Victorian Upper House Live

Go to new button press thread for final results and discussion. 

Button presses to occur on Tuesday at 10-minute intervals commencing 2:10 pm.  Very close results (if any) could still be subject to recount beyond that.  ABC Calculator seat "results" (actually output of a flawed but useful model) are not final and some are not likely to be correct.

Warning: The North Metro count section has been rated Wonk Factor 5/5.  Some of the rest aren't too far behind.



Current estimate:

Labor 18 Coalition 11 Greens 1 Transport Matters 1-2 Hinch Justice Party 3-4, Lib Dems 1-2, Shooters 1, Sustainable Aus 1, Animal Justice 1, Reason 0-1

At present the Greens with around 8.5% of the vote will win only 1 seat while either Transport Matters (0.6%) or Liberal Democrats (2.7%) appear likely to win two.

General Considerations: Put The Calculator Away!

Welcome to my Victorian upper house comments.  Apologies for the delay getting on to these but the Lower House count is fascinating.  The Upper House count should be equally so.

The initial results based on the ABC Calculator look like a depressing number of mostly unworthy micro-parties will win.  This may still be the case, but fortunately there has been a large increase in below-the-line voting which is running at around 10%.  This will generally count against micro-parties that are snowballing up from low primaries to beat parties that start on 14%.  Below the line voting is likely to destroy at least some apparent calculator wins, and analysing this will be very complicated.  My suggested rule for this analysis: the calculator is only a tool, use it as a guide but in some cases you may have to  put the calculator away. It's a model based on 100% assumed preference flows, but a lot of the flows will actually be only 80% or 90%, and that will greatly affect the results.  However, it's still likely that the micro-parties with really good preference flows will win seats - and humans trying to work out where the calculator might be wrong can easily make errors too (see Northern Metro Thursday update).

The other important thing is that as I start this article, most of the counts are at only 40-45% counted, which means the prepolls aren't yet in.  As we have seen in the Lower House these are likely to favour the Coalition.  So in seats where the Coalition is narrowly missing out, that may not stay the case.  We may also see that micro-parties generally do worse with more votes added (at present their vote is generally very high.)  Changes in the votes may bring scenarios into view that are not readily apparent at an early look.  These counts are also extremely complex to model and generally micro-party seats can't be called for sure until the button is pressed.

As usual small party voters have tended to vote BTL more than large party voters, and left party voters have done so more than right party voters (spectacularly so in some cases). 

This thread will have a section for each district which will be updated from time to time until the button is pressed.  If one district becomes especially fiendish I may move it to its own thread (if I have time).  In general when I have a look at the districts (every day or so) I won't update those where I don't detect any change in the prognosis.

As I start the thread the districts will be progressively unrolled through the night until all have an initial post up.  The projections are not to be treated as calls of any kind and it is entirely possible other parties will come into the mix that I have not yet considered.

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Eastern Metro (2014: 3 Liberal, 1 Labor, 1 Green)
Projection 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Transport Matters

2:10 am Sunday: As I start this thread Labor is on 39.2%, Liberal 34.5%, Greens 9.2% and a gaggle of micros.  The calculator winner of the final seat is Rodney Brian Barton (Transport Matters) who was a usual suspect in pre-election projections.  His primary vote is 0.61%.

Barton can lose early if he falls behind both Aussie Battler and Australian Liberty, but the laws of small numbers are such that this is highly unlikely.  At present, Barton finishes well over quota at the final count, carrying preferences of every party in his battle with the Greens except for the Victorian Socialists.  Indeed the calculator count doesn't even throw all the votes.

Below the lines don't make a difference here because the flow is way too strong.  Unless there is some way that shifts can muck about with the exclusion order and propel a different winner my initial view is that Barton will win.

9:20 Tuesday: I have not seen anything to change the assessment in this seat.

10:10 Thursday: I have done a manual data entry off the manual count Word document which shows 85.8% counted.  Labor 37.1 Liberal 36.4 Green 8.9 LDP 4.1 and so on with Transport Matters still 0.61.  I am still seeing nothing that stops the Barton (Transport Matters) spiral.

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Eastern Vic (2014: 2 Coalition, 2 Labor, 1 Shooters Fishers and Farmers)
Projection 2 Coalition, 2 Labor, 1 SF+F (Aussie Battler looks highly unlikely)

2:35 am Sunday: As I start this thread Labor is on 34.8%, Coalition 33.2%, Greens 7%, Shooters 5.2, DHJP 4.0, LDP 3.4, AJP 3.3, Labour DLP 1.7, Aussie Battler 1.4%, and according to the calculator Vern Hughes (Aussie Battler) wins.

