UPDATED: Miracle in Brindabella: Nuttall rides preferences to claim victory

Appears you watch Sky News so tell us all about it, Rupert.

Hopefully Rupert Samuel with Laura Nuttall’s very slim re-election the Greens start treating her like an adult rather than like a little girl, and she starts acting like a mature elected representative.

That includes presenting herself in a more mature way and doing what an elected representative is supposed to do, representing her party and electorate, fronting the media and asking more grown-up questions in the assembly rather than those that reflect her immaturity!

@Bright Spark
I don’t think it is a stunning result, as Lib win has been predicted (via polling, etc) for quite some time. In fact, what I read in the leadup to the Qld election, it seems Labor fared much better than the pundits (and no doubt Labor faithful) expected.

The one good thing, for Qld women, is that the “mad H(K)atter” party did not gain balance of power, so their promised anti-abortion legislative agenda will probably not see the light of day – let alone be enacted.

Any win over Queensland Labor is a stunning result.
Remember, Queensland Labor even made dead people vote about 20 years ago.

Ok, so you might not think it’s stunning, but the news has been less favourable towards this result in the lead up, so it’s very much a stunning relief for many. So there you go, not stunning for you, stunning for plenty of others though.

And totallty agree on the anti-abortion agenda from Bob’s mob. So out of tune with the majority of Australians.

Polling was a landslide Liberal win until the last few weeks…I’m not sure how you get stunning result from that.

Ah yes, can’t win an election so get rid of the government. How very fascist.

I respect your opinion, after all, you are part of it. What Lenin referred to as a “useful idiot”.

@Capital Retro
“It is ridiculous to have a full, stand alone state government structure in a town this size.”

That was resolved by the federal parliament in 1988, with the passing of The Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act – and I acknowledge that was after ACT citizens said they didn’t want it but got it anyway.

Only the federal parliament can change those arrangements.

Totally agree with all that but compromise can bypass that. For example, if an ACT Government could outsource all health, education, law and order etc. to NSW it would eliminate a massive level of bureaucracy and the cost that goes with it and bring efficiencies that would improve the value of such a move.
A smaller ACT government could then deal with the local issues that most other councils do in a city of this size.

You’re seriously calling people “useful idiots” for supporting the democratic process whether it gives them the result they want or not…that’s pretty cooked @Capital Retro.

It’s not a democratic government when it has become an oligarchy as I alluded to in the initial post, Seano.
Labor is involved in everything that happens in Canberra. Through the unions they control health, education and the building industry. If you want a good lawyer to take action against them you will find that that lawyer has already been appointed to the board of government agency so there is a conflict of interest.
And what about CBR? It appears to be a slush fund to assist certain sections and projects to support Labor only. Where are the financial reports for the Arboretum, The Glassworks and other pet Labor projects?
As I said, you and your fellow pile-on mates are all apologists for Labor and the Greens so you ensure you all get the election result you want.
Very useful people.

@Capital Retro
“It’s not a democratic government …”
You seem to be confusing representative democracy with participatory democracy, CR. In Australia we have the former and use a variety of democratic voting systems, to select those we wish to represent the ‘majority’.
I am not apologising for, nor personally happy with, the return of the ‘majority holding’ Labor Greens coalition government, but I accept that the people have spoken, and delivered the result under our current voting system – to do anything less, is merely sour grapes.

It’s not an oligarchy because you don’t like the result of the election champ.

If you don’t like the result of the election why aren’t you whinging at the Canberra Liberals for running a terrible campaign where they did nothing to alleviate the electorate’s concerns over social policy and where their policy offerings were shallow and lacking detail or vision?

For heaven’s sake, the Canberra Liberals’ campaign slogan was “23 years is long enough”, that’s not a reason to vote for the Liberals it’s a whinge.

I’m not interested in your conspiracy theories because there is no conspiracy here, it’s a simple fact that this electorate doesn’t want a cooked government and the Canberra Liberals insist on being a cooked alternative.

