Night time politics
- We finish where we began. Grassroots is as grassroots does. Cory Bernardi is starting a cross-party political movement Australians Conservatives through his website, asking people to sign up. He insists he is not leaving the Liberal party but wants a grassroots conservative movement. A number of Liberals have suggested to me in the past 24 hours that they need something to counter the unions and GetUp. Is it this or is it a foundation for a Cory party? Cory says nope nope nope. He wants to work from within the Liberal party.
- Grassroots 2: The Nats, via an external consultant’s report reported in The Oz, are claiming their grassroots campaign was tops when compared with the Liberals. There seems to be some question over the report because neither Barnaby Joyce’s office nor senior National Darren Chester know about it. But it was instructive that the Nationals’ president Larry Anthony came out to make the contrast between the two parties. That would suggest that it was a strategic play for the party organisation - as opposed to the parliamentary wing. I put in a call to the organisation but it was not returned.
- Treasurer Scott Morrison backed up the prime minister’s point this morning that the Medicare campaign run by Labor took hold because of previous (broken) promises by the Coalition on health.
- Recriminations within the Liberal party continued today. Canning MP Andrew Hastie criticised the Liberal’s national campaign and its pollster Mark Textor. He called on Malcolm Turnbull to have a party room meeting to get feedback from MPs before he makes any deal with the independents.
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A One Nation WA senate candidate Rod Culleton may not be eligible if the party wins the seat as he is awaiting sentencing for a criminal offence in New South Wales. If he does not take up the seat, his brother in law is number two and his wife is number three on the ticket.
That’s your lot for today. Thanks to my brains trust, Paul Karp, Gareth Hutchens, Katharine Murphy, Greg Jericho and Helen Davidson. Thanks for your company and we shall continue blogging with the vote continues. That means I will be here tomorrow.
Goodnight.
Tony Abbott has been doorstopped.
According to the ABC’s Andrew Greene, Abbott was lunching in Canberra with the federal director, Tony Nutt. Abbott told the ABC he was confident that the Coalition would form government.
Q: Do you think you might have done better with you in the top job?
It is important for all of us to look forward, not backwards. I will certainly not speculate on that. The important thing now is that we have the best possible government with the strongest possible program, and obviously, that is a Malcolm Turnbull Coalition government.
Q: Would it benefit having you on the frontbench? Do you have skills to bring?
I will not speculate on who might be on the frontbench of a return government. As I have said throughout this campaign, I am running to be the member for Warringah. I am extremely grateful to the people of Warringah for giving me their trust yet again. I am very disappointed for the good colleagues who will no longer be with us in this parliament.
Updated
The NT chief minister is brushing off the continued talk around his government being to blame for the Coalition losing both federal seats on Saturday.
Ahead of the Territory election in August, Adam Giles has picked up on the “Mediscare” backlash, and tried to ward off an NT Labor trip down the same campaign path with accusations the CLP will privatise the PowerWater company.
Giles has taken to Facebook, and put a call out for help with a hashtag (despite having a highly paid social media manager).
We need a new name for the Labor lies around Power and Water and any ideas of a sale. Now some people are talking about #pooscare, some are talking about #electrifright, but I know Australians and Territorians can come up with a much better name.
A privatisation scare campaign from NT Labor may gain more traction than its federal counterpart. The NT government has actually privatised a few things during its term, and some of them, in particular the sale of the Territory Insurance Office, have been pretty unpopular.
Sewerage will remain in government hands. No shit. Power & Water won’t be sold. #pooscare #mediscare https://t.co/TO0aaZDehc
— Adam Giles (@adamgiles) July 6, 2016
Updated
Bill Shorten is asked whether Labor would put a separate marriage bill to bypass the plebiscite bill.
We think there should be a vote in the parliament. Everything Malcolm seems to have a tricky idea on seems to turn to mud. Malcolm Turnbull should go back to the old Malcolm Turnbull. I think more Australians like that. He knows the best options for this parliament and for Australia is to have a conscience vote in the parliament in this term, we’re up for that. I think that we need less division in our society and more unity.
ABC correspondent.
Would love to have been a fly on the wall as @tony_nutt and @TonyAbbottMHR sat down to lunch in Canberra today...
