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.
Moreover, the Democrats Rick Farley is strongly challenging Liberal Margaret Reid in the ACT, as reported elsewhere.
The Coalition has three senators in each state up for re-election, except in Tasmania where it has two.
The Democrats should hold or increase their Senate seats because they are defending a dismal result in 1993. Only two of the seven Democrats are up for re-election, in South Australian (Meg Lees should be re-elected) and Queensland where Cheryl Kernot’s replacement Andrew Bartlett should be re-elected. The Democrats are likely to get a seat in Victoria. They are also hopeful in the other states, but Green competition will probably make that too difficult in Tasmania and Western Australia. NSW is anyone’s guess.
Labor has 15 senators up for election three each in Victoria, Tasmania and NSW and two in the other states (counting Colston as Labor for now). These will be hard to hold against competition from the Democrats, One Nation, Green and Brian Harradine (in Tasmania).
The Greens have Dee Margetts up in Western Australia. Last time she only squeaked in. The Greens hope to get another seat in Tasmania to join Bob Brown who does not come up for re-election until 2002.
One Nation’s best prospect is NSW with Pauline Hanson’s adviser David Oldfield. But he will need virtually the full quota of 14.3 per cent on first preferences to get elected because all significant other candidates have put him last. Preferences flow very tightly in the Senate because about 70 per cent of people vote above the line and so their preferences go according to the list lodged by the parties with the electoral commission.
The present Senate make up (with likely range of the new Senate in brackets is: Coalition 37 (33-34), Labor 29 (27-28), 7 Democrat 7 (7-9), 2 Green (1-3) and Harradine (1), One Nation (0-1).