The Poll Bludger’s Western Australian Legislative Council guide has now been padded out with post-match reports for all six regions. For those of you who don’t care much, the important thing is that Labor and the Greens fell one seat short of what was needed to pass one-vote one-value legislation. But since the results do not take effect until May 21, the government has two months in which to persuade departing member Alan Cadby to allow it through as a parting gesture to the Liberal Party which dumped him for preselection. For those of you who do care much, the entries read as follows:

Agricultural: Barring the exception of 2001, Agricultural has returned four Coalition and one Labor members at each election under the current system. But this was the first time the region returned three Liberal and one Nationals member rather than two of each. The key to this outcome was a 9.4 per cent rebound in the Liberal vote to a historically typical 39.4 per cent, whereas the Nationals’ 19.3 per cent was only 0.3 per cent higher than last time. Labor’s vote was up from 20.2 per cent to 26.7 per cent, but their only serious source of preferences was the Greens (4.4 per cent) and they fell short of the 33.3 per cent required for a second seat. Lachlan Dunjey of the Christian Democratic Party narrowly missed out on the fifth seat from just 1.9 per cent of the vote, having been boosted by preferences from Liberals for Forests, One Nation, New Country and Family First. This left him a fraction behind the Liberals’ third candidate (who had received preferences over the CDP from the Nationals and the Democrats) at the second last count. Another coat of paint and it would have been a case of Rowe’s elimination delivering decisive preferences to Dunjey, and not the other way round.

East Metropolitan: Labor cracked the 50 per cent mark, up from 44.2 per cent to 50.6 per cent, which meant three easy quotas on the primary vote. The Greens’ only chance was to win a seat at the expense of the Liberals, but their stable 6.5 per cent vote was too low for this to be a serious prospect. The Liberal primary vote of 32.1 per cent was close enough to two quotas that preferences from the Christian Democratic Party and Family First put them well over the line.

Mining and Pastoral: Mining and Pastoral returned to normal in returning three Labor and two Liberal members, which has been the outcome at each election under the current system except 2001. More than half of the 25.2 per cent vote for independents and One Nation in 2001 returned to the majors, with Labor up from 39.5 per cent to 44.0 per cent and the Liberals up from 26.7 per cent 35.7 per cent. This gave them both two clear quotas on the primary vote, but only Labor had enough of a surplus to remain in the hunt for the final place. They ended up winning it because their minor party opposition was split between the Fischer/Campbell ticket, which scored 6.0 per cent of the primary vote and received preferences from the CDP and the Liberals, and the Greens, who scored 7.6 per cent and received preferences from the Public Hospital Support Group, Liberals for Forests and the Democrats. The mutual hostility of these two groups meant the elimination of one was always going to send a decisive quantity of preferences to Labor at the other’s expense. However, Labor’s primary vote was still markedly below the pre-2001 norm whereas the Liberals equalled their 1996 result.

North Metropolitan: A straightforward outcome with Labor (42.4 per cent) and Liberal (40.3 per cent) each scoring three quotas on the primary vote without enough of a surplus to freeze the Greens out of the final place. This was despite a slight easing in the Greens’ vote from 9.7 per cent to 8.8 per cent, or 0.7 of a quota.

South Metropolitan: The talk of the early count was the prospect that the final seat would go to Murray McKay of the Fremantle Hospital Support Group, who polled just 1.3 per cent. But in one of those strange twists characteristic of systems combining preferential voting with proportional representation, a resurgence by the Liberals later in the count ensured that the seat stayed with Labor. This was because the Liberals had the Christian Democratic Party ahead of FHSG on preferences, which ultimately allowed the CDP to get their nose ahead of FHSG at a crucial point in the count. Had this not happened, the distribution of preferences after the CDP’s elimination would have put the FHSG ahead of the Greens, whose preferences would then have got them ahead of Labor. Instead, the elimination of the FHSG unlocked the preferences of left-leaning parties who had favoured the Greens over the CDP, whose subsequent elimination unlocked the preferences of right-leaning parties who had favoured Labor over the Greens. Lynn MacLaren’s failure to retain the seat for the Greens was the most disappointing of their three upper house defeats, the result of a fall in the primary vote from 9.0 per cent to 7.8 per cent. This was still more than the Greens polled when Jim Scott was successful in 1993 and 1996, but since then the Democrats’ share of the minor party vote has shifted largely to parties hostile to the left.