— Andrew Greene (@AndrewBGreene) July 6, 2016
Discuss.
If Bernardi formed his own party and all the RWNJs went with him, Mal could put up policies that Labor could support 😏
— Paula Matthewson (@Drag0nista) July 6, 2016
Cory Bernardi: I am not leaving the Liberal party
The Coalition is nursing cuts and bruises after the weekend election result, but at least one Liberal appears to be having the time of his life: Cory Bernardi.
I’ve just had a short conversation with the Liberal senator who has lead the public recriminations from conservatives since voters gave the government the thumbs down last weekend.
Cory Bernardi insists he is not leaving the Liberal party but says he is intent on establishing a grassroots movement to unite conservative voters. He’s been saying since Sunday that the Coalition has been captured by fringe issues and needs to return to a conservative agenda.
Bernardi told Guardian Australia on Wednesday he was n-o-t leaving the Liberal party. “My intention is to make the Liberal party stronger.”
Unity. Liberty. Fraternity. Something like that, anyway.
Updated
Bill Shorten praises the Australian Electoral Commission.
I want to acknowledge the work of the AEC and all the vote counters. They’re doing the best they can. Postal votes are still to be counted, absentee votes to be processed. We live in a marvellous country where we settle our differences at the ballot box. I’m patient. I understand Australians want to know the outcome. Trust me, I do too, but I recognise the process is complicated and votes have to be counted.
Updated
Bill Shorten says the last Coalition budget won’t stand the test of parliamentary scrutiny.
The government and some MPs are running away from Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership and openly undermining him. I think Labor’s promises and platform would provide a good platform for work in the 45th parliament. We will keep pushing for a royal commission into the banks. We believe it’s appropriate to have a parliamentary vote on marriage equality and we think it is long overdue to take proper action on climate change.
Updated
Shorten is asked about the importance of the vote in Tasmania.
I have no doubt on the Saturday night passed, as the results came in from Tasmanian polling booths the nation sat up and thought maybe, just maybe, Mr Turnbull’s confidence was misplaced but he had this election in the bag three weeks ago as he arrogantly declared.
Bill Shorten arrives. He is in Tasmania.
If Mr Turnbull does scrape home, his problems have only just begun. In the House of Representatives, he’ll be hostage to Mr Abbott and the rightwing of the Liberal party and in the Senate he’ll be hostage to Senator Hanson elect and other rightwing senators in the Senate.
Updated
Australian Electoral Commissioner: look at the facts Daily Tele
Tom Rogers, AEC Commissioner, is over all the criticism. He has put out a statement.
I strongly refute several assertions made in the Daily Telegraph editorial titled ‘Need for speed in democracy of 21st century’. The author’s statement that the count is proceeding ‘at an apparently glacial pace’ is incorrect: the AEC counted over a million votes yesterday (a mix of new votes added to the count and a further check of votes already counted), and this was just one crucial step of the AEC’s conduct of the largest, most complex election in Australia’s history.
I take my role as the electoral commissioner extremely seriously; as an independent statutory officer I protect, defend and support the processes that ensure the will of the Australian people is accurately recorded.
Anyone who has an issue with the Electoral Act is absolutely able to raise it with the Australian parliament, and I suggest this would be more productive than criticising the hard work of the many thousands of ordinary Australians who are delivering the election ...
He continues on in that vein with a series of facts. But his main point is this is L-A-W.
Updated
Dear conservative reader, Cory Bernardi needs you
The South Australian Liberal senator has sent an appeal to conservatives via his blog. It is more of the same analysis that we have seen over the past few days plus an appeal to his followers. He wants a cross-party movement – presumably to build a base for a new party if he so desires. Will he resign and launch into the minor party constellation? I will let you be the judge. We shall also put in a call to him.
It’s a disaster.”
They’re the words many conservatives use to begin their election analysis. And they’re right, when you consider the national interest and the possible implication of a hung parliament and an even more fragmented Senate.
Even though the results are not yet finalised, it looks unlikely that either party will be able to form government in their own right. In effect, we are right back where we were in 2010, with the party roles reversed. We shouldn’t really be surprised when the same chain of events took place during a popularly elected first-term government.
