It’s intriguing to contemplate a Labor loss this year combined with a Liberal loss in Bennelong. A lot of the ground that Labor needs to make up is in Queensland, where the economy is still working for Howard. NSW and Victoria are being left behind in the “two speed” economy.
In 2004, as now, the polls early in the year looked good for Labor in Queensland, but on election day it won less than 43 per cent of the two-party vote.
That should leave it a lot of low-hanging fruit, but not so: only two seats, Bonner (0.5) and Moreton (2.8) are within reach of a 5 per cent swing.
To win government, Labor has to win seats in Queensland that would normally be thought beyond reach: such as Blair (5.7), Herbert (6.2), Longman (6.7), the new central Queensland seat of Wright (6.8), Petrie (7.4) and Hinkler (8.2), even Bowman and Dickson (both 8.9).
Rudd’s biggest task is to bring his own state back into the Labor mainstream. Unless he can do that, he will still be Opposition Leader next year.
But who would be PM? Tim Dunlop is sceptical about the Bennelong poll (conducted by Roy Morgan for Crikey). I’m not so much. Read the tables yourself at Roy Morgan’s site.
Elsewhere: More commentary at The Poll Bludger in comments.
Two thoughts: firstly, the seat’s called “Flynn” not “Wright”, and I remember polls in Mayo and Bennelong before the 2004 election (or was it 2001?) in which the ALP would have won both seats.
Yes, the Age is out of date, it was renamed Flynn because Wright was too reminiscent of former ALP leader (and gaoled pedophile and Baptist preacher) Keith Wright.
The polls in 04 were probably right. Howard was run close.
55% for the ALP is a big margin – if the election was today Johnny would probably lose Bennelong.
I’ll always remember that Bennelong became a marginal Lib seat (margin ~3%) at the 2003 election.
The Mayo poll you’re thinking of was probably in 01, when Downer almost lost to the Democrats.
Bennelong’s margin has shifted because of the redistribution, but the demographics have been moving Labor’s way for some time. It may well be that Labor will win it either next time around or in a by-election if Howard holds it this year then retires. I don’t think a Labor loss overall and a Howard loss in Bennelong is the most likely scenario, but it’s a real possibility.
Maybe a little ‘ Good-cop, Bad-cop’ theatre of cruelty between the Ruddster and the Tart. A real public Punch-and-Judy show…but at the same time, a cast iron behind-the-scenes Sussex st stitch-up policy of messsing with Howards mind.
The first idea would involve K-Rudd doing his ‘Dr Death’ routine on the dysfunctional side of the state govt, but from a ‘ National statesman leader’ angle. And the second would involve issues like turning the tables on the rodent re the Murray-Darling. Get those buffoons Bracks and Iemma in the tinny and you break the little shits stride and leave him gasping like a Carp.
None of this might actually win even a single vote… but it would sure as hell keep us political junkies in heaven.
I think that the margin in Bennelong has only slightly decreased due to the redistribution – there were only a few thousand new voters and the new parts of Bennelong closer to Parramatta voted for the Libs with a 2PP vote of about 51%.
Seats that would normally be thought of as out of reach?
Why?
Seats that historically have recorded larger than average swings should be thought of as more marginal than the raw swing needed to win might indicate.
Blair looks unlikely for Labor, but the margin is not 5.7, it’s 11.2%
Herbet is 6.2% now, but was only 1.5% before the last election, and in 1998 the ALP candidate was beaten by a measley 150 votes. Before that, it was held by the ALP, and before that Liberal. Despite the margin *looking* safe, this is clearly a swinging seat.
Petrie was held by Labor from 1987-1996 and then lost the seat in a 10% swing. Labor nearly took the seat back in 1998. It’s clearly another seat with bigger than average swings.
Hinkler is held by the Nats but only by 4.8% not 8.2% as suggested above. It has been held by Labor before and the swing in the 1998 election was 7.6% to the ALP, and the margin narrowed even further in 2001. It should be eminently winnable.
