The polls are open in Gippsland in a by-election being conducted to replace Nationals MP Peter McGauran. The papers are full of the expectations game, unsurprisingly. I strongly suspect Rod Cameron is right that the actual implications of the result for both Labor and the opposition are pretty minimal in terms of what it might say about the electoral climate generally, but that of course doesn’t mean that the way the outcome is spun won’t have effects. Arguably, despite all the talk of “tests” for both Kevin Rudd and Brendan Nelson, the party with the most at stake is actually the Nationals. A loss in Gippsland would leave their parliamentary ranks much depleted – so tiny is their representation now – and a win would be taken as an endorsement of their continuing viability as a separate party.
Update: The Poll Bludger and Antony Green are both live blogging the count.
As of 7pm, it’s fair to say the Libs have performed poorly with around 18% of the primary vote, and the Nats will easily hold the seat. Swing against Labor between 5 and 6% with some of the larger booths still to report.
The morning after: Lots of analysis from The Poll Bludger, and naturally you can read “honeymoon is over” stories all over the MSM.
Update: Here’s what I think the “message of the by-election” is.
Interesting, as well, is the by-election, in Kororoit, for a seat in the Victorian state lower house. It is bit of an opportunity to see how Brumby is fairing and how the strong Independent Les Twentyman, manages, given the dirty tricks campaign that Labor has been running against him.
They have gone for a smear attack based on the youth support workers previous calls for a safe drug injecting room…nasty and unoriginal but maybe a sign that he is a genuine worry to them after preference distribution.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/27/2288000.htm
mark says:
This election is a good test of the Left’s spasm of post-2007 partisan triumphalism. LP and Quiggin have been rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of the extinction of the right-wing parties. We shall soon see if there is any reality to this rhetoric.
If the anti-LN/P secular tendency is really in place then we should see a significant swing towards the ALP, following on from the publics joy at Rudd’s six months festival of symbolic politics and general disenchantment with the LN/P. So an ALP win, or a significant pro-ALP swing occurs, it means that LP and Quiggin can certainly claim bragging rights on their “LN/P is dead in the water” thesis.
THe general polls indicate that since the election the public has increased its two-party preferment of the ALP. THis is even the case for local polling in this electorate. So psephologic evidence suggests a continued electoral trend against the LN/P.
However I think the polls systematicly underpredict the LN/P vote, particularly in key tests. The much anticpated “Rudd-slide” never occurred in 2007. And I am under-impressed by Leftblogosphere slavering-at-the-mouth talk of the big left-wing sea change in partisan alignment.
This election’s significance is purely party-psephological, not policy-ideological. So no implications regarding political convergence or divergence.
I suggest that any post-2007 federal election gains the ALP will make from loss of a popular local candidate plus the extended Rudd honeymoon will be outweighed by the natural contrariness and orneryness of rural and regional AUS plus the standard by-election anti-govt swing.
I strongly doubt that the purported ALP secular trend will be evidenced in rural, regional or outer-suburban electorates. Any electoral support for the ALP in these areas is extremely thin. Unlike the inner-suburban latte-sipping set who would rather spend an afternoon at the dentist than admit to voting LN/P.
So, on the basis of no studying, modelling or polling whatsoever, I am going to predict that in this by-election the 2pp LN/P vote will remain roughly steady. An NP candidate will be returned with possibly a small move towards the LP in primary vote.
The psychological implication of a staus-quo vote is that the ALP – together with its cheer squad at LP – is likely to have some of the triumphalist air let out of its sails.
I challenge mark, kim, nabakov or any other pseph-bloggers in pixel-shot to roll-out their alternative theory, this time before the actual event. Let the better theory win!
This is traditionally a safe National seat. Any result other than a comfortable Nationals win will be bad news for the Coalition, in my opinion.
Brendan will try and use the inevitable nationals victory to declare australia has given a big tick to his leadership and his petrol shopper docket policy. ill also bet
Shannahanahahan, Milne and hAckerman will also use the coaltion victory to declare the honeymoon is over for rudd for the umpteenth time, and might even try and spin that the “devastating” loss for Rudd has created leadership tension within the ALP
At least, Tony Wright from Fairfax, has been scratching around as a journalist chook should, in “alternative government” feed.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/timely-political-payback-by-mcgauran-20080627-2y53.html
Way to go with the hyperbole, Jack.
