Labor could hand the Coalition the Senate

THE threat by ALP leaders to direct Labor preferences to the Liberals ahead of the Greens would have no impact in the House of Representatives. But it might cost the Greens a Senate seat or two and give the Coalition control of the Senate.

If they mean it, it's a high-risk threat. Like them or loathe them, the Greens are Labor's ally. In 2010, 45 of Labor's 72 MPs won their seats on Green preferences. In the whole of Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania and both territories, every Labor MP got there on Greens preferences.

Labor's tough guys brush aside the threat: except in five seats at most, Greens voters will ultimately have to choose between Labor and Tony Abbott. Election after election has shown that Greens how-to-vote cards make almost no difference: most Greens voters give their preferences to Labor whether told to or not.

But in the House, Labor's threat is hollow. In the handful of seats the Greens have a chance of winning, Labor preferences will not be distributed. In seats such as Melbourne, and at a stretch, Batman and Wills, the fight would be between the Greens and Labor. Liberal preferences would decide it.

The Senate is different. Given the size of the ballot paper, most of us tick the box for our party and its preferences, rather than fill out our own. In 2004, Labor preferences put Family First's Steve Fielding into the Senate instead of the Greens. They could do it again.

In 2010 it wouldn't have mattered. The Greens' vote hit record levels, and except in New South Wales, they won either a full quota or close to it. Where they got Labor preferences, they didn't need them. But if their vote falls a bit in 2013, Labor preferences could be crucial. If Labor and the Coalition swap preferences, they could limit the Greens to Tasmania and Victoria.

For Labor, the risk is that it could give the Coalition control of the Senate. Ultimately it has to decide which party is its real enemy and which its ally.

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Push to adopt new voting model

AUSTRALIAN voters would be freed from having to fill out all the boxes on their ballot paper at future federal elections, under a plan by Labor and the Greens as long as the candidate they vote for has registered a how-to-vote card.

Against strong opposition from Coalition MPs, the Labor/Greens majority on the parliamentary electoral committee has proposed adopting the South Australian system, in which votes that mark only one preference are counted and assumed to follow the candidate's preferences.

At last year's election, a record 729,304 votes for the House of Representatives were declared informal 5.5 per cent of all votes.

The Australian Electoral Commission estimates that almost half were deliberately invalid, with 210,587 voters lodging blank ballot papers, and 123,102 writing protest messages on their ballot papers.

But the commission estimates that more than 375,000 votes, or 2.9 per cent, were unintentionally informal, with more than 300,000 voters disqualified for writing only one or two preferences, instead of filling out the entire ballot paper.

Most were in New South Wales and Queensland, where voters at state elections no longer have to give more than one preference. In recent state elections, Labor has urged supporters to just vote 1 for Labor. Confusion between federal and state laws resulted in almost 200,000 NSW and Queensland voters at the last federal election marking only a single preference. All were declared informal.

The South Australian system was introduced in the mid-1980s, and is accepted by all parties in the state. The difference is that if you cast just a first preference in NSW and Queensland, only that preference is counted. In South Australia, you are assumed to have cast your preferences in line with those of your candidate's how-to-vote card.

In a dissenting report, Liberal MPs objected strongly to using this "fraudulent" system at federal elections. "Opposition members are resolutely opposed to any proposal that purports to count votes in a way not so marked or cast by the voters themselves," they wrote.

"This proposal is the equivalent of a drawn grand final being decided not by extra time or by a replay, but by adding the number of near misses to the score to determine a winner after the siren sounds."

Victorian Liberal senator Scott Ryan was a lone voice urging that voters be free to decide how many or how few preferences they want to direct.

The committee's report also urged that:

The deposits that candidates have to pay be doubled to $1000 for the House of Representatives and $2000 for the Senate, to discourage token candidates from cluttering up the ballot paper.

The electoral commission be allowed to update voter rolls from any sources of data it judges reliable, rather than requiring voters to register. The commission estimates 1.4 million Australians are not on the rolls, and about 165,000 provisional votes cast on polling day had to be rejected for that reason.

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Houdini act couldn't save Victorian Labor

LABOR performed a Houdini act in the state election, winning eight of the 10 closest seats to keep the new Baillieu government to a majority of just two.

The final election results show the outcome was closer in seats than in votes. The Coalition harvested more than 1.4 million primary votes, 270,000 more than Labor, but in most of the close seats, Labor got votes where it mattered.

After preferences, 1.633 million Victorians, or 51.6 per cent, voted for a Baillieu government, while 1.533 million, or 48.4 per cent voted to re-elect the Brumby government.

Labor won 14 or a third of its 43 seats with margins of less than 3 per cent, eight by less than 2 per cent, and 19, or almost half its seats, by less than 5 per cent. By contrast, the Coalition won 36 of its 45 seats by more than 5 per cent, and 43 by more than 2 per cent.

Of the 13 seats it gained, only two were really close: Bentleigh, the closest contest, which the Liberals won by 0.75 per cent, and Seymour, won by 1.2 per cent.

But Greens preferences gave Labor seat after seat by narrow margins: Eltham (0.8 per cent), Ballarat West (1.1), Macedon (1.3), Bellarine (1.4), Ballarat East (1.5), Ivanhoe (1.7), Cranbourne (1.9), Monbulk (1.9), Albert Park (2.0) and Geelong (2.1).

All this will change before Victoria goes to the polls again in 2014. A redistribution in 2012 could create two new seats in the outer northern and western suburbs. That means northern Victoria, the eastern suburbs and the south-eastern suburbs are all at risk of losing a seat.

One of the biggest swings was in Essendon, where former planning minister Justin Madden's plan to parachute into the lower house almost failed, with the Liberals gaining a swing of 9.3 per cent and the preferences of one in three Greens voters.

In truth, there were big swings against Labor in most of the western suburbs: 12.4 per cent in Steve Bracks's old seat of Williamstown, 10.9 per cent in Thomastown and John Brumby's seat of Broadmeadows, 10 per cent in Derrimut, and outsize swings in Keilor (9.1 per cent), Footscray (8.4) and Altona (8.3). But only in Essendon was the result close.

Overall, the two-party swing against Labor was 6 per cent. The median swing was higher still, because in most of the Nationals' heartland, there was little or no swing and in two seats, a swing to Labor.

In Mildura, first-term Nationals MP Peter Crisp suffered a massive 7.9 per cent swing to Labor. In Murray Valley, where veteran Nationals MP Ken Jasper retired, Labor's vote rose 2.7 per cent, while in the Wimmera seat of Lowan, there was no swing at all.

By contrast, Gippsland saw the biggest swing to the Coalition. In Gippsland East, the Nationals unseated independent Craig Ingram with a swing of 20.5 per cent against him.

With some exceptions, the swing against Labor was smaller in the country than in Melbourne. But overall the swing in its marginal seats was no more than the swing statewide. The bush held, but the city fell.


COALITION % LABOR %

MARGIN MARGIN

Bentleigh* 0.8 Eltham 0.8

Ballarat West 1.1

Seymour* 1.2 Macedon 1.3

Bellarine 1.4

Ballarat East 1.5

Ivanhoe 1.7

Cranbourne 1.9

Monbulk 1.9

Carrum* 2.0 Albert Park 2.0

Mordialloc* 2.1 Geelong 2.1

Frankston* 2.1 Essendon 2.4

Mitcham* 2.8 Ripon 2.7

Bendigo West 2.9

Narre Wn Nth 3.0

Forest Hill* 3.2 Brunswick (#G) 3.3

South Barwon* 3.9 Bendigo East 3.8

Albert Park (#G) 3.9

Prahran* 4.3 Yan Yean 4.1

Oakleigh 4.7

Plus 36 seats with Plus 24 seats with

majorities over 5% majorities over 5%

* LIBERAL GAIN AT ELECTION.