However, Hughes is vulnerable at an early point where, after receiving ALA, ACP, Health Australia and Labor preferences, he leads Animal Justice and Hinch Justice by less than 2%.  Hughes is coming up from a lower primary than DHJP and AJP so can lose votes to below the line "leakage", but a bigger problem for him here is that the addition of prepolls and postals is likely to drop Labor to around 2 quotas (33.3%) if not slightly below.  If I knock out Hughes at this stage, which at the moment is a fairly likely outcome, the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers become the likely winners.  If I knock Labor slightly below two quotas, Animal Justice can win Labor's seat, but this is an artificial result that will be foiled by below the lines unless Labor drop well below two quotas, which isn't likely.  At the moment I think there is a fair chance of a no-change result in this district.

Monday 4:30: Hughes' position has continued to weaken and has done so rapidly for the small volume of added votes.  He now trails Animal Justice on the calculator at the first crucial point, where he leads DHJP on the calculator by 1.07%.  He is vulnerable to (i) Labor's primary continuing to fall (it is currently on 34.43) (ii) "leakage" of BTLs from his feeder parties (iii) being outperformed by DHJP on the BTLs of parties whose ATLs flow to neither.

Tuesday 8:30: Bourman (SFF) has now moved into the calculator lead with Hughes now eliminated at the cutoff with DHJP even assuming all votes are ATLs.  Labor are only very marginally above two quotas so the calculator might start showing AJP as beating them soon, but I wouldn't take that seriously unless Labor dropped at least 1% below.

Thursday 10:25: 81.1% counted.  Coalition 35 Labor 33.6 Greens 6.5 Shooters, Fishers and Farmers 4.9 DHJP 4.47 etc.  The Shooters are the calculator winners again, although only by 0.01% at the DHJP cutoff.  As noted above this is effectively higher because of BTLs.

Tuesday 6:33: 90.69% counted now and showing on the ABC calculator.  Aussie Battler is over DHJP by 0.11% (534 votes) at the cutoff.  However Hughes is carrying over 2000 votes of below the line liability as well as the issue with DHJP being more likely to snag BTLs as mentioned above.  So I don't have any real doubt the calculator result will be overturned here.

Friday 1:00 91.05% counted.  No real change to the above.  Also note that Labor are holding steady at over 2 quotas.

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Northern Metro (2014: 2 Labor, 1 Liberal, 1 Green, 1 Sex Party (now Reason))
Projection: 2 Labor, 1 Green, probably 1 Liberal, 1 Reason/DHJP (potentially both at expense of Liberal though not on current numbers). Outside chance of 3rd Labor instead of Reason or DHJP.

NOTE: My earliest projections in this seat regarding below the lines were incorrect, see Thursday update.

3:08 am Sunday: As I start this thread Labor is on 45.2%, Greens 15.8, Liberal 15.0, Victorian Socialists 4.7, Labour DLP 4.27 (they were slightly to the left of Labor on the ballot), Reason 3.46, Animal Justice 1.8, DHJP 1.67.  Dagiandis (DHJP) obviously has a great preference flow and the calculator has her snowballing and winning from 1.67% and the Liberals missing out to Labor.  However, I expect the Liberals to improve with more counting and hold their lone seat.  The question then is whether Dagiandis can beat Labor and here below-the-lines are relevant.

Currently Dagiandis snowballs from 1.67% to 18.51% on the preferences of: Hudson 4 NV, Country, Liberty Alliance, Transport Matters, Sustainable Aus, Health Aus, Aussie Battler, Shooters, LDP, Reason, DLP and the Greens' surplus after being put over quota by Victorian Socialists.  Labor goes from 11.91 to 16.48 on votes from the Socialists (via the Greens surplus), Vote 1 Local Jobs, Voluntary Euthanasia and Animal Justice.

On the calculator projection Dagiandis beats Labor by 4162, and Labor will probably drop back further.  But 7548 votes worth of below the line is being treated as above the line votes for Dagiandis, compared to only 1717 for Labor.  Moreover, the below the line votes are very probably more likely to flow to Labor than to Dagiandis (especially those coming from the Greens, Reason and Animal Justice).  What looms as a probable killer for the DHJP snowball is the massive Reason Party below the line vote of 55% below the line! (See Thursday update below)

We'll have to keep an eye on just how much Labor's primary weakens but at the moment I think the high BTL rate in this district will trash the calculator projection.

