BASS (2021 Result 3 Liberal 2 Labor - when election called 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 IND)
Notional 2021 7-Seat Result 4 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green
SEATS WON 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 JLN
CALLED WINNERS: Michael Ferguson (Lib), Rob Fairs (Lib), Michelle O'Byrne (ALP), Janie Finlay (ALP), Cecily Rosol (Green), Rebekah Pentland (JLN), Simon Wood (Lib)
SEAT LOST: Lara Alexander (IND)
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This year I will do my postcount threads in alphabetical order but some may get more effort at the start than others! A late-night update in Bass sees the Liberals with 3.04 quotas, Labor 2.40, Greens 0.95, JLN 0.65, Shooters 0.18, Animal Justice 0.12. The independents are collectively on 0.66 quotas but none of them has any vote to speak of and Greg (Tubby) Quinn is the only one who can hold his head up high, outpolling much more fancied indies who have flopped (though Lara Alexander has just overtaken him). The count is at 81.9% (it will finish somewhere around 90 probably) and George Town and Scottsdale prepolls are not added yet.
The Liberal vote in Bass has been trashed by an enormous swing currently running at over 20%, but when you start from a base of 60, how bad can it be? Michael Ferguson has topped the poll with 1.44 quotas in his own right. Rob Fairs has a little less than half of that. Ferguson will be the only candidate elected with quota and his surplus will provide boosts to the remaining Liberal candidates. From then on it will be a long series of exclusions from the bottom up, with occasional surpluses. Michelle O'Byrne and Janie Finlay will be over quota pretty quickly in that process, and Rob Fairs and Cecily Rosol later. This leaves two battles. The first is between JLN and Labor for the last seat at party level and the second is a battle for the third Liberal position.
I think JLN are safe for the final party seat now but I am keeping an eye on it in case they do badly on remaining absents or prepolls (they have been fine on prepolls and postals so far). They are actually no more exposed to leakage than Labor who currently have 2885 votes from minor candidates that could leak (assuming Geoff Lyons remains their third candidate) vs 2764 votes for JLN (and with a live JLN lead of 1887 there would have to be a huge amount of leakage from their ticket for it to matter anyway). Rebekah Pentland leads Angela Armstrong for the expected JLN seat by 430 votes. Armstrong does have a degree of profile so I will keep an eye on this one but Pentland's lead is substantial for the time being.
On the Liberal side, current vote totals are Wood 1753 Sladden 1579 Quaile 1355 Gatenby 1375 Trethewie 1065. At present Ferguson's surplus is worth 3390, but I would expect several hundred at least of that to go to Fairs. It would seem difficult for either Quaile or Gatenby to beat both Wood and Sladden from where they are. The breakdown of Ferguson's surplus here will be interesting as Ferguson and Sladden have strong connections through the right-wing Christian vote, and Sladden might do well on Ferguson's surplus for that reason. Another possible source of help for Sladden would be the preferences of Lara Alexander. So it will be interesting to see if Wood can do well enough off either Ferguson or the other Liberals to keep Sladden from overtaking him. Updates to follow.
Sunday: The count has advanced to 85.4%, the majors are up .01 Q each and the Greens down .02 but nothing remotely significant. Wood leads Sladden by 161. Pentland leads Armstrong by 382.
Thursday: After the addition of postals and out of divisions there are negligible changes to the primary totals. Wood leads Sladden by 182. Pentland leads Armstrong by 372.
Tuesday: There was a minor update with Wood 163 ahead and Pentland 380 ahead that I missed from last week. We will tonight get final primaries and a start on the preference distribution, which I would expect to be at least the Michael Ferguson surplus which should shed a lot of light on Wood vs Sladden et al.
7 pm: Final primaries have Liberals 3.04 Labor 2.38 Greens 0.96 JLN 0.65 and in the race for independent honours Alexander beat Quinn on primaries by five votes but Quinn still has the preference throw to try to catch up! Wood leads Sladden by 202, Pentland leads Armstrong by 376.
