THE POLL BLUDGER
Senate Election 2007

NEW SOUTH WALES

Coalition	Labor	Others
Helen Coonan*	Mark Arbib	Kerry Nettle* (GRN)
John Williams (NAT)	Doug Cameron	Lyn Schumack (DEM)
Marise Payne*	Ursula Stephens*	Patrice Newell (CCC)

Six elections have been held since the first six-seat half-Senate election in 1990, with minor parties winning seats in New South Wales on four occasions – the Democrats in 1990, 1996 and 1998 and the Greens in 2001 – and the other two resulting in even splits between Labor and the Coalition. The minor party seats came at the expense of third seats for the Coalition in 1990 and 1998 and for Labor in 1996 and 2001. The 1998 and 2001 results were heavily influenced by One Nation, who polled 9.6 per cent and 5.6 per cent respectively. With all major players putting them last on their preferences, this was well short of what was needed to win a seat. In 1998 Aden Ridgeway of the Democrats narrowly won a seat after overtaking the third Coalition candidate, Sandy Macdonald of the Nationals (who returned at the 2001 election), while David Oldfield of One Nation remained stranded in seventh place. The lower One Nation vote in 2001 allowed the Greens to overtake them after absorbing preferences from left-wing minor candidates, so that One Nation preferences decided the result between the Greens candidate, Kerry Nettle, and Democrats incumbent Vicki Bourne. These were directed to the Greens ahead of the Democrats in New South Wales, presenting Kerry Nettle with the irony of a Senate seat which she owed to the caprice of her most bitter ideological foes.

With current polling from New South Wales consistently pointing to an increase in the Labor vote upwards of 10 per cent, scenarios in which Labor wins only two seats can probably be written off. The challenge for minor parties is to overcome the Coalition’s surplus above the 28.6 per cent they will need to win their second seat. By far the most likely contender is the Greens incumbent, Kerry Nettle. The Greens’ New South Wales Senate vote in 2004 was 7.3 per cent, which was supplemented only by a small handful of preferences from marginal left-wing parties before their lead candidate was eliminated. This time Nettle is likely to enjoy a large flow of preferences from Labor, who on current indications will have a significant surplus above the 42.9 per cent required for a third seat. In other words, the Greens are shooting for a result where: (Greens vote) + (Labor vote minus 42.9%) + (vote for others who have Greens and Labor ahead of Coalition) > (Coalition vote minus 28.6%) + (vote for others who have Coalition ahead of Labor and Greens). Another possibility is that Labor will overtake the Greens to win the fourth seat itself, which is intuitively unlikely but possible if the polls are correct. Yesterday’s Newspoll state breakdown had Labor at 52 per cent in New South Wales, which would leave their fourth candidate on a formidable 9 per cent (remembering that Labor’s Senate vote in 2004 was only fractionally lower than for the House).

The Liberal Party and its conservative predecessors have run joint Senate tickets with the National/Country Party at every election since 1925. At elections since 1977 the Nationals’ candidates have alternated between the unloseable second and shaky third positions. This time they take the second place, which goes to Inverell businessman John “Wacka” Williams (centre) following the preselection defeat of incumbent Sandy Macdonald. This result was reported in terms of a desire to follow the example of Barnaby Joyce, who has demonstrated the electoral value of a stance independent of the Liberal Party. Some Liberals were so displeased with this outcome that there was talk of an end to the joint ticket arrangement, which the Prime Minister refused to countenance. The Liberal-held first and third positions are unchanged from 2001, being respectively filled by Communications Minister Helen Coonan (left) and Marise Payne (right). As part of the much-discussed rise of the state party’s Right faction, Payne faced a preselection challenge earlier in the year from party rural vice-president Scot Macdonald. This was knocked on the head by Senator Bill Heffernan, acting on instructions from the Prime Minister, who creatively had Macdonald’s nomination rejected by the nomination review committee, a body designed to vet candidates on grounds of character or ethics.

