Month: October 1998

The 1998 election, probably the last of the century, is also likely to be the last with a national tally room.

Computing power and the internet are getting much more powerful than people putting little cards on boards.

All the television stations ignored the huge tally board in the tally room at the Exhibition Park in Canberra (what used to be called the National Showground). It was just an expensive set.

EPIC people thought, however, that the public attendance this time was its strongest for many elections. The public queued out the door and were let in as others left. As many as 300 people were in the queue.
Continue reading “1998_10_october_tallyroom gone”

Both major parties are very likely to lose seats in the Senate.

This is because they are defending the results of the highly polarised 1993 election in which minor parties did disastrously.

Thirty-six of 72 state senators are up for election and will take their seats for a six-year term on July 1. Each territory will elect two senators who take their seats immediately for a term expiring when the term of the new House of Representatives expires.

Overall only four minor party and independent senators are up for re-election. On some of the polling figures, this half-Senate election yields between six and eight, so between two and four major party candidates will lose their seats.
Continue reading “1998_10_october_senate summary”

The fate of the GST now lies with the Democrats who have done exceptionally well in the Senate.

The Democrats will have 10 senators after July 1 next year when the new senators take their seats.

They could allow a food-free version through now or after July 1, provided the Government accepted the compromise. After July 1 the Democrats will have the absolute balance of power in the Senate. They can side with either Labor or with the Coalition for form a majority to pass or block legislation (including the GST) or set up or veto committee inquiries.
Continue reading “1998_10_october_senate new count”

Minor parties have improved their position in the Senate by at least three seats, according early counting last night.

One Nation has won a seat in Queensland, taking it from the Democrats. Its only other hope is a seat in NSW in a tight finish with the Democrats.

Tasmanian independent Senator Brian Harradine will probably squeak back on One Nation preferences in Tasmania in a tight finish with the Greens.
Continue reading “1998_10_october_senate count”

Cheryl Kernot improved her position in counting yesterday (Oct 8) and is now more likely than not to win the seat.

Ms Kernot is standing for the Queensland seat of Dickson, in suburban Brisbane. She needs a swing of 3.9 per cent. On Saturday night she accused the Labor machine of not providing her with a safe seat, in what was described as a dummy spit by many commentators.

After yesterday’s (Oct 8) count she may have to return the dummy. She is on 50.03 per cent to the Liberal’s Rod Henshaw on 49.97 on a two-party-preferred basis. That is only 40 votes ahead, but throughout the count since election night, the trend of postal, pre-poll and absentee votes has gone Ms Kernot’s way by 3362 to 3118. Big names tend to do well on postals, absentee and pre-poll voting.

Ninety per cent of the vote is counted, but typically four or five percent of those on the roll don’t vote.
Continue reading “1998_10_october_seat roundup”

Cheryl Kernot improved her position in counting yesterday (Oct 8) and is now more likely than not to win the seat.

Ms Kernot is standing for the Queensland seat of Dickson, in suburban Brisbane. She needs a swing of 3.9 per cent. On Saturday night she accused the Labor machine of not providing her with a safe seat, in what was described as a dummy spit by many commentators.

After yesterday’s (Oct 8) count she may have to return the dummy. She is on 50.03 per cent to the Liberal’s Rod Henshaw on 49.97 on a two-party-preferred basis. That is only 40 votes ahead, but throughout the count since election night, the trend of postal, pre-poll and absentee votes has gone Ms Kernot’s way by 3362 to 3118. Big names tend to do well on postals, absentee and pre-poll voting.
Continue reading “1998_10_october_seat roundup”

Annette Ellis and Bob McMullan will win the two ACT House of Representatives seats for Labor quite comfortable, according to Canberra Times-Datacol polling.

A poll taken last weekend ACT wide asked for voting intentions in Saturday’s federal election. It was mainly aimed at finding intentions in the Senate where there is a tight race between the Liberals’ Margaret Reid and the Democrats’ Rick Farley for the second seat (report Page 1).

Labor polled 46.2 per cent of the first preference vote, or 50.3 after distributing the undecided.
Continue reading “1998_10_october_rest of poll”

Labor’s fundamental problem is that it may pick up the 4.2 per cent swing it needs for government, but it will not be even enough to get the 27 seats it needs.

Polling suggests it will not get enough swing in the marginals to tip out Coalition MPs and will larger swings in safe Labor and safe Coaltion seats which will be wasted because it will not sound in seats.

The election will be won or lost in Victoria and Queensland.
Continue reading “1998_10_october_reps to watch”

Aweek before the election, I wrote a piece arguing that preferences did not really matter.

This was at a time of a huge amount of static and chatter about One Nation. Every politician and psepologist (studier of elections, after the Greek word for stone, with which the ancient Greeks voted) was tea-leaf reading about how preferences would decide the election and how crucial it was to ensure the Coalition or the Labor Party worked on the preferences.

Well, I was reminded of that article shortly after the election by a man who has watched the Australian political scene for some time. He thought I should revisit the question as soon as the final results were known. He thought I would have to emulate Kim Beazley and eat a certain amount of humble pie when it was obviously proved what all the knowledgeable commentators know to be true, that the election was decided by preferences and that preferences are utterly vital to political success.
Continue reading “1998_10_october_preferences hindsight”

Every election has its counting quirks, but this one more than most.

Democracy is not in the vote, but in the counting of it. Some of the Senate results seem bizarre and invite both challenge and reform. The donkey vote looks like deciding four or five seats — an election-determining margin. It invites a simple reform. Labor got more two-party preferred vote than the Coalition yet is not in Government. Labor got more first preferences than any other party yet is not in Government. One Nation got far more votes than the Nationals yet will get only one MP compared to 15 or 16, but will still get bucket loads of public electoral funding. Some significant people will miss out or come close to missing out while various hacks and drones have comfortable seats; the nation could be the poorer for it: Warwick Smith, Alexander Downer and Cheryl Kernot.

The donkey vote needs only run at half a per cent to affect a large number of seats in a close election. Some sequential votes down the card are genuine votes, but not many. For example, if there are six candidates there are 720 combinations. You would expect only 0.13 per cent of votes to be sequential, but we find three or four times that in practice, indicating a deliberate donkey vote. Any seat determined by less than 250 votes is likely to determined by donkey votes if the winner appears higher on the ballot paper than the loser.

This time the Liberals will get Eden-Monaro and Hinkler on the strength of the donkey vote and Labor will get Adelaide, Dickson and possibly Kalgoorlie. Poor Warwick Smith lost Bass in 1993 on the donkey vote, but does not pick up quite enough of it this time to win.
Continue reading “1998_10_october_poll washup”