11:21pm – The latest margins in these seats are:
- Albert Park – ALP by 1585
- Narre Warren North – ALP by 804
- Macedon – ALP by 719
- Eltham – ALP by 225
- Bentleigh – Liberal by 213
If the ALP can’t take Bentleigh, the Coalition will have a majority. They still need to hold on in the other four seats too.
11:16pm – It’s come down to five key seats. The Liberal/National coalition holds 44 seats, the ALP holds 39 seats, and five seats are undecided: Albert Park, Bentleigh, Eltham, Macedon and Narre Warren North. The ALP need to win all five to produce a tied parliament – not just a hung parliament, but a parliament with equal numbers of MPs for each side without any crossbenchers to provide one side a majority.
9:33pm – On my count the Coalition has 21 seats out of 40 in the Legislative Council. Labor has at least 13, with the Greens on 3. In North and East Victoria, Labor is competing with the Country Alliance. Country Alliance will win in either region if the Greens knock out Labor, as Labor preferenced the Country Alliance ahead of the Greens. In South East Metro Labor is competing with the Greens, but I’m on the verge of calling it for Labor.
9:21pm – Sky hasn’t called a result, but according to what I have seen the Coalition is on 45 seats, Labor 39 seats and 4 seats undecided (all Labor-Coalition races). It would be fascinating if we ended up with a 44-44 result. It wouldn’t be a hung parliament so much as a tied parliament. I don’t think that will happen.
9:02pm – On primary votes, the Greens are up 4.8% in Melbourne, 3% in Richmond, -3% in Brunswick (but with 12% for Cleary) and 0.5% in Northcote. It’s the Liberal preferences what done ’em.
8:56pm – In South-East Metro there’s a close race between the Greens and Labor to lead over the other. Whoever leads will win. Similar contests are taking place in Northern and Eastern Victoria. In those seats, if Labor leads they will win, but if the Greens lead, then the Country Alliance will win.
8:51pm – In Eastern Victoria, the Greens swing is 0.6% from 9.2% to 9.8%. Produces a result of 3 Coalition, 1 Labor, 1 Country Alliance. Just like with the DLP in 2006 and Steve Fielding in 2004, Labor preferences have elected a conservative minor party ahead of the Greens. At this point, it is possible the ALP will overtake the Greens and win the seat on Greens preferences.
8:48pm – In Western Victoria, the Greens have increased from 8.6% to 9.1%. While the ALP’s preferences now flow to the Greens instead of the DLP, the Coalition’s vote has increased sufficient to elect a third Coalition candidate over the Greens, replacing the DLP.
8:45pm – In South East Metro, Greens vote has increased from 7.2% to 9.1%. On the latest figures the Greens are just over 100 votes behind the ALP at the key exclusion point. At the moment the 3-2 Labor-Liberal split has been maintained, but the Greens have a shot of taking a seat off Labor.
8:43pm – In Eastern Metro, the Greens vote has increased only slightly. Labor and Liberal each get almost exactly two and three quotas each, maintaining the current split.
8:40pm – Western Metro upper house results: the Greens vote has increased from 9.4% to 14.5%. Labor loses their third seat to the Liberal Party.
8:36pm – Labor’s losses to the Coalition are distributed this way by region: four in South East Metro, three in Southern Metro, two in Eastern Metro, two in Eastern Victoria, one each in Northern and Western Victoria. The ALP so far has maintained their complete control in Northern and Western Metro.
8:24pm – At the moment, the the Coalition has gained fourteen seats, they need thirteen seats to win, so this suggests a Coalition win.
8:22pm – In Melbourne, you’ve got a three-way tie, with Labor on 33%, the Greens on 32.96% and the Liberals on 29.87%. The VEC isn’t even trying to produce a two-party count.
8:15pm – We’re now getting a lot of solid evidence that the Coalition is headed for a majority government.
8:03pm – The ABC website seems to be having trouble updating results – so I’ll try and switch to the VEC.
7:53pm – Marginal Labor seats where the Liberals are leading: Mount Waverley, South Barwon, Frankston, Mordialloc, Bendigo East.
7:26pm – The first booth in Brunswick has the Greens on a 6% swing and Phil Cleary polling just under 9%.
7:22pm – Apart from Seymour, the Liberals are on an 11% swing in the only other truly rural Labor seat, Ripon.
7:20pm – The first booth in Essendon has the Liberals first on primaries with the Greens over 20% and the independent well behind. If this trend is maintained the ALP should maintain the seat with Greens preferences.
7:14pm – According to the ABC, the Liberals have gained Seymour, a Labor seat in rural Victoria to the north of Melbourne with a 6.7% margin.
7:10pm – The Nationals have gained independent seat Gippsland East, according to the ABC. This shouldn’t have an impact on the final government outcome, as Ingram has made it pretty clear he won’t have anything to do with the Greens or Labor.
7:04pm – Apparently we have a booth in Northcote with over 50% primary for the Greens. Far too early to interpret, but a strong sign for the Greens in inner-city seats. We’ve also got rumours of a good result for independent Catherine Cumming in Essendon, but no figures on the ABC website yet.
6:56pm – It’s too early to glean any meaning, but it looks like the sole independent MP in the Assembly, Craig Ingram, is losing to the Nationals with a double-digit swing in Gippsland East.