# LABOR MARGIN OVER GREENS.


THE FINAL VOTE

VOTES SWING SEATS GAIN/

% % (88) LOSS

Liberals 38.0 3.6 35 12

Nationals 6.8 1.6 10 1

Coalition 44.8 5.2 45 13

Labor 36.3 6.8 43 12

Greens 11.2 1.2 0 -

Others 7.8 0.5 0 1


TWO-PARTY PREFERRED

Coalition 51.6 6.0

Labor 48.4 6.0


THE BIGGEST SWINGS

TWO-PARTY SWING TO COALITION %

Morwell 14.2

Williamstown 12.4

Ferntree Gully 12.0

Gippsland East 11.5*

Broadmeadows 10.9

Thomastown 10.9

Evelyn 10.7

Kilsyth 10.1

Derrimut 10.0


WHERE THE COALITION WON

Burwood 9.6*

Carrum 8.7*

Seymour 7.9*

Mount Waverley 7.8*

Prahran 7.8*

Gembrook 7.4*

Bentleigh 7.0*

South Barwon 6.2*

Mordialloc 5.6*

Frankston 4.8*

Mitcham 4.7*

Forest Hill 4.0*


THE SMALL SWINGS

Melton 0.8

Shepparton 1.3

Mill Park 1.3

Tarneit 1.3

Rodney 1.4

Bendigo East 1.5

Ripon 1.6


SWINGS TO LABOR

Mildura 7.9

Murray Valley 2.7

Lowan 0


* SEATS THAT CHANGED HANDS.

SOURCE: VICTORIAN ELECTORAL COMMISSION.

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20 Labor seats courtesy of Victorian Greens

LABOR relied on Greens preferences to win 20 of its 43 seats in the new Legislative Assembly raising real doubts about whether it could afford to follow the Coalition in putting the Greens last.

Final election results suggest rather that Labor and the Greens may be doomed to live in a love-hate relationship competing fiercely for a widening circle of inner-suburban seats, yet teaming up against the Coalition elsewhere.

While the Coalition rode the protest vote to power, the battle between Labor and the Greens widened to a second arc of seats from Williamstown to Ivanhoe, and south to Albert Park. Despite that, Greens voters came to Labor's rescue in seat after seat. Across the state, 75 per cent of Greens preferences went to Labor, just 25 per cent to the Coalition. And in 11 of the state's 88 seats, they swung the result Labor's way.

Before Greens preferences, the Coalition was leading in 56 seats, and Labor in just 32. But Greens preferences changed that to a 45-43 result, lifting Labor above the Coalition to snatch narrow victories in seat after seat two seats in Ballarat, two in Geelong, in Macedon, and in six city seats, from Essendon to Monbulk.

Former education minister Bronwyn Pike this week called for Labor to consider putting the Greens last. But while the Greens were her enemy in Melbourne, half her colleagues in the caucus room owe their seats at least partly to Greens voters and might not want a fight.

The final results show that:

While Coalition preferences gave Labor all four seats in the inner north Brunswick, Melbourne, Northcote and Richmond the voters rebelled, delivering a landslide swing against Labor to the Greens and Liberals.

On average, at the three-party stage, the swing against Labor in the four seats was a massive 8.5 per cent, with 5 per cent going to the Greens, and 3.5 per cent to the Liberals. In Brunswick, Greens candidate Cyndi Dawes held an 18-vote lead over Labor until Liberal preferences swung the seat back.

Liberal voters staged a different kind of rebellion. One in three Liberal voters in the four seats defied their party's how-to-vote cards, and directed their preferences to the Greens ahead of Labor.

The Greens also made big gains from Labor in the next ring of seats further out. At the three-party stage, the Greens polled 25 per cent in Albert Park, 21 per cent in Williamstown, 27 per cent in Footscray and 20 per cent in Essendon, Preston and Ivanhoe.

This suggests the next Labor v Greens battle will be over a much wider field.

In the outer suburbs and regional Victoria, by contrast, the Greens went backwards from their high-water mark at the federal election, when they won 12.6 per cent of the vote in Victoria. This time they won just 11.2 per cent of votes, up from 10 per cent in 2006, but well short of their hopes.

Greens how-to-vote cards appeared to have no influence on the way their voters voted. In city seats where they directed preferences to Labor, 75 per cent of Greens voters did so. Yet in three seats where they issued an open ticket, 76 per cent of their voters gave preferences to Labor.

But in two seats, many Greens voters also rebelled against directives to give preferences to the Liberals. In Cranbourne, 41 per cent gave their second vote to former Hawthorn star Geoff Ablett. And in Essendon, 35 per cent preferred the Liberals to former planning minister Justin Madden.


OUR 88 MPs HOW THEY WON

Coalition (45) Labor (43)

Absolute majority 31 13

On preferences

after leading 14 19

after trailing - 11

Greens preferences reversed the outcome in:

Albert Park, Ballarat East, Ballarat West, Bellarine, Eltham, Essendon, Geelong, Ivanhoe, Macedon, Monbulk, Oakleigh.

Greens preferences helped Labor over the line in: Bendigo East, Bendigo West, Bundoora, Cranbourne, Footscray, Narre Warren North, Ripon, Williamstown, Yan Yean.

Victorian Electoral Commission

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All power to Baillieu as upper house win looms

THE Baillieu government appears set to control both houses of Parliament, after a late surge in voting for the Greens knocked maverick independent Stephen Mayne out of the race in the Northern Metro region.

With almost all votes counted, the Liberals appear set to squeeze home in all three of the close races for the new Legislative Council. This would give the Coalition a bare majority of 21 seats in the 40-member chamber a gain of four seats from the 17 it held in the old Council.

Labor looks set to end up with just 16 seats, down from 19 in the old chamber.

The Greens have retained their three seats in the Council but lost the balance of power. And the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) has lost its one seat, that of its leader, Peter Kavanagh.

The final result will be known for certain on Monday, when the Victorian Electoral Commission will feed all 3.2 million votes to its computer to allocate the preferences.

But there is now only an outside chance of an upset.

Ironically, a massive late surge in the Greens' vote has ended their hopes of retaining the balance of power.

Big gains in counting of absentee and postal votes lifted the Greens' vote to 12 per cent statewide, and 19.1 per cent in Northern Metro.

That not only re-elected their de facto leader Greg Barber, but lifted his running mate Alex Bhathal well above Mr Mayne, who polled just 1 per cent, knocking him out of the race.

The Liberals' Craig Ondarchie will end with the final seat, held by retired Labor minister Theo Theophanous.

Sex Party leader Fiona Patten also fell short of sneaking an upset win in the same race.

The late surge to the Greens also saw their Member of the Legislative Council, Colleen Hartland, win her battle with the President of the Council, Labor's Bob Smith, for the final seat in Western Metro.

Mr Smith, most famous for taking 10 overseas trips in his four years as Council President, will be replaced by Andrew Elsbury of the Liberals.

The closest race of all is in the vast electorate of Northern Victoria, where Liberal MLC Donna Petrovich has narrowly rolled back a strong challenge by Steve Threlfall of the Country Alliance.

The Country Alliance polled 20 per cent of the vote in Shepparton, where they beat Labor into third place, but ran out of puff in the Mallee.

David O'Brien of the Nationals took the final seat in Western Victoria from DLP leader Peter Kavanagh, the first seat the Nationals have won in the west for 40 years.

And in Southern Metro, the Liberals' Georgie Crozier unseated Labor MLC Jennifer Huppert.

Mr Mayne's loss maintains his record as Australia's most unsuccessful candidate for Parliament and the boards of top 100 companies a record blemished only by him win-ning election to Manningham Council.


LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

LIB/NAT ALP GREENS

METRO

Eastern 3 2 No change

Northern 2 2 1 Libs gain from ALP

South Eastern 2 3 No change

Southern 3 1 1 Libs gain from ALP

Western 2 2 1 Libs gain from ALP

VICTORIA

Eastern 3 2 No change

Northern 3 2 No change

Western 3 2 Nat gain from DLP

TOTAL 21 16 3

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Sex Party close to winning first seat

SEX industry lobbyist Fiona Patten could be catapulted into the Legislative Council to share the balance of power with the Greens, after a surprise twist in the re-check of votes put her within a breath of taking the final Northern Metro region seat.

With a third of votes re-checked, the Greens were polling almost 20 per cent in the seat, well over a quota. If sustained, this would knock out independent Stephen Mayne, but open the door for Ms Patten, leader of the Sex Party.

She now trails Labor by just 0.1 per cent at the point where one or other must be eliminated. If she can overtake Labor, she will defeat the Liberals on Labor preferences.

The re-check has put the Country Alliance back on track to win in Northern Victoria from the Coalition, although it is still too close to call, while Greens MLC Colleen Hartland looks likely to narrowly lose her Western Metro seat in a three-way contest with the Liberals and Labor.