Canberra Liberal boosters should either get a grip and seek to move the party to a platform that this electorate can get behind…or they can keep whining and blaming others and lose again in 4 years.

I’m betting on the latter.

I knew what the result would be and knowing the result beforehand is what I don’t like.
The Liberals or any other group can’t be contenders with a chance in an ACT election using the Hare-Clarke system. I am personally not worried what happens in the ACT and I won’t be hanging around here much longer anyhow.
Having been a member of the Liberals I know know how things operate – they know they will never win another election here but there are enough votes for a few members and after all, it’s a well paid job. Those with the “jobs” aren’t keen to let new folk in that may do a better job.
The Labor/Greens however are interested in power – they have a passion for it. Nothing wrong with that but when that power turns to self-interest a lot of harm will be inflicted on the sheep who voted them in.
As I suggested, there needs to be compromise but no positive feedback on that so I’ll opt out.

It’s got nothing to do with Hare-Clark and if the only solution to the Liberals winning is to change the system then the problem is you, not the system.

The Liberals failed to pick up a seat because they ran a terrible campaign and didn’t try to win voters over.

The Canberra Liberals and their supporters need to grow up, a socially moderate, small L Liberal party would be forming a government with the independents right now if they’d ditched the extremists instead of trying to hide them behind Lee.

Ideally per (you), but you’re the opposition, your opinion does not count.
You’re balls deep in your own mucky muck of ideology, so people considering the facts and coming up with a different solution set – ThEY MuSt bE WrONg!

“Anti” is your own spin.
For instance, moderate persons (raging far right nutjobs per your paradigm) disagree about supporting delusion being the healthiest path for trans persons.
Medical professionals also said surgical intervention was the best path for treating symptoms not causes on certain issues *well* within living memory, and majority was saying “no, this isn’t right, lobotomies are not legitimate medical practice”.

Medical professionals now saying “encourage delusion, you can be a rocket ship if you just wish really really hard”, it’s flagrantly flawed, and I will not go along with saying endorsing a flagrant lie.

The T in LGBTQI+ (and let’s not get into the spice of “+” including MAPs, because principle is principle and you will admit in the end that if sexuality is not a choice……….) is being treated by quacks.

Anyway, you do you, idc about your spicy takes but obviously you do so…. Yay? Blow ur own trumpet, blow your own little ego, ‘cause no-one else will..?

Strawman arguments, bigotry and the usual nonsense. The far right is not going to learn from another loss. Thanks for making my case.

@Seano
I look forward to reading your response to Tk – if you can actually work out to what you are responding 🤣

@JustSaying as near as I can make out from the gibberish it’s largely strawman arguments and bigotry, and not worth spending much time on.

Meh, far left nonsense, I replied in kind.
You claim bigotry, I claim stupidity.

Time will tell which is correct.

There’s no above-the-line voting, preferences are chosen by the electors, not the party. Therefore the electorate got their preferred choice. The system is working fine.

If the Liberals had performed better or more Indis had gotten up they could have formed government with the Liberals.

What we’re not talking about is the fact that the Liberals ran a terrible campaign, what’s not working is the Liberal Party changing to meet the electorate.

@bj_ACT
“… they can collaborate at the voting booth by flowing preferences down the ballot …”
How can the parties collaborate when the voter determines: a) to whom they allocate their preferences; and b) how far, beyond the requisite 1-5, they go in numbering candidates – thus allocating preferences?

Your, and ABC’s, guesswork over Parton’s substantial first preference is pure fantasy. Parton did not have the option to “spread” his primary vote – that was determined by electors.

Similarly, your assertion that had the Greens run 5 candidates, “Nuttall likely would have lost votes earlier”, is also baseless. It is equally likely, that the preferences from “lesser favoured” Greens candidates (as happened with the total of 3 that run) would have favoured Nuttall – presenting a similar outcome.

