The Tally Room

It appears that there are very few remaining votes to be counted in key seats in the Queensland state election, and it appears likely that the final result will be 44 seats for Labor, 42 for the Liberal National Party, 2 for Katter’s Australian Party and one for independent Peter Wellington.

If this is the case, Labor should be able to form a minority government with the support of Peter Wellington.

I’ve been tracking the race in eight key seats. Labor is competing with the LNP for the six seats of Ferny Grove, Gaven, Glass House, Mansfield, Mount Ommaney and Whitsunday. The LNP has also been competing with One Nation’s Pauline Hanson in Lockyer, and Labor and independent Chris Foley in Maryborough.

Chris Foley conceded defeat in Maryborough yesterday, where Labor is leading in the count by 1271 votes.

Leads in the remaining seats are all slim, ranging from 182 votes for the LNP in Mount Ommaney to 916 votes for the LNP in Gaven, but with small numbers of votes yet to be counted, and with counts not updated for a number of days in many of these seats, it appears that these margins are unlikely to change.

Labor is leading by 414 votes in Ferny Grove. While there is a danger that this result could be challenged in court due to the bankrupt status of the PUP candidate, this case wouldn’t be guaranteed to result in a by-election, and even so a by-election would not take place for some time.

Labor’s best chance to win a 45th seat came in Mount Ommaney, where the current margin is only 182 votes. After this, Labor is only behind by 313 votes in Whitsunday and 356 in Mansfield.

Hanson trails in Lockyer by only 183 votes, but it’s hard to see enough votes being counted to change that result, either.

With this in mind, I am going to be ending my Queensland 2015 results coverage here. I’ve updated my Queensland electorate map to reflect the new colours, and also updated my Queensland state election time-series map, which now shows the results of six state elections dating back to 2001.

Counting yesterday saw Labor’s position improved in one key seat, and weakened in another.

One Nation’s Pauline Hanson slightly improved her position in Lockyer. In Whitsunday, the LNP lead narrowed from 163 to 88 and then blew out to 355 votes. In the seats of Mansfield and Mount Ommaney, Labor narrowed the deficit, with Mount Ommaney now the best chance for Labor to win a majority.

I’ve added an extra column with a rough estimate of how many votes are remaining in the count. This is based on assuming that there will be the same number of each type of special votes in each seat as there was in 2012.

If you follow this model, almost all postal votes have been counted in the seven seats I am tracking, while there are large numbers of absentee and prepoll votes remaining to be counted – about 63% of prepoll votes are yet to be counted, and about 93% of absentee votes are yet to be counted.

So far, both pre-poll and absentee votes have favoured Labor, which may well see Labor’s seat total increase from 44 to 45.

You’ll note that I am no longer tracking the race in Redlands. Antony Green estimates that the LNP lead in that seat has increased to over 1200 votes since Tuesday evening.

Ferny Grove

Over the course of Thursday, the Labor lead in Ferny Grove increased from 341 to 509, and then dropped back to 348 votes. With Labor likely to benefit from pre-poll and absentee votes, you would expect them to hold on to the seat, but the possibility still remains of Ferny Grove’s result being invalidated and the voters of Ferny Grove returning to vote in a by-election. Antony Green has pointed out that any challenge to the Ferny Grove result would take some time, and in the meantime the seat’s winner will sit in Parliament, which will probably help Labor.

Gaven

Since I last posted on Wednesday morning, the LNP’s lead has increased from 823 to 916 votes. The LNP is likely to win.

Glass House

ABC Elections is estimating the two-party-preferred vote in this seat, as the ECQ is not publishing two-party figures. This estimate increased the LNP lead from 801 to 924 votes earlier on Thursday, before dropping back to 726 votes. It’s conceivable that this lead could drop as pre-poll and absentee votes are counted, but unlikely to be enough to give Labor the seat.

Lockyer

Pauline Hanson is still trailing the LNP, but has narrowed the deficit from 205 to 183 votes. Hanson is winning the absentee votes, and the LNP is winning the pre-poll vote. There are more pre-poll votes expected than absentee votes.

Mansfield

Most of the postal votes have been counted, and the LNP lead has dropped from 547 to 455 votes. This seat could still come into play if the remaining special votes break strongly towards Labor.

Mount Ommaney

Mount Ommaney is now the closest LNP-Labor race in the state. The LNP was leading by 481 votes on Tuesday evening, but by Thursday evening this lead has been cut to 201 votes. With a substantial number of absentee votes yet to be counted, and most pre-poll votes not counted, Labor could easily close this gap and win their majority.

