Disaster looming for Coalition in Queensland and Western Australia Friday, January 1, 2010

If the latest Newspoll figures are correct, then the Coalition is in danger of losing two traditionally held Senate seats in Queensland and Western Australia, with the collapse in the conservative vote benefiting Labor and the Greens. This would be a remarkable result, particularly in Queensland, where in that state the Coalition face the prospect of going from 4 seats at the 2004 election to only 2 seats in 2010.

Using apollo, my advanced simulation software, I take the Newspoll figures and simulate the 2010 Senate election in each state. The results are as follows:

NSW: ALP 3, Coalition 2, Greens 1
VIC: ALP 3, Coalition 2, Greens 1
QLD: ALP 3, Coalition 2, Greens 1
WA: ALP 3, Liberals 2, Greens 1SA: ALP 3, Liberals 2, Independent 1
TAS: ALP 3, Liberals 2, Greens 1
ACT/NT assume split 1/1 Lib/ALP (no simulations run)

For a total election result:
ALP 20 (+4 over current senate and a total of 32), Coalition: 14 (-7, total 32), Greens: 5 (+3, total 6), Ind: 1 (+1, total 2)

This is a dramatic (in Senate terms) change since my last simulation was run in November. At that time, apollo predicted the ALP would win 20 seats, the Coalition to win 16 seats, the Greens to win 3 seats, and Friends of Xenophon 1 seat.

The big changes since the last simulation (the two lost Coalition seats) are in Queensland and Western Australia.

Queensland

In November, the Liberals were neck and neck with the Greens for the sixth and final senate seat in Queensland (50% for the Greens, 33% for the Coalition). However, a rise in the Greens vote has solidified the minor party's lock on the sixth seat (they win in 66.4% of simulations) and seemingly pushed the Coalition out of contention (below 14% - output was garbled d'oh).

This is bad news for both Russell Trood and Brett Mason, the third and fourth Coalition senators from Queensland. Neither of them will be returned to the Senate at this rate.

Western Australia
In Western Australia, the strongest state for the Liberals at the 2007 election, the result is nothing short of catastrophic. Going from an absolute lock on a third seat at the next election, the Liberals are facing a shock loss of their safest "third seat".

The following two images need a bit of explanation. With Liberal and Labor expected to gain a full quota for two seats each, the fifth seat becomes a contest between the parties with the highest remaining quotas. By this stage, the Greens have a higher quota than either of the majors and so win the fifth seat. This leaves the Liberals and Labor fighting over the sixth and final seat. The increase in the Labor vote has seen them edge past the Liberals, winning a third seat in 49.5% of simulations compared to the Liberal's 39%.

This is still an extremely close battle, but the fact the seat is no longer a lock for the Liberals must be extremely worrying for them, and strengthens the case for Rudd to risk a double dissolution election.

The Liberal senator most at risk appears to be Senator Mathias Cormann, who was third on the Liberal's Senate ticket in 2004.


Conclusions
The falling Coalition vote has turned their previously winnable third seat in Queensland to a likely (but not totally solid) Green's seat. This is a remarkable turn around since these senators were last up for election in 2004, where the Howard led Coalition won an impressive four seats in Queensland (and overall control of the senate). They have also lost their lock on a third seat in Western Australia, with the seat now winnable by Labor.



About the methodology:
I took the swings in the ALP, Coalition and Greens votes recorded in the most recent newspoll and applied it to the 2007 senate vote each party received. For each state, I run 20,000 simulations with random preference tickets (a similar run on the 2007 results shows a very high accuracy of simulation) and tabulated the results.