Labor’s successful candidates at the 2001 election were Ursula Stephens (right), who is facing re-election, and George Campbell, who is retiring. Campbell announced his decision to retire in April after it became apparent he would lose preselection to Doug Cameron (centre), who had succeeded him as national secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union. Cameron will take the unloseable second place on the ticket, which by factional agreement is reserved for the Left. Stephens has been demoted to number three after her Right faction colleague, state general secretary Mark Arbib (left), used his considerable political muscle to secure top billing. The identity of a fourth candidate seems to be a mystery at this stage, but that will no doubt change with the declaration of candidates later today.

After emerging an unexpected Senate winner in 2001 at the age of 27, Kerry Nettle (right) of the Greens now faces the difficult task of achieving the NSW Greens’ second ever Senate win. She is unlikely to be seriously challenged by the Democrats, who have nominated clinical and forensic psychologist Lyn Shumack. The success of Liberals for Forests candidate Glenn Druery in making the final counts in 2004 off 0.5 per cent of the vote suggests a micro-party boilover cannot be entirely ruled out, but a direct exchange of preferences between the Greens and the Democrats has made it much less likely. Much attention has been given to the campaign of the Climate Change Coalition, headed by Patrice Newell (partner of broadcaster and columnist Phillip Adams) – partly on account of its celebrity number two candidate, science commentator Dr Karl Kruszelnicki. There appeared earlier this year the very strong possibility that independent Calare MP Peter Andren would succeed in his declared bid for a Senate seat, but he sadly had to withdraw in August after being diagnosed with cancer.

VICTORIA

Liberal	Labor	Others
Mitch Fifield*	Jacinta Collins	Lyn Allison* (DEM)
Helen Kroger	Gavin Marshall*	Richard Di Natale (GRN)
Scott Ryan	David Feeney	Gary Plumridge (FFP)

Along with Western Australia and South Australia, Victoria is one of three states where the Coalition has never failed to win three Senate seats since six-seat half-Senate elections began in 1990. Labor has fallen short on four of six occasions, the remaining seat going to the Democrats in 1990, 1996 and 2001 and to Family First in 2004. The latter outcome was one of two extraordinary Senate results from 2004, the other being the Coalition's fourth seat in Queensland. Family First's 1.8 per cent share of the vote was substantially lower than in Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania, but in Victoria the party was privy to hugely significant preference deals with Labor and the Democrats (which also applied in Tasmania, where their candidate narrowly failed to squeeze Greens candidate Christine Milne out of the sixth seat). Preferences from One Nation and others put Family First's Steve Fielding clear of the DLP (1.9 per cent), the Democrats (1.9 per cent) and Liberals for Forests (1.8 per cent), whose preferences he absorbed in turn. That was enough to put him clear of Labor's third candidate, incumbent Jacinta Collins, who was left with a disappointing 9.2 per cent surplus over Labor's second quota. At this point Labor's deal with Family First activated in the opposite direction, delivering Fielding a seat at the expense of Greens candidate David Risstrom.

With no single minor party emerging a clear winner from the preference harvesting game, this year's election is likely to be a more straightforward affair. Labor is giving preferences directly to the Greens, and the Democrats have both major parties ahead of Family First. There is still an outside chance of Family First winning a seat if it matches its 4.3 per cent lower house vote from the state election, and if the Coalition vote sinks into the low to mid-thirties, but it is more likely to be a question of who out of the Greens, the Coalition and Labor will miss out on one of the last two seats. On 2004 figures, this contest would start from 8.7 per cent for the Greens, 17.1 per cent surplus for the Coalition (their surplus over the second quota) and 9.2 per cent for Labor. From this point the Greens will be boosted by preferences from the Democrats, the Climate Change Coalition, the Socialist Alliance and What Women Want; the Coalition by Family First, the DLP, the Christian Democratic Party, the Citizens Electoral Council and the Non-Custodial Parents Party; and Labor by One Nation, the Shooters Party, the Liberty and Democracy Party and Senator On-Line.

