Talk:2014 Victorian state election

Resigning MPs thus far
Is it really the case that the current tally is Labor 12, Lib/Nat 0? Timeshift (talk) 20:21, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
 * As far as I can tell, yes, although Philip Davis is resigning (not retiring) from the upper house soon. It does make a sort of sense, since Labor was in government last time and is in opposition now and is looking for renewal, whereas the Coalition is in government for the first time in a while and the prospects of promotion are everywhere. Frickeg (talk) 22:49, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Opposition leader may be a free position for a vic lib in 11 months time ;) Timeshift (talk) 23:57, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Newspoll
I've never understood why these articles only use Newspoll. These state articles are the only elections I can think of on Wikipedia that cherrypick one pollster and only use them, and it just seems to be excluding useful and important data for no good reason whatsoever. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 03:38, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Appreciate the assistance Drover, and yes I agree with you. I prefer the system that's currently in place for Australian federal election articles, where the one table of polling information includes data from all the platforms, though appreciate that the frequency/amount of polling is less for state elections than federal ones. Regardless, I think that including the Essential Research data is appropriate, particularly considering that Newspoll's last update is Feb 2014. Jono52795 (talk) 03:57, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I see TWO undo-revisions by Timeshift9 stating that "we only use newspoll for the states. if you disagree then you'll need to get a consensus on the talk page". (I do think that the edit that included a separate table was clunky. The data columns were the same, so they should have just been integrated into the Newspoll table.) Let me add my voice in consensus, or at least one voice demanding definitive explanation as to why Newspoll is regarded the only reliable pollster in Australia. We do NOT put all our eggs into the Newspoll basket federally, the US election polling doesn't select one pollster, either. 218.185.60.3 (talk) 06:54, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I see we are back here. I've undone the addition of the non-Newspoll poll, as there's no label indicating what poll it even is, let alone the fact we only use Newspoll on Australian state election articles. Why would we add just one result from a different pollster? Newspoll is the only polling company that has polled the states regularly for many years. Whether you listen to people like Abbott who say Newspoll is 'the nation's most authoritative snapshot of the political landscape' or Crikey who say Newspoll 'carries the largest media weight in Australia', it's hard to argue that Newspoll is anything other than Australia's primary political polling company. If Andreas wants to attempt a new consensus (best on wikiproject ozpol page) then he should do so, rather than just an ad-hoc addition of a single poll result from another company without so much as a label, when practise has been to only use Newspoll for the states, rightly or wrongly. Timeshift (talk) 16:04, 2 November 2014 (UTC)


 * We had this discussion already months ago, and there was (as I recall) a virtually unanimous consensus to add in other polls, after a lengthy discussion. I'll dig it up out of the archives if I have to, but there shouldn't need to be because it was pretty damned clear. There are at least three other unambiguously reliable pollsters in the field, which is why we've had a consensus for months that singling out Newspoll made no sense. We just need to re-jig the table so there's a pollster name field as well. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 16:33, 2 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Please do. But if that's the case, I would have no problem with it being correctly added/table altered. Timeshift (talk) 16:37, 2 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian_politics/Archive_6 was the discussion. There should really be four here: Newspoll, Morgan, Essential Research, and Ipsos (the respected international pollster Fairfax has just brought in to replace Nielsen). I don't see any justifiable basis for distinguishing between those four: I can't think of a single reliable source that treats Newspoll as being distinct. I haven't re-added the other poll because doing it without adding where it came from is plain silly, and I can't be bothered re-doing the whole table to add in other polls tonight. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 16:48, 2 November 2014 (UTC)