Labor has won 56.8% of the absentee votes, and exactly 50% of a small batch of prepoll votes. If they continue to poll a similar level in the absentee vote, they will need about 53% of the remaining prepoll votes to win.

Whitsunday

Whitsunday was previously the closest race in the state. The LNP led by 163 votes on Tuesday evening, which was cut to 88 votes by Thursday morning, before blowing out to 355 votes by Thursday evening. Large number of pre-poll and absentee votes are yet to be counted, and these could easily reverse the result.

Barely 300 pre-poll votes have been counted in Whitsunday, and they have broken to Labor by more than 62%. I estimate there is over 2500 remaining pre-poll votes. If the remaining pre-poll votes flow to Labor at the same level, it will give Labor a lead of over 200 votes, with about 4000 absentee votes to be counted.

Most of yesterday’s attention was focused on the seats of Lockyer and Gaven, where new preference counts have been mostly completed today after the two candidates selected for the election-night two-party count proved to be incorrect in both seats.

As of last night, the LNP’s Ian Rickuss had taken a 205-vote lead over Pauline Hanson in Lockyer. The LNP’s Sid Cramp now holds an 823-vote lead over Labor in Gaven. In both cases, most primary votes that have been distributed as preferences, and these two seats are in a similar status to the remaining close seats – we are waiting for a range of special votes, in particular pre-poll and absentee votes, to be counted as primary votes and two-party-preferred votes to determine who will win each seat.

The other major development today took place in Ferny Grove, where Labor is holding a narrow lead. It has emerged that PUP candidate Mark Taverner is an undischarged bankrupt, and was thus ineligible to stand. It is unclear whether this may force a by-election in the seat. If there is a by-election, it will be harder for Labor to form a government, and may prompt an extended period of instability in Queensland.

Ferny Grove

Additional votes have been counted, and Antony Green estimates these extra votes have shrunk the Labor lead from 577 votes to 341 votes. As mentioned above, there is now a possibility that a by-election will be required in Ferny Grove.

Gaven

Only a small proportion of preferences had been counted on Monday, and since then most preferences were counted on Tuesday. These votes increased the LNP lead from 193 to 823 votes. The LNP are now in a strong position to win.

Glass House

A small amount of additional counting has increased the LNP lead slightly from 798 to 801 votes.

Lockyer

Most preferences were counted on Tuesday, and Pauline Hanson dropped from leading the LNP by 365 votes to trailing by 205 votes. Either side could easily win.

Mansfield

No additional counting has taken place.

Maryborough

Labor has increased their primary vote lead over Chris Foley from 1090 to 1135 votes.

Mount Ommaney

Antony Green’s estimate for the LNP’s lead has been cut from 525 votes to 481.

Redlands

According to Antony Green, the LNP’s lead has increased from 796 votes to 1098. Hard to see Labor coming back in this seat.

Whitsunday

No additional counting has taken place.

The final polls of the campaign all told the same story – the LNP leading with 52% of the two-party-preferred vote over Labor. This is certainly not what happened – in the seats where Labor and the LNP came in the top two, Labor has polled just over 52% of the two-party-preferred vote so far.

But when you look at the primary votes, they aren’t far off. All three polls that produced a 52-48 figure had about 41% for the LNP and 37% for Labor, which was only off by 1% from the actual figures.

The problems came in estimating preference flows. Most, if not all, pollsters rely on actual preferences from the previous election to estimate how minor party and independent votes will flow, rather than asking people how they will preference.

Yet the pool of preferences in Queensland at this election was quite different. At the last election, Katter’s Australian Party polled over 11% of the vote, and made up a majority of the pool of minor party preferences. At this election, a majority of these votes belong to the Greens, thanks to KAP’s declining vote and focus on a small number of seats.

Unlike in federal elections, the ECQ does not conduct a two-party-preferred (2PP) count in every seat. Indeed, the ECQ has now taken down the notional 2PP count for most seats, and we’ll have to wait for the final distribution of preferences to get the official seatwide figures, and the ECQ will not publish notional 2PP figures by polling place.

