Election analyst Antony Green on his most memorable moments ahead of his final ABC broadcast

Antony Green joined ABC in 1989 after detecting a newspaper ad for a six -month researcher.

He worked as a computer programmer, database designer and analyst for years and knew how to talk to engineers – and he jumped ABC.

From the first six months onwards, a four -year career has grown for hundreds of federal and state elections for the national publisher.

While preparing to present the last election night, we go for a walk in the past elections.

In my first week in ABC…

I entered this organization and it was strange to work in offices with a certain number of watches a day. I was in a team that created Lateline, the current event program in ABC for years. Added to the 730 report and I was on the ABC news room in Hill television studios. And what impressed me how the news rooms worked was that in those days, everything was for 19:00 for the bulletin, and that’s why it wasn’t too much throughout the day. And as he approached the deadline date, he became more intense and more intensified. Then, you know, at the last hour everyone had to do 100 percent right.

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In the dramatic 1993 elections, when Paul Keating won the ‘uninhabited’ elections…

Tasmania was still saving daylight, and therefore these results came from 17:00 when we were not in the air. We were taking these figures and it showed these dramatic oscillations. ABC Wildlife Documentary Archie the Bat had a programs, and at 17:45, the administration decided to hit the bat Archie with these first results for the Tasmanians. There was a one -minute kick for those in Tasmania. And then we got out of the air.

The bed was exploding. This was the first clue that Keating could win, but people thought, “Oh, this is just tasmania,” and then we started to get the results. Finally, I was published at 8:40 and said, “The government has returned after 90 majority.” And this kind made me quite famous.

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How changing voting patterns affect the scope of the selection…

We started to count the preferences, so that the model became much more reliable in the next few years, and then we went to Queensland in 1998, and it was just extraordinary, because a nation didn’t come anywhere and we didn’t really cope with the situation where labor candidates were excluded from the number of preferences. The results did not fit the two -party model we lived forever, and we had to manually invalidate the results. It was one of the hardest nights I was working on. After that, we went to rewrite the lice of our software, so that we can only compare the matching against liberals instead of labor.

In my most proud predictions …

I wrote some codes for myself to find out how to work. If you can program tickets, you can find out who won it very easily. And we made the 2004 Federal elections and I had this little vehicle that allowed me to do so. And at a certain point, I ran for Victoria at night and came back and said, Stephen Fielding won the last seat for the family before.

And I thought Oh Labour was very low. And the labour had made a deal to beat and defeat the greens for the last point, but their votes were not high enough, and therefore their agreement with small parties backfired and their preferences resulted in the family first. And I said this on the panel of the night, and my most proud guess is: “And only one update will win the last seat in Stephen Field Victoria, who looks at the figures of the Victorian Senate.”

[Former Labor politician] Bob McMullan was on the panel and put his hand on his head because he knew it was because of these preference agreements he objected. Later in the night, I said: “Another update about the Senate will win three seats and win the fourth seat for Barnaby Joyce coalition on the national ticket.” And they all said, “No, no, that’s not possible,” but it happened. Barnaby Joyce was chosen.

So I convinced them to make two codes, including a top home calculator for the 2007 elections, and went to a state, and you would vote for each side, press the button, apply tickets and tell you who won you. “It was like a revelation!”

Revealed how rotten the system is. And until 2013, you know, you get giant ballots. As each candidate will stop, we buy 50 columns on the ballot. And this election is a gentleman named Ricky Muir, the Australian car enthusiast party, and I won a night seat. But what I remember, I bought this angry E -Post from a professor of medicine: “Did ABC leave his senses?

In my most memorable choices…

What I remember most, a little sad ones. My first election on the camera was the NSW election in 1991. Yes, the Greiner government was expected to be returned and only returned, so the night was quite dramatic. 1993 Federal was very similar. I mean, the results were clearly narrowed, but no one expected the government to be as easy as they were. It was a very dramatic night. When the 1995 elections lost their majority at the end of the Goss government, I remember that this was just a nightmare because of our way of getting paper.

The 1999 elections in Victoria were only dramatic, because the fact that only the Kennett government had lost was unexpected. It was quite unusual as an election. In Victoria, the Labor Party usually won the elections when Melbourne won a seat, right? And in this election, he won only three seats in Melbourne. The swing was large in rural areas and regional cities, and changed the voting patterns in Victoria significantly, permanently changed. Since then, the liberal party has not won a seat in the Federal or State in Bendigo or Ballarat. This is the change in this election.

I remember the 2001 northern region elections. CLP has ruled the North Region throughout its history. Nobody expected anything special to happen that night. The insiders had started that year and the next morning they arranged me to go to talk about the result. I remember stealing me and saying, “We don’t think it would happen, but you know, at least we reported it because it’s a policy program.”

And then, you know, blow me, workers won me! The night was extraordinary results. Clare Martin later became Prime Minister, “Do you remember comparing me with Nelson Mandela?” He said. And I thought why you were talking. And what happened to Barrie Cassidy, “Well, what happened last night?” And I said, on a political surprise scale between a to 10, not there, but with the fall of the Berlin Wall or the release of Nelson Mandela, it is quite high on a political wow scale.

Watching the fall of all these seats was just an extraordinary result. It was strange.

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In my struggle against the monster ballot…

In 1997, I wrote some articles stating that NSW turned to a completely useless ballot and the last seats would be determined by complex agreements that no one understands. And this exactly what was in 1999, we had 264 candidates and we had a famous tablecloth vote paper. 81 column -column triple ballot paper. It was a complete madness and they had to change the election system the next year to get rid of these tickets.

Two important things I pay attention to on the election night…

The first is called variance, the voting place results vary from voting place instead of voting. Thus, as you get the progressive number, the numbers will start a little bit at the beginning until a trend is settled. You only use basic probability statistics to deal with variance.

But the other problem is something called prejudice. The first numbers you receive do not represent the final result. Now, if you are familiar with Don’s David Williamson’s party, it uses it as a metaphor for the results of the 1969 Federal elections. Initially, Gough seemed to be Whitlam, and the worker would come to power. And as the night was worn – in those days, because of the way the results were reported, the vote of labor would be high and fall – these people were very excited to take it, and then their frustrations and frustrations grew and their disappointments were reflected in their personal relationships.

There is a clear difference in pre -poll voting patterns in voting patterns that day, and on the election night, the surveys come late, because much larger, much larger. And so we have another relationship between the swing and the questionnaire on a day, which means that early numbers may not represent the end of the night.

When the public is recognized …

One day I remembered that I went to football and just walking around with some friends, and someone gone: “Oh my God, you Antony Green” and almost fell to the ground. My friend “Greeny, going out with you is always fun.” He said.

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