Victoria 2022 – the state of play in the upper house

It’s early days in counting for the Legislative Council, but there are already some trends emerging.

The Druery alliance has been broken, with only a handful of aligned parties on track to win. Minor parties of the left are on track to win in almost every region, with the Greens currently tracking to pick up a number of seats.

While group voting tickets will still play a distortionary role, that seems to have declined somewhat due to parties outside of the Druery alliance issuing more ideological tickets. A lot of the trends can be explained by looking at the primary vote figures, both per party and for preference alliance groups.

First off, let’s get the disclaimers out of the way:

• The count in each region is around 20-30% of enrolment. This leaves a lot left to count. From examining one region’s booth-level results, it looks like most election day votes have been counted along with some postal votes, but the pre-poll vote (the largest share of the total) has not yet been counted. So this may change the relative position of candidates.
• The ABC results assume that every vote follows the group voting ticket, but so far 10.3% of all votes have been below the line, which won’t follow the ticket. In general these votes will skew the results in favour of parties with a larger primary vote and make it harder for parties with a low primary vote to snowball to an electable position.

Neither the ABC nor the VEC is providing an easily-accessible report of the statewide primary vote figures by party, but here is a summary for each of the main blocs, which were defined here.

Candidate	Formal %	BTL rate
Labor	32.2%	5.2%
Coalition	28.4%	5.1%
Alliance	12.0%	14.4%
Greens	11.1%	16.7%
Left	9.0%	19.8%
Right	7.2%	24.6%
Others	0.1%	55.5%

That’s a 1% swing against the Coalition and a 7% swing against Labor, which has unsurprisingly flowed through into a loss of Labor seats. The Greens have gained a swing of 1.8%, which has put them in a much stronger position to win in a number of regions.

For the smaller blocs, you can see that the Druery-aligned Alliance has substantially less than the 16.7% quota in each region. The left bloc is on 9%, but does well from Labor and Greens preferences, which is more than can be said for the right-wing parties or the Alliance.

Also note that below-the-line voting isn’t just a Greens phenomena – it affects all minor parties and will have an impact on the effectiveness of tickets.

Looking at individual parties, the highest-polling party outside of Labor, the Greens and the Coalition is Legalise Cannabis, who have polled 4.8% statewide, followed by the DLP on 3.3% and the Liberal Democrats on 2.7%.

A number of the core Druery parties have suffered significant swings against them – Derryn Hinch’s Justice (DHJ) dropped from 3.75% to 1.3%, while the Shooters have dropped from 3% to 2.4%.

So who is winning so far?

Labor is down 3 from 18 to 15, while the Coalition is up 3 from 11 to 14. The Greens are up from 1 to 4, while the remainder of the crossbench is down three from ten to seven.

The composition of that crossbench has also changed dramatically with a replacement of parties aligned with Druery with parties further to the left. Those seven crossbenchers include two from Legalise Cannabis, and one each from Animal Justice, Reason, One Nation, the DLP and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers.

That’s four members of the left preferencing bloc (along with another 4 Greens), just two aligned with Druery (DLP and Shooters), and only one from the right (One Nation). While some of these results have changed during counting, they haven’t changed much – at one point Rod Barton from Transport Matters was winning, but has now been replaced by the DLP. There was also a point on Saturday night where Legalise Cannabis was winning three seats.

While we don’t know the final seats, this suggests an upper house with a clear progressive majority, but where Labor falls a long way shot. On the current count, Labor would need another six votes to pass legislation, with eight votes available from the parties of the left. It would be theoretically possible for Labor to work around the Greens, but this would require six out of the other seven crossbenchers, which would be tough. In practice the Greens will share the balance of power with the other centre-left parties: Reason, Animal Justice and Legalise Cannabis.

Most of the parties winning seats have a substantial share of the primary vote in their region – say 3% or more. We’re not seeing parties winning on slim votes with a snowballing preference share. The main exception to this is Animal Justice, who are winning in Northern Victoria on a flimsy 1.5%.

I’m going to write another blog post looking at how the incumbent minor party MLCs performed, but in short: they didn’t do well. Reason’s Fiona Patten and SFF MLC Jeff Bourman look likely to win, but every other member of one of the small parties is expected to lose. While the DLP and AJP are on track to win a seat each, they aren’t in the regions where incumbent MLCs were contesting. Even when looking at primary votes, there’s no evidence that these parties have done better where they have had a sitting MP for four years.

These results would look different if more of the minor parties chose to preference each other ahead of the bigger parties (particularly Labor or the Greens). I’ve identified at least 2 Greens seats and 1 Labor seat which would have been lost if the minor left parties chose to preference other small parties over the larger left parties – the Greens win in North East Metro and Western Victoria off the back of preferences from Legalise Cannabis, Reason and Animal Justice, and Labor also relies on these parties to beat Sustainable Australia in South Metro.