Please cite an actual comment. I don’t believe the “right-wing parties” will become extinct.
No, because there’s a difference between national surveys and local by-elections! The demographics of Gippsland are not all that representative of the rest of the country, and by-elections in particular tend to fought more on local than national issues, and local factors play more of a factor in regional than in urban seats.
Make up your mind. Have you seen any local polling or not?
The only polling number I can recall is 36% primary for the ALP in Gippsland. The ALP’s primary at the 2007 election was 36.5%.
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2007/guide/gipp.htm
So that obviously suggests a status quo result. Which you’re duly predicting. But on what basis? That there’s some sort of broader implication to be read into all this by tying it into all your grand narratives which in this instance sound suspiciously like Brendan Nelson’s spin…
Except there hasn’t been any!
The only actual data on any sort of shift in ideological orientation within the electorate comes from the AES survey which I linked to the other day. Check out the first table in section 6. That shows you voters are self-placed within the middle of the left-right partisan spectrum, but there’s been a slight shift to the left with every election since 1996.
http://assda.anu.edu.au/aestrends.pdf
We could analyse that if we wanted, but the results would support neither a Strocchi-esque narrative nor any purported claims about leftward sea-changes.
Changes in partisan alignment are different things.
Yes, and no. See the previous comment. Conversely, the 1996 election didn’t have much of an ideological impact either. “Policy-ideological” is too confused a variable.
The best explanation for the continued strength of Labor in the polls was offered by Rod Cameron last night. Suburban voters are very impressed that the Rudd government has kept all its promises.
The challenge would be easier to take seriously if I could work out what your “theory” is, Jack. A (very safe by the way) prediction of a basically status quo result in Gippsland is not a theory.
Update: The Poll Bludger and Antony Green are both live blogging the count.
As of 7pm, it’s fair to say the Libs have performed poorly with around 18% of the primary vote, and the Nats will easily hold the seat. Swing against Labor between 5 and 6% with some of the larger booths still to report.
Incidentally, the results to date don’t look good for your prediction or theory or whatever it is, though perhaps you have an out because “a small move towards the LP on primary vote” is meaningless because the Libs didn’t run in 07. So by definition their vote is all swing. A significant 2PP swing to the Nats isn’t a status quo result as such, although it’s hardly all that surprising.
A swing of 5% against a new government seems a lot. I wouldn’t have thought they’ve had enough time to annoy/anger/outrage/bore enough electors to produce such a figure. Why do you think the Coalition strengthened its position in this seat?
BBB
Mr Brumby might be the one doing a bit of soul searching tomorrow, if he is capable of it.
http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2008/06/gippsland-by-el.html
I fail to see how 20% of the vote for the Libs is a poor result given that they rarely field a candidate in Gippsland and it is National Party territory. In fact, I think that’s quite a decent result for them. It certainly is a poor result for Labor. And what does this all mean? It means that the Nationals won this seat as expected.
BBB, I’d be inclined to go with Antony Green’s take on both by-elections and the impossibility of saying anything meaningful about the size of swings, and also on his conclusion that a by-election in this seat is unlikely to tell us anything meaningful about national politics. I don’t know anywhere near enough about the seat or local factors in the campaign to speculate meaningfully on its causes either.
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2008/gippsland/
Scroll down to the end of the article for the relevant stuff on by-elections.
Alistair at 11, it’s a poor result as compared to claims that they might win the seat. It’s also relevant to note the very large number of National seats which have fallen to the Libs on the retirement of incumbents in the last decade or so.
If Libs got 18% and ALP lost 5%, where did the other 13% come from? Fewer independents/Democrats standing?
The ALP selected a town cryer FFS. Gippsland ALP factional divisions have been strongly on show since before the Vic State election at the end of 2006. Voters generally steer clear of a party divided against itself, don’t they?
FF weren’t standing, Ambigulous.
You can get a good sense of the swings and the changes in candidates since last time here:
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2008/gippsland/
Lots of bucks from the McGaurins and poor media scrutiny of a past ministers doings may have something to do with it.