The Coalition runs joint tickets in Victoria by a long-standing arrangement in which the Nationals take the second and fourth position at alternating elections. This election gives the Nationals fourth place, meaning only Liberal candidates can be regarded as serious contenders. The precarious long-term future of the arrangement was indicated when the Nationals Senator, Julian McGauran, defected to the Liberals in January 2006. None of the three Coalition Senators elected in 2001 is seeking re-election: Richard Alston retired in March 2004, and Rod Kemp and Kay Patterson will depart when their terms end in the middle of next year. The Coalition ticket will be headed by former Peter Costello adviser Mitch Fifield (left), who filled the casual vacancy created by Alston's departure. Fifield won preselection on that occasion ahead of former Menzies Research Centre director John Roskam, after brief speculation that Michael Kroger or even Jeff Kennett might be contenders. The next two positions have gone to Helen Kroger (centre), former state party president and ex-wife of Michael Kroger, and Scott Ryan (right), party vice-president and government affairs manager at GlaxoSmithKline. An unsuccessful contender was Bev McArthur, wife of Corangamite MP Stewart McArthur and a member of the party faction associated with Kennett. The preselection of Fifield, Kroger and Ryan marked a clean sweep for the rival Costello-Kroger forces.

This election is certain to see the return to the Senate of Jacinta Collins (left), who lost her seat to Steve Fielding in 2004. Collins came to the Senate in 1995 after 15 years with the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association, which dominates the Catholic Right faction with which she remains associated. Collins assumes the top position on the Labor ticket left vacant by the retirement of Robert Ray, following a turf war which delivered a win for the SDA over the Right sub-faction associated with Bill Shorten. The latter group supported assistant national secretary David Feeney, who ended up winning the number three spot at the expense of National Union of Workers hopeful Andres Puig. Michael Bachelard reported in The Australian that some in the Right believed Collins won backing from the NUW in exchange for promised SDA support for Martin Pakula's unsuccessful bid to oust Simon Crean in Hotham.

The remaining incumbent seeking re-election is Democrats leader Lyn Allison (left), who was elected in 1996 and re-elected in 2001. With the future looking extremely dim for the Democrats, it is far more likely that the final seat will be won by the Greens, who have never previously won a Victorian Senate seat. Their lead candidate is Richard di Natale (centre), a humanitarian doctor who spends much of his time on HIV prevention work in India. Di Natale came within a few per cent of defeating Labor's Bronwyn Pike in the state electorate of Melbourne in both 2002 and 2006, winning Senate preselection ahead of the narrowly unsuccessful candidate from 2004, David Risstrom. The Family First candidate is Geelong financial planner Gary Plumridge (right).

QUEENSLAND

Coalition	Labor	Others
Ian Macdonald*	John Hogg*	Andrew Bartlett* (DEM)
Sue Boyce	Claire Moore*	Larissa Waters (GRN)
Ron Boswell* (NAT)	Mark Furner	Jeff Buchanan (FFP)

With two remarkable exceptions, Queensland has produced the same result at each half-Senate election since the first for six seats in 1990: two Labor, two Liberal, one Nationals and one Democrat. The first exception was in 1998, when One Nation overcame the punitive preference treatment that has thwarted them every other time by scoring a quota off their own bat. The winning candidate was Heather Hill, then a close confidante of Pauline Hanson, who foolishly sought re-election in the lower house rather than take the Senate seat herself. However, Hill's election was overturned when the High Court ruled by a 4-3 majority that her dual British citizenship made her ineligible. A recount gave the seat to One Nation's number two candidate, Len Harris. The One Nation seat came at the expense of young Nationals Senator Bill O'Chee, who was left stranded when a third of the Nationals vote went to One Nation and the Liberals failed to deliver him a surplus. Democrats candidate John Woodley won the final seat after absorbing the Labor surplus and preferences from the Greens.

The second exception was the 2004 election, the only time a six-seat half-Senate election has delivered four seats either to Labor or the Coalition in any state. This triumph belonged not to Barnaby Joyce and the Nationals, whose vote fell to 6.6 per cent from 9.1 per cent in 2001, but to the Liberals, who were up from 34.8 per cent to 38.3 per cent. The decisive point in the count came with the exclusion of Len Harris, who narrowly failed to overtake his former mentor Pauline Hanson. Had it been otherwise, the Fishing Party preferences that pushed Joyce clear of Hanson would have stayed locked up with One Nation. In that case the seat would have gone to Greens, giving effect to the Coalition parties' decision to put Hanson and One Nation last. Joyce pulled ahead of the Liberals at the last count to take the fifth rather than sixth seat, a result decided by a large number of Hanson’s below-the-line votes going against the ticket.