The Coalition is on track to win 20 seats in the 40-member council, Labor 17, the Greens two and the Country Alliance one. If Ms Patten wins, the Coalition will drop to 19.

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Baillieu the hunter to become Baillieu the provider

THE Bracks/Brumby government has fallen after 11 years in office. The Kennett government fell after seven years. The Cain/Kirner governments lasted 11 years, taking over from the Hamer/Thompson governments, which ruled for almost 10 years. It's a consistent pattern.

The days when we had a natural party of government are over.

What is natural now is to stay in power for a decade or so, two or three terms, before being overwhelmed by the accumulation of frustrations, disappointments and anger by voters at this or that.

That's the central lesson of the unexpected electoral landslide that has swept Labor from office. On most tests, it was not a bad government. Victoria is widely seen by the rest of Australia as being one of the better-run states: pro-business, socially progressive, strong in education, a national leader in jobs creation and housing activity, and generally humming with growth.

But since Labor took power, Victoria's population has grown by almost a million, close to 20 per cent. For those living in Victoria, hospital wards became overloaded, trains overcrowded, roads clogged. Assault rates rose, for several reasons, and people felt less secure. The cost of electricity, gas and water soared, mostly for reasons unrelated to state government. Labor made some mistaken choices that proved expensive. And it developed a habit of being less than honest with Victorians, and trying to manipulate, hide and spin its way out of trouble rather than being upfront about problems. In the end, they all hurt.

Now it is Ted Baillieu's turn. Today he and his frontbench will be transformed from poachers to gamekeepers, from fanning voters' discontent with state government services to trying to dampen it, from making them think services are bad to making them think services are good.

When a train derails or an ambulance fails to arrive, when an emergency ward leaves patients waiting, or when power prices rise, it will now be his government in the firing line. It will be a challenging transformation.

But Baillieu has got there by meeting tough challenges. It is no mean feat to end five years in the unenviable job of Opposition Leader with the public approving of your performance and electing you to a landslide win. He has shown discipline and good sense in judging what issues to focus on, a progressive streak that defines him as a leader from the political centre, and a combination of careful planning and a willingness to take risks.

He will need all of that now. From today, he will confront the underlying reality that drove Saturday's result: the central problem facing any state government is that it simply does not have the resources to provide services at the level its citizens expect.

A government can get by for a while by blaming the inadequacies on its predecessors, and creating a sense that the problems are being tackled. But in the end, that gap between its funding sources and the expectations of the public will defeat it.

It's a global problem, but it's particularly severe in Australia because we insist that taxes be low and see public debt as an evil to be avoided.

All government services must be paid for by taxes or equivalent charges. All government infrastructure must be paid for by taxes, or by borrowings to be serviced and repaid by taxes. If you want low taxes, if you want low or no government debt, then you have to accept worse government services and infrastructure than you would if we paid our governments more.

Public private partnerships allow governments to avoid debt, but not liability; they too have to be paid for and serviced, either by taxpayers or consumers. If you want Victoria to have better schools, better public transport, better hospitals, Victoria's government has to invest more and ultimately, raise taxes and charges to deliver them.

Brumby as treasurer invested too little to improve services, focusing instead on debt reduction. As premier, to his credit, he changed tack, and embarked on a five-year plan to borrow about $25 billion and invest it in tackling Victoria's infrastructure backlog: new roads, schools, hospitals, public transport, water projects and so on. He lost office too soon to reap the benefit.

One of the challenges for Team Baillieu will be to decide whether it sustains investment at that level, or reduces it to avoid threatening Victoria's AAA rating. It will be criticised whichever it does. But it knows that simply changing the state's managers does not solve the problems they have campaigned on for a decade. They have to do things differently and in many areas, they will have to invest more, and spend more on maintenance to get rundown assets such as Melbourne and Victoria's rail systems into reliable working order.

It also needs to take care on what it commits to. In the campaign, it pledged

to investigate new rail lines to Tullamarine airport, Doncaster, and connecting Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo. Yet it committed to build one new line: of all things, a $250 million rail link to Avalon Airport.

OK, as white elephants go, it's only a mid-sized one. But when there are so many urgent needs in public transport, why waste taxpayers' money on this one?

Shadow Treasurer Kim Wells declared during the campaign that a Coalition government would require all large new infrastructure projects to have their business case assessed by the Department of Treasury and Finance, with the assessment made public. That's an excellent idea, and one that would help protect a Baillieu government from its own desal disasters.

John Brumby can leave politics proud of what he achieved. Ted Baillieu can enter the great challenge of his career with quiet pride in what he has achieved to get there.

He will need all that self-discipline, understanding, wary intelligence and a streak of boldness.

Wish him luck.

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Activist poised to control upper house with record low vote

JOURNALIST and shareholder activist Stephen Mayne could hold the balance of power in the new Legislative Council, with new counting showing he could block the Baillieu government from having a majority in both houses.

When counting ended last night, Mr Mayne was on track to set a new Victorian record by winning a seat in Parliament with just 1.04 per cent of the vote.

The founder and former publisher of online newspaper www.crikey.com.au, Mr Mayne stood as an independent in the Northern Metro electorate the latest in many tilts at company boards, federal and state Parliament, and even Manningham council (his only success).

So far he has won just 3064 of the 295,831 votes cast in Northern Metro, which runs from Flinders Street station to the Great Divide.

But an astonishing series of preference deals could see him climb into the upper house on the back of preferences from another independent, the Greens, Family First, the DLP, the Sex Party and Labor.

With only 69 per cent of votes counted, he still could be upended if the Greens' vote continues its rise in late counting. Greens de facto leader Greg Barber has a quota in his own right, with 17.9 per cent of the vote.

If that lifts to 18.2 per cent, Mr Milne would lose out to the Greens' second candidate, and the Liberals or Labor would take the seat.

A second maverick candidate also has a narrow lead in upper house counting, but it is fast dwindling.

Shepparton hunting shop owner Steve Threlfall, of the Country Alliance, still leads in the race for the last seat in northern Victoria. But Liberals MLC Donna Petrovich is catching up, and likely to hold her seat.

If she does, the Coalition would probably have 20 seats in the new 40-member council. Labor looks like winning 17, with two Greens and Mr Mayne sharing the balance of power.

If so, a Baillieu government is likely to look to him to provide it with crucial support. Mr Mayne was press secretary to former Treasurer Alan Stockdale in the early years of the Kennett government, before having a spectacular falling out with Mr Kennett over the explosion of gambling in the state. His many causes include greater transparency in government, reducing gambling and reducing government debt.

In Western Metro, Greens MLC Colleen Hartland lost ground yesterday, and now looks likely to be the loser in a three-way contest for two seats against upper house president Bob Smith (Labor) and Andrew Elsbury (Liberal).

Hundreds of thousands of votes were counted yesterday in lower house electorates mostly for the Coalition but without changing the status of any seats.

Ballarat East is now the closest contest, with Labor MP Geoff Howard holding off Liberal challenger Ben Taylor by just 166 votes or 0.26 per cent.

In Bentleigh, Liberal candidate Elizabeth Miller has extended her lead over Labor MP Rob Hudson to 460 votes, and has clearly won the seat. But in Macedon, Labor MP Joanne Duncan appears set to withstand the tide, maintaining a decisive lead of 498 votes.

In the only other seat in doubt, Labor MP Steve Herbert maintained a lead in 245 votes in Eltham, and appears likely to hold on.

If Labor holds both Eltham and Ballarat East, it will have 43 seats in the new 88-member Assembly, and the Coalition 45.

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Victoria's landslide could give Coalition both houses

THE Coalition last night was on the verge of pulling off an improbable quinella not only winning government, but winning control of both houses of Parliament.

The electoral landslide that swept across Victoria could give the Liberals and Nationals up to four new seats in the 40-member Legislative Council, mostly at Labor's expense. Only one seat has clearly changed hands.

As expected, the Liberals won a third seat in their heartland of Southern Metro, with Georgie Crozier unseating Labor's Jennifer Huppert.

But Coalition candidates were also well placed to pick up three other seats, although final results could be weeks away. The Coalition needs to win all three to give it a majority of 21 seats in the new upper house. But if its vote climbs slightly as pre-poll, postal and absentee votes are counted, it could do just that.

