The declaration of nominations took place at midday yesterday at local electoral offices all over Australia. It took most of the day before lists of candidates appeared on the AEC website.
There has been a marked reduction in the numbers of candidates standing. The AEC reports that only 849 candidates have nominated for the House of Representatives, down from 1054 in 2007. This reduction is consistent across all states.
The ALP and Greens are standing candidates in all seats. Coalition candidates are standing in all seats. The Liberal Party is standing 107 candidates, and the Nationals are standing 16 candidates. The Queensland Liberal National Party and the NT Country Liberal Party are standing candidates in all 32 seats in Queensland and the Northern Territory.
In five seats, the Liberals and Nationals are both standing: in the Labor seats of Richmond and Throsby, the Nationals seat of Riverina, and the WA regional Liberal seats of O’Connor and Forrest. Throsby is a particular surprise, as a majority of the seat lies in the Illawarra region, very much an urban area.
There are a number of seats with very small number of candidates standing. In six seats, only Labor, Liberal and Greens candidates are standing. These six seats are the Sydney seats of Bradfield, Werriwa, Barton and Mackellar, the Tasmanian seat of Braddon, and the seat of Canberra. In thirty-three other seats, only one other party or independent is stanidng, along with a Labor, Green and Coalition candidate.
Family First is standing in 108 seats. 87 unaffiliated candidates are standing, down from 106 in 2007. No other party comes close to the major parties, Greens and Family First. The Christian Democratic Party is standing in 42 seats, most in New South Wales and Western Australia, and one Victorian seat. The Australian Democrats are standing in 25 seats, down from 86 seats in 2007. The Liberal Democrats are standing in 22 seats, down from 47 seats in 2007 (when they were named ‘Liberty and Democracy’). The Citizens Electoral Council stood in 81 seats in 2007, but only managed to find twelve candidates this time around.
The new Secular Party is standing in 19 seats. Another new party, the Australian Sex Party, is only standing in six seats, despite a strong performance at last year’s federal by-elections.
It certainly appears that something has hindered the ability of many minor parties to nominate the range of candidates they would normally achieve. While in the case of parties like the Democrats and One Nation, you would expect such a collapse in numbers considering their decline, even newly-developed parties have failed to field substantial candidates. Seats with a history of massive fields at by-elections including Werriwa, Bradfield and Mackellar will only have a choice of the three largest parties.
Nominations have roughly remained steady, although a record number of groups are standing in New South Wales, where 32 groups have nominated. 25 groups nominated in 2007. Meanwhile, the number of groups dropped by two to 21 in Victoria, by one to 23 in Queensland, and stayed steady on 21 in Western Australia. The previous record was 29 groups, who stood in New South Wales in 2004.
Most media today has reported the resurrection of Cheryl Kernot’s political career, nine years after the former Democrats leader lost her seat as a Labor MP. You would have to say her chances of winning election are slim. In 2004, Pauline Hanson stood without a party name in Queensland, and polled 4.5%, although another 3% went to her former party (still using her name). Hanson’s profile was much higher than Kernot’s, a decade after she disappeared from Australian politics.
On the other hand, Kernot should benefit from stronger preferences than Hanson received, and if she performs well she may be able to stay in the race long enough to compete with the Greens and Labor for the third left-of-centre seat in New South Wales.
The other interesting candidate announcement in the Senate is Glenn Druery, also standing in New South Wales for the Liberal Democratic Party. The LDP has been around for the last few years, standing on a platform of severe libertarianism, combining very liberal social policies with neoliberal economics, opposition to environmental protection and support for gun rights.
Druery has a history of running for a number of parties attempting to get elected through complex preference deals. He put together a deal between a number of microparties for the New South Wales state election in 1999 which saw the Outdoor Recreation Party elect a member of the NSW upper house. In 2004 he came close to winning election to the Senate as the Liberals for Forests candidate. He will undoubtedly be attempting to stitch up a deal with most of the microparties running in New South Wales to give him a chance of staying in the race long enough to overtake the Greens or Labor, but would require preferences from one of the bigger parties to actually win.
Adam Bandt is going to get the benefit of the donkey vote in Melbourne. What is the value of the donkey anyway? There is some research into it I’m sure. Worth maybe half a percentage point?
Yeah, there is some research. I think it varies depending on the electorate, usually in the 0.5 – 1% range.
It doesn’t always have much impact, Dani Ecuyer in Wentworth in 2007 only got 0.88% despite her profile and the benefit of the donkey vote.
I think that may say more about Dani Ecuyer’s profile than it does about the donkey vote.
I think the state of the economy and fall in employment for higher-paid workers has something to do with the smaller number of candidates fielded. On the other hand- you would think the Liberals might have been saturating the hustings with people because they are perceived as having a chance of actually ousting Labour after only one term. What’s wrong with them? It’s almost as though Liberal are not EXPECTING to quite get over the line with Abbott leading…
The LDP has been around for the last few years, standing on a platform of severe libertarianism, combining very liberal social policies with neoliberal economics, opposition to environmental protection and support for gun rights.
This sentence betrays serious ignorance. There is no such thing as “severe” libertarianism, while “neoliberalism” is primarily a pigment of Kevin Rudd’s fevered imagination.
The Liberal Democratic Party is based on classical liberal principles, known as libertarian in the US. It is neither left wing nor right wing, but supports low taxes, free enterprise and civil rights. Civil rights include the right to own a gun. And it is not opposed to environmental protection, it just believes this does not require government ownership and lots of rules and public servants.
The only way you could call LDP “severe” libertarian is if are new to the word “libertarian”.
By severe I assume you mean radical. A radical libertarian party would be like the US Libertarian Party or the NZ Libertarianz party, which both believe in basically getting rid of all government except military and police. In contrast, the LDP is actually “moderate” libertarian in simply calling for the slow reduction in some areas of government intervention.
An easier way to explain the LDP might be “Hong Kong economic policies with Dutch social policies”.
Hi
Where can i find information about preference votes?
Comments are closed.