Close seat update – here’s the model

1. Longman? Postals currently showing only a 1.6% swing to Labor (58% to LNP). It looks like ALP to scrap home but only just.

2. If, as looks likely, the Coalition falls just short of the magic 76, it seems like their best strategy is to attempt to appoint a speaker and in essence dare Katter and McGowan to vote the Government down.

3. I think they get above it based on current postal flow.

   LNP Guaranteed – 70
   + Leading and pulling away = 4 Dunkley, Chisolm, Forde, Gilmore
   + Catching Quickly = 2 Herbert, Hindmarsh
   + Some chance on trend = 2 Capricornia, Flynn
   + Unlikely but Possible = 2 Cowan, Longman
   + Wildcard = 1 Melbourne Ports (Greens could get to #2 on other party prefs, which could then deliver seat to LNP on ALP prefs)

   So LNP 77-79 is my current on balance prediction

4. In my 70 I’ve included Cowper and Grey, which I can’t see the LNP losing on the 2PP booths reported to date

5. Labor obviously ran an awful postals campaign. I’m hearing Liberals could pass 80.

6. On election night it was said they didn’t run campaigns in NSW, QLD or WA (apart from select seats they held) – decided it was better to spend the money (and staff resources) on other campaigns.

   Of the close seats think they only ran a campaign in Hindmarsh, Dunley and Chisolm

   80 is certainly possible, but I think remains unlikely at this point

7. I’d say Herbert is gone for Labor, army postals will get Jones across the line….Capricornia will stay with the LNP which is a disaster for the LNP. Flynn is gone for Labor I’d say too.

8. Disaster for Labor I mean re: Capricornia.

9. Talk of 80 is nonsense. Labor has a guaranteed 66 and there are five cross-benchers.

   Labor quite likely gets to 68 with Hindmarsh and Cowan.

   The Coalition will end up with between 73 and 77 seats. The four to watch are Capricornia, Flynn, Forde and Herbert.

10. It looks most likely the LNP will have 77, with 5 IND/Others and 68 ALP.

    Gilmore: First batch of postals this morning as good as last time for them in Gilmore, so thats firmed as a very likely hold. Boundary changes here in removing Shellharbour (strongly ALP) should also help then with Absent and Pre-Poll Absent compared to last time.

    Forde: Also looking very likely LNP now, based on the postals in other Qld seats. I was more hesitant about this one because there is a bigger potential for absents to favor the ALP (the boundary with Rankin runs through the Labor leaning part of the seat), but this wont be near enough if the postals hold up.

    Herbert: Based on the first batch of postals this looks like a couple hundred vote win to the LNP. Still in doubt though, but its moved from likely ALP to Likely LNP in the last 24 hours.

    Hindmarsh: Almost certainly ALP. The gap has closed to about 150 votes this morning but this must be nearly the end of the postals and absents will favour the ALP strongly. The geograpy of the seat is very important in determining the absents. Hindmarsh is a long coastal seat, the coastal areas favour the Libs, but once you get a few km back from the beach its ALP. The land boundaries with the neighbouring seats are therefore all in the ALP areas – hence the absent votes favour Labor, because most voters who cross to vote in a next door electorate are coming from the ALP part of the electorate.

    Capricornia: LNP about 400 ahead based on projections from last time. Based on no swing in the electorate, the benefit of Landry’s incumbency this time and increased pre-polling (absent pre-polls from Dawson won’t have been counted yet and these will favour the LNP from the rural Mackay hinterland votes who voted in the Dawson Pre-Poll centre), I think Landry will win by 500-600 votes.

    Flynn, Dunkley, Chisholm, Grey, Cowper ….Why are we even still talking about these?

    Cowan: Postal flow looks to be no-where near enough for Simpkins. ALP Gain.

    I think the most doubtful seat above is now Herbert. A bad batch of postals could still do Ewen Jones in.

