Now that the counting is pretty much finished I thought I should update the figures and graphs I put up earlier.
There is little change in the numbers, but this now accounts for postal votes and all the votes which come in from absentee voting and the like which can take time to get counted.
So, let's start with the primary vote (note this is for the House of Reps, so preferential voting and single member electorates, not for the Senate which is still being counted and is proportional representation with multi-member electorates)
The main message here is the reduction in the primary vote of the major parties and the increase in the vote of independents, bearing in mind the figures for independents include any independent not just those who were prominent in the campaign.
We see the following Primary Votes:
ALP: 32.6%
LNP: 35.7:
Green: 12.3%
One Nation: 5.0%
UAP: 4.1%
Independent: 5.29%
On a graph over time it looks like this (excluding independents, hard to track over time);
View attachment 15728
You can also see that the primary vote of the 2 major parties added together has dramatically fallen over time:
View attachment 15729
This is now more reflected in the seats won with the large number of reps elected who are not from the major parties, but it still does not reflect the vote. As the major party share of the primary vote falls you would expect some change but it remains difficult for minor parties or independents to win seats in single member electorates in the lower house (would be even worse if we had first past the post voting, in my seat we would still have Tim Wilson as the LNP member for Goldstein with 40% of the primary vote).
16 of the 151 seats in the lower house are held by members who are not from the major parties, that is 10% of the seats, in other words, with 68.3% of the primary vote the major parties won 90% of seats. Not great but if this falls more then we should see more members who are not from the major parties. The proportions will be quite different in the Senate with Proportional Representation.
You can see the seats won more easily in a graph:
View attachment 15730
Big increase in the "other" category reflecting that the major parties' share of the primary vote has reduced to the point where they are losing seats.
The 2 party preferred is a bit less illuminating with 10% of seats going to others, it means that some of the 2 candidate preferred counts (in any seat where the final preference count does not include a major party) doesn't actually fit. But still useful when considering if the ALP should really have won the election, it looks like this:
View attachment 15731
So, yes, the ALP is the deserved holder of government.
The bigger question is whether the trend away from the major parties will continue. Only time will tell but the recent history is of independents retaining their support and this result, with a big increase in members elected from neither major party, is a big change. We haven't seen a lower house with so many members outside the major parties since before WWI.
Interesting times.
DS
PS: the finalised Senate counts are starting to come in now, very complicated and some will have over 100 preference allocations. I might try and have a bash at that one day.