Aussie Federal election 2025

[Jerry_Atrick]

Labor's seat count has climbed to 91.. Flip.. I think even the most pessimistic ALP members must have a beaming smile.

 

On the indies, for Goldstein, they are calling a loss to Zoe Daniels and a win to Tim Wilson (Lib), but I can't see, on the numbers here, how it is not too close to call at the moment, unless these numbers severly lag the vote count:

 

In Kooyong, AEC officials noticed a counting error, which increases Monique Ryan's lead over Wendy Hamer:

 

If we look at Goldstein, around 7% less of the vote is counted, and the margin is the same as Kooyong, yet, they have called Goldstein, but still hve Kooyong in doubt..

 

Seems they both are still in doubt... unless the & count is lagging well behind the actual percent count in Goldstein..

 

 

[onetrack]

The postal votes can make a big difference to the eventual numbers, and the postal votes usually favour the conservative politicians.

 

Plus, the AEC has 13 days to allow for all postal votes to arrive, before they can call the result.

[Grumpy Old Nasho]

The modern day technique of cursing is done through your body language, silent thoughts, and implications in your written and/or spoken dialogue. It's nothing more than mental telepathy, but if don't believe in that, it won't work. 

[old man emu]

I wonder how they can sort out absentee votes. For example, if you were from a Melbourne electorate, but were in Surfers Paradise on polling day and voted absentee there, how would your electorate get your ballot paper?

 

I couldn't say 'your vote' because it's a secret ballot so no one can tell who marked a particular ballot form.

[onetrack]

The process is quite detailed through every stage, and much effort is taken to ensure postal vote integrity and correct counting. I can't find Federal or NSW State procedures, but here's the QLD postal voting processes, and I presume all the other States, and the Federal count are carried out in a similar manner.

 

https://www.ecq.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0027/67464/Procedures-for-counting-of-absentee-votes-for-state-elections-and-referendums.pdf

[Jerry_Atrick]

Blimey.. it is 2 weeks since the election and we still have 9 seats in doubt. Geez, this preferential voting thing takes time 😉

 

To be honest, if you asked me before the election who was going to win, I would have probably said Labor, but in a minority government. How wrong was I? This appears to be a strong mandate from the community that it endorses Labor.. . Or is it?

 

The Liberal Party has a real issue around its disconnect with Australia - whether they like it or not, the bulk of the Aussie population either can't remember life up to and including the 80s, ot they prefer to forget it. They certainly don't want to be stuck in it. Also, Australians seem to be waking up to the fact that corporate sponsorship and raiding of the public finances doesn't trickle down as suspected, and that things like action on the environment and social justice is important. Sort of, anyway.

 

But, was this election a solid endorsement of Albo and the ALP? On the basis the preferential system allows you to specify who you would like to get into power, and if they don't succeed, who else you would want, let's look at the primary vote numbers first:

• ALP: 34.69% up by 2.11%
• LNP Coalition: 32.2% down by 3.49% (that was more or less attributable to the Libs)
• Greens: 11.8% down 0.45%
• Independents: 7.43% up by 2.14%
• One Nation: 6.29% up by 1.33%
• Trump of Patriots: 1.87% up by 1.48% (I have no idea where this came from)
• Other parties (no idea who they are): 5.71% up by 3.32%

There is still about 17% of the ballots to count, so the numbers can and probably will change, but let's assume they remain proportional.

 

Noticeably, the Greens have no seats in  the lower house anymore - lost all four of them despite maintaining roughly the same primary vote. Does this mean that most people fill out ther 2nd.. nth preference based on the instructions from the party the primarily vote for? Can the rusted on voters of any party put second the party they have vehemently opposed over the journey? Well, the numbers would say yes, I guess. Certainly that is the excuse the Greens are using, and it may be correct.

 

What is interesting is the marginal increase in the vote to each of the above. This is percent increase compated to the percent of the vote previously held. On that basis:

• ALP's marginal gain is 6.48%
• LNP's marginal loss is 9.78%
• Greens marginal loss is 3.67%
• Independents marginal gain is 40.45%
• One Nation's marginal gain is 26.81%
• Trump of Patriots' marginal gain is 379.49%
• Other Parties' (Centre alliance and Katters) marginal gain is 138.91%

First it shows the pwoer of money.. Why is Chumpettes of Patriots reported separately to other minor parties when they clearly have less absolute share of the vote as at least one of the other parties, of not both?

