This post will follow the progress of the count in close seats over the next week or two. The table below shows the polling booth results which were counted on Saturday, which are completed pending rechecking; and the “declaration” votes which constitute the meat of late counting, particularly postals, pre-polls, absent, “electoral visit” and “declared institution” votes. The total number of such votes from the final two-party count in 2006 is shown to give some idea how many votes are outstanding.

REDLANDS

Friday 3rd. Final result: LNP by 34. Antony Green: “I understand it wasn’t a counting error, it was that some numbers had been transposed on data entry to the computer that publishes the website. The error was spotted at once in the re-count because all the original documents are examined at which point the discrepancy with the website was spotted. The Returning Officer uses a range of official documents to conduct the count and declare the result and the website is merely a public guide for everyone.”

Thursday 2nd. NEWS FLASH: The always reliable RedlandsRumbler in comments tells us that misplaced bundles of votes look to have handed a late victory to the LNP: “Word is, it was a pile of 35 LNP votes found in with Labor. There was also a pile of 12 Labor votes found in with LNP. Levels out to a total of 23 off the Labor total and added to the LNP total. Means LNP should be leading by 27 as of last update.”

Wednesday 1st. The last 19 postals have gone 12-9 to Labor, and a further two declared institution votes for Labor have shown up. Final score: Labor by 19. Recount to begin tomorrow.

Tuesday 31st. The ECQ has brought its website up to date showing 37 postals since Sunday have gone 16-all, but there seems also to have been a booth vote recount which has added one vote to Labor and taken four from the LNP, increasing Labor’s lead from 11 to 16. I believe tomorrow’s postal votes will be the last ones.

Monday 30th. The ECQ is again dragging its heels with updates, but RedlandsRumbler in comments informs us that Labor’s lead has increased from 11 to 23.

Sunday 29th. The ECQ finally comes through on the two-party count, and it shows Labor leading by a grand total of 11 votes. John English owes his recovery to 1558 absent votes breaking 805-606 his way: a further 649 pre-polls and 175 postals have gone slightly against him. Postal votes will continue to trickle in until Wednesday.

Saturday 28th. Those who wish to know what’s going on in this nail-biter of a contest will have to follow the rumour mill in comments, which suggests Labor led by 15 yesterday with a trickle of postal votes still to come (I have taken RedlandsRumbler’s word for this with respect to the chart at the bottom of the post). Unfortunately, since Wednesday the ECQ has only been updating primary votes and not 2PP. What gives?

Thursday 26th. No significant progress in the count as far as the website is concerned, but RedlandsRumbler in comments says firstly: “Word from the mountain is that Redlands has significantly tightened up thanks to absentees – this one will be decided by less than 50 votes.” And later: “Apparently LNP lead by 3 votes in Redlands with counting continuing this evening.”

Wednesday 25th. A big infusion of 2003 postal votes goes 963-913 to the LNP, increasing their lead from 112 to 139.

Monday 23rd. 1199 pre-poll votes, which might well be all of them, have broken 598-567 the LNP’s way, which along with adjustments to the declared institutions vote has increased candidate Peter Dowling’s lead over Labor incumbent John English from 55 to 86.

Sunday 22nd. Declared institution votes added, favouring the LNP 127-116.

CHATSWORTH

Friday 3rd. Final result: Labor by 74.

Wednesday 1st. A further 65 postals, 42 absents and 12 pre-polls have increased Labor’s lead from 83 to a final score of 93. Recount to begin tomorrow.

Monday 28th. 249 pre-polls, 157 postals and a handful of absent and institution votes have reduced the Labor lead from 89 votes to 83.

Saturday 26th. Another 712 absent votes and 491 pre-polls have respectively gone 248-213 and 343-325 to Labor, whose lead increases to 89 votes. LNP director Michael O’Dwyer is complaining about the postal vote count, suggesting that cases of double voting (which he concedes were “perhaps” done unknowingly) will be used as the basis of a legal challenge. He also makes unsubstantiated suggestions that vote rorting might explain the LNP’s weak showing on absent votes – although as Feral Sparrowhawk notes in comments, the real turn-up of the absentee count has been the 13.4 per cent vote for the Greens, the majority of which presumably exhausted. In terms of primary votes, Labor in fact performed slightly worse on absent votes relative to their booth vote result than they did in 2006.