In my youth I was told that the definition of madness was doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. That axiom has borne out once again.
However, the votes have been cast and there isn’t much we can do about it now except learn from the experience. The Australian people have spoken and basically said that neither side of politics is doing a good enough job to secure their trust. Accordingly they have parked their vote with minor parties and independents.
As of writing, over 1.7 million votes were cast for right-of-centre or conservative parties rather than the Liberal party. From my perspective, that was the Liberal base expressing their unhappiness with past events.
Irrespective of the final election result, the clear mission now is to bring people together for the good of the country. That is going to take the formalisation of a broad conservative movement to help change politics and to give common sense a united voice.
With that in mind, I’d ask all of you to read and consider my address to the National Press Club about this subject in 2014. You can do so at my website by clicking here. I hope you will agree that the words and sentiments are even more relevant today.
It’s more important than ever that we unite Australian Conservatives, who share many views, regardless of their party affiliation. If you believe in limited government, traditional values, defending our culture and heritage, lower taxes, a stronger nation, a stronger economy and plain old common sense, then you have a lot in common with millions of others.
Now is the time to gather together. You can help kick start the movement by going towww.conservatives.org.au and registering your interest.
It’s the next step in making sure our voice is never taken for granted again.
Updated
Update: Shorten coming out at 2.15pm now...
NSW Greens MLC Mehreen Faruqi has written a really good op-ed for Guardian on One Nation.
While tapping into many populist concerns, such as foreign ownership and the loss of Australian jobs to migrants, One Nation’s key policy platform was explicitly anti-Muslim: a ban on Muslim immigration, an inquiry or royal commission into Islam, a ban on the building of mosques and a ban on halal certification. Certainly some voted One Nation “as a means of raising a middle digit in the direction of the parliamentary triangle”, but the fact is that One Nation has a clear policies on Islam and halal certification, but no position one way or the other on education, health or the environment.
As an Australian Muslim, I am surprised it took this long for Islamophobic groups to cross into the mainstream. Any Muslim will tell you of the vitriol they face for speaking out online, and the blame they are apportioned in the aftermath of terrorist incidents (I’m certainly bracing myself for more “Love letters to Mehreen” – a Facebook page I launched as a way of exposing and combatting the racial and sexist hate that comes my way.)
At this election, there were at least five political parties with policies against Muslims running, including One Nation, the Australian Liberty Alliance and Rise Up Australia. At least three others were intending to run, but appear not to have been registered in time.
These are not all fringe groups shunned by the establishment. One of them, Fred Nile’s Christian Democratic Party, which prominently ran on banning halal food certification, received the Liberals and Nationals’ second and third preferences in a number of key Senate and lower house electorates.
Faruqi blames dog whistling by Cory Bernardi and George Christensen and “the silent complicity of their leaders”. She
If one positive thing comes out of the election of One Nation MPs, it is that at least the cat is out of the bag. Racist and Islamophobic behaviours can no longer be written off as a fringe part of Australian life, or simply Muslims being oversensitive.
Shouting at One Nation voters won’t help, but finally acknowledging the uncomfortable reality that discrimination and racism against Muslims does exist in our society would be a step towards stamping it out. Creating a broad coalition of supporters of multiculturalism and diversity in our community would be the next essential move.
Updated
Bill Shorten is coming up from Tasmania. He was due at 1.30pm.
One Nation in hot water in WA
Grant Taylor and Andrew Tillett report in the West Australian:
Doubts have been cast over whether WA’s leading One Nation candidate will be able to take up a Senate seat following revelations he is awaiting sentencing for a criminal offence in New South Wales.
Court records show that Rod Culleton - who is considered likely to pick up one of the last undecided seats in WA - failed to appear at a hearing on a charge of larceny in New South Wales on March 2 and was subsequently convicted in his absence.
A warrant was also issued by the court requiring him to appear for sentencing which he is yet to comply with.
The Australian Constitution clearly states that anyone awaiting sentencing or currently serving a sentence for a crime that carries more than 12 months in prison is unable to take up a seat in Federal Parliament.
Culleton remains in the box seat for the last spot in the WA senate. But if he loses the spot, One Nation gets to nominate a replacement. From the story:
University of WA politics expert William Bowe said if Mr Culleton was excluded from the Senate, it would likely fall to One Nation leader Paul Hanson to choose his replacement from among the other candidates who ran on the party’s ticket.
