This article is about single-member electorates, and cases where preferences result in someone who did not lead on primaries winning the seat, and how this affects battles between the major parties and candidates from outside the major parties ("non-majors") for seats.
I've written a few articles on here in which I discuss mistaken views held by many Australian supporters of minor right-wing parties on social media. Many of them rail against preferential voting, which they claim helps major parties to maintain a "duopoly" or "uniparty". They often support scrapping preferences, although this would make it pointless to vote for the parties they support. I've pointed out in these discussions that actually in the 2022 election, nine non-major candidates were elected from outside the parliament by beating one major party with help from the preferences of the other. If there were no preferences, such candidates would need to rely on very organised strategic voting for any chance of winning. Probably many would have lost.
Despite this, people keep claiming that the major parties conspire to keep smaller parties out of parliament by doing preference deals with each other so that if a smaller party leads on primaries the majors can beat them on preferences. The supposed prime example is the defeat of Pauline Hanson in Blair 1998. But the fact is that Hanson's loss was actually an unusual case, and examples of both majors cross-recommending against a competitive opponent are nowadays rare. Indeed, including state elections, even One Nation has more often beaten majors from behind thanks to preference flows than led on preferences and lost, by a margin of 9 cases to 4.
I thought I would compile a list of all the cases I could find in single seat elections since 1990 (state, federal and territory) where either a major party has led on primary votes but been beaten by a non-major, or the other way around. What I find is that non-majors beating majors by overtaking a major party primary vote leader on preferences is about nine times more common than the reverse.
In all I've found 89 cases where non-majors have started behind a major party leader and then used preferences to overtake them (in a few of these cases even coming from third). I've found just ten cases where a major beat a non-major who led on primaries, and in four of these the other major wasn't running. Cases of non-majors overtaking major party primary vote leaders to win after preferences have happened frequently under both compulsory and optional preferencing.
For the purposes of this analysis I have treated the Nationals (especially WA Nationals) as a major party irrespective of whether the state branch was part of the federal or state coalition at the time. It's just too messy chasing all the divorces and remarriages otherwise, and it's kind of irrelevant to the point if the Nats beat the Liberals on preferences while on the crossbench then rejoin a coalition during the term.
Here is the list. At the bottom I discuss the few cases where a major party candidate overtook a non-major candidate who led on primaries, because some of these cases are artificial anyway. A b after an election year means it was a by-election. Cases where a major beat a non-major who led on primaries are shown in italics.
It's possible I've missed a few, please let me know of any omissions; if there are any the text will be edited.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Federal (Non-Major Overtakes Major 20 - Major Overtakes Non-Major 1)
IND overtakes Lib: North Sydney 1993, Curtin 1996, Indi 2013, Wentworth 2018b, Indi 2019, Curtin, North Sydney, Mackellar, Wentworth, Kooyong and Goldstein 2022
IND overtakes ALP: Wills 1993, Denison 2010, Fowler 2022
GRN overtakes ALP: Cunningham 2002b (no Liberal candidate), Melbourne 2010
GRN overtakes LNP: Brisbane and Ryan 2022
KAP overtakes LNP: Kennedy 2013
PUP overtakes LNP: Fairfax 2013
LIB overtakes One Nation: Blair 1998
New South Wales (Non-Major Overtakes Major 16 - Major Overtakes Non-Major 0)
IND overtakes Lib: Manly 1991, Bligh and Manly 1995, Manly 1999 and 2003, Wagga Wagga 2018b, Wakehurst and Wollondilly 2023, Pittwater 2024b
IND overtakes Nat: Dubbo 1999, Dubbo 2007
IND overtakes ALP: Lake Macquarie 2007
GRN overtakes Lib: Balmain 2011
GRN overtakes Nat: Ballina 2015, Ballina 2019
SF+F overtakes Nat: Orange 2016b
Victoria (Non-Major Overtakes Major 9 - Major Overtakes Non-Major 3)
IND overtakes Lib: Mildura 1996, Gippsland West 1997b and 1999
IND overtakes Nat: Gippsland East 1999, Shepparton 2014, Mildura 2018
IND overtakes ALP: Morwell 2018
GRN overtakes Lib: Prahran 2014 and 2018
ALP overtakes GRN: Melbourne 2012b, Brunswick 2014
NAT overtakes IND: Mildura 2022
Queensland (Non-Major Overtakes Major 18 - Major Overtakes Non-Major 4)
One Nation overtakes ALP: Caboolture, Hervey Bay, Ipswich West, Mulgrave, Thuringowa and Whitsunday 1998, Gympie 2001, Mirani 2017 and 2020
IND overtakes ALP: Gladstone 1995 and 1998, Maryborough 2001 and 2003b, Nanango 2009
IND overtakes Nat: Nicklin 1998
KAP overtakes LNP: Hinchinbrook 2017
Green overtakes LNP: Maiwar 2017 and 2024
NAT overtakes One Nation: Burnett, Crows Nest and Gympie 1998
ALP overtakes GRN: South Brisbane 2024
Western Australia (Non-Major Overtakes Major 3 - Major Overtakes Non-Major 0)
Liberals For Forests/IND overtakes Lib: Alfred Cove 2001, 2005 and 2008
South Australia (Non-Major Overtakes Major 7 - Major Overtakes Non-Major 0)
IND overtakes Lib: Gordon and Mackillop# 1997, Hammond 2002. Frome 2009b, Mount Gambier 2010
