8:45pm – There are currently 23 Greens MPs around the country. There were 24 Greens MPs from Ronan Lee’s defection to the Greens in late 2008 to his defeat in March 2009. There are three Greens waiting to take office in the WA Legislative Council after last year’s election, and they’ll take office next week (although one Green will lose his seat). Including all of these WA changes, there will be 26 Green MPs around the country.
8:42pm – This result is the highest primary vote the Greens have ever gotten in a state or federal electorate at a general election or by-election. The previous record was in the 2005 Marrickville by-election, when the Greens polled 38.96%. This is also the first time the Greens have polled over 40%. In contrast, the Greens polled 23% in the Cunningham by-election.
8:23pm – Okay, the WAEC has updated and things are back where we expected them to be, with Carles on 51.26%.
8:18pm – Hmm, the WAEC’s notional distribution of preferences has Tagliaferri just ahead of Carles, which doesn’t make much sense. Let’s see where this goes.
8:06pm – Antony Green just called Fremantle for the Greens, and I’m gonna do the same. This is over.
8:04pm – A number of booths have been added, bringing the total count up to 62.69%. Tagliaferri briefly took the lead on primary votes, but Adele Carles is now 7.5% ahead on primaries.
7:47pm – A strong Labor booth has just come in and Tagliaferri is leading Carles on the primary 42.7% to 41%. Still a projected win for The Greens.
7:33pm – “Independent Liberal” Carmelo Zagami is doing appallingly, sitting on 4%. There seems to be conventional wisdom that, when the Liberals don’t run, Liberal voters will seek out the hidden Liberal running amongst the random candidates. It reminds me of the 2005 Werriwa by-election, when the independent Liberal candidate was expected to get around 20%, but only got 8%. Most people don’t go beyond reading the how-to-votes and the party names on the ballot paper. When neither of those say “Liberal”, most Liberal voters won’t research enough to know that you’re supposedly the party’s standard-bearer.
7:21pm – With almost a quarter of the vote in, Carles still leads over Tagliaferri by almost 4%, 44-40%. Remember, Tagliaferri needs to come first on primary votes to win.
7:16pm – We’ve now got almost 10% of vote in, and Carles is still above 46% of the primary vote with Tagliaferri just below 38%.
7:11pm – We now have prepolls in, and the Greens are leading with 46.8% of primary votes. This is very early.
7:07pm – The first handful of votes have come in. I assume they are from Rottnest Island, as there are only 88, and they overwhelmingly go for the Greens.
7:02pm – We’re yet to see any votes from Fremantle. It appears that they are counting the daylight savings first. Speaking of daylight savings, with 40% of the vote counted, the ‘no’ vote is sitting on just over 53%, and it appears that the referendum will be defeated. While I’ll try and cover both votes, the Poll Bludger is a Fremantle local and is covering the by-election. (Ben)
6:18pm – Your regular host at The Tally Room, Ben Raue, is currently in transit so I’ll be guiding you through the Fremantle By-election results until he gets back.
The election will be a Labor vs. Greens affair, with the Liberals deciding not to field in a candidate. Antony Green has recalculated the two-party preferred figures for each booth as a Labor vs. Green contest to allow for more accurate comparisons here. The WAEC will not be publishing two-party preferred figures for each booth, only the electorate as a whole, which makes it more difficult to analyse results. We’ve also got pre-poll and postal votes coming in so hopefully we’ll get a result tonight.
There’s 11 candidates in this election and it’s most likely going to come down to preferences so I’ll give a brief run down on who’s preferencing who.
Greens candidate Adele Carles will receive preferences directed to her from former Liberal candidate, now independent, Carmelo Zagami and independents Jan Ter Horst and Sam Wainwright, the latter of whom is affiliated with Socialist Alliance.
Labor candidate and current Mayor of Fremantle, Peter Tagliaferri will be picking up preferences from the rest of the candidates who include independent Nick Varga, Rob Totten from the Citizens Electoral Council and Andriette Du Plessis from Family First, amongst others. (Oz)
This is fantastic news!
Ben, as a Green, I hope you’re partying it up tonight (or tomorrow morning, as it probably is in your part of the world). I would go down to sniff out the Greens party, except a late shift (only knocked off at 10pm and found out the good news on both of today’s elections) and Freo being a long way from my house gets in the way of that. I hope they’re being merry, anyway.
I intend to do the same booth-level 2pp analysis on this that I did for the seat in the state election on here a few months ago – that one had the Greens winning all ALP v Grn booths (ie: Freo inner suburbs) except White Gum Valley (and Hilton booth in Willagee), by margins in the order of 6-8%. God knows what they are now. That’ll be how you calculate a ALP v Grn swing, which I’ll have a go at too.
Cheers!
Actually, the WA Greens have 5 MPs now and therefore party status. They won 4 upper house seats last year, so the total number of Green MPs at state/territory and federal level is 26. WA has 7, Tasmania has 6, ACT and NSW have 4 each, Victoria 3 and SA 2.
And SA will probably get a second Green MLC at the election next year and Victoria is unlikely to have a decline an may well have an increase at the election next year. Not to mention the probable 7 Senators if their is a DD.
NSW could have 5 in 2011.
Oz,
Certainly they’d be red-hot favourites in Balmain and Marrickville. Do you think they’ll win any other lower house seats, or will it be 3 Upper House MPs?