Labor took a battering, with the party at risk of losing four of its 19 seats in the upper house. The Greens failed to make any gains, and have an outside chance of losing Western Metro MLC Colleen Hartland.

The DLP lost its sole representative, Western Victoria MLC Peter Kavanagh, who polled just 2.6 per cent to come last this time.

But as we have seen so often before, bizarre preference deals could land several other unlikely politicians in the red velvet chamber.

Journalist Stephen Mayne, an insatiable candidate for parliaments and company boardrooms, might just pull it off this time, despite winning only 1 per cent of the vote in Northern Metro.

On Saturday night's figures, Mr Mayne would take the final seat thanks to preferences from everyone from the Greens to Family First, the DLP, the Sex Party, and ultimately Labor.

But it would take only a small change in late voting to tip him out early, with the Liberals' Craig Ondarchie more likely to claim the seat from Labor's Nathan Murphy.

The fishing and shooting party, the Country Alliance, could cause an upset in any of the three regions outside Melbourne, although on last night's counting it was more likely to lose the lot. Despite averaging just 4.5 per cent of the regional vote, preference deals will see it fight out the last seat with Labor in Eastern Victoria, the Liberals in Northern Victoria, and the Nationals in Western Victoria.

Legislative Council president Bob Smith is likely to lose out in a three-way fight for the last two seats in Western Metro, with the Liberals and Greens edging him out. The most likely outcome is: Liberals 18, Nationals 3, Labor 16, Greens 3.

WINNERS AND LOSERS

BURWOOD

IN GRAHAM WATT

After two unsuccessful attempts trying to win Northcote, the small business owner tried his hand in the mortgage belt and returned a formerjewel to the Liberal crown.

OUT BOB STENSHOLT

Stensholts 11 years in Parliament is essentially the story of Labors reign. He won Jeff Kennetts seat of Burwood at a byelection after the former premier resigned in 1999 and suffered a massive 9.5 per cent swing at Saturdays election.

FOREST HILL

IN NEIL ANGUS

After falling agonisingly close in his first attempt to unseat Labor from the eastern suburbs seat in 2006, the accountant has added Forest Hill to the swath of electorates now painted Liberal blue on the electoral map.

OUT KIRSTIE MARSHALL

The loss of the marginal seat leaves just one celebrity Labor sports star in Parliament former footballer Justin Madden. Marshall, a former Olympic skier, suffered a cost of livingfuelled swing of around 3.8 per cent.

GEMBROOK

IN BRAD BATTIN

A former police senior constable, Battin was able to push the law and order button in the outerurban seat that takes in parts of Berwick and Pakenham. Gembrook goes to the Liberals for the first time since it was created in 2002 with a 7 per cent swing.

OUT TAMMY LOBATO

The outspoken Labor MP has frustrated her party with her stances on genetically modified crops and logging, but they hoped her strong local support would put the seat in the ALPs retain column.

MORDIALLOC

IN LORRAINE

WREFORD

The City of Casey councillor swaps her mayoral robes for a comfortable green leather lower house seat. With a swing of over 5 per cent, Wreford looks to have claimed almost 47 per cent of the primary vote.

OUT JANICE MUNT

With Mordialloc another of the mortgage belt seats, cost of living issues like stamp duty and utilities bills ended-up costing Munt. The parliamentary secretary loses the seat she held since 2002.

PRAHRAN

IN CLEM

NEWTON-BROWN

It was a case of second time lucky for the lawyer, businessman and former deputy lord mayor Newton-Brown. In 2006, he won the primary vote but couldnt win the seat. This time around, he collected both.

OUT TONY LUPTON

The lawyer and Brumby government cabinet secretary came in with the Bracks-slide of 2002 that decimated the Liberals. On Saturday, he suffered a likely swing of 8.3 per cent swing and couldnt hold the Labor line.

GIPPSLAND EAST

IN TIM BULL

The 43-year-old former journalist becomes a Nationals hero for being the man who finally sandblasted off the barnacle that was Craig Ingram to the country party.

OUT CRAIG INGRAM

There was a symmetry to Ingrams departure. In 1999, he was one of the independents who delivered Steve Bracks power. One Saturday he went out with the Labor tide.

CARRUM

IN DONNA BAUER

The current deputy ayor of Kingston has been given a political promotion by bayside residents. Bauer did it easily smashing the ALP with a huge 10.3 per cent swing to her she only needed to secure 6.8 per cent.

OUT JENNY LINDELL

The 33rd speaker of the house first won Carrum in the 1999 landslide that ousted Jeff Kennett from Spring Street. Eleven years later she is on the wrong side of the political avalanche.

FRANKSTON

IN GEOFF SHAW

In his first attempt to win the crucial bayside seat, Shaw succeeded in making up 3.3 per cent to topple Labor. Shaw is textbook Liberal, he runs a small financial planning business.

OUT ALISTAIR HARKNESS.

Former Steve Bracks electorate office staffer, Harkness was true-blue Labor. Born and raised in Frankston with a PhD in political science, he departs after two terms in Parliament.

MITCHAM

IN DEE RYALL

Ryalls win is significant for Teds chance of being Premier. The bellwether seat has always, with one exception, been held by the government of the day and is part of the mortgage belt targeted heavily by the Coalitions campaign.

OUT TONY ROBINSON

The Gaming Minister was always going to be a longshot Let to retain his seat when the Coalition gained Momentum. Robinson won Mitcham at a byelection in 1997, the first sign Kennetts regime was faltering. On Saturday he was defending just 2 per cent and in the end suffered a 5.3 per cent swing.

MOUNT WAVERLEY

IN MICHAEL GIDLEY

In 2006, Gidley fell agonisingly short of entering Victorian Parliament, going down by less than 250 votes. There was no question over the result this time with the former tax accountant steaming into Spring Street with a swing of 7.1 per cent.

OUT MAXINE MORAND

The Minister for Womens Affairs was unable to defend Labors narrowest margin. Even with Greens preferences, they backed her because of her pro same-sex marriage stance, Ms Morand farewells Parliament after eight years.

SEYMOUR

IN CINDY MCLEISH

In 1999, Seymour turned on Kennett. In 2010, Seymour turned on Brumby. It was a rocky road for the Libs with McLeish joining late after Mike Laker controversially quit his candidacy. McLeishs vote was boosted on the back of preferences from anti-North-South pipeline campaigner Jan Beer.

OUT BEN HARDMAN

Like many of his ALP colleagues that have lost their seats, Hardman came to government in 1999 when voters turned on Kennett and now he has fallen victim to a similar fate.

SOUTH BARWON

IN ANDREW KATOS

Katos is another local councillor joining the ranks of state politics. The managing director of a fish supply company, has regained the seat that had been in Liberal hands for decades after eight years of ALP rule.

OUT MICHAEL CRUTCHFIELD

Parliamentary secretary for Environment, Water and Climate Change was meant to be one of a swag of regional Labor members to go. ALP managed to hold on Bendigo and Ballarat but could not stem the tide in South Barwon.

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The landslide that no one saw coming

LABOR'S fortress had two walls to defend. On one front were the eight seats it has held since 1999 in Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, along with rural Ripon and semi-rural Macedon and Seymour. On the other were the wide arc of seats extending south of the Yarra, from the eastern foothills to the southern bayside sandbelt.

For 11 years as Treasurer and Premier, John Brumby has nursed with great care the regional seats that put Labor into power. In the campaign he seemed to be there every second day, announcing a new hospital here, a footy ground upgrade there, and a road duplication over yonder. And it worked.

Amid all the onslaught of what is likely to end up as a 7 per cent swing to the Coalition in two-party terms, Brumby's regional wall largely held. South Barwon crumbled away at one end, Seymour at the other, but the core of the structure remained intact.

But while Labor was defending on one wall, the Liberals were climbing over the other. Of Labor's 18 seats south of the Yarra, no fewer than 10 were taken by Ted Baillieu's men.

It was a mirror image of the 1999 poll that brought Labor to power. That day, Jeff Kennett was focussed on retaining his marginal seats south of the Yarra, and did so but was felled by Labor and the independents storming regional and rural ramparts.

Did Brumby fall because he turned his back on his urban ramparts to defend his regional wall? A week ago, few would have suspected that Labor would end up losing Carrum in a swing of 9.2 per cent. Bendigo East, Ballarat West and Bellarine were all seen as frontline seats, but not Bentleigh. No one tipped Eltham to end up as the state's tightest race.

