The next Victoria

Victoria (Australia)

Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

n state election is scheduled for 29 November 2014. The incumbent centre-right

Centre-right

The centre-right or center-right is a political term commonly used to describe or denote individuals, political parties, or organizations whose views stretch from the centre to the right on the left-right spectrum, excluding far right stances. Centre-right can also describe a coalition of centrist...

 Liberal

Liberal Party of Australia

The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...

/National

National Party of Australia

The National Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Traditionally representing graziers, farmers and rural voters generally, it began as the The Country Party, but adopted the name The National Country Party in 1975, changed to The National Party of Australia in 1982. The party is...

 Coalition

Coalition (Australia)

The Coalition in Australian politics refers to a group of centre-right parties that has existed in the form of a coalition agreement since 1922...

 government, currently led by Premier Ted Baillieu

Ted Baillieu

Edward Norman "Ted" Baillieu MLA is an Australian politician. He is currently the Premier of Victoria and the member for the Legislative Assembly seat of Hawthorn...

, will be challenged by the centre-left

Centre-left

Centre-left is a political term that describes individuals, political parties or organisations such as think tanks whose ideology lies between the centre and the left on the left-right spectrum...

 Australian Labor Party

Australian Labor Party

The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...

 opposition, currently led by Daniel Andrews

Daniel Andrews

Daniel Michael Andrews is an Australian politician. He is the current state Australian Labor Party leader and Leader of the Opposition in Victoria...

.

Victoria has compulsory voting

Compulsory voting

Compulsory voting is a system in which electors are obliged to vote in elections or attend a polling place on voting day. If an eligible voter does not attend a polling place, he or she may be subject to punitive measures such as fines, community service, or perhaps imprisonment if fines are unpaid...

 and uses preferential ballot

Instant-runoff voting

Instant-runoff voting , also known as preferential voting, the alternative vote and ranked choice voting, is a voting system used to elect one winner. Voters rank candidates in order of preference, and their ballots are counted as one vote for their first choice candidate. If a candidate secures a...

 in single-member seats for the Legislative Assembly, and single transferable vote

Single transferable vote

The single transferable vote is a voting system designed to achieve proportional representation through preferential voting. Under STV, an elector's vote is initially allocated to his or her most preferred candidate, and then, after candidates have been either elected or eliminated, any surplus or...

 in multi-member seats for the proportionally represented

Proportional representation

Proportional representation is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. For example, under a PR voting system if 30% of voters support a particular...

 Legislative Council

Victorian Legislative Council

The Victorian Legislative Council, is the upper of the two houses of the Parliament of Victoria, Australia; the lower house being the Legislative Assembly. Both houses sit in Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne. The Legislative Council serves as a house of review, in a similar fashion to...

. The election will be conducted by the Victorian Electoral Commission

Victorian Electoral Commission

The Victorian Electoral Commission , or VEC, is the government agency responsible for the running of state, municipal and various non-government elections in Victoria.-An Independent Agency:...

 (VEC).

Date

Terms are fixed at four years unless constitutionally dissolved earlier by the Governor. The election will occur in line with the fixed term provisions laid out in the Electoral Act 2002.

Background

The Coalition won the 2010 Victorian state election

Victorian state election, 2010

The 2010 Victorian state election was held on 27 November. The incumbent centre-left Australian Labor Party government, led by John Brumby, was defeated by the centre-right Liberal/National Coalition opposition, led by Ted Baillieu....

 with 45 seats to 43 in the 88-member lower house, a swing of 12 seats, defeating the 11-year Labor government. With a Liberal MP as Speaker, the government operates with a one-seat margin of 44 seats to 43. In the 40-member upper house where all members are up for re-election every term, the Coalition won a majority of 21 seats, with 16 Labor and 3 Green.

Outgoing Premier John Brumby

John Brumby

John Mansfield Brumby , is an Australian Labor Party politician who was Premier of Victoria from 2007 to 2010. He became Premier after the resignation of Steve Bracks. He also served as the Minister for Veterans' Affairs and the Minister for Multicultural Affairs. He contested his first election...

 resigned his seat causing the need for the 2011 Broadmeadows by-election

Broadmeadows state by-election, 2011

A by-election for the Victorian Legislative Assembly district of Broadmeadows was conducted on 19 February 2011, and was retained by the Australian Labor Party....

