As expressed this is a completely absurd statement by whoever said it since Labor seats going to the Greens will make absolutely no difference to who forms government and will categorically not boost the Liberals' chances - if they exist - in any way.
A more intelligent way to defend it would be to say that they were forcing Labor to fight harder to defend those seats. But even that's not all that logical since two of them looked like very serious fights anyway. #VicVotes
(Note these are only how to vote recommendations, not preferencing in the sense of the upper house, but in the case of Liberal how to votes it can make a sizeable difference. Not a huge difference since the Liberal vote in eg Northcote is barely double figures, but a few %.)
"The decision will result in Liberal preferences flowing to Greens candidates in Northcote, Richmond and Albert Park"
Only if the Liberals get eliminated in Albert Park, which requires a large swing from 2018.
I mean, what more is Frederico supposed to do, her card already tells voters they must number all boxes *twice*, does she need to say it a third time and get her lawyer to send the VEC a copy of The Hunting Of The Snark?
#Morgan Vic (state) SMS poll (treat with a lot of caution) 57-43 to ALP (ALP 40 L-NP 29 Green 11.5 DHJP 1 UAP 0.5 Teal IND 4.5 other INDs/others 13 - suspect IND overstated here. Taken Nov 9-10
Also Morgan multi-mode Vic (state) for October was 60.5-39.5 to ALP but no breakdowns provided.
(Morgan says re the SMS one that the rise in IND parallels what they saw in federal, but actually overestimating IND /underestimating UAP cost them an excellent result.)
Release doesn't say how Morgan are doing the 2PP for that SMS poll but 57-43 is way way low on those primaries (respondent presumably); I estimate 59.5 to Labor. Also (because Morgan will never not be a mess) there is 0.5% missing from the breakdown of IND/others.
I have just heard Attorney-General Archer's response and my jaw is on the floor. She has claimed the ACT is different from Tasmania because the ACT has above the line voting. It does not.
Problem is that the same reform can make the Senate more representative of Territories and less representative of Australia, because the ACT is so left-wing.
As for giving the NT six seats, at current support levels the left pretty easily wins 2-1 splits in the NT so that is just giving the left two more or less free seats. Adding 3-seat contests for the NT is a much more dangerous distortion than adding 4-seat contests.
Really, this Territory Senate seats thing is a difficult problem. The Territories should ideally have more Senate seats to provide for a better quality of representation in the Senate. But this risks distorting the Senate's current accidentally fair left-right balance.