This blog post was inspired by some discussion about the race in the seat of Lismore. Labor candidate Janelle Saffin came second in 2019, narrowly outpolling the Greens, who had come second in 2015. Greens preferences flowed strongly to Labor, electing Saffin over the Nationals candidate. While Labor won, we also know that the Nationals would have defeated the Greens in a two-candidate-preferred count, since preference flows from Labor to the Greens were much weaker than the reverse.
So I wanted to examine this question: how do preference flows from Labor to the Greens and from Greens to Labor compare to each other, overall and in particular kinds of seats?
At a federal level, we get a Labor-Coalition preference count in every seat but we only get a Greens-Coalition count in seats where those parties make the top two, such as in the three inner Brisbane seats won by the Greens in 2022. Labor won the two-party-preferred vote in all three of those seats, and the Greens margin of victory was usually very similar to the Labor margin of victory in the notional two-party-preferred count – the gap was just 0.23% in Ryan, and it was 0.6-0.7% in the other two seats.
We’ve seen similar trends in the Victorian state seat of Prahran, although in 2014 the race was close enough that the Greens won the seat while Labor lost the two-party-preferred count – while the gap was pretty small, there was still a gap. The Greens won by 0.37%, and the gap was 0.4%.
But all of these seats are of a particular kind of character – prosperous inner city seats where Labor voters are of a particular kind. My working theory is that there are different segments of Labor voters, some of whom are much more sympathetic to the Greens than others. Those more sympathetic Labor voters are also likely to be demographically similar to Greens voters. You could knock on two doors in the inner west of Sydney and find families with similar interests, economic positions, social attitudes and policy priorities but you could find that one votes Labor and the other votes Greens. It’s not hard for those kinds of people to preference both parties 1-2.
But sometimes the Greens poll well in seats that contain pockets of Labor voters who are quite different, and that can manifest in quite imbalanced preference flows.
The NSW ballot paper data from the 2015 and 2019 elections gives us the first ever opportunity to look at Coalition-Greens two-candidate-preferred counts in every seat, not just where it decided the result. Another complication comes from optional preferential voting, so there’s an element of exhausted votes.
Let’s start with the statewide totals. Most Labor voters aren’t quite as Greens friendly as they are in some seats, with a huge gap between Greens preference flows to Labor and vice versa.
The gap actually widened in 2019 - Labor preference flows to the Grenes were 15.4% weaker in 2015, but 21.5% in 2019.
Of course, it doesn't really matter how Labor preferences flow to the Greens in many seats, so let's have a look at the preference flows by seat.
I've plotted the proportion of votes from each party that flowed to the other by seat. Unsurprisingly, most seats had stronger Greens flows to Labor than vice versa, since that was such a strong statewide trend. The diagonal black line indicates the point at which preference flows are even.
It's interesting to see some of the notable seats that differ in trends. Preference flows from Labor to the Greens are strong in the three incumbent Greens seats of Balmain, Ballina and Newtown. Perhaps this reflects the make-up of these seats' Labor voters, or it reflects that Labor voters are more likely to give the Greens a preference if they have a Greens MP.
Lismore stands out with a less strong Labor preference flow, but it is far from the worst. I also noted Heffron and Keira. Heffron is a seat of two halves: an inner city area with a high Greens vote and a more affluent progressive voter base, and a more suburban area around the former Botany Bay council. I suspect if you calculated these flows by booth (which is possible) you'd find big variation in Labor preference flows across Heffron.
Keira and Wollongong are also interesting seats with a high Greens vote, but with poor rates of Labor preferences to the Greens. I'm not sure what the story is there.
The handful of seats with a slightly stronger preference flow from Labor to the Greens are generally Liberal seats that have been prominent for the teals: Wakehurst, Vaucluse, Manly and (interestingly) Wollondilly.
Finally, I've also charted the difference between Labor's 2PP and the Greens' 2CP, in both cases against the Coalition, by seat. Until now we've only been looking at preferences originating with these two parties, but of course there are voters for other independents and minor parties who may well preference one party and not the other. The trend is fairly similar.
The top right quadrant is places where both parties win the 2CP, and it includes the three Greens seats (to the right of the diagonal line). Also worth noting Summer Hill, where the Greens manage a 64% 2CP against the Coalition but lose to Labor's much higher primary vote.
There are only five Labor seats in the whole of NSW where the Greens beat the Coalition on the 2CP: Blue Mountains, Newcastle, Heffron, Wollongong and Summer Hill. There are a further 31 Labor seats where the Greens lose the 2CP, including Lismore.