We can, at least, thank Tony Koch via Ruppy for this nice little bit of work.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23898072-5013871,00.html
Mark,
Correct me if I’m wrong by all means, but my understanding was that the National to Liberal march was a bit of a slow-moving process, dependent largely on retiring Nationals and Liberal candidates with very strong community links. Certainly we had the first element there, The retiring of a long-term National member but the readings for the Liberal candidate hardly suggest a strong candidate, If anything 20% could be considered baseline support in Rural Australia for the Libs. But largely, I agree, not much to take from this by-election, Possibly there could be somthing to be said of Antony Green’s theory about Strong Independents in State Labor Strongholds in the Kororoit by-election, but we’ll have to see.
As for any sense of, how was it put again, ‘partisan triumphalism’ … well … maybe, but I was interpreting a lot of the rather optimistic posts that I read here and on other blogs as being an expression of relief to see the end of the Howard Liberals. I do remember some articles that dealt with the death of the Liberals in particular (Can’t remember if there were any here but Bob Ellis had a few on Unleashed that were quite memorable) but even there, I don’t think anyone said ‘Death of the Right’. Possibly jack strocchi read somthing into your comments you didn’t intend.
PinkyOz
The electorate of Gippsland has some quite sizeable provincial cities. Moreoever, it’s a tree-change destination and a place from where people commute from their palatial properties to work in Melbourne.
I’m not at all surprised that there is a ready-made Liberal constituency in Gippsland. Indeed, it’s a little surprising that the Libs have allowed Gippsland to be a Nat bailiwick for so long.
I imagine that some of the swing against Labor can be explained by the fact that voters now have someone other than Labor and Nat to vote for.
That said, this result is a slightly more than token kick up the bum for Rudd. The atmospherics of his administration are not consonant with the pragmatic mindset of swing voters in a diverse electorate like Gippsland.
PinkyOz, I still think the Libs have a very problematic electoral position, and that will potentially be the case for quite some time, but I really do think that you’re right that Jack must have been reading something into what I’ve written that wasn’t intended.
Katz, wasn’t it widely suggested that the Labor candidate was a bit of a dud, who’d been imposed by head office? And in many of the reports I saw unionists and ALP types were campaigning against him or offering lukewarm support at best. As I said, in rural and regional electorates the candidate matters more than in urban and suburban ones, and also, one would think, matters more in a by-election than in a general election. That’s not to say that there are no implications for the Rudd government but I’d be careful about overstating them.
Speaking of triumphalism, here’s Glenn Milne:
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,23939487-5006301,00.html
“We can, at least, thank Tony Koch via Ruppy for this nice little bit of work.”
A pretty good reason for Labor to get those areas hooked up more to the internet ASAP. Ignorance abounds on some issues…but they’ll tell you otherwise in the bar & the post office as they read the paper & watch free-to-air. And the ABC local news tends to be extremely biased. Labor once & for all needs to learn that if you play w/ fire you’ll get burnt. The Murdoch media & its tentacles will singe anyone who tries to play it both ways. Remember how Keating failed to learn that lesson & he got burnt? And he was an INTELLIGENT guy…who needed to be SMARTER.
We need to see some courage in that media monopolisation area, & I doubt we’re going to see it w/ the present communication minister.
The MESSAGE to the rural sector & elsewhere has been distorted, the picture painted is based on SPIN…but the election result is also based on a reaction to State politics, a sense of loyalty & typical country people need for dissent in the face of big government (think “Nanny State” & “wowser” comments…needs to be countered BIG TIME, there’s bit of Libertarianism out in them yonder pastures)…& just plain proud stubborness & a touch of ignorance & inability to accept the need for CHANGE on the part of many in that area. Can you blame them.
Rupert et all win the MESSAGE war on this one…let’s hope Labor’s strategists don’t knee-jerk react & cop out based on the SPIN & FROTH & VENOM tomorrow. No Morris Iemma please. If they do, you can say goodbye to significant change for the better in this country.
We told Labor of the gripes of the rural/working class suburban swing-voters, some has to do w/ pensions. Best they get a move on in this area. before the ROT sets in further. Also has something to do w/ the groups they are perceived to be focusing on…unfortunately.
