[Politics] Australian Election

[Sea Eagle]

If we did that we'd have to bring in photo ID cards too. Far cheaper to suppress the vote of poor....

Mandatory voting works fine here - no dramas and everyone has a say in who governs. We don’t have photo ID cards, just vote the same as in uk.

 

[Audax]

I am not sure exactly what is meant by the term a floor crossing division, but I am guessing it's where an MP votes against the party line? And I am guessing that the Coalition is more than one party, which then makes sense for there to be more division, and that the coalition has a greater share of seats than Labour, so would have more MP's to cross the floor than Labour. It isn't clear if you are seeing more of the coalitions members true feelings, or if they are just generally a more diverse group, and therefore more likely to cross the floor, but I get your point that Labour having a hidden debate could mask the levels of dissent.

From memory, a Parliamentary division in Australia works slightly differently then here.

In the UK, there are the NO and YES lobbies and MPs must go through the lobbies to register their vote.

From memory, in Australia there are no lobbies - instead they literally cross the floor, with one side of the house being YES and the other side NO.

 

[Audax]

Labor needs 76 seats to have a (slim) majority. They currently have 74. There are 6 seats still not called, and Labor are currently ahead in 3 of them.

Of those 3:

1. Brisbane - who wins this seat hinges on who finishes second once preferences from those who finished 4th and lower have been fully counted. As it stands, Labor are second with 21,931 votes with Greens 3rd with 21,897. Last night the Greens were second, so it's flipped - and could easily flip back again. If the Greens finish 3rd, their preferences will see Labor win the seat. And vice versa.

2. Lyons - Labor ahead by 729 currently, but there's still a lot of preferences to be counted. Sizeable Greens vote that should go mostly to Labor, but even bigger vote share to right-wing minor parties that should mostly go to the Liberal. Could go either way.

3. Macnamara - Tight 3-way battle between Labor, Green, and Liberal (currently in that order). There's still a lot of doubt over what order the 3 will finish in once counting reaches the point of having the final 3, however: if it finishes in the current order Labor is the most likely to win as the assumption based on other seats is that more of the Liberal vote will go to Labor than to the Greens.

Of the other 3 seats in doubt, it's straight Liberal vs Labor and they are all very tight with Liberal ahead, but not by much.

So Labor could end with anything between 74 and 80 seats. I suspect 76 or 77 is the most likely outcome, but 75 is definitely possible as well.

I've seen talk that Labor will attempt to nominate a speaker from outside their own party in order to preserve their numbers.

Lyons has now been held by Labor, taking them to 75.

Brisbane continues to flip-flop, but appears to be leaning in favour of the Greens snatching it. Preferences are still being counted, and the Green candidate remains in 3rd on the declared count, but the preferences are flowing strongly to Green so the gap is expected to close and see the Greens finish second and then get pushed across the winning line on the back of Labor preferences.

Liberals won one of their tight seats.

Macnamara remains in doubt but hard to bet against Labor winning that one and getting their majority with 76 seats.

Of the remaining two, Liberals are ahead in both.

So, where I think we end up:

76 Labor (majority of 1)
59 Lib/Nat
4 Green
12 Independent (of which, 6 are so-called "Teal Independents" who are right-leaning pro-climate)

I would then expect Labor to nominate either a Green or a friendly Independent as speaker, to protect them against a single floor-crosser causing a defeat.

 

[sydney]

whoppers on social media now claiming "electoral fraud" ffs....