Thursday 26th. Another great day for Labor’s Steve Kilburn courtesy of another 934 absent votes, which have gone his way 474-376. Votes from the Brisbane city booth (which I wish they’d just treat as absent votes, which is essentially what they are) have finally been added, and they have given Kilburn a further boost by breaking 52-20. He is now 41 votes in front and, if as seems likely mostly absent votes remain, likely to remain there.

Wednesday 25th. A big fillip for Labor with 583 absent votes breaking 329-197. Looking at the booth results map, this makes sense: absent votes often comes from voters who go to booths just outside their electorates, and the majority of such votes in Chatsworth would come at the Labor-voting western end of the electorate. That might portend a continuing trend to Labor with the 1500 or so absent vote soon to be counted. On the other hand, this might be a batch from a particular Labor-voting area, and future batches might not be as favourable. There have also been 358 more postal votes added, breaking in roughly the same proportion as previous postal votes: 189-149 to the LNP. All told, the LNP lead has been cut from 180 to 88.

Tuesday 24th. Another 601 postal votes have been added, breaking 341-240 in Caltabiano’s favour. A recheck of polling booth votes has cost Labor 27 votes and the LNP 3. Caltabiano now leads by 180.

Monday 23rd. LNP candidate Andrea Caltabiano has turned a 218 vote deficit into a 55 vote lead after the addition of 938 postals, 460 pre-polls, 112 declared institution and 99 electoral visit votes. All but the electoral visit votes have heavily favoured the LNP. Half of the postals and pre-polls remain to be added and are likely to add to Caltabiano’s lead: about 2000 yet-to-be-added absentee votes should do better for Labor’s Steve Kilburn, and will need to if he’s to be in the hunt.

MIRANI

Friday 3rd. Final result: LNP by 325.

Saturday 28th. Labor has conceded a defeat it can afford to be philosophical about, after 1238 absent votes failed to deliver the hoped-for divided by breaking only 637-567 their way. They also enjoyed small boosts from a further 240 pre-polls (126-108) and 217 postals (121-91), but the cumulative effect is an inadequate narrowing of the LNP lead from 400 to 282.

Thursday 26th. Another 452 absent votes have been added, and they’re still breaking to Labor in insufficient proportions: 237-198. Indeed, the gain has been more than cancelled out by the addition of 700 pre-polls which have gone 367-317 to the LNP. Ted Malone lead has increased 11 votes to 400. Most of the remaining votes should be absent votes (perhaps 1300 of them), but Malone is in the box seat.

Wednesday 25th. Antony Green writes in comments we should “keep an eye” on Mirani: “The postal votes havily favoured the LNP, as they did in Fitzroy and Mirani in 2006. But the absentee vote heavily favoured Labor in 2006, as it is generally miners voting in Rockhampton … The LNP lead will narrow from here.” The first 282 absent votes have been added today, but they have only favoured Labor 141-131. A further 320 postals have gone 134-179 to the LNP, so their lead increases slightly from 365 to 389.

Tuesday 24th. Another 379 postal votes have broken 223-159 in favour of Malone. Rechecking of polling booth votes has added 28 to Labor and 4 to the LNP. All told, Malone’s lead nudges up slightly from 347 to 365.

Sunday 22nd. LNP member Ted Malone has hit the lead with the addition of 1197 postal votes, which heavily favoured the conservatives (790 to 381) as postal votes are want to do. Many of these votes would have come from farmers who find it too hard to make it to a polling booth. There might be a few hundred more of these to come; Labor should do better out of absents and pre-polls, of which there should respectively be a bit more than 2000 and as many as 1500. Nonetheless, Malone should be very hard to reel in from here.

CLEVELAND

Friday 3rd. Final result: LNP by 155.

Wednesday 1st. A further 75 postals and 30 absents have been added, shaving five off an LNP lead which finally stands at 147. A recount will begin tomorrow.

Saturday 28th. Labor has conceded after failing to make up ground in recent counting: 741 postals have gone 372-345 to the LNP, 297 absents have gone 165-113 to Labor and 292 pre-polls 142-129 to the LNP. The LNP lead has narrowed just slightly from 172 to 152.

Thursday 26th. 792 pre-polls and 593 absent votes have partly cancelled each other out, respectively breaking 425-337 to the LNP and 306-247 to Labor. The LNP lead is up from 135 votes to 172.