Monday morning: Commenters have hinted at a possible pathway for Fiona Patten to retain her seat.  If the Green vote rises to very close to a quota, Samantha Ratnam might be able to cross the line on BTLs before the Victorian Socialists are excluded.  This is an important tipping point because if this happens, the preferences flowing from the Victorian Socialists exclusion are entirely their own and not the Greens', meaning that the Socialist ATLs go entirely to Reason instead of the same value of votes going mostly to DHJP.  If the Labor vote has also dropped off (which is more likely than not) then it might be possible for Patten to beat Labor, although the huge BTL vote for the Socialists won't help her.  I think this is a rather difficult path for Patten, but it isn't hopeless.

Monday 4:40: The Liberals have improved to 15.57 and in my view will get a quota on primaries, so should appear with a seat in the calculator eventually.  However the Greens have dropped back to 15.26, which is not good news for Patten.  Labor has actually improved so far, to 45.4, and Dagiandis' calculator lead over them is dropping.  Dagiandis may pick up if the Liberals go over a quota; on current numbers she wouldn't win.

Monday 10:45: The Liberals have improved to 16.40 and will soon move into a seat on the calculator.  The Greens are dropping further - absents will pull them back but it is much more difficult now for them to get quota.

Tuesday 9:00: The calculator now shows the Liberals getting quota but it is on DLP preferences via DHJP.  Assuming that the Greens do not make quota before Victorian Socialists are eliminated, DHJP's margin over Labor on the calculator is currently 8278.  But I estimate DHJP's below the line liability at 11226 votes, meaning that they would have to substantially outperform the majors on the below-the-lines of the micros to beat them. It still doesn't look like Dagiandis is winning despite her calculator lead. (See Thursday update below)

Thursday 10:39: Labor 43.5 Liberal 16.7 Green 16.0 Vic Socialists 4.3 Labour DLP 4.1 Reason 3.35 DHJP 1.94 etc with 71.2% counted.  Here I have discovered that some of my previous estimates of DHJP's effective lead over Labor were underestimates, because of a peculiar artefact in the Victorian counting system.  The primary vote value votes of an excluded candidate are treated as one count in the preference distribution, and then all their remaining full-value votes are treated as a second.  This means that ATL votes from the Voluntary Euthanasia Party and Animal Justice Party, which I was treating as Labor votes in the event of a contest between Labor and DHJP, are in fact DHJP votes in that contest, because DHJP can get them if it is not already over quota on Fiona Patten's primary votes.

The consequence of this is that the effective margin of DHJP over Labor is in fact not the 3.8% I thought but more like 9.1%, meaning that the Dagiandis spiral will not be derailed by below-the-lines, and Dagiandis will win unless the Greens cross quota before the Victorian Socialists do (in which case Patten wins).

As @sorceror43 notes, the low percentage completed means it is likely there are still lots of inner-city absents (or out-of-electorate prepolls) to be added and these are likely to boost the Greens, perhaps at the expense of the Liberals.  The Liberals would have to drop a long way to not win themselves (because of BTLs), in which case both Patten and DHJP would win, but the chance of Patten beating DHJP because of the Greens going up to quota must be quite realistic.

Sunday 3:30 Commenter David J has noted that the Word documents now include district totals making them much more tractable.  On counted votes both Liberals and Greens are just a whisker shy of quota, which means they would make quota on BTLs and Patten would win.  However the question is whether the Green vote would stay high enough when the undercount in Yuroke (where they are polling only 4%) is rectified.  I am going to have a go at a projection later today.

Sunday 6:30 I have run a projection which assumes the uncounted vote in each electorate will break the same way as the counted vote and the turnout will be the same as in 2014.  The critical votes are the Liberal and Green votes and in this projection the Liberals are on 16.53% and the Greens on 16.44%.  However the current count is completely missing absents in Pascoe Vale, Northcote and Yuroke and includes an extremely small sample of early votes from Pascoe Vale.  The Greens are likely to do a little worse on the early votes than the ordinary votes, but significantly better on the absents, so it's not clear how much their tally might move around.

Based on the BTL figures compiled by David J, about 1.3% of the count will be BTLs for the 12 micros that can expect to be excluded before Victorian Socialists.  These BTLs will be splitting either six or seven ways: Labor, Green, Reason, DHJP, FPRP, exhaust and possibly Liberal.  It's plausible that if the Greens do finish about 0.23% shy of quota, they could make that (probably about 1000 votes) back on these BTLs.

