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

I have not called Flynn because although Labor currently has a 1.8% margin there, in 2013 the Coalition gained exactly that in the postcount in that seat.  

Over coming weeks I'll be posting more details of the amazing mess that is the 2016 federal election outcome.  It will take us well into the postcount before we know whether the Coalition has flopped over the line in enough close seats to claim a small majority, or whether it might have to go looking for one or two crossbench friends.  The Coalition needs to win eight out of 11 unclear seats to win a majority.  Labor would have to win everything it can to win majority government, but may form minority government if it wins most of the seats still in play.  I have listed 12 undecided seats above but it is possible I will add others that might move back into the frame, or should I find a credible NXT scenario in some other SA seat.  (A case for NXT having some sort of shot might be argued in a few other seats but requires heroic preferencing assumptions.)

The current two-party preferred swing in the 138 "classic divisions" (Coalition vs Labor) is 3.3%.  On 2013 experience this should come down to about 3.0%, once all the non-ordinary votes are added, so about a 50.5% 2PP (exactly as per the final Newspoll), or maybe slightly more.  The polls were right, and any shift in preferencing behaviour based on the primary votes appears to have been very small indeed (I currently have it at about 0.2 points).  

The Coalition would have been expected to just win a majority on these sorts of numbers, and might yet just do so.  But the very real chance that it will not arises from some unexpected feral swings in areas that based on seat polls and aggregated state polls did not appear to be at so much risk.  In particular, my home state has delivered three seats to Labor, including the seat of Bass with a 10.8% swing, when none of four seat polls by two different companies had that swing above 5%, and when aggregated state polling often implied a swing to the Coalition!  Another fine example is the seat of Macarthur, which has fallen 59:41 when three Newspoll/Galaxy seat polls had the Coalition at 49, 50 and 50.  It appears seat polling has avoided the disaster that befell it in 2013 (when it skewed hopelessly to the Coalition) but has found a new way to be unreliable.  

If the Coalition does come up a bit short in seats for the actual 2PP, I suspect it is the distribution of the swings that will be the cause.  Seats with small swings or swings to the Coalition were often useless seats and Labor may have just done better in the marginals.  The election also reveals weaker evidence for sophomore effect than is usually the case, with the "double sophomore" seats showing swings only 0.5 points below the national average (though this rises to 1.1 points if the outlier Bass is taken out.) In some cases this is a poor reflection on the calibre of the first-term Coalition MPs.

It scarcely matters (except for election addicts and potential MPs) whether the Coalition gets a Reps majority or not, because it is facing an even worse Senate than the last one.  Australians disenchanted by Turnbull's high-tech innovation nation and Bill Shorten's progressive-left Labor have turned in droves to protectionist populist Senate parties of the right and centre (as I suspected after reversing my initial Hanson-scepticism) as well as micro-parties of all kinds.  The Coalition looks about 9-11 seats short of a Senate majority.  It is unclear there will be enough non-Green crossbenchers for the Coalition to pass bills without the support of the Greens, and even if there are, the only benefit will be that there will be more party blocks included in them (three NXT from South Australia, and possibly multiple One Nation Senators from various states.)  Hinch and Hanson are winning, and there looks to be one as yet unknown Queensland micro and two in NSW.  

Calling a double dissolution under the new system has restored democracy to the Senate after the disastrous 2013 election, and those who win seats will do so based on the actual will of the voters, but the messy outcome of this proportional representation election with such a small quota will raise the question of whether a half-Senate election and putting up with the existing crossbench until 2019 would have been pragmatically wiser.  We will have to see exactly who is in this mess to see whether the government has any chance of passing its ABCC bills or even bothers with the joint sitting at all (that is, assuming it is returned.)  

Of the seats I list above as close there are two that require special explanation.  Melbourne Ports is a Labor win on the published two-party preferred (Labor vs Liberal) but Michael Danby is only 2.0% ahead of Steph Hodgins-May (Green).  However the Others vote in Melbourne Ports includes 1.9% for Animal Justice, 1.4% for Drug Law Reform, and 1.4% for Marriage Equality, which all sound like potential Greens feeders.  Perhaps Danby will move further ahead of the Greens in the post-count but on present numbers they could very well overtake him in the preference distribution.  If this happens then the Greens currently need 73% of all preferences over the Liberal candidate to win.  Danby is getting 80% of all preferences himself, but Danby infamously tried to direct his own preferences to the Liberals (reports vary of what cards were handed out and when).

The other is Grey.  Currently the ABC projects Grey as a Liberal retain, but this is not based on real numbers - it is just a guesstimate of preference flows.  In coming days Grey should be realigned as Liberal vs NXT and we will see whether Andrea Broadfoot can get the 72% of preferences she currently needs.  Rowan Ramsey may make that mountain steeper if his position improves in the postcount.

Tomorrow I will start rolling out postcount threads, for the following:

* Tasmanian Senate

* Melbourne Ports

* Grey

* One for all remaining two-candidate seats

* Possibly one for the remaining Senate races once the percentage counted is higher.

General analysis will continue to be added here.

A hint on the Tasmanian Senate: Lisa Singh at least is in with a serious chance; I have seen scrutineering figures with her getting 8-17% of the vote (not just the BTL vote or the Labor vote - all the vote) in four southern booths.  How well she does in the north of the state is as yet unknown.

(My usual voting declaration: Wilkie in Reps, and effectively (albeit not 1 for partly tactical reasons) Greens in Senate. I often make things difficult for the Tasmanian green movement but the major parties' policy failures on same-sex marriage (Liberal) and Senate reform (ALP) were completely unacceptable to me, and the Greens at least ticked both of those boxes.)

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Explainer: Why Are The AEC totals and election-night ABC totals different?

The AEC totals currently show the ALP leading in 72 seats and have 7 seats "not yet determined".  The figure for ALP leads is a few seats higher than the ABC had on election night.  The reason for this is that the figures on election night included a projection that takes into account post-count performance at the seat at the last election.  The "not yet determined" seats are mostly not close; they are seats where the AEC has not yet formally determined who the top two parties are because they differ from last time.  The "not yet determined" seats are Grayndler (which Labor will win), Grey (unclear NXT vs Liberal) and five other seats that the Coalition should win, with very minor doubt about Barker and Cowper depending on preference flows.