The Liberal might be able to exceed the Family First candidate from Below The Line Votes on the final distribution.

I think there may be nearly as much as half a quota on Below The Line votes.
SW Reporter

Many of those will be diminished by being used up on electing other candidates, by the time there’s a contest for the 3rd Liberal.

I suppose it depends on people’s motivations for doing a below the line vote. Maybe many of them wanted to preference the Liberals ahead of Nationals, Labor, Greens or Family First. I expect a number of the Green BTLs will be preferencing Liberals and maybe ahead of Family First.

Barry House is right to pretty much concede, but till the button is pressed we don’t really know. Maybe he has access to some of the BTL flows and knows he’s not got a chance. Might be worth asking him that.

To elaborate the point (this would not happen) all the Greens BTL votes almost equal the difference in quota on the final FF vs Lib distribution. If all the BTL votes did preference Liberals ahead of FF he could be elected.

But hey, I like the fun of a little political diversity. Even just for the show.

South West is on the cusp of a three-all and four-right two-left result. On the right, the Liberals have won two seats and the remaining one or two is a contest between Nationals candidate Colin Holt, Dan Sullivan of Family First and third Liberal Barry House.

To clarify: Observe the projection below from the ABC computer.

http://www.abc.net.au/elections/wa/2008/guide/legislativecouncil.htm?region=swes

See Count 13: Labor preferences boost the Greens to 21,603, which puts them over the quota of 21,583 and gives them the seat. But they could fall back from here if either the Labor or Greens lose ground. That would leave them short of a quota with Liberal, the Nationals and Family First remaining in the count, and none of their preferences would go to the Greens when they were excluded. The result would be 3 Liberal, 2 Labor and one to either Family First or the Nationals. This my “four-right two-left” scenario.

See Count 14: Family First 8570, Nationals 8262. If the Nationals get ahead, Family First will get eliminated and their preferences distributed – remembering that we’re not talking about 8570 Family First votes here, but the votes of Family First and all those they received preferences from up to this point in the count (CDP, One Nation, New Country and more). Only the independent Guglielmana has put the Liberals ahead of the Nationals, so these votes would flow overwhelmingly to the Nationals and give them the last seat.

So while the current figures point to 2 Liberal, 2 Labor, 1 Greens, 1 FF, we could also get:

3 Liberal, 2 Labor, 1 FF
3 Liberal, 2 Labor, 1 Nationals
2 Liberal, 2 Labor, 1 Nationals, 1 Greens

Having said all that, I don’t know where the remaining votes are coming from – ask someone from the political parties and they might have an idea that the vote is likely to go one way rather than the other.

Whaddya you know about it parisite?

Or it could just be that I suffer from dyscalculia and so I sit there all confused.

But definitely not awestruck by their beauty.

Yes, good looks and dazzling personalities of the Greens preference negotiators plus the sage and benevolent wisdom of the wider Greens preference strategy team.

Or so I’ve heard.

Further to disasterboy @ 21:

The Greens did not:

engage in uninspiring government that flourished only because of a foibles of the Liberal opposition
cynically try to cash in on opposition turmoil for electoral advantage, alienating the electorate by doing so
run a bizarrely mis-targeted campaign

When Liberal and Labor expediently tried to push the Greens out of the Tasmanian parliament there, voters gave the Greens the votes they needed to stay in. The malapportionment in WA has been and is wrong, but don’t be surprised that the correction creates a rural backlash and breathes new life into the National Party. It was actually predictable. With imagination and consideration it could have been avoided by The ALP and The Greens.

Oh. so the Labor Party never understood the process or risks when it preferenced Family First. An unwitting mistake.

You’re not fooling anyone who has any idea. It was a “clever” calculated risk that failed. Like this early election.

In the Leg. Assembly Labor got what it wanted from the Greens and now wants to complain about dealing with the Nats there? The LC is equivalent to what the Labor Party created with the Nats. Remember that the history of the electoral system in WA is largely that of ALP expediency. When the ALP had massive unionised rural/mining worker support they were quite happy to have the mal-apportionment.

When the ALP is really committed to democracy and fair representation they can approach the Greens with a plan for proportional representation or a process of public consultation and participation in creating a new popular electoral system. Maybe even implement their commitment to a proper Constitution for WA. Two terms not long enough? The Greens don’t exist just to provide the electoral system that the ALP thinks will work best at the upcoming election. There are real issues for remote and rural voters and obviously they don’t think the ALP is delivering for them.

Adam, stop blaming the Greens for Labor’s mistakes. Sure, the Greens are in Parliament to help, but if the ALP is blind and deaf! Essentially Labor didn’t get the vote you expected and you are looking for scapegoats. Maybe blame the cynical early election and copying Colin Barnett’s failed “I’m a tough decisive leader” that failed him last time and getting Alan Carpenter to shoot himself in the foot with it this time.