The Tally Room

The final list of candidates was released on Friday. A record number of candidates are running in both houses of Parliament – in line with the record number of parties registering at the election.

A total of 1188 candidates are running for the House of Representatives, and 529 are running in the Senate.

Three parties nominated candidates in all 150 seats: the ALP, the Greens and the Palmer United Party. The four Coalition parties collectively nominated 160 candidates, which amounts to ten seats where the Liberal and National parties are competing.

The next biggest party is Family First, who are running 93 candidates. Rise Up Australia are running 77, and Katter’s Australian Party are running 63. The Christian Democratic Party are running in all 48 NSW seats, and their allies the Australian Christians are running in 31 more, bringing them to a total of 79.

Other parties running more than thirty are the Sex Party (36) and the Democratic Labour Party (33).

Antony Green has blogged about the changes in number of candidates since 2010.

I have also updated my spreadsheet, reflecting the list provided by the AEC as well as gender data that I have gathered. Please let me know if you see any errors. You can download the spreadsheet here.

The other news over the weekend was the release of the Group Voting Tickets in the Senate. These releases are always dominated by what parties have made decisions that clash with their political agenda, due to political wheeling and dealing.

Over Sunday the biggest story was the decisions of Wikileaks to put conservative parties ahead of the Greens in the Senate. Wikileaks have claimed an administrative error was responsible for putting the Greens behind Australia First and the Shooters and Fishers in NSW, but have defended a decision putting Greens Senator Scott Ludlam, an outspoken supporter of Wikileaks in the Senate, behind his main rival from the Nationals in Western Australia.

There are a whole bunch of other examples of these sorts of decisions by many parties. The most interesting other result was the failure of a series of right-wing parties to lodge a group voting ticket in Victoria, which will result in those candidates only being able to receive below-the-line votes.

Poll Bludger has gone further in outlining how parties are directing their preferences.

Mallee is a Nationals seat covering the north-western corner of Victoria, including Mildura, Horsham and Swan Hill.

On paper the seat is the safest Coalition seat in the country, with a margin of 23.3%. However the sitting Nationals MP John Forrest is retiring, and the Nationals are facing a challenge from the Liberal Party that could make this seat very interesting.

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Maranoa is a very safe LNP seat covering the south-west of Queensland.

The seat has been held by the Nationals’ Bruce Scott since 1990, now by a 22.9% margin.

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Murray is a very safe Liberal seat in northern Victoria, covering Shepparton, Echuca and other areas to the north of Melbourne along the Murray River.

The seat has been held by Sharman Stone since 1996, when she won the seat off the National Party. She holds the seat by a 19.6% margin.

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This morning brought the news that former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie will be running for the ALP in the marginal LNP seat of Forde, on the southern outskirts of Brisbane.

Discussion has already begun on the Forde page about his prospects in the seat, and the very quick turnaround in the bookmaker’s odds in the seat, with the LNP losing their favourite status. Centrebet has moved the odds for the LNP winning Forde from $1.68 to $3.75, with other bookmakers making similar changes.

We’ll just have to wait and see what the polls say about Forde, and whether Peter Beattie has effectively snatched an LNP marginal by entering the race.

It’s no secret that Labor is focused on gaining ground in Queensland, and Beattie will strengthen their presence. It’s not yet clear whether he will be devoting most of his energy to winning Forde, or if he will be free to act as a high-profile surrogate for Kevin Rudd across the rest of Queensland.

Please use this thread to generally discuss the election, including the impact of Peter Beattie’s entry into the race on Queensland and the race in general. To discuss the specifics of the race in Forde, please check out that page.

Also, I thought readers might find it interesting which electorate profiles are garnering the most hits. The below table lists the top five electorates for each day this week, and I’ll post updated versions throughout the campaign.

You can see in this table which seats dominated the new each day, with Jayme Diaz’s terrible interview with Channel 10 keeping Greenway at the top for three days. David Bradbury’s radio interview in Lindsay also pushed the seat up the list for one day only. Today’s list is dominated by Queensland electorates. They also reflect electorates that have had particularly heated comment exchanges.

Parkes is a very safe Nationals seat in north-western NSW, covering Dubbo, Mudgee, Wellington and other areas.

Mark Coulton has held the seat since 2007. John Cobb held the seat from 2001 until he transferred to Calare in 2007.

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Groom is a very safe LNP seat in Queensland, covering Toowoomba and rural areas to the west of that city.

Ian Macfarlane has held the seat since 1998, first as a Liberal and now as a member of the LNP. The seat was originally won by the National Party when created in 1984, before being won by the Liberal Party in 1988.

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With the writs being issued yesterday, we have the final list of political parties registered for the election.

Fifty-four autonomous parties have been registered – which is a significant record, compared to a previous record of 40 in 1998, and only 25 parties running in 2010.

We can now clarify the election timeline. With the election on September 7, rolls will be closing next Monday on 12 August at 8pm.

Nominations will close on 15 August, and will be declared on the 16th. Prepolling will start on Tuesday 20th August, and will run for three weeks.

Bradfield is a safe Liberal seat on the upper north shore of Sydney, covering areas in the Ku-ring-gai area between Hornsby and Chatswood.

The seat was won by the Liberal Party’s Paul Fletcher at a 2009 by-election followed by the retirement of former Liberal leader Brendan Nelson.

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