Shadow, I did ask what experience you had at elections, other than voting, Judging by your last post, I assume none, if you believe 100% of "friendly" candidates preferences flow to you. If I was a Liberal and trailed Labor by 2,800 and the Nationals had 3,000 votes I would be very worried about National preferences. I know I am going to get the vast majority but not all, I might miss out on only 101 of those preferences but I still lose by 2 votes.

Paul,

You give a somewhat nonsensical example. The most likely scenario would be that the combination of Nat and lib votes would be higher than either Nat or lib running alone irrespective of the leakage of preferences.

For example in WA, supposedly Labor is ahead 54:46 2pp, but that is assuming that ON preferences are split. As ON is running on policies very similar to Labor, many of its voters come from the labor camp. If ON swaps preferences with the libs, and ON polls the 10-13% it has recently, labor may well lose.

I can't see Cory's Tories doing well at the polls. I think it will be a party of one until the end of his term, at which point he'll be booted from the Senate and they will have no sitting members. I reckon they'll be totally overshadowed by One Nation, who are a broad church of right-wingers that don't share Cory's 'screw the poor' attitudes towards economic policy. A lot of One Nation supporters aren't wealthy people, and they won't be impressed by Cory favouring the haves over the have-nots.

He'll be a minor nuisance in an already difficult senate for the next 5.5 years, then he'll vanish into the annals of Australian political history.

Toni, most likely other like minded conservatives within the Liberal Party, and there are certainly a number of them, would be watching Tory Cory with interest. When they are not trying to white ant Turnbull, that is, they are sucking up to Abbott. A Turnbull thumping at the next election, which could happen as early as later this year, would see more than a few of the rats desert the sinking ship, led away by the Pied Piper himself.
Did you notice Abbott never got stuck into Bernadi for quitting the party. went very soft on him, maybe scoring a few future brownie points to trade later. Abbott is only sticking around because he thinks he can regain the top job. Maybe there is a way out possibility of that with a new Conservative Party.

Shadow,

Thanks for acknowledging you have no experience at electioneering at all. How do you go at filling out the ballot paper?

If you think the presence of minor parties and independents has no effect on the outcome, one way or the other, your wrong. If your the incumbent in a marginal seat the last thing you want to see is a long ballot paper.

In the bad old days when the Liberals did not officially contest local government elections in NSW, but would rather stand under independent banners such as 'Resident Action Group' or some such name. The critical result in a ward, was not who ran first, or who ran second, it was who ran third that counted when three were to be elected, as third elected would be close, and most likely determine who controlled council. We often had people stand as "independents" with basically the same message as our opponents, then they would naturally direct a percentage of preference to our second candidate, with the aim of getting number two elected in third position. Some were such good candidates that instead of ours getting elected, they did. You could bet, as soon as the candidate list was out, your "independent" would be contacted by some person asking "I like your policies, and I am thinking of voting for you, if I do who should I direct my preference to?". Stock answer "I have not endorsed any other candidate at this stage I'll wait and see how they are with the issues and policies." We would laugh when told, particularly the part about "I like your policies" which one since your "independent" hasn't presented any yet, possibly its the policy of 'shoot all dogs on sight' (not policy), that he liked so much. It happened from both sides of politics, at a State and Federal level in marginal seats as well.
This is even more critical today than ever, as the number of loyal "rusted on's" is diminishing and more and more voters are receptive to other messengers.

Paul,

I realise that the feeblest experience qualifies a green to pontificate about any topic, and that you believe that your experience at handing out pamphlets qualifies you as an election strategist. However, given your past record, don't be surprised when I don't take you seriously.