. Frank McGuire

Frank McGuire

Frank Joseph McGuire was an American athletic coach who gained his greatest renown in collegiate basketball....

 stood for Labor and retained the seat.

Polling

Polling conducted by Newspoll

Newspoll

Newspoll Market Research is an Australian company providing opinion polling and other market research services. Its chief executive is Martin O'Shannessy.Newspoll's surveys of voter opinion are published in The Australian....

 and published in The Australian

The Australian

The Australian is a broadsheet newspaper published in Australia from Monday to Saturday each week since 14 July 1964. The editor in chief is Chris Mitchell, the editor is Clive Mathieson and the 'editor-at-large' is Paul Kelly....

 is performed via random telephone number selection in city and country areas. Sampling sizes

Sample size

Sample size determination is the act of choosing the number of observations to include in a statistical sample. The sample size is an important feature of any empirical study in which the goal is to make inferences about a population from a sample...

 usually consist of over 1000 electors, with the declared margin of error

Margin of error

The margin of error is a statistic expressing the amount of random sampling error in a survey's results. The larger the margin of error, the less faith one should have that the poll's reported results are close to the "true" figures; that is, the figures for the whole population...

 at ±3 percent.

Legislative Assembly (lower house) opinion polling

	Primary vote					2PP vote Two-party-preferred vote In politics, the two-party-preferred vote , or two-candidate-preferred vote , in an election or opinion poll uses preferential voting to express the electoral result after the distribution of preferences...
	LIB	NAT	ALP	GRN	OTH	L/NP	ALP
Sep – Oct 2011	43%	4%	30%	15%	8%	55%	45%
Jul – Aug 2011	44%	4%	28%	15%	9%	57%	43%
2010 election Victorian state election, 2010 The 2010 Victorian state election was held on 27 November. The incumbent centre-left Australian Labor Party government, led by John Brumby, was defeated by the centre-right Liberal/National Coalition opposition, led by Ted Baillieu....	38.1%	6.7%	36.3%	11.2%	7.7%	51.6%	48.4%
23 – 25 Nov 2010	40%	5%	33%	15%	7%	51.1%	48.9%
9 – 11 Nov 2010	39%	5%	37%	14%	5%	49%	51%
Polling conducted by Newspoll Newspoll Newspoll Market Research is an Australian company providing opinion polling and other market research services. Its chief executive is Martin O'Shannessy.Newspoll's surveys of voter opinion are published in The Australian....  and published in The Australian The Australian The Australian is a broadsheet newspaper published in Australia from Monday to Saturday each week since 14 July 1964. The editor in chief is Chris Mitchell, the editor is Clive Mathieson and the 'editor-at-large' is Paul Kelly.... .

Preferred Premier polling and satisfaction ratings^

	Preferred Premier			Baillieu		Andrews
	Baillieu	Andrews		Satisfied	Dissatisfied	Satisfied	Dissatisfied
Sep – Oct 2011	56%	19%		52%	29%	29%	33%
Jul – Aug 2011	57%	16%		52%	29%	27%	34%
2010 election Victorian state election, 2010 The 2010 Victorian state election was held on 27 November. The incumbent centre-left Australian Labor Party government, led by John Brumby, was defeated by the centre-right Liberal/National Coalition opposition, led by Ted Baillieu....	–	–		–	–	–	–
Polling conducted by Newspoll Newspoll Newspoll Market Research is an Australian company providing opinion polling and other market research services. Its chief executive is Martin O'Shannessy.Newspoll's surveys of voter opinion are published in The Australian....  and published in The Australian The Australian The Australian is a broadsheet newspaper published in Australia from Monday to Saturday each week since 14 July 1964. The editor in chief is Chris Mitchell, the editor is Clive Mathieson and the 'editor-at-large' is Paul Kelly.... . Remainder were "uncommitted".