However the potential killer for Patten's chances is leakage from minor Green candidate BTLs.  In 2014 the Greens dropped 1033 votes off leakage from their three excluded minor candidates while gaining only 336 from Labor surpluses and leakage from minor Labor and Liberal candidates.  This time the Greens will have four minor candidates excluded instead of three, Labor will have two instead of one, and Labor will have a somewhat larger surplus.  Even so with the increased BTL rate it is quite easy to see the Greens, and by extension Patten's prospects, being 500 votes if not more down at this point.  That on current numbers could leave them needing more like a 30% share rather than an 18% share of the BTLs escaping from other parties.  An especially bitter irony here could be that Patten is one of the common destinations of leakage from minor Green candidates (getting 20% of their leaks in 2014) and could lose because votes from minor Greens leaked to her instead of flowing to other Greens!  

At the moment this looks like one of these counts where we just won't know til the button is pressed - let me know if I've missed anything or made any obvious mistakes here!

Wednesday 12:30 am: Updated current totals again posted by David J in comments suggest the Greens have picked up again; they are on 16.54%.  The Yuroke count is up to speed with the most lagging districts being, in order: Pascoe Vale (about average for Greens), Northcote (excellent) and Broadmeadows (terrible).   So maybe the Greens can hold at about this level, at which they will probably just make quota before the Victorian Socialists cutoff.

David also raises an issue I mentioned briefly further up: that even if Dagiandis doesn't get the Green preferences, there is another chance for Dagiandis down the track - Patten must stay ahead of Labor.  Although Patten is around 8150 votes ahead of Labor late in the count, Patten is carrying 8126 votes of BTL liability, mostly from the Victorian Socialists.  Labor has a small amount of BTL liability from leakage from exhaust and also from its minor candidates, which in 2014 cost it 718 votes with 75 going to Patten.  With Labor's vote increased this liability could be close to 1000 this time.  On neutral BTLs (those not for a candidate whose HTV preferences flowed to either party) as best I can tell Patten did somewhat better than the minor ALP candidates in 2014. Whether she would do better off Victorian Socialists BTLs than Labor I am unsure of.  I think Patten would probably survive at this point, but it isn't clear.

If Patten is out at this point, Dagiandis then has a notional calculator lead over Labor which I get at about 12600 votes (though this may be a bit inaccurate as I have had to make some calculator fiddles to bring up this scenario).  BTL liabilities are about 12600 for Dagiandis (mostly Patten) and 7500 for Labor (mostly Victorian Socialists).  I would think Dagiandis wins here but I can't write Labor off entirely.

Wednesday 8:45 David J's latest figures have the Greens over quota and the Liberals falling to 16.11%.  I will be having a serious look at what sort of primary the Liberals need here to be safe from losing as they get almost no ATL preferences (a tiny parcel from Vote 1 Local Jobs as part of a surplus from Patten).

Wednesday 10:43 On the current calculator (based on votes as relayed by David J) the Greens reach quota on primaries, the Victorian Socialist preferences flow to Patten, and Patten beats Labor by about 13700 which seems easily enough.   Patten's preferences then almost all flow to Dagiandis putting Dagiandis over the Liberals by about 4,000.  However, Dagiandis carries BTL liabilities worth at least 4600 even before she gets to Patten's preferences.  After that, she is vulnerable to whatever net loss Patten has sustained on BTLs on her way up the ladder, while the Liberals pick up leakage and, except for small losses from their own minor candidates, can only improve (perhaps to quota).  It's not quite as simple as saying that every one of the 6300-odd Vic Socialist BTLs that doesn't go to Patten hurts Dagiandis, because these can be compensated by whatever BTLs Patten got from someone else.

Another curious thing is that at this point another ugly and undemocratic feature of the election system makes an appearance - unweighted inclusive Gregory distortion.  Unweighted Gregory is a ludicrous leftover from the days of hand-tallying in which all ballots in a surplus are given the same value (whatever their previous value) so that electoral officials don't have to keep track of countless transfer values and multiply 10-digit decimals by each other.  These days all this is easily done by computer so what unweighted Gregory does is distort vote-values in a way that can cause votes to increase in value unfairly, or lose value unfairly, or not lose as much as they should.  In this case the effect of it is that Labor preferences swamp Patten's surplus meaning that her own votes are devalued as surpluses and Dagiandis becomes much less exposed to damage from Patten's huge pile of BTLs.  The Patten votes which were worth 1 vote get cut down to 0.08 apiece, while the Labor votes that were worth only .22 apiece get cut down to the same.

