Oz Election Thread #4 - Gillard's Labor

Election race a nail-biter
August 21, 2010 - 9:45PM/the AGE

Australia is heading towards a hung Parliament after damaging swings in NSW and Queensland in one of the closest Australian election contests in living memory.

Polling booths have now closed in all states and territories, with the first results indicating a swing of 2.5 per cent against the incumbent government.

The ABC's respected election analyst, Antony Green, said at 9.30pm, that he believed the Coalition would get 73 seats, three short of an outright majority. He said Labor would pick up 72 seats, with a Greens win in Melbourne, and four independents - which would include an astonishing win for former spy Andrew Wilkie in the Tasmanian seat of Denison.
Geoff and Jessica Fleming of Warrnambool cast their votes shortly after tying the knot.

The Liberal party powerbroker, Nick Minchin, said on the ABC at 9.30pm, he was "reasonably confident" the Coalition would win more seats than Labor, and secure more of the two-party preferred vote; crucial ingredients in forming a minority government.

With 63 per cent of the two-party preferred vote counted, Labor has 51 per cent of the vote against the Coalition with 49 per cent of the vote - a 2.5 per cent swing against the government.

Officially, as at 9.30pm, the Australian Electoral Commission has called 60 seats for Labor, 57 for the coalition, three seats for independent candidates with one Greens member. It had 29 still in doubt.

In NSW, there is a swing of 4.86 per cent away from Labor with 65 per cent of the total vote counted. In Queensland, with 67 per cent of the state's two-party preferred vote counted, there’s a 5.5 cent swing against Labor.

In the crucial state of Western Australia, after 10 per cent of the count, the Coalition was receiving a swing of nearly 2 per cent.

In Victoria, with 62 per cent of the two-party preferred vote counted, Labor has experienced a notional swing to it of 0.89 per cent.

In South Australia, the Coalition has a slight swing of 0.76 per cent with 61 per cent of the vote counted.

A Sky News exit poll, conducted by Auspoll in 30 key marginal seats today, showed the two-party preferred vote went 51 per cent to Labor and 49 per cent to the Coalition.

A Nine Network exit poll is also predicting a close win to Prime Minister Julia Gillard, with Labor picking up 52 per cent of the overall vote to 48 per cent for the opposition.

But the poll also reported sharp swings against Labor in crucial marginal seats in Queensland and NSW, where both Ms Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott focused most of their campaigns.

The Coalition needs 17 Labor seats to win the election by garnering a uniform swing of 2.3 per cent across the country. But the government can lose its absolute majority if it loses 13 seats.

Former Liberal deputy prime minister Peter Costello predicted just after 8pm a hung parliament, while Labor party powerbroker Graham Richardson said he still believed the Coalition could steal a victory.

Fourteen million voters are enrolled or eligible to have a final say on who becomes prime minister.

If it comes down to the wire an outcome may be delayed as almost one-fifth of voters cast their ballot early.

The Australian Electoral Commission said 2.35 million voters voted early — either by post (950,000 — 140,000 more than in 2007) or at early voting centres.

The counting of pre-poll votes cast outside the voter's electorate, and postal votes, will not begin until tomorrow. Legally, the count of postal votes can not be finalised until 13 days after polling day.

Senior Liberal senator Nick Minchin said he would not be surprised if there is no result tonight. ...<cont>

Hung Parliament.

Hung parliament looms, as voters punish Gillard
Josh Gordon
August 22, 2010/the AGE

AUSTRALIA looks set to have a hung parliament for the first time in 70 years after voters dealt Labor a crippling blow, with large swings to the Coalition in New South Wales and Queensland and a record primary vote for the Greens.

In an agonisingly close result, senior strategists from both sides last night conceded it was extremely unlikely that either the Coalition or Labor would be able to secure the 76-seat majority needed to govern outright.

Julia Gillard last night accepts the applause of Labor Party faithful while Tony Abbott basks in the close result. Pictures: Glen McCurtayne, Craig Sillitoe

The fate of the parliament is now almost certainly in the hands of four or possibly five independents and a Greens MP. The last time Australians woke to find they had voted in a hung parliament was in 1940.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard late last night emerged to address the party faithful to quote former US president Bill Clinton, declaring ''the people have spoken but it is going to take a little while to determine exactly what they have said''.

Ms Gillard wasted no time in beginning her sales pitch to the independents and the Greens to form a minority government.

''I will continue to lead the government and provide strong and stable government until the outcome of the election is clearly known,'' she said.

''I have had a good track record in the federal parliament working positively and productively with the independents in the House of Representatives and working with the Greens in the Senate.''

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott emerged to chants and cheers from the party faithful, saying he too would be negotiating with the independents to try to form government.

He said he felt humbled by the close result and deemed the outcome a great result for democracy, but warned it was too early for ''triumphalism''.

''We do not have a clear result … what is clear from tonight is that the Labor Party has definitely lost its majority. And what that means is the government has lost its legitimacy.''

He said almost 400,000 more Australians voted for the Liberal Party than for Labor.

''The Australian people have decisively rejected factionalism in all its forms. This election has to some extent at least been a referendum on the political execution of a prime minister,'' Mr Abbott said, referring to the fate of former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd.