11. The revised figures in Forde giving a Liberal lead on ordinary votes had escaped my attention. That’s going to be very difficult for Labor to win now.

    Good post Peterjk23. Though I disagree with your dismissiveness about Flynn.

12. Why Flynn?
    The LNP gained a net 234 votes on the first 8% of postals.
    If that trend continues they are ahead on postals

    Hindmarsh.LNP have closed 478 on 67% of postals.
    That trend continues they are also ahead

    Capricornia – On the trends in Flynn, Longman, Herbert – this is likely to go to LNP but uncertain until we see postals

    Herbert – First batch of 17% of postals and LNP closed by 270.
    That trend continues they are also ahead

    I agree Cowan on trend looks like an ALP win by about 400 votes

13. Peterjk23 – Why would you think HIndmarsh is near the end of postals… .AEC says 2951 still to look at from here. I think the remaining postals will swing it the other way.

14. Re Flynn. Labor currently has a ~1800 vote lead. I acknowledge that the modelling projects an LNP victory, but there must be a large degree of uncertainty about this. In his Facebook video Q&A today, Antony Green said he expects Labor to prevail here.

    Re Hindmarsh. See Peter’s post above. Labor can be very bullish about the absentees yet to be counted.

15. Agree nothing is certain on the postals with such small numbers counted, but there certainly seems to be an early trend of 58-60% favouring the LNP in these tight QLD seats.

    I note the point about absentees in Hindmarsh – its one of those I mark as very close.

16. @David, Flynn has a huge pastoral postal vote which is very reliable. Its not a FIFO vote as has been incorrectly reported. This seat stretches a long way into the interior and that’s how those people have to vote, so its not really variable. Its certainly been consistent in the 3 elections since Flynn was created.

    The Absent and Absent Pre-poll votes also lean LNP in Flynn. I suspect its because of absent and absent pre-poll votes from the strongly LNP rural areas in the Burnett region just north of Bundaberg (the Burnett River is the border between Flynn & Hinkler), that vote in Hinkler’s Bundaberg PVCC. These are however offset somewhat by the outer Rockhampton areas in Flynn (favouring the ALP) that vote likewise in Capricornia’s Rockhampton PVCC.

17. Does anyone have any views on Melbourne Ports ??

    On 1P ALP leads 1250 over Greens.

    This will probably be increased by postals (ALP had 2668 listed against them) but reduced by the preference flow
    Animal Justice 1133 votes – HTV card preferenced Greens, but I suspect not well distributed
    Drug Law Reform 850 votes – Suspect mostly flow to Greens
    Marriage Equality 818 votes – probably 50/50
    Ind – Holland 1021 votes – president of unChain, campaigning on local Palais issues but prefrencing greens
    Ind – Myers – 270 votes – unclear

    I suspect ALP will get to #2 on the back of postals, but it could be a very close thing.
    If Greens get to #2 then the seat is likely to fall the LNP as the ALP candidate Danby, preference LNP in his HTV

18. 78
    LNP
    Herbert
    Cowan
    Capricornia
    Flynn
    Dunkley, Chisolm, Forde, Gilmore

    Hindmarsh Labor just

    Longman labor by 180 votes

19. Great discussion. Seems to be the only place in Australia where people can both read the AEC website and use a calculator.

    Even with a layman’s understanding, the early postal vote counts make it clear that Flynn and Herbert will go to the LNP. While the postal count for Flynn is low, and thus not all that reliable, it seems incredible that it is not at least on more of the in doubt lists. What are you doing Antony?

    I think Longman and Hindmarsh will be the closest of the contests with the ALP just getting them both. Yet Wyatt has been written off.

    Forde has now gone back to the LNP – that was obvious yesterday. While no postals have been counted in Capricornia, it only needs postals to favour the LNP by a moderate amount (and a lot less than the ratio its neighbour Flynn is showing) to go the the LNP.

    Cowan will go to the ALP.

