September 2021

Covid19 Set to Change State Representation After 2022 Election

The closure of Australia’s international borders in early 2020 has had a major impact on Australian state and territory population trends. These will play out politically in mid-2023 when the Australian Electoral Commissioner determines how many House of Representatives seats each state will be entitled to for the 2024/25 election.

The rules under which the Electoral Commissioner makes a determination are tightly defined in law and based on Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) population statistics. The Commissioner merely applies the Parliament’s formula and has no room for personal choice.

The ABS’s most recent population estimates for March 2021 were released last week. Based on these, the next term of Parliament will see Victoria lose the 39th seat it has gained for the coming election. On the 2021 numbers, there are no other changes to state representation, though future growth could see Western Australia on the cusp of recovering the 16th seat it recently lost.

The 2022 election will be contested on seat numbers set by the Commissioner’s last determination in July 2020. The new electoral boundaries were finalised in August 2021. My comment on Victoria losing a seat will not be relevant until mid-2023 when the next determination is made.Read More »Covid19 Set to Change State Representation After 2022 Election

2019 WA Senate Election – Ballot Paper and Preferences Analysis

This is my latest look back at how the Senate’s new electoral system worked at the 2019 election, how voters completed their ballot papers, what preference flows were produced, and what was the influence of how-to-vote material.

In summary, the smaller a party’s vote, the more likely its preferences will scatter widely or exhaust. The more that a party has an identifiable position on the left-right spectrum, the more likely that its preferences will flow in a particular direction.

And the more obvious a party’s how-to-vote recommendation, and the more how-to-votes are handed out, the more likely that voters will follow or guess the recommendation.Read More »2019 WA Senate Election – Ballot Paper and Preferences Analysis

WA to Adopt State-Wide Election for the Legislative Council

The WA Government has announced its reform proposals for the Legislative Council. The proposals are based on a report by the government appointed Ministerial Expert Committee on Electoral Reform.

You can find the Committee’s report at this link. The government has made some minor tweaks to the recommendations and will introduce legislation to Parliament tomorrow.

In summary the major features of the proposal are –
Read More »WA to Adopt State-Wide Election for the Legislative Council

2021 Daly (NT) By-election

This is not so much a post as a pointer to my analysis of the Northern Territory’s Daly by-election held on Saturday 11 September 2021.

It has resulted in the governing Labor Party gaining Daly from the opposition Country Liberals. Daly is the 25th by-election for the NT Legislative Assembly, the fourth to produce a change of holding party, and the first to produce a government gain from the opposition.

Here’s a link to the results page, and the page includes links to my background on Daly and my analysis and running commentary on the results from Saturday night.

In short, the by-election saw a higher turnout in indigenous communities where Labor’s vote is strong, and a lower turnout in semi-rural communities closer to Darwin where CLP support is stronger. The net result was a 7% swing to Labor, the CLP’s 2020 victory margin of 94 votes turned into a Labor margin of around 400 votes. Read More »2021 Daly (NT) By-election