Mr Culleton’s brother-in law Peter Georgiou was number two on the ticket and his wife Ionna Culleton was number three.
@gabriellechan Some more detail. One Nation's cut and paste climate policy! https://t.co/KCN9SQLbbp pic.twitter.com/sDFt3n01dA
— Graham Readfearn (@readfearn) July 6, 2016
Lunch time politics
Where are we up to?
- The National party is thumping its chest over its election results in an unnamed report by a “key external strategist”. Confirming it was a strategic leak, National party president Larry Anthony, rarely sighted in media, did a fulsome interview for ABC 24 on the great success. The Liberal party is not amused.
- Scott Morrison has admitted – in not so many words – that the Medicare campaign took hold due to previous (broken) commitments after the 2013 campaign. He still thinks the Coalition is on track to form majority government.
- The Liberal party is continuing its recriminations. MPs and unnamed sources are not only piling on Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Nutt, but now pollster Mark Textor had been added to the flagellation list.
-
Natasha Griggs in Solomon has finally conceded defeat.
- The count continues. Long live the count.
Updated
Back to the National party. Larry Anthony summed up the campaign thus:
We were under significant threat. There has never been a greater time – particularly our leader, against independents in New England – we had a curve ball coming in with the independent Rob Oakeshott in Cowper. It was going to the core of the Nationals. We fought that off and maintained the seat of Page which was under significant threat. A lot of it was campaigning on the local issues. When the Medicare scare campaign came up, we made sure we used our own creative, our own talent, to produce the necessary response to that outright lie.
There are a couple of points to make about the National party muscling up today.
The first point to note is the National party’s campaign was strong and obviously effective, notwithstanding Flynn and Capricornia still hanging in the balance. Damien Drum picked up Murray from the retiring Liberal in a three-cornered contest.
The second point is that the Nats ran more local but also more negative campaigns on the ground. So there was that contrast with the Liberals.
The third point is while they held off independents in New England and Cowper, huge resources were sent into those seats and huge $ promises were made, particularly in New England. At this stage of counting in that seat, Tony Windsor got a primary vote of 30%. In Cowper Rob Oakeshott got a vote of 26.5%, running just weeks out from the polling date - just days before the pre-polling started – and in a seat where he had not been known.
All of which, in my opinion, suggests the Nats did well but they would not want to get too complacent. Bush seats are becoming more marginal and I think that trend will continue.
Updated
Just rolling up our sleeves...
On my way with @ScottMorrisonMP to discuss economic developments with Reserve Bank Governor Glenn Stevens pic.twitter.com/OUWlxdlJRn
— Malcolm Turnbull (@TurnbullMalcolm) July 6, 2016
This is good.
God this made me laugh https://t.co/2rk9FlCpAF
— Annabel Crabb (@annabelcrabb) July 6, 2016
A movie star vents.
Pauline Hanson can say whatever she wants, and she does. Doesn't stop it being racist, ugly, dangerous, ignorant, stupid, embarrassing crap.
— Sam Neill (@TwoPaddocks) July 5, 2016
Matt Hatter always sums it up in one picture.
@gabriellechan I do enjoy watching political parties calmly reflecting on the outcome of a close election. #auspol pic.twitter.com/i0Rr0F7khg
— The Matt Hatter (@MattGlassDarkly) July 6, 2016
Liberal Andrew Hastie calls for party room meeting and a say in any indies deal
Over at Fairfax, Nathan Hondros has been speaking to Andrew Hastie, the Canning MP who won the byelection when Tony Abbott lost his leadership. He is more an Abbott kinda guy though and he has more free advice for Malcolm Turnbull.
“If we’re going to go negotiate with the independents, then I have to represent the people who elected me, so my voice has to be heard.”
Hastie didn’t think much of the national campaign and he was flummoxed by a question from a father of five over his kids’ future.
I struggled to answer. It was at that point I realised that a lot of what we were campaigning on nationally just wasn’t resonating with everyday Australians. He couldn’t understand the reason for company tax cuts, he wasn’t earning enough to benefit from the increased tax thresholds and he wasn’t an innovator – he was just an everyday Australian who was trying to pay down his mortgage and look after his children and ensure they had a brighter future.