The Coalition will be running a joint ticket in Queensland for the first time since 1977, with the Nationals taking the third position. The arrangement caused great friction within the Nationals, with Senator Barnaby Joyce among the opposed. The two Liberal places go to Ian Macdonald (left), who has been in the Senate since 1980, and Sue Boyce (centre), who filled the casual vacancy when Santo Santoro resigned in March following revelations of undisclosed share trading. Macdonald served as minister in portfolios including local government, fisheries, forestry and conservation from after the 1998 election until his demotion in June 2006. Boyce had been preselected for the number four position before the joint ticket arrangement, behind Macdonald, Santoro and Mark Powell. Her success in leapfrogging Powell marked a double victory for state party leader Bruce Flegg over the Santoro faction, which switched its backing from Powell to former state party leader Bob Quinn in a failed bid to thwart Boyce. Powell suffered the further indignity of being knocked into fourth place to accommodate the Nationals. This third-placed Nationals candidate is incumbent Ron Boswell (right), a 66-year-old veteran of 24 years in the Senate. His decision to again seek preselection surprised many, given suggestions he had only contested in 2001 to help the party see off the challenge of Pauline Hanson. Popular enthusiasm for Barnaby Joyce had many calling for renewal and greater assertiveness within the Coalition, which was seen to be personified by rival preselection candidate James Baker. Boswell won the day, and Baker has quit the party to run as an independent.

The top two positions on the Labor ticket are unchanged from 2001. Number one is John Hogg, a former official with the Right faction Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association, who I am surprised to learn has been in the Senate since 1996. The Left's Claire Moore retains the position she assumed at the 2001 election at the expense of incumbent Brenda Gibbs, who fell foul of a complicated factional quarrel sparked by the ultimately worthless Petrie preselection. The third position has gone to Mark Furner, vice-president of the National Union of Workers.

Democrats incumbent Andrew Bartlett (left), an active player in the blogosphere and very occasional commenter on this site, is seeking re-election after a sometimes torrid six-year term. Like all his party colleagues, his chances of success are not rated highly. The Greens candidate is environmental lawyer Larissa Waters (centre), who won preselection ahead of Juanita Wheeler, a two-time state election candidate who had taken on the role of state party spokesperson. Family First's candidate Jeff Buchanan (right) will harness the entire right-of-centre vote if he gets ahead of Pauline Hanson, which might be enough to win him a seat at the expense of Nationals Senator Ron Boswell. Hanson herself has little chance of success despite reports she has been “boosted” by Family First and Climate Change Coalition preferences. The real significance of Hanson is that her preferences will, eventually, end up with Labor’s third candidate ahead of the Greens and Ron Boswell. The remaining preferences will split in an orderly fashion, at least if Family First has excluded: religious, populist and recreation parties will go to the Coalition, while the Democrats, Climate Change Coalition, Socialist Alliance and What Women Want (along with the Carers Alliance) will go to the Greens. Once those three blocs are added together, it will be a question of which out of Labor, the Coalition and the Greens misses out on one of the final two seats.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Liberal	Labor	Others
David Johnston*	Louise Pratt	Scott Ludlam (GRN)
Alan Eggleston*	Mark Bishop*	Erica Lewin (DEM)
Michaelia Cash	Ruth Webber*	Gerard Goiran (CDP)

Western Australia has produced variations on the same result since the first six-seat half-Senate election in 1990: three seats for the Liberals, two for Labor, plus one for a minor party. That party was the Greens in 1990, 1993 and 2004, with the election of Jo Vallentine, Dee Margetts and Rachel Siewert respectively. The Democrats won the seat in 1996 and 2001, when Andrew Murray was elected and re-elected, and in 1998, when Brian Greig was elected. One Nation took a large bite out of the Liberal vote in 1998 and 2001, but on each occasion the early exclusion of the third Labor candidate left Labor, Democrats and Greens preferences deciding the final seat in favour of the Liberals. The 2004 election was the Coalition's best performance since 1977, the combined Liberal and Nationals vote increasing from 40.0 per cent to 50.2 per cent. If the combined vote for the Greens, Democrats and Labor had been 1.3 per cent lower, the Liberals would have won a fourth seat at the Greens' expense.