You can only calculate a 2PP in a seat where the top two candidates are Labor and LNP. The AEC refers to these seats as “classic” electorates. At the moment, there are 77 seats where we have a Labor vs LNP count for most of the votes counted so far, with a 78th count being undertaken in Gaven. Out of the remaining eleven seats, there are four others where we will eventually get a Labor vs LNP count, but not until we get the final distribution of preferences, since the ECQ conducted a two-candidate-preferred count between other candidates on election night.

So at the moment we can only compare preference flows in the 77 classic seats to the 71 classic seats in 2012 and the 83 from 2009.

What we’ve seen is a significant increase in Labor preferences, and a decline in LNP and exhausted preferences, even compared to the last Labor win in 2009.

While part of this change is likely due to the decline of KAP, that doesn’t explain the whole picture. Even in strong Greens seats where KAP was a minor presence in 2012, you see a similar trend.

In the inner-city seat of Mount Coot-tha, the preference flow from minor parties to Labor has increased from 45% in 2009, to 54% in 2012 and is now just under 75% in 2015. Most of these votes come from the Greens, and allowed Labor to win the seat despite being 10% behind on primary votes – normally such a feat is not possible under an optional preferential system.

Rather than editing the original post, I’ve decided to post each morning covering the counting in key seats over the previous day.

Yesterday, I identified Ferny Grove, Glass House, Mansfield, Maryborough, Mount Ommaney, Redlands and Whitsunday as seats worth watching. I’ve now also added Gaven and Lockyer – two seats where a change in the two-candidate-preferred count revealed a close race. I wrote a specific blog post about Pauline Hanson’s tilt in Lockyer last night.

Excluding these nine seats, the ALP holds 42 seats, the LNP holds 35, KAP holds two, and one is held by Peter Wellington.

If all of these seats go to the candidate currently leading, the final result would be ALP 44, LNP 41, KAP 2, as well as One Nation’s Pauline Hanson and independent Peter Wellington.

Unfortunately, the ECQ this afternoon has taken down the two-party-preferred votes from a majority of seats, including Ferny Grove, Glass House, Mount Ommaney and Redlands, so the numbers listed above are those as of 12pm Queensland time.

Ferny Grove

No change up until the ECQ took down the two-party count this afternoon. The ALP’s Furner leads by 577 votes.

Gaven

We originally assumed that the LNP would easily gain enough preferences from sitting independent MP Alex Douglas and other minor candidates to defeat Labor, but the notional two-party-preferred count today has revealed a close race.

Three election-day booths have been counted, along with a large pre-poll booth. On raw votes, the LNP leads by 193 votes, and William Bowe projects the LNP’s margin to increase to a still-slim 226 votes as more votes are distributed. This seat could go either way.

Glass House

The LNP lead increased slightly from 756 to 798 today before the ECQ took down the two-party figures. Likely to be held by the LNP.

Lockyer

I blogged about this seat last night. Two-candidate votes have been counted in five booths, and Hanson leads by 365 off this small sample. If you project this preference flow to all primary votes counted so far, this lead shrinks to a very slim number – my model would narrow Hanson’s lead to only 24 votes. William Bowe says 92 votes – either way it’s very close.

Mansfield

The LNP lead in Mansfield increased slightly from 495 to 547 votes.

Maryborough

The ALP lead over independent Chris Foley increased slightly from 1054 to 1090. This doesn’t change much – unless there’s a big shift, we’ll have to wait for the full distribution of preferences to determine whether Foley can overtake Labor’s Bruce Saunders.

Mount Ommaney

The LNP lead increased from 425 to 525 before the ECQ took down the two-party count this afternoon. Likely to stay with the LNP.

Redlands

The LNP lead dropped from 974 to 796 before the ECQ took down the two-party count this afternoon. Likely to stay with the LNP.

Whitsunday

Still the closest LNP-Labor race. The LNP’s Jason Costigan increased his lead from 84 to 163 votes.

TLDR – Yes, she could, but it’s going to be close.

On Saturday night, it was a minor story that Pauline Hanson had polled quite highly in the south-east Queensland seat of Lockyer, winning 27.3% of the primary vote, ahead of Labor but 6% behind sitting Liberal National MP Ian Rickuss, who polled 33.7%.

Because Hanson didn’t run in 2012, the ECQ on election night conducted an indicative two-party-preferred count between Labor and the LNP. This meant we didn’t have any idea how preferences would split between the LNP and Hanson, who is running again for One Nation.

Late this afternoon the ECQ started posting results of a new two-candidate-preferred (2CP) count between Hanson and Rickuss, and it has Pauline Hanson leading in the count.