You seem to be trying to blame the Liberal outcome in Brindabella as an issue with the Hare-Clark system, rather than simply accepting that ultimately, Greens-leaning voters went further than other voters in specifying their preferences – hence the final seat in the count went to Nuttall.

No conspiracies – no fault in the system … it worked as designed.

I’ll have to leave it to some better election system analysts than me to explain how the voting flows work.

But I’m definitely no Liberal supporter and I mixed up my votes with Carrick first in my electorate followed by a mix of Liberal, Labor and not Hanson or Steel. I’ve been on this site long enough to show I’m no right winger.

But maybe I worded my comment poorly or didn’t understand what the election experts were saying.
But 43% to earn 2 seats compared to 9%, for 1 seat, and add to that Daniels getting a higher first vote than Nuttall, highlights quirks in the vote flows compared to other preferential voting systems.

Surely you can’t in good faith believe that most voters have any idea at all how the Hare-Clark system actually works JS. It seems like a huge portion of voters, probably even the majority, seem believe that preferences are allocated by parties/candidates.

I’d say the much more likely reason was that she fluked it in because people don’t understand how Hare-Clark works.

@Ken M
I never said “most voters most voters have any idea at all how the Hare-Clark system actually works” … I clearly stated that Greens-leaning voters went further in numbering their preferred candidates on their ballot papers, which is a fact, and hence Nuttall won on preferences – prima facie evidence that those voters did understand how Hare-Clark (well at least allocation of preferences) worked.

What you say is the “likely reason” is irrelevant speculation.

It’s no more speculative than “greens leaning voters went further in numbering”, because when there is clearly a fundamental lack of understanding of how the system works. Because of that, you have a portion of people just numbering boxes to put their least wanted candidate last. A number of preferences would have gone to her unintentionally in that case. It’s not a hard concept to grasp.

Justsaying,
Where is there evidence that Greens leaning voters went further in numbering their ballots more than others?

The result doesn’t actually say that, it just says that Nuttall received higher preference flows than the Liberal to not be excluded and get to the quota first.

Not that vote exhaustion or the number of boxes ticked became an issue for other candidates.

@bj_ACT
Apologies if offended you by misinterpreting your post and inferring you were a Liberal supporter.

I take your point about Daniels getting more first preference votes than Nuttall, but that would only be relevant if there was 1 seat available. The fact that there are 5 seats available. I think means, to be totally accurate, that we should count how many 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 votes were cast in total for each candidate – and, given the current preferential nature of the voting system, that would only be of interest as a statistic.

I don’t see how you can call it “quirks in the vote flows compared to other preferential voting systems” when it is comparable – especially for the House of Reps, which is electorate based. If no HoR candidate gets above 50 per cent of the votes on first preferences, the candidate with the lowest number of first preference votes is excluded and the preferences on those ballot papers are distributed to remaining candidates. When one candidate has at least 50 per cent of the vote from their own first preference votes and preferences transferred from excluded candidates, that candidate is declared elected.

Voting for the Senate is different, especially for preference allocation, and in particular because it allows ‘above the line’ voting, whereby the voter surrenders their preference allocation to the party to determine. While it certainly makes it “easier” to vote, I personally think it is a less fair system than Hare-Clark, as unless the voter checks the party’s “How to vote” card, they have no idea where their preferences will be allocated.

I’m sure that the system of voting can be improved, but short of making every voter number every candidate, I don’t see how it can be fairer.

Just as an aside – I wonder how the results would have fallen, if we adopted a “Brownlow” 3-2-1 style voting system – where candidates receive 5 points for a #1, 4 points for #2, 3 for #3, and so on. There would still be a need for a tie-breaker, probablye some form of preference distribution – but it would give greater “credence” (weighting) to primary votes.

Ken M
Perhaps you should stop digging that hole, as you are clearly one of those voters to which you refer, and don’t understand the concept of preferential voting.

