Graham Young and I will be live blogging the count tonight from the tally room where we’ve got press accreditation. We’ll be blogging over at Currumbin2Cook. So keep your eyes peeled if you’re interested in following the count as it happens – interstate readers might particularly find it a useful way of being informed quickly about what’s going on. We’ll have a post up this afternoon with seats to watch.
The Poll Bludger will also be live blogging tonight, and has some thoughts on the polls in an election day post.
I’m off to vote now – I live in Brisbane Central where my local member is one Peter Beattie MP.
Update: Our tips on which seats to watch have now been posted.
Further update: The live blogging post is here. The Poll Bludger liveblogs the tally here.
Last update: Before I go to bed, let me just claim bragging rights.
I predicted in Crikey on Friday:
Labor 60, Nationals 17, Liberals 7, Independents 4, One Nation 1.
The ABC projections currently are:
Labor 60, Nationals 16, Liberals 8, Independents 4, One Nation 1.
You serious?
Yep. Why not?
It’s presuming people are interested – some may be, other may not be. But no doubt the ABC won’t be doing the election telecast outside Qld – it’s one way of getting some interpretation of what’s going on – instead of hitting refresh on the electoral commission site or whatever.
And besides the TV will be on the Broncos.
Update: Our tips on which seats to watch have now been posted.
I have just come off a booth (ALP worker) in an inner suburban Brisbane seat. The support for the Greens is very high, and they are not preferencing the (very good) sitting local member. They may deliver the seat to the Liberals on an over 11% swing by sucking our primary vote away.
The Liberals themselves ran a pretty dirty booth policy. They had one worker there distributing these fake Courier-Mail headline banners with ‘Doctor Rapist’ headlines and an ‘Queensland Election’ by line. They did have any written and authorised byline. The booth captain has also had a policy of low level harrassment toward our booth volunteers all day. The majority of the actual Liberal booth workers have been relatively polite all day however.
From the feeling at the booth today and the other booth workers I spoke to I am actually pessimistic of the ALP holding the seat. I think Beatttie will retain government on a much reduced margin. The voters will be losing an excellent active local member if this comes about!
Don’t despair too much, T. Rex, it might just be that one booth. You can’t always extrapolate a feeling from one booth across others.
Well, it’s the biggest booth in the electorate, 3000 voters. Some people working on other booths who have come and go to this booth (where I’ve been all day until 4pm) reported similar sentiments on those booths. People want to punish Beattie and they’ll do that by voting to the left of the ALP (ie Green, independent) rather than to the right. And optional preferential voting makes that dangerous! The party’s polling must have shown this as they had ‘Voting Green? Vote 2 ALP!’ handouts printed up.
Well, seeing from your comment on Currumbin2Cook that you’re talking about Mt Cootha, T Rex, two points. The first is that it’s always been one of the two seats in Brisbane (the other being South Brisbane) with the highest Green vote – above 20% in a couple of elections. The second is that Green voters are the most likely of any under optional preferential not to “just vote one”.
So I don’t think you’ll need to be drowning your tears tonight, but it will be worth watching to see what the Green vote is. I’d be very surprised though if Labor don’t hold it.
Well, I hope you’re right, Mark. Maybe its me being tired and reacting to the low level harrassment conducted by the Tories all day. Anyway it’s off for a quick nap and then up to scrutineer the booth at 6. Hopefully will be drowning my excitement of another three years with Andrew Fraser later this evening.
Further update: The live blogging post is here.
Fuucccccccccckkkkkkkkkkk,Fuuuuuuuuuuucccccckkkkkkkk.I am not swearing Mark,that is the black crow on my shoulder that seems to be getting bigger as the night goes on Fuuuucccccccccckkkkkk.
Congratulations, people up there. Have just heard the news.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200609/s1737129.htm
Efficient result! All over by 8pm (when I had to leave an ex-pat election party to take my daughter home).
Beattie: the parent-friendly option!
0.4 % swing to Beattie. Hardley an endorsement of the polls. The only difference since the last election appears to be the distribution of the One Nation vote almost evenly between conservative parties (including Family First). Even the very small swing to ALP could have come from Labor leaning One nation voters. In fact I reckon One Nation would have attracted more than that swing proportion from the ALP. We’ll never know, but my reckoning is a small swing to the conservatives. There are still 28.6% of votes to count.
Given that rural votes seems to come in a bit later than city votes, even that small swing to the ALP may disappear by the finish.
On the whole a steady as she goes result, masking some significant stories in individual seats.
Labor is well-placed for next time, but I think Beattie must go. He’s looking tired and the way he spoke tonight I had the sense that he’ll hand over in 18 months to 2 years.
I hope Springborg stays on. He’s the best they’ve got as far as I can see.
Flegg is probably for the chop. I doubt whether he’s ever going to learn to handle the media and his inability to side-step questions like who founded Brisbane, plus his fumbling of policy detail (like the 500 bed hospital that later in the interview definitely wasn’t going to have 500 beds) was embarrassing. I thought he went on too long tonight.
Well the best thing was that as Mark said, I was totally being tired and emotional and Andrew Fraser was returned in Mt Coot-tha.
Brian, the other best thing was beating Caltabiano in Chatsworth! They haven’t got a chance in hell next time round with the talent they’ve got at the moment.