There are 32 regular booths in Lockyer, in addition to a variety of prepoll centres, and postal and absentee votes. So far, 2CP results have only been released for five booths, which all are favourable to Hanson.

While Hanson so far has polled 27.3% across Lockyer, she has polled 34.1% in the five booths where preferences have been distributed. The LNP’s vote is 2.2% lower in these five booths, and the Labor vote is 3.6% lower.

In addition, there are large numbers of postal, pre-poll and absentee votes, which should favour the major parties. These votes are likely to strengthen the LNP position.

But what would happen if you took the preference flows from these five booths and applied them to the remaining primary votes that have been counted so far?

In short, the result would be extremely close. Preferences so far have flowed 26.5% LNP, 43% Hanson and 30.5% exhausted.

This would result in Hanson polling 11,262 votes, and Rickuss polling 11,238 – a gap of 24 votes. That’s a lot smaller than Hanson’s current lead. She’s currently sitting on 54.7% of the two-candidate-preferred vote – my model gives her 50.05%.

Having said that, we don’t know if preferences will flow the same way. 61.7% of preferences distributed so far are Labor votes, but this will increase to 63.9%. Presumably Labor votes will not be quite as favourable to Hanson as KAP and PUP votes.

There have also been updates in a number of other seats today. I’ll post an update on my close seats post later tonight, so keep an eye out.

I’ve identified seven seats that I think are close enough to be worth discussing. Excluding these seven, Labor holds 42 seats, the LNP holds 37, and three are held by KAP and an independent.

In order to win a majority, the ALP would need to win three out of these seven seats.

At the moment, Labor leads in two of these seats (Ferny Grove and Maryborough) – the best shot for Labor to win its majority is to win in Whitsunday, where the LNP leads by only 84 votes. If they can turn around that lead in Whitsunday, and hold on in Ferny Grove and Maryborough, Labor will win a majority.

• Ferny Grove – Labor’s Mark Furner leads by 577 votes. The first batch of postal votes broke in favour of the LNP’s Dale Shuttleworth, narrowing the gap by 98 votes, but there should be at least 1000 more postal votes yet to be counted, along with large batches of pre-poll and absentee votes. Definitely too close to call.
• Glass House – On election night, the LNP’s Andrew Powell led Labor’s Brent Hampstead by less than 500 votes, but an addition of postal votes increased this lead to 756 votes, or 51.53% after preferences. We should expect more postal votes, along with pre-poll and absentee votes. Absentee votes should help Labor, but pre-poll was also helpful to the LNP in 2012.
• Mansfield – Labor’s Adam Obeid led by only eleven votes on ordinary votes, but a batch of postal votes and declared institution votes heavily favoured the LNP’s Ian Walker, who now leads by 495 votes. So far 2000 postal votes have been counted, compared to a total of 3000 postals in 2012. In 2012, Walker’s postal votes were only 1.4% better than election-day votes. So far, postal votes are breaking towards Walker by more than 10% above his election-day vote. It will be hard for Walker to keep up this strong lead once pre-poll votes are added, but he is probably a slight favourite.
• Maryborough – The ECQ has conducted a count between Labor’s Bruce Saunders and sitting LNP member Anne Maddern has Saunders on over 53% after preferences. As long as those two candidates are in the top two, Saunders will win. However, Saunders is only 1054 votes ahead of independent ex-MP Chris Foley, who lost to Maddern in 2012, and there is over 6000 votes with minor candidates, a majority of which was for the Palmer United candidate. In 2012, both Labor and Foley did better on special votes, but Foley did so by more. However, since then the Labor vote has grown substantially, so overall it’s unlikely that special votes will shift the balance, and the result will depend on how strongly PUP preferences flow.
• Mount Ommaney – The LNP’s Tarnya Smith leads by 425 votes. The first batch of 889 postal votes favoured Smith. We’re yet to see pre-poll or absentee votes, which are easily enough to shift the seat in either direction.
• Redlands - The LNP’s Matt McEachan leads by 974 votes. In 2012, the LNP did substantially better on postals and pre-poll, but didn’t do as well on absentee votes.
• Whitsunday – The LNP’s Jason Costigan leads by only 84 votes, with 50.2% of the vote after preferences. With about 9000 special votes yet to be counted, this seat is definitely up for grabs. In 2012, the Labor candidate did 1.4% better on special votes than on ordinary votes, which could well put Labor in the lead.