From today’s Crikey email:
As Christian Kerr wrote yesterday, in the unlikely event that the current polls translate to the election outcome, almost no Coalition seat could be considered safe. Although political scientists and psephologists recognise that uniform swings are a thing of the past and that every election throws up surprises, a lazy national media prefers to concentrate on those seats within the range of the overall swing needed (witness much of the discussion about Bennelong). That’s when pundits can in fact accurately figure out which seats are safe and which aren’t.
Most media discussion of Printgate claimed that all three seats where the members are under investigation, Bowman, Bonner and Moreton are marginal. Bowman is in fact held by sitting member Andrew Laming (the target of the investigation) by 8.9%. It hadn’t previously been on Queensland Labor’s target list but it certainly is now. The hamfisted attempt last week by the Liberal politburo in the Sunshine State to settle some factional scores won’t have helped at all. It’s a prime illustration of the fact that local factors, and the pressure of unexpected events, can quickly move seats into play in an election year.
Another Queensland example is the new seat of Flynn. Malcolm Mackerras calculates a relatively safe margin of 7.9% nominally for the Nationals. But loud noises from local Nats about candidate selection last week, reported only in the Fin, show this margin is far from comfortable. Rudd has intervened to ensure the preselection of Chris Trevor. Trevor, a Gladstone solicitor and local councillor, almost took the state seat of Gladstone from conservative independent Liz Cunningham last year. Cunningham was regarded as being dug in, but a canny campaign focused on the impacts of WorkChoices almost knocked her off. Flynn, like some other regional seats in Queensland, has very high rates of casual employment and taxable incomes far below the national average. The ACTU has a full time organiser in the seat. Trevor recorded a 9% swing for Labor at the state election. Yet the national media assume WorkChoices is only an issue in blue collar suburban seats.
Another good example is Ryan. Local member Michael Johnson has a margin of 10.4%. But Johnson is a tad eccentric, to say the least, and Labor famously took the seat in a 2001 by-election. Howard trumpeted his announcement of a bypass last week as a belated fix to the notoriously gridlocked and dangerous Ipswich motorway. This was seen as an attempt to shore up the Liberal marginals of Moreton and Blair. But it has the potential to shake Thompson’s hold on his supposedly safe seat.
Building the bypass, instead of widening the motorway, raises the spectre of the earmarked and feared Western bypass one day coming to fruition. Such a road would pass through the semi-rural and upscale acreages of Moggill, Bellbowrie and Pullenvale, and eventually cross the river four times, driving volume traffic through the sylvan surrounds of acreage land. It’s been the talk of the town in Brisbane all week, setting blogs and talkback aflame. It’s been suggested that land values will fall. The Courier-Mail has been publishing maps showing which (Liberal voting) areas may be affected. The bypass won’t improve the mobility of Ryan voters, but it will certainly annoy those who’ve chosen to live in their semi-rural enclaves. And they’ll be sorely tempted to take out their anger on Johnson.
Note: Some people might think I’ve taken the shortest blog sabbatical ever! As noted in my hiatus post, I’ll still be writing the occasional piece for Crikey which I’m happy to post here after publication. However, I won’t be joining in the discussion.
Addendum: Just to fill out the picture, here’s another piece by Charles Richardson from yesterday’s Crikey on how a 13.8% swing would translate into seats (hypothetically). While I don’t think anyone would expect that there will be a 60% 2PP to Labor on election day, the dimensions of the seats that would be lost if such a result did occur are stunning. There are going to be some very very nervous backbenchers, and indeed Ministers, in the government ranks. This won’t just affect the dynamic of the top level strategy from Howard, Dolly, Costello, and the rest, but will also shift the internal dynamic within the Coalition quite significantly. It also reinforces the point I made in my article – a lot of seats are potentially in play. I suspect it’s likely to be a very patchy election result no matter what the dimensions of the overall party balance, with some quite safe Coalition seats falling. But don’t write off the Coalition’s chances in some Labor marginals in WA either. And it’s a long way out. But from a seat by seat and region by region and state by state perspective, it’s going to be a very interesting election indeed.
The polls just keep on playing the same tune. This morning it’s ACNielsen, which puts the federal ALP in the lead 61% to 39% two-party-preferred. Labor’s lead on primaries is 50%-35%, and Kevin Rudd leads John Howard by 14 points (53-39) in the beauty contest for preferred prime minister.
When a Morgan poll last week gave a similar result, Bryan Palmer at Ozpolitics responded with “B*llocks!”, and this morning he says “I have not changed my view. A 61% two-party preferred vote is implausible come the election.”
He’s right; in fact, “implausible” is putting it mildly. But the trend in the polls has been so strong that it’s worth a moment to look at what that figure would mean.