6:00pm – Polls have just closed in Victoria. I will be liveblogging tonight as we get results in. You can check out my complete guide to Victoria’s 88 Legislative Assembly districts and the eight Legislative Council regions on my blog right now by clicking the links on the right-hand side of the website.
What’s your prediction?
Cumming is in Footscray.
This sux for the Greens in NSW. You can bet the NSW Liberals will put the Greens last in every seat.
Question about the preferences in Albert Park – is the Independent preferencing the
Greens?
Will be interesting to see the results in the legislative council. This could possibly be the first Australian Liberal government that will have the Greens holding the b.o.p.
(Sorry for talking NSW here)
Joel
I have a feeling that in New South Wales that the Libs will say “just vote one” and effectively leave Labor v the Greens in a catfight (like the last two elections).
While I’m not wanting the Greens in NSW, I don’t think the ALP will have enough primary vote in the inner west to hold seats like Balmain or Marrickville.
(Yes apologies for talking NSW, my last post on it)
Good point PeteD, the OPV will make it a different situation. However from what I have seen so far the Greens vote in those 4 gettable seats in Melbourne is unmoved. Is it possible that the preference decision completely diffused any traction the Greens may have gained? Couldn’t that happen again in NSW?
Minor / Micro parties have struggled..
CHRISTIAN PARTY 0.02%
COUNTRY ALLIANCE 1.55%
D.L.P. – DEMOCRATIC LABOR PARTY 0.88%
FAMILY FIRST 2.22%
ABC showing Coalition majority in leg council with 21 seats.
Steven Mayne currently taking the 6th seat in North Metro.
Any hope for the Greens in the Lower House?
The votes per lower house candidate for the micro parties is:
Sex 580
DLP 497
Country 1065
FF 658
Timothy, I am afraid not.
Agree with Coalition on 21 for leg council. Not sure if this is good news for the Libs. With control of the senate, Howard brought in work choices which is a major reason why they lost in 2007.
Joel, I think the VIC results show exactly the difference between CPV and OPV for the Greens. In CPV, Labor votes that go to the Libs help the ALP still. In OPV, they would help the Greens (by and Large) by potentially exhausting.
In other seats, the votes going from ALP to GRN help the Libs to the extent they otherwise exhaust too. I have a feeling a lot more preferences may exhaust in March vis a vis 2007.
If it does come out as a hung parliament as predicted, it’s a blessed outcome that the Greens didn’t get any lower house seats. If it had ended up 41 Lab, 44 Lib, 3 Greens which would’ve been the case if Lib had preferenced Greens, there would’ve been huge pressure for the new Greens candidates to support Libs, even if by one being elected speaker.
Greens supporting conservative governments is never good for the Greens.
Deconst I disagree
1. Ted Baillieu is actually a small l liberal not a conservative. A lot of Green votes would actually now the difference. Likewise, the Greens could support Turbull or even Hockey without too much negative feedback, but would be destroyed if they supported Abbott.
2. After supporting the Liberals in Tasmania in 1996, the Green vote only dropped from 11.1 to 10.2
3. Coalitions between the Greens and conservative in Europe exist without too much issue
4. Voters aren’t stupid and understand basic math. They would prefer a coalition with the Greens – Liberals – Nationals in preference to another election.
5. The Greens could call the bluff of the coalition. It would be interesting to see if the Nationals would accept the assistance of the Greens in forming government.
Ted Bailieu is a small l liberal but he’s one of the very few in the Liberals. The track record is that despite the proclaimed progressive leanings of their leaders, conservative parties run conservative governments.
The Tasmanian Greens vote did drop in 1999. They were almost run out of parliament. The Irish Greens will likely face decimation in the January election. The Liberal Democrats, a party that was considered more progressive than Labour, will also face decimation.
I can’t think of any other Greens-conservative governments at the moment, but I would like to learn about them.
If politics these days has supposedly regained some principles – no more inner-city preferencing games from the Liberals, apparently – then the Greens should deliver a certain outcome and only go into government with parties on the same side of the political spectrum.
The Greens, who always run elections on a shoestring, would be more than capable of running another election campaign as good as the one previous. I believe the reason why the major parties never re-run elections is because their coffers are empty and both of them would see their vote hit in favour of minor and independent candidates.
What is interesting is how similar this is to 1999; the Liberals doing very well in the eastern suburbs but Labor performing strongly in the regions.
In the east/south-east suburbs, Labor has been beaten back to their handful of ‘core’ seats along the railway line between Oakleigh and Cranbourne. But their vote has held up very well indeed in Ballarat, Bendigo, and the seat of Ripon. Bendigo in particular was an excellent result for Labor, although the Native Son factor probably helped Brumby a lot here.
Deconst,
The Greens were only almost turfed out in Tasmania because both parties joined together to change the rules. The actual vote total change minimally.
Although not in government, Turnbull was one vote shy of bringing us the CPRS.
The Green party in Finland has formed coalition with the Centre Party, National Coalition and Swedish People’s Party. There is at least one other example and if I have the time I will post later.
I am no expert on Irish politics but the first article I found described Fianna Fáil as centrist but socially conservative? I also think any governing party of a GFC destroyed economy will struggle at subsequent elections. Budget cuts are never popular, especially the drastic type required by England and Ireland, especially for the Lib-Dem and Green base.
I think a Liberal – Green coalition in ACT or Tasmania will happen in the next 10 years. The Bartlett – Ballieu position can only last so long in a Mixed Member Proportional Representation system.
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