Still, a long way to go yet…& this is only a minor victory for the guardians of the old profiteers’ ways…& those who promote archaic industries & methods. Their vitriol & the VOLUME of it, including the dopey “honeymoon ends” comments are really only an indication of their desperation.
Take them on full bore in the places they have retreated to, like Gippsland, & the war will be won. But you have to have the guts, the passion, the message machine (artillery) to go w/ the warriors…& provide financial incentive to change that opinion. And a coherent VISION. No more waiting for Goddo. And demonstrate you’re LISTENING sensibly. Not knee-jerking. Might be a good idea to question a minister’s connections to thoroughbreds, radio jocks & bad management of health & safety too.
No more WIMPING out. Take the battle to them. And gain some allies too. W/out kicking the others in the head.
Mark, I was just going to link to that. Clearly teh Milne has spoken.
To my left leaning friends you know what this means don’t ya…well DON’T YA???
It’s all over. As soon as we got back in power now Rudd has been rejected, it’s the death knell if you will…the Nationals have retained Gippsland.
Oh the humanity!
*cough*
Well yes, Mark.
I was attempting to articulate a middle course between dismissal and despair.
1. The Labor candidate was a hack.
2. The Libs did sap votes away from the ALP.
The Poll Bludger does a much better job analysing these factors (and more) than I can. The Bludger also opines that this result is more of a kick in the bum for Rudd than I did. He may be right. I particularly like his East (Gippsland) versus West (Gippsland) analysis. It states far more completely my reference to the complexity of this electorate.
I also like The Bludger’s discussion of what I called “atmospherics”:
For reasons mentioned by The Bludger, perhaps the Latrobe Valley is a uniquely significant example of the phenomenon of people recognising that adjustments have to be made in the material culture of their lives, but rejecting policies that may facilitate those changes.
Yet this juggling act will be an important one for any government in an advanced, high income democracy. Rudd isn’t alone i failing that test so far.
His political survival will depend upon his getting that juggling act right.
Well, I guess we could consider Milne’s piece a good summary of coalition policy under Nelson. But it’s sort of hard to miss the jubilation he wrote between the lines.
Mark, I read a lot of your stuff post November, and your right, the Libs are in a problematic position that they will need to address, or find themselves in for a long period out of office (or worse). But there are factors that are emerging that suggest that this period won’t be a cakewalk for Labor either, maybe pointing towards a splintering of parliament, with increased numbers of independents or at it’s extremes the creation of new political parties with some electoral appeal; all of which could cause some very unusual results. My only suggestion would be to keep you eyes open over the next couple of elections (Federal 2011 yes, but NSW 2012 more so, possibly even QLD 2009) I have a feeling we could be in for some ‘interesting’ times.
PinkyOz
8 Mark Jun 28th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Mark, the LN/P achieved comfortable win which is exactly what I predicted. Another successful exercise in “Strocchiverse” psephology. (How I love throwing that back at you so you have to eat your foolish words.)
Also, I correctly predicted that national and local polling was underpredicting the actual LN/P electoral vote. This looks like a serious methodlogical issue which has fooled many a pundit and psepher.
I concede that I predicted only a status quo vote for the LN/P when in fact they achieved a favourable swing. However my prediction was certainly just about as good than any other pseph bloggers or pundits, esp from the La-Pros. The only other analyst to “bravely predict” the result (according to mumbles) was Brian Costar who predicted a tiny 1% 2PP swing to the NP. Pretty much what I predicted. So watch that guy, hes got the goods.
As I predicted, the LP continues to eat into the NP’s primary support base. The LP got 20% of the primary vote in a traditional NP seat, a good result in three cornered contest. Indeed, “all their votes count as a swing” to the LP. which certainly does the much derided Nelson’s prospects no harm.
The La-Pros have been rubbishing the LP and Nelson non-stop since the 2007 Fed election. Its time for them to re-consider their hasty and ill-informed rush to judgements.
You did not predict any of this, despite claiming in retrospect that “it’s hardly all that surprising”. So, in scientific terms, you are “not even wrong”.
A scientist must force his theories to “live dangerously” if he wants to win the applause of his peers. You did not rise to my challenge to make a testable psephologic prediction. Instead you were content to merely play in the shallows with useless and tendentious post-facto “qualitatitative” poll analysis ie spin doctoring.
