It sums up my opinion of the by-election results.

In some circumstances we could know which by looking at swings by booths, but that’s hard here, because the Liberal vote was so consistent across the seat in 2006.

If the former was what occurred what it tells us is this: Almost as many Liberals prefer the Greens as prefer FF, ON, two Independents and Labor combined. If true this tells us that in the long run the Greens have real potential to win Liberal voters, at least in seats like this, but its unlikely to mean much at all at this election with the Libs running.

If quite a few Libs voted Labor, those votes don’t mean much (after all the Libs and ALP are much closer on most issues these days to each other than the Libs are to the Greens) but then it means the Greens were able to take a lot of Labor voters which has to be considered a good result for them coming into the election. Personally I think this one is more likely, but wasn’t on the ground.

Regarding Family First, consider that in Albert Park they had competition from the Democrats and two independents who, while not high profile did have reasonable campaigns. It looks like the two independents here had minimal campaigns – one looks like he only had HTVs at one booth. It’s quite amazing that only a quarter of Lib voters preferred FF to their traditional enemies and the Greens.

No, I’d disagree on that one. This result was far better than the Albert Park by-election but the public is still largely unaware of Family First. This would be compounded by the demographics of Brisbane Central. There is a definite lack of FFPs core demographic, that is, younger and middle families. In fact it is also bi-modal, with a peak in the 18-25 bracket and another in the post 60 bracket. Neither group would be particularly sensitive to politics related to families.

Given the low profile of FFP since the state election, their most likely Coalition grabs were in the 60+ age group, one which might have been obliviously unaware of them.

By contrast, Climate Change/Global Warming and, by association, the Greens, has a higher public profile and my suspicion is that many older votes went this way. Again, ignorance might play a part here. This group might be largely unaware that the basis of the Greens is progressive and Left, politically a spectral opposite to the coalition. Indeed, it would make more sense ideologically for them to vote ALP, though the ALP would be seen by such voters as “the opposite” of Coalition.

The long and short of this is that this result for FFP is largely expected, and if replicated across 29 seats and the senate in this Federal election, then Jeff Buchanan will be the second senator for Family First.

This actually seems likely. Apparently 29 candidates will be posted for this election and the primary rise from the 2004 Federal to the 2006 State was doubled (3.58 to over 7%). The curious thing is also, that unlike every other party, FFP tends to do about as well in city, suburbs and country, though inner city (for reasons previously listed) tends to be the worst.

Keep in mind also that FFP has never fielded a candidate in Brisbane Central before. This is a first showing at 8%. Not too shabby for a minor.

No wonder our dear leader, the Man of Steel, will be taking a motor car journey out to see her Her Majesty’s representative in Australia whoever he is.

On this result the Coalition will win all its own seats in Queensland and pick up two (at least) from the Kruddsters. The senate will fall 4-2.

You heard it here first.

It’s finally starting! This should be very interesting….

It’s amazing to me that Labor’s primary pct is actually lower than 2006.
It must be embarassing for them.
This is a bad result for Labor IMHO.

Que? Wishful thinking. It’s higher.

To battlestations Comrades!

Actually the 2PP is good at 7%, though not comparable to having a usual coalition/ALP contest.

FFP may be pleased with the result. Cameron Eastman took 3.8% in the Albert Park by-election, though several HTVs did have preferences, Greens with FFP second last and I believe the ALP had them last. However, I still might have expected more of a coalition bleed. I wonder whether booths were all manned?

Ben

I absolutely agree. GRN doesn’t even feature in most of regional Queensland and the large swathes of “baby towns” don’t do them favours either. These heartlands are swinging centres, so the right of Labor, FFP and Liberal are far more important.

This includes Moreton, Bonner, Blair, Rankin, Dickson and Petrie. The Greens will struggle here, whereas the ALP may do quite well. Even Dickson (Dutton’s seat) and Petrie (Gambaro’s seat) are very much under threat. If ALP, as is expected, might preference FFP second in the senate in exchange for HOR preferences from FFP, then these are certainly in striking range.

FFP did very well in state elections in these same regions and their voters come from both ALP/LIB voting histories, though probably at about 40/60. Their voters also tend to follow HTVs in these seats, though they haven’t been preferenced ALP before, so this is a little unknown. Though in SA, where there is a longer history of preferences to ALP and LIBs distributed on a seat-by-seat basis, up to 67% tend to preference to Labor when asked to.

On this basis, even a 5-6% ALP swing and FFP preferences will deliver all six of these seats to the ALP. This is without even counting any increase from the Greens, which is also a possibility.