7:50 That was quick, Michael Ferguson's surplus has been thrown already! 7.2% of the surplus leaked. Simon Wood got a handy chunk and now leads Sladden by 622 votes. There was no impact on the JLN contest. One of Sladden's possible lifelines is preferences from Lara Alexander but I have looked at where Alexander's votes come from and the geographic split is not that strong as might be the case if she was drawing a strongly religious-right vote. It is also notable that Chris Gatenby did a bit better than Sladden off these and would be a chance if Ferguson decides he's had enough at some point in the coming term.
Wednesday: Minor exclusions have started. A mildly interesting one coming up is Mark Brown who is a former Australian Christian Lobby state director, to see if Sladden makes any inroads on Wood there. However Brown's vote is very geographically scattered.
12:30 Sladden did make a little bit up off Brown and is now 579 behind Wood.
4:40 Plowing through minor candidate exclusions but not a lot happening here in the internal contests. Pentland leads Armstrong by 364, Wood leads Sladden by 577. Michelle O'Byrne has passed quota after 9 exclusions with a small surplus which will be next.
Thursday 10:45 amThe critical exclusion of the third JLN candidate Ludwig Johnson (1261) is upon us with Rebekah Pentland on 2655 and Angela Armstrong 2302. So far Armstrong has made very minor gains on Pentland from non-JLN candidates.
12:30 No updates for over two hours, not sure if this is a counting issue or a web issue
1:10 The exclusion is now finished with a very even split so Pentland now seems very strongly placed. Leakage was only 13%, Pentland gained 550-547
4:20 Not much has been going on in Bass for a while but we have just seen the first Liberal exclusion (Trethewie) and Wood is now 718 ahead of Sladden. I am expecting Wood to retain off that but it is not callable just yet especially with some female candidates with substantial votes to throw that may help Sladden.
5:50 Following the exclusion of Greg Quinn, Pentland is now 471 ahead of Armstrong. The only thing that causes me to still hold back on calling the JLN seat for Pentland (which the ABC did days ago) is the slim possibility that Lara Alexander's preferences might favour Armstrong because the two could both appeal to voters motivated by Commission of Inquiry related issues.
7:00 Finlay is over quota on Will Gordon's exclusion with a rather large surplus and that's the end of play for today.
Friday 11:20 We are now up to the exclusion of Lauren Ball (Green) which will be followed by the most interesting exclusion Lara Alexander (IND). Alexander's exclusion should remove any remaining doubt about the candidate outcomes in Bass as if Sladden and Armstrong cannot make gains on Alexander's votes when are they going to.
2:20 The Alexander exclusion has caused a closing up in the Liberal race with Wood now leading Sladden by 461. It seems extremely unlikely that Sladden can get that off Chris Gatenby's preferences but Gatenby is being excluded now so we will find out soon enough. Armstrong remains 529 behind Pentland and the remaining preferences of the party that doesn't like being called Shooters will not bridge that so Pentland is going to win.
4:50 Rob Fairs crossed quota with a surplus of 684; Simon Wood now leads Sladden by 609.
5:45 Final for Friday and with Fairs' surplus done Wood leads Sladden by 715. The SFF prefs may just put Rosol over the line. The other possible chance for Sladden to gain ground is that both Liberal candidates could stay ahead of Geoff Lyons but even so 715 votes is a massive margin. Sladden's anti-COVID stance might have some resonance to Shooters voters but it's not likely to be more than a few hundred in that.
Saturday 10:55 Simon Wood continued to gain on the Frydrych exclusion and leads by 848 which certainly won't be caught on Labor preferences. Cecily Rosol is over the line with a small surplus, then Armstrong, then Lyons. Lyons will either put Pentland over quota or nearly so, leaving the two Liberals without quota with Wood well ahead. As Sladden won't be excluded, she will be disadvantaged by the Hare-Clark recount bug if either Michael Ferguson or Rob Fairs doesn't see out the term, but if Simon Wood were to resign Sladden would be advantaged by the practice of throwing the 8th candidate to bring the 7th to quota for the recount.
4:50 Bass is over with Pentland crossing quota and Wood defeating Sladden for the final seat by 990 votes.
Someone has called the final Bass seat for Rebekah Pentland on her wiki page.
ReplyDeleteProbably because the ABC called it. No idea why when Pentland is only c. 400 votes ahead of Armstrong.
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