I have six potential changes in the results that I wanted to highlight. The first three are quite plausible, the last three are unlikely:

• Eastern Victoria – if Legalise Cannabis can get ahead of the Greens, Greens preferences elect them instead of Labor, but this would be made more difficult because of below-the-line votes.
• North Eastern Metropolitan – A slight weakening of preference flows to the DLP would elect the second Liberal instead.
• Northern Metropolitan – The DLP could overtake Reason for the final seat.
• South Eastern Metropolitan – Outside chance Legalise Cannabis could drop out and elect the Greens.
• Western Metropolitan – Victorian Socialists could overtake Legalise Cannabis and win, and outside chance DLP could defeat Liberal
• Western Victoria – Slim chance of Legalise Cannabis or Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party overtaking the Greens.

For the rest of this post I’m going to analyse each region’s contest.

Eastern Victoria

The calculator is currently projecting no change: 2 Labor, 2 Coalition and 1 Shooters. The Shooters have suffered a 1.8% swing but are still holding on.

The Druery parties had split between Health Australia (HAP) and the Shooters (SFF), while the left bloc parties favoured Labor over the Greens.

On the current results, HAP manage to roll up a primary vote of 0.39% to 1.51%, but are then knocked out. It’s hard to see this path becoming much better. Even if they managed to overtake Derryn Hinch’s Justice, DLP and LDP preferences would keep the Shooters ahead.

At a later point in the count, Legalise Cannabis is knocked out with 8.0%, behind the Greens on 8.8%, and Legalise Cannabis then brings Labor almost to a full quota, which they easily exceed on Greens preferences. If Legalise Cannabis were to overtake the Greens, they would likely win instead of the second Labor MLC.

North Eastern Metropolitan

The current results see the Greens and the DLP pick up seats at the expense of Labor and Transport Matters.

TMP’s Rod Barton has seen his vote halve since 2018, leaving him in literal last place. If he picked up slightly more of the vote, the group voting ticket calculator may give him the seat, but it’s extremely hard to see how below the line votes wouldn’t deprive him of the necessary preference flows.

This region was relatively weak for Legalise Cannabis while the Greens did quite well – it’s worth noting this region has shifted significantly to the north, taking in areas previously part of the Greens heartland of North Metro.

Reason gained relatively strong preference flows, which allowed them to turn a primary vote of 1.1% into 3.56%, but it’s not enough. Reason is then knocked out, with their preferences mostly flowing to Legalise Cannabis, but they remain a long way behind the Greens, with most of the remaining votes being on the right. I think the same would happen to Reason if they managed to get ahead of Legalise Cannabis.

On the right, the DLP end up beating Family First by 6.5% to 5.6%. If this gap closes, most DLP preferences would have flowed to Family First. The DLP is currently beating the Liberal candidate on the final count by just 0.7%, so it seems most likely the Liberal will instead win once below-the-line votes affect the preference flows.

Northern Metropolitan

The current results are status quo: two Labor, and one each for the Greens, Liberals and Reason.

The DLP’s Adem Somyurek polled 4.5% of the primary vote, with Fiona Patten’s Reason on 4.2% and the Victorian Socialists on 5.4%.

On the current calculator, the DLP falls just 0.4% short of Labor for the final seat, with basically a three-way tie for the last two seats between Labor, Reason and DLP. So it’s not hard to see the DLP taking one of those two seats on the preference calculator.

Labor started on 1.99 quotas, but don’t receive any preference flows. In practice, some below-the-line votes will leak to Labor and elect them, so the final race is between Reason and DLP. Both parties receive preferences from parties that have high below-the-line rates, so it’s a bit hard to say how below-the-line leakage will hit each party. The Victorian Socialists are the party that pushes Reason over the line but has 30% below-the-line, but Legalise Cannabis (another major source of Reason preferences) has a much lower BTL rate.

Northern Victoria

Northern Victoria’s results are quite different to 2018 – the Coalition has gained a seat off Labor and the two minor party seats currently held by Derryn Hinch’s Justice and the Liberal Democrats are currently going to One Nation and Animal Justice.

On primary votes, Legalise Cannabis has 5.3%, as does the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers. One Nation are on 4%, while Animal Justice trail in tenth place on 1.5%.

At no point does Animal Justice come close to getting knocked out, although you’d have to assume they end up with a much smaller share without below-the-line votes.