He also joined the pile on party pollster Mark Textor.
Look, I can’t speak for Mark Textor, but I’d love to ask him if he’s ever been to Canning and spoken to one of my electors because certainly there was a disconnect between the campaign nationally and what I did on the ground and I essentially ran my own show.
I did the political field work – I went out and knocked doors and spoke to as many people as I could and the more I did that the more of a disconnect I sensed between the voters and what we were campaigning on.
Updated
Nationals prez: we are more pragmatic and offer more common sense than Libs
Larry Anthony is a former minister, whose father was a former party leader and his grandfather was a minister. He held the seat of Richmond, held by his father and grandfather, until 2004 when he lost to Labor’s Justine Elliott, who still holds the seat.
I think the narrative that we have been talking consistently, and our leader has, is infrastructure. Infrastructure or nation-building projects. Whether it is inland rail, whether it is producing more dams because water provides opportunity. It is whether it is improved communication, so it is generating national projects that create economic activity which ultimately provides those jobs in the regions and also in the capital cities. I think the other thing with the Nats, which has always been the case for many decades, is we do provide a balance in the Coalition. We are the junior party with the Liberal party but in some ways we are more pragmatic, offer more commonsense and we complement each other very well.
Updated
The federal president of the National party, Larry Anthony, is talking to Greg Jennett on the ABC. His prediction is that there are still two seats in Queensland (Flynn and Capricornia) that are in doubt.
Can I make the first point, we did campaign differently to our Liberal party Coalition partners. It was very much grassroots. It is very much decentralise and focusing on a local message. There was strong leadership from Barnaby and very good management by our state divisions, particularly in NSW, Victoria and the LNP in Queensland.
That is why we have been able to maintain our position, which has been remarkable. Hopefully the government, the Coalition, will be able to form a government but again, as we all know, the vote is still continuing. If we can, you will see a more assertive National party. It will be sensible, working in coalition with the Liberal party and a lot of the key portfolios that I imagine Barnaby is looking at. Those portfolios that affect regional people, which is in agriculture, transport and other portfolios also. We have a long way to go.
Updated
Even a Labor govt would be better than a hung parliament, the PM conceded on Kitchen Cabinet. Hmmm pic.twitter.com/KBui8Aj2LL
— Annabel Crabb (@annabelcrabb) July 6, 2016
Pauline Hanson would have won under the old system
If Pauline Hanson were to have polled the same vote in Queensland as she did at a half-Senate election conducted under the old system, she would have been very likely to win anyway.
It is true that Malcolm Turnbull’s decision to call a double dissolution has helped One Nation win additional seats, as it has helped other small parties. But a double dissolution wasn’t a necessary consequence of Senate reform – in hindsight it is clear that Turnbull would have been better placed to fix the voting system and then tolerate his existing crossbench until their terms expired in 2019. The double dissolution enhanced One Nation’s performance, but it is not the cause of Hanson’s election.
The election of Pauline Hanson shouldn’t obscure the reality that Senate voting reform has largely achieved its purpose.
Before Senate voting reform, many voters didn’t understand where their vote was going, and it was difficult to cast a formal vote using preferences that you decided. It was also possible for parties with an extremely small vote to overtake many bigger parties and win seats off preferences from voters who had never heard of them.
This problem has been thoroughly solved. We don’t yet know how many preferences will flow, but we do know that the preferences will reflect the decisions of individual votes.
We can roughly predict that the minor parties that win seats will be those who win more votes than other minor parties, and if a party overtakes another on preferences it will be off a sizeable primary vote of their own.
Despite a lot of commentary suggesting otherwise, Senate reform wasn’t designed to stop minor parties from being elected, and it hasn’t. The proportional voting system still makes it possible for small parties to get elected.
This would even be true if this election weren’t a double dissolution – Pauline Hanson, Derryn Hinch, Jacqui Lambie, Nick Xenophon and many Greens candidates would have likely been elected if each state were only electing six senators.
Re throwing someone under a bus.