Projecting just how much the flow from Patten to Dagiandis might get affected by BTL issues is getting even beyond my pay grade.  It might be only a few thousand votes.  On current primaries, I think the Liberals are fine here, but if they lose, say, another 0.5%, this won't be so clear-cut.  Yes, North Metro has massive below-the-line vote rates, but nearly all of those are for Greens, Labor, Patten and Socialists, and the first three get cut down in surpluses if we get Dagiandis v Ondarchie (Lib) for the final seat.

Friday 1:00 The ABC calculator figures are still not useful as the calculator is still lagging the actual count here.  However it should catch up soon.

Friday 7:00 The ABC calculator has finally caught up in North Metro with 87.9% counted.  Currently the Greens have 16.74%.  Based on that Ratnam won't make quota on primaries, and whether the Greens' pickup on BTLs from other parties is enough to compensate for leakage from their other candidates is not clear - one would say probably, but any further drop back of the Greens total makes things precarious.  The Liberals are currently OK, having picked up to 16.46%.

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Northern Vic (2014: 2 Coalition, 2 Labor, 1 Shooters, Fishers and Farmers)
Projection: 2 Labor, 1 Coalition, 1 Liberal Democrat, 1 DHJP (2 Coalition instead of 2 Labor now looks unlikely)

3:45 am Sunday: As I start this thread Labor is on 32.5%, Coalition 30.8%, Shooters 8.3, Greens 6.9, DHJP 4.3, Liberal Democrats 3.4, AJP 2.22, VEP 1.87 etc.  The calculator has Labor winning 2, Coalition 1, DHJP and Liberal Democrats 1.

DHJP's Tania Maxwell however, has a juncture where she only just get over the Greens.  Currently 715 more votes are being treated as above the line in DHJP's pile to this point than for the Greens, and that exceeds the margin.  It's quite possible Maxwell gets eliminated here (indeed minor changes could eliminate her even earlier.)  Even if she does get over this point there is a later point where she has snowballed to just over 1% ahead of Labor.  That might expand with more counting, but even so the Greens' below the line vote is 1.6% by itself.  So I have a lot of doubts about this snowball and think it more likely both majors will win two.  (See some comments from Henry Schlechta in comments section - at the moment I still think the Coalition are best placed on current numbers, but it could shift pretty easily.)

The Tim Quilty (LDP) preference spiral, on the other hand, is not so easily disposed of.  Presently Quilty has a calculator lead of 5684 votes over the Shooters at the key point.  His feeder parties have only 2915 below the lines so I suspect that the Shooters won't bridge that gap and that Quilty will take their seat - unless the vote for all these micros declines sharply or the Shooters lift.

Monday 4:45: There has been quite a turnaround in the primaries here already with the Greens dropping back to 6.45 and DHJP climbing to 4.68.  As a result Maxwell's calculator lead has shot out to a whopping 2819 at that point.  Also, Maxwell's calculator lead over the majors is now just over 4%, which seems like plenty.  If both micros get up this pitches Labor and the Coalition into a battle for the final seat, which Labor is currently just winning but I don't believe that would stick. Absents might yet turn this around but there are still a lot of prepolls to be added.

Monday 5:40: On cue the calculator has flipped the final seat to the Nationals.

Monday 10:35: @sorceror43 has noted that the prepolls counted so far appear atypical in that the Liberal to Labor ratio is even higher than in postals, so they may be from an unrepresentative area.  That ratio should moderate but whether things can be dragged back in Labor's favour is another question.

Tuesday 3:30: Labor's #2 candidate Jaclyn Symes has just been promoted to Cabinet, which is being taken as a sign that Labor think they will win.  The likelihood here is that there is a disproportionately uncounted vote in Yan Yean where Labor did very well off the back of a Liberal candidate disendorsement in the Lower House.

Tuesday 9:00: The calculator has reverted to Labor for the final seat.  However its margins are very close.  At the moment the DHJP seat looks reasonably comfortable but I'll wait for further counting there.

Thursday 11:25: Coalition 32.1 Labor 31.3 Shooters 7.9 Greens 6.3 DHJP 4.9 LDP 3.8 AJP 2.17 VEP 1.96 etc (81.8% counted).  The calculator still has both Quilty (LDP) and Maxwell (DHJP) winning and currently has Labor just winning the final seat but by a margin I wouldn't go placing confidence in.

Saturday 5:20: @sorceror43:

"I've copied the district totals into Excel for North Vic, and calculated a grand total, then percentages. With count at 87.4%, Labor 31.9%, L/NP 31.4%, Shooters 7.8%, Greens 6.5%, Hinch 4.8%, Lib Dems 3.8%. With primary vote lead, think Labor wins final seat"  

Wednesday 1:00 am: This count is very well advanced now at 90.66% and Labor is looking good for the final seat.

