Michael Arbon

Greens voters are the most disciplined. 88% of Greens voter preferences flowed to Labor at the 2025 federal election. The 2022 South Australian state election shows the same pattern: 🍉 81.2% of Greens voter preferences flowed to Labor 🐶 69.8% of Animal Justice Party voter preferences flowed to Labor Contrast this with One Nation voters, whose preferences were far more evenly split: 46.8% to Labor and 53.2% to the Liberals. Similarly, Family First votes which flowed 47.4% to Labor and 52.6% to the Liberals. It’s not just the direction of voter preferences that is less disciplined on the right; it’s the use of preferential voting itself. In the 2022 South Australian upper-house election (the white ballot), two-thirds of voters simply wrote “1” above the line and stopped. It was Greens voters who were most likely to number beyond 1. 44.6% continued their preferences, compared to just 24.2% of One Nation voters. If you just vote “1” above the line and your chosen candidate does not receive sufficient votes to reach a quota (and be elected), when they are excluded, your vote will likely exhaust because no further preferences were marked. If you had continued to number your preferences, your vote would remain active and be transferred to the next best option you chose that’s still in the race. Every exhausted vote is a wasted vote that increases the relative power of ballots remaining in the count. To reduce the risk of your vote expiring worthless, I suggest allocating preferences as far as you can. And remember, parties do not control your preferences in South Australia. How to vote cards are a suggestion, not an instruction. Only you have the power to allocate your own preferences. Take a leaf out of the Green voter playbook. Love them or hate them, Greens voters know how to use the system.

I need to do a better job educating my followers. Most think there are fewer dwellings per capita today than 30 years ago. The actual numbers are - population up 50%, dwelling stock up 60%. And the average dwelling is bigger and better than ever.