Bowman is held by 9.1% – I don’t know where the numbers above come from but Antony Green doesn’t agree with them – not 8.9%. But it was a Labor seat until a redistribution, was nominally Liberal marginal before the last election with a supposed margin of 3.1%.
Dickson was taken off Kernot by the Liberals with a larger-than-average 6.1% swing in 2001. Again, clearly a swinging seat, and one where you’d expect the overall trend to be magnified.
The margins are also inflated due to the swing to the Government last time. I don’t think they’re giving a genuine indication of whether or not they’re swinging seats.
No, the old Blair had a margin like 11% – the new Blair is about 5%.
Petrie has *usually* been held by the party winning govt in the last 30 odd years, and could easily be won by labor.
I think all your figures are pre-redistribution Rebekka.
The old Hinkler ran from Gladstone to Bundaberg. The new one from Bundy to Hervey Bay. Much less favorable for the ALP.
Bowman had a bit of fiddling at the edges that added a couple of points to Laming’s margin.
d
Has there been a redistribution?
Sorry, should have said has there been a redistribution since the one before the 2004 election??
Yes. There’s been a redistribution in Qld and NSW.
See The Poll Bludger’s posts:
http://www.pollbludger.com/category/federal-redistributions/
And for a number of reasons, I don’t think Labor has a hope in Petrie or Dickson unless there’s a really big across the board swing. Pessimists (or realists) in the Qld ALP wouldn’t even put a bet on Moreton.
Bonner, yep. After that there are a lot of unknown knowns at this stage of proceedings. I’d be keeping a close eye on any polls with big enough samples to give an accurate picture of the Coalition and Labor votes in Qld.
The ‘up to date’ Mackerras pendulum can be found at http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/hass/staff/Pendulum.pdf
On primary votes they look to be neck and neck? If so, nothing to get too excited about.
Labor will not pick up much in Queensland because their culture has not changed since the last time.
The problem Labor has in Qld is that they’re lazy.
At the state level, Peter Beattie waves his magic wand, and a victory is delivered.
So the campaign workers think this is how it always works – they can sit on their arses and someone in a land far away will deliver them a victory.
In 2004, I was working for a Labor state MP and one of my sideline activities was to build up lists of resources (people and equipment) that were available for when the federal election came along, so campaign managers in marginal Liberal seats (Petrie, Longman, Dickson etc) could be ready for whatever arose.
I and the MP I worked for each informed the campaign managers and the candidates of this assistance should it be required.
But the campaign managers and their candidates took the attitude that they didn’t need to do any work on the ground in their electorates, and in those three electorates, the only call that was made for assistance was to hand out how to votes on election day for the Greens.
The attitude was simply that locally, Labor didn’t have to do anything. So when the seats across Queensland all returned their incumbent Liberal members, with little movement, I was not surprised, although disappointed.
Labor in the northern areas of Brisbane and the Sunshine coast still has that attitude (something I’ve discussed with several state and federal MPs) so I highly doubt there’ll be much movement for Qld seats. Ironically, it’s the success of Peter Beattie that is the cause.
That’s disappointing if the ALP doesn’t pick up many seats in Qld, as they’ll find it much harder to win overall if they don’t pick up a few up north, and then there’ll be all this moaning after the election about what might have been.
Let’s assume they win none in Qld and try to work out how they could possibly win the 16 they need for a majority (I think it’s 16).
Here are the seats they could win based on what I’ve seen and general historical voting patterns:
Tas: Bass and Braddon (not certainties, especially given recent state govt decisions in Bass),
SA: Makin, Wakefield and Kingston (all possible, but Makin has been a possible for at least a decade)
NT: the seat based on Darwin (I forget it’s name – Solomon or Lingiari). Darwin usually votes more conservative than the rest of the territory and was notionally ALP before the 2001 election so it’s possible, but I wouldn’t count on it
WA: Hasluck, Stirling, Kalgoorlie (at a long shot) and possibly Canning and Moore as they’re around the urban areas.