South West: Well might Wilson Tuckey be cranky with the National Party, whose decision to preference the Greens ahead of Family First decided the contest between the two for the final seat. Had Labor or the Greens won one seat elsewhere, the National Party would effectively have signed its own death warrant by facilitating an upper house amenable to one-vote one-value legislation. The Nationals might argue that their candidate could have got past the Greens if the Coalition vote had been just slightly higher, in which case the Greens preference deal would have delivered them the seat at the expense of Family First - to which the obvious response is that the deal itself, with a party held in very low regard by the Nationals’ rural constituency, cost them the very votes that might have allowed this to happen. Instead the Greens were able to retain their seat despite fading from 8.5 per cent to 7.6 per cent on the primary vote. One Nation collapsed from 14.2 per cent to 2.2 per cent, from which a mere 0.7 per cent wound up with Paddy Embry. This made room for substantial improvements by both Liberal (from 35.4 per cent to 39.0 per cent) and Labor (from 30.7 per cent to 37.7 per cent), whereas the Nationals sank further from 6.2 per cent to 5.4 per cent.

With the Western Australian election now put to bed, the Poll Bludger can kick back a little and enjoy a looming quiet stretch on the electoral calendar. For election junkies desperate for their next hit, the forecast for the next 12 months is as follows:

Tasmania: Thanks to the apple isle’s nifty system of annual rotating elections for the 15 Legislative Council seats, one fifth of Tasmanian voters will go to the polls on May 7 in the first electoral test for Premier Paul Lennon. The three electorates up for grabs are Murchison in the north-west, which is being vacated by conservative independent Tony Fletcher; the Launceston-based Paterson, held by Council President and independent Liberal veteran Don Wing; and most interestingly of all, the Hobart outskirts seat of Rumney which Lin Thorp narrowly won for Labor in 2000. With nothing else on the horizon, these elections will get the full treatment. Lennon may call an election for the House of Assembly at any time, but when Opposition Leader Rene Hidding suggested he would do so at some stage this year Lennon was quick to rule it out. By the Poll Bludger’s count the latest he can go is November 25 next year, but a date nearer the anniversary of the election of July 20, 2002 is more likely.

Northern Territory: The Territory’s first ever Labor government is up for re-election at some time year. Chief Minister Clare Martin must call an election for the 25-seat Legislative Assembly for no later than October 15. The four-year anniversary of the 2001 election falls on August 18.

South Australia: The next election is scheduled for March 18, 2006, although the government can go early in the event of a deadlock between the houses. If there has been any talk of Premier Mike Rann plotting for an early poll, the Poll Bludger has not heard of it.

Labor’s easy win in the Werriwa by-election is unlikely to go down as a watershed in Australian political history, but it provides a nice fillip for Kim Beazley by offering a contrast to the Cunningham debacle under Simon Crean. It will also enhance the prestige of others associated with the campaign, specifically New South Wales ALP general secretary Mark Arbib, subject of this revealing article by Mark Steketee in Wednesday’s Australian. Bumping aside Brenton Banfield from preselection may or may not have been a stroke of genius, but it was clearly astute to install another local in his place however little known he may have been. Labor was able to trade off the fact with newspaper advertisements noting that 10 of Chris Hayes’ 15 rivals lived outside the electorate (one as far away as Double Bay), which succeeded in tarring the other five with the same brush. For large numbers of unengaged voters, the perception that Hayes faced a cast of opportunistic blow-ins provided the prompt that was needed to make up their minds.

At the close of the evening’s count Chris Hayes emerged with 55.3 per cent, 2.7 per cent more than Mark Latham managed (the "2.01%" swing recorded by the Australian Electoral Commission suggests pre-polls and absentee votes ran against Labor last time). The other 15 candidates all finished well short of 10 per cent, with unofficial Liberal candidate James Young leading the field on just 7.9 per cent. There were vaguely noteworthy performances from the Greens’ Ben Raue, up from 3.1 per cent to 5.7 per cent, and Janey Woodger of Australians Against Further Immigration, whose 4.8 per cent was assisted by the donkey vote but might also have been boosted by recent talk of importing workers to cover skills shortages.

The Christian parties scored an impressive 8.2 per cent between them, Family First outperforming Fred Nile’s Christian Democrats with 4.3 per cent of the vote. Despite the influence of the 2000-strong congregation of the Liverpool Christian Life Centre, the Family First vote comes as something of a surprise. Neither party contested Werriwa at the federal election, but as Bryan Palmer of Palmer’s Oz Politics notes, the "mainstream protestant" Christian Democratic Party performed far better in New South Wales than the "Pentecostal-aligned" Family First. In Werriwa, the Senate vote was 2.4 per cent for the CDP against a mere 0.6 per cent for Family First. The 5.2 per cent who came on board for the by-election would presumably have voted for a Liberal candidate had one been available.

