The senate group voting tickets (GVTs) for the 2014 WA Senate election have now been released in CSV form. This allows me to do what I did last time.
First, here are the median positions of each party among all parties’ preferences:
We’ve lost a few parties since last time:
- One Nation;
- the Australian Independents;
- No Carbon Tax Climate Sceptics; and
- the Socialist Equality Party.
And we’ve gained a few more to make up for it:
- the Building Australia Party;
- the Democratic Labour Party;
- the Freedom and Prosperity Party;
- the Mutual Party;
- the Pirate Party;
- the Republican Party of Australia;
- the Socialist Alliance (not to be confused with the Socialist Equality Party); and
- the Voluntary Euthanasia Party.
And there are two groups of independents:
- the Russell Woolf / Verity James group, whose ambitions include saving the ABC from feared funding cuts; and
- the Teresa van Lieshout / Kim Mubarak, apparently part of the Australian Protectionist Party after van Lieshout fell out with Clive Palmer.
Of the parties contesting both elections, here’s how their GVT positions have shifted since the 2013 federal election (based on WA GVTs only):
Negative numbers here mean that a party has migrated towards the start of preferences, which is a good thing (for them). Positive numbers mean the reverse.
It’s curious that the established parties: Labor, Greens, Liberal and National are all beneficiaries of the shift. The major losers appear to be a collection of microparties, plus Family First. (In particular, I’m pleased to note the precipitous fall of the Rise Up Australia to the end of just about everyone’s preferences, as well as the complete absence of One Nation.) Perhaps the microparties’ exceptional performance in 2013 has made them seem less cute and cuddly than they were before. Nevertheless, many of them still adorn the prime real estate near the top of other parties’ preferences.
Labor and the Greens have also improved their standing with respect to the Liberals (though the Greens are still the least favoured of all the parties with a realistic possibility of claiming seats). Presumably there is now less of a frantic push to get Labor out, since that goal was roundly achieved last time. The fulfilment of Tony Abbott’s particular legislative ambitions perhaps doesn’t attract quite the same level of urgency.