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South East Metro (2014: 2 Coalition, 2 Labor, 1 Green)
Projection: Looking like 3 Labor, 1 Coalition, 1 Lib Dem or possibly Transport Matters

4:05 am Sunday: As I start Labor is on 52.7, Liberal 26.9, Greens 5.61, DHJP 2.75, AJP 2.12, Labour DLP 1.45, Shooters 1.31 and Transport Matters' Ali Khan 1.14.

According to the calculator Khan then snowballs to victory while the Liberals do not see another vote, and the final margin is almost 13%.  Thus far I can't see anything that might interfere with this result, not below-the-line votes alone, perhaps there is some exclusion order issue that hasn't been found yet.  This is a result that was projected as possible by commenter David J a few days ago.

1:50 Tuesday: Tim Quilty (see above) in comments has noted that Transport Matters are at some risk of being chopped off at the point where they fall to second-last (Count 20, where their calculator lead has shrunk to 3891 votes (1.49%).  Transport Matters' vulnerability to losing votes from BTLs is fairly small at this point (about 1370 votes if treating all Labor BTLs as 1 for the lead candidate, but higher in reality because the Labor vote will be disproportionately for minor candidates - see Alaric in comments) while the Greens can only lose BTLs from Vic Socialists (217).  However the Greens can also gain on BTLs from third parties, especially Reason who have 893 BTLs.  At the moment there are not enough BTLs to dislodge Transport Matters at this point.  However any vote Labor loses in post-counting takes a vote off Transport Matters' calculator lead.  Labor currently contribute 1.25% to Transport Matters so if they drop back to quota Transport Matters will lose.  In this case it appears the winner is the Liberal Democrats, off an even lower 0.79%, but I will look at this more carefully should it look more likely.

11:40 Thursday: ALP 50.6 Lib 28.8 Green 5.37 DHJP 3.01 AJP 2.15 LDLP 1.45 Shooters 1.43 Transport Matters 1.22 FPRP 0,86 LDP 0.82 with 75.9% now counted.  The lead of Transport Matters over Greens at the key point on the calculator is now only 1.03%, which is getting a little bit shaky.

5:13 Monday: Current live figures posted by David J in comments have ALP 50.18 Lib 29.02 Green 5.5 DHJP 3.01 AJP 2.17 LDLP 1.44 Shooters 1,42 TM 1.24 FPRP 0.85 LDP 0.82 with 82.3% counted.  This would give Transport Matters a calculator lead over the Greens at the key exclusion of 0.52%, which I don't think would be enough (if they fail, the Liberal Democrats win).  I haven't taken into account where these votes are from as yet.

12:05 Friday: The ABC calculator has caught up with now 86.0% counted.  Labor has fallen below three quotas so now its third candidate carries ATLs instead of its fourth candidate.  Transport Matters are over the Greens by only 0.34% on the calculator, which seemingly shouldn't be enough.  The difference between TM's BTL liabilities and the Greens' is very similar to TM's calculator lead, but the Greens are much more likely to make gains on BTLs.  However it has occurred to me that Labor falling below three quotas presents a possible small advantage for Transport Matters.  Firstly the Labor BTLs are no longer a liability for Transport Matters.  Secondly if Labor actually crosses quota on BTLs from some party that doesn't preference Transport Matters, then that creates a surplus for Labor that flows almost entirely to Transport Matters, which in the most optimistic scenario might give Transport Matters say 150 votes.  Even with this considered it still looks like Transport Matters are struggling.

5:00 Friday: Labor now on 49.98% with 88.36% counted.  Whether Labor actually hit three quotas here on primaries probably doesn't matter much because leakage and votes for minor candidates will probably mean that their third candidate does not cross on surpluses from the first two in any case, and will get across the line on BTLs or Greens preferences at some unknown stage of the count. The Transport Matters - Greens gap on the calculator has stretched to 0.40% which might be survivable but at present I still doubt it.