Apparently Deborah Locke’s campaign attracted more attention outside the electorate than in, as she finished in ninth place with 3.2 per cent. The others who did better were independent Joe Bryant (3.9 per cent) and Charles Doggett of One Nation (3.5 per cent). The AEC guessed that James Young would finish in second place by partnering him with Hayes for the notional two-candidate preference count, and it is likely that they will be proved correct. The point is entirely academic because Hayes is credited with 70.0 per cent of the two-candidate vote and this is not likely to change much regardless of who gets the silver after preferences.

So about this by-election then. Tomorrow the voters of Werriwa return to the polls due to the retirement of former Labor member Mark Latham, whose life story does not need repeating here. Nor does the make-up of the electorate, which has changed little since the federal election guide entry was composed last year.

When Latham pulled the plug on January 18, two questions emerged - who would be the Labor candidate, and whether the Liberals would bother. Local lawyer and Campbelltown mayor Brenton Banfield was reckoned to be the best-credentialled Labor contender, and many were unimpressed by the manner in which he was bumped aside. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald on March 12, Alan Ramsey quoted (at length, naturally) from a detailed testimony by Banfield ally John Dowling that was mailed to branch members. Dowling complained that factional heavies assured Banfield he would not have to face a preselection vote, but withdrew their support when focus groups suggested he could fall victim to negative campaigning over his legal work for sex offenders. Banfield was persuaded to step aside and the nomination instead went to Australian Workers Union official Chris Hayes. Most saw this as a less-than-inspiring outcome.

In early February, newspaper reports quoted “Labor insiders” anticipating a 10 per cent swing to the Liberals, enough to deliver them the seat. This was obviously nonsense, as indicated by the Liberals’ ultimate failure to field a candidate. Laurie Oakes offers a far more plausible story in this week’s Bulletin:

Polling by the major parties after Latham quit showed quite clearly that the Liberals would be wasting their time if they entered the by-election contest. There was no resentment over Latham’s departure. Werriwa voters accepted that the former leader was entitled to pull out because of his health problems. In summary, the view was: ‘The poor bugger copped a walloping. His health suffered. He wants to spend time with his family. That’s fair enough’. And there was an added consideration: ‘Anyway, Howard’s got a big enough majority. He doesn’t need to win this one’.

With no threat from the Liberals, Labor’s remaining fear is of a repeat of the 1991 by-election in Wills or the 2002 by-election in Cunningham, respectively lost to independent Phil Cleary after the retirement of Bob Hawke and the Greens’ Michael Organ after the retirement of Steve Martin. Many in the party expressed concern that the unpopularity of the state government and the large field of 16 candidates might provoke unpredictable behaviour from voters. Significant local issues include the recent Macquarie Fields riots which took place in the electorate, and the Carr government’s hugely unpopular closure of the local Orange Grove shopping centre which benefited Labor patrons Westfield but left a number of locals without jobs.

One major difference with Cunningham is that this is not historically strong territory for the Greens, who have nominated 19-year-old Ben Raue. By general acclaim the candidate best placed to pull off an upset is Deborah Locke of the unregistered People Power party, a former fraud squad detective whose whistle-blowing was credited with bringing about the Wood Royal Commission into police corruption. Locke’s candidacy has generated valuable publicity including a Sunday Telegraph back cover and a 2GB interview. Stephen Mayne of Crikey reports that “the three independents who will be handing out HTVs across the electorate, former Labor branchstacker Sammy Bargshoon, Ned Mannoun and James Young, have all decided to give their preferences to Locke ahead of the other key contenders”, since they mutually agree she has the best chance of winning.

The best-known of the remaining candidates are Joe Bryant, a former Blacktown deputy mayor, and James Young, a Liberal Party member and former staffer to Jackie Kelly. Bryant took great pride in being described as a “Liberal trojan horse” by former Labor premier Barrie Unsworth when he ran for election two decades ago, and the Blacktown City Sun reported on March 8 that he “became a well-known local figure for his fight with the Commonwealth Bank”. Young is considered likely to absorb much of the homeless Liberal vote, and like Bryant he will deliver a solid flow of preferences to any non-Labor contender who emerges from the pack. Also worth noting is Sam Bargshoon, who turned against Labor after being burned by the Orange Grove closure and scored 4.9 per cent of the vote when he ran against Latham last year.

