Who’ll be the winner Down Under in Saturday’s election?

So have all the polls been right and are Labor under Kevin Rudd on course for their first win since 1993 – or can Howard still salvage a fifth term for the Coalition?

As with the July by-elections competition, this will once again be by “secret ballot” although there is no Excel spreadsheet this time.

Do not put your predictions in the thread below or they will not count – please email your entry to pbpredcomp@yahoo.co.uk and don’t forget to include your name.

Entries close at 5pm this Friday.

1. How many seats will the following parties win in the House of Representatives? Coalition, Labor, Others. Total seats should equal 150.

(The Coalition consists of the Liberals, Nationals, and Country Liberals).

2. Tie-breaker – what will John Howard’s two-party-preferred percentage vote share be in Bennelong? You may make your prediction to up two decimal places.

Scoring & rules

Your score will be the difference between your entry and the actual result for each party – the player with the lowest overall score for all three parties combined will win the competition.

In the event that a tie is not settled by the closest prediction to the Bennelong result, the tying player with the earliest entry will win.

As usual, the “Smithson Doctrine” will apply – ie the competition organiser’s decision will be final in the event of any dispute.

Special thanks to Alexander Drake and also to Stephen Phelps for all the commentary and analysis on Australia.

Latest betting prices are here, and the ABC site and the Poll Bludger are extremely useful (ABC will have live internet streaming of the election results) – polls close Saturday 6pm and Sydney is currently 11 hours ahead of the UK.

Paul Maggs “Double Carpet”