which voters were unable to vote have been alleged.

2016 Tasmania Senate: A Model Of What Might Occur

Button press imminent - results and discussion will be posted on a new thread.  Thanks all for the comments - this has been the most commented thread in this site's history by a long way!

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Tasmanian Senate model

Outcome of model based on current data: 
Likely outcome 5 Labor 4 Liberal 2 Green 1 Lambie
Next most likely outcome is 5-5-1-1.
Nick McKim and Richard Colbeck main contenders for final seat. McKim appears somewhat better placed on my sampling but contest is too close to call.
Significant chance of Colbeck not making final two and final contest being McKim vs McCulloch

Outside chance of McCulloch (One Nation) win, other micro-parties don't appear competitive.

Note: updates added through count including second model run from Thursday 21 July  - scroll to bottom.

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2016 Senate Postcount: A Very Long Way Still To Go

This thread contains some general comments about the overall state of the Senate race and the campaign.  There is one thing I want to make clear about the Senate race right now before I get any further:

We still have an extremely long way to go!

What we have at the moment are primary vote counts that are often little more than halfway complete and may still move around a lot based on votes still to be added.  We have a new Senate voting system and no past-data experience of how voters use it.  People are trying to pick from this which micro-parties might win seats when we don't know what the final votes are let alone what they mean.

I understand the media's desire to communicate information to readers, but this stuff is hugely complex and I just want people to accept that it is going to take a long time to know who will be winning particular seats, and in some cases we won't know what is going to happen until the pressing of The Button when all the votes have been entered.

2016 House of Reps Postcount: Cowper

This is just a brief explainer re a seat that is not in significant doubt but that is going to cause confusion. Please post comments on other seats to the thread below.

In the seat of Cowper (NSW), Rob Oakeshott took on the Nationals' Luke Hartsuyker in a last-minute raid that caused the Nationals a lot of panic especially with polls showing a very tight race.  In 2013 this was a classic Coalition-vs-Labor seat.  Because Oakeshott has made the final two in 2016, the AEC is conducting a realignment of the Cowper count by booth.

Because different booths have very different leanings, the sample of booths included in the realignment will cause the two-candidate preferred count between Hartsuyker and Oakeshott to move around a lot in the early stages before eventually settling down.  After six booths Oakeshott is in the lead on that count, which may give an appearance he is winning.

2016 House of Reps Postcount: Vanilla Reps Seats

Expected final outcome Coalition 76 Labor 68 Others 5 Undecided 1

Herbert: Labor leading, much too close to call, recount very likely (moved to new thread)

Coalition assumed to win: Grey, Dunkley, Chisholm, Gilmore, Flynn, Forde, Capricornia
Labor assumed to win: Batman, Cowan, Hindmarsh, Melbourne Ports (see separate thread)

Note: You can now vote in the sidebar Not-A-Poll on what will be the closest seat!

Introduction

This thread deals with the standard (hence the "vanilla" in title) two-party preferred seats at the 2016 federal election, as distinct from more exotic offerings like Grey and Melbourne Ports which have their own threads.  Usually the Coalition performs slightly better on post-counting than Labor and for this reason I have (for now) not included Robertson, Petrie, Dickson or La Trobe, in all of which the Coalition leads by more than 1000 votes.  Should any of these close up I may cover them. In 2010 and 2013 Labor never won any seat in which the Coalition had more than 50.53% at the end of the ordinary votes.  However with the different mix of postal votes (see below) perhaps Labor might make such a gain somewhere.

2016 Federal Postcount: Grey and Other NXT Seats

GREY (SA, LIB vs NXT)
Preferences are being reallocated to correct two-candidate preferred
Ignore raw totals during this process 
Outlook: Liberal retain

This thread follows postcounting in the seats where the Nick Xenophon Team might be in some kind of contention in South Australia, other than Mayo which they have already won.  The big one is Grey but some people are saying there is still life in Boothby and there are a few others worth mentioning.

Grey is a case where the AEC had the "wrong" pair of candidates on the night and these cases always create great confusion because of the process involved in fixing this.

House of Reps Postcount 2016: Melbourne Ports

Melbourne Ports (ALP, Vic, 3.6%)
Michael Danby (ALP) vs Owen Guest (Lib) and Steph Hodgins-May (Green)
Outlook: Danby Retain (Awaiting official confirmation)

Key questions (updated Saturday 16 July, 2:30 pm):

1. Can the enormous declaration vote rate in Melbourne Ports cause Guest to beat Danby on the two primary preferred?  No.

2. Can Hodgins-May overtake Danby on the preferences of left-wing micro-parties?  Awaiting official confirmation - provisionally Danby has survived by about 800 votes.

3. If Hodgins-May overtakes Danby, who wins out of Hodgins-May and Guest?  Too close to call on scrutineering information available to date but irrelevant

Postcount: 2016 Tasmanian Senate

Seats Won: 4 Labor 4 Liberal 1 Green 1 Lambie
Seats In Doubt: 2 (Labor vs Green vs Liberal vs various micro-parties)
It appears likely Labor will win five seats
Lisa Singh has very good chance of re-election. 
Richard Colbeck's position is not yet clear.
It appears difficult for micro-parties to win (One Nation has a remote chance, it is hard to find a realistic chance for others)

Expected to be returned easily: Urquhart (ALP), Polley (ALP), Brown (ALP), Abetz (Lib), Parry (Lib), Duniam (Lib), Whish-Wilson (Green), Lambie (JLN)

Bilyk (ALP), Singh (ALP), McKim (Green), Bushby (Lib), Colbeck (Lib) are contesting final four seats, together with various micro-party lead candidates.

Current assessment 5-4-2-1 to Labor or 5-5-1-1 are most likely

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Note: I have decided to put some new modelling of this contest in a new post.  Go to Tasmania Senate: A Model Of What Might Occur for my latest comments, though those below are also often still relevant.

Election Wrap: A Total Mess!

ELECTION OUTCOME: Hung parliament or narrow Coalition majority

Apparent Coalition Wins: 69

Apparent Labor Wins: 64

Apparent Crossbench Wins: 5

Links to threads will be added here.

Undecided Seats (12):

Coalition vs ALP (9):

Capricornia

Chisholm

Cowan
Dunkley 

Flynn (see below)

Forde

Gilmore

Herbert

Hindmarsh

Coalition vs NXT

Grey

Coalition vs ALP or Greens

Melbourne Ports

ALP vs Greens

Batman

Election night arrangements and election watching tips

Live coverage over here starting about 6 pm



When will we know?

We should get exit polls right after 6 pm, which are still a bit of a vague science in this country.  Votes will build up from maybe 6:30 and if the result isn't close we could know who has won the Reps in a couple of hours.  This is especially likely if the Coalition does better than expected on either the 2PP or its sandbagging of Labor marginals. However there's a fairly high chance based on current polling the result (the winner and/or if there's a majority) will be either not quite nailed down or very much up in the air at the end of tonight's counting.

There have been serious information transmission failures in at least one state election or by-election recently (forget which one) so don't be too surprised if there are website issues at either the AEC or ABC end.

Final Poll And Campaign Roundup: Was It Really So Bad Now?

2PP aggregate smoothed tracking graph. Probably final

EXPECTED FINAL 2PP Aggregate: 50.8 to Coalition
CAUTION: Final polls appear herded
Seat Projection if this is the actual 2PP: Probable Coalition majority win (approx 79-65-6)
Subjective prediction 78-65-7 (plus or minus lots!)
NXT seat outcome in SA is unpredictable - could win none or lots