It's also worth noting South Coast, another seat with some attention from the Greens where the local mayor is running for the party. While Labor polled 39.5% of the 2PP, the Greens only managed 30.8%. So not only do the Greens need an overall improvement in the left vote (a 10.5% swing seems a bit too much, but not out of the realm of possibilities) but they also need to improve preference flows from Labor to have any chance of winning.
It seems plausible that the Greens could overtake Labor but fail to win the 2CP when Labor might have otherwise won the seat. Interestingly, the Greens only do slightly worse in preference flows than Labor in South Coast. I suspect the difference in primary vote makes a big difference here - primary votes count 100% towards winning a seat, while preferences tend to be discounted in value, with about half exhausting.
What do you mean by this comment?
“Interestingly, the Greens only do slightly worse in preference flows than Labor in South Coast. I suspect the difference in primary vote makes a big difference here – primary votes count 100% towards winning a seat, while preferences tend to be discounted in value, with about half exhausting.“
I thought the preference flows Labor-Greens was much weaker than the other way around?
On average the Labor-Greens preference flows are much weaker but not in South Coast. They are close to parity there.
But the ALP still does much better on the 2PP than the Greens do on the 2CP. I suspect that is because the Labor primary vote was higher thus it relies less on those preference flows.
Got it! Thanks
Fwiw on the ground here in South Coast and yes there a lot of synergy between Labor and Greens. It’s those Labor voters which elected a Green mayor after all.
But they’ll split each others vote in two weeks time
Would love to see a Coalition v Green TPP by seat for the 2022 Federal Election.
the problem also is that these figures cant be relied up with the high rate of exhaustion. voters may change their decision not to prefence or to preference in each different election meaning the figure could chage
Ben, this analysis doesn’t adjust for the widespread habit of Labor voters of tactically voting 1 for Green (or Teal or Independent) when they perceive a chance to beat the Tories. Labor voters almost instinctively know the main chance and are frankly very pragmatic. Nor does it consider the well established practice of labor voters voting 1 green to express dissatisfaction with the Labor candidate or leadership. (Sorry if you don’t agree but labor voters are simply well schooled, intelligent and value their vote highly. It’s not Campsie 1970s.) So both of these habits will always distort green to labor preference flows in individual seats ie sometimes green preferences are simply dissatisfied labor voters coming home. I think that we should watch Tweed this time to see if greens & other progressive voters decide to lift preferencing to bring home the bacon for the clear centre left majority in that seat.
Labor did just vote 1 HTVs in Cabramatta last time from memory. That makes a difference.
An important reason the Greens get 10% and not 2% of the vote is that it’s safe to vote Green with preferences. Something like Greens coming 2nd causing Lismore to go from Labor to Nats would hurt that perception and be milked for eternity by Labor. But I don’t think that will happen this time.
Do you have data on whether Labor did just vote 1 in the seats? This makes a huge difference and can distort the data.
I think the teals in particular made use of HTVs to create a “Labor and Greens can’t win, but I can” narrative (as well as avoiding implications they are linked to the left). Kerryn Phelps even preferenced Liberals over Labor. Claire Ferres Miles who actually did a preference recommendation had her votes split over 80% to Labor, which would make the teal seats notionally Labor IIRC.
Greens could argue Labor wouldn’t have been competitive in Brisbane and Ryan without the Greens grassroot campaigns, but those seats also flipped to Labor on 2PP. It will get harder and harder for Greens to target Liberal seats with Teals seizing the “progressive but don’t like Labor” demographic. That demographic might be shrinking, with Labor themselves are doing well enough in affluent seats like Higgins.
For this reason Greens targeted exclusively ALP seats in Victoria. Maybe they could have targeted Polwarth or Malvern, but they’re not particularly credible.
Still, they’re targeting South Coast at this election and there’s plenty of LNP held seats in QLD at both tiers where Greens could try make a case they’re in the hot seat, especially if they can make a breakthrough in the Gold or Sunshine Coasts.
Great piece – thanks Ben. I think this is the wrong way around though?
“Seats under the diagonal line had a stronger flow of Greens preferences to Labor than vice versa.”
greens mainly do well in inner city seats close to the cbds. ballina is the outlier due to population shift but i imagine once the population in other areas gets bigger or it does itself it will go back to nats or libs as the vote will be diluted over time
@Roger,
I don’t think that is true. It might be true of a small section of the ALP vote, in fact, exactly the inner city voters Ben R mentioned in the post, but absolutely not the rank and file ALP (nor or indeed Lib or Nat or Green or Teal) voters. Those inner city voters have relatively little to do with the rank and file ALP voter, and indeed I suspect are much closer to Teals, hence why they were prepared to vote that way.
Your comment about Labor voters being more intelligent is frankly elitist, and if you want to see why populist parties are having a moment around the world look no further than this comment.