Wednesday 25th. Similarly to Chatsworth, there may be a concentration of absent votes spilling over the Labor-voting northern end of the electorate: the first 783 such votes added have given Labor glimmer of hope by breaking 406-316 their way, with perhaps 1500 still to come. However, they are cancelled out as far as today’s score card is concerned by 986 pre-polls which have gone 541-420 to the LNP, whose overall lead is up from 112 to 135.

Tuesday 24th. RedlandRumbler in comments tells us that “a pile of 50 DS4SEQ votes were discovered in with the Mark Robinson (LNP candidate) votes yesterday following a re-check of booths”. The recheck turned up enough further anomalies that he made a net gain of 6, but Labor member Phil Weightman gained 48. However, that’s been more than cancelled out by a further 796 postal votes which have broken 427-339 to Robinson, whose lead is up from 66 to 112.

Sunday 22nd. The addition of 796 postal votes, which should be about half of them, have increased the LNP’s lead by 44 votes. The tide will need to turn in Labor’s favour from here, which tends not to happen in late counting.

GAVEN

Friday 3rd. Final result: LNP by 342.

Saturday 28th. Phil Gray has been predictably gracious in defeat. “In relation to Gaven I accept the will of the people”, says an exquisitely diplomatic Anna Bligh, who has hopefully emerged from the election with the authority to secure the disendorsement of members who carry on in this fashion.

An emotional Phil Gray concedes defeat

Thursday 26th. Phil Gray has recovered 81 votes with the addition of 1763 absent votes, breaking 783-702 his way. However, it’s too little too late: with another 389 pre-polls and 70 postals going slightly against him, he now trails 11,703 to 11,390. Fargo in comments tells us Gray has conceded.

Tuesday 24th. Labor douchebag Phil Gray has copped a richly deserved pummeling on postals and pre-polls. 2512 of the former have gone 1389-886 to LNP candidate Alex Douglas, while 988 of the latter have gone 422-482. That should be just about all of them, leaving about 2000 absent votes to be counted. Douglas goes from 184 behind to 379 ahead.

EVERTON

Friday 3rd. Final result: Labor by 735.

Wednesday 25th. Because I wasn’t following this from the start I’m not entirely sure what happened here, but I think a recheck of booth votes has boosted Labor by 199 votes (the near roundness of that figure suggests a few bundles were misplaced) and cut the LNP by 78. Furthermore, 1197 absent votes have broken 590-521 to Labor, much as I expected. As a result, Murray Watt now leads by 607 votes and is definitively out of the woods.

Tuesday 24th. Added by popular demand. Labor’s Murray Watt leads Troy Knox of the LNP by 261 votes, with the issue coming down to about 2000 outstanding absent votes. If it’s indeed the case that there was a late swing to Labor, that might be a comfort for Watt as these votes were cast on polling day, unlike the pre-polls and absent votes which have gone heavily against him.

A few things need to be pointed out today, because, frankly, the MSM is filled to brim with absolute horseshit about the reality of the Qld election polling results.

Firstly, the polls were not wrong. Journalists and the Commentariat were wrong – the polls were not. Let’s look at the last polls from both Galaxy and Newspoll and see where their results sat compared to the election result once we add in their respective margins of error.

Does that look like the polls were wrong to you?

No, of course not. The election result fell within the margin of error of the last poll from both Galaxy and Newspoll. Statistically, the polls were 100% as correct as they could be. Unless you’re willing to completely redesign the physical laws of the universe, polls can’t get any more accurate than these were.

This commentary about the polls being wrong is just blatant arse covering and a piss poor attempt to rewrite history by a bunch of journo’s that got.it.wrong. Their prognostications on the polling results throughout the campaign were fantasy plucked from a random orifice, that had absolutely no relationship to electoral reality.

When a Galaxy or Newspoll came out showing 50/50 or even a 51/49 lead to the LNP, the News Ltd press regaled us with tales of a strong LNP position, or the likelihood of a hung parliament or even the goodly chances of an LNP victory. The problem with this line is that it completely ignored the reality of the electoral pendulum – where ALP seats sat and on what margins. A 50/50 result would have been a 5 point swing, if uniform, leading to the LNP picking up around 12 seats. A 51/49 result would have been a 6 point swing leading to the LNP picking up around 15 seats if uniform.

