The Most Meaningless Graph I’ve Ever Drawn

Below is the most pointless, meaningless and useless graph I’ve ever drawn in my life.

It plots the % No vote by electoral division on the vertical axis against the percentage of Indigenous residents in each electorate on the horizontal axis.

And by using Indigenous residents on the x-axis, I am overstating the number of Indigenous voters. I didn't get chance to extract the data for aged over 18, or deal with turnout issues, both of which reduce the percentage of Indigenous voters compared to residents. Read More »The Most Meaningless Graph I’ve Ever Drawn

A few Regional Tables on The Voice Referendum Results

The older I get the harder I find it to pull my brain together and write analysis pieces the day after an election broadcast.

I thought the option that required the least writing effort was to publish some of the total tables from the ABC’s election computer. These category totals are not available on the ABC website but I did present them as graphics at various times on Saturday night.
Read More »A few Regional Tables on The Voice Referendum Results

How Might the Referendum Results Come In

Where to find referendum results? Google points a lot of people looking for election result here to my blog on election night. Currently I’m busy on television so can’t be of much assistance. If you are live results, check out the ABC’s Referendum results site for everything you need to know after 6pm eastern time.

When results for ‘The Voice’ referendum report on Saturday night, they will arrive in a fearsome rush.

In preparation for Saturday night’s coverage, I’ve been digging back through some of my working documents for the 1999 Republic referendum. I also checked out the television coverage through ABC archives.

My memory was that results poured in, but checking the archives proved the rate of reporting was faster than I remembered. By 7:30pm in the 1999 count, half the national vote had reported and NSW had reached 68% counted and Victoria 65%. That is around twice the first preference votes that would have been reported by that time at a general election.

The results will report just as quickly on Saturday, though they may not reach the same percentage counted by 7:30. As I pointed out in a previous post, 80% of votes were cast on election day in 1999 where the equivalent figure in 2023 will be under 50%.

But fewer votes in polling places means the votes will be quicker to count, so the votes reported may reach 50% very quickly. From there it may slow down for a while given how long it takes to count some of the giant pre-poll centres. It has been a feature of recent by-election counts that there is a pause between the point when all polling places have reported their results, and when pre-poll counts are completed and reported.

But what will the early figures look like on election night? For that I again went back to my 1999 figures.Read More »How Might the Referendum Results Come In

How Referendum Results Relate to Levels of Party Support

The Voice Referendum is being put by and overwhelmingly backed by the Albanese Labor government. It is opposed by the National Party and is opposed by large parts of the Liberal Party including Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. It is largely supported by the Greens and ‘teal’ Independents, and opposed by Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.

It is a pattern of party support that suggests referendum night results might follow traditional party divides. This is despite the referendum being held away from a general election, away from a campaign with how-to-votes advocating a vote for or against the government as well as for or against the referendum.

To examine the role of partisanship in referendum voting patterns, I look back at two very different referendums and the relationship between Labor/Coalition election voting by electoral division, and Yes/No referendum results.

The first is the Simultaneous Elections referendum held in conjunction with the 1984 Federal election. With both Labor and Coalition how-to-votes having clear Yes and No referendum recommendations, there was an extremely strong relationship between two-party preferred results by division and Yes/No referendum results.

But the second case, the 1999 republic referendum, was a very different campaign and produced results with a much weaker link between party voting and Yes/No results. Held separately from a general election, the republic referendum was not combined with the partisanship inducing vote for or against the government. The Republic referendum is also unique in being the only referendum put by a Prime Minister who advocated a No vote.

Like The Voice referendum, the Republic was backed by Labor and generally opposed by the Coalition, though with some significant Liberal supporters of a republic. The result produced a confusing mosaic of results where safe Liberal seats voted Yes and safe Labor seats voted no.

As I outline in this post, you can explain more about the pattern of Republic referendum results by looking at the social status of electorates rather then the level of Labor or Coalition support at the previous year’s Federal election.

So are these high social status Republic supporting electorates the ‘elites’ campaigned against in 1999 and so often mentioned again in The Voice campaign? The majority of voters have more interest in getting by day to day than worrying whether ‘The Voice’ will improve the position of First Nations Australians. Does railing against ‘elites’ tap into resentment against those with more time and money to worry about such issues?