Like a doting parent you let your theories, like so many young people today, live on at home well into their adult years. They never seek the adventure of the unknown and therefore tend to atrophy. Until you test your theories against the future you will never cut the mustard as a social scientists.
I heard on Aunty that not only was “the honeymoon over but the cracks were starting to appear”.
Quick, someone pull up the sheets.
PinkyOz, actually, I suspect that Milne’s position is better stated as – Rudd would crumple in the face of Peter Costello, and Nelson is artificially masking a soft lead for Labor.
Thanks for the reference to the Poll Bludger’s analysis, Katz. For anyone wanting to have a look, the post is here:
http://www.pollbludger.com/885
Yesterday:
Today:
Shorter Jack – I failed to predict the swing, but I’m retrospectively right anyway?
Well, there are a few messages for Rudd here.
1.- Get out and sell your climate change policy, mate, intead of farting around with miniscule comparisons about what you and the Libs are going to do about reducing petrol prices or petrol excise.
2. Get off your arse and do something serious about stopping the Japanese killing whales in Australian waters. Over 80% of us want you to take the Japs to court.
3. Do something serious about lowering grocery prices NOW.Like you promised.
I don’t think pensions are going to be an issue. Bob Brown is plumping for a $30 pw rise, and now he’s holding the whip hand in the Senate, he’ll get it, sort of.
We can’t get away from it. A 7% swing against is huge. And distressing. But if Rudd gets the message, I think the honeymoon is probably still on. The commentariat might have short memories, but the rest of the electorate hasn’t forgotten Ratty.
And, when it comes to by-elections its safe to give the Government a bloody nose, isn’t it? Its not as if you’re kicking them out.
btw, Swannie did a great job selling climate4 change policy on the Sunday programme this morning. We need to see lots more of interviews like that.
I suspect Jack is referring to this post, but missing the point a bit. The post suggested the inevitability of a merger (or some other radical realignment) something which is already under way here in Queensland, for much the reasons I suggested. Money quote “This isn’t a prediction of unending Labor rule, rather an observation that the Liberal and National parties are in such dire straits that they can’t continue as they are.” I don’t see any reason to back away from this.
Paul, there is nothing you, I, or Kevin Rudd can do to stop the Japanese killing whales.
The only people that can stop Japan killing whales are the citizens of Japan, and the sooner anti-whaling organizations concentrated their campaigns on them they might start having a bit more success.
Furthermore, he seems to be more serious about the only thing that can actually sustainably reduce grocery and other prices – tackling some of the cosy oligopolies that dominate the Australian market – than we could reasonably expect him to. But there are no instant fixes for the fact that a) we’re still in a drought, b) about a third of the Chinese population is trading up from rice to meat, c) Europe and the USA think turning a huge fraction of the world’s grain supply into a tiny fraction of the world’s fuel supply is a good idea, and d) we have a retailing duopoly that’s been raking it in for over a decade, despite the fact that Coles are a barely competent company stuffed full of high-priced managers who apparently never make a decision in their life.
Well said Robert.
I would love to know where Paul gained the impression that Rudd “promised” to do “something serious about lowering grocery prices”.
There is a lot of Nelson inspired nonsense, floating around, that “he said” he would bring fuel and grocery prices down. Grocery and fuel watch were always going to be consumer friendly brakes not market close down implements.
The extreme derision that both arrangements have received, by both big business and the media, suggest that they may well prove a good way of exposing “rip-off merchants”, if given a fair chance.
Meh. Watch Mayo and Kooyong swing to ALP next.
I’d like to know what the Gippsland swing was in relation to the 2004 vote.
I want to “me three” Robert Merkel. Everything Rudd said he’d do in the first budget, he did. Food AND oil prices are expensive everywhere in the world. Systemic change is needed, and while perhaps Rudd can make more policy in the right direction for certainly energy supplies, it will entail complex policies that may take sometime to have effect.
The media beat-up (even SBS) on the election is quite the now-familiar story … the media think they set the agenda (which of course, to some degree by acting like this, they do). Rudd needs a way to break through this I think.
Still, it’s break from Belinda Neal and Alco-Pops. No, it’s still a fucking national disgrace actually.