A 61% vote for Labor represents a swing of 13.8% since the last election. On a uniform basis, the Coalition would lose 69 of its 87 seats, leaving just enough for a football team.
The only senior frontbenchers to survive would be Julie Bishop (Curtin), Ian Macfarlane (Groom), Brendan Nelson (Bradfield) and Philip Ruddock (Berowra) — presumably Bishop and Nelson would fight out the leadership. The Nationals would also be reduced to four members: John Cobb (Parkes), John Forrest (Mallee), Kay Hull (Riverina) and Bruce Scott (Maranoa).
Most of the Coalition’s MPs would be in the bush, with the rest confined to just two enclaves on Sydney’s north shore and Queensland’s Gold Coast. The other ten Liberal survivors would be Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar), Alan Cadman (Mitchell), Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff), Sussan Ley (Farrer), Margaret May (McPherson), Sophie Mirabella (Indi), Stuart Robert (replacing David Jull in Fadden), Pat Secker (Barker), Sharman Stone (Murray) and Wilson Tuckey (O’Connor).
Melbourne and Brisbane would be uniformly Labor, as would all of Tasmania and all but one seat in South Australia.
Could it happen? Parties have been almost wiped out before; Labor was reduced to 14 members (admittedly in a smaller parliament) in the Depression election of 1931.
More recently, the ALP had only a cricket team in the Queensland parliament after the 1974 election, and the Liberals in the same state were reduced to three in 2001 — prompting Matt Price to say they’d have to contact Rent-a-crowd if they wanted to form a barbershop quartet.
Even so, it will take a lot more polls to lift this scenario out of the realm of fantasy.
On what basis is everyone dismissing the 61% ALP vote other than its never happened electorally before? Is there some secret polling no-one is telling us about?
The news just keeps getting worse for the Qld Libs. Check out page 878 of today’s hansard for an explanation of how a state Liberal Party decision was bypassed and money paid into a Federal account to pay for something which was really a state matter.
Club Troppo wrongly claimed today that this fiasco involving Santo Santoro was a part of printgate but this nifty piece of work actually revolves around the previous election and the emergence of Flegg into the parliament via a Supreme Court action.
With the major factions of the Qld Libs talking to Beattie rather than each other and Santo Santoro doing a Denver Beanland and holding on despite the odds an electoral bloodbath in Queenslaand is very likely.
For those not familiar with the Denver Beanland story,he decided to tough it out rather than accept a no confidence motion which state Parliament successfully moved against him and the voters turned his blue ribbon Liberal seat into a Labor gain at every subsequent election and it is still Labor to this day.
Howard has made a huge mistake today which will cost him on election day. Queenslanders just will not wear this sort of tactic and have a history of gleefully removing parties from office who put self interest ahead of the public good.
Damn, even after a tsunami like the one being pondered we’d still have to put up with the ultimate proof that the ALSF is a terrorist organisation: Sophie bloody Mirabella!
The corollary of course is that Labor should whisper for the removal of Santo Santoro from the front bench as it would unravel their major Queensland votewinner.
hey steve
thanks the info the other day – the next day wandering thru randwick, i shook hands with Jonathon Flegg – the son of….who’s standing for Coogee in the NSW election. I mentioned that his old man might be coming into some grief re: printgate….. and he was just rapped I knew who his old man was……..
(as steve knows) i commented about the 3 Amigos the other day http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/03/03/ian-campbell-resigns-wtf/#comment-352151
and mentioned the email i sent to 20 coalition mp’s in the most marginal seats after they passed workchoices in 05 – saying “dont sign any leases in canberra longer than 2 years, and hoped they didnt sell the farm/biz etc”
the only reply i got at the time, was from Peter Lindsay in Herbert – who wrote back saying
He’s on 6.2% – with the 2nd highest % defence force employees in the country.
whaddya reckon – too early to email him back and ask his opinion on euthanasia?
Has he forgotten that what the Australian people can give, they can take away too? Admittedly the Coalition has an advantage going into a half-Senate election, but it’s not insurmountable.
And does he have Barnaby’s vote in his pocket?
“..a prime illustration of the fact that local factors, and the pressure of unexpected events, can quickly move seats into play in an election year.”
Beware the bastard son of Keating I say
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21379143-1702,00.html
Obby, Frankly, it doesn’t matter what you say because this whole mudsling exercise has proved that corruption within the Liberal Party has triumphed over their ability to govern.
Looks like you are just going to have to learn to live with the new style of government Obby. Funny how Joh was in Japan for his undoing and now Howard is in Japan when he comes unstuck. It’s called history repeating Obby.
Rudd has come up stronger than ever and the coalition has been weakened and now are just a corrupt joke. All of Australia is pointing at Santoro and laughing at Howard,Costello,Downer,and Abbott for their lack of judgment as they did with the previous lack of judgment in sackinng Ian Campbell.