The Australian needs to work out which backbiting, venomous Liberal source we should believe. It can't decide. pic.twitter.com/SA4imLUGC0
— Bernard Keane (@BernardKeane) July 5, 2016
Griggs: leaving it to the political cognoscenti
Outgoing Coalition MP for Solomon, Natasha Griggs, has finally conceded defeat in her Northern Territory seat.
Griggs saw a primary vote swing of more than 10% against her in Saturday’s federal election, but had been waiting on postal votes to come in before publicly accepting the success of ALP candidate Luke Gosling.
On Tuesday the president of the NT Country Liberal party released a statement, conceding that even with favourable postal votes it would be impossible for Griggs to claim victory.
Late yesterday Griggs released a statement.
“I delayed conceding Solomon until after the final count of postal votes but I acknowledge the electorate has shifted to the Labor party.
I will leave analysis of the reasons for this to the political cognoscenti but a very clear message has been sent by the electorate and it is a message that I will study very closely in the coming days, weeks and months.
I am honoured to have had the opportunity to serve the people of Darwin and Palmerston, communities that have been mine and my family’s home for more than 20 years and that are very dear to my heart.”
Griggs said she was proud of what she had achieved in her six years, including securing funding for local infrastructure projects “during a period of considerable budget restraint”, helping individual constituents with their concerns and problems, and crossing the floor in 2010 to vote against a nuclear waste dump site at Tennant Creek – “a decision that has been vindicated with time”.
She said she ran the best campaign she could “in difficult circumstances”. Following the result she and others had laid blame for the swing against the CLP at local dissatisfaction with the NT government.
Updated
Someone has to be thrown under bus
Just on the tenure of the stories appearing now. We are four days in with the election hangover and there is a tussle within the government about who is to blame. Stories are contradictory, everyone has a theory and not many are happy to be named.
Senior sources are everywhere and nowhere. The key roles played by the Liberal state director, Tony Nutt, and pollster Mark Textor are up for discussion as the MPs flail around looking for someone to blame.
The thing to remember is everyone (in politics) is trying to cover their backsides.
This is a story by Sarah Martin and Mathew Denholm: Anger as Tony Nutt and Mark Textor savaged.
Liberal party campaign director Tony Nutt has come under fire from state branches for not including them in Malcolm Turnbull’s election strategy, saying mistakes could have been avoided if he had been more consultative.
MPs from NSW also hit out at the quality of internal polling being used by Mr Nutt from pollster Mark Textor, with severe swings against the government reportedly not detected in key Sydney seats, or not communicated to MPs on the ground.
“They never asked what we were hearing on the ground, and they weren’t listening when we tried to tell them,” one MP said. Another said it was in stark contrast to the “slick” mechanics of Labor’s campaign.
A senior party source said there was “white hot anger” about the quality of the campaign, and the team behind the disastrous result needed to be held accountable, with Mr Textor singled out for blame.
“He obviously got it wrong, and someone has to be thrown under the bus for this,” one said.
Compare and contrast with this, by Sharri Markson: Liberals hit Packer for donation.
At CHQ there was, in turn, frustration that Malcolm Turnbull was not listening to the advice of pollster Mark Textor, who ran successful campaigns for Boris Johnson and David Cameron, and Nutt — favouring that of his travelling team, Sally Cray, Brad Burke and other new confidants like Scott Ryan and James McGrath, and, to a lesser extent, Mitch Fifield and Kelly O’Dwyer.
“Do you think Textor and Nutt would have agreed that science and innovation was the most throbbing issue affecting the country? Do you think Textor’s research showed that start-ups and incubators were a big issue in western Sydney?”
Experienced heads are said to have urged Turnbull to take urgent action on Labor’s Mediscare campaign. From the start, it was clear that it was biting.
But, misreading the potency of the campaign, the feedback to CHQ was to stop overreacting, it was just “silly old Bob [Hawke]”, and there was no need to panic.
It was days before a co-ordinated response was rolled out.
“There was clearly a disconnect between Textor and Malcolm’s coterie. Malcolm’s core group didn’t think it (Medicare) was a big problem early on,” a senior party source said.
Confused? You should be.
Updated
Bill Shorten continues his victory lap tour. Today he is off to Tassie to meet new members. The guy can’t stop campaigning.