Paul Burns wrote:
Ummmm, looking at those huge swings in the Latrobe Valley I think the message for Rudd is that climate change will be an impossibly difficult sell in the coal provinces of Australia. He’ll either cave completely on climate change and the ETS (which is entirely possible) or he’ll write off places like the Hunter, and try scrape through without those seats in 2010. Most likely, he’ll just put everything off until after the election.
“Meh. Watch Mayo and Kooyong swing to ALP next.”
What about if they take up Antony Greens’ suggestion and “just say no to the mayo”?
http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2008/06/should-labor-pa.html#more
Update: Here’s what I think the “message of the by-election” is.
32 John Quiggin Jun 29th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Thats a more defensible position than the “end of the Liberal Party” trope that that the LA-PROs were echoing not so long ago. Pr Q’s post was cited as supporting authority in this post They’re (probably) not coming back. Apparently I’m not the only person “missing the point”.
Pr Q says:
I agree with the Quiggin “ALP natural party of govt” theory at the state govts level. FWIW I have been more or less been arguing the same thing since mid-noughties.
This is because state govts are responsible for public infrastructure construction and community service provision. These public goods are superior goods and likely to become more urgently demanded with the growth of income and urban concentration, implying greater electoral support for parties advocating such policies.
The state govts are therefore natural electoral territory for the more socialistic state ALPs. And, absent massive iniquity and incompetence eg NSW ALP, this public goods demand will continue to underpin ALP state political dominance.
Also state ALPs will have enormous power to disburse jobs and contracts to favoured invidiuals and interests. The power of patronage doesnt hurt ones electoral prospects.
This implies the need for state LP’s to engage in radical ideological and organizational change if they are to remain competitive. We can see this already in QLD.
But I dont see any special crisis for the fed LN/P. Everything, including dire straightened LN/P, changes over time. We are in the era of major party “Great Convergence”. So both major parties have had to ideologically and organizationally change to stay relevant.
Much change the LP had to make they have already made – namely dump their post-seventies hostility to industrial equity (drop Work Choices) and ecological sustainability (sign Kyoto). The ALP has also gone through the same ideological wrenching process in matters of cultural identity (dropping indig. self-determination) and national security (supporting US-AUS alliance).
Silly talk about the so-called “end of the Culture War” (as if human nature changed with the election of Rudd!) will go the same way as the “end of the LP” talk. THe fed LP will always be able to make a good political living out of cultural populism. There is too much money tied up in intellectual and residential capital to let it get frittered away by the pathological aspects of sub-cultural perversity and multi-cultural diversity.
I predict that the fed LN/P will not merge with the NP to become a new hybrid party. More likely NP polticians and officials will just jump ship and join the LP, as is already happening.
Over the next decade the fed LP will sit tight waiting for the turn of the political worm. The periodicity of the business and electoral cycle is still with us. That will change the Mohammed (swinging voter), allowing the Mountain (entrenched party) to stay much where it is.
That Gippsland went to the NP in a bye-election is seen as the “end of the honeymoon” for Labor? Really? In an electorate that’s been a Country Party/National Party seat since 1922, and predominantly a Protectionist Party seat before that, how could the result be less surprising? The Nationals could probably have won that seat with a coffee table as its candidate.
Jack, that was a guest post, and if you read the comments thread, a lot of people disagreed with aspects of the logic or its premises. We thought it was an interesting discussion starter and made a coherent argument, but it’s really stretching things way too far to (mis) represent it as some sort of LP collective view.
But that’s the modus operandi of the right wing.
Errr…
Somehow I wish I just hadn’t mentioned any of this stuff around the “Death of the Liberals” and “partisan triumphalism”, It was just trouble from the start. Sorry Mark.
But I do remember a post just before the election which stated that LP itself was not a vehicle for any political party and that the musings of the contributors on the elections were just that, the musings of the contributors; and thats the cue the link to the comments policy.
And hopefully thats about it.
PinkyOz
PinkyOz, I wouldn’t worry too much. Jack was going to start off on that theme regardless of what anyone else said, and as Tyro says, constructing straw people is key to the m.o.
Tyro, you’re taking the piss. Railing against a constructed Teh Left with a reference to the modus operandi of Teh Right Wing!
BBB