Brindabella – ACT 2024

Substantial turnover of members – Nicole Lauder from the Liberals is not standing again. Joy Burch Labor is reportedly not standing again. Greens candidate replacing Jonathan Davis will be relatively unknown. Persistent rumours that Mick Gentleman, Labor is under pressure not to stand again.

Lots of shenanigans in Labor pre-selection for Brindabella to ensure they meet the quotas for womenhttps://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8436149/act-labors-top-preselection-performer-dumped-in-quota-quarrel/?cs=14329. Laura Nuttall seems likely to win the count back for the Greens seat in Brindabella

According to her bio, Nuttall is from Richardson, a booth which had a 2.6% Green vote in 2016. She was one of Davis’ staffers for most of his term so should be able to pick up where he left off with constituents.

I think Greens should be able to retain the seat, but as 2016 shows there is no floor for their vote here.

Has there being any polling to see if Labor will win again?

There’s no need for polling because it will be another easy Labor-Greens win. The Liberals’ anti-tram stance will contribute to that. Also, public servants are a key pro-Labor demographic just like retirees are a key pro-Coalition demographic. The former make up a lot of Canberra’s population.

Due to the election page being closed for comments, am posting this here:
-Two new party registrations approved recently, they are:
Independents for Canberra [Registered 9th March 2024]
Family First Party (ACT) [Registered 14th May 2024]

Ind for CBR seems a bit of a mixture of Flux Democracy/The Local Network with their 10 Principles. (One candidate currently mentioned, that for Ginninderra.) Brings the current list of parties for the ACT election to 14! (Apparently same number of parties as last election, with Federation and Climate Change Justice being those missing from last time.)

Hard to see either of these two having much impact, but FFP could make a dent on Liberals. This is especially so in a seat like Brindabella, which is more conducive demographics wise to the right spectrum of politics.

@Politics_Obsessed probably best to think of Independents for Canberra as something of a teal party, given one of the founders is a staffer in David Pocock’s office and the son of former Labor minister Craig Emerson, whilst the other is the daughter of former Liberal Chief Minister Kate Carnell. Definitely get strong teal vibes from them.

Must win for Liberals if they win government (3rd seat that is)

This could be the most loseable seat for the Greens.

Greens will almost certainly lose this seat – but if there is not a substantial swing to Liberals Labor might actually win this. Independent candidate no chance here

Nuttall was chief of staff in Davis’ office with all of his local community work and would have been able to pick up where he left off. It’s not quite enough to claw back his personal vote but I don’t think she’s definitely lost and she won’t completely miss out on incumbency benefits (though history shows they’re diminished for MPs that come in mid term).

I’d be interested to see whether Labor’s recent attacks on the Independent in Brindabella would help them pick up the seat in both boosting their profile and giving voters an option to vote for something that isn’t Labor but doesn’t necessarily result in the Liberals either.

Still an outside chance but given how hard Labor is going at an attack on the Independents whether they’re worried?

The real issue is whether the Greens hold on to the hinge seat (as Anthony Green describes it) in Brindabella. i suspect the Independents may get more votes from Liberals than Labor. This is certainly a very vulnerable seat for the Greens but might not be if increased Greens vote from the the last Federal election holds up for the ACT election.

The attack on the independent in Brindabella was highlighting a quote from her that she wouldn’t support a Barr government in balance of power. It was clunky to tie it to abortion and euthanasia, but the broader premise of the attack is valid and I think will remind voters that may have voted for Pocock or another independent in the Senate that the stakes are different. It will be a surprise if the 6% swing against Labor and 7.5% swing against the Greens in the Senate 2022 is repeated.

It”s possible the Greens success in 2020 was a result of a lack of progressive 3rd party options and they were voters who wanted something like IFC. The baseline for IFC as I see it is Canberra progressives (2.7% in Murrumbidgee) and the taxi lobby “Climate Change Justice Party” (1.2% in Murrumbidgee). Greens also tended to outpoll Jamie Christie independent in Bean booths. So I think Greens are still well positioned to outpoll IFC despite the 2022 Senate results and remain in the count to the end.

Thinking a status quo result. Even if independents do well I think both majors will be close enough to 2 quotas and Greens will have enough to hang in there. If anything I think it’s the Liberals most likely to lose a seat to IFC – if as seen in other elections left leaning indie voters run the full ticket to Green/Labor and right leaning indie voters exhaust. It’s the reason I think Greens will survive even if they barely increase their vote from 2020.

This the best chance for Liberal to win 3 seats. This areas is more socially conservative, older, more Christian and less CALD.

@Nimalan I think the Liberals will get the most votes in Brindabella and Yerrabi and maybe in another seat too. I actually think they could form government this time.

