It may have briefly buoyed Derryn Hinch’s political campaign, but a prediction by political strategist Glenn Druery that the broadcaster would beat Ricky Muir for Victoria’s 12th Senate spot in the anticipated 2 July election has been met with scepticism by other political analysts, who say there’s no evidence for the claim.
Hinch launched his foray into politics in October and Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party, running on a law and order platform with the key aim of introducing a public national sex offender registry, plans to field two Senate candidates in every state.
Druery, dubbed the “preference whisperer” for his work in the 2013 federal election, which included helping Motoring Enthusiast party candidate Muir get elected on just 0.51% of the vote, has defended the prediction, saying Hinch’s strong name recognition would likely see him leading the micro-party candidates in Victoria.
“Hinch has been around for 50 years,” he told Guardian Australia. “Myself and many people who will be voting grew up with Hinch. Everyone knows Hinch, not everyone knows Ricky.”
Unsurprisingly, the prediction has the support of Hinch himself, who told Sydney’s 2UE radio on Wednesday: “The new Senate voting changes brought in by the federal government make it harder but then the double dissolution makes it easier … so I hope I’ve got a good chance.”
However Dr Nick Economou, senior lecturer with Monash University, said that on current polling it did not matter whether Hinch was more popular than Muir – neither would get the primary vote required to make a Senate quota without the group voting tickets abolished under the new Senate voting laws.
“It will go four Labor, two green and six Coalition,” Economou said, a prediction he later revised to allow for the possibility Labor and the Coalition might get five spots each.
“The changes to the electoral system make it very difficult for the rightwing micro-parties to win, they can’t win. Hinch and Muir will get very small primary votes.
“At the moment in Victoria the support for the minor parties is really about 8%. But because it’s going to be split across a number of parties, and because there’s going to be no group ticket, there’s not going to be a consolidated vote.”
Kevin Bonham, a Tasmanian-based political analyst, said that while 8% was understating support for alternative parties in the Senate (that figure is based on polls assessing the lower-house vote because there have been no polls attempting to gauge the Senate vote) that did not mean anyone could confidently predict where the Senate votes would fall.
“I would not take any notice of anything that Glenn Druery predicts,” he said.
“There’s no evidence, there’s no polling. It’s all speculation and there’s no basis for it.”
It’s a debate all three agree they wouldn’t be having in an ordinary federal election under the new Senate voting system, where the quota for the six senate spots available in each cycle would be twice that required in the upcoming double dissolution election.
But with all 12 senate spots vacated, both Druery and Bonham say a candidate could be in with a chance with as little as 3% of the primary vote (Economu, in contrast, said they’d still need at least 6%). In Victoria that would require attracting the support of about 120,000 people, a task Druery said Hinch could achieve but Muir, despite “doing a very good job, I think,” could not.
“Many people do like Ricky Muir, they are going to be looking for Ricky Muir to vote for, but Ricky will be hidden under the name of the Motoring Enthusiasts party and people won’t find him,” Druery said.
“He will lose a lot of primary votes simply by not being able to be found.”
Druery said the results of the 2013 election showed voters were prepared to vote outside the established Labor-Green-Coalition system, but then said the size of the field in states like Victoria and New South Wales could see people voting above the line just because it was easier.
“At the end of the day the average voter is not very bright,” he said.
“Many people don’t want to vote. They will come in and tick any box they see. But if they [Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party] can get the message out I think he has got a very good chance.”
Muir, who this week voted against the Australian Building and Construction Commission legislation that provided the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, with a trigger for a double dissolution election, declined to comment on the predictions of Druery, who was briefly his chief of staff.
“My focus between now and any early election date, other than the budget sitting week of course, will be on being re-elected to continue the positive contribution I believe I have made to public and parliamentary debate in Australia,” Muir said in a statement on Wednesday.
