Loose ends: Canada & Australia

It’s now the evening after election day in Canada, and all seats have been decided. There was only one change from the way things looked when we wrapped up yesterday’s liveblog: the Liberals narrowly snatched the seat of Terrebonne from the Quebec Bloc by 35 votes. That brings them to 169 seats, tantalisingly short of the 172 required for a majority, but the seven seats won by the NDP (plus one Green) will keep them securely in power.

In terms of votes the Liberals led the Conservatives by 2.4 points, 43.7% to 41.3% (see official results here). The gap narrowed in the final days, having been at nearly seven points earlier in the month. But the headlines, understandably enough, are focusing on the extraordinary comeback made by the Liberals since the beginning of the year, with the Conservatives’ humiliation made complete by Pierre Poilievre losing his own seat.

Note again the unfairness of the electoral system. The NDP actually (again) outvoted the Quebec Bloc, by about 4,300 votes (both at 6.3%), but won less than a third as many seats, seven as against 22. But this has been far from the system’s worst performance: at least the majority will get what they voted for, a centre-to-centre-left government. Back in 2011, for example, the Conservatives won an absolute majority with less than 40% of the vote.

The overall left-right balance has changed very little from 2021. Then, the Liberals, NDP and Greens won 52.8% of the vote between them; this time they have dipped just slightly to 51.3%. But the big story has been the polarisation of the electorate between the major parties, with the Liberals swallowing most of the NDP’s vote and the Conservatives almost wiping out the far-right People’s Party, which fell from 4.9% to 0.7% (and again failed to win a seat; its leader, Maxime Bernier, managed only 5.8% in his seat of Beauce).

Meanwhile in Australia, Anthony Albanese’s Labor government hopes that the Canadian result is a good omen – at least as to winning and perhaps even as to taking the opposition leader’s seat, if not as to having to govern in minority. As we’ve discussed before it seems clear that the Trump effect has been a factor in Australia as well, albeit less powerful due to greater remoteness.

As of this morning, William Bowe’s poll average puts Labor on 52.5% of the two-party-preferred vote, which represents a swing of 0.4% in its favor. On a uniform swing that would net it just one extra seat, but the important thing is it would preserve its majority. As Kevin Bonham points out, however, “Labor has on average slightly underperformed when leading in final week polling,” so a minority government is still very much a possibility. But it would be a major upset from this point if the Coalition were to get ahead.

The betting market now has Labor an unbackable favorite at 11-1 on, with the Coalition at 6-1 against. Faced with the possibility of an unexpectedly heavy defeat, opposition leader Peter Dutton has reverted to his natural Trumpism, abandoning bread-and-butter issues in favor of the culture war – egged on by the peanut gallery at News Corp. (This, of course, will not stop those same commentators from spinning his defeat as due to insufficient Trumpism.)

And any change in tack now (from either side) will be of limited usefulness because so many people have already voted. Yesterday the pre-poll total hit four million, with the day’s tally of about 800,000 up 30% on the corresponding day in 2022. (Victoria was noticeably slower, with just a 20% increase, probably due to bad weather.) In addition, more than 2.5 million people have applied for postal votes, of which 1.1 million have already been returned.

We’ll be back on Friday with a full preview, including a look at the crossbench’s prospects and maybe something about the Senate.