 * The discussion you link to never answered the question of which polling firms we do and don't include. I don't want to see a dogs breakfast. I'm happy to include more than Newspoll as I said in the link you provided, but there needs to be an organised uniform approach to it amongst the various states! Timeshift (talk) 16:54, 2 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I think that can basically be interpreted as consensus to add the four mentioned above: there's no basis in reliable sources that could lead us to suggest that any of those four are unreliable. The main concern in that discussion was some of the more questionable polls like Westpoll, but that's in a separate league to the above. Also totally agreed that we need to be doing this for the other states too, but Victoria is the one that's currently in an election campaign, and I think we need to start by getting current polls from other pollsters in and then go back and fill in the gaps when someone has an opportunity. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 17:03, 2 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I see where you're coming from, I just don't want to see one state's polling be so different to the rest. I do realise it would be a big job adding other pollsters for the various states from start to finish. Timeshift (talk) 17:12, 2 November 2014 (UTC)


 * That's understandable. I think we've just got to make a start somewhere, and here's the obvious first cab off the rank: if we start by adding current polling, get the full polling done by election day, and then after that shift gear to NSW and Queensland since they're the next ones after that. We'll have every jurisdiction up to scratch in the not-too-distant future that way, and we'll have much better polling data for it. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 17:35, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

I've updated the polling section to include the latest polls. I have also altered the table to show the source of each poll. ColonialGrid (talk) 09:35, 4 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you for doing this - I only just noticed now. It's a big improvement over the way we were doing things. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 07:19, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Lewis
I don't know about Scheffer, but I recall the coverage of Lewis' election (and one of the reasons the press was a bit miffed about it) being the fact that she wasn't going to contest or didn't have preselection for the November election from the get-go. (That she was preselected over the November candidates was down to left-right argy-bargy (also rumored concern over how the right's candidate would vote if Shaw's abortion bill got to parliament). Normally I'd just cite that but I'm not quite sure how to word it when someone effectively announces their resignation the day they announce their preselection. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 12:35, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Do you remember the source? I couldn't find any (although I didn't dig too deep). I'd say we could say something like "appointed after preselections had concluded". She might end up with one of the unwinnable spots, though. It's interesting this has happened, since it used to happen quite often for the Senate back when it was FPTP; premiers would even justify their choices by saying that the appointee did not intend to contest the next election. Frickeg (talk) 12:53, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
 * This is one. For some reason, the press coverage of her appointment referred to her as "Margaret Lewis" when she's always been referred to as "Marg Lewis" in regard to her other runs for office, which probably confused things. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 13:54, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
 * That seems pretty definite. I'll un-invisible her now. Frickeg (talk) 23:19, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Endorsements
Would it be acceptable/appropriate to add endorsements beyond newspapers? I'm thinking of lobby and community groups; this has been brought on by the PTUA's stance, which they release at every election, but others would also release a 'scorecard' or make an endorsement. ColonialGrid (talk) 06:25, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I think it might be established practice that the endorsement section only applies to newspapers and maybe other media. Nothing else. BritainD (talk) 08:55, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Is that due to a discussion or just the way things have panned out? Consensus can change, and just because it has been done differently in the past, or is done differently elsewhere is no reason not to do something (WP:OSE/WP:IAR). I'd be interested to read previous discussions related to the issue of endorsements. ColonialGrid (talk) 10:16, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Media endorsements would be notable, but assessing the notability of possibly dozens of other bodies could be problematic. Who to put in, who to leave out: PTUA, VECCI, RACV, local councils, rural groups, Beyondblue, Retailers Association, Cycling Victoria, the RSL, CFMEU, REIV, ACOSS, ambulance and fire workers' unions, women's groups, disability groups, shonky builders' victims' groups, live music promoters ... the list could be endless and swamp the article. Limiting it to the major metropolitan newspapers would be sensible in my view.  BlackCab  ( TALK ) 12:27, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Although I totally agree that not everything could/should be added, we could use a simple 'notability test': if it is published by a reliable source such as a newspaper it gets in, if not it's out. I'm not really welded to the idea, but think it is worth discussing as it would provide a broader assessment of how the parties are viewed by sectors of the community beyond newspapers (which are only owned by two entities). I guess the biggest test would be to see how many (or few) organisations actually come out and endorse one party over another; it is a potentially dangerous political decision to make. ColonialGrid (talk) 12:48, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Seats changing hands
Firstly, I wonder if it's a bit early to be quoting specific margins.