In the real world, landslides are always unexpected. Until the final polls, few insiders saw this one coming. Its impact was felt virtually all over the state: of the 81 seats where reliable two-party results have been calculated, 71 recorded swings to the Coalition of at least 3 per cent, and the median swing was 6.6 per cent. That is likely to rise even higher as pre-poll votes are counted.

Geographically, it's hard to see much of a pattern. Neighbouring seats recorded very different results. John Brumby suffered a 10.4 per cent swing against him in Broadmeadows, his new neighbour Bronwyn Halfpenny dropped 9.8 per cent in Thomastown, yet her neighbour in Mill Park, Lily D'Ambrosio, felt hardly a tremor, losing just 0.6 per cent.

In Bendigo East, the Minister for Skills and all that, Jacinta Allen, held on easily against a swing of just 0.8 per cent, yet across the road in Swan Hill, Labor's vote plunged to just over 20 per cent, shedding a quarter of what support it had in the seat.

In city and country, after 11 years of rule, the grievances erupted almost everywhere. Even in the inner city seats made safe by Liberal preferences, Labor's primary vote fell by 8 per cent. The biggest eruption saw East Gippsland reject favourite son Craig Ingram in a 21.6 per cent swing.

The best thing for Labor in Saturday's defeat is that so many survived it. Of the 43 seats where it leads, 16 held on with margins of 1, 2 or 3 per cent. Of the Liberals' 45, only seven were that close. It could easily have been far more damaging.

Where it happened is simple: everywhere. Why it happened is another matter.

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Coalition on the verge of upper house control

THE Coalition is on the edge of an unexpected majority in both houses of state Parliament, with the landslide swing in yesterday's election seeing it gain up to four seats in the new Legislative Council.

On last night's counting, the Coalition appeared likely to just full short of winning the 21 seats needed to control the 40-member upper house, which is elected by proportional representation.

The final result might not be known for weeks, with several contests too close to call on the figures available last night.

But the big swing against Labor, coupled with the Greens' failure to match the numbers given them in the opinion polls, appears to have given the Liberals a majority of seats in at least four of Victoria's upper house regions.

The outcome could hang on the outcome in the final seat in Western Victoria, a vast region stretching from Melton to the South Australian border, and from Point Lonsdale to Mildura.

Grovedale farrier Miles Hodge, of the hunters' and shooters' party, the Country Alliance, appears poised to take the seat of DLP leader Peter Kavanagh, thanks to a swag of preference deals despite gaining just 2.9 per cent of the vote.

With tens of thousands of votes still to be counted, the Coalition's third candidate David O'Brien could still pick up enough votes to win the seat. Mr Kavanagh's 2.2 per cent of the vote looked too small to retain the seat he himself won in 2006 in the same way.

Mr Hodge had just 8000 votes last night, but a series of preference swaps with other parties looked likely to see him overhaul the Coalition and deny it a majority in the new council.

The Country Alliance could win a second seat in northern Victoria. Shepparton hunting and fishing shop owner Steve Threlfall was polling 7.6 per cent of the vote, and with the same preference deals, could unseat Labor MLC Kaye Darveniza.

But sex industry lobbyist Fiona Patten failed in her bid to put the Australian Sex Party in the upper house, polling just 3.5 per cent of the vote in the Northern Metro region.

The Liberals lifted their vote significantly, and with preferences from the DLP and other right-wing parties, looked likely to take the seat from Labor. Greens de facto leader Greg Barber was polling close to a quota in his own right, to give a 2-2-1 result in the big northern suburbs electorate, which runs from Flinders Street to Whittlesea.

The Greens polled just 11.2 per cent of votes acorss Victoria, only slightly higher than in 2006. At the close of counting last night, they appeared likely to pick only one seat, and that was from Labor.

For the upper house, Victoria is divided into eight regions electing five members each: roughly speaking, five metro seats and three for the rest of the state. To be elected, a candidate has to win just 16.7 per cent of the vote after preferences; the last seat is usually decided by preference deals.

In the old Council, Labor had 19 seats, the Coalition 17, the Greens three and the DLP one.

Labor appeared to have three seats and possibly another two. The Liberals took its second seat in the Southern Metro region, and its third seat in northern Metro. It was also at risk iof losing a seat in eastern Victoria to the Greens.

As in the assembly, the council results will be affected by the electoral commission's decision to put off counting the 550,000 pre-poll votes until next week. At the Federal election, the pre-poll votes came disproportionately from voters for the Coalition and the Greens.

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Eastern suburbs swing it for Liberals

A LIBERAL tide yesterday swept across Melbourne's crucial eastern suburban marginal seats and the south-eastern sandbelt, taking at least five seats from Labor, with up to six more in the balance.

It was a very different election in the equally crucial regional city seats that Labor has ruled since 1999. South Barwon has fallen to the Liberals, but midway through the count, Labor was hanging on to the rest of its territory albeit marginally.

The Greens' challenge to Labor in the inner city appeared to have been sunk by the Liberals' decision to give preferences to Labor, with only the seat of Melbourne still an outside chance.

With roughly half the votes counted, the election outcome remained in the balance with a massive 550,000 postal votes and up to 400,000 postal and absentee votes still to be counted over the next two weeks.

These votes are likely to shift the figures posted last night in favour of the Coalition and Greens candidates, altering the two-party preferred vote by as much as a percentage point in their favour.

But on early trends, the Liberals might not need them. Needing to gain 13 seats to win, they already had seven clear victories and a chance in up to 20 others.

In the biggest swing of the night, Gippsland East independent Craig Ingram was crushed by a 20 per cent swing to Nationals' candidate Tim Bull. Mr Ingram had held the seat since 1999.

As predicted, the Liberals swept to victory in most of Labor's eastern suburban marginal seats. Mount Waverley, Gembrook, Forest Hill, Mitcham and Burwood had all clearly fallen with the count at the half-way mark, returning to the Liberal Party that had held them for most of their life.

Some had a particular significance for Labor. Mitcham was the first gain, won in 1997 in a by-election under John Brumby's leadership. Burwood was Jeff Kennett's old seat, won after he quit politics in the wake of his 1999 election loss. Forest Hill, won in 2002 by former ski champion Kirstie Marshall, marked the high watermark of Labor's support.

In the south, the Liberals had won Carrum and were leading in Prahran, Bentleigh and Frankston.

But Labor was still holding on to the crucial battlegrounds in Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo, which have been the other pillar of their ability to hold government.

It won clear victories in both Bendigo seats, with Employment Minister Jacinta Allan holding on to Bendigo East with only a 2 per cent swing against her. Agriculture Minister Joe Helper was also retaining a narrow but secure lead in Ripon.

But Seymour the scene of the Black Saturday bushfires and the north-south pipeline appeared to have fallen to last-minute Liberal candidate Cindy McLeish.

Labor held a 22-seat majority in the old Assembly. In 2006 it won 55 seats to the Coalition's 32, with Gippsland East independent Craig Ingram the lone cross-bencher.

It looks like no independent will be in the new Parliament. In Mildura, Nationals MP Peter Crisp held off a challenge from Mildura mayor Glenn Milne, and in Brunswick, former federal MP Phil Cleary won only 12 per cent of the vote.

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Greens look likely to hold Victoria's balance of power

VICTORIA's new government will have to negotiate all its legislation through a hostile upper chamber, after early counting suggested the Greens will retain the balance of power in the new Legislative Council.

On early figures, neither Labor nor the Coalition looked likely to win the 21 seats needed to control the 40-member upper house, which is elected by proportional representation.

The final result might not be known for weeks, with several contests too close to call on the figures available last night.

But it was already clear that once again, any government legislation will need the support of at least two of three political forces Labor, Coalition and Greens to be passed by the Council and become law.

On early figures, the Greens were polling just 10.3 per cent of the Council votes, lower than expected, but they still looked likely to retain their three seats in the council and possibly add two more.

Several candidates from smaller parties were in contention to deliver upset results, including sex industry lobbyist Fiona Patten, who could win a seat in the Northern Metro region, despite polling just 3.6 per cent of the vote.

Labor, the Liberals and the Country Alliance are all directing preferences to Ms Patten, leader of the Australian Sex Party, in the big northern suburbs electorate, which extends from Flinders Street to Whittlesea.