Since the LNP needed 18 additional seats give them a chance with a hung parliament, and 22 additional seats to give them the Treasury benches in their own right – a 50/50 result doesn’t even come close as a piece of evidence that could possibly justify the media spin.

To really highlight the complete ignorance behind these MSM poll commentaries and to kill another furphy that’s popped up – that the betting markets were superior – we can turn the pendulum into a set of implied probabilities of ALP victory for any given ALP two party preferred result using a monte carlo simulation. For each tenth of a percentage point increase in the ALP TPP vote, a 200,000 iteration simulation was run using a uniform swing that the TPP result impied with a standard deviation of 4%. We can then see how many times from each of those 200,000 election simulations that the ALP would win at least the 45 seats needed to form government.

A 51/49 LNP result – the best polling result they ever achieved in the campaign – still had the ALP on an implied probability of winning government in their own right of 66%.

A 50/50 poll had the implied probability of an ALP victory at a whopping 94% simply because of where the seats that the LNP needed to win sat on the pendulum.

The final and largest sample poll of the campaign was Newspoll. Its two party preferred result was 50.1/49.9 to the LNP – an implied probability of 92.4% of victory to the ALP.

What the MSM seemed to forget or ignore was that elections aren’t decided by who wins the two party preferred, but by who wins enough seats to form government.

As for the betting markets being superior, we can also use that same simulation to knock this nonsense on the head. At the closing of bets, Centrebet had the ALP on $1.65 and the LNP on $2.27.

That equates to the betting markets giving the ALP a 57.9% implied probability of victory. Every single poll in the campaign however had Labor on a higher implied probability of victory with the lowest (Galaxy 51/49 to the LNP) being 66.4% and the highest (Galaxy 50/50) being 94%. The final poll – the Newspoll – had the implied probability at 92.4%.

Last time I looked, the ALP won government and 66%, 92.4% and 94% are all higher than Centrebet’s 57.9%.

So yes, the betting markets were correct, but the polls were more so – by a significant margin. Something Centrebet should absorb before they say anymore silly things.

UPDATE:

Via scorpio comes the perfect example of polling commentary that is absolute rubbish – factually wrong and completely ignorant of the topic matter: Conal Hanna at the Brisbane Times

Ms Bligh’s victory was sealed by the third of Queensland voters who apparently did not make up their minds which way to vote until the last minute. “Things turned very quickly in the end,” one Labor campaign veteran said. “When the undecided [voters] went through, they all broke for us.”

Two days before polling day Labor insiders were predicting a swing of at least 6 per cent against the Government. It was not until late on Friday that strategists felt confident Labor would be able to form government in its own right. Despite the mood for change after 11 years of Labor government, voters decided not to risk an untested leader in an uncertain economic climate.

The LNP brand indisputably works, but whether it can ever work well enough to capture those urban seats remains a matter for debate.

But the main thrust of the leader is summed up admirably by Barry:

…they gave grudging credit to Labor’s win while still questioning the wisdom of the electorate.

What distinguished the Courier-Mail campaign, I think, is a combination of its unreliability in analysis and its bias towards the LNP. The paper also appeared to lose interest in the last couple of weeks, often relegating election coverage to somewhere past page 10. Only isolated exceptions to the general rule that the C-M just wasn’t worth reading stand out – Dennis Atkins’ commentary being one. But in general, its approach to the poll was both lazy and one-sided.

For a long time, and I think there’s some history here dating back to the comments of the Fitzgerald Inquiry long ago about the responsibilities of the media, Brisbane’s only paper has seemed to regard itself as the unofficial opposition. Whether or not such a stance is justifiable is no doubt a matter of opinion. But, even if one were to allow this sort of aim as a discharge of some Fourth Estate duty, it would surely be better served by serious and probing coverage rather than populist posturing and overt bias.

In any case, it’s pretty clear that the paper’s influence over the electorate is close to zero these days, so perhaps this discussion is somewhat academic, or otherwise moot.

