Speaker 1: Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS.
Speaker 1: Oh now it makes sense. Good morning, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the Daily OS. It's Friday, the second of May. I'm belief,
Speaker 1: it's Simon's I'm Zara Seidler. The election is finally here.
Speaker 1: It is tomorrow, which means that we're at the end
Speaker 1: of our Politics one oh one series. So to wrap
Speaker 1: up the week, we want to arm you with all
Speaker 1: of the information you need to make sense of Election
Speaker 1: night itself. In this episode, we're going to do things
Speaker 1: a little bit differently, and we're going to take you
Speaker 1: through the number, the words, the moment and the time
Speaker 1: for you to look out for come tomorrow night.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: This is something that we developed Billy earlier in the
Speaker 3: week when we hosted some Politics in the Pub events,
Speaker 3: and anyone that's listening that attended those events, thank you.
Speaker 3: We loved meeting you, Billy, and I love talking about politics,
Speaker 3: and the fact that we got to do that in
Speaker 3: real life.
Speaker 1: Was truly a pleasure with a charazin hand.
Speaker 2: With a charaz in hand, how could we forget?
Speaker 3: But it is just, I think, a really good framework
Speaker 3: to understand because there's so much going on in election
Speaker 3: night if you tune into one of the TV stations,
Speaker 3: there's like graphics thrown around, there are words, the jargon
Speaker 3: like things people who pay attention each and every day
Speaker 3: might not even understand. And so this is a way
Speaker 3: to just distill the information that you need to pay
Speaker 3: attention to. So, Billy, let's start with the number first.
Speaker 3: What is the magic number that people need to listen
Speaker 3: out for.
Speaker 1: I feel like we should have a drum roll or something, yeah,
Speaker 1: to reveal the number. Producer Elliot role the magic number
Speaker 1: is seventy six. So here we're talking about the House
Speaker 1: of Representatives. That is where the government is formed. And
Speaker 1: in Australia we have one hundred and fifty electorates, which
Speaker 1: means that we have one hundred and fifty seats and
Speaker 1: in order to form government you need a majority of that.
Speaker 1: So one hundred and fifty divided by two seventy five
Speaker 1: plus one to reach the majority. A quick, little mass class.
Speaker 3: You're saying it with such a smile on your face
Speaker 3: because you know that I have struggled through the maths
Speaker 3: of it all.
Speaker 2: But yes, that is correct.
Speaker 1: I think it's good to walk people through it. So,
Speaker 1: so seventy six is how many seats a party needs
Speaker 1: to reach in order to form a majority government. So
Speaker 1: if you're watching the election tomorrow night, you'll see the
Speaker 1: seventy six come up time and time again. If a
Speaker 1: party reaches out number, that means election is over. That
Speaker 1: party has one.
Speaker 3: Okay, So you're sitting at home or you're at an
Speaker 3: election party. I don't know if people still have election parties.
Speaker 1: Oh, my parents too, and it is a fall off.
Speaker 1: It is all they have spoken about for a year.
Speaker 1: They have put more planning into this election night party
Speaker 1: than anything else.
Speaker 3: Okay, excellent, So we have proof that election night parties
Speaker 3: still exists. So if people are at an election night
Speaker 3: party and perhaps the volumes down and people are talking,
Speaker 3: but there is need to listen out for that magic
Speaker 3: seventy six, okay, And when that happens, a majority has
Speaker 3: been reached, the election is called and we know who
Speaker 3: has won.
Speaker 2: Yes, all right, so that's a number.
Speaker 3: Talk me through the word people need to be listening
Speaker 3: out for, because, as I said earlier, there are quite
Speaker 3: a few words said on election night.
Speaker 2: How do you narrow it down. What's the one word
Speaker 2: that you think people need to really pay attention to?
Speaker 1: Okay, So the word we have chosen is marginal, and
Speaker 1: now that is what we use to describe certain seats
Speaker 1: that I was talking about before, the seats that we
Speaker 1: don't know which way it's going to go, and from
Speaker 1: election to election they tend to go either way. Now
Speaker 1: we know which ones are the marginal seats based on
Speaker 1: the result from last election and then also from current polling.
Speaker 1: There is a technical definition from the AEC which is
Speaker 1: if at the last election the winner won by less
Speaker 1: than fifty six percent, then that seat is considered a
Speaker 1: marginal seat. So it's literally just about the margin by
Speaker 1: which they won the previous election.