For all that, a Labor win would have to be considered the likely outcome. Writing in the Canberra Times on March 1, Malcolm Mackerras noted the following differences between the current circumstances and those of the Cunningham by-election:

First, the sudden and wholly unexpected nature of (Latham’s resignation) means there is not likely to be any high-profile independent candidate waiting in the wings. Here there is a major difference with Cunningham, where speculation that Labor MP Stephen Martin would resign was rife for six months before he actually did resign. Second, there are interesting sociological differences between Cunningham and Werriwa. These suggest that Cunningham is the sort of Labor seat where the Greens might fluke a one-off win. By contrast, Werriwa is not in that category of safe Labor seat … (the parliamentary library’s “relative socio-economic disadvantage” index) for Werriwa is 950 (in 17th place out of 150) compared with 1014 for Cunningham (at 104) … The third reason I expect Labor to win Werriwa lies in the difference of party leader. Simon Crean was leader at the time of Cunningham, Kim Beazley at the time of Werriwa.

These perceptions have been further strengthened by recent political developments. The rise in interest rates and the government’s decision to send more troops to Iraq, blamed for their recent slump in the opinion polls, have given traction to Labor’s appeal for voters to “send John Howard a message” by voting for Labor directly. Most persuasive of all to the Poll Bludger’s mind is the number-crunching done by Bryan Palmer at Oz Politics which suggests that historically speaking, Labor’s vote is likely to fall little if at all from the 52.6 per cent recorded by Mark Latham at the federal election. My own calculations suggest that Labor picks up roughly 20 per cent of the non-Labor vote as preferences at by-elections which are not contested by the Coalition, although this fell as low as 15.7 per cent at the Cunningham by-election. Even on the latter figure, Labor would need to fall to about 41 per cent if they were to lose the seat. This would entail the loss of 11 per cent from their primary vote at the October election, substantially greater than the 6.2 per cent decline that cost them Cunningham. Accordingly, it is the Poll Bludger’s considered judgement that Labor can rest easy.

Better late than never, the Poll Bludger proudly presents a Western Australian lower house election guide fully updated with post-match reports. Coverage of Saturday’s Werriwa by-election will follow in short order, honest it will.

This site has been very quiet recently owing to recurring technological problems, but stay tuned because a full wrap-up of Saturday’s Werriwa by-election will be up shortly, as will updated Western Australian election guides with summaries of the outcomes in each electorate and region.

The Poll Bludger is back in business after a week off line, and will be keeping a close eye on the final stages of the count for the Western Australian Legislative Council before turning attention to the March 19 Werriwa by-election. Late counting in Western Australia has produced no reversals of fortune in the lower house; the Liberals have narrowly won Bunbury and Murray, and independent Janet Woollard has retained Alfred Cove at the expense of Liberal Graham Kierath after an unpredictable preference distribution. Antony Green has published a full analysis of the upper house count based on figures from Thursday, concluding that contests are still in play for the seventh seat in South West, between the Greens and Nationals, and for the fifth seat in Agricultural, between Liberal, the Nationals, Labor and the Christian Democratic Party (the Poll Bludger prematurely called it for Labor in the previous post). Green reports that the prospect of a Fremantle Hospital Support Group boilover in South Metropolian is "receding", since a Liberal revival has made it unlikely that they will stay ahead of the Christian Democratic Party at the crucial point in the count (as discussed in the previous post). Their elimination would unlock a flood of preferences to the Greens who would emerge in front of the CDP but behind Labor, who would ultimately win the seat.

Assuming no sudden revival for the Fremantle Hospital Support Group, that leaves Labor on 16 seats, Liberal on 14, the Nationals on one and the Greens on one, with two in doubt. As far as the Poll Bludger is concerned, the magic number here would be a combined total of 19 for Labor and the Greens, as this would give one-vote one-value supporters an absolute majority on the floor with which to pass constitutional legislation. Since a victory for the Greens appears the more likely outcome in South West, the contest for Agricultural assumes a tremendous importance and the Poll Bludger will be over it like a rash in the coming days. By Green’s reckoning the Christian Democratic Party are currently poised to prevail over Labor at the final count by 1313 votes, although this assumes that all votes are ticket votes. Green thinks the bigger threat to the CDP comes from either the Nationals or (more likely) the Liberals, who need to overhaul a 411 vote deficit against the CDP at a key point in the count to coast home on preferences. Given that a CDP member representing a non-metropolitan region would probably take a dim view of one-vote one-value, the most likely outcome is a replication of the 18-16 deadlock from the previous parliament.