I think there are a few points to make here. First, the furious spin about how well the LNP did – combined with a sort of “we was robbed” theme about teh evils of ALP attacks – suggest that, at least in their own minds, Liberal Nationals believe they’ve progressed sufficiently to at least publicly declare the experiment a success. That’s despite the fact that they expected to win. That their actual relative failure to improve their seat count by all that much has put the kybosh on any talk of a similar model in other states probably tells us more about the actual state of play, but there you have it…

De-amalgamation would be almost impossible because the LNP is the state division of the Liberal Party, which as a state entity has been de-registered, and all its assets (or more properly liabilities) absorbed by the merged entity. Mal Brough’s attempts to keep some sort of shadow structure in place came to nothing. Anti-merger Liberals either accustomed themselves to the new party once it became clear their own positions would be safe (a la George Brandis) or faded away into political irrelevance outside the party. The failure of any independent Liberals to appear as candidates in Brisbane suggests there’s really no political organisation left among the former Libs. One would also have to question whether there would have been much of an electoral base for them to leverage had they tried to cultivate it.

In terms of leadership, Lawrence Springborg might have done his party more service by staying around as an interim leader while they sort themselves out and a new shadow ministry finds its feet. I suspect his family commitments prevented this – which was probably what some LNPers wanted – particularly, I think, Fiona Simpson. The Borg’s exit also revives some of the emnities which had been contained by the belief that the party could win. Jeff Seeney hasn’t forgiven or forgotten, and the party’s most plausible metropolitan leader, Bruce Flegg, is out of the running not just because of his 2006 performance but also because of the continuing effects of the stoush that saw him lose the Liberals’ leadership.

I think that an urban leader is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for an LNP revival. They need a plausible and attractive leader. Tim Nicholls isn’t that person, and his performance in this campaign is a millstone round his neck. Mark McArdle is a charisma free zone, even without contemplating his other troubles, and the Gold Coast MPs John-Paul Langbroek and Jann Stuckey never really made any impact as frontbenchers. Any ex-Liberal leader would also have to be acceptable to the unreconstructed Nats – the Mike Horans and Vaughan Johnsons of the world, who might have been hanging around mainly for another go at ministerial leather, but certainly won’t want the Nats’ power diluted, despite the shift in the numbers within the party room towards the metro members.

Talk of an outsider can be discounted. Campbell Newman would be mad to leave his Mayoral gig, and Mal Brough crueled his chances durng his ill-fated Liberal presidency. Barnaby Joyce could hardly be more country in image, and in any case, has bigger fish to fry.

The sad truth for the LNP is that The Borg was probably the best of a mediocre bunch.

It can be inferred that this was the most surprising election result since I got into this caper in 2004. The surprisingly slim pickings for the LNP were Hervey Bay, Coomera, Mudgeeraba, Indooroopilly and Aspley, along with the notional gains of Burdekin and Clayfield. All four independents retained their seats, but One Nation’s Rosa Lee Long was defeated by the LNP’s Shane Knuth after the redistribution put them head-to-head in the new seat of Dalrymple. Notwithstanding Pauline Hanson’s solid 21.7 per cent in Beaudesert, the election thus marked the final nail in the coffin of the political phenomenon she ignited when elected to federal parliament in 1996.

The following table breaks the result down into digestible regional chunks.

Southern Brisbane. Labor went into the election holding all 20 seats in this region, and will emerge with between 17 and 19 (Redlands and Chatsworth being in doubt). If you remove Indooroopilly, where Labor shed votes to Ronan Lee (and which is a doubtful inclusion in this region in any case), Labor’s vote was down only 3.6 per cent. The biggest swings were in Bulimba (8.9 per cent), where sitting member Pat Purcell retired, and Algester (8.7 per cent). The smallest was 0.0 per cent in the already lineball seat of Chatsworth. On the one hand, this might be put down to the fact that it was defended by an LNP sitting member in Michael Caltabiano in 2006 (his wife Andrea was the candidate this time); on the other, it should be noted that Labor’s Chris Bombolas was taking his personal vote into retirement after one term. Indooroopilly appears to have been won by LNP candidate Scott Emerson, but I can’t tell you anything substantial about that because we only have estimated preference distributions to go on. Labor and Ronan Lee and neck-and-neck in the race for second: whoever gets ahead will need about 70 per cent of the other’s preferences, which would be pretty extraordinary.

Northern Brisbane. The much-touted Royal Children’s Hospital backlash did make its presence felt in a number of seats, notably Aspley which fell with a 7.2 per cent swing, but nowhere did this reach the double-digit proportions that Labor was fearing. In particular, Kate Jones did remarkably well to limit the damage to 0.9 per cent in Ashgrove. Another good performer was Vicky Darling in Sandgate, whose swing was only 3.5 per cent. Everton swung heavily as expected, but not by quite enough (9.3 per cent against a margin of 10.6 per cent). Shadow Treasurer Tim Nicholls picked up the swing he needed to retain his seat of Clayfield, made notionally Labor by the redistribution. Interesting to note that Labor’s margin continues to diminish in Brisbane Central: where Peter Beattie won by 25.0 per cent in 2001, the margin is now 6.7 per cent after a 7.7 per cent swing. All told, the LNP now holds three of the region’s 11 seats after going into the election with one.