    I think a calculator and a look at the AEC website will show a 77 – 68 split to L/NP etc and ALP respectively as the most likely outcome. Of course there are still some booths uncounted and postals could change from early ratios as more are counted, but a majority seems pretty likely for the Government.

20. Declaration votes were bad for the Greens last time.
    Ordinaries ALP 32.3 GRN 21.1 LIB 39.7
    Declaration ALP 30.1 GRN 17.7 LIB 44.6

    That widened the gap between ALP & GRN by 2800. The overall gap is much closer this time though.

    2016 Ordinaries are ALP 27.2% GRN 25.1%
    If we apply the change to ordinary votes to dec votes we get:

    5730 (ALP) and 4772 (GRN)
    New totals are: ALP 21975 GRN 19766 Gap 2209

    This is assuming the same number of dec votes as last time. If there are more, the anti-green bias might be REDUCED.

    The number of minor party votes will also increase after dec votes are counted. Last time dec votes accounted for 27.9% of the total votes. If we increase the minor party votes by the same proportion now, we get 5676 minor party votes.

    So the Gap is 2209 and the preferences in play are 5676. If it was 2PP it would require about 70%, which given the nature of the minor parties might be doable. But there is a Liberal also splitting off some of the vote, so I think it will be very hard, but perhaps not completely impossible, especially if there’s a variation in GRN’s favour on the dec votes from last time because there are more of them. Will need to look up Prahran 2014.

21. The above is my take in relation to Matt’s question on Melbourne Ports

22. Lastest count figures on Hindmarsh look good for the Libs. Hindmarsh is only 151 votes ahead with postals favouring the Libs by about 8% and plenty of those still to be counted.

    Longman looks out of reach for the LNP, though there will probably only be about 500 votes in it at the end.

    That makes it 78 – 67.

23. Have been following along here for a few days, appreciate everyone’s input.

    Does anyone know how postals are bundled and counted? Kevin Bonham made a comment the other day along the lines of early postals can favour the Coalition, does anyone know if/why this is true?

    I’m surprised by just how much the postals are favouring the Coalition in some of the seats given the high number. I would have thought a higher postal count in general would result in an outcome more representative of the wider electorate.

    Adam, I’m not sure you are considering the other declaration votes. Hindmarsh to me looks a likely Labor hold at this point given the high amount of absents.

    Capricornia is another one that Labor can possibly win now with early postals breaking favourably, it looks like there is only 100 or 200 votes in it.

    Liberal postal 2PP has to come down in Herbert, right? They only got 58.68% over an ordinary 2PP of 55.85% in 2013. In 2010 they only did marginally better in postals. And there has been a big increase in the postal count – wouldn’t you assume this would have an evening effect? Has the electorate changed dramatically? I had this as one of the better bets for Labor but will need to see marked improvement.

24. Adam,

    Hindmarsh will be won by ALP. Lots of absent votes that will favour ALP compare with postal votes that favour Libs.

    77 at best.

25. Now if people above looked at the AEC site and not the media, to see their seats numbers claims like the media are totally out.

26. Keith, the AEC site shows how the results stand on the votes counted so far. Those above – and the “media” you refer to – are projecting how the results are likely to end up, which is a different thing – principally because the votes still to be counted are dominated by postal votes which are used by a different demographic to ordinary and absent votes.

27. I had this same argument with some people on FB. They couldn’t understand the difference between a raw vote count and a projection.

    Even had someone accuse the ABC of pro-Coalition bias…XD

28. Capricornia looking good for ALP after initial postal count, though it will be close. Any reason why the postal count would be so different from Flynn to Capricornia when they are neighbours and the ordinary votes are so similar? Also take Pollster’s and Peterjk23’s advice re Hindmarsh and ALP gain. 76-69?

29. I’ll can’t rule out 71 to 74. Giving Hindmarsh, Herbert and Capricornia to ALP, with Forde to the LNP. But I think Herbert will be very very close though and the prepoll may likely get LNP over the line there. 70 to 75.

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