Stafford By-Election: Prospects and Live

Stafford (ALP 5.32%)

Luke Richmond (ALP) vs Fiona Hammond (LNP) and others

Cause of by-election: death of Jimmy Sullivan (ALP/IND)

ALP retain with c. 4.4% swing to LNP

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Monday:  Not much more to see

Casey Briggs has tweeted that he understands there are not more than (and probably less than) 2000 postals to come, so further changes to the current 51.2-48.8 margin will be in tenths of a percent if that.

Sunday: Excuses excuses...

Steven Miles has been quoted offering a bizarre excuse for his party's poor result, claiming it was due to One Nation not running and saying "We will never know what the result would have been if they had run and not directed their supporters to vote for the LNP,".  Stafford is one of One Nation's worst seats in the state, had they run I estimate they would have got about 8%.  Most of their voters would have preferenced the LNP anyway.  Care of the 2017 election we have a window on what happens when One Nation recommends preferences to the LNP in some seats and Labor in others - the flow difference was around 10-12%.  So for an open ticket, half that.  This argument if it works at all isn't worth half a percent, it might be worth a tenth of the swing if that.  In fact not all One Nation voters would have even been aware that their party recommended (not "directed") its voters to vote for the LNP, so probably even less.  And some of those who were aware would not have obeyed.

Miles has also referred to Fiona Hammond's local profile, but that was already present in the baseline since she was the candidate last time.  Indeed her time as a councillor was more recent then.  

Another excuse quoted by The Australian is “Right-of-centre voters, after the deal with One Nation, weren’t left with many alternatives in a field of nine candidates, and so we have seen a splintering of the vote amongst other left-of-centre parties.’’  But in fact there were four right wing candidates (up one from 2024) and the three minor righties between them got a 0.3% swing on the combined One Nation and Family First primary from 2024.  It is true that Labor's primary suffered from the extra competition on the left - but that does not explain half of the primary vote swing against Labor flowing through to 2PP swing as well.  

2019 Queensland Senate: Who Will Be Last When The Music Stops?

2019 Queensland Senate

Outgoing Senators: 2 LNP 2 ALP 1 Green, Fraser Anning

Seats won: 2 LNP (Paul Scarr, Susan Macdonald), 1 Labor (Nina Green)

Four-way fight for three seats with one to lose: Gerard Rennick (LNP), Chris Ketter (Labor), Malcolm Roberts (One Nation), Larissa Waters (Green)

Rennick and Roberts are overwhelmingly likely to win; Waters is most likely to win final seat
Final result won't be known for certain until the button is pressed

Warning - Senate races are complex! This article has been rated Wonk Factor 4/5.

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Queensland 2017: Final Results And Polling Accuracy

Queensland: ALP 48 LNP 39 KAP 3 PHON 1 GREEN 1 IND 1
2PP Estimate 51.2 to Labor (+0.1 from 2015)

It's taken a while but I've finally found some time to put up something about the final results of the 2017 Queensland state election.  I try to always put something out on Christmas Day, though last year nasty weather interfered with that plan.

In a nutshell, the 2017 Queensland election was one where a great many dramatic things could have happened, but virtually none of them did, as the following sections explain:

Hardly any seats changed hands

You don't turn 89 seats into 93 without breaking a few eggs, but the level of seat transfer between the parties at this election was remarkably low.  On a notional basis and ignoring retirements and mid-term defections, just nine seats changed hands at this election, most of them marginal anyway.  The Liberal National Party lost Redlands (1.2%), Gaven (2.8%) and Aspley (3.2%) to Labor, and would have lost Maiwar (3.0%) to Labor as well but the Greens snatched it instead.  Labor lost Bundaberg (0.5% and which was a freak win last time anyway) and Burdekin (notionally theirs by 1.4% but LNP-occupied) to the LNP, and might have lost Mirani (3.8) to the LNP had not One Nation helped itself to its only win.  The LNP also dropped Noosa (6.6) to independent Sandy Bolton, and Hinchinbrook (3.4) to KAP's Nick Dametto.  In Hinchinbrook, Dametto (who according to his party had only been campaigning for four weeks) pulled off a duplicate of Andrew Wilkie's Denison 2010 winning method of coming third and getting everyone's preferences.

Queensland Galaxy Says Game On For PHON Balance Of Power

Queensland Galaxy: Labor 31 LNP 33 PHON 23 Green 8 KAP 3 Other 2

A Queensland state poll by Galaxy, published in the Courier-Mail, tells a story that should have both major parties quite concerned.  If this poll is correct and typical, it is 1998 all over again and a bit more.  Perhaps the current One Nation polling bubble will burst before an election that is possibly still most of a year away.  If it doesn't, then a weakened minority government facing an unpopular opposition presents a dream scenario for Australia's number one nineties nostalgia party to break through at state level and obtain some serious power there.  Whether it would manage to remain remotely united this time if it did, nobody knows. 

 The high One Nation vote should be considered no surprise following polls showing the party at 16% in Western Australia, 16.3% in NSW and 9.4% in Victoria.  Queensland always was the party's strongest state.  It's possible even that the figure is an underestimate, but I am not that convinced that One Nation voters are all that shy anymore.

Sample size issues aside (and I haven't seen the sample size for this poll yet) there is one big reason to treat this poll with unusual caution.  It comes during a lousy news cycle for the government following the resignation of Transport Minister Stirling Hinchcliffe in response to a damning report on the failings of Queensland Rail.  I would expect that event to be deflating Labor's primary vote, and everything I say below should be taken with that caveat.