Federal election 2016: more crossbenchers likely in new parliament

The shape of the federal parliament recently gone to God had five MHRs on the crossbenches. Clive Palmer has hung the boots up in Fairfax to avoid the electoral humiliation which was surely coming his way. The LNP will win the seat comfortably.

The other four — Cathy McGowan in Indi, Andrew Wilkie in Dennison, Bob Katter in Kennedy and Adam Bandt who took the seat of Melbourne from the Labor pile in 2010 are virtual certainties to hold their seats.

Overall it is likely the crossbenches will have more bums, so to speak, on seats in the new parliament but it is devilishly difficult to say just how many. It could be as many as ten with a minimum of five.

The betting in Batman shows the hapless David Feeney ($2.50) well behind the Greens candidate, Alex Bhathal ($1.50). Presumably Feeney has retired from the hustings and is working from home now having placed his faith in the gigantic billboards bearing his visage in Northcote in a manner that would make the political elite in North Korea whistle in awe.

The betting markets are of little use at present in predicting other potential crossbench gains. The markets in these seats are more or less in a holding pattern until the murky business of preference allocations are decided.

The Greens leader, Richard Di Natale recently announced his party would target eight seats across Australia. Six of those are Labor held inner city seats — Batman, Wills and Melbourne Ports in Melbourne; Sydney and Grayndler in NSW and Fremantle in Western Australia. Richmond in northern NSW is currently held by Labor, too.

The only Coalition held seat on the Greens hit list is Higgins in Victoria currently held by Assistant Treasurer, Kelly O’Dwyer. Of the eight seats the Greens believe they can win over time, Higgins looks to be the biggest pipe dream. In 2013 O’Dwyer won more than 50 per cent of the primary vote. The Greens may beat Labor into second place in Higgins but second place in politics is just another term for loser.

In the Labor held seats the Greens think they can win, the Greens trail in the betting with the exception of Batman. What we don’t know and what the betting markets cannot reflect is the preference allocations. If the Liberals decide to direct preferences to the Greens in Wills and Grayndler, Labor will have its work cut out holding these seats.

The betting in the seat of Richmond in NSW’s north shows the Labor MP, Justine Elliot a strong favourite but this is a notoriously difficult seat to predict, more so now as the demographics in the seat have changed dramatically and the anti-CSG protest movement has found its base in the Greens.

For the sake of argument and with a good deal of speculation, I’m going to give the Greens a three seat gain (Batman, Wills and Richmond).

All seats in South Australia have become triangular contests where the Xenophon Team is polling in the low to mid 20s. This brings into play seats that might otherwise be considered safe for the majors. Senator Xenophon maintains he won’t direct preferences and how Labor and the Liberals direct preferences is as yet unknown. It would come as no surprise to see the X Team pick up one, possibly two seats in SA. The shakiest seat at present is the Liberal held seat of Mayo but Labor could go down in Wakefield or even in Adelaide where the sitting MP is Labor frontbencher Kate Ellis.

Add to this the stoush in New England between Barnaby Joyce and Tony Windsor. The price on Joyce holding the seat has shortened a touch in the last week (Joyce $1.38, Windsor $2.85) and on that alone, it looks like the Deputy PM is fairly safe four weeks out.

All the same it is not difficult imagining crossbench representation in the new parliament hitting double figures while the majors are still required to win 76 seats to form government in their own right.

The problem for Labor is if the crossbenchers hit 10 bums on seats it will come at a loss of as many of four of its own bums while the Coalition could only conceivably drop two bums to the indies.

The betting markets show likely Labor gains of eight seats. It was six last week so there is a trend on driven mainly by a perceived big swing in WA where Labor leads the betting in three Liberal held seats (Hasluck, Burt and Swan).

The reason Labor remains stubbornly at $3.50 (Coalition $1.30) to win the election despite polling putting it in front is for all the gains it might make, it is bound to cop some losses too. It needs a 19 seat net gain to form government. If it drops two, three or even four along the way, the task moves into the realms of the implausible.

The bigger problem for the polity and for the nation generally is the larger the crossbench representation, the greater the chance of a hung parliament.