Final results in Qld election

The last unresolved seats from the Queensland election have finally been declared, nearly two weeks after polling day. 

Spare a thought for John English, the former Labor member for Redlands, who after two weeks of nail biting, ended up losing his seat by a miserly 34 votes.  To make it even worse for him, according to this comment on the Pineapple Party Time blog, at the very end of the count a small pile of ballot papers were discovered to have been placed with the wrong candidate, leading to “a total of 23 (taken) off the Labor total and added to the LNP total” – sufficient to change the outcome.

Labor was on the right side of the other very narrow win, hanging on to Chatsworth by just 74 votes.

The ALP has ended up with 51 seats – 8 down on their total at the 2006 election.  The LNP has 34 seats and there are 4 incumbent Independents, who were all comfortably re-elected.  My guess when the election was first calledthat Labor would win 50 seats was close to the mark, although I wrongly thought Stuart Copeland would be re-elected running as Independent. 

My suggestion the Greens’ Ronan Lee might hold on was also misplaced.  Although he fell just 42 votes short of getting second place ahead of Labor and receiving a majority of their preferences, it is very unlikely the flow would have been strong enough for him to have overhauled the LNP candidate.

There were only 3 seats out of the 89 where the candidate leading on first preferences was overtaken due to second preferences.  In each case it was the LNP who were overhauled – twice by Labor in Chatsworth and Barron River, with the other being Independent Dolly Pratt in Nanango.  The result in Redlands is a clear-cut case where Labor would have won if compulsory preferential voting still operated in Queensland. 

Election junkies wil be relieved to know there is a by-election worth watchingin WA in the state seat of Fremantle (not to be confused with the federal seat of the same name). Given the circumstances and the result in that seat at the most recent WA election, it is reasonable to say that the Greens have a credible chance of winning this.

Far more important in many ways for Australia’s future is the elections for Indonesia’s Parliament, which happens this coming Monday. The President is directly elected in a separate ballot to be held in July, but the result of the elections for the legislature could shape some of the dynamics of the Presidential poll.