NSW: Parramatta, Lindsay, Eden-Monaro, Bennelong, Dobell, Paterson, Page, Hughes, Wentworth (doubtful)
Victoria: Deakin, McMillan, McEwen, La Trobe, Gippsland
Well that’s 25 seats, but some of them would take big swings! Even if the ALP won half of them, they would still need a handful from Qld.
The other factor, in addition to what Aurelius is saying about the north Bris seats last time was poor candidate selection in both Petrie and Dickson.
Sacha, in WA, Labor will also be defending marginals, and I doubt the vote can go much higher in Victoria. I note that you’re implying a lot of those ones you list are doubtful. It’s hard to reach the magic number of 16 without Qld.
I’d love it if Howard lost in Bennelong! I want to see him squirm, I want to see him writhe, I want to see him go down in flames! It would be so brilliant. The poll results look very promising, especially as the boundaries have changed and apparently a more Labor-oriented demographic has merged into the picture making it a more marginal seat. But then Howard has a long and infamous history of seducing marginal electorates and we are already seeing a massive $19 billion going towards road developments in marginal electorates (where else?), so he’s out with the flowers and chocolates.
I wonder if the flight paths still follow the exact boundaries of the Bennelong electorate, as they did in 2001? Apparently more efficient flight lines could quite substantially reduce carbon emissions. Might it cut down on more than one source of nasty carbon emission (ie the one emanating from Howard)? Hmmm….
I think that Rebekka made the point that there were some big pro-coalition swings in 2004, perhaps implying that maybe a more informative “baseline” is the closer 2001 election. I don’t know, although I do remember seeing some BIG swings in the 2004 figures (eg Deception Bay) and that, maybe the swings reflected things really particular to that election (eg Latham).
Yes, aren’t Swan, Cowan (and maybe Brand) marginal? Makes it much harder.
About Victoria: last time there was a 3.1% swing to the Libs and the ALP received 49% 2PP vote – the ALP vote had been high in Vic since 1996 – maybe people were annoyed at the state govt – if so, there wouldn’t be much reason to think that they’d be less annoyed at the state govt 3 years on.
I wonder if some seats are winnable despite the apparently big swings in them, due to the particular circumstances of the last election? I’m thinking of Gippsland and Petrie. Also, Bowman should be achievable – I bet that the ALP would have held it for most of the Hawke-Keating govt. (It certainly would have held Bonner.)
I’ll comment tomorrow on why I’m a bit sceptical about the ALP’s chances in winning Wentworth (maybe I’m too close to it as a new voter in Wentworth).
Bonner’s a new seat in 2004, Sacha – takes in a lot of the old Labor territory in Bowman.
Commentary on Bennelong in the comments thread at The Poll Bludger:
http://www.pollbludger.com/446
i like the age spread in the bennelong results! good work! out with the dead wood!
Yes, I was referring to the new Bowman and Bonner.
For the long time, the old Bowman comprised the Wynnum-Manly suburbs, Redland Shire plus whatever extra eastern suburbs of Brisbane were needed to bring the enrolment to the appropriate amount. The Libs (David Jull) held it until ’83 when Con Sciaccia was elected. In the ’84 redistribution, the eastern suburbs of Brisbane not next to the bayside were removed from Bowman, and the ALP (Sciaccia) then won it in each election until ’96.
(A side story is that the ex-boyfriend of a friend worked in Sciaccia’s law firm, and I heard that there was the understanding that workers in the firm would hand out how-to-votes for Sciaccia.)
The Wynnum-Manly part of the electorate voted labor while the Redland shire parts was less strong for labor (I don’t remember whether it voted coalition or labor). Certainly, the Wynnum-Manly part has always been a safe labor seat in state parliament (held in the ’74 election) and in the Brisbane City Council. FYI Peter Dutton ran for state parliament for the Wynnum-Manly area in the early 90s.
