First Day Back in the Office
22 March 2021
Today I had my first day back in the office after the election and it was good to be back although it is a bit weird not knowing how long for.
I was hoping to know by now the result of the state election, but it looks like this may be a while yet due to the closeness of the vote for the 6th South Metro Legislative Council spot. Hopefully we will know by the end of month.
How the vote is arrived at is a long and complicated story so I will leave it to ABC election expert Antony Green to explain via his blog https://antonygreen.com.au/2021-wa-election-legislative-council-update/ and excerpt below.
South Metropolitan Region
Labor will elect four MLCs, the Liberals one with the final seat in my view to be won by the Greens. This differs from the current ABC calculator output for South Metroplitan Region. At what the calculator calls Count 26, the Greens trail Labor very narrowly 0.4646 quotas to 0.4706. The calculator excludes the Greens and Labor’s fifth candidate goes on to win the final seat.
However, the calculator does not take any account of BTL votes. Once they are included, Labor’s vote will fall slightly and the Green vote rise. At the 2017 election, only 2.35% of Labor’s votes were BTL compared to 11.13% for the Greens. At the start of the South Metropolitan count, Labor has 4.4706 quotas to the Green’s 0.4500. Modelling percentages for all parties based on 2017 ATL/BTL rates, I estimate that a better starting count would be Labor 4.4002 and the Greens 0.4858. That means at the equivalent of Count 26, the Greens should lead Labor and go on to win the final seat on Labor preferences. That may be reversed if Labor attracts a lot of below the line votes, but I think the Green projected lead will be enough.
The Labor MLCs re-elected are Sue Ellery and Kate Doust, joined by newcomers Klara Andric and Stephen Pratt. Sitting MLC Pierre Yang moved to and was elected to represent North Metropolitan Region. Liberal MLC Nick Goiran is re-elected while fellow MLC Simon O’Brien did not re-contest after losing Liberal pre-election.
Liberal Democrat MLC Aaron Stonehouse was defeated, his party’s vote declining from 3.9% to 0.9% after losing the advantage of being to the left of the Liberal Party on the ballot paper. He will be replaced by the Green’s Brad Pettitt, or if all my predictions prove to be wrong, by a fifth Labor MLC in Victoria Helps.
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