Speaker 2: Margin, got it? Margin for marginal?
Speaker 1: Are you allowed to use the word in the definition
Speaker 1: of the word? I think yes.
Speaker 2: You would lose an articulation, but I will allow it
Speaker 2: this one.
Speaker 1: Thank you. So about a third of the one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty seats in Parliament are marginal, So those are
Speaker 1: fifty seats for us to look out for at tomorrow's election.
Speaker 1: But I thought we could go through one each, sar,
Speaker 1: do you yes? Putting you on the spot, all right,
Speaker 1: do you have a marginal seat that you have favorite? Yes,
Speaker 1: So you've thought about a lot this election.
Speaker 3: One that I have been thinking about, and I think
Speaker 3: it's because there's been quite a lot of coverage of it.
Speaker 3: Is the seat of Dixon. That is Peter Dudden's seat,
Speaker 3: so it's the most marginal seat in Queensland, and I
Speaker 3: think that that's a really interesting thing in and of itself,
Speaker 3: that the leader of a party could potentially find himself
Speaker 3: in a situation where he loses his seat but his
Speaker 3: party wins the election. And so I think I'm keeping
Speaker 3: a really strong focus on Dixon. There we have Ali France,
Speaker 3: who the ALP have put up for election I think
Speaker 3: maybe three elections in a row to contest the seat
Speaker 3: of Dixon. She has been unsuccessful to date, but she
Speaker 3: is looking to win that seat off opposition leader Peter Dubnan.
Speaker 3: So that is one that I'll be keeping an eye on.
Speaker 3: What about you, Billy, Just.
Speaker 1: Quickly on Dixon. What's so interesting about that is I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure that Peter Dunnan has held that seat since
Speaker 1: something like two thousand and one, but throughout that whole time,
Speaker 1: so twenty five years now almost, it has been marginal.
Speaker 2: Oh interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So even though you'd think that it's a safe
Speaker 1: seat considering how long he has held it. It has
Speaker 1: always been a marginal seed, so it's quite amazing that
Speaker 1: he has held on to it for so long.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: My one that I have been paying close attention to
Speaker 1: is Kuyong.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: That is one of the seats in Melbourne and it
Speaker 1: was one of the ones that one of the Teal
Speaker 1: independents took from one of the Liberal MP's, quite a
Speaker 1: famous Liberal MP in Josh Fridenberg who was the then Treasurer.
Speaker 1: She defeated him at the last election. It's since then
Speaker 1: been quite a high profile seat and certainly this election
Speaker 1: that has remained. I saw a TikTok the other day
Speaker 1: that was from someone who said that if you're saying
Speaker 1: this election is boring, you clearly haven't been paying attention
Speaker 1: to what is happening in ku Yong.
Speaker 2: Agreed.
Speaker 1: I don't think we need to get into all of
Speaker 1: the drama, but just know there has been so much drama,
Speaker 1: and my god, the politics in that electorate that have
Speaker 1: been going on have been insane to watch and it
Speaker 1: will be absolutely fascinating to see what happens tomorrow night
Speaker 1: in Kuyong. That is the one I'm just so interested
Speaker 1: to see what happens.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it is really interesting because sometimes it's very
Speaker 3: clear straight off about poll's close, and you start to
Speaker 3: get these early results. And Anthony Green on the ABC,
Speaker 3: who's kind of considered the election overlord, it's the key.
Speaker 3: It's his last election there, so it's the last time
Speaker 3: he'll be doing it. But he'll call seats quite early
Speaker 3: if he's very confident. And so it could be that
Speaker 3: we are very quickly getting a result from somewhere likeo Young,
Speaker 3: or it could be hours and hours and hours or
Speaker 3: days and days and days.
Speaker 1: It could if it's if it's really close, then I'm
Speaker 1: sure it will take. It won't be instant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's certainly one to keep an eye on. Billy.
Speaker 3: We've talked through the number to keep an ear out for.
Speaker 3: We've spoken about the word that people should keep in
Speaker 3: the front of their mind. What to you is the
Speaker 3: standout moment from any election?
Speaker 1: Okay, the moment is the phone call. Now, every single election,
Speaker 1: there will be a phone call between the two leaders
Speaker 1: before either of them declare victory or concede, and so
Speaker 1: the phone call will be from the person who loses.