Secondly, it's missed Suzanna Sheed in Shepparton. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 17:04, 29 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree, it's too early for specific swings and margins. It should be delayed until at least the prepoll votes are counted. Kirsdarke01 (talk) 00:58, 30 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Completely agree. With only a bit over half the votes counted and none of the seats declared by the VEC it is totally premature. I reckon the whole section should be commented out, and hidden from view until the results are known and the seats declared by the VEC. ColonialGrid (talk) 11:43, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I think that's going too far. In 83-86 seats (depending on how conservative one is being), the result is not in doubt. Obviously the exact swings and margins should be left out, but there is no doubt that the Libs have lost Mordialloc, for example (and it does take effect from election day, not the VEC's declaration). Frickeg (talk) 11:52, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Only ~55% of the votes have been counted, we know that seats will probably change, but we the entire results section, and any actual numbers are bordering on WP:CRYSTAL. Making comment that the ABC (for example) are calling those seats as changed is one thing, but all the tables with seat counts and margins is way too premature. ColonialGrid (talk) 12:03, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * We know the results in these seats. They're not realistically in doubt, and no election analyst is treating them as such. Realistically, there's probably three undecided seats: Prahran (very undecided), Morwell (basically decided for National but still possible for Labor to swing back to pre-polls) and Melbourne (the same but Green vs Labor). Their terms start from today, unlike the Premier who doesn't start until he's sworn in, and there's no reason to exclude the information people will be looking for at the time they're most likely to look for it. The seat counts are the same: we can't give exact seat counts, but we can give reasonably close ranges because so few seats are in doubt this time. The one thing we shouldn't be including is margins, which is ridiculous because we won't know the exact margins until close of counting. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 15:34, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I've reworded the Greens victory in Melbourne claim here and at Ellen Sandell. I've moved Melbourne and added Prahran to an "in doubt" table. And I've changed the current margins and swings to one decimal place to match the notional margins, which was annoying me! --Canley (talk) 01:41, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Can someone add Morwell to seats in doubt? The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 01:51, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Looks like the ABC threshold for "in doubt" is less than 1%, Morwell is 1.7%. --Canley (talk) 02:19, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

"Elected Premier" in the Infobox
Maybe it's an idiosyncrasy of the Infobox or Election template, but right now the Infobox tells me that Daniel Andrews was elected Premier. Ignoring the fact that he's not premier until sworn in, he wasn't elected as Premier at all. He is leader of the party that will govern Victoria, so will almost certainly become Premier, but he wasn't elected to the role of Premier. Can this be fixed? HiLo48 (talk) 01:22, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * While you are factually correct, I'm inclined to think this might be an occasion where we might overlook technical accuracy. This is information that most people will want to know. To address the concerns, though, I wonder if we might change it to "Government before election", "elected Government", etc. (and then have "Labor, led by Daniel Andrews"), etc. I suspect, if we wanted to do this, we might need to create a dedicated Australian electoral template, which is long overdue anyway since the current one doesn't deal with the 2PP well at all. (The situation on this page is a fix, but not a tidy one.) Perhaps this is something to raise at WT:AUP? Frickeg (talk) 03:59, 30 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I suggest that in the interim we change Premier to Government. We elect governments not premiers. ColonialGrid (talk) 11:50, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I think this is going a bit far. The media is using the term "Premier-elect" to refer to Andrews pretty much everywhere, and there is no historical precedent that I can think of ever where a party leader who has held their seat and won majority government has not become Premier. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 15:38, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * The Drover's Wife, I take your point, however, the term is still factually incorrect. So, how about using the field of 'posttitle' to change 'Premier elect' to 'Resulting Premier' (following the lead of New South Wales state election, 1991) or 'Premier following election'? This would convey the same message, but doesn't misrepresent a situation where the premier is elected by popular vote. ColonialGrid (talk) 17:02, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I think it's being pedantic, but I'm not going to object to either of those. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 00:37, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Results
I have commented out the entire results section. The only citation listed was to the virtual tally room, which isn't showing any seats as being taken. I don't think it's appropriate to be placing a results section into the article when only a bit of half the votes have been counted, but if it is to be there the number of seats should be supported by a reliable third party such as the ABC's election coverage. As it stands without any citations it is either unsupported conjecture or synth. ColonialGrid (talk) 12:49, 30 November 2014 (UTC)


