Not-A-Poll: Best Prime Minister Of The Last 45 Years, Round 4

(Image: Flickr:Gostalgia licence)

"The main sufferers in Australian society — the main victims of social deprivation and restricted opportunity - have been the oldest Australians on the one hand and the newest Australians on the other. " 

Three months ago, I started a multi-round Not-A-Poll to determine this site's choice for the title of Best Prime Minister of the Last 45 Years.  Each round, one Prime Minister (sometimes more) is given the boot until someone gets over 50% and wins.  Each round runs for about a month, so you can vote for different candidates from month to month if you want to.  Multiple voting is in theory banned, but still readily possible at low levels; adjustments may be made if required.  It is what it is, but at least it's preferential in a way, unlike, say, Australian bird of the year.

The winner of each round gets a photo and a quote on the top, except for the final round when photos of both candidates will go up together.  And there is an obscure rule that if there is a new Prime Minister voting stops for a month to give the new PM time to establish themselves as incredibly brilliant and win the contest. I mention that because there's chatter about that the incumbent (eliminated in last place in this contest with a ridiculously small vote) might not even last the coming sitting week.

2017 Queensland Election Postcount (Main Thread)

Labor has won the election

Final result ALP 48 LNP 39 KAP 3 ONP 1 IND 1 GREEN 1 

Pumicestone won by LNP
Cook assumed won by ALP
Rockhampton won by ALP
Gaven won by ALP
Maiwar won by Greens
Hinchinbrook won by KAP
Macalister won by ALP
Burdekin won by LNP
Townsville won by Labor

This thread will follow the 2017 Queensland election post-election-day count in those seats that remain up in the air.

I'm in no real doubt now that Labor has won the election, in some form or other, but that form (majority or not, and if not with what numbers) remains to be clear.  They have 44 wins that I am regarding with some trepidation as solid, and one more ( Gaven) that I think they have probably won.  There are two more that appear to be going to "the left" in some form (Maiwar and Rockhampton), a close one in Townsville, and it is also worth noting that the indie who appears to be winning Noosa preferenced Labor. A vast amount has to go wrong from there before an LNP-ONP-KAP-indie government could be seriously considered, and even then it's not clear which way KAP would go.

This thread will follow the seats that I consider to be in significant doubt.  Where time permits and a seat greatly interests me, it may be given a breakout thread.  Seats appear in alphabetical order but when a seat is no longer considered of interest it will be moved to the bottom of the thread.  It will take me some time today to add all the seats.  Updates on specific seats will be added as time allows, but because of work commitments this is only likely to happen in the evenings, and probably not all of them.

Queensland 2017 Live

Labor appears to have won the election, but majority status is touch and go.

Approx Labor 43 LNP 38 KAP 2 ONP 1 IND 1 Unclear 8 (including one ALP vs Green)

(From base of Labor 49 LNP 42 KAP 2:)
Labor Gains from LNP: Redlands, Aspley
Very likely Labor/Green Gain from LNP: Maiwar
LNP gains from Labor: Bundaberg and probably Burdekin (notional ALP)
Very likely ONP gain from Labor: Mirani
Likely IND gain from LNP: Noosa

Complicated: Hinchinbrook (LNP), Mundingburra (ALP - Labor favoured), Thuringowa (ALP - Labor favoured), Macalister (ALP - Labor favoured), Rockhampton (ALP)

Unclear ALP vs LNP: Pumicestone (ALP leads in ALP seat), Gaven (ALP leads in LNP seat)

Queensland: The Election Polls Forgot

Queensland Aggregate: Labor 35.9 LNP 33.9 One Nation 13.3 Green 9.6 Other 7.3
2PP off this aggregate: 52.5 to Labor
Seat projection off this aggregate: Labor 51 LNP 37 PHON 3 KAP 2 
(Greens may win 1-2 seats instead, but not enough reliable evidence re Greens' chances)
Uncertainties: limited polling dominated by a single pollster, change in preferencing method and likely preferencing behaviour

Nearly three years ago an incumbent Queensland government was leading about 52-48 in the polls and polling analysts generally though that it might lose but would probably be returned.  We were wrong; it did very narrowly lose, mainly because of a radical shift in preferencing behaviour by voters for minor parties.

Three years later, some of the problems are the same.  A radical shift in preferencing behaviour is possible in theory, because Pauline Hanson's One Nation was just a minor presence last election but is now gathering a double-digit vote.  Moreover, some polls have showed One Nation voters as much more likely to preference the conservative side of politics than they used to be - a situation consistent with the party attracting a lot of ex-Coalition supporters.

The Latest Senate Section 44 Cases

Time for another - and I doubt it will be the final - roundup of the issues created by ineligible Senators (or in one case, a Senator-who-never-was).  I have had many questions about the Lambie situation but today's resignation of Skye Kakoschke-Moore also requires detailed comments.

Hollie Hughes (Candidate, NSW - disallowed)

The High Court's decision that Hollie Hughes should not be seated in place of Fiona Nash (apparently because of her intermediate holding of an office of profit while the original election was still open, though reasons are yet to be released) creates a new issue.  Hughes was eligible at the time of the original election but her subsequent employment renders her ineligible to fill the position vacated by Fiona Nash.  The Commonwealth is waiting to see whether the court rules that Hughes was incapable of being chosen, or capable of chosen but incapable of sitting.  If the former, Hughes will be replaced by a special count (resulting in controversial Abbott backer Jim Molan becoming a Senator) but if the latter there is some thought (I'm not convinced) that it might be a casual vacancy.