The Liberals, however, were polling strongly with almost two quotas in their own right, and looked well placed to take the seat from Labor.

Greens de facto leader Greg Barber was polling a quota in his own right.

DLP leader Peter Kavanagh appeared to be another victim of the surge in Coalition support, with the Liberals on track to win three seats in Western Victoria and Labor two.

Mr Kavanagh's 2.2 per cent of the vote looked too small to retain the seat he won in 1006 with just 10,000 votes but 78,000 preferences from other parties.

In northern Victoria, hunting shop owner Steve Threlfall was poised to take another seat from Labor. Running for the hunters' and shooters' party, the Country Alliance, Mr Threlfall was polling 7.4 per cent of the vote, and stands to receive preferences from the Liberals and Nationals, Labor, the DLP and the Sex Party.

For the upper house, Victoria is divided into eight regions electing five members each: roughly speaking, five metro seats and three for the rest of the state. To be elected, a candidate has to win just 16.7 per cent of the vote after preferences and the last seat is usually decided by preference deals.

In the old Council, Labor had 19 seats, the Coalition 17, the Greens three and the DLP one.

Labor was in danger of losing up to four seats. The Liberals appeared likely to take its second seat in the Southern Metro region, and its third seat in northern Metro. On early counting, it was also at risk of losing seats in the western and south-eastern metro regions.

The Coalition looked set to retain all its seats, and win two more from Labor, giving it 19 of the 40 seats in the new council.

As in the assembly, the council results will be affected by the electoral commission's decision to put off counting the 550,000 pre-poll votes until next week. At the Federal election, the pre-poll votes came disproportionately from voters for the Coalition and the Greens.

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The city swings, the sexes splinter and the country digs in

IF THE numbers in today's Age/Nielsen poll are reflected in the tally room tonight, Victoria is headed for a change of government a change hardly anyone expected when the campaign began.

The poll implies a two-party swing to the Coalition of about 6.5 per cent. Technically, the Coalition needs a uniform swing of 6.6 per cent to win, but swings are never uniform. If it gets 52 per cent of the two-party vote, the seats will come somewhere. All the polls show a late swing to the Coalition. The Galaxy poll, taken early in the week, reported the two sides as 50-50. The Morgan poll, taken through the week, called it as 51-49 for the Coalition. And our poll, taken on Wednesday and Thursday, found it 52-48 to the Coalition.

The big question is: is this the trend it appears to be, with a late swing sweeping Team Baillieu to victory? Or is it rather that the luck of the draw means the 1533 voters in our survey were not a perfect sample of the voters of Victoria?

We'll know tonight. Nielsen pollster John Stirton points out that even his poll, the largest of the three, has a margin of error of 2.5 per cent.

Over the years, I've found the most reliable guide is the average of all the polls taken through the campaign. That won't be true if there is a late swing, but it usually works.

This time the three-poll Nielsen average shows voters split 50-50. That implies a swing to the Coalition of 4 to 4.5 per cent.

Given the resources Labor has put into sandbagging its marginal seats, that probably wouldn't be enough for the Coalition to win. Labor would lose seats, but get back with a narrow majority.

Yet it will be touch and go. The poll shows there are voters out there waiting with baseball bats to give the Brumby government a belting. We just don't know whether there are enough of them to belt it out of office.

Our polls reveal that most of them are men. Most of them are in Melbourne. And most of them are over 40, with the latest poll showing the Coalition ahead in the key demographic of people aged 40 to 54.

This is the generation of parents with mortgages, kids to educate and bills to pay. In Victoria, it usually votes Labor. But in the three Nielsen polls, it did so by just 51-49, with a 6 per cent swing to the Coalition.

The 55-and-overs as a group usually vote for the Coalition, but this time it's by an overwhelming 58-42 margin, also a 6 per cent swing.

By contrast, the only shift among voters under 40 has been from Labor to the Greens. The three polls found 22 per cent of them plan to vote for the Greens, with most of them then going to Labor, giving it a two-party vote of 57-43, a swing of just 1 per cent. As in the federal election, there is a widening gender gap. In 2006, men and women voted as one to re-elect Steve Bracks. But in 2010, our poll average shows men going to the Coalition by 52-48, while women favour Labor by 53-47.

Men have swung to the Coalition by 7 per cent, women by just 2 per cent. Let's hope no relationships break up over it. And the swing is strongest in Melbourne. At the federal election, Labor won almost 60 per cent of the city's two-party vote. But now it is heading for just 52 per cent, a 5 per cent swing from 2006.

In regional Victoria, Labor trails the Coalition by 46 per cent to 54, but the swing has been just 2 per cent. And that could decide the outcome tonight.

Forget the inner suburbs: the battlegrounds that will decide who wins government today are the marginal seats of eastern and southern Melbourne, and the regional centres of Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo.

On the poll figures, the Liberals will pick up a swag of marginals in the south and east: Mount Waverley (0.4), Gembrook (0.8), Forest Hill (0.8), Mitcham (2.0), Frankston (3.3), Mordialloc (3.6), Prahran (3.6) and Burwood (3.8) are all at risk.

But to win government, the Liberals need to win virtually all of them, plus some of Bentleigh (6.4), Monbulk (6.7) and Carrum (6.8), or the northern seats of Eltham (6.5) and Yan Yean (8.0) and the urban fringe seats of Seymour (6.7) and Macedon (8.2). They will need to pull in some of these because, if the poll is right, Labor will hold most of its eight seats in Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo. South Barwon (2.3) is likely to fall, but the Liberals might struggle to win the tough asks: Bendigo East (5.4), Ballarat West (6.6), Ballarat East (6.7) or Bellarine (8.0).

But it's anyone's guess. The Liberals could cause a surprise by taking one of the seats in the outer south-east, like Narre Warren North (9.3). Labor could score an upset win in a Coalition marginal such as Kilsyth (0.4), Hastings (1.0) or Morwell (2.2). An independent candidate could bolt home in Brunswick or Mildura. And the Greens could win a seat or two even without Liberal preferences.

My tip? Labor back, with a majority of two.

THE SEATS THAT MATTER - SWINGS NEEDED

SOUTH OF THE YARRA

% NEEDED

0.4 Mount

Waverley

0.8 Gembrook

0.8 Forest Hill

2.0 Mitcham

3.3 Frankston

3.6 Mordialloc

3.6 Prahran

3.8 Burwood

6.4 Bentleigh

6.7 Monbulk

6.8 Carrum

9.3 Narre

Warren

Nth

NORTH OF THE YARRA

6.5 Eltham

6.7 Seymour

8.0 Yan Yean

8.2 Macedon

10.5 Ivanhoe

IN REGIONAL VICTORIA

2.3 South Barwon

4.4 Ripon

5.4 Bendigo East

6.6 Ballarat West

6.7 Ballarat East

8.0 Bellarine

8.4 Geelong

10.6 Bendigo West

ALP v GREENS

2.1 Melbourne

3.7 Brunswick

3.7 Richmond

8.6 Northcote

NATIONALS v INDEPENDENTS

6.1 Mildura (Nats)

8.5 Gippsland East (Ind)


HOW TO FOLLOW THE COUNT

TV: ABC from 6.30 pm RADIO: 3AW 693 from 6 pm. 774 ABC from 6.30 pm.

LIVE: Tally Room is open to the public at Etihad Stadium, gate 9.

INTERNET: 131vec.com.au

PRINT: Results, news and analysis in the Sunday Age.

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Greens likely to hold upper house balance of power;

WHATEVER the fate of the Greens hopefuls in the four inner Melbourne seats in tomorrow's election, one thing looks almost certain: the Greens will hold the balance of power in the new upper house, whoever wins government.

At the federal election, the Greens won 14.6 per cent of the Senate vote in Victoria, with 471,000 first preferences. The opinion polls suggest that they are heading for a similar vote at the state election.

If so, they are odds-on to win five seats in the new 40-member Legislative Council, with neither Labor nor the Coalition winning enough seats to control the chamber. This would mean that any legislation in the new Parliament would require support from two of the three sides to get through the Legislative Council.

In the old council, Labor had 19 members, the Coalition 17, the Greens three and the DLP one the seat of Western Victoria, where its leader, Peter Kavanagh, won the final seat with just 2.6 per cent of the vote.