The winnable end of the Liberal ticket is occupied by David Johnston (left), Alan Eggleston (right) and Michaelia Cash. Johnston and Eggleston have reversed positions since the 2001 election, reflecting Johnston's elevation to cabinet as Justice Minister. A former state party president, Johnston is part of the WA Liberal faction associated with Ian Campbell and Chris Ellison, which has been opposed by the “Noel Crichton-Browne camp”. Johnston secured second position on the ticket at the 2001 election at the expense of incumbent Winston Crane, who was then under investigation over travel rorts (he was eventually cleared). Alan Eggleston, who stands 127 centimetres tall due to a condition called dyschondroplasia, is a former mayor of Port Hedland who won preselection at the 1996 election to fill the position vacated by Noel Crichton-Browne's expulsion from the party. Third place initially went to state party senior vice-president Mathias Cormann, who won preselection ahead of 70-year-old incumbent Ross Lightfoot. Cormann has since found a quicker route to the Senate by filling the casual vacancy created by Ian Campbell's resignation, which does not expire until 2011. A new preselection for the third position was won by industrial relations lawyer Michaelia Cash (who apparently doesn't like being photographed, or publicised much), daughter of state MP George Cash and former electorate officer to Ross Lightfoot, ahead of Director of Public Prosecutions lawyer Michael Mischin, who takes the fourth position.

Labor's ticket is headed by 35-year-old newcomer Louise Pratt (left), a member of the state upper house since 2001 and previously an electorate officer to Carmen Lawrence. Pratt won the backing of the powerful Left faction Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and its state secretary Jock Ferguson after it fell out with incumbent Ruth Webber, following Byzantine preselection quarrels ahead of the 2005 state election. Pratt won backing from an alliance of Left unions and the New Right, through a deal in which her vacant state seat went to New Right numbers man Batong Pham. She also succeeded in relegating to number two Mark Bishop (centre), a former front-bencher who had gone back on his decision to quit politics in the wake of Kevin Rudd's leadership takeover in December. According to Andrew Probyn of The West Australian, there were “two theories as to why Senator Bishop had a change of heart”. One was that Kevin Rudd had called Bishop's bluff when he threatened to quit while haggling for the defence portfolio, leaving him at first obliged to quit and then regretful over his “fit of pique”. The second was that Bishop had been “heavied” by his Shop Assistants Union backers who wanted Bill Johnston, Bishop's likely replacement in the Senate, to remain as state party secretary so the position would not go to Simon Mead, of the Left faction Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union. Ruth Webber (right), a former ministerial staffer and state party assistant secretary, has been demoted to number three from number two in 2001.

Democrats Senator Andrew Murray, whose term expires next year, is not seeking a third term. The party's candidate is Indian-born Erica Lewin (left), who works in “senior policy and community engagement positions with the state government”. The Greens have nominated Scott Ludlam (centre), an adviser to Rachel Siewert and previously to former state upper house member Robin Chapple. While Ludlam remains well placed to repeat Rachel Siewert's success in 2004, he faces an unexpected obstacle in the form of the Christian Democratic Party, which has pulled off a preference coup that will deliver it votes from One Nation, Family First, the Democratic Labor Party, the Citizens Electoral Council, the Non-Custodial Parents Party, Conservatives for Climate and Environment, the Liberty and Democracy Party and even the Nationals. The CDP will also get Carers Alliance preferences and the surplus from the Liberals. This should keep the CDP alive into the late stages of the count, and might even win their candidate Gerard Goiran (right) the final seat at the Greens' expense if the Coalition comes close to its vote from 2004. Another potential surprise scenario involves a sharper drop for the Coalition and the CDP winning a seat at the expense of the Liberal number three, which would not interfere with a Greens win at the expense of Labor. The most likely danger for the Greens is that a Labor resurgence will be strong enough that the Greens will be unable to overcome their third candidate, resulting in a three-all split between the major parties and the first minor party lockout in WA since 1980. Nonetheless, a repeat of the 2004 result remains the most likely outcome.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Liberal	Labor	Others
Cory Bernardi*	Don Farrell	Nick Xenophon (IND)
Simon Birmingham*	Penny Wong*	Ruth Russell (DEM)
Grant Chapman*	Cath Perry	Sarah Hanson-Young (GRN)