Queensland: A Hard Election To Model

Primary vote aggregate Labor 34.7 LNP 32.8 Green 8.8 One Nation 17.3 Other 6.4
If Newspoll/Galaxy preference assumptions are correct Labor should just win majority on current numbers (Projection: Labor 50 LNP 37 PHON 4 KAP 2)
If ReachTEL preferences are accurate LNP may win, though ReachTEL released 20 Nov is less clear on this

Note: Live comments on Queensland elections here on Saturday night.

It's taken me until the week before the election to get around to posting any analysis during the campaign for the 2017 Queensland election.  This is partly because of an unusually severe version of the usual problem: I've been extremely busy and there are just not enough of me to do everything I'd like to do.  It's also because this election's very challenging to model.  And, as I noted previously, the big picture isn't much help either.  The government has been chaotic, but the federal Coalition's turmoil is a massive burden for Tim Nicholls' LNP opposition.

Poll Roundup: Citizenship Chaos Sends Government To New Term Low

2PP Aggregate: 54.2 to Labor (+1 point in a week) - highest reading of term
Labor would win election "held now" with a large margin
Government has lost majority (for now) with two MPs recontesting their seats in by-elections

This week we've seen a highly unusual event in Australian political history: a federal government has lost its majority partway through a term.  This last happened in 1931.  The one-term Scullin government began its term with a robust 46 seats out of 75, but a by-election loss and defections to the opposition UAP and the Lang Labor split saw it whittled down to 35, following which it collapsed before the year was out.  What has happened to the Turnbull government, so far, is much less dramatic - two of its seats are vacant pending by-elections, and the government will recover majority status if Barnaby Joyce is returned, although it would then lose it again if John Alexander is defeated.

However, as the Section 44 eligibility issues continue to unfold (with the tabling of required evidence by December 1 expected to be the next step), we could well see more by-elections early next year in some much more difficult government seats.  The prospect of the government slipping into permanent minority, or perhaps even losing enough seats that it can no longer govern, is a real one.  There may also be by-elections in Labor and crossbench seats, but no incumbent government has gained a seat from an opposition in a federal by-election since 1920 so there would not be too much optimism regarding chances of gaining seats there.  My legally unqualified view, incidentally, is that the "hesitators" (those who filed to renounce UK citizenship too late for the process to complete by the close of nominations) are in trouble.  The references in previous cases to the taking of all reasonable steps as sufficient refer to a context in which a member cannot reasonably renounce an overseas citizenship, not one in which a candidate was needlessly slow about it.

How Accurate Was The Same-Sex Marriage Polling?

The abrogation of responsibility and waste of resources that was the Marriage Law Postal Survey has now concluded with a Yes vote of 61.6%, based on a very high turnout of 79.5%.  Every Australian poll on same-sex marriage in the last ten years has shown more voters supporting same-sex marriage than opposed, with the exception of a single fledgling ReachTEL in 2011, so this has been seen initially as another good result for Australian polls.  In contrast, non-polling "big-data" approaches based on social media analytics failed completely, with the EqualityPulse site mostly favouring the No vote until after the polls had closed and a Griffith University study bombing embarrassingly.  (Be wary of anyone who claims their methods predicted Trump would win - most who predicted him to win did so because they wrongly expected him to win the popular vote.)

This is being taken as another strong result for Australian polling, but the reality is not so snazzy, and more consistent with experience elsewhere.  Below are all the final poll results by each pollster that I could find.  (Some pollsters conducted several polls, typically finding little variation through the survey period.) The polls vary in methods - some asked about results based on those who had voted, some asked about the votes of those who intended to vote and some just asked a basic question about support or opposition to same-sex marriage.  One (Ipsos) appears to have asked about voting intention among those certain to vote only.  In many cases, inadequate public documentation means that it is not entirely clear what the pollster did.

Pembroke By-Election: Live And/Or Post-Count

CALLED: Reliable scrutineering reports on Sunday that Siejka (ALP) will win easily with Walker narrowly beating Chipman for 2nd.

Sunday

Analysis: Still awaiting margins for the two scenarios. As Brad Stansfield has said on Twitter, it's a bit much to be saying first that the Liberals' attack on Chipman wouldn't work at all, then after the result that it worked too well. But if working means getting near winning, it was only a pyrrhic success. It seems that far from generate a sympathy vote for Chipman, the tactic actually worked in driving votes away from him and to Walker, but at the cost of driving Chipman preferences (in droves as predicted by Pete Lawler on Twitter last night) and possibly primaries to Siejka. The Liberals needed to make the final two to have any on-paper chance, but did they cause enough voters to switch their preference from Chipman ahead of Siejka to the other way around to the extent that they caused Siejka rather than Chipman to win ? 

Not-A-Poll: Best Prime Minister Of The Last 45 Years: Round 3

"The Honourable Leader of the Opposition, Sir Billy Snedden, has broken his promise: the promise he made to me before the election. He promised not to tell any lies about me, if I didn't tell the truth about him."*

(image source, reuse subject to licence)

Two months ago I started a multi-round Not-A-Poll to determine this site's visitors' choice for the title of Best Prime Minister of the Last 45 Years.  The idea is that each month the Prime Minister in last place is eliminated and the rest continue until someone gets over 50% and wins.  There are rules permitting multiple exclusions in certain cases, to speed up the process a bit.  Each round runs for a month, so you can vote for different candidates from round to round if you want to. Multiple voting is in theory banned and adjustments may be made if I detect it, but there will probably be a lot of low-level multiple voting I can't detect or prevent. Comments about the merits of the contestants are welcome.