There is a chance that similar results could happen this time. For the council, Victoria is divided into eight electorates choosing five members each in a Senate-type election. To win a seat, a candidate needs just 16.7 per cent of the vote and the result can depend on the order in which candidates with small votes are eliminated.

In Western Victoria in 2006, Labor preferences ended up giving the seat to the DLP. But this time Labor is directing its preferences to Greens candidate Marcus Ward, who looks odds-on to take Mr Kavanagh's seat.

In both Northern Victoria and Eastern Victoria, the five seats are likely to divide 3-2 between the Coalition and Labor, as in 2006. But this time Labor, the Coalition, the Sex Party and the DLP are all directing preferences to the hunters and fishers of the Country Alliance. If it can win enough first preferences, it could take the Coalition's third seat in both.

In Melbourne, at least two seats appear likely to change hands, with Northern Melbourne an outside chance of seeing an upset.

The Liberal heartland of Southern Metropolitan last time saw a cliffhanger, with the ALP's Evan Thornley winning the last seat from the Liberals by just 1500 votes. But Labor will probably lose the seat this time, with the Coalition taking three and Labor and the Greens one each.

But the Coalition is likely to lose a seat to the Greens in Eastern Metro, while in Northern Metro Labor's third seat could go any of five ways.

In the most bizarre preference deal of the campaign, the Liberals, Labor and the Country Alliance are all directing preferences to Sex Party leader Fiona Patten. Journalist Stephen Mayne, an independent, has a chance, as does the DLP's John Kavanagh, brother of Peter. If none of them scores enough votes to matter, it will come down to Liberals versus Labor, with Greens de facto leader Greg Barber set to hold his seat and the balance of power.


THE OTHER ELECTION THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

Who might win seats on Saturday

LABOR LIB/NATS GREENS THE REAL CONTEST

Metro

Eastern 2 2 1 *Liberal v GREENS

Northern 3 1 1 *LABOR v Libs/Sex/Mayne

South-East 3 2 - *LABOR v Greens

Southern 1 3 1 *Labor v LIBERAL

Western 3 1 1 *LABOR v Libs/Greens

Victoria

Eastern 2 3 - *LIB/NATS v Greens

Northern 2 3 - *LIB/NATS v Country Alliance

Western 2 2 1 *DLP v GREENS/Ctry Alliance

Total 18 (-1) 17 (-) 5 (+2)

*SITTING MEMBER. LIKELY WINNER IN BOLD CAPITALS. DLP LIKELY TO LOSE ITS ONE SEAT.

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Similarity at a price as rivals say surplus largely untouched

THE striking thing about the costings by Labor and the Coalition of their election promises is that with three exceptions they look so similar.

The Coalition plans a net $3.644 billion over five years in new recurrent spending, paid for by taking $3.794 billion from contingency and other funds. That would leave it with $150 million to spare.

Labor would spend a net $4.096 billion, paid for by taking $3.996 billion from contingency and other funds. That would trim $100 million over five years from budget surpluses.

Whoever is in government will be spending about $250 billion over those five years. On these costings, Labor plans to spend 0.1 per cent more than the Coalition. It's a virtual dead heat.

Difficult as it is to believe after the big spending plans of the past month, each says it has left the budget surplus more or less untouched: $800 million or so a year.

How? Many Coalition plans its $1 billion in funds for health infrastructure and regional growth, its 800 new hospital beds and 40 new trains are for eight or 10 years, not the next four. Other plans are back-ended, so that their full cost hits only in 2014. Most of the 500 prison cells promised in its law and order policy, for example, would not operate until 2014.

Both parties raid the hollow log of the contingency funds: on these figures, Labor has emptied out the log in which money was stored for future capital spending.

With the budget's wage and growth assumptions already precarious such as assuming wage rises of 2.5 per cent a year half the contingency funds have gone.

But there are three main differences:

Labor has pledged $3.9 billion of new infrastructure spending, the Coalition just $2.4 billion.

The difference is in schools. Labor would spend $1.8 billion to build 20 new schools in growth areas, renovate 90 others, and build technical education centres and classrooms. The Coalition would spend just $258 million, mostly for small works in marginal seats.

The difference may be more apparent than real. A Coalition government, too, would have to build new schools and fix old ones. There is still money in the log if it wanted to do so. But so far, it has not.

Labor plans to cut $600 million over the next five years through back-office economy measures, while the Coalition plans $1.569 billion of such savings. Its big saving plan is to cut departments' purchasing by 1 per cent.

John Brumby says this would mean cuts in public service jobs. No, it wouldn't. It's not costless, but it's a sensible way to save money.

The two costings come with very different imprimaturs. Labor as government had the advantage of having its policies costed by Treasury. The Coalition went just up the road to a small accounting firm, Yates Partners, not known as experienced policy costers. Its accountant, John Yates, ticked off the costings "based on the information, documentation, supporting assumptions and methodology provided to us by the Coalition".

That's an important qualification, but unavoidable under this system.

We need a better model. The Coalition's proposal for an independent Parliamentary Budget Office under the Auditor-General wins hands down.

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Victoria's ballot box oveflowing with choice

AFTER the sheer awfulness of the federal election campaign, Victoria's campaign has been a breath of fresh air that almost restores your faith in politics. Two decent, intelligent and capable leaders. Policies that address real rather than image problems. Mostly positive messages rather than negative ones. We could almost be living in a different time.

I suspect that a lot of readers will instantly disagree. Our last Nielsen poll found only 53 per cent approved of John Brumby's performance as Premier, and 45 per cent approved of Ted Baillieu as Opposition Leader. Fellow columnist Shaun Carney (20/11) and I are in a small minority who are impressed by both. Let me explain why.

State government is about providing services, and the demands on it come from every quarter. Collectively, our expectations are unrealistic: we demand more services, better infrastructure, lower taxes and a budget surplus. And we just can't have all of that.

Australia is a high-wage, low-tax country. That means infrastructure projects are scarce and expensive. We don't tolerate governments going deep into debt as they did when most of our infrastructure was built. Public-private partnerships to provide infrastructure sometimes work well, sometimes don't.

It is difficult, verging on impossible, for any government in this political culture to provide us consistently with First World infrastructure. Yet if it doesn't, we don't forgive it.

Services are squeezed constantly to provide savings to finance new spending. Departments are asked to do more with less real resources. Maintenance work is put off; overworked staff leave for better jobs elsewhere; and governments face 10,000 urgent needs but can afford to fund only 1000.

The Brumby government's failures are well known. Myki was a fiasco. The desalination plant is a very expensive solution to the water shortage when cheaper options were on offer. Spending on hospitals has soared, yet demand and costs rose even more. And Labor has refused to run an open government.

Its strengths are less obvious. We remember projects that run over cost or over time. We forget those that are delivered early and at lower cost. Who remembers now that the channel deepening project was completed a month early, and $248 million under budget?

Compared with the policy paralysis of federal Labor, Brumby impresses me with his willingness to engage with alternative views, change his mind, make bold decisions, and get things done.

Initially, Labor was slow to respond to the drought, the implications of rapid population growth, and the dramatic shift back to public transport. But it has shifted tack dramatically, taking on debt to finance record levels of infrastructure spending to catch up the backlog. We may not like the debt, but we need the infrastructure.

It's 11 years since the Coalition was in office, and that means Baillieu's team must be taken on trust. But I don't see any reason to distrust them. Like all oppositions, they are not so much lazy as under-resourced. Baillieu is not the most natural politician, but is an intelligent, disciplined, tolerant and progressive leader who represents the broad church of the Liberal Party rather than the fundamentalist right.

He has led the way in important areas: advocating free kindergartens, tackling problem gambling, establishing an anti-corruption commission, cleaning up government advertising, restoring authority to principals in government schools, and tackling Victoria's high construction costs. These are issues that matter across the board.

The Age profile of Baillieu (6/11) included an insightful comment by his long-time colleague Robert Peck, national president of the Association of Consulting Architects and a former Melbourne city councillor. Asked if Baillieu would make a good premier, Peck paused, then responded: "He would make an excellent leader provided there is sufficient policy and team back-up in the cabinet and in the party."

I can't judge the quality of Baillieu's team. But, as with Labor, I have concerns about some of his policies, if not insuperable ones.