South Australia produced the same result at each Senate election from the first six-seat election in 1990 until 2001: three Liberal, two Labor and one Democrats. This reflects what has been a weak period for Labor, whose vote fell below 40 per cent in 1990 and has not since recovered, and the Democrats' historic strength in the state, which has on occasion brought them close to winning House of Representatives seats. The most shattering of the Democrats' disappointments in 2004 was their failure to stay afloat in South Australia, their vote plunging from 12.6 per cent to 2.3 per cent. South Australia is also the foundation state of Family First, whose founder Andrew Evans put the party on the map with a surprise state upper house win in 2002. The party's Senate vote in 2004 was 3.9 per cent, their highest in Australia, but they did not benefit from a Labor preference deal as they had in Victoria, where Steve Fielding was elected from 1.8 per cent.

Of the three Liberals elected in 2001, only number three candidate Grant Chapman is running for re-election. Number one candidate Robert Hill resigned in March 2006 to become ambassador to the United Nations, and his position was filled by Cory Bernardi (left), investment fund manager and former state party president. This marked a victory for the Right over the moderate faction, in which Hill had been a senior figure. Its favoured candidate was Simon Birmingham (centre), former Winemakers Federation executive and narrowly unsuccessful candidate for Hindmarsh at the 2004 election (for which Bernardi had again been a preselection rival). The imbalance was redressed when Birmingham won preselection for the number two Senate position to succeed the Right's Jeannie Ferris, who had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Ferris died on April 2, and Birmingham assumed her vacancy ahead of schedule. Grant Chapman (right) is seeking to extend a parliamentary career that goes back to 1975, in which time he has conspicuously failed to make himself a household name. His preselection win over the number four candidate, moderate Maria Kourtesis, was widely criticised due to its failure to redress gender and factional imbalance.

Labor's ticket is headed by debut entrant Don Farrell (left), powerful state secretary of the Right faction Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association. Farrell took his faction’s reserved position from Linda Kirk, the number two candidate from 2001, who fell from favour after backing Kevin Rudd’s leadership bid and defying the conservative union’s opposition to the RU486 abortion pill (though some put the rift down to the dismissal of Farrell's wife from Kirk's office). Unfortunately for Labor, Kirk declined to take the offered consolation prize of the Boothby. In second position is the rising star of the Left (centre), Penny Wong, who has been harmlessly demoted from her number one position at the 2001 election due to factional arrangements. Journalist Cath Perry (right) won third position with the backing of the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union.

The race for a minor party seat was blown wide open on October 11 when state upper house “No Pokies” MP Nick Xenophon (left) announced he would be entering the race. Xenophon achieved one of the most sensational results in Australia's recent electoral history when he polled 20.5 per cent in his re-election bid at the state election last March, enough to score a wholly unexpected second seat for his running mate Ann Bressington. With Natasha Stott Despoja declining to seek another term, the Democrats have nominated peace activist Ruth Russell (centre), best known for spending three weeks in Iraq as a “human shield” during the 2003 invasion. The Greens candidate is 26-year-old Sarah Hanson-Young (right), a former University of Adelaide student association president who has more recently worked for Amnesty International. Hanson-Young has been spruiked by Bob Brown as “an option for people who perhaps are disappointed to see Natasha go”.

A mid-campaign poll conducted by Adelaide University for ABC Adelaide suggests Xenophon will carry over his support into this election, enough to deliver a big surplus to the Greens as preferences. There is a very very high chance that this will put Hanson-Young ahead of one of the major parties' third candidates, and then on to a quota with their preferences. That would produce a result of two seats each to Labor and Liberal, plus one to Xenophon and one to the Greens. If the Greens fall short their preferences will go to Labor via Xenophon, whereas Xenophon's preferences will split evenly between Labor and Liberal. There doesn’t seem to be any prospect of a micro party upset, as too much of the micro-party vote will go to the Greens.

TASMANIA

Entry forthcoming.

AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY

Entry forthcoming.

NORTHERN TERRITORY

Entry forthcoming.