I think that Bowman was never a safe seat for Sciaccia – in splitting the bayside suburbs, the Wynnum-Manly part would probably go into a seat that would usually go Labor, while the Redland shire part, together with Springwood and adjacent parts of Logan City, would probably be a marginal seat.
It was unfortunately for Sciaccia that the swing against Labor was on!
And he wasn’t a happy camper. Long time Latham sceptic among other things!
And the newspoll results are in and it’s 47%-38% in Labor’s favour on primaries, with Rudd at 47% – 37% as preferred PM http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21254131-2702,00.html
“NT: the seat based on Darwin (I forget it’s name – Solomon or Lingiari). Darwin usually votes more conservative than the rest of the territory and was notionally ALP before the 2001 election so it’s possible, but I wouldn’t count on it”
Sacha
Federally, the NT has two senate and two reps seats. It usually returns one member from each side, in each house, and so is effectively neutral (irrelevant) as far as national election outcomes. Expect a similar result next time around.
Blatherskite, this has only happened in the last two elections. Of course, it has *always* returned one Labor senator and one CLP senator without either being a close run thing, but in the House of Reps it’s been different. Firstly, there are no guarantees it will continue to return two members and prior to the 2001 election, in which it first returned two members, it was *generally* a marginal single seat and thus important. The recent members are as follows:
1966–80 Calder, Stephen Edward 1966–75 (CP); 1975–80 (NCP)
1980–83 Tambling, Grant Ernest John 1980–82 (NCP); 1982–83 (NPA)
1983–84 Reeves, John Edward (ALP)
1984–87 Everingham, Paul Anthony Edward (LIB)
1987–96 Snowdon, Warren Edward (ALP)
1996–98 Dondas, Nicholas Manuel (CLP)
1998–2001 Snowdon, Warren Edward (ALP)
Before the 2001 election, both seats were notionally Labor; now, the Darwin seat is marginal CLP and the non-Darwin seat is less marginal Labor. No doubt local factors will play a big part in the NT, but the Darwin seat is within reach of the ALP.
Yes, Sciaccia missed out! I should have mentioned that Sciaccia again held Bowman from 1998-2004.
I’m sceptical that the ALP will win Wentworth (although I’m going to help them attempt to win it if I still live in the area) for the following reasons. Firstly, although the new margin is 2.5%, I think that this might not be a realistic figure, as there was a swing to the ALP of 2.4% in Wentworth last election but Peter King ran and some of his preferences would have gone to Labor. It’s impossible to know what the swing would have been if Peter King hadn’t run. Maybe, though, the swing was genuinely pro-Labor rather than related to the Peter King factor: I’ll just copy the swings in “inner sydney” to here for comparison: (negative means a swing to labor)
Kingsford Smith –0.1
Lowe 0.5
North Sydney –3.2
Sydney –1.4
Warringah –2.2
Wentworth –2.4
It’s hard to draw conclusions, but it’s plausible that there was an actual pro-labor (or anti-liberal) swing in Wentworth. Now, in 2004, there was hardly any Liberal campaign in the seat of Sydney (one of Labor’s safest seats in NSW) and Tanya Plibersek won a very large vote in the Kings Cross/Darlinghurst area that is now part of Wentworth. I fully expect Turnbull to run a big campaign in the new areas of Wentworth, and many people think he’ll be attractive to inner-city voters (which I think is quite plausible), especially as he’s spruiking environmental thangs as the Environment Minister. People have reported that telephone polling on “Malcolm Turnbull the politician” was being done a few months ago in the new areas of the electorate.
I think that Turnbull is attempting to appear quite moderate on gay/lesbian “issues” which is unsurprising given the large gay vote in the new part of the electorate (and also large parts of the old electorate eg woollahra, paddington and bellevue hill, which might surprise people).