 * The seat ranges should be in the article and cited to sources, but it's way premature to be talking exact figures - good call. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 15:38, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I did some work last night to correct some major errors and omissions after someone else added the tables. With by-election articles we usually omit the exact vote numbers until the result is declared, but publish indicative percentages and swings, which I think is useful provided the currency/finality of the figures are clear. The seat numbers are so in flux at the moment I agree it is appropriate to exclude these from the tables for now, perhaps with some referenced prose instead. I am happy to update the tables nightly, but will probably omit the actual vote figures until they are finalised or at least stabilised (they have already dropped since the election night indicative count as VEC commenced the formal count). --Canley (talk) 01:05, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

District level results
According to The Age, the VEC intends to declare the results in all lower house seats by this Friday (5 December). When this is done, I will import the results into a database and run a script to generate the results wikitables for each seat, then make the link available here for checking and copying to the seat articles. I will also run out the post-election maps on Saturday. The upper house results will not be declared until 17 December. --Canley (talk) 04:30, 2 December 2014 (UTC)


 * That would be very helpful. Thanks for that, it takes ages to do manually. Kirsdarke01 (talk) 05:15, 2 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Declared does not always mean completed, though. Will the script be able to run again once all the results are finalised? Frickeg (talk) 07:13, 2 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I know. Yes, it is easy to get the results from the VEC FTP site when they are finalised and re-run the output, just takes a few minutes. --Canley (talk) 00:02, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Seat change
How do we measure the change in seats? Should it be based on the results of the previous election, or the pre-election parliament? If based on previous election the Liberals have lost seven seats, with independents gaining one; if based on pre-election parliament the Liberals have lost six seats, with independents steady on one. I prefer measuring based on the pre-election, but would like to know what the consensus on this issue is (and will abide by that). ColonialGrid (talk) 12:02, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Good question... I think – and others may have different opinions or explanations – that it is actually neither or a bit of both. Allow me to explain: have a look at the 2010 and 2013 federal election articles. The number of independents elected in 2010 is 4 (Katter, Oakeshott, Windsor, and Wilkie). Before the 2013 election, there were 5 independents in the House of Reps (Oakeshott, Slipper, Thomson, Windsor and Wilkie; Katter had formed his own party). At the 2013 election, 2 independents are elected (McGowan and Wilkie). Using previous election, the change in seats would be −2; using pre-election parliament, it would be −3. It actually says −1! Why? The seat change figure is a bit like the swing figure – it is trying to gauge the "mood" of the electorate and how the electors' changing attitudes have resulted in a swing or a seat changing hands. So with Slipper and Thomson, their leaving their parties and sitting in parliament as independent cross benchers does not count as a loss of two independent seats, because the voters in Fisher and Dobell were still notionally majority Liberal and Labor voters respectively (there is a note to this effect in the 2013 pendulum article). But then why isn't Katter counted as an independent as he was in 2010? Because the Katter votes in Kennedy were largely personal, and even though he achieved party status in the interim, the electors of Kennedy were still notionally "Katter voters", not independent voters (although it helps that KAP was founded by and named after him). I don't remember having a discussion about this, so I'm happy to be corrected or convinced if this theory is wrong!
 * Another issue raised by this question is that we should probably use the notional allocations due to the boundary redistributions in the table. The Liberals notionally held 40 seats (including Frankston, and the ALP-held seats Bellarine, Monbulk, Ripon and Yan Yean) and 30 seats won sees them lose 10 seats. However, this is also different to what will appear in the infobox, which I would actually base on the number of seats gained in the assembly. --Canley (talk) 13:22, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I tend to opt out of these discussions, but I do think we should factor in the redistribution. That there was a whole swathe of Labor seats that turned notionally Liberal, but were won back (with the exception of Ripon) is half the story of Labor's election victory, and I think that needs to be acknowledged in the numbers. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 15:47, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I added a little text to the 'Seats changing hands' section outlining the effects of the redistribution (with regards to the seats actually changing), but I don't know how to add that to a table without it being confusing. Maybe */notes could be used next to the number in the change column, indicating text that elucidates on the issue? How have other articles dealt with this (it has to have happened before)? Also, given that Rippon was a notionally Liberal seat, but had a Labor member it should also be included in the seats changing hands section; it has still changed from a Labor representative to a Liberal representative. ColonialGrid (talk) 16:03, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I disagree with that last part: it was effectively made a safe Liberal seat in the redistribution, despite McGlone's surprisingly close run, so referring to it as a changed seat is misleading. I wouldn't object to having a separate section for redistributed seats though. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 16:10, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It clearly changed from Labor to Liberal, the redistribution altered it's voting and demographic make-up, but Ripon was nonetheless won by the Liberals and lost by Labor. I'm starting to think that the five notionally Liberal seats should be treated separately to the seats changing hands, and placed in a table with three sections: the 2010 election results; the seats status' due to redistribution; and the 2014 election results. This would clearly show Labor seats that became notionally Liberal, (with Ripon won by the Liberals, replacing a Labor representative), it would also provide an opportunity to include the former member (which the current layout doesn't show). ColonialGrid (talk) 16:52, 5 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I thought I'd post here instead of on the article, to gain feedback, but, I think we should replace the single seats changing hands table with the two tables below. I think it shows clearly the effect of the redistribution on Labor seats, and who won them following the election, while also including their notional status.

