The Victorian Senate Count – Why it’s premature to call the final spot for the DLP.
If the election night results for the Victorian senate are taken as indicative of the final outcome, then the DLP's John Madigan could win the final spot. Antony Green's site has a breakdown of the current numbers, which shows a DLP win on the current numbers, with 2 ALP, 1 Green, 1 Liberal and 1 National senators also being elected (note - that numbers and predictions in that link will almost certainly change as it's updated with the latest results).
In Victorian Senate contests over at least the last 15 years, the DLP has doubled its vote when it has drawn a spot to the left of the ALP on the ballot paper. They have also polled significantly higher whenever they have drawn a spot ahead of the ALP in the lower house seats they have contested over that period of time. This has occurred in the 2010 election, where the DLP's vote has more than doubled to 2.23% (on the current count).
| Year | DLP Victorian Senate Vote |
| 1998 | 1.05% |
| 2001 | 2.28% |
| 2004 | 1.94% |
| 2007 | 1.03% |
| 2010 | 2.23% |
The DLP have also shown once again what great preference negotiators they are (they won a spot in the Victorian upper house on about 2% of the vote in the 2006 election thanks to good preference deals). The DLP have a strong flow of preferences from the other right-wing micro parties.
However, it is seriously premature for anyone to call that final spot for the DLP.
Below the Line votes (UPDATE 22/08/2010) - Greens psephologist, Stephen Luntz has let me know that the initial primaries for BTL votes have already been counted, which makes this closer than I first thought - although we'll have to wait to see how BTL preferences flow, as they could go anywhere) should favour the Greens and push them further above quota, and their surplus vote, plus the Sex party and the residual Australian Democrats vote, may end up being enough to give the ALP the final spot.
Postals and pre-poll will favour the majors, and in Antony Green's current prediction (which shows the DLP getting elected on last night's figures) the split between the Liberals and the DLP when the Liberals are eliminated is less than 20000 votes. This should narrow rather than increase, and it's more likely that the Liberals will end up ahead of the DLP than behind them.
At this stage, I think its likely the DLP will end up losing in Victoria (although they could fluke it in on preferences). If I was going to make a prediction at this stage, I would pick Victoria electing the third ALP candidate to the final spot, giving Victoria a final tally of 3 ALP, 1 Green, 1 Liberal and 1 National. However, even if the ALP doesn't win the final spot, I think the Liberals are far more likely to pull ahead of the DLP at the crucial split and take the final spot.
The rise of the Australian Greens vote in the Australian House of Representatives
As a former member of the Australian Democrats, I have observed with interest the rise of the Australian Greens' vote since the late 1990s, when it was below 3%. The Tasmanian Greens polled 21% in the state election earlier this year, and are now in a Coalition government with the ALP. The Greens have polled 16% in the latest Newspoll, and have consistently polled over 10% for some time now.
If current polling trends continue, The Greens look set to break the Australian Democrats 1990 record for a minor party of 11.3% vote nationally in the House of Representatives, and could realistically end up electing senators in every state (I will discuss their senate chances in a separate post) as well as winning their first House of Representatives seats in Melbourne and possibly Sydney or Grayndler.
So far, modern minor parties (I'm excluding the Nationals as they have a long electoral history and a stable federal coalition with the Liberal party) have failed to win a seat in the House of Representatives. The closest minor party candidates have come to winning an HoR seat in a general election was in 1998, where John Schumann (Democrats) in Mayo received 48.26% of the Two Candidate Preferred (TCP) vote and Pauline Hanson (One Nation) in Blair received 46.60% of the TCP vote . Unlike independents, minor parties could try to pitch themselves as potential participants in federal government if they could only break into the House of Representatives by winning and retaining seats at a general election. A strong nationwide HoR vote also lends credibility to a minor party's political platform and campaign issues, as it demonstrates they have significant political support. The Greens came close to breaking into the House of Representatives in the 2007 Federal election, where Adam Bandt received 45.29% of the TCP vote in Melbourne.
The Greens have grown their vote over the last 12 years by engaging in grass roots activism and consistently targeting local and state government seats to build their core support, rather than grabbing transitory protest votes at specific elections, in contrast to the Australian Democrats who followed up their record 1990 Reps vote of 11.3% with an appalling 3.8%, before recovering somewhat to poll 6.8% in 1996. The history of the Democrats HoR vote since the party's founding in 1977 shows inconsistent results until 2004, when there was a catastrophic decline in the party's vote.
| Year | Democrats HoR % Vote | Greens HoR % Vote |
| 1977 | 9.4 | |
| 1980 | 6.6 | |
| 1984 | 5.5 | |
| 1987 | 6.0 | |
| 1990 | 11.3 | |
| 1993 | 3.8 | |
| 1996 | 6.8 | |
| 1998 | 5.1 | 2.6 |
| 2001 | 5.4 | 5.0 |
| 2004 | 1.2 | 7.2 |
| 2007 | 0.7 | 7.8 |
Results taken from Dr Adam Carr's excellent Psephos website.
It certainly seems that the Greens consistent grassroots activism and effective targeting of geographic regions where their support is potentially strong has built up a resilient base vote for them. This approach has been successfully used since the 1980s by the UK Liberal Democrats, and any minor or micro party looking to build their vote to the point where they can win seats in single member electorates where First Past the Post or preferential voting is used should seriously target local government and state lower house seats where they can have more impact with the ability to dedicate greater resources to a targeted campaign.
Tim Colebatch has written an excellent article about the rise of the Greens' vote and what impact it could have on federal politics, and former Australian Democrats leader and Greens' candidate for Brisbane, Andrew Bartlett, has written an insightful piece on the challenges the Greens will face in trying to turn their current success in the polls into votes (and seats) when it's election day later this year.
It will be interesting to see if the Greens continue to grow their HoR vote, and with a first-term ALP government that is dropping in popularity, they may finally break through and win a lower house seat.