Turnbull will have a lot of profile and money. However, he is beatable, as all MPs are.
On Bowman:
“The Libs (David Jull) held it until ‘83 when Con Sciaccia was elected.”
Almost. Former local member (69-75) Len Keogh won it in 83 & 84, then lost preselection to Sciacca for the 87 election. Len went on to be president of the Redlands Shire.
“The Wynnum-Manly part of the electorate voted labor while the Redland shire parts was less strong for labor (I don’t remember whether it voted coalition or labor).”
Redlands was solid Nationals country (boom-boom) being mostly small crop farms. Now it’s all new housing developments, and older outer suburb acerage (with a front-end loader parked ’round the side of the house). I wouldn’t be thinking it a serious shot for the ALP (unless Rudd-fever takes hold in a big way, which I wouldn’t rule out just yet.)
d
Sacha, if you’re counting on seats like Moore then Labor has no chance. We don’t even have a candidate for the seat yet – that’s how seriously we take our chances of winning it!
thanks darryl – my memory was off!
Just had a look at the voting results for Bowman last election, and it looks as if labor does (relatively) well on the Moreton Bay Islands and that there were substantial pro-lib swings in Capalaba and Alexandria Hills (I’m fairly sure that Labor ordinarily does pretty well in those areas). The Libs do well in Cleveland, Redland Bay, Mt Cotton, Shailer Park, Victoria Pt, which seems pretty similar to how people in those areas voted 10-15 years ago!
If labor gets 50% of the 2PP vote in Qld overall, I think that it’d have a chance at Bowman – it can’t be thought to be out of the game if the ALP vote is strong in Qld, particular if it’s strong in the Brisbane urban area.
Hi Anna, I think that Moore might be a possible… not counting on it though!
I’d say Moore is a “if we win that, it’s hello Prime Minister Rudd and control of both Houses” seat.
Canning’s a lot more likely though, given that the large margin is in part due to a dead candidate followed by a sacked candidate followed by a retired ex-state Minister
Stirling and Hasluck are good chances, but then we could lose Swan… Cowan will also be a lot harder this time because the very popular Member is retiring.
Has there been any state based polling published in WA, Anna?
I’m just about to check the Nielsen poll to see if it has a state by state breakdown. Newspoll doesn’t seem to.
And Nielsen and Morgan don’t either.
I remember seeing the Galaxy poll for the Adelaide Advertiser being reported – but I’m really surprised no one has done any polling on how Rudd Labor is travelling in Qld. I’d have thought there’d be a lot of news value in it.
I’m very cynical about these reports about Bennelong. As much as I’d like to see Howard go the way of Kim Campbell and Stanley Bruce, it’s simply not going to happen.
The closer-than-usual race in Bennelong in 2004 was the result of Andrew Wilkie running a good, timely Greens campaign with some high-profile supporters, and directing preferences to Labor. Though the redistribution has supposedly brought this closer to being a Labor possibility, this relies on Labor getting anywhere near the vote that they did in 2004, which I can’t see being repeated. That said, in the wake of that redistribution, I would not put it beyond falling in a Burwood-style result if Labor wins and Howard resigns and sparks a by-election; indeed, this could be quite possible.
Tim Dunlop is right to be dismissive about this one; Malcolm Mackerras in Crikey was just dreaming.
Didn’t Labor have a good candidate in 04 too?
“but the Darwin seat is within reach of the ALP.” Sacha
Agreed.
Taken as a whole, the NT electorate is increasingly middle-of-the-road. Even under the ‘glory years’ of the long CLP reign it was never hard ideological conservative. Much more pragmatic crony business based voting than anything, plus there was always the ‘vote for the local party’ factor. But the frontier cowboy mentality has largely gone, as has any fear of Labor, after two terms of successful local Labor government the back of that ideological spell has been well and truly broken.
Pretty unlikely the NT will figure large in the federal outcome.