Oz Politics Blog

You may not have noticed it, but a fortnight ago Royal Assent was given to the Electoral and Referendum Legislation Amendment Act 2007. After the substantial and sometimes controversial changes from the 2006 amendments to the electoral laws, this Act makes only a few minor and uncontroversial changes in respect of:

• electronic voting trials for the visually impaired and the Australia Defence Force; various changes to postal voting;
• electoral enrolment by Australians who are overseas (including Defence Force personnel);
• pre-poll voting arrangements; and
• defamation of candidates.

The Poll Bludger should be pleased as this Act repealed section 350 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918. The old section 350 provided criminal penalties for defamation against electoral candidates. A candidate dissatisfied with the Poll Bludger’s (most excellent) electorate guide initiated a private prosecution against its author, William Bowe, for an alleged breach of section 350.

As you may have noticed, I am having site problems. I have temporarily relocated the site to a new domain: ozpolitics.biz. In the fullness of time, I will have both the .biz and the .info address pointing to the same server.

My ozpolitics.info domain is registered with a provider whose software has a pathological tendency to set the domain name to inactive every time I move the physical location of the blog. Consequently, I spend the next seven days trying to get the domain name activated again. The people who are hosting ozpolitics.biz have agreed to take on the delegation for ozpolitics.info. I just have to persuade the other chaps to hand over something called an EPP key for ozpolitics.info.

Anyway, please accept my apologies for this.

In the next week or so, I will also recover the ozpolitics.info resource and load it into Wordpress. It will appear progressively here

The NSW Election Commission has completed a notional allocation of preferences for all seats.

The following seats look safe: Barwon (Nat), Maitland (Lab), Menai (Lab), Newcastle (Lab).

The following seats still look too close to call:

• Dubbo (Ind ahead by 401 votes)
• Goulburn (Lib ahead by 455 votes)
• Lake Macquarie (Lab ahead by 158 votes Ind now ahead)
• Miranda (Lab ahead by 466 votes)
• Port Stephens (Lab ahead by 111 votes Liberal ahead by 19 votes)
• Newcastle (Lab ahead — but see below)

More »

The NSW election outcome did not affect appreciably the betting market for the Federal election. Given that the NSW election results were in line with market expectations, perhaps the disincentive of wall-to-wall Labor governments had been priced into the current odds. The average probability from the five bookies for a Coalition government following the 2007 election is 47.4 per cent. It was 46.9 per cent on Wednesday last week.

The usual graphs are here. You may need to hit the refresh or reload button on your browser to see the latest graphs.

Tonight, from 6.30pm, I will be updating this page with live election night commentary.

An ongoing tally is at the bottom of the page.

My election tipping competition has closed.

Live commentary

9.37

Well I think I might call it quits. Clearly a Labor victory. But I am not convinced by every seat allocated by the ABC computer. I have left Barwon, Dubbo, Goulburn, Lake Macquarie, Menai, Miranda, Newcastle and Port Stephens as too close to call

9.32

I have moved Gosford to possible Labor.

9.27

I have moved Wollondilly to possible Labor.

9.16

I have moved Dubbo back to too close to call.

9.11

I have moved Lake Macquarie from the Labor to too close to call.

9.09

Antony Green is predicting Labor with 53 seats; Coalition 33 and Independents 7.

9.05

I have moved Tweed to possible Coalition.

9.03

ABC reported unconfirmed sources that Debnam has called Iemma to concede defeat

8.59

I have moved Monaro to possible Labor.

8.56

I have moved Maitland to possible Labor.

8.52

I have moved Camden to possible Labor.

8.50

I have moved Bega to possible Coalition.

8.38

I have moved Newcastle from the Coalition to too close to call.

8.26

I have moved Kiama to possible Labor.

8.22

I have moved Barwon from the Coalition to too close to call.

8.20

I have moved Lane Cove to possible Coalition.

8.17

I have moved Clarence to possible Coalition.

8.13

I have moved Baulkham Hills to possible Coalition.

8.09

I have moved Drummoyne to possible Labor.

8.08

I have moved Hornsby to possible Coalition.

8.07

I have moved Terrigal to possible Coalition.

8.03

I have moved Murray-Darling to possible Coalition.

8.03

I have moved South Coast to possible Coalition.

7.59

Antony Green is predicting Labor with 52 seats.

7.56

I have moved Penrith to possible Labor.

7.54

I have moved Marrickvile and The Entrance to possible Labor.

7.53

Antony Green is having all sorts of problems with his computer system when the 2PP vote is against an independent

7.43

Coalition well ahead of Independent in Manly - 17% counted

7.38

Independent well ahead of the National in Dubbo - 17% counted

7.38

Independent well ahead of the National in Tamworth - 20% counted

7.31

Coalition well ahead of Independent in Pittwater - 10% counted

7.27

ABC web site on Balmain has Labor well ahead of the Greens - 10% counted

7.24

Antony Green has called the election - Labor back with at worst a loss of one or two seats

7.22

Election Commission site has the Liberal ahead of the independent in Pittwater

7.15

ABC Doubtful seats page has the Independent ahead of Pru Goward

7.15

And I just moved it back

7.14

I have moved Dubbo from to-close-to-call to possible Coalition

7.07

Antony Green said a one per cent swing in the country, three against the government in the Hunter, and four against in the city

6.57

ABC web site is predicting 2 additional seats for the Coalition, and one less for each of Labor and the Independents

6.54

Monaro - early country booths - 6+ per cent swing for Labor

6.52

The Entrance - 2.5% swing to Liberals

6.48

Early figures suggest Stephen Pringle (independent) will retain Hawkesbury

6.45

WOW - Tweed - early booths suggest it could change hands - from Labor to the Coalition - this is Labor’s most marginal seat

6.39

Tamworth - a few booths - a 12.4% swing to Nationals - away from the sitting independent

6.37

Goulburn - one booth - a 12.4% swing to Liberals - looking good for Pru Goward

6.30

ABC2 begins its coverage with the seat of Heathcote and and a (highly speculative) 4% swing to Labor. More significantly, the Greens are looking good with 23% of the primary vote.

Updated tally

Note: I am starting with the assumption that the safe seats are unlikely to change hands.

Related sites

NSW Virtual Tally Room

The PollBludger is doing a live blog coverage.

ABC Election site