Australia - 7 September 2013

[Smid]

Here are the 2010 election results, including notional results to account for the South Australian and Victorian redistributions. All credit to Antony Green for his pendulum. Bigger version in the gallery.

[Smid]

Antony Green had an article on t this a couple of months back. He'd need to take his seat within a certain amount if time or be disqualified, but to take his seat, he would need to set for outside his sanctuary and face up to those rape allegations.

[Smid]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hReBMauqhrY

For those who don't know what we're talking about...

I very little about Australian politics, but it seems amazing that handshake could have swung voters though.                                                                                                                                                       I know Gillard has been very unpopular and labour have been clobbered in state elections but I'm still expecting, her to pull of a narrow victory when voters are faced with the choice of PM Abbott.

It wasn't the handshake alone, it was just what convinced people that he was a brute. For months before, there had been rumours of a bucks night video (which never actually surfaced) and he was forced to explain why he broke a taxi driver's arm. The handshake didn't make people think he was a thug, it merely allowed them to decide that what they had been told was in fact true. I think prior to the handshake, they were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, caught up in partisan mud-slinging, the handshake dispelled that cynicism.

[Smid]

Antony Green has unveiled his latest calculator.

Caveats of no uniform swings, even at a state level, etc, etc. The state level swings tool is useful, however, and it's better than anything else that anybody else has.

[Smid]

I read a really good op-ed the other day suggesting that this was Palmer upset that his political donations didn't buy him influence, and now trying to torpedo the Coalition. Since that is effectively another way of saying he was trying to bribe the Opposition, I wouldn't make a similar claim.

[Smid]

Yeah, I heard something about a bad poll for Labor in Newcastle. Don't know if it is rogue, though. Holt was close in 2004, certainly sensitive to cost of living pressures, such as a tax on electricity bills. Big margin, though.

[Smid]

Feel free to use the blank map in the gallery to post a colourful picturesque map of your predictions.

[Smid]

I'm reasonably confident that the Greens will be toppled in Melbourne, unless the Liberals decide to preference them... which, from what I've heard, is unlikely.

[Smid]

I think of the independents, Wilkie is the safest, Oakeshott has no chance, and Windsor if in between, but I expect him to lose.

Regarding Bandt, the issue is whether the sophomore surge outweighs the loss of Liberal preferences. The sophomore surge is the power of incumbency and a reflection of personal vote. It's usually worth a few percent, but I don't think it's worth the level of primary vote the Liberal candidate received last election, and who subsequently will not if the HTV cards preference Labor. I think for the Greens to hang on, their primary vote will need to be at least 45%, Labor's no more than 40%, and Liberals no more than 10%. Obviously the Liberal vie can be higher if Labor's vote is lower. I'm being a bit lazy, that ratio of 45:40:10 is usually Liberal:Labor:Greens for the Liberals to win a seat.

[Smid]

I saw a poll, but it was (obviously) a single electorate poll, with all the caveats regarding that, and it was old, so things could have changed. It was a public poll, reported in the media.

I think Bandt, Thompson and Oakeshott are all gone, and I'm not going to try to differentiate between them - I honestly can't see Bandt winning enough primary votes, that he'd manage to offset the loss of Liberal preferences. Last election, the Liberals won 21%, of which 80% flowed as preferences to the Greens. Bandt won with 56% of the 2CP. The primary votes were:

Labor: 38.09%
Greens: 36.17%
Liberal: 21%

The redistribution didn't help Bandt, either. Not by much, but it did weaken his margin a little.

Windsor and Wilkie, I'm not sure about, both are difficult to guess. I'm more confident of Wilkie than Windsor, and I think Joyce is not such a negative - he may be from across the border, but his electorate office is only just across the border in St George, it's basically adjoining seat. He's also got his mavarick reputation, which may help, and from what I've heard, he's virtually a rock star in rural seats around the country (not just Queensland).

I think Katter will win re-election, but I could be wrong. His party won two seats at the Queensland state election, which were within Kennedy, and finished second in I think every other state seat that fell partially or completely within his electorate. I would not be surprised if he won on primary vote, and the only way for him to lose is if all the other parties cross-preferenced one another (and even that is moot if he wins on primary).

[Smid]

Which seat is Bill Shorten?
He gave a speech at NDP convention and he seemed a pretty good person.

Maribyrnong. Inner North-Western Melbourne (more West than North).

[Smid]

Combet is too closely tied to the carbon tax, anyway. It would be like electing Kevin Andrews, who was IR Minister during Workchoices, after 2007.

[Smid]

I'm going to pray that what happened in BC can happen here as well. Not putting much hope into it, but that's really needed.

Yes, I'm also hoping that the Liberals outperform expectations...

[Smid]

Nielson was over-estimating the Coalition vote, the 6-pt swing is more of a correction from a previous bad sample, I suspect. I prefer to watch Nielson, Newspoll and Galaxy and assume the actual result is somewhere in the middle of the three of them.

[Smid]

In today's news, Martin Ferguson, Labor member for Batman and ex-Minister for Resources, will be quitting Parliament at the next election:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/martin-ferguson-to-quit-parliament-at-the-next-election/story-fn59niix-1226653063801

Are the Greens seriously contesting his seat? They didn't do badly last time if I remember correctly.

The Greens will do well here, but I don't think they'll win, largely because:

1. They most likely will not be getting Liberal preferences this time around.
2. The northern half of the seat is too old-school Labor, i.e. bad for the Greens.

Yeah, it wasn't so much "Greens did great", it was more "Greens did better than Libs in a seat where Libs have never been competitive." It was certainly better than their primary vote averages, but not serious competition, and as my friend notes, the Northern end of the electorate is solid old-school Labor (I think Libs outpoll Greens there, but Greens outpoll Libs in the gentrified Southern end nearer the City, Labor outpolls everyone, everywhere).