Having covered the 1999 Republic campaign and written on the results at the time, I see strong similarities with the current Voice referendum. And on Saturday night I expect to see a very similar pattern of results, with Yes results strongest in high social status metropolitan seats irrespective of whether they are Labor, Liberal, Green or Independent held.

A quick technical point before the post. Most of this post is written comparing Labor two-party preferred percentages by electoral division to Yes percentages at referendums. It could have been written comparing Coalition 2PP% to No% and produce the same findings. You just have to choose one of the two methods of measure, and focussing on the smaller number of Yes voting divisions is easier to measure and explain.
Read More »How Referendum Results Relate to Levels of Party Support

Vote by Type at the 1999 Republic Referendum PLUS how Referendum Night will Unfold.

Several times in the last fortnight I’ve been asked how I think Postal and Pre-poll votes will split at the referendum.

As a general rule at Australian elections, postal votes significantly favour the Coalition compared to polling day votes. Pre-poll votes slightly favour the Coalition though by how much varies from election to election. The smaller categories of Absent and Provisional votes tend to favour Labor.

At referendums, it is fair to say a No vote is for the status quo and a Yes vote for change. On that basis you would expect postal voting to display the same pattern as at a general election, favouring the conservative position. Pre-poll voting could also have a small lean to the status quo.

This observation on postal voting is backed by the chart below that shows the Yes/No percentages by vote type for the 1999 Republic referendum. (I’ve co-opted the common colours being used by Yes and No in 2023.)

As the column showing percentage votes in each category makes clear, the past two decades have seen a massive shift away from voting on election day. So will the same trends be evident in 2023? Here are a few important points. Read More »Vote by Type at the 1999 Republic Referendum PLUS how Referendum Night will Unfold.

The Voice Referendum – Postal and Pre-Poll Voting Rates

Monday 30 October – Postal vote receipt has now closed so this will be the final update. Returned postal votes represented 10.1% of enrolment, about 10.9% of votes counted. The final return rate for dispatched postal votes is 86.4%.

Saturday 14 October – final figures – At the close of early voting on Friday 13 October, 6.1 million pre-poll votes had been cast representing 34.7% of enrolled voters. A single day record of 1.1 million pre-poll votes were cast on Friday. Around 2.1 million electors had applied for a postal vote pack representing 11.7% of enrolled voters. Around 1.4 million completed postal votes have been returned. Returned postal votes represent 8.1% of enrolment or 69.3% of dispatched postal vote packs.

The final early vote figure is a record, higher than in 2022, but postal applications are lower than in 2022.

The post includes a number of graphs breaking down the figures by state and by electoral division.
Read More »The Voice Referendum – Postal and Pre-Poll Voting Rates

Projected Enrolment Data released for NSW Federal Redistribution

The first step in the redistribution of NSW federal electoral boundaries began yesterday with a call for submissions and the release of base enrolment data.

The major scale of boundary changes required has been revealed by the released projected enrolment figures.

NSW is losing a seat at the next Federal election, the state’s representation reduced from 47 to 46 seats.

In addition, with seven years having passed since the last redistribution, enrolments by electoral division have diverged widely from the state average.

Abolishing a division while bringing all divisions back within the permitted variation from quota will require major surgery to some electorates.

And boundary changes will almost certainly have big political consequences.

Several electorates in the state’s west are well below quota and require major changes. Seats in Sydney’s west and south-west are well over quota, in contrast to under quota Sydney seats closer to the coast.

Evening out the enrolment numbers across the Sydney basin will not be easy. Sydney’s many bays and inlets give the city a distinctive political geography. Wholesale boundary changes are going to jumble the electoral margins of many seats.

In the immediate firing line are the four ‘teal’ Independent seats in Sydney’s east.

The seats of Wentworth (Allegra Spender), Mackellar (Sophie Scamps), Warringah (Zali Steggall) and North Sydney (Kylea Tink) are all well under quota. All these seats must increase their enrolment, eating into the territory of seats to their west.

Sydney’s Liberal heartland north of the Harbour looks certain to lose a seat, possible forcing a Liberal MP to nominate against one of the ‘teals’.