The seats of Bellarine, Monbulk, Ripon, and Yan Yean were won by Labor at the 2010 election, but redistributions in 2013 made them nominally Liberal seats. Similarly, the redistribution largely replace Ballarat West with Wendouree; Ballarat West was also won by Labor at the 2010 election, but nominally Liberal post-redistribution.


 * Feedback would be appreciated. ColonialGrid (talk) 09:22, 6 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm good with that. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 11:07, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me too. --Canley (talk) 13:12, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Ooh, I really like this solution. This has been disputed for a while but this is a really great compromise. Frickeg (talk) 22:43, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the words of support, I've added my suggestions. ColonialGrid (talk) 12:27, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

New map required
Can someone good with maps do a new map to replace the, bearing in mind boundaries have been significantly changed? Timeshift (talk) 09:18, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'm working on it. --Canley (talk) 09:30, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks :) Timeshift (talk) 09:30, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * If it's not too much trouble, a map like this would also aid the article. ColonialGrid (talk) 12:15, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * No problem. I've done the party colouring of the lower house map, but am just trying to fit all the names in! I've got a blank LC region map so I can just add 5 icons to each region. --Canley (talk) 23:11, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Do you have blank maps of the districts and regions? The articles for districts and regions will start needing new maps, and having one that can be coloured in as seen fit would be useful. ColonialGrid (talk) 06:20, 24 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I've uploaded a lower house map, let me know if any naming or colouring errors. I'm going away for Christmas for a few days so I will do the upper house map (and fix any errors) when I get back. Yes, I have blank maps of the districts and regions, but I've already done maps for all the current Victorian districts and regions if that's what you mean. That said, I have some rather ambitious plans to do fully detailed street maps of electorates in future using OpenStreetMap data, but the setup to do that is a while away. I would generally do an uncoloured one for the list article (e.g. Electoral districts of New South Wales which has an SVG map that could be reused or recoloured in other formats). --Canley (talk) 09:02, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

RfC at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian politics
A RfC has been started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian politics which may affect the infobox of this article. ColonialGrid (talk) 11:22, 3 March 2015 (UTC)