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Southern Metro (2014: 3 Liberal 1 Labor 1 Green)
Projection: 2 Liberal, 2 Labor 1 Sustainable Australia

4:25 am Sunday: As I start Labor is on 37.6, Liberal 35.6, Green 13.2, Animal Justice 2.12, Reason 2.08, LDP 1.46, Labour DLP 1.37, and Clifford Hayes (Sustainable Australia) 1.33.  The calculator script is simple: Hayes gets everyone's above-the-line votes except the Socialists, and beats the Greens by 11338 votes (nearly 6%).  Hayes is never at danger of exclusion and while there might be some rival harvester, I'm not aware of one at this stage.  Assuming it is Hayes vs Greens the issue is below-the-lines.  At present Hayes is relying on votes including about 6769 votes worth of BTLs, and a lot of those BTLs (eg from Reason, Labor and AJP) are likely to flow to the Greens.  But at present the Greens need to get about two-thirds of the BTLs which is completely unrealistic.  The Greens will need to lift substantially, or have micros fall substantially, to hold their seat.  Sustainable Australia looks quite strong here.

9:20 Tuesday: I have not seen anything to change the assessment in this seat.

11:50 Thursday: 75.5% counted and it's Liberal 37.9 Labor 35.3 Green 13.2 AJP 2.2 FPRP 1.9 DHJP 1.44 LDP 1.38 LDLP 1.33 Sustainable Australia 1.32. With more or less exactly one-tenth of the Greens' vote, Sustainable Australia's Clifford Hayes appears to be beating them easily.

12:50 Friday 7th: 87.96% counted and the Greens have come up to 13.93%, but on the calculator are still losing by over 23,000 votes.  SA's below-the-line liabilities come out to about 13,000-14,000 so they are still winning rather comfortably.

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Western Metro (2014: 2 Labor 1 Liberal 1 Green 1 DLP)
Projection: 3 Labor 1 Liberal and 1 DHJP or possibly SF+F

4:55 Sunday: As I start this one the leaders are Labor 47.88 Liberal 20.02 Green 9.31 DHJP's Catherine Cumming on a stonking 6.71% and Labour DLP on 3.37.  The calculator has Cumming making gains from Sustainable Australia, Animal Justice, Reason, Voluntary Euthanasia and Hudson 4NV to get over the Greens, at which point their preferences put both her and Labor over the line defeating a rival snowball from Labour DLP.  At the moment the calculator margin at this key point between Cumming and the Greens is 3676 votes but Cumming is notionally carrying 2301 BTL votes to 504 for the Greens (which are Socialist votes that may well flow to them anyway).  Quite a lot would have to change for Cumming to drop out at this point instead of the Greens so at this stage I think she could very well win.

9:20 Tuesday: I have not seen anything new in this seat other than Cumming's position improving.

10:30 Wednesday: ...but commentator Cam Nation has! The Liberal Party are sneaking up on Labour DLP at a critical exclusion and on current numbers would beat them there because of BTLs, and the resultant preference flows appear to result in Cumming losing to the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers.  The reason is that if Labour DLP go out before the Liberals then the Liberal preferences do not flow to Labour DLP, the Shooters get Labour DLP preferences, and as a result the Shooters get Liberal preferences as well, which saves them from elimination.

It might seem that the Shooters should be more vulnerable to BTLs than DHJP but in fact the Shooters' spiral consists mostly of right-wing parties and major parties - all with low BTL rates - while DHJP's includes Animal Justice, Reason, Vic Socialists and Greens.  As a result, while there is a further cutoff point in this scenario with Shooters over 10,000 up on DHJP, DHJP in fact go backwards once BTLs are added.  If the button was pushed right now it appears the Shooters would actually win and it would not be surprising to see them soon take the calculator lead.

Cumming may however recover and still win should the Liberal vote go down, which @sorceror43 has noted is possible because Footscray is under-counted.

12:01 am Friday: 79.2% counted and I have Labor 46.1, Liberal 21.5, Greens 8.9, DHJP 6.89, LDLP 3.47, AJP 2.48, SFF 1.91, LDP 1.66.   I have the Shooters in the calculator lead as a result of the Liberals being 0.01% ahead of Labour DLP on calculator numbers, which would be a much greater lead in reality.  It will be interesting to see if this can be turned around.

3:30 Saturday: The VEC site is showing a tick for this seat as final and declared but with only 25% in the rechecked count and no other indication of finality I believe this is an error.

10:30 Tuesday: David Jeisman (David J in comments) has kindly sent me current primaries culled from the spreadsheets - as of last night ALP 46.11 Lib 21.34 Green 8.96 DHJP 6.8 LDLP 3.53 AJP 2.52 SFF 1.92 LDP 1.70.  86.34% counted.  These are minor changes but have enough impact to push Labour DLP ahead of the Liberals by 0.27% on the calculator at the key point.  Labour DLP's notional lead of 1218 votes includes 528 votes in BTLs that in general won't flow to them.  The Liberals don't get any ATL votes before this point but can lose votes from leakage from their minor candidate BTLs and their one surplus - based on 2014 figures this could cost them around 300 votes.  On these figures I don't see that the Liberals could pick up enough BTLs from other parties to overturn what is effectively a 1000 vote deficit so it looks like Labour DLP will survive this exclusion on current numbers.  (Perhaps late counting could still change this).