I agree. Would you care to speculate as to the replacement.
there’s a one in six chance it could be any of them.
“It’s vindication for the ALPs line on industrial relations too, and I reckon there might be some humanisation of the WorkChoices legislation before the year is out. ”
I wouldn’t read any policy influence here, Naomi.
I’d agree that the WorkChoices legislation may need amendment but not because of anything to do with tonight. Any radical new legislation is bound to throw up some faults and Howard is a very astute politician in this regard. Any changes will reflect genuine problems, not the beat-ups that Beazley and Combet have been rabbiting on about, most of which haven’t anything to do with the new legislation at all.
whyisitso, given your ‘insights’; do you feel a little bit embarrassed? Hardly a triumph for the ‘true blue’?
Why should I feel embarrassed, wpd? I’m not a Queenslander, so I’m not up with what’s happening up there. My comment was that it’s a bit presumptuous to read policy influences into a State election result. From what I read Beattie isn’t all that popular up there, and the result is a bit of “the devil you know”. Anyway to us Sydneysiders Queensland is a beautiful State – it’s wasted on Queenslanders.
So it is ‘radical’ and there could be ‘faults’. Careful, you are starting to sound like a revision is around the corner.
Personally, I think you are right. The Rodent knows how to react when he is cornered.
Not being a Queenslander aren’t you being a bit presumptious to say that WorkChoices was not an issue? Wayne Swan said he thought it shored up Labor’s base vote.
But I expect he wouldn’t know, he’s only a Queensland Labor politician who in his past has run elections in this place.
whyisitso, if you go back and look at the archive of my commentary, both the online focus groups Graham and I were doing for The National Forum and Graham’s quantitative polling were picking up WorkChoices as an issue pushing votes to Labor and holding them in Labor’s column when people might otherwise have deserted. I know quite a few of the Labor campaign strategists, and they were getting the same in their marginal seat polling – and so many of the attack ads pushed the interest rates and WorkChoices buttons. There really is no doubt it was a factor contributing to a victory which given the horrendous term Beattie had, should have been much smaller.
More tomorrow – it was fun but I’m tired!
By the way, that’s not a partisan point – though I’d be happy to see WorkChoices repealed – the polling just tells you what is and isn’t an issue. We picked it up before there’d been a skerrick of media commentary or politicking on it in the campaign.
Before I go to bed, let me just claim bragging rights.
I wrote in Crikey on Friday:
The ABC projections currently are:
I think some would like to dismiss Workchoices as an issue on any political level but blind Freddy can see it has all the hallmarks of a vote changer. Sticking your fingers in your ears and wishing it was not true will not make it go away. If the rodent doesn’t react then we will know ideology has blinded him and his end is near.
I used to think that Howard wouldn’t budge on it because of ideology. But I’m coming round to the view that he might make some cosmetic changes. Talk to strategists on the conservative side too – they know it’s a vote changer.
If Labor stays at 60, I make $1050 from Centrebet. Only $700 for 58 and 59. The Labor guys I talked to just before we shut up shop tonight varied between best prediction 58 and 60, but I’m hoping against my partisan urges they don’t get up in Clayfield and push it up to 61!
Maybe a much watered down version of the no disadvantage test I would reckon. The biggest problem is while he has control of the senate, people will be nervous of what he could do and even changing his position on Workchoices won’t hide the motivation behind that legislation which can only reinforce that nervousness in the electorate.
It’s hard to see how far he can realistically move because all the business lobbies are already pissed off with him for stopping where he did stop. But we’ll see. Hubris might make him think he doesn’t need to water it down.
People often refer to the 1993 election as an example of how a government that has presided over a slowing economy with rising interest rates can survive. The way I see it Keatings victory was only possible due to Hewson carrying the political impost of Fightback. The difference between the 1993 election and the upcoming one is that Howard is the one carrying the political impost in the form of Workchoices as well as the rest of the baggage that comes with over ten years in government.
Phill, I hope you took some bets. Congratulations on a long range prediction that came off.
Another three or so years of Beattie. Errr, yeah!!!
Congrats to Stirling for winning the seat of Stafford.
Onya, comrade.
Congratulations, Mark, for winning your bet! Your shout.
Heh!
Mark I think you should be leaving a write up on the drinks board at Alibi for “LP readers”.
Maybe so, T Rex!
“Phill, I hope you took some bets. Congratulations on a long range prediction that came off.”Well thank you.Unfortunately I didn’t make to many bets,I am married and my missus will only give me money for luxuries like food and clothes.
At the risk of being a smart arse after the fact, it was money in the bank,Beattie has got that unknown factor that wins elections.This added to the fact the opo was a pile of pus he comes across as a father figure who can fix all.
One more prediction from me,.Howard is gone,finished washed up,and his party are slowly coming around to that fact.Some punters that would normally vote for this piece of work are going to abandon him.,in their droves.Even the most understanding and compassionate conservatives must be aware of this mans loyalty’s, the man is totally disconnected from the ordinary people and an affront to decent people everywhere.
A vignette for you:
A rural gentleman, a lifelong CountryParty / Nationals voter, a true Joh supporter, a Hawke-and-Keating-hater, admitting through clenched teeth that he had no choice but to vote for that damned Beattie’s bloke …. yes, it was a FEDERAL election.