 

But itself it doesn't show much, but it would be interesting to see what the maginal changes to these parties have been over successive elections. It would be good to get the numbers of Libs/LNP versus NP, because the marginal drop would have been potentially much higher.  Of course, for the parties with a small percentage of the absolute vote, marginal changes will be much wilder on smaller absolute increases.

 

Look at Chumpettes of Patriarchs. I am not sure where their previous numbers came from as I was under the impression they were formed to contest this election. I guess they may have contested a by-election and used that. So, we should probably discount this as an outlier. But th fact is 1.5% of the population voted for them. All parties must be asking what on earth they are doign wrong to allow Chumpettes to gain that number of people - 267,402 at current count - to vote for a crazy party.

 

The independents have increased their share of the vote by 40% in this election despite Zoe Daniels losing her seat and Monique Ryan's in the balance. I am not sure about Goldstein, but the Kooyong (Monique Ryan) electroate was expanded to take in a chunk of Toorak, which has a high percentage of one-eyed Liberal voters, so this was not unexpected. If the Libs fielded a half-decent candidate, they may well have taken the choccies by now. This would seem to be a solid performance, but since independents as a force only came out in the last election, it is too early to tell if this will continue.

 

One Nation put in a solid performance increasing their share of the vote by almost 27%. They have been around for a while, so it is fair to say, they are gaining in popularity at a higher rate than movement of the major parties. So, like 'em or not, if it continues at that rate, they will be a force in politics in years to come, if they are not already.

 

Interestingly, the Other Parties (Centre Alliance and Katters) significantly increased theit sdhare of the vote relative to the last election. I am not sure how long they have been around, but between then, they scored 817k votes and have 2 seats in parliament. In this sitting, it weill not mean much, but that is a heft gain for incument minor parties.

 

So, what does this say? To me, it is not a ringing endorsement of the ALP.. It is more a defacto vote because of the major parties, the others are either losing, or no longer relevant. The greens are blaming the tactical preferences of Labor and Libs for their losses. That may well be the case. The small drop in the primary vote and marginal vote would suggest that their core base wasn't terribly phased by the Greens' position on Gaza nor housing and other issues. But either voters are sheep when it comes to allocating preferences or those that would have second preferenced them would be turned off a bit.. I can't see a rusted on Lib voter putting ALP second just by following the Lib's how to vote card. The Greens would have, in their eyes, be so unpalatable to vote ALP number 2. Though I have been suprised by less, I guess. I have to admit, I would have easily voted Greens last election, but not so much this election.. And it's not their dtand on Gaza.. It is their lack of governance, their blocking progress on housing, even if it didn't meet their demands, at least allow the ball to get rolling, and general behaviour, for me, led to a lack of confidence in their ability to be anything but a protest party blocking stuff, rather than fiunding practical compromises to move forward.

 

To the ALP.. No doubt, the 92 seats thus far was a completely unexpected win, even by the best modelling of the ALP. It is reported this was bigger than the 1983 Hawke win. However, what does it mean. Is it a ringing positive endorsement of the policies and performance of the ALP in government, or is it a flight to safety in the face of an unstable opposition that offered not much policy (and what it did, it often flip-flopped), culture/identity politics, and taking to the electorate increased taxes of the middle classes (the vote you need to win) and a bigger election deficit?

 

The Greens look to be holding the balance of power in the senate. It is going to be an interesting 3 years.

 

[onetrack]

Trumpet of Patriots was formed in 2021, but was unable to be registered in time for the 2022 election. As a result, many ToP candidates who had intended to contest for ToP, ran instead for the Australian Federation Party.

So the "previous election voting percentage" refers to the votes the AFP received in the 2022 election. In that election, the AFP received 0.39% of the votes for the Lower House and 0.22% of the votes for the Upper House. 

It's a total schemozzle (to quote Borat) of Party organisation, typical of Palmers inability to get anything right. I can only give thanks to the Almighty (and Palmers constant transparent BS), for sparing us the prospect of Palmer gaining any form of political clout.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpet_of_Patriots

[Marty_d]

Yeah I certainly wouldn't say it's a ringing endorsement for Labor.

It's made their job easier, that's for sure, but they'd be fools to become complacent and not read the tea leaves.

 

For example in my electorate of Franklin a NEW Independent, Peter George, got 42% of the 2 candidate preferred votes, on a platform of mainly shutting down the offshore salmon farms that are rooting the environment and spreading chunks of rotting salmon around the local beaches.