Neither AJP or One Nation come close to getting knocked out. AJP is well and truly clear of the Greens and then with Greens preferences beat Labor for the final seat by a huge margin. Things may change as more votes are added, but at the moment this result seems robust despite AJP having a very low primary vote.

Southern Metropolitan

Southern Metropolitan is currently projecting to re-elect two Labor and two Liberal, with the Greens replacing Sustainable Australia.

These three parties come close to full quotas: Liberal is on 2.01 quotas, the Greens are on 0.998 quotas, and Labor on 1.83. Sustainable Australia are ranked ninth on 1.1 quotas.

On the preference projection, Sustainable Australia pick up almost all preferences with Labor picking up very little for the final seat until Labor is on 0.84 quotas and Sustainable Australia on 0.72, but Reason’s 0.44 quotas then elect Labor over Sustainable Australia.

I would expect Labor’s lead over Sustainable Australia to grow significantly with below-the-line leakage, so this result looks robust.

South Eastern Metropolitan

The major parties have each won two seats with the fifth going to Legalise Cannabis. In 2018, Labor won three seats here, along with one Liberal and one Liberal Democrat.

On primary votes, Labor easily wins two while the Liberals are on 1.5 quotas. Legalise Cannabis are by far the strongest minor party apart from the Greens, with just over 6% (the Greens are on 7.5%). The Lib Dems are next on 3.7%.

We eventually reach a stage where Liberal and Lib Dems are both around 0.8 quotas, with Legalise Cannabis on 0.5, Greens on 0.45 and Labor on 0.36. Labor preferences push Legalise Cannabis into the lead, and Greens preferences elect them. The LGC surplus then comfortably elects the Liberal.

It’s hard to see the Lib Dems picking up enough ground on the Liberal to win, particularly with worse BTL leakage.

For Legalise Cannabis to lose, they’d need to fall behind both larger left parties, since both are preferencing LGC over each other. That’s hard to see, although BTL leakage will hurt them. If Legalise Cannabis were to drop out, their preferences (along with those of Animal Justice and Reason) would favour the Greens.

Western Metropolitan

The current result is 2 Labor, 2 Liberal and one Legalise Cannabis. This compares to a result of 3 Labor, 1 Liberal and 1 Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party in 2018, although three of those MLCs have left their parties since that election.

Labor has polled two full quotas while the Liberals are on about 1.43 quotas.

The Greens polled 9.8%, followed by Legalise Cannabis on 4.9%, the DLP on 4.8% and Victorian Socialists on 4.2%. Former Labor MLC Kaushaliya Vaghela’s New Democrats came eighteenth with 0.55%. Ex-DHJ MLC Catherine Cumming polled 0.65% for the Angry Victorians Party.

The New Democrats do well on preferences, snowballing from 0.55% to 3.2% before being knocked out. I can’t see them getting any further. They are 1.6% behind Family First, who aren’t even preferencing them.

The count eventually reaches a stage where the DLP is leading on 0.86 quotas, the Liberal on 0.66, the Greens on 0.59, Legalise Cannabis on 0.48 and Victorian Socialists on 0.41. Unsurprisingly the DLP and LGC have received most preferences at this stage.

Socialist preferences then push LGC into the lead and then Greens preferences elect LGC. LGC has a large surplus which then pushes the Liberal ahead of the DLP by a margin of about 1.7%.

I would expect the DLP and LGC to both suffer from serious leakage. It is also possible that LGC could be overtaken by Victorian Socialists, who would go on to win in the same way.

Voter exhaustion will likely reduce the LGC surplus, which ironically will help the DLP, but they will also suffer their own losses due to below-the-line voting.

Western Victoria

Western Victoria is currently projected to elect two Labor, two Liberal and one Green. This compares to 2 Labor, 1 Liberal, 1 DHJ and 1 Animal Justice in 2018.

The AJP incumbent Andy Meddick polled 1.7%, ranking tenth, while DHJ incumbent Stuart Grimley polled 1.4%, ranking eleventh.

AJP doesn’t do particularly well out of preferences, getting knocked out with eight other candidates still in the race on 2.6%. DHJ does better, making it much further in the count and never getting close to being knocked out.

When the Shooters are knocked out and they elect the second Coalition to the fourth seat with little surplus, this leaves DHJ on 0.87 quotas, the Greens on 0.61 and Legalise Cannabis on 0.52. Every ticket preference from LGC then flows to the Greens and elects them to the final seat.

It is possible to imagine either LGC overtaking the Greens if the Greens primary vote declines, but below-the-line voting would likely counteract that trend. Likewise the prospect of DHJ closing the gap on the Greens at the final round is possible but will be counteracted by below-the-line votes – DHJ is relying very heavily on other parties’ preferences.