Finally, if ALP and Greens voters were really one and the same, wouldn’t ALP voters have voted Green in the Willoughby by election?
@Ben,
I think the high rate of exhaustion makes these figures much more accurate than compulsory prefs – it really does show the true level of intertwined support.
id say most people are of the position that if their preferred party doesnt get in they dont care after that
John,
I don’t have data in front of me about what a party’s HTV recommendation said. Antony did a blog post after the 2015 election using this exact data. For example, it found where Labor says ‘just vote 1’, the just vote 1 rate is 72%. When they recommend partial preferences, it’s 57.9%. When they recommend full preferences, it’s 51%. So I think it does have an effect, but I haven’t looked into it as part of this series.
Roger,
Maybe that is true in some places but you’re making some awfully big assumptions.
Andrew,
Thanks for spotting that!
Apart from the North shore.. a special case. .Labor and greens should advocate a 1 to 2 vote.by their supporters. A seat may change just by a tighter flow of preferences
I want to coin a new term in the context of Australian politics: Beach Tories. The affinity that certain affluent blue-ribbon beach-side divisions have for the Greens party over the Labor Party. Voters in these seats are animated by a form of beach-conservationism, or more simply a desire to “protect” the beaches. These voters also do not seem to have much proclivity towards leftist economic positions. Divisions like Manly and Ballina are great examples of this in the NSW context; as well as some of the federal Teal divisions. In the Queensland context, Noosa and some parts of the Gold Coast could be considered examples of this. There is also a strain of NIMBYism which emerges from these beach-conservation motivations.
Forgive me if someone has coined this term before and I just never have heard it.
Thank you for this post Ben, in the Lismore discussion thread, I speculated that there will be less of a flow from Labor voters to Greens voters because it is an older, poorer and rural district and because it encompasses towns like Tenterfield. I was kind of right, but only when comparing Lismore to the divisions already held by the Greens as well as Sydney’s most progressive divisions. It appears Lismore still stands out ahead of the pack in Labor -> Greens preferences while still being one of the first to slip below 50%. My expectation was that Lismore would have Labor -> Greens flows similar to Tweed (although Tweed isn’t too far behind Lismore). I suppose I underrated the overwhelming progressive/leftist heritage of some towns like Nimbin in my estimation.
On Greens -> Labor preferences, it is a significant outlier, up near the Greens target Summer Hill. The Greens 1, Labor 2 votes almost represent a defeatist Greens vote – recognising a baked-in less likely chance that Greens will win the seat. Thus these voters were insuring themselves against the potentiality of a Coalition by providing a Labor preference. Conversely, in contests where the Greens have established themselves as the incumbent AND the Labor party are their primary opposition, Greens voters are more self-confident in supplying a sole Greens vote and no preferences.
*On Greens -> Labor preferences, LISMORE is a significant outlier, up near the Greens target Summer Hill.
they are basically well off people who arent effected by the rising cost of living so they dont care if the price of a chicken costs more
@ mostly labor voter: I am commenting from about 150 elections and by-elections in Sydney, Illawarra, Queanbeyan, Far North coast, central coast and even 5 years in Brisbane over 53 years. Done them all on the ground (HTVs , postals and prepolls) even predicted Phelp’s 2019 loss (lived there at the time) because she alienated a segment of Labor voters by giving Morrison supply in 2018. In consequence there was a flow of ALP preferences to Sharma. Figures can only tell you so much. No excuse for asking voters on the days why they do things. helps being old, friendly, liked and avuncular?
@ Ben Raue great piece, especially comparing Prahran in 2014. It is correct that the Greens do better on 2PP against the Libs than Labor in very affluent seats we can also see that in Kooyong in 2019 and Higgins in 2016. Also in the 3PP stage in seats like Higgins, Macnarmara, Brisbane in 2022 the greens close the raw vote gap with Labor at this stage of the distribution of preferences although this is due to better flow from minor parties rather than the exchange between Labor and Greens in preferences
@ SEQ Observer, i agree with your analysis especially the Beach tory phenomenon. i think it may a reflection of a class based aversion to voting Labor which may not be the case for the Greens. If Wahroonga did not go into Hornsby Council and Lane Cove did not go into Ryde council we may see the Greens outpoll Labor in these two seats as well.
Data tells you a lot Roger, particularly with voting. A lot different in a private (or at least semi private) voting booth to greeting canvassers.
But the ‘pragmatically tactically voting Labor voter’ I don’t buy. There is an extraordinarily small window where that would be true in our system anyway, and it is hard to see a Labor voter tactically voting for a Teal – they are more Tory than the Tories!!! (I think that is true of the Greens as well, but YMMV).
Moat labor Voter: so how do teals get elected?