Speaker 1: They typically will then call the person who wins and
Speaker 1: say I concede, congratulations, You've won the election. And then
Speaker 1: the winner will go out and do their victory speech,
Speaker 1: and often they'll start that speech by saying, I've just
Speaker 1: had a phone call from so and so, and I
Speaker 1: can now declare victory.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine a more awkward phone call?
Speaker 3: No, Like I have any of my friends who listen
Speaker 3: to this will know my phones permanently on, do not disturb.
Speaker 3: I'm not interested in answering phone calls. So the fear
Speaker 3: of phone calls is a starting point. Imagine just having
Speaker 3: to say I've lost, You've won, well done.
Speaker 1: Also from someone who like, it's not like they've been
Speaker 1: friendsout this entire election camp by No. Yeah, and also
Speaker 1: a lot of this election has become quite personal between them,
Speaker 1: in the attacks that they direct towards one another. And
Speaker 1: so you know, after all of these kind of nastiness,
Speaker 1: you then have to call the person say congratulations.
Speaker 2: And like, how do they get each other's numbers?
Speaker 1: Do you think that they have them their teams? Yeah,
Speaker 1: say to your team.
Speaker 3: Hand over the number, I'll call him. Hope it goes
Speaker 3: to voicemail.
Speaker 1: Yes, And this is something that happens at elections around
Speaker 1: the world. It's definitely not unique to Australia. I know
Speaker 1: that Joe Biden called Donald Trump before Donald Trump declared victory,
Speaker 1: so it's a very common thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, so we are waiting for or not wait,
Speaker 3: we are not running for prime minister, but whoever Claire's victory,
Speaker 3: we'll only do that when the other usually has conceded.
Speaker 3: We know that that happens via a phone call at
Speaker 3: some point during the evening, so that is a good
Speaker 3: one to keep an eye on. We have mentioned though,
Speaker 3: that we don't really know how long this can all take,
Speaker 3: So can you just set up a bit of a
Speaker 3: timeline for us for Saturday night?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so polls close at six pm, no matter what
Speaker 1: state you're in, and then the counting immediately begins. Now,
Speaker 1: the Australian Electoral Commission, who oversees elections in Australia, they
Speaker 1: say that we can start to see results roll in
Speaker 1: at about seven pm, particularly from the smaller polling centers,
Speaker 1: and then for the medium to bigger size polling centers,
Speaker 1: they say that we'll start to see results from about
Speaker 1: eight to eight thirty PM. So I think based on
Speaker 1: that at about nine pm, I would say that is
Speaker 1: the time for you to tune in, and we should
Speaker 1: by that time understand kind of what direction this is
Speaker 1: going in. If it's really close, it will go for
Speaker 1: hours and hours an hour, but again we'll know if
Speaker 1: it's really close by about nine pm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's interesting because in every election around the world,
Speaker 3: when you first start to see results come back, it
Speaker 3: can swing really strongly one way. But that's just representative
Speaker 3: of where those early votes are coming from, not necessary
Speaker 3: the direction of the overall vote. It is also interesting
Speaker 3: to note, I don't know if people know this, that
Speaker 3: early voting doesn't get counted early. So people who send
Speaker 3: in postal votes or people that have gone to pre
Speaker 3: poll and we know that's a huge percentage of the electorate,
Speaker 3: those votes aren't counted any earlier than the ones that are.
Speaker 2: Lodged on election day.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of counting that gets done in
Speaker 3: a short period of time, and it's still all done
Speaker 3: by humans.
Speaker 2: Yes, So there you go, Billy.
Speaker 3: We've spoken about when we'll have a sense of what's
Speaker 3: going on. You work in the media, though, we are
Speaker 3: going to be telling I do. We are going to
Speaker 3: be telling our audience when the election has been called,
Speaker 3: how do we know.
Speaker 1: We know from the data that the Australian Electoral Commission
Speaker 1: puts on their website. So they have something called the
Speaker 1: tally Room and that is available to every single person.
Speaker 1: You can just access it on their website and that
Speaker 1: gives you all of the raw data as the votes
Speaker 1: are coming in. I think it's updated every ninety seconds
Speaker 1: or so, and.
Speaker 2: That's persons sitting there entering the data.
