In 1985 the South Australian Legislative Council adopted an electoral system "almost identical" to the method used in the Australian Senate. The main difference being that instead of six seats available at a "normal" senate election, in a South Australian state election, eleven seats are up for grabs. The similarity to the Senate makes it perfect for my election scenario designer cassandra and my advanced simulation software apollo to try and predict the outcome of the 2010 South Australian state election.
If the election were held today, of the 11 seats available, Labor would win 5 seats, the Liberals would win four seats and the Greens would most likely win 2 seats but with a good chance that the micro party with the highest non-major vote would win the last seat.
Each simulation features some distribution of the primary votes as well as completely random preferences.My theory is that running many random-preference simulations in a senate-style election returns results close to the actual results..
So on to 2010. Newspoll has Labor in a strong winning position while their main opponents, The Liberals, have gone sideways. The largest minor party, the Greens, are experiencing a healthy increase in their primary vote and the Other vote has increased steadily from 3% at the 2006 state election to 13%.
Here is a list of declared candidates and their chances of winning a seat (and the seat they are most likely to win):
Gail Gago* (Labor) Simulations won: 100% Most likely seat: 1 |
David Ridgway (Liberal) Simulations won: 100% Most likely seat: 2 |
Paul Holloway* (Labor) Simulations won: 100% Most likely seat: 3 |
Stephen Wade (Liberal) Simulations won: 100% Most likely seat: 4 |
Terry Roberts* (Labor) Simulations won: 100% Most likely seat: 5 |
Terry Stephens (Liberal) Simulations won: 100% Most likely seat: 6 |
John Gazzola* (Labor) Simulations won: 100% Most likely seat: 7 |
Tammy Jennings (Greens) Simulations won: 100% Most likely seat: 8 |
Jing Lee (Liberal) Simulations won: 100% Most likely seat: 9 |
Jeremy Moore* (Labor) Simulations won: 100% Most likely seat: 10 or 11 |
Simon Jones (Greens) Simulations won: 25.6% Jones has run several small businesses, "creating and running businesses ranging from soft furnishing to landscaping and translation and his connections to green politics go back to the No Dams protests of 1983. He is passionate about solar power as part of the necessary response to climate change." The Greens are the favourite to win the eleventh and final seat. Their nearest competitor is Labor but the big red is more likely to win the tenth seat, meaning the Greens will have to fight off ... |
The highest ranked micro party candidate (various): Simulations won: 30% Which one will win is impossible to accurately predict. However, with such a large percentage of voters going to "Other" in newspoll, preference harvesting will see one or two micro parties last well into the count for the final seat. The rule of thumb here is that the micro party with the highest vote will rise to the top. A break-out vote of 3% sees an independent/micro party candidate winning in more simulations than the Greens' second candidate. Declared candidates for which we have no polling information (alphabetical by affiliation): Paul Kuhn (FREE Australia Party) - The highest profile micro party in SA this election. # David Winderlich (Independent) - Most likely splits the already meagre votes available from his old party the Australian Democrats. Candidates for which polling information is available (alphabetical by affiliation): Jeanie Walker (Democrats) Andrew Evans (Family First) Paul Brown (Nationals) Robert Edmonds (One Nation) Polling is available for these parties and it is very low, meaning they are likely to be out-polled by another micro party or a popular independent. However, if one of these parties can out-poll the other micro parties then they have the same chance of rising to the top as any other. I have only grouped them here because we have information about their likely vote and so a break-out 2 or 3% of the vote is unlikely. I personally rate a strong independent more likely to get over 2% and harvest the preferences than the above listed parties, all of which have a track record of sub 2% returns. |
# Rita Bouras (Liberal) Simulations won: 9.7% Most likely seat: 11 Bouras is a former solicitor "with a passion for the environment, Rita has been an active member of various conservation groups including the Friends of Gulf St. Vincent and the Australian Conservation Foundation". In 2002, the fifth candidate for the Liberals was elected. However, winning a fifth seat seems very unlikely this time. |
# incumbent party likely to lose seat
From graph 1, we see that apollo thinks the Greens are most likely to pick up the eleventh seat. However in graph 3 (the most common results for the last four seats), we see that the micro parties (or "protest parties" as I have perhaps inaccurately named them in the scenario) make a very strong showing. Note that in the absence of actual poll data it is all just idle speculation.
In conclusion, compared to 2002, Labor is on track to pick up a seat, the Liberals to lose a seat, former Democrat David Winderlich to lose his seat to either the Greens or the most popular micro party/independent candidate (which technically could be him). Based on newspoll, the established micro-parties such as the Nationals and Family First are unlikely to be the break-out candidate in the large field. The relatively low quota to gain a seat (~9%), combined with eight year terms and a propensity of South Australians to vote for minor parties and independents means the South Australia Legislative Council attracts a large variety of candidates, of which one probably has a good chance of beating the Greens to the final seat.
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2 comments:
Interesting analysis Idle,
You do make one big assumption though - that all the 'other' groups, minor parties and the Greens will all bundle their preferences to each other (your scenario relies on this).
But you've also missed Family First entirely in the calculations - you've incorrectly stated that they poll sub 2%. Either way, they might be a wild card candidate at the expense of the 5th Labor candidate.
But if your prediction is correct, that an independent is most likely to pull ahead "I personally rate a strong independent more likely to get over 2% and harvest the preferences than the above listed parties, all of which have a track record of sub 2% returns" - then surely that must be the only independent contesting with a any sort of a profile - David Winderlich?
Hi Sandy,
Thanks for your comments.
The simulation is based on the last few newspoll surveys and they have had Family First on 1% since 2008. None-the-less, I averaged their last election result into the polls too to smooth the result.
When I say I don't think Winderlich has particular break-out potential it is not a commentary on him as a candidate, but rather the skill-set required to be an independent community rabble-rouser is generally different to that required to be a career politician more into policy and process. I have assumed given his background he is from the later school.
I liked your suggestion that preferences might not go the Greens' way as they are the "leader of the pack" and so the pack might want to pull them back a bit, so I have done a new scenario along those lines.
Regards,
Luke
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