The results for Crikey’s final election survey are in and the Crikey Crew reveals how they’ll be voting on October 9:

Australia’s most politically aware email list has produced more than 2000 responses to the great Crikey election survey and the figures are very interesting. Check out the full results on the site here: The Crikey Readership Decides

The 2PP split in favour of Labor has remained at 75-25, however there has been a late swing in the predictions. The most popular tip is now 33 per cent of respondents saying the Coalition to be returned by 1-5 seats but the next is Labor by 1-5 with 19 per cent followed by the Coalition by 6-10 with 18 per cent.

In terms of the most and least important issues, 46 per cent of respondents said “truth in government” was the most important and this skewed strongly to Labor voters.

Economic management was the next most important issue with 23 per cent saying it was the most important and this skewed strongly to Liberal supporter.

The least important issue was child care with 42 per cent, followed by national security at 24 per cent. This left education, health and taxation in the middle and we probably erred by not including the envirnonment as a category given the way it dominated much of the last week.

This is how the voting intentions came through:

House of Reps Primary Vote

ALP: 51%
Liberal: 21%
Green: 20%
Democrat: 3.4%
Other 2.6%
Family First: 1%
National: 1%

Senate Primary Vote

Green: 33.3%
ALP: 31.5%
Liberal: 19%
Democrat: 8.2%
The Rest: 8%

Two of the questions are also instructive. Although our readership skews left, 50.4 per cent of the respondents felt that the Coalition had more effective advertising but 74 per cent believe that Mark Latham campaigned more effectively.

How the Crikey crew will be voting:

Stephen Mayne: the Crikey editor has a fundamental problem with political welfare whereby candidates who poll more than 4 per cent of the primary vote and therefore get almost $2 a vote of public funding. Therefore, he always gives his primary vote to a candidate likely to fall below 4 per cent, thus saving the taxpayer $4.

In the seat of Higgins, there are three candidates likely to fall into this category – the Democrats, Family First and the CEC. We still feel a bit guilty for contributing to the demise of the Democrat vote with the leadership crisis of 2002 so they’ll be getting the primary vote and the preference will finish up with Labor because Crikey remains furious that Peter Costello has not stopped the banking cartel from massively ripping off consumers.

In the Senate, I’ll be voting below the line for Meg Lees’s Progressive Alliance and then for Greens candidate David Risstrom as he has been a competent Melbourne City Councillor for several years and is a good fellow. If the Greens fall short of a quota the preference will finish with Labor before the Coalition.

Christan Kerr: Crikey’s political editor, a fellow disillusioned former Liberal staffer, has already lodged an absentee ballot and he voted Labor in the South Australian Reps seat of Boothby and for Meg Lees in the Senate with a below that line that will probably finish up with Labor. However, if Christian still lived in NSW he would have voted for the Libertarian ticket in the Senate.

Hugo Kelly: Crikey’s man in the Press Gallery, is a mummy’s boy, so he’ll be voting the way his mum votes – Greens. What’s more, he’ll be down in Melbourne on Saturday helping Elizabeth hand out how to vote cards for Greens candidiate for Melbourne Gemma Pinnell and might even do a spot of scrutineering for the shrubhuggers if it doesn’t get in the way of Don’s Party-style drinks at his mate Henri’s place. In the Senate, Hugo supports Jess Healy . It’s not every day you get to vote for a one-legged vegan lesbian teenage Democrat. Jess sounds like Hugo’s ideal life partner.

Boilermaker Bill McKell: the Labor legend will be voting for the Labor candidate in a safe ALP seat in the House of Representatives. As for the Senate – Boilermaker Bill always votes below the line so he can have the pleasure of allocating that very last number to the worst of the candidates – but this election, he will have trouble finding six candidates worth sending to the Senate; the NSW Senate ballot paper being full of hacks, has-beens and never-wases. John Faulkner will be getting his number 1 vote (Hutchins, Forshaw and Joanna Woods can take a running jump – the ALP ticket of hacks almost makes the denizens of Losers Lounge look good), Aden Ridgeway his number 2, and possibly making up the numbers will be Fred Nile, John Tierney, Nina Burridge and John Kaye. Concetta Fierravanti-Wells might also be in the running, if only to make the announcers on the Parliamentary radio service have to say, sotto voce, “Senator Fierravanti-Wells, Liberal, New South Wales”.

Charles Richardson: Crikey psephologist and former Kennett Government staffer writes, “in the Reps I’ll be voting for my local member in the seat of Melbourne, Lindsay Tanner, a personal friend of many years’ standing and one of the stars of Latham’s front bench. In the Senate, I will vote below the line, firstly for my friend Berhan Ahmed, who’s at the bottom of the Greens’ ticket. I haven’t worked out all my preferences from there, but they will go to Democrats, Greens & Labor in that order. I stress that that’s below the line: if you care about your country, do NOT vote above the line in Victoria for the Democrats, or indeed for anyone other than Richard Frankland (Group S), the Greens or the Republicans, because your preferences will go to the Assemblies of God party, Family First.”

Ross Stapleton: aka sports editor Patrick Fitzgerald and entertainment editor Max Factor, has already voted absentee Labor in the seat of McPherson and the Queensland Senate. But after hearing Bob Brown’s outrage last night on the Tasmanian logging, he now wishes he’d voted Green in the Senate.

Terry Television: is in inner city Sydney and will be voting for any independent who isn’t a raver or, failing that, a Democrat. In the Senate he will be voting for Aden Ridgeway because he’s probably going to get beat in the state by a Green professing to be concerned about refugees and Aboriginal issues.

Mark Cornwall: the Crikey cartoonist said, “yes I will be voting Labor. Government should be about governing, not buying oneself perpetuity in office with other people’s money- especially when experience suggests that cash promises of the type so cancerously rampant in this dreadful campaign will be reneged upon. Labor is not entirely sea-green incorruptible in this respect either. See Hawke, Bob. “However, I can’t countenance voting Green. Older readers will recall Bob Menzies being returned on Communist preferences in Jim Killen’s seat of Moreton in 1963 – “Killen, you’re magnificent ” and all that. Howard’s had enough fun at our expense. Finally, I’ll be a definitely sober but not necessarily savvy election telecast watcher tomorrow night if you want some words from my trembling hand – I tend to surf a bit, but mostly sit on the ABC.”

Mrs Crikey Paula Piccinini: I was relieved to read that the politics of a typical swinging voter is one of self interest with no idelogical basis. Coz as much as I would like to think that I could change my vote from election to election, I just can’t. Deep down I’m an Italian migrant who owes a lot to Labor as we came hear on the ten pound ticket and both of my parents were public servants in Canberra first hired by the Whitlam government. I believe in a good public education and health system for all, so I’ll be voting Labor in the seat of Higgins for both the House of Reps and Senate, even though John Howard has been throwing money at me through the Medicare Safety net, baby bonuses and the like. Unlike Stephen, I don’t mind giving the Labor party $4 for my primary votes and I don’t see the point of voting for the Greens. I would rather give my vote to a party who has a chance of governing.”