It doesn’t matter why people put a number in a particular box – for example, their number one candidate could be the ‘best of a bad bunch”. Nobody, counting the votes, knows or cares.

What matters, is that the voter is numbering their “preferred” candidates in order. So, as candidates who are “higher” on their list are excluded their vote is allocated to the next candidate … and so on until their numbered candidate list is exhausted or all positions are filled.

As counters go down the list, obviously the voter’s least wanted candidate is put last – it’s why it’s called a preferential voting system!!!! *face palm*

The idea the outcome is unfair to the Libs is true on first preferences (LIB 2.58 quotas v GRN 0.55), but not when considering the broad left-right split. Labor + Greens + Independents for Canberra + Animal Justice + First Nations = 3.21, versus Liberals + Family First + Independent = 2.78. While obviously not a realistic representation, the point is there were more left-leaning candidates, which naturally suggests the Greens would do better from preferences than the Libs. Indeed, the Greens almost always win from behind due to preferences. Lastly, the point about Parton is correct (due to the complexities of Hare-Clark), however it simply suggests the Libs need to put forward better support candidates, or run a better campaign.

Bj, It’s not a first-past-the-post system, people vote knowing their preferences matter as you did.

Funny how so many voters including those who voted independent and “put their least wanted candidate last” and the ACT Liberals turned out to be amongst them Ken.

PS. Our parents and grandparents have always voted in a preferential system…the suggestion that people don’t know what they’re voting for is desperate hopium…thanks for the laugh.

@chewy14
Perhaps I was a bit loose in my terminology.

By “Greens-leaning”, I meant those who numbered sufficient boxes as to eventually put a number next to Nuttall, as a Greens candidate, for the last distribution of preferences in the count, and because of that she emerged the final seat winner on preferences.

I’m aware of how the system works, genius. I’m diaputing your assertion, which is purely speculative with absolutely zero evidence to back it up besides “Trust me bro!”, that she won because green leaning voters numbered more boxes.

Jack D was incredibly accurate for once, Mr Cranium.

Ahh, never any doubt seano would chime in with his usual irrelevant nonsense and delusion.

The reality is that the Libs absolutely trounced Labor and the greens in the Brindabella electorate. She got lucky by virtue of the Hare-Clark system.

@Ken M
Yeah sure … you say you know how the preferential system works, but then go on to prove you have no idea.

Ummm … if voters numbered more boxes and included Nuttall in the numbering of those boxes, don’t you kind of think that might have been what lead to her winning on preferences – like in a preferential voting system?

Yes – you are right, compered to you I am a genius.

@Ken M
PS “… which is purely speculative with absolutely zero evidence …”
Unlike you I do have evidence to support me.

Check out the distribution of preferences page, on the OFFICIAL election website:\
https://www.elections.act.gov.au/for-voters/distribution-of-preferences-2024

The evidence you seek, and which I used, is accessible via the the Brindabella table 2 link, either the Excel or PDF version.

Let me explain. it in case all those rows and columns are too much for you to comprehend. As each stage of distribution proceeds, there are less votes available for distribution, because less voters have continued to number boxes. Surprise, surprise, when you get to the last row, Nuttall is the ‘last one standing’ and I quote: “James DANIELS fully excluded. Laura NUTTALL elected 5.” … meaning that those who made it that far, preferenced her over Daniels.

QED

So you are just going to double down on your made up BS. You have absolutely no evidence it was because “green leaning voters” numbered more boxes. You’re literally just making it up. At least I admit that my claim that it was probably voter ignorance was speculation based on observation of how many people think parties distribute preferences.

You’re no less insufferable than the two Labor social media team stooges, Mr Cranium.

@Ken M
I’m not doubling down on anything … I’m just presenting the evidence as per the official results. The fact that you can’t understand those results, just goes to prove yet again you lack the skills for critical thinking.

In the end all you can do is resort to puerile perjoratives.

When you actually have something coherent and considered to say, perhaps I’ll deign to address it – though I won’t hold my breath waiting.