IND overtakes ALP: Mitchell 2006, Florey 2018
# Independent was an unendorsed Liberal member running against official Liberal candidate.
Tasmania Legislative Council (Non-Major Overtakes Major 6 - Major Overtakes Non-Major 2)
IND overtakes ALP: Newdegate 1993, Rumney 2011*, Huon 2022
IND overtakes Lib: Launceston 2011, Huon 2014, Nelson 2019
ALP overtakes IND: Hobart 1994, Rumney 1999
* Independent was a Liberal member running as "independent liberal" (note case) after Liberal Party did not preselect a candidate for seat.
Northern Territory (Non-Major Overtakes Major 10 - Major Overtakes Non-Major 0)
IND overtakes CLP: Greatorex 1990, Nelson 1994, Braitling and Nelson 2001. Braitling 2005, Johnston 2024
IND overtakes ALP: Blain and Nhulunbuy 2016
GRN overtakes ALP: Nightcliff 2024
Territory Alliance overtakes CLP: Araluen 2020
----
In all the Coalition parties are more often overtaken by non-majors (especially independents), losing 69 seats in this way since 1990 compared to Labor's 20.
About the major overtakes of non-majors
The ten cases where majors have overtaken non-majors include four that are unusual and should be ignored in terms of the dynamics of general elections.
In the Tasmanian Legislative Council seats of Hobart 1994 and Rumney 1999 there was no Liberal candidate as at the time the party seldom contested, but many of the then-sitting independents were conservative and some had links to the party or were accused of doing so. In the case of Hobart, Labor defeated a conservative independent because of the flow of Green voter preferences. In the case of Rumney, the primary vote battle was very close and Labor actually beat the conservative independent on the preferences of voters for a maverick former Liberal who had a very low vote share. Tasmania does not have how to vote cards in state elections.
In the Victorian case of Mildura 2022, independent Ali Cupper had an artificial lead on primaries because both Liberal and National candidates ran against her. Had only one Coalition candidate run she would not have led on primary votes.
In the strange Victorian case of the Melbourne 2012 by-election, there was no official Liberal candidate but an extremely large field of 16 candidates. Greens candidate Cathy Oke outpolled Labor's Jennifer Kanis and led throughout the preference throw until the very last exclusion which sent pooled preferences from various minor candidates (including the unofficial Liberal) heavily to Labor, with Labor also helped here by the donkey vote.
The remaining six cases are more routine: four Queensland cases (three state, one federal) from 1998 where Labor preferences flowing to the Coalition defeated One Nation, and two cases where Liberal preferences flowing to Labor have defeated the Greens. Although Coalition parties have sometimes recommended preferences to Labor candidates over One Nation candidates, I've found no case where this has caused a One Nation candidate who led on primaries to lose.
Could there be an eleventh?
As I write the Liberals are just one vote ahead of the Greens in the Prahran by-election primary count. (They will win the seat by about 1000 votes after preferences). If this lead flips in checking during the preference distribution then this will be the first ever case of the Liberals beating the Greens on preferences from second on primaries, a thing unthinkable in Prahran on any normal day. This will be another artificial case if it happens as Labor did not run, turnout was low, and as a key independent (Tony Lupton) appears to have both drawn primary votes from the Liberals and probably convinced some ALP supporters to follow his how to vote card which preferenced the Liberals. [UPDATE: It didn't happen, the Liberals officially finished the primary count one vote ahead of the Greens.]
2022 Griffith, QLD ????
ReplyDeleteDoesn't qualify - Greens were the primary vote leaders.
Delete