I’ve been looking over the Senate results in the NSW seat of Grayndler at the last federal election, and I found this interesting information. This is the list of the top 10 polling individual candidates in terms of below-the-line votes.
- Kerry Nettle (GRN) – 1691 (1.93%)
- Mark Arbib (ALP) – 398 (0.45%)
- Karl Kruszelnicki (Climate Change Coalition) – 280 (0.32%)
- Helen Coonan (LIB) – 194 (0.22%)
- Lyn Schumack (DEM) – 187 (0.21%)
- Patrice Newell (Climate Change Coalition) – 105 (0.12%)
- Marylou Carter (Carers Alliance) – 68 (0.08%)
- Ursula Stephens (ALP) – 60 (0.07%)
- Paul Green (CDP) – 59 (0.07%)
- Jack Mundey (GRN) – 58 (0.07%)
Amongst below-the-line votes, Kerry polled 46.11%, and the Greens six candidates collectively polled 51.02%. Interesting.
Do you think that’s more a personal vote for Kerry, or just that more Green voters prefer to allocate their own prefs instead of using the RGVT? I’d suspect more of the latter.
Hey, you could do a regular ‘random election stat of the day’ post.
I think it’s definitely more of the latter. You tend to see that the Greens tend to do well on below the line votes as people are far more concious about where their vote is going. It’s a general trend.
It’s true, although I think it suggests that in places like Grayndler she did have a personal vote. It’s just so far ahead of the other parties. We did poll about 21% amongst all voters in Grayndler, and 51% amongst below-the-line voters. Even if you assume that Greens voters, particularly in that area, are more likely to vote BTL, it’s still a very large divergence.
On the subject of Grayndler, I think that the Greens will come second in Grayndler at the next election and give Labor a margin of around 10%. Sydney is a possibility for the Greens coming second.
I think it’s more than 50% chance than the Greens will come second in Sydney and in Grayndler, considering the collapse in the Liberal vote and growth in Labor vote. In both seats we are reasonably close to overtaking the Liberals. However, I think the ALP primary vote will be too high to win in those seats in 2010, although Melbourne could be a possibility.
I actually think the Labor primary vote will drop in seats like Grayndler and Sydney, with those votes shifting to the Greens. The last election seemed to be all about who people wanted as PM – Rudd or Howard, and I believe there were a lot of voters who may have otherwise voted Green, but voted Labor because they wanted to vote for Rudd to be PM. I think this was definitely the case in Richmond, where it seemed no-one wanted to vote for Justine Elliot, but people voted for her anyway because they wanted Rudd as PM. Particularly if the next election appears a certain Labor victory (as it does), I would expect that these voters won’t be so concerned about the choice of PM, and so may be more influenced by other factors which could see their primary votes easily drifting elsewhere.
#3
Ben, state-wide there were 76,239 BTL votes, 23,266 (30.5%) of which went to the Greens. Given that the Greens’ percentage share of the vote in Grayndler was more than double what it was across the state, I’m not sure the divergence is that great.
You’re thinking of getting Nettle to run in Grayndler aren’t you? Well, significant evidence of a personal vote or not, she’d probably still do quite well.
Kerry Nettle in Grayndler? Interesting idea, given that I think she was the best rep the Greens have had. However, lets get Kerry elected, not to use her name to build the vote from 19% to 25%. Lets get her in when we have an outside chance of winning the seat. ie in two federal elections time.
Um, I’m not suggesting anything of the like regarding Kerry running in Grayndler. I just thought that statistic was interesting.
The Greens coming second or first, in Grayndler and/or Sydney, would increase the proportion of undistributed first preferences from the current 0.19%
http://results.aec.gov.au/13745/Website/HouseStateTcpFlow-13745-NAT.htm
Ok Ben, sorry for suggesting that. I meant it only half-seriously.
Could be a good idea though, but I wouldn’t want to annoy any local pre-selection aspirants by suggesting it too seriously.
That’s alright. She would be a good candidate, and she’s a local, but I didn’t want to make it seem that was what I was suggesting.
Yeah, and I don’t want to discourage you from posting innocuous statistics for fear of people reading to much into them, so I’ll promise not to do that again.
Has anyone looked at what the result in Grayndler would have been in 2007 based on how people voted in that area in the state election? (my skills aren’t up to doing that) I’m guessing the Green vote might’ve been higher, and if so, that might be a good indicator of the potential Green vote under favourable circumstances next federal election.
Answering my own question – I was thinking of having to figure out what proportion of votes to count from booths on the boundaries, but we don’t need to be that precise. Here’s what I’ve come up with for Grayndler based on voting at the 2007 state election: ALP 48.75%, Lib 17.69%, Green 25.68%. Would be pretty close after prefs.
Dr Karls vote is also awesome, considering the circumstances. I reckon he’d have a chance of getting elected as an independent if he actually campaigned. HOR or Senate. What’s his beef with the Greens?
The comparison with Sydney is interesting – overall Green vote higher in Sydney, but Kerry’s slightly lower. I haven’t checked out how many btls there are in Sydney in total, but the couple of candidates I looked at had more than in Grayndler, so my guess is Kerry’s proportion is significantly lower, suggesting that she does indeed have a personal vote in Grayndler which is higher than any she might have in Sydney by a fair way.
Yes, after further analysis I agree that there is good evidence of a personal vote for Kerry. In Sydney she got 42.7% of the BTL votes, although the total Green vote was higher. Meanwhile in 2004 in Grayndler John Kaye only got 37.5% of BTL votes. Interesting indeed.
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