Ah sorry, should have clarified.
I meant that they’re a good chance for picking up an extra seat in the upper house in 2011. So 3 from that election + the 2 from 2007 gives those 5 in the upper house.
And in the lower house, Balmain and Marrickville are very good chances so potentially 7. Almost a doubling in MP’s in the space of one election, how’s that for a rate of growth.
Does anyone know the details of party-status in NSW? As in what are the requirements and the specific benefits?
Party status in NSW is something like 12 seats. It’s much higher than other states.
But these ideas of ‘party status’ are always changeable, it’s only set down in legislation and could be negotiated if the Greens are in a position to do so.
Party status in Victoria is 10 seats and around the time of the 2006 election the number of MLC`s needed was reduced to 2 (I don`t know the number of MLA`s needed so, if anyone knows) for the benefit of the Nats.
I agree on the 5 MLC`s for NSW 2011. The chances in Balmain and Marrickville partly depend on whether the Libs direct to exhaust or the Greens. Balmain would have been one last time if they had done so and the margin in Marrickville halve or less. The Greens came within less than a thousand votes of second place so with Lib preferences it would be close. When Clover Moore retires I think the Greens will have a chance at Sydney.
… and don’t forget there’s a chance of a NSW Senator by the time 2011 kicks round. NSW could have 8, pipping WA by one.
Um, I think that if the Greens get Liberal preferences in Balmain and Marrickville they would be easy wins. I tend to think we can win them without, if you remember that we got so close in 2007 without Liberal preferences, and considering the shifts in NSW politics since then, I would rate our chances higher than I rated Fremantle last week.
And also, we’re already easily in second place on primary votes in both those seats. That’s not the issue.
Tasmania could also beat WA in 2010, as they have a chance of winning a second seat in Denison and a seat in Bass at the next state election, bringing them up to 8.
Braddon, Ben – Bass already has a Green. 😉
[ The chances in Balmain and Marrickville partly depend on whether the Libs direct to exhaust or the Greens. ]
Maybe not. Note what just happened in Freo… the Greens leading Labor on the primary vote. The game just changed. Seeing how popular NSW Labor seem to be, that could well happen.
Yeah, that’s what I mean. In NSW, we are in with a very good chance of winning those seats without Liberal preferences, possibly by coming first on primary votes. But if we get Liberal preferences, then there would likely be no contest.
Yeah, I was trying to remember whether it was Bass or Braddon and was too lazy to look it up :p
A wonderful result for the Greens in Fremantle. Some not very gracious Labor responses on the blogs but that is too be expected. The latest craze seems to be to refer to Greens and their MPs as “Ferals”. Curious because often only Bob Brown and Giz Watson are named! Me thinks that “ferals’ is referring to something else but they not having the guts to say it! Am I being too sensitive with this Ben? The Old Parties disgust me with the way they operate. It seems that many electors in Fremantle were not too scared to vote Green and I think viewed Adele Carles as a good value local candidate. People on the left of centre viewed John Howard with horror but what I see occurring with State Labour in Tasmania, South Australia( it is a virtual dictatorship), New South Wales and Federal Labor under Rudd I am thinking, “So what is the difference from the Howard years?” Rudd has horrified me faster as Prime Minister than John Howard ever did! Thanks for your blogsite, it is a sanctuary.
I based my statement about the NSW seats on the results on the electoral commission website.
http://www.elections.nsw.gov.au/state_government_elections/election_results/legislative_assembly_results/2007_state_election
Maybe not. Note what just happened in Freo… the Greens leading Labor on the primary vote. The game just changed. Seeing how popular NSW Labor seem to be, that could well happen.
That was in a by-election though. The Greens wouldn’t have led Labor in a general (as observed about 6 months ago). If Carles is re-elected it will be from Lib preferences. In NSW the only Green shots or Balmain, Marrickville and Coogee as an outlier.
Obviously that first paragraph is a quote from an earlier post and it should be ‘are Balmain, Marrickville….’
The Liberal vote is too high in Coogee, I’d suggest. It’s probably a better chance of being lost to the Liberals, not the Greens, in 2011.
Another option might be Kiera or Heathcote. The northern Illawarra is a strong Green area (see Cunningham). Maybe Blue Mountains too?
Heffron is a chance if the Liberals are overtaken (just under 750 votes would have done that last time) and the Liberals preference the Greens.
http://www.elections.nsw.gov.au/state_government_elections/electoral_districts/all_districts_/heffron/results_2007/perferential_count
Anybody know whether Clover Moore will contest (and therefore win) Sydney in 2011?
I don’t think any seats other than Balmain or Marrickville are winnable in 2011. However there are a tranche of seats that could be marginal in the medium term (say, 2015, 2019).
I’d list these as Coogee, Blue Mountains, Heffron, Keira, Ballina, Newcastle and Sydney, post-Clover.
I think we’d have a shot in Sydney post-Clover but I don’t see her going anywhere in 2011. I also think the bigger obstacle to the Greens winning the seat of Sydney is the fact that the Greens are much weaker on Sydney City Council than on neighbouring Leichhardt, Marrickville and Waverley. If Clover retired from Council the Greens’ performance would probably improve on council, which would then be a stepping-stone to winning the state seat.
Comments are closed.