Outer Northern Metro. Labor held all six of these seats. Redcliffe and Pumicestone were must-wins where the LNP failed to perform, with swings staying below 1 per cent. Strongly performing independents in Redcliffe (former Labor man Peter Houston, 14.3 per cent) and Morayfield (Lynette Devereaux, 10.7 per cent) drove up the “others” result. A strong performance by Houston was supposed to be bad news for Labor (as was the oil spill), but both major parties were down on the primary vote in roughly equal proportions. One might speculate that the LNP’s Redcliffe rail shenanigans backfired badly. Changing members (Linda Lavarch out, Glass House refugee Carolyn Male in) fuelled an 8.5 per cent swing in Pine Rivers (successor to abolished Kurwongbah), but not enough to account for the 13.3 epr cent margin.

Ipswich. Three safe Labor seats that remain so.

Gold Coast. The LNP gained two of the 10 seats here, when they were really hoping for five. Those to go were Coomera, a new seat not defended by a sitting member (margin 8.3 per cent, swing 10.5 per cent swing), and Mudgeeraba, where Dianne Reilly was finally defeated in the seat she gained in 2001 (margin 3.9 per cent, swing 6.7 per cent). Crucially, the swings against Labor in Broadwater, Southport, Burleigh and Gaven were all below 5 per cent, preserving them in the first three and sending the last down to the wire. All told, Gold Coast seats swung in roughly the same proportions as Brisbane, perhaps arguing against the idea that the Carrara Stadium issue worked against them. On the other hand, Mermaid Beach LNP member Ray Stevens picked up a big 8.3 per cent swing, which might be seen as vindication of his strong criticism of Springborg’s policy. Another explanation might be that it was a correction after the 6.3 per cent swing to Labor in the predecessor seat of Robina in 2006 which followed the departure of sitting member Bob Quinn.

Sunshine Coast. No surprise that the six seats here stayed five LNP and one independent. Labor didn’t have much further to fall after the 2006 backlash over water issues; the overall LNP vote was boosted by a big increase in Noosa, where Cate Molloy was down from 23.7 per cent to 8.3 per cent.

Hinterland. This is more a collection of bits and pieces than a region. It includes Beaudesert, where any talk of independents Pauline Hanson (21.7 per cent) and Keith Gee (8.0 per cent) helping Labor was dispelled by a 13.6 per cent sag in their vote; Toowoomba South, where Mike Horan should have made way for Stuart Copeland and received one of the state’s only two pro-Labor swings for his trouble; Glass House, where the redistribution produced a 0.0 per cent margin and which was won quite comfortably by the LNP; Nanango, where John Bjelke-Petersen went backwards in his second attempt to unseat former One Nation independent Dolly Pratt; Toowoomba North, where Attorney-General Kerry Shine survived a 4.9 per cent swing to win by 2.7 per cent; and the traditional Nationals seat of Lockyer, where nothing untoward occurred.

Central Coast. The biggest surprise of the election was Labor’s excellent performance in the northern part of this region, away from the impact of the Traveston Crossing dam issue. I’m not aware of anyone who thought Jan Jarratt would hold Whitsunday for Labor, but she has with a 3.2 per cent swing. Mirani was also considered a lay-down misere for LNP member Ted Malone, who saw the seat edged into the Labor column by the redistribution, and who finished the evening 0.4 per cent behind. Labor suffered hardly any swing at all in and around Rockhampton, allowing them to easily retain Keppel. The one casualty here was Hervey Bay, where former mayor Ted Sorensen despatched front-bencher Andrew McNamara with an 8.0 per cent swing. Independent Chris Foley was predictably untroubled in Maryborough, and Labor failed to bring home the bacon in Gladstone, where independent Liz Cunningham picked up a 3.8 per cent swing against her Labor opponent.