@ NP
I agree about Brindabella they can very well outpoll Labor and win 3rd seat. If the Belco party gets 1 seat in Ginnadera (at expense of Greens only) then that will help the Libs. Yerrabi maybe more challenging though without alistair coe leadership boost and also Greens are a strong chance to retain their seat. By Canberra standards the Muslim community is high in Yerrabi and this may help them retain the last seat so a status quo result there.

This might be the Liberals’ best seat, not Yerrabi. Yerrabi has a more competitive non-major party field.

With 2.44 quotas last time, Labor has enough of a buffer to hold 2 seats. I expect Liberals to hold 2 as well. The remaining seat is anyone’s guess.

ACT Greens may suffer the same fate as the Tasmanian Greens – they used to be dominant throughout winning one seat per electorate, but nowadays are mainly competitive in or near the capital city CBD. In the outer suburbs or further away from the CBD (e.g. Brindabella), they struggle to get into the low double-figures. There are exceptions in Tasmania like in Huon Valley or Kingsborough or near Port Arthur where the Greens primary vote is over 20%.

@Votante the Tasmanian Greens now hold seats in every seat but Braddon. They have two in Clark though.

Volante -the pattern you identify can be traced in suburban Canberra – but with a higher Green vote. Bean which includes Brindabella & some of Murrumbidgee had a Greens vote of 14.8%, Fenner covering Yerrabi & some of Ginninderra had a Greens vote of 16.75% while Canberra including Kurrajong, some of Ginninderra & some of Murrumbidgee reach 24.69% – the demographics of the ACT are driving an increase in the Greens vote across the board

@Votante Tas Greens came extremely close to getting back in the game in Brandon (narrowly losing to an independent) and weren’t far off winning 2 seats in Franklin (Hobart outer suburbs and towns in Southern Tas). That’s in 7 seat electorates.

I’m still not quite sure what happened in Brindabella 2020. A COVID vote for the incumbent government maybe. Davis (for all his faults) was an extremely energetic campaigner.

If there is a correction, it is the Liberals best chance of 3 seats but I don’t think that will come easily. The Greens have no floor here but Nuttall is a genuine Tuggeranong local and has spent most of her time as a Davis’ staffer campaigning in the area. If I remember correctly the last time Greens had a seat in Brindabella was with an MP who didn’t live in Tuggeranong and spent most of her time as an MLA campaigning on non material issues in the inner north – so of course she lost.

@BNJ the Liberals were closer to getting a fourth seat in Braddon than the Greens were to getting a seat. They very narrowly fell short because of Craig Garland.

The Greens gained seats in Tasmania because the state parliament expanded to have seven seats per electorate. This lowered the quota per seat.

@BNJ, there was greater trust in government in 2020 and Labor had incumbency advantages back then but I don’t think COVID provided a huge boost to Labor as it did for WA and QLD Labor. ACT didn’t have a hard border back in 2020 if I recall correctly.

Votante – The ACT did have border closures at some points and lockdowns that restricted travel to only essential workers. I remember visiting Queanbeyan as a novelty (though not sure that aligned with the actual rules at the time).

It is worth noting that Barr is the only COVID Era state/territory leader still around, and the lockdown and vaccination drives (the latter extremely successful in the ACT) happened after the 2020 election. It’s becoming a distant memory but people do remember the anti vax cookers coming to town and pissing everyone off (some of them are still here) – and reinforcing the progressive views of the community that the Canberra Liberals are out of step with.

Back to Brindabella, one factor that makes me think Greens will hang on is that Gentleman and Werner Gibbings are the clear favourites for Labor with the contender for the 3rd Labor seat unclear. Parton is also likely to get an overwhelming amount of Liberal votes (maybe even a full quota) with no clear contenders from the other 4. I’m not quite sure what that means in terms of Hare Clark – I think it gives Greens a good chance of staying in the count and soaking up more minor Labor candidate preferences (which haven’t been officially recommended this time, nor vice versa) , but my “wonk factor” is too low for this one.

I tip the Greens to lose their seat to the Liberals here.

Who will get the last seat here? The Liberals, Labor, the Greens or IFC? The Liberals have 2.57 quotas, Labor has 2.05, the Greens have 0.55 and IFC have 0.46, so they all need preferences and/or more votes to be counted. It looks unlikely that IFC will get it and the Greens are probably a bit too far behind so I think it’s a race between Liberal and Labor.

It appears the Greens’ Laura Nuttall has the edge in the final seat here despite nearly everyone (including her own party) writing her off.

ABC has this as the last undecided seat. Liberal, Labor and Greens are all in contention.