Seat counts part 2.
Gareth Hutchens has rounded up the seats here.
Our election analyst Ben Raue has posted on his own blog the following tally.
This is from Ben’s post:
We saw a small amount of counting yesterday, but we should be able to narrow the list of undecided seats.
When I last posted, I listed 17 seats as in some doubt. This included 13 conventional Labor-Coalition races, plus Grey and Cowper, where we were waiting on a two-candidate-preferred count, Melbourne Ports where Labor is at a small risk of coming third and losing the seat, and Batman which is a reasonably conventional Labor-Greens race.
Seat summary
I still haven’t called the following seats:
- Coalition leading: Cowper, Grey, Chisholm, Dunkley
- Labor leading: Melbourne Ports, Cowan, Hindmarsh
- Coalition likely to take lead: Flynn
- Extremely tight: Forde, Herbert, Gilmore, Capricornia
And I have called these
- Called for Labor: Batman,
- Called for Coalition: Dickson, La Trobe, Petrie, Robertson
So this brings the total to:
- 68 – Coalition
- 65 – Labor
- 5 – Coalition likely to win
- 3 – Labor likely to win
- 5 – Others
- 4 – Extremely tight
In this case, if the Coalition wins all the seats they are leading in, they need to win three out of four of Forde, Herbert, Gilmore and Capricornia to get a majority – they are currently leading in one.
Morrison: we are on track to majority government
The treasurer remains confident.
We will go forward with our legislation plan for the budget, certainly if we return as a majority government and we are still on track to form those 76 seats that would be needed to form a majority government
Morrison was asked whether he took responsibility given so much was based on the “economic plan”.
I take full responsibility for the budget we brought down and we were the superior economic manager, presented to this election and that was reinforced by private and public polling alike.
Morrison: on economics, the Coalition were "far and away" the preferred alternative
Morrison is asked about his economic plan.
Q: There is a reason why we are still talking about this three days, four days after the election. This result is hardly a ringing endorsement of your economic plan you took to the electorate?
To the contrary, as I said, on the issue of economics, the Coalition were by far and away the preferred alternative. What happened during the course of the last week or so of the campaign is Labor using their usual tactics of ringing people in the middle of the night and the text messages and that matter is still under investigation. All of this was done to distract the campaign away from the issues of economic management because when it came to economic management, Labor had no case, they had no show on that side of things. That’s why the immediate scare campaign was run.
Morrison is asked: the Australian Medical Association said they had advised you to end the Medicare rebate freeze. Will you do it?
We will work through these issues. That remains our policy and that’s what’s in the budget. We need to make sure these things are affordable, Michael.
They extended the freeze in the budget. It was to go to 2018. They extended it to 2020 in the 2016 budget. So on that basis, I can guess he can say the government will end the freeze. In the future.
Scott Morrison is asked whether he will have to break up the tax package in order to pass it.
He says:
We are always facing a senate, no-one was expecting anyone to get a majority in the senate. It’s possible in the new senate there are fewer moving parts, albeit more cross benchers but fewer moving parts. We will have to negotiate that through practically.
Scott Morrison is asked: your $50bn company tax cut plan is effectively dead now, isn’t it?
I don’t know why you would suggest that. We haven’t formed a Parliament yet. The budget is there.
Based on a survey of members, it is highly unlikely the government will get the higher end of the tax package through - that is for cuts for businesses with turnovers more than $10m.
Scott Morrison: broken promises allowed Medicare campaign to take hold
Morrison has spoken to ABC AM this morning.
This is significant. Here’s the question.
Q: The fertile ground that the PM talked about yesterday that allowed the Medicare campaign to get so much traction, that was the 2014 budget, wasn’t it?
Here is the answer:
There were some very serious issues there which I think they drew on in the campaign and pointed to in the campaign and some commitments that were made around that before the last election and what unfolded after that, that is what happened. But that to one side, it doesn’t make Labor’s lie any less of a lie Michael.
That was Morrison’s version. Yesterday the PM called it “fertile ground”.
There was some fertile ground in which that grotesque lie could be sown.
He was not talking about the grass behind Tony Abbott.