Northern Coast. The swing to Labor in this region was inflated by Hinchinbrook, where voters took a predictably dim view of absentee candidate Mark Platt, Thuringowa, where they copped a harmless 8.2 per cent swing, and Mulgrave, where both parties shed votes to independent Damian Byrnes. Elsewhere Labor almost matched their very strong performance in 2006, doing extremely well to retain Barron River and generally retaining their lock on Cairns and Townsville. There was one notional LNP gain in Burdekin, where Rosemary Menkens picked up a 3.3 per cent swing after the redistribution left her facing a Labor margin of 0.9 per cent.

Interior. The LNP couldn’t even manage second place in Mount Isa, shedding votes to Bob Katter-backed independent Keith Douglas who finishes behind Labor member Betty Kiernan. Shane Knuth outpolled Rosa Lee Long 40.1 per cent to 34.3 per cent in Dalrymple; Stuart Copeland failed to come through in his bid to defeat former LNP colleague Ray Hopper in Condamine, who outpolled him 47.4 per cent to 26.4 per cent. The remaining seats are Nationals heartland and did not turn up any surprises.

The “whither the LNP” prognostications will have to wait for another time, but I will make this observation: they went into the election with nine MPs from Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast against 16 from the rest of the state, and have probably emerged with 17 and 15 respectively. That at least is a healthy development, even if it does result as much from their failures as their successes (such as they were).

No doubt there will be much ink spilled over this rather stunning result – the re-election of the Queensland Labor government to a fifth term – and no doubt I’ll be spilling some myself. But it’s worth, perhaps, recording some instant reactions.

First, it’s worth pointing out that Possum correctly interpreted the Auspoll exit poll numbers here before any vote figures were available as suggesting a comfortable Labor majority. He might have been a tad conservative about when the result would be clear – Antony Green basically called it about a half hour into the ABC broadcast, and Anna Bligh, asked after her victory speech when she knew the election was won, must have been erring on the conservative side when she modified her initial answer of 6.30pm to 7.20pm.

What we had expected would be a long night was over in a flash.

So were the polls wrong? No. Labor were gone for all money at the start of the week, and the tracking polls leaked were genuine. A swing back to the ALP started on Wednesday night, and accentuated on Thursday and then gathered momentum. Newspoll, which showed a closer result than Galaxy from a significantly larger sample, was taken on Wednesday and Thursday.

The ALP, as we noted here and documented at Pineapple Party Time, poured enormous resources into the seats in play towards the end of the week, with messages targeted finely towards issues swinging votes in each electorate. This flew under the MSM radar. And, after a campaign characterised by apathy and a disposition to vote against an eleven year old government, voters only really focused on the choice incredibly late in the game. There’s tons of evidence around that beneath the repetitive drumbeat of the polls there was a lot of volatility, as I’ve been arguing over the last few days.

The campaign was also taken out of the hands of the apparatchiks who were steering the ship of state towards the shoals, and the whole weight of the federal ALP was placed behind the state effort – not just the rhetorical intervention of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, but also organisationally, driven by Wayne Swan’s personal intervention, backed by the PM. The Bligh 30 seat marathon signalled the turn to the realisation that the way to win was to “Let Anna Be Anna!”…

In the final analysis, Lawrence Springborg sunk his own ship, and Anna Bligh, having finally escaped the cold dead hand of the ALP apparat, won the thing on the basis of her own personal qualities. Her victory as the first elected female Premier in Australia is thoroughly well deserved, and she will enjoy a much enhanced authority in the party and over the government.

It’s Bligh’s victory. And she now has the chance to stake out a new direction for Labor and Queensland.

There’ll be time enough to discuss the implications for the opposition and for the federal scene. But, make no mistake, this victory was one pulled out of the fire. Forget Lawrence Springborg’s complaints about a 3% swing somehow supposedly translating into a change of government. The fact is that the ALP won over the majority of Queensland voters, with a clear lead on primaries as well as in the two party preferred vote. Springborg has to wear that – he, and the LNP, weren’t rejected because of any bias in the electoral system, but because more voters supported the ALP.

Contrary to all predictions, no seats but the low hanging fruit changed hands, and the LNP still goes largely unrepresented in Brisbane, and the ALP did surprisingly well on the Gold Coast, in Central Queensland and in North and Far North Queensland. The result is a total repudiation of the “united conservative force”.

The Greens also failed to make an impact, with a statewide vote that was basically static, despite running in all 89 seats for the first time. Their single MP, the former Labor Member for Indooroopilly, Ronan Lee, has lost his seat to the LNP.