Labor has been one-eyed supporting the salmon industry, even though there's only about 26 jobs in it on the west coast from memory.  It'd be cheaper to give every employee half a mill to stop working for them than what the government has been spending to prop it up.

If Julie Collins (Labor) doesn't take notice of this and start gently steering Albo away from the salmon industry (remember Plibersek as Environment minister was doing her best to make a balanced decision on this but her review was stopped by legislation rushed through to protect the salmon farmers) - then next election Peter George may take more of a voting share, or even the seat.

 

It's exactly the same problem as beset the Libs and look what happened to them.  Those Teal independents won, and in general have retained the previously blue-chip LNP seats, exactly because they didn't listen to the electorate's concerns about the environment and still aren't.

[spacesailor]

I prefer " Tassie salmon "  to Vietnamese.  

Does anyone dispute this ! .

Not the cheapest,  but good .

spacesailor

[Marty_d]

1 hour ago, spacesailor said:

I prefer " Tassie salmon "  to Vietnamese.  

Does anyone dispute this ! .

Not the cheapest,  but good .

spacesailor

Not arguing that the product is good, but it's not done sustainably.

Huon Aquaculture recently lost their RSPCA certification and they were supposed to be the good one.

Just like mining - they need to do it in a way that doesn't f*ck the environment. Costs more of course but we have a "clean green" image down here which drives the tourist market and the fresh produce.  If we don't have that the state is stuffed, so it's nonsensical and short sighted of the government to support an unsustainable business model.

[nomadpete]

12 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

This appears to be a strong mandate from the community that it endorses Labor.. . Or is it?

 

I rather think it demonstrates the effective powerful anti-green, minor party &independents. lobby.

 

Combined with a general lack of understanding of how to vote under the line. IE, how to use your preferences.

 

 

Edited Sunday at 09:35 PM by nomadpete

[nomadpete]

A lot of folk might just have put Libs last, lower than the minors and the nuts.

Which would make the minors get a better % compared to last election.  But all the voter is saying is "anything but Dutton".

[Jerry_Atrick]

Looks like the Greens have got themselves a seat after all, according to the ABC, but the SMH is still reporting in doubt. Have found the SMH/Age is usually a little behind the ABC. The ABC is also calling Kooying to Monique Ryan, but it still has to be too close to call with 9.4% of the vote to count and only aan 885 vote (0.8%) lead.

[red750]

Sussan Ley first female leader of LNP.

[facthunter]

She's the Leader of what's left of the Liberals. The LNP is a Qld thing. The NP still  has Littleproud as their Leader. Canavan had a shot at it but I don't get how a Senator can be the Leader. Nev

[Grumpy Old Nasho]

The curse is getting into their political soul. One of the ways they can avoid further erosion is to kneel down and make a very sincere and public apology to all the remaining 60s conscripts. The longer they leave it, the worse it will be for them.

[octave]

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8140203/we-are-so-sorry-pm-apologises-to-vietnam-veterans/

[spacesailor]

Yes , my relo, who served in the army is now homeless.  I don't think I/we will hear anything

From him . And don't know how to get in touch. 

My own younger brother,  has disappeared off the face of the world . Ex navy .

So I do sympathise with the ex servicemen in Australia. 

spacesailor

[Jerry_Atrick]

Sadly, who knew about this ceremony? I doubt there would be too many people in the street you meet that would know, let alone give a rat's posterior. While I would wager they got in touch with as many vets as possible, sometimes the healing starts from wider recognition. Why was this not really picked up by the MSM?

[onetrack]

GON makes the point continually, that it's conscripts he wants a Govt apology made to - not Veterans. He's aggrieved that conscripts who stayed in Australia are ignored to a large degree, while Veterans receive preferential treatment, in GON's eyes.

 

But he fails to understand that Veterans who served in a War zone, placed their lives on the line daily, whereas conscripts who stayed in Australia, stayed safe, and faced virtually no threat to their lives.

 

The conscripts who stayed in Australia had enjoyable weekends spent in civilian life, partying and finding girlfriends and partners - the servicemen in Vietnam in bases, only got Sunday afternoons off, with no time outside the camp or secure compound, and they got one day a month off for R&R in places such as the Badcoe Club in Vung Tau.

Every 6 mths, they got a break for a week, when they could return to Australia, or go to friendly countries such as Thailand, Taiwan, or Hong Kong.

 

And the servicemen in the combat patrols got no rest at all, every minute of every hour of the day and night, the enemy was planning to kill or maim them.

