CLARK (2024 Result 2 Liberal 2 Labor 2 Green 1 IND)
SEATS WON 2 Liberal 2 Labor 2 Green 1 IND
SEAT WINNERS: Kristie Johnston (IND), Ella Haddad (ALP), Josh Willie (ALP), Vica Bayley (GRN), Helen Burnet (GRN)
WITHIN-PARTY BATTLE: Marcus Vermey (Lib) leads Simon Behrakis (Lib) leads Madeleine Ogilvie (Lib) - two of three will win
What we do have however is a cage match between Sandy Bay butcher Marcus Vermey (about whose position on the Liberal spectrum I still know nothing after three elections covering) and incumbents Simon Behrakis and Madeleine Ogilvie (long ago a Labor MP for the seat). This is a repeat of the 2024 intra-Liberal contest in Clark but in that case Vermey was too far back. This time he's in the lead.
Kristie Johnston has as mentioned topped the poll with 1.20 quotas. She and Peter George are the first non-proto-Green independents to top the poll in a seat since Reg Turnbull in Bass 1959. The Liberals have 2.46 quotas, Labor 2.21, the Greens 1.75 and ex-Liberal independent Elise Archer 0.25.
In theory the evenish split between Vermey, Ogilvie and Behrakis might give them chances of staying over one of the two Greens but the two Greens have a good split too. At candidate level Helen Burnet (second Green) leads Ogilvie by 217 with about the same number of votes to distribute within each of the tickets. The Greens prefs should be slightly leakier but the Liberal preferences are splitting three ways while the Greens preferences are only splitting between two candidates. Furthermore there are 2417 surplus Johnston and Labor votes that will favour the Greens (to the extent they don't exhaust) and I have heard that Archer's preferences are splitting pretty evenly on a 2PP basis between the majors, so they won't greatly help the Liberals. And there's little reason why they should, since Archer ran against the stadium. Also there are a couple of ungrouped INDs whose preferences will help the Greens.
Therefore it comes down to, at present, Vermey 4629 Behrakis 4180 Ogilvie 3510. In 2024 all these stayed in the count til the end and Ogilvie gained 2598, Behrakis 2406 and Vermey 2029, so Ogilvie needs to do better on preferences to overtake at least Behrakis. What was notable in the 2024 count, however, was gender-based preferencing. Ogilvie made substantial gains when two female Liberal candidates were excluded and also on the preferences of ex-Liberal independent Sue Hickey. Behrakis made his largest gain vs Ogilvie on the preferences of a male Liberal, Jon Gourlay, though he didn't gain from the other male Liberal.
In this election there is another ex-Liberal female independent in Elise Archer, and also within the Liberal ticket there are more votes for minor female candidates (2010) than minor male candidates (1343). This was not the case in 2024. Kristie Johnston having surplus probably won't help Ogilvie much as almost none of it will go to the Liberals.
670 votes is 670 votes though, it's quite a large lead for one of these things, and I am highly doubtful that the differences between this cutup and 2024 are worth nearly 500 votes more of Ogilvie gain. Indeed, Archer has fewer votes than Hickey had last time. I find it extremely hard to see how Vermey could be passed by both rivals and I think Behrakis is a strong favourite to stay above Ogilvie.
I'm relieved you don't think there is much chance of the three Liberals beating Burnett, but I'm still anxious. One of the reasons you give is that preferences from Johnston and Labor will favor the Greens. While I imagine this will be the case for Johnston, I'm not so sure for Labor, and am wondering if that might change the situation.
ReplyDeleteMy reasoning is this: The Labor preferences distributed will be from the last of their candidates to be eliminated, which will be either Kamara or Martin. Kamara's preferences may be relatively standard Labor ones, but surely anyone who voted Martin would be very unlikely to preference the Greens? Of course the votes distributed will not just be Martin's primaries, but also those he acquired from various other places, which would probably be more Green-friendly. Still, if the bulk of the distribution is his primaries, I'd have thought that would be quite a-typical.
My feeling is that out of all the voters for Martin the share of them voting for him because they hate the Greens and want to support Big Salmon Guy is relatively low. Some will just be people who remember him from Glenorchy council politics. Half the ALP preferences whoever it is will typically exhaust anyway; I think the Johnston prefs will have more impact.
ReplyDeleteThank you. That is encouraging to hear. I hope Johnston preferences etc will mean it won't be an issue anyway.
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