[Smid]

Polnut posted this link elsewhere.

I got quite a chuckle from:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I love how someone who formed and named a political party after themself, and who then had a falling out with said political party and quit from it, can then accuse other parties of being dysfunctional and egotistical.


Edit: Never mind clicking the link, I think it's the same one RB posted.

[Smid]

All this post is based on the perspective of the doomsayers above. I think many in Labor are low-balling their prospects, whether in an attempt to swing caucus votes for a leadership challenger, or whether to scare voters in some safer seats into not risking a protest vote, or for some other reason. I think Labor's position in the polls will improve between now and the election (and even if the polls don't improve, I think the election will not be as bad for Labor as currently reflected in the polls, even assuming they are accurately reflecting the current mood and not outliers). 

If 1975 wasn't the end of Labor, this won't be either (Tommy, "Labor" is a proper noun, Labour is the British party, labour is the labour/trade union movement/word meaning "to work", Labor is the Australian Labor Party - and while it may not be how I'd normally spell the word - some parents spell their children's names oddly, but you don't then spell them the "normal" way just because you think the parents have mis-spelt them).

There is the potential for large swings, especially in some of Labor's heartland seats, as evidenced by some state election results. Generally, the electoral landscape of Australia seems to have become more and more "swingy" over the past couple of decades. Looking specifically at Queensland, it was not uncommon throughout the Howard years for a particular polling booth to have a 15% difference between its federal and state election results (granted, they are different elections with different leaders, held at different times, but the point remains that these are generally the same voters who were willing to vote for different parties and not tied to one or the other).

Continuing on that point, and still looking at Queensland, remember that the electoral rout of Labor that occurred last election was only a decade(-ish) after the electoral rout of 2001, where the Liberal Party was reduced to 3 seats and the Nationals a dozen - and only one of those Liberal Party seats was actually able to be considered "retained" on election night (the other two, including the leader's, were "Liberal Leading"). A decade later and the LNP has a similar majority to what Labor had, and Labor finds itself in a similar position to the Coalition following that election. (As an aside, such electoral wipeouts are, I think, bad for democracy, because you need a strong opposition to keep a government accountable, and a viable alternative government to put forward at a future election - good future Ministers need to spend time on the opposition benches and electoral routs make it harder to achieve that depth of experience for future government).

It will be a tough road back for Labor, and there will need to be some careful consideration of policies, but it would be foolish to declare the party deceased, even if the results are as bad for them as the most depressed of you predicts.

[Smid]

I've worked up a state-by-state swing... with the biggest swings being in NSW, TAS and the NT.. but swings of 1.5-4% elsewhere (smallest in the ACT)...

That leaves roughly Coalition: 90 - ALP: 57 - Others: 3
Coalition + 17 (ALP -15)

How did you handle Eden-Monaro? As a Canberra-suburb-ACT-small-swing, or as a NSW swing?

[Smid]

I've worked up a state-by-state swing... with the biggest swings being in NSW, TAS and the NT.. but swings of 1.5-4% elsewhere (smallest in the ACT)...

That leaves roughly Coalition: 90 - ALP: 57 - Others: 3
Coalition + 17 (ALP -15)

How did you handle Eden-Monaro? As a Canberra-suburb-ACT-small-swing, or as a NSW swing?

Queanbeyan will be driven more by ACT, so the swing will be lower there... but I know the coastal towns will be more coalition-friendly... I think E-M can be held on to, largely because Mike Kelly has established a strong presence as the local MP and the electoral shifts support increased ALP presence in the largest population area... I've given it to the Coalition... but it's going to very, very tight. Especially considering in 2010, Kelly was the only NSW ALP MP to get a swing TO him.

I agree with every one of your factors (with the exception of strong local presence, as I have no idea of that). I also think it will be very tight, although I'm inclined to expect Labor to retain it, mainly because of the dominance and growing influence of Queanbeyan.

[Smid]

The open lack of respect towards her really is sickening.

I almost always refer to her as "The Prime Minister" in conversation, for that reason (and even more careful to do so if I'm giving criticism). It has been a general trend over quite a while, though. Howard didn't receive this level of disrespect, however some elements of the community still mocked him as "little Johnny", which was meant to be disrespectful. It seems to be a global trend, too. The disgusting responses of some in the UK following Thatcher's passing were just as disrespectful as what we are seeing currently in Australia - "Ditch the Witch" is held up at a protest rally against the Carbon Tax, while "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" hits the top 10 in the charts in the UK. I think I'm coming off as pontificating, which I don't intend, because I think you and I are in agreement about this lamentable state of public discourse.

[Smid]

The thing with 'Little Johnny' was that it was almost good-natured ribbing, which is pretty Australian. It might have started disrespectfully ... but just became a nick name, like Hawke being called the Silver Budgie.

I've never seen a Prime Minister, even Keating at his most hated, having to face such horrendous personal attacks.

The way she is treated is appalling. It really is disgusting. Disappointing, too, there is really no call for it.

[Smid]

Does anyone here want to donate to Craig Thomson's legal fund?

[Smid]

I'm not surprised Oakeshott is opposed to the Bill. I believe he quit the Nationals for personal reasons, but linked to the way in which an Australian who had immigrated here was being treated at branch functions.

[Smid]

Oakeshott announces his retirement. A pity, I was expecting that to be the largest seat swing and wondering just how large it might be... Now we'll never know...

[Smid]

Both of them are cowards who betrayed their constituents and are fleeing the scene to avoid the swing against them from being presented as the proof of this betrayal. Regardless, I think that the National Party vote will be very similar, regardless of their disappearance on the ballot paper. I suspect very few people who vote for the Nationals candidate would have voted for either of the independents had they contested anyway.