Morgon: 51% of voters prefer Turnbull, compared to 47% for Shorten
In a poll measuring preferred prime minister, opposition leader Bill Shorten has recorded a 23 point surge days after the inconclusive election result that could result in a hung parliament.
According to the Morgan SMS poll conducted on Tuesday, Malcolm Turnbull is the preferred prime minister of 51% of voters, compared to 47% for Shorten.
This is a small decrease for Turnbull, down 6% from the last Morgan poll in May, but a large increase of 23% for Shorten.
Turnbull is clearly preferred to Tony Abbott leading him as preferred Liberal leader by 71% to 25%. Turnbull is preferred by 60% to 38% among LNP supporters.
In contrast, shadow infrastructure minister Anthony Albanese is narrowly preferred to Shorten as better Labor leader by 49% to 48%. However, Labor supporters clearly prefer Shorten (64%) to Albanese (35%).
Rowan Ramsey has been speaking on Radio National after the count of postal and absentee votes have boosted him into a 2,100 vote lead over the Nick Xenophon Team’s Andrea Broadfoot in the South Australian seat of Grey. But Ramsey explained he is not claiming victory as only 20% of the booths have been recounted since it became clear the result was between him and the Xenophon candidate.
The indications are very good, but there are a whole swag of results coming out of the Upper Spencer [including Whyalla, Port Pirie and Port Augusta], the epicentre of the effects of the drawback of the resources industry, where we’ve had the job losses.”
Ramsey said he did see the tight result coming, because Xenophon is the “number one marketer and draws an enormous amount of free publicity”.
He paints himself as a non-politician but he is, as you well know, he’s probably the most consummate politician of all in Australia.
When asked if the Coalition should have matched Labor’s $100m commitment to Arrium Ramsey said the Coalition had done what Arrium’s administrator, Mark Mentha, had asked for. Arrium has already reached break-even point and benefication work already promised will make it profitable, he said.
After that point you have to start asking the question: how much more taxpayers’ money do we pump into as-yet undisclosed and unknown international, overseas investor when perhaps enough has already been done?
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Good morning, grassroots is as grassroots does
We have all watched the ignominy of Malcolm Turnbull’s fall. But you may have noticed the deputy prime minister looking pretty relaxed on the sidelines. This morning, a post election briefing has miraculously emerged in The Australian with a little more free advice for Turnbull and the Liberals.
Sid Maher, who watches the Nats fairly closely, has reported this morning:
Malcolm Turnbull’s election campaign has been dubbed “aloof’’ and “presidential’’ in a damning assessment for the Nationals that urges a “complete policy rethink by the Coalition’’.
A post-poll briefing to senior Nationals urges the junior Coalition partner to take a more assertive role in policy development, declaring the party is entitled to do so “given their role in saving the government from an election loss’’.
It finds that the “grassroots’’ Nationals campaign trumped the Liberals “big picture’’ and succeeded in holding off Bill Shorten’s Medicare attack on the Coalition’s health plans.
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce is set to play a key role in any negotiations with minor parties and will be consulted on any deals if the Coalition fails to win a majority in its own right.
The report was written by a “key external strategist” and Joyce’s office told me this morning that they didn’t know the genesis of the report. But.
A spokesman said the Nats were not criticising anybody else’s campaign. But he was also not surprised that “without vast resources of Labor”, they ran an effective grass roots campaign.
Of course, Joyce held New England and look to have held Cowper against Rob Oakeshott but may have lost Flynn and Capricornia is on the knife edge.
I have some more thoughts about the Nats but more of that in a mo.
In the meantime, our analyst Ben Raue has been crunching more numbers. He thinks Labor’s David Feeney will hold on in Batman.
These are the tight seats and his predictions based on his modelling.
- Capricornia - Labor leads by 994 but Ben predicts Coalition win
- Forde - Labor leads by 104 but Ben predicts Coalition win
- Gilmore - Coalition leads by 353 and Ben predicts they win
- Herbert - Labor leads by 913 but Ben predicts Coalition win.
Taken together with Batman, this is his current overall tally:
- Coalition 73
- Labor - 68
- Others - 5
- ? - 4
With that, let’s get on with it. I am @gabriellechan on Twitter and on Facebook. Keep it nice in the thread and I will try to get there. Time for jolly japes...
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