From voters who aren’t really Labor. I didn’t think it was difficult to work that out. Think of who these people are – tertiary educated, a surprising number privately schooled (or through selective schools in NSW), working in office jobs in the CBD living in relatively high priced suburbs. Exactly what links them to traditional blue collar Labor voters? Nothing. What animates them though is opposition to the more conservative suburban Liberals and the Nats. They are happy enough to vote for the ALP or Greens (where they fit better on a cultural basis), but as soon as the Teals came along they jumped ship. Also, remembr a fair number of Teal voters still voted Liberal at prior elections, so not all of the Teal vote came from Labor/Greens.
But a more obvious question arises – these are supposed to be the more savvy voters, so surely they were aware that the Teals were at best ambivalent as to who they would support, at worst were open that they favored the Libs if it came to a hung parliament. Again, why would ALP voters rush to the Teals? Unless they were never really ALP voters in the first place (which is obviously my thesis).
‘Think of who these people are – tertiary educated, a surprising number privately schooled (or through selective schools in NSW), working in office jobs in the CBD living in relatively high priced suburbs.’
sounds like labor voters
‘Exactly what links them to traditional blue collar Labor voters? Nothing.’
kind of like labor voters
Mostly Labor Voter & Furtive: Of course they are “tertiary educated, a surprising number privately schooled (or through selective schools in NSW), working in office jobs in the CBD living in relatively high priced suburbs” because how else could they afford to live in seats that teals win? PS the majority are women. There has been analysis done on Teal vote at last federal election. Ben will know it. It demonstrated that about 86% of Teal vote was traditional labor or Green and only about 14% traditional Conservative.Teals vary as does labor voters support for them. Ryan & Chaney got more Labor tactical vote than Scampi for example. They discern (but not in a uniform way) which is why Phelps was not re-elected in 2019 in Wentworth (after a drift of ALP preferences to Liberal) after giving Morrison “confidence”. Incidentally this course of action is not limited to teal seats – think Indi or Mayo. As for linkages try mum and dad, where they grew up and anyway most intellectuals in this country have voted left for 100 years?
FL – the first group you mentioned are exactly the people the ALP was formed to oppose. If they are Labor voters, something has gone seriously awry.
Of course, I posit they aren’t really Labor voters just voters who vote Labor to oppose the Libs. When something comes along that is more amenable to their politics then they jump ship.
That doesn’t mean there are some people who would normally vote labor might be more attracted to the more socialistic nature of the greens and vote accordingly, or some who might find the ON ‘anti elite’ rhetoric more appealing and vote accordingly, but they are not voting tactically.
I posit that this no-true-Labor-Scotsman analysis is nonsense, and seems to be informed largely by decades-old political caricatures
SEQ Observer, I think your Beach Tory idea has merit, but Ballina does not fit the pattern. There are plenty of economic leftists there compared to the Gold Coast or Noosa.
Roger, I don’t think we are that far apart, the big difference being that I see those voters as small ‘l’ liberals, who are only voting Labor in opposition to the suburban conservative turn the Libs have taken, rather than in solidarity with Labor values. If you look at it in that way, then instead of voting ‘tactically’ for the Teals (which is rather silly in the Australian context) they are actually voting exactly where they have wanted to for the last 20 years or so.
FL, I tend to think a lot of this is driven by Greens supporters who see themselves as the left wing of the Labor Party. I am reminded of the comment (it might be apocryphal) of I think Kim Beazley Snr (or maybe Frank Crean) – “The ALP used to be the cream of the working classes, now it is the dregs of the middle classes”.
IMHO a lot of the recent increase in the Labor primary in seats like Higgins and other elite areas is just a protest vote by small l liberals and like mostly Labor voter said they are not really driven to Labor values they may have voted Labor holding their noses as the least worse option. if they had a Teal option they would vote that way instead. I would use the Victorian state election to highlight my point especially the seat of Hawthorn. Even though there was a sitting Labor member when a Teal ran the Labor primary crashed to almost 2010 levels. Around Glenferrie station and Camberwell Junction where there is higher density more renters and a younger population the teal actually outpolled Labor in the most progressive part of the seat. the same could be seen in the neighbouring seat of Kew where Kew Junction is the most progressive part of the seat but the Teal outpolled Labor. it shows in some ways these voters are right of centre economically just like they were over 25 years ago
FL, MLV: Feliks Dzerzhinsky was from Polish nobility; just the sort of person the Bolsheviks were formed to oppose?
RR, remove ‘formed to oppose’ and you will have it right.
You have not provided an analysis of the donkey vote and more importantly the inverse donkey vote, Balmain will be one to watch in terns of the Dinkey vote closing the margin between Labor and Greens.
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