First, by last weekend the Liberals' website listed 244 policy announcements, nearly all involving new spending. Many were small, some big but long-term, and there was some duplication. But it is inescapable that the Coalition has pledged billions of dollars of new spending and far from clear that all of it can be afforded, even after its savings.

I don't buy Labor's line that the Coalition would drive Victoria into deficit. It is far more likely that if the money isn't there, a Baillieu government would junk some of the promises to keep the budget in surplus.

Second, the Coalition's planning policies imply that the solution for Melbourne's housing shortage is to keep widening the urban growth boundary. As the Victorian Council of Social Service points out, this year's widening alone released enough land to build more than 284,000 new homes. The problem is not the urban growth boundary, but the obstacles to redevelopment around the inner city, the activity centres and along rail and tram corridors. That's where prices are highest, and demand is most intense. Yet the Coalition's policy is virtually silent on this.

It has run an effective scare campaign on law and order, yet as The Sunday Age reports (21/11), crime rates have fallen almost 30 per cent in a decade. Victoria has always had fewer police than other states, and for one good reason: we have less crime.

But both sides have strengths and weaknesses. Labor has made a good case to be given a fourth term. The Coalition has made a good case for a change. Only you can judge.

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Don't mention Victoria's deficit

JOHN Brumby must be really worried that election spending could end up sending Victoria into deficit. It's hard to see any other reason why he would risk losing office by offering such a small cut to his one big retail tax.

Ted Baillieu is not so constrained; maybe that should worry us more. The Coalition's spending promises are ambitious. Its pledge to cut stamp duty revenue by $750 million over four years must push it closer to, or even over, the line where, to keep the budget in surplus, it must decide which promises to break.

Labor's handout is highly targeted. First home buyers are at most 20 per cent of the market. Those buying outside Melbourne are at best 6 per cent. Even on Brumby's figures, those building new homes will average 4000 a year 2.5 per cent of all buyers.

The Coalition's cut is broader, but shallower. It will go to all first home buyers, whether in Melbourne or the regions, and whether they are building or just buying an existing home. It covers 20 per cent of buyers, but even at full strength from 2014, offering only half as much as Labor gives its smaller group.

Many economists will tell you this is bad policy. They argue that first home buyers bid whatever they can afford, so their tax cuts will just push up house prices, to no benefit. I respectfully disagree.

How can a handout to 20 per cent of home buyers change what the other 80 per cent would bid? Both policies would help cash-poor first home buyers compete with rental investors, who get tax breaks of $5 billion a year from Canberra.

One big strength of the Brumby government is that its own handouts to first home buyers are targeted to those building homes, so they add to housing supply rather than just demand. By contrast, Baillieu's cuts would add to demand only.

Labor's plan would push more building out of Melbourne into Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo where it has eight marginal seats to defend. It would also add to the trend, as The Age reports today, for Melbourne's development to leapfrog the urban growth boundary into towns such as Bacchus Marsh, Gisborne and Wallan.

But surely first home buyers facing Melbourne prices need help as much as those further out. Labor's tax cuts would give back just 1 per cent of stamp duty revenue, the Coalition 5 per cent.

That is self-denying austerity. It suggests that the state's wallet must be almost empty.

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Not all of Victoria's seats created equal

EVERYONE'S vote will not be equal in the November 27 election. Figures show huge disparities in the enrolments for different seats, with some seats having almost two-thirds more voters than others.

The figures, released by the Victorian Electoral Commission, show enrolments in each seat vary from 54,134 in the outer suburban seat of Yan Yean to just 33,073 in Swan Hill.

Of the 88 seats in the Legislative Assembly, 28 are now either more than 10 per cent above the enrolment quota or more than 10 per cent below it.

The victims are overwhelmingly outer-suburban voters, who will be under-represented in the new Parliament. On the numbers, they should have least two more seats: one in the outer western suburbs, and one in the outer south-east.

The beneficiaries are voters in the middle eastern suburbs, middle south-eastern suburbs, and the rural seats inland. Each group has roughly one seat more than its numbers merit.

The disparity has developed because a loophole in the wording of the Constitution means Victoria has now gone for three elections using the same boundaries, rather than redrawing them after every second election, as intended.

The under-representation of the outer suburbs will slightly disadvantage Labor. It holds nine of the 10 most-oversized seats, including the three biggest: Yan Yean, Keilor (52,853 voters) and Narre Warren South (52,340) all fairly safe.

Labor also holds six of the 10 most-undersized seats, mainly in south-eastern suburbs such as Clayton (33,843), Mulgrave (34,995) and Oakleigh (35,535).

But the Liberals and Nationals also have their share. The nine National Party seats collectively are almost 30,000 below their quota, so it is possible that one will go in the next redistribution due in 2012. The 14 Liberal seats in suburban Melbourne are in a similar position.

Overall, the commission reports that 3,582,232 Victorians are enrolled to vote, 228,387 or 6.8 per cent more than in 2006. Most of that increase has been in the outer suburban seats, with Yan Yean alone having 13,051 more voters now than in 2006.

Of the 88 seats, 86 have recorded increased enrolments, with only Swan Hill (down 659) and Forest Hill (down 255) recording declines.

There were also big increases in inner-suburban seats such as Melbourne (up 5063), Albert Park (up 3222) and Richmond (up 3084) where the Greens are challenging Labor.


OUR OVERSIZED ELECTORATES

ENROLMENT % HELD MARGIN

QUOTA BY %

YAN YEAN 54,134 +33 LAB 8.0

KEILOR 52,853 +30 LAB 19.4

NARRE WARREN STH 52,340 +29 LAB 11.0

BASS 49,279 +21 LIB 5.6

YUROKE 48,425 +19 LAB 20.2

SOUTH BARWON 48,309 +19 LAB 2.3

CRANBOURNE 48,076 +18 LAB 11.3

MACEDON 47,847 +18 LAB 8.2

TARNEIT 47,784 +17 LAB 12.5

ALBERT PARK 47,148 +16 LAB 9.7


AND SOME UNDERSIZED ONES

SWAN HILL 33,073 -19 NAT 23.4

CLAYTON 33,843 -17 LAB 20.3

MULGRAVE 34,995 -14 LAB 15.8

BULLEEN 35,488 -13 LIB 8.5

DANDENONG 35,535 -13 LAB 18.7

OAKLEIGH 35,602 -13 LAB 12.4

SOURCE: VICTORIAN ELECTORAL COMMISSION

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How-to-vote cards awaken the rebel in inner-city voter

WAS the Liberals' decision to direct preferences to Labor a tactical masterstroke, or an own goal that makes it more likely Labor will win re-election? Time and the Liberal voters of inner Melbourne will tell.

For while the Liberal head office decision tilts the odds Labor's way, Labor could still lose Melbourne and Richmond to the Greens on Liberal preferences.

Surprising figures published by the Victorian Electoral Commission show that at the 2006 election, most inner-city voters including most Liberals ignored how-to-vote cards and wrote their own preferences.

In a special study, officials examined every vote in the four inner-city seats fought out between Labor and the Greens, and the four country seats fought out between the Coalition and independents, or between the Liberals and Nationals.

In both areas, it found that less than 50 per cent of voters followed the party how-to-vote cards. Only 49 per cent of Labor voters did so, 48 per cent of Nationals, 46 per cent of Liberals and 31 per cent of Greens.

How come? One reason is that in Melbourne, for example, 30 per cent of votes were not cast at the polling booth, but as pre-poll, absentee and postal votes.

Such voters usually don't have a how-to-vote card, and make their own choices.

Others like to make up their own minds rather than do what head office tells them. And the inner suburbs are full of such people.

In the four inner Melbourne seats, just 39 per cent of Liberal voters followed the party's card, ranging from 45 per cent in Brunswick to a mere 30 per cent in Melbourne.

In 2006, that hurt the Greens. Their candidate Richard di Natale needed 83 per cent of Liberal preferences to win Melbourne, but won just 74 per cent, as 26 per cent of Liberals ignored the party ticket to give their preferences to Labor.

This year, if it happens again, that same independence could work for the Greens. At the federal election, Greens and Labor polled roughly level in the state seats of Melbourne and Richmond.

On federal voting, the Greens would have needed 46 per cent of Liberal preferences to win Melbourne and 52 per cent to win Richmond. They now have little chance of winning Brunswick (82 per cent) or Northcote (84 per cent). But this match is still alive.

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