They went out on patrol for 3 weeks at a time and wore the same clothes day in and day out, and the only body washing you did was out of a water bottle, or a reasonably-clean-looking creek - and it was the old infantry "ABC wash" - slather a tiny amount of water around (under) Arm, Bum and Crotch. It was mostly to stop the enemy from smelling you.

At the end of the 3 weeks, on return to base, the greens (clothing) that were worn on patrol, were thrown in the bin. They were essentially rotten.

 

Even those of us who weren't in combat units still had to do jobs such as night piquetting of the compound, and carrying out Standing Patrols. On a Standing Patrol, you go outside the "wire" (the secure compound fencing) with a 3 man patrol, and set up a Listening Post, watching for enemy movement, and reporting by radio on anything you see that rates as suspicious. You only have your rifle, no other armament. With 3 men in a Patrol, you get 4 hrs on watch, and 8 hrs sleep, over a 12 hr Patrol period.

Naturally, you have no protection if you just happen to be overrun by enemy while on a Standing Patrol, you're just told to "make your way back to the compound as best you can". 

 

The Govts approach, differentiating between civilian service, and overseas service in a War zone, is the attitude and policy towards Veterans, that has been in place ever since Australia sent servicemen overseas to War zones, and nothing is going to change it.

 

https://www.au104.org/Veteran_Stories/vetstory89.html

 

And I might add, I worked and camped on Courtenay Hill, so the above Vets story resonates with me. I had a day job as a Military Engineer, doing construction work, and at all times, you could be caught up in unexpected combat.

If GON had spent some time in a War zone, he might have a different appreciation of how easy conscripts in Australia had it.

[Jerry_Atrick]

That was definitely imformative - thanks OT!

[old man emu]

I agree with Onetrack about the Nashos who did not go to Vietnam. My wife's first husband was given an exemption because his father was dying. He served his time in a transport base at Holdsworthy and was able to come home every night when he wasn't away transporting stuff. His time wasn't stressful. 

 

I have a mate who actually was a Reg in the engineers. He did his stint in Vietnam. I really haven't broached the subject of his service with him, but I can say that he is getting counselling, provided by DVA.

[Grumpy Old Nasho]

57 minutes ago, onetrack said:

But he fails to understand that Veterans who served in a War zone, placed their lives on the line daily, whereas conscripts who stayed in Australia, stayed safe, and faced virtually no threat to their lives.

Something like 200 lost their lives in car accidents, probably asleep at the wheel, trying to get back to camp on time. I went to sleep but woke up in time, on the wrong side of the road, traveling down to Melbourne from Sydney.

[spacesailor]

Not quite right .

Conscripted Australians were forced to fight in Vietnam. 

Andrew Peakock, ( minister of the army) announced later , ( the following week ) .

" no National Service men , would be required to go to,Vietnam, 

" those already there would be brought home if they wanted to " .

spacesailor

 

Edited 6 hours ago by spacesailor
A little more

[onetrack]

Spacey, the truth is a little more nuanced. Not all conscripts in the AMF (Australian Military Forces) were "forced to fight in Vietnam". Conscripts placed with Infantry Battalions were sent to Vietnam, when their Battalion was sent there, without them being personally asked if they wanted to go - all other conscripts had to volunteer to serve in Vietnam. If they were placed in Infantry when conscripted, they would have known this fact.

 

All conscripts were given a choice of Corps they preferred to be allocated to, and most got their choice of Corps. Most conscripts who had trade skills or other qualifications, were placed with Corps that could use their skills. Only those with low skills levels, or skills that had no application in the Army, were allocated to the Infantry Corps.

 

I was a conscript and went into the RAE (Royal Australian Engineers), and I volunteered to go to Vietnam, and was sent there accordingly, as a reinforcement.

 

I think GON is basing his argument on the 2013 SMH article below, written by a conscript who believes he was mistreated, and who does raise some points as regards conscripts entitlements, that should be addressed.

 

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/conscription-was-an-abuse-20130118-2cz0x.html

 

As to 200 conscripts losing their lives on the roads whilst in the Army, I think this figure may be overstated. 200 conscripts were killed in Vietnam service - but no figures on conscripts deaths on the roads in Australia during the conscription period can be found, because they're lumped in with the total road toll.

I must admit I was somewhat amazed to find the National Road Toll hung around 3,500 deaths annually in the late 1960's and early 1970's. In the same vein, I personally know of several Vietnam Veterans who were killed in road crashes AFTER they came home from the Vietnam War.

 

https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/migrated/roads/safety/publications/1998/pdf/Stats_Aust_8.pdf