''The Australian people have said that whatever else might characterise our political culture, it should never be characterised by the knock on the door at midnight by the faceless men of the Labor factions.''

Last night, Labor looked likely to lose between 13 and 16 seats, delivering a historic result for Mr Abbott, who in eight months as Opposition leader united a deeply divided Coalition, and ran a disciplined and aggressive campaign that has possibly unseated a first-term incumbent government. Such a result has not occurred since the Labor government of James Scullin was ousted in 1932.

The power of who will form government most likely lies with independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, from NSW, and Bob Katter from Queensland - all former Nationals - who easily retained their seats. The Greens' candidate Adam Bandt has emphatically won the seat of Melbourne, a historic win its own right. In a big surprise, the Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie also looked likely to win the seat of Denison from Labor.

Mr Bandt has already promised to give his vote to Labor, but the other key independents were last night giving little away.

Among the seats Labor has lost are Macquarie and Bennelong in NSW, Flynn, Dawson, Forde, Leichhardt, Bonner and Brisbane in Queensland and Solomon in the Northern Territory. But those loses could be offset for Labor by the gain of McEwen and La Trobe in Victoria.

Ousted high-profile Labor member Maxine McKew, who took former Liberal prime minister John Howard's seat of Bennelong in the 2007 election, last night said the party had a lot of questions to ask itself.

''We shouldn't be on a knife-edge tonight and we shouldn't be losing colleagues,'' she said.

''You cannot have the removal of a Labor leader and a prime minister and then two months later have an election and not have that play into the outcome.''

Mr Howard described the poll as an ''unprecedented outcome''.

With a host of seats still too close to call, it appeared each side could end up holding 73 seats.

The Greens are likely to win 11.5 per cent of the primary vote, its strongest result ever.

The House of Representatives has not been hung since 1940, when Sir Robert Menzies only survived an election thanks to the support of two independent MPs.

Mr Abbott has performed in this election beyond all expectations. After becoming Opposition leader late last year by just one vote, Labor strategists had dismissed him as un-electable.

Opposition front bencher Joe Hockey, who easily won his seat of Sydney, paid tribute to Mr Abbott, lauding him for making the Liberal Party competitive.

Mr Hockey said whether Julia Gillard was elected as prime minister or not, there would be ''trouble and strife'' in the Labor party over the next three years.

''We stand ready to take the reins of government, be it tonight, be it in three years,'' he said.

''We are ready to bring back a proper, mature government that will give the Australian people stability and certainty for the future.''

Greens' senator Sarah Hanson-Young said the election was historic for her party, which was set to pick up a record number of votes. The Greens are almost certain to hold the balance of power in the senate.

Mr Oakeshott said the result was exciting for democracy.

....According to demographer Bernard Salt, this has been the ''Kath and Kim election''. It has been overwhelmingly about aspirational voters living in outer suburban marginal seats - a debt-laden class of consumers with increasingly high expectations of our political leaders. Perhaps more than ever, this campaign has homed in on the minutia rather than the big picture.

Both sides ran highly-targeted marginal seat campaigns, flying beneath the national radar to dish out dozens of spending promises, including cash for local community centres, local roads, sports facilities, ovals, GP super clinics, CCTV monitoring, local hospitals and youth centres.

Political parties have become increasingly adept at focusing on the small details to track swinging voter sentiment using sophisticated ''fine-grained'' polling techniques, databases and focus groups.

They have become so good at it that, aside from some key points of difference, both political parties have become homogenised. The left-right divide is fading. The middle ground is uneven. Traditional assumptions about the Labor Party representing workers and the Liberal Party representing business no longer apply. Our consumer culture now applies to political choices. The closeness of this result is a reflection of that ...

...The power of who will form government most likely lies with independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, from NSW, and Bob Katter from Queensland - all former Nationals - who easily retained their seats. The Greens' candidate Adam Bandt has emphatically won the seat of Melbourne, a historic win its own right. In a big surprise, the Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie* also looked likely to win the seat of Denison from Labor.

Mr Bandt has already promised to give his vote to Labor, but the other key independents were last night giving little away.

Andrew Wilkie (born 1961, Tamworth, Australia) is a former soldier and intelligence analyst who resigned from the Office of National Assessments (ONA), an Australian intelligence agency, in March 2003 over concerns that intelligence was being misrepresented for political purposes in making the case for Australia's contribution to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Wilkie has apparently been elected as the member for Denison in the 2010 Federal Election.

Wilkie trained at Duntroon (1980-84) and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel (1999) before transferring to the ONA. He joined the Young Liberals while a cadet at Duntroon, and after graduation and being stationed in Brisbane, he became a member of the Liberal Party. Wilkie has reportedly since let his membership lapse.

In the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war, the Australian, UK and U.S. governments were asserting that intelligence reports showed that Iraq held weapons of mass destruction. Wilkie resigned at this time, claiming that the reports did not support such claims and in the years since his resignation, no valid evidence supporting the pre-war claims of weapons of mass destruction has ever been found.

It looks like it will take time, perhaps a week, to sort out.
As I recall from Nimh's reporting from the Netherlands, that still hasn't been resolved after a month or more!