The other point of interest here is that Labour DLP themselves get within 10060 votes on current numbers of beating DHJP at the end.  Although DHJP are coming from a higher primary, they are in general carrying ATLs from the left-wing micros with higher below-the-line rates while Labour DLP are carrying the right-wing ones.  On my numbers DHJP have at least 3700 votes more exposure to below-the-lines than LDLP do (probably somewhat more because of issues with minor candidates for Labor and the Greens), but they are also more likely to pick up BTL leaks than Labour DLP do.  So on current numbers DHJP are not in danger here.

On current numbers it looks to me that Catherine Cumming is winning the final spot again, but we need to see if the exclusion point involving the Liberals and Labour DLP tightens as there are probably only several hundred in it at the moment.  There is a slight undercount in St Albans district but nothing major.

Thursday 1:07 Note that the ABC calculator now has Shooters winning but it is based on less complete count figures than above.

Friday 2:45 With 89.16% counted in the spreadsheets I have the calculator gap of Labour DLP over Liberal (which determines the DHJP vs Shooters contest) at 0.16%.  A calculator lead of around 700 votes, which is the sort of margin at which either side could win.

Friday 5:00 The calculator has very nearly caught up now, on 88.81% and has the gap out to a more comfortable 0.34%.  As @sorceror43 has noted it is not clear if the difference is caused by changes on rechecking or changes on votes yet to be rechecked (the former means DHJP are still winning, the latter that the seat is very line-ball.)

Saturday 2:20 The calculator now has 89.24% counted and the Labour DLP over Liberal gap on the calculator is 0.37% so it looks now like Cumming is winning.

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Western Victoria (2014: 2 Coalition 2 Labor and Vote 1 Local Jobs)
Projection:  2 Labor 1 Coalition 1 DHJP 1 AJP (2nd Coalition appears unlikely.)

5:00 Sunday: As I start this one Labor is on 39.16, Coalition 29.09, Greens 7.57, Shooters 4.75, DHJP 3.81. Animal Justice 2.69, Liberal Democrats 2.54, VEP 1.77 etc.  The calculator has both Animal Justice and DHJP winning with 2 Labor and 1 Liberal.

On current numbers, however, the Animal Justice candidate Andy Meddick is only 2550 votes on the calculator up on Labor at the point where he gets their surplus.  Notionally he is carrying 2354 below-the-lines here, which are probably going to flow significantly to Labor, so on current figures he's out at that point.  However if Labor drop back (which they probably will) he may get over that one.  If Meddick survives at this point he wins on Labor and Green preferences.  In that case, the calculator then has Grimley winning by 12047, but there are around 6500 votes worth of BTLs that can interfere with that at various stages (either by failing to reach AJP or by failing to flow from them to DHJP).

At the moment that gap is too large, but the Coalition are likely to come up and might reach a point where Grimley's win becomes in serious doubt if Meddick wins.  If Meddick loses, Grimley wins, and the Coalition seems to get the final spot on Greens preferences over the Coalition.  This one is very messy at the moment.

5:00 Monday: Meddick's position relative to Labor is now a 1.04% lead (2914 votes) which is about holding station given the change in votes counted (now 56%).  The calculator has another addition to the mess, which is it now has Grimley reaching quota before Meddick.  On current numbers this wouldn't actually happen because of BTLs.  At the moment I think Grimley has a good chance because he has multiple paths to victory, while Meddick is touch and go.

12:10 Friday: With 82.9% counted Labor 38 LNP 30.6 Green 7.5 SFF 4.38 DHJP 4.32 AJP 2.67 LDP 2.61 VEP 1.86 etc.  The calculator still has both AJP and DHJP winning.

Meddick is now 2.29% ahead of Labor at the point where he gets their surplus, which is easily enough.  There is also a large buffer now for Grimley after Meddick gets elected (assuming Grimley doesn't cross first) and on current number it looks like both micros win.

1:00 am Wednesday: 91.6% counted and I'm not seeing any reason why Grimley and Meddick don't both win.  The calculator at the moment has Grimley over first, I think as a result of Shooters going out before Greens.