Get in early Jo as they are notorious non answers of letters from the great unwashed,delay and they might not be there to answer you.
Piping Shrike, (are you a South Aussie?), I guess no-one wants to look like they are jumping on this particular bandwagon so quickly. Even if the ALP believed it 100%, they would of course play it down in the traditional pre-election “No, I’m the underdog” game.
As to the rest, I don’t think the electorate has particularly high standards of politics, and won’t change their votes on corruption issues as such. The Howard Government was first caught with its hands in the till way way back in the travel rorts affair (first term, I think), and it was pretty clearly demonstrated in the children overboard affair that the PM, at best, has set up the procedures in his office so that embarrasing truths are never officially told to him. And the ‘Never Ever’ controversy over the GST didn’t stop the PM winning the election in which he took the GST to the country, and two more after that.
Of course, if corruption issues reveal deep, unmanageable divisions within a party (to pluck an example completely at random, like the rat’s nest that is the Qld Libs), that will affect the vote. But I think that if this swing is really on, it’s based on 3 factors:
1) Work Choices
2) Work Choices
3) Work Choices
I think people have voted for Mr Howard 4 times* because he best reflects their aspirations and prejudices. But Work Choices can’t be ignored, even by the selfish.
*Don’t bother arguing about 1998, the ALP lost on the TPP in 1990, it’s about the marginal seat campaigns
Comment mod-boxed or spaminated (I hope, either that or it has been eaten)
Quick correction, Mark: the local member for Ryan is Michael Johnson, not Thompson.
[Beware the bastard son of Keating I say]
err that’s in square brackets steve.
Hey, but you reckon a referundum on the Rev Nile’s call for a 10 yr moratorium on Muslim immigration wouldn’t be a shoo in. Like capital punishment it would.
Now you don’t think Johnny would back the Rev’s call at election time do ya? Would Ruddy instantly pull the metoo line for the fans? Fascinating stuff for the political junkies.
Now would Ruddy really consult Caucus first before committing Labor to such a metoo stance…? Whaddya reckon lefties?
David, it took them twenty years to wake up to Joh and his corruption too but when they get sick of all the blithering about economic genius etc it doesn’t work any more and corruption issues feed into and overtake all other issues.
Interesting that the editorial in the Courious snail points out that Santoro is an unelected minister and the money was given to a lobby group (minus the Panama Hat) and not a charity at all.
Obby, put it all in a circle for all I care, it still means nothing to me.
Don’t know how good your memory is Steve but Joh was never convicted of anything. A couple of ministers were convicted of rorting travel expenses (or similiar). If Joh’s government was corrupt then I’ll take corruption any day of the incompetence we have now.
On Santoro, I wonder if the lobby group he donated the 100% profit to has a tax deductible status. If it does he will will get the highest marginal rate (40%?) back on the 1st of July. A 40% return is not bad, and would still provide an incentive to hold shares, do the mea culpa, and collect the deduction on the quiet.
Are we generally agreed that Rudd didn’t need to stand down over his meetings with Burke, neither did Cambell and neither does Santoro? However the Shadow Attorney General falling on his sword was a no-brainer and would be for either party. The others merely had to explain themselves in detail to the media(really us).
Although the margins in Dickson and Petrie have increased in the last few elections, surely they are seats which must always be in play for the ALP.
Spare a (derisory) thought for Campbell: sacked for doing nothing, in the service of completely ineffectual, cheap stunt that backfired and sank without a trace about 10 minutes later.
What a loser!
Let’s see, eleven jurors wanted to convict, and the one who held out concealed his membership of Sir Joh’s political party.
How’s the memory?
Not sure it will ‘take over’ in the same way…we haven’t seen anything at the level of the Premier’s handpicked mates and colleagues owning the Valley’s working girls…at least nothing that will convince people who were ever planning to vote for him. I reckon AWB helped the Government shore up its rural vote (Look how much we did for you wheat farmers! Whatever it takes!)
However, if the printing/electorate allowance scandal (No, DON’T call it bloody Printg**e, thank you so very much indeed) was a matter of Libs dobbing in Libs, then all hell will be breaking loose, taking the Government’s eye off the ball.
I’ve been wondering if anyone else was going to pick that up…it’s hardly like he gave it to the Red Cross.
Other Tony, I’m pretty sure the recipients of the donation aren’t tax-deductable. They aren’t a registered charity, and he was getting further caned last night because they are connected to Right To Life.
I think Santoro should have gone – I mean, bloody hell, the rules are pretty clear, and he should be managing his finances a bit more carefully than that. He’s like Shane Warne and the diuretic. Howard hasn’t managed ministerial accountability well at all, not for a long time.
Steve, I love that “Frankly” in your first comment – I’m taking it as an humourous nod to one of Kevin’s verbal tics.
Not only did he not give the money to charity but..