There will be a new seat created in Sydney’s outer south-west and the possible abolition of a seat further east. This creates a complex electoral jigsaw that the redistribution commissioners will first have to unpick and then re-assemble.

Inside the post I have maps highlighting the enrolment variations and provide analysis of how new boundaries might be drawn.

In a previous post on NSW redistribution prospects, I looked only at what current enrolment numbers could tell us about the redistribution. In this post I am using the more important projected enrolment numbers.

(And I’m happy to receive and publish suggestions on how the new boundaries might be drawn.)

Read More »Projected Enrolment Data released for NSW Federal Redistribution

Daniel Andrews resigns as Victorian Premier

Catching everyone by surprise today is the announcement by Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews that he will resign as Premier tomorrow.

Earlier this year Andrews passed John Cain Junior to become Labor’s longest serving Victorian Premier, and earlier this month he passed Rupert ‘Dick’ Hamer to become Victoria’s fourth longest serving Premier.

I doubt Andrews has been hanging around just to pass Hamer. If he had waited another week he would have passed Sir James McCulloch to become the state’s third longest serving Premier.

There are plenty of media stories analysing Andrews’ time in office, trying to explain the sudden departure and examining who might replace him. I don’t think there is anything I can add to the speculation and the political obituaries.

I’m posting here to direct everyone to my just published background piece on the by-election that must now be held in Andrews’ seat of Mulgrave. He won Mulgrave with a two-party margin of 10.2% last November. The seat should be safe for Labor, but you never know in a suddenly changed political climate.

Since its re-election last November, the Andrews government has been announcing and dealing with bad news, mostly in relation to the budget. The most spectacular backflip was the announcement that the state would no longer host the Commonwealth Games in 2026.

You can find my profile for the Mulgrave by-election here.
Read More »Daniel Andrews resigns as Victorian Premier

Would Creating Extra Senators for the Territories change the House of Representatives

A report from ABC Darwin overnight again raises the question of whether the Albanese government will increase the number of territory Senators.

Special Minister of State, Senator Don Farrell, referred to a looming report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. The story was last reported around a month ago.

Both the ACT and NT currently elect two Senators. They are elected for maximum three year terms, with their terms tied to the electoral cycle of the House of Representatives.

This differs from state Senators who are elected for fixed six-year terms with each state having a constitutionally protected equal number of Senators.

Currently each state elects 12 Senators with half (six) elected every three years. (All 12 are elected at double dissolution elections.) The number of Senators per state was set at six in 1901, increased to 10 in 1949 and the current 12 in 1984. Two Senators for each territory were added in 1975.

The question I’m usually asked about an increase in territory Senators is whether this would cause an increase in the size of the House of Representatives.

The short answer is no, as I’ll explain in this post.Read More »Would Creating Extra Senators for the Territories change the House of Representatives

When will the next Federal Election be? Will it be early?

With an agreement reached between Labor and the Greens to pass the government’s housing legislation, even the remotest prospect of an early double dissolution election has vanished.

The only way for a joint House and Senate election to be held before August 2024 was via a double dissolution election. With that already unlikely option now removed, an election before August 2024 is only possible if Anthony Albanese breaks with 50 years of Prime Ministerial tradition and holds separate House and half-Senate elections.

In theory a House election can be called at any time, but as has been the case at every election since 1974, the next House elections will be held in conjunction with the next half-Senate election due at latest in May 2025.

Fixed terms and a constitutional restrictions mean that writs for a half-Senate election cannot be issued until 1 July in the year before a Senate term expires. This restriction creates an election window between August and May every three years.

The next election window opens on Saturday 3 August 2024, the first possible date for an election if writs are issued on 1 July. The election window will stay open until mid-May 2025, the last date being 17 or 24 May.

There remains a chance the government could go to a House and half-Senate election between August and October 2024. But the option is unlikely due to redistributions and a series of state and territory elections. Everything points to the government going full term to May 2025.

Of course, events over the next 20 months could unfold differently. And if they do, the election could arrive earlier than April-May 2025.
Read More »When will the next Federal Election be? Will it be early?