Robert Roylance (ON) vs Simone Bailey (ALP) vs Adrian Pederick (Lib)
Roylance expected to win
The rural lower Murray seat of Hammond was one of those that stood out in pre-election modelling as being a seat on a relatively low Liberal vs ALP margin but nonetheless being apparently fertile ground for One Nation. And this looks like this is how things have panned out. As I start this article Simone Bailey (Labor) holds a thin lead with 27.5% over Robert Roylance (One Nation) on 27.0% with incumbent Adrian Pederick in third on 22.1%. The most significant preference source is independent Airlie Keen on 10.4%. Keen ran competitively in 2022 but there has been a large swing against her with the rise of One Nation. The rest: the Greens 4.5% Legalise Cannabis 3.3% FF 1.9% Animal Justice 1.4% Lucas Hope (IND) 1.0% Aus Family 0.5% United Voice 0.4% Fair Go 0.1%. Yes there is a candidate in this seat who actually at present has 27 votes, their presence on the ballot paper probably costing thousands of dollars in staffing costs.
The count is at 67.9% enrolment and Roylance did just fine on prepolls so I don't see really where Pederick recovers 4.9% to knock him out of the top two. Maybe Pederick gets something off Airlie Keen but I would expect there is a lot of splatter in Keen's preference flows and the fact they are breaking three way with Bailey would make it hard to recover nearly enough.
I would expect ECSA to realign this count to Labor vs One Nation early in the coming week and this is likely to then show One Nation being far enough ahead to not be caught. William Bowe's estimate is 53.3-46.7 to Roylance and I think that is very realistic, though it could plausibly be somewhat closer. An extremely strong flow from Keen would be needed for Labor to actually win. (As noted in the Light section, Labor is actually outperforming One Nation on preferences in the seats where they have been thrown so far, but these are seats with Labor incumbents with huge primary votes, among other factors.)
Roylance has a strong CV, and while I've been extremely critical of the online support base One Nation is attracting and its (and their) behaviour on social media in this election, they are doing a good job of attracting more rounded looking and younger local candidates who (barring any vetting controversies) would not have been out of place in a major party. If they can manage to retain such candidates once elected (a big if in that party's history) it's a promising sign for the party's current rise being more than a flash in the pan nationwide.
Thursday 24th: This seat has not been realigned yet because of exclusion order questions but it is worth looking at Ngadjuri for what it can teach us. In Ngadjuri, One Nation are getting 60% of preferences. Unlike all the other ALP vs ON 2CP contests, Ngadjuri also has a modest ALP vote and a very low ratio of Green to Liberal vote (in fact slightly lower than Hammond). It is the only relevant seat to compare. If in Hammond, One Nation gets 58% of the preferences that are not Airlie Keen's, then that would leave Labor needing 75% off Keen. They got 64% 2PP off her last time, but for what it's worth she's recommended preferences in the order Lib-ON-ALP (I suspect this card was little seen and little followed). It is plausible that Hammond is closer than the projections being posted (or not) but I would still take One Nation's position.
Friday 25th: The first realignment posted is of polling day dec votes. These have split virtually evenly between ON and ALP but the pool has a low Liberal and high Green vote so I expect the flow to ON to increase.
2:00 Another booth Woodchester is more favourable to Roylance with a 55.3% split off a pretty typical split of primaries. It's also worth noting Roylance is now the primary vote leader. This looks strong for him at this stage.
3:45 A third booth Mannum also has an excellent flow to Roylance so I am now assuming he's up unless something very unexpected happens. ABC have called the seat at this point which isn't unreasonable.
6:15 Everything counted so far except postals has been realigned and Roylance is ahead 54-46 so that's over. and One Nation have won two.
Ngadjuri (Lib 3.2%, formerly Frome)
There is a similarly structured contest in Ngadjuri, the rural seat north of Gawler, but I see even less doubt that One Nation's David Paton will get that one, though I'm keeping an eye on it. After prepolls with 63.05% of enrolment counted Paton has 34.5%, Tony Piccolo (ALP star who relocated from adjacent Light) has 28.9% and incumbent Penny Pratt (Liberal) has 26.1%. With 5.0% also for the Greens, Piccolo will surely move further ahead of Pratt off their preferences and I cannot see how Pratt bridges the gap especially as the non-One-Nation minor right vote here is risible. With Paton leading the very large Liberal preference batch should elect him very easily.
It's quite possible that in both Ngadjuri and Hammond we'll end up with something I never thought to encounter - a beaten Liberal Condorcet winner (the incumbents might beat both One Nation or Labor head to head, but can't get out of third on 3CP.) One Nation are benefiting in these seats from Labor being high enough in the count that they don't have to face Labor preferences. While I see not a lot of doubt about the fate of Hammond and very little about Ngadjuri I will keep an eye on the realignments.
Tuesday 24th: there is something odd with the ECSA display of the realignment which is continuing to show a Pratt/Piccolo 2cp which is obviously not the case
7:45pm: That was fixed and the realignment clearly shows Paton wins Ngadjuri, currently getting 60.4% of preferences, which I think could go up slightly.
I believe the cases of Hammond and Ngadjuri demonstrate ONP's winning formula: pushing the Liberal to third place in their own strongholds, where the Liberal candidate would likely have been the Condorcet winner. I predict a significant increase in future Australian elections where instant-runoff voting fails to elect the Condorcet winner, as Hammond and Ngadjuri exemplify the polarized voter structure that this voting method struggles with – a pattern I expect to become increasingly common in Liberal-held seats.
ReplyDeleteThat basically means PHON are more of a threat in seats where Labor are somewhat strong. So for the upcoming Vic election they'll be more of a threat in Ripon or Bass (ALP held rural seats) than in Lowan where Labor are likely to come 3rd and where Nats have an incumbent with profile.
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