Speaker 1: Point well, that will be us not entering it, but
Speaker 1: then looking at it every ninety seconds. And so then
Speaker 1: the media including us, go to that tally room and
Speaker 1: use that data to try to understand what is happening
Speaker 1: in each electorate. And once a certain number of votes
Speaker 1: are called, then you can pretty confidently say whether a
Speaker 1: seat has swung either way. And then again, if enough
Speaker 1: seats have been called and one of the parties reaches
Speaker 1: seventy six, based on that, a winner will be declared.
Speaker 1: But that winner is only declared by the media on
Speaker 1: the night, which is kind of a funny thing. The
Speaker 1: AEC will never declare the winner on election night because
Speaker 1: they have to go through so many of the counting, Yeah,
Speaker 1: all of the counting and also so many formal processes.
Speaker 1: Even after that counting is done, so it is quite
Speaker 1: a long process, at least for the AEC, but for
Speaker 1: the media, once they have enough of the raw data,
Speaker 1: it usually will be called, often by none other than
Speaker 1: Anthony Green.
Speaker 3: You're just going to say, news outlets across the country
Speaker 3: and across the world. During every single election, it's this
Speaker 3: tension of when to call it because you know there
Speaker 3: can be early results that might radically change through the night.
Speaker 3: It's not overly likely, but we do tend to be
Speaker 3: a bit more conservative in when we will call the election,
Speaker 3: and as you said, Anthony Green is usually the first
Speaker 3: to call it officially. But then, as you said, once
Speaker 3: that phone calls happen and once a leader gets up,
Speaker 3: that's a pretty sure thing.
Speaker 2: The election has been called. All right now, believe I.
Speaker 3: Want to end on a question which might seem counterproductive,
Speaker 3: but there is I think a big question linking as
Speaker 3: we head into election night because the polls are telling
Speaker 3: us one thing. The polls have told us one thing
Speaker 3: many times in a row. They might not have been correct.
Speaker 3: Can we trust the polls? Will the polls be right?
Speaker 1: Yeah? This is the key question. Will the polls be right?
Speaker 1: Where you have seen time and time again, not just
Speaker 1: in Australia but around the world examples of polls being wrong,
Speaker 1: most famously in Australia. This is just my favorite example ever.
Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, there was a widespread expectation, based on
Speaker 1: the polling, that Labor would win in a very decisive victory,
Speaker 1: and they absolutely did not. The coalition. One that was
Speaker 1: when Scott Morrison famously got up in his victory speech
Speaker 1: and said he's always believed in miracles. I think that
Speaker 1: was the quote, very very famous. The polls, Just to
Speaker 1: give you an idea, the polls were so wrong that actually,
Speaker 1: two days before the election, Sports Bet they paid out
Speaker 1: everyone who had predicted a Labor win because they were
Speaker 1: so confident, crazy that Labor would win based on the polling,
Speaker 1: and then they lost something like six million or five
Speaker 1: million dollars because in the end, obviously Labor didn't win.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's so remarkable, and I think a lot
Speaker 3: of posters around the country have changed the.
Speaker 2: Way that they are polling.
Speaker 3: They have broadened the margin of error, they have accounted
Speaker 3: for what happened then. But still, you know, there have
Speaker 3: been examples since, and it's a really good point. Can
Speaker 3: we trust the polls because right now they are suggesting
Speaker 3: an Anthony Albanizi win a labor majority. We're gonna sit
Speaker 3: here on Monday morning and be able to reflect on
Speaker 3: whether or not the answer to that question is yes.
Speaker 1: Politicians always famously say the only poll that counts is
Speaker 1: on election day, correct their favorite saying, well, Billy, I.
Speaker 3: Think that's a really helpful framework to understand the Big
Speaker 3: night itself, the Big Dance. It's been a long road
Speaker 3: to get here, but thank you for being here every
Speaker 3: step of the way. It's been a pleasure to take
Speaker 3: the audience through the foundations of.
Speaker 2: Our political system.
Speaker 3: We're here at the Daily Odds care so deeply about
Speaker 3: engaging young people in our democratic process and helping you
Speaker 3: make an informed vote on Saturday, so let us know
Speaker 3: how you go. If you have any last minute questions,
Speaker 3: you can throw them in the Spotify question section.
Speaker 2: Otherwise we'll talk to you on Monday with the results.
Speaker 1: Bye. My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud
Speaker 1: Arunda Bungelung Kalkutin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz
Speaker 1: acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of
Speaker 1: the Gadighl people. And pays respect to all Aboriginal and
Speaker 1: Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to
Speaker 1: the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.