As Andrew Fraser observed, “it’s very hard for a government to win after eleven years – just ask John Howard”. Yet Labor won a comfortable majority – 17, according to the latest ABC projection.

And Labor swung that majority – from the jaws of a certain defeat earlier this week – almost solely because when voters focused on the choice, they chose to put their trust in Anna Bligh personally, and to support an activist government in a time of great uncertainty.

Please not that the facility is not open to all comers – readers are invited to discuss the count in the comments section on this post. While the facility to leave a comment is included on CoveritLive, please do not use it as your comment will not get cleared. Polls will close at 6pm and results should start to come in from 6.30pm, so expect the activity level to build up from those times accordingly.

Update: [by Mark] William and I will also be doing intermittent audio updates via Skype and livestreaming at The Sunday Talk throughout the evening.

Those outside Queensland or away from a tv who are interested in following the ABC’s coverage can access a livestream at Antony Green’s election page.

Update: [by Mark] William and I will be chatting to Matthew Kopelke at The Sunday Talk on the hour and at half past the hour respectively, with me kicking off at 6.30pm Queensland Time. You can listen here.

We’ll update this page throughout the day as news comes to hand. Also, does anyone know of any streaming live feeds of the coverage tonight – some of our international readers would like to follow the action. Similarly, are there any Twitter feeds you know about that might be worth a tragic keeping their eye on?

Also, don’t forget to enter our election tipping comp as it closes at 3.00pm this afternoon – there’s even spiffy prizes. Just make sure to follow the rules.

Good voting to one and all.

UPDATE:

For our interstate and international tragics, live online streaming of the ABC coverage tonight can be seen over here.

UPDATE:

Graham Young’s new online polling.

Update: [by Mark] Andrew Bartlett on the prospect of a hung parliament.

Update: [by Mark] I’ve just put up a prediction/seats to watch post. The upshot is that I’m tipping Labor 45, LNP 44, Ind 4. The seats in question and my reasoning (and why I think the vote has swung back in Labor’s direction) are explained here.

UPDATE:(Possum)

Exit Polls on vote estimates released at 5:00pm

These are being done by Auspoll, which produced excellent results for SkyNooz at the last Fed election.

UPDATE:(Possum)

First exit poll results from Auspoll – it’s a phone poll using a sample of 2500 people after they’ve voted, from 22 battleground seats across Qld.

The following are “message testing” questions where the respondents were given a statement and asked to agree or disagree:

“After 11 years of Labor Government it is time for change”

56% Agree
36% Disagree
5% Don’t Know/Refused

“Lawrence Springborg and the LNP will manage the state budget better”
41% Agree
44% Disagree
15% Don’t Know/Refused

“Anna Bligh and Labor will support jobs and protect Qld from a recession”
44% Agree
49% Disagree
Don’t Know/Refused 7%

“Lawrence Springborg is too weak and inexperienced to run the state.”
39% Agree
48% Disagree
13% Don’t Know/Refused

With the global recession, now is not the time to change the state government
41% Agree
52% Disagree
7% Don’t Know/Refused

Labor has mismanaged our hospitals
63% Agree
30% Disagree
7% Don’t Know/Refused

Lawrence Springborg and the LNP will fix our hospitals
36% Agree
52% Disagree
12% Don’t Know/Refused

If re-elected, Anna Bligh and Labor will provide certainty and continuity for the state and Qld
51% Agree
43% Disagree
6% Don’t Know/Refused

The LNP will cut too much out of the state budget and this will cost jobs and mean some projects won’t go ahead.
52% Agree
39% Disagree
8% Don’t Know/Refused

Labor has mismanaged the state and there is too much debt
55% Agree
38% Disagree
7% Don’t Know/Refused

Next up was where the respondents were asked which issues are most important:

Heath and Hospitals 51%
Current Economic Situation 27%
Jobs 26%
Infrastructure 19%
Education 18%
Environment/Climate Change 12%
State Debt 12%
Government waste and mismanagement 11%
Law and Order/Policing 10%
Oil Slick 2%

UPDATE:

Exit Poll Vote Estimates:

ALP 45
LNP 47
Greens 5
Others 3

Refused 10%!

TPP is 50/50.

This is from 22 most marginal seats across QLD excluding Indooroopilly.