Interim distribution of preferences Tuesday 22 October has Laura Nuttall (GRN) losing by 143 votes to Mick Gentleman (ALP), who then loses by 287 votes to James Daniels (LIB), with 4438 votes exhausted. However, the votes added to the count each day have been consistently more favourable to GRN than the previous day. Fair approx of likelihood would be 50% LIB, 30% ALP, 20% GRN (as preferences from GRN to ALP flow stronger than ALP to GRN), however ALP whispers are GRN is favoured to win. Impossible to tell until the final declaration approx 12noon Saturday.

So Labor might actually get three seats here even though they had less votes than the Liberals? Sounds a bit silly but that’s Hare-Clark for you.

@ NP
i dont really understand how the preference flow in Hare-Clark works. I actually expected the Libs to win 3 seats in Brindabella it is there strongest seat and good demographically for them. Got an older, more anglo, more Christian and self employed population compared to the rest of Canberra.

Candidate with the least votes gets eliminated and their preferences distributed until there are 5 left. So if you have 3 people each with .5 quota it is much better than two people with .7 and one with .1.

Honestly I am dumbfounded Nuttall actually has a chance of retaining. She was written off on Saturday by most people.

I predict the Liberals will narrowly get the last seat. It would give them good cause to put a higher-energy campaign in Bean in 2025.

@James I hope it goes to the Libs, that way the Barr government can be more easily held to account.

I would also like to praise how IFC haven’t just been Labor and Greens puppets unlike their federal counterparts.

I believed in Nuttall more than most. IMO she’s a very likeable person who’s wise beyond her years – maybe even a future leader as she continues to learn on the job. But I did not think there’d be any scenario where she hung on and Emma Davidson lost. Yet that seems to be the case based on some of the more in depth analysis I’ve seen of the count.

Looking back at 2022 senate numbers, Pocock did well in Bean and resentment over Labor/Greens seeming to prioritise the Northside masked an electorate that is still quite progressive and isn’t all that into the Liberal party. In that basis Emma Davidson with actual Ministerial experience compared to Smith’s average back bench career might be able to shake things up in Bean, if a credible Pocock backed independent also runs.

The new numbers are up and Laura Nuttal is winning the 5th seat on current numbers over the Liberal party. Labor are no longer in the race, they too far behind to catch up. Not sure how much there is left to come but late postals are usually people from interstate and has been better for Greens in the past than early postals. So I’m fairly confident Laura Nuttall will win the seat and good on her.

No one knows what the IFC stand for. I think people have projected onto the IFC party what they wanted to see. IFC are unlike the Teals which went to the 2022 election with specific policy commitments. You were pretty clear what they stood for.
It is going to be interesting to see what Thomas Emerson actually does in implementing the parties principles & how he votes on specific legislation & policy. He could find life difficult as time wears on as his vote seems to have come in equal portions from Liberals & Greens – meeting the expectations of both groups will be a challenge. Some people will I think be disappointed.

@pateron_57 – that’s a massive surprise IMO. The Liberals seemed almost guaranteed for 3 seats here.

Yes, Elections ACT says “Laura NUTTALL elected 5.” in their distribution of preferences, beating out the Liberal James Daniels. The gap between Greens and Liberal is quite narrow (if I’m reading it correctly). The result should be confirmed by the weekend as the Friday is the cutoff date for postals.

Remember it’s not over until it’s mathematically impossible for the other candidate to win

Antony Green’s election blog post says the margin is just 37 votes between Greens and Libs. Libs will need to perform very well with whatever is left to over turn the lead considering they are trying to get 3 elected to Greens 1. At this stage it looks Nuttal is very likely to be elected but of course not certain.

37vottes is nothing and that will be subject to a recount being that close

The latest preference distribution has the Liberals’ primary higher than the live count (and Labor and the Greens’ correspondingly lower) hence the confidence that Nuttall will extend her lead and win the final seat once it’s all counted.

Nuttall has extended her lead as per this afternoon’s count.

Recently found out that Nicole Lawder, a former Liberal MLA here, contested preselection for Bean for the 2025 federal election. She surprisingly lost the preselection 30-34 to David Lamerton, a church board member.

Appears to be another tinge of the hard-right takeover in the Liberals… now in the most socially-progressive jurisdiction in Australia.

@ James
Nicole Lawder is a moderate and was on the ABC Panel in October

@Nimalan – that’s what I was saying. I am well-aware Nicole Lawder is a moderate from the ABC panel. The ‘hard-right’ takeover here is that a conservative candidate aligned with religious organisations (David Lamerton) defeated an experienced moderate woman (Nicole Lawder). I should have clarified further.

I reckon Nicole Lawder should’ve been preselected for the senate ticket. She’s a key moderate and has political experience.