I’ve added a question mark to the headline Fairfax used for its report on an ANU survey, an exit poll of 2241 voters in the 2010 federal election.
The Australian Election Study – a detailed ”exit survey” of voters from last year’s election – found that one in four people who had voted Labor in 2007 changed their first preference to another party at the 2010 poll.
The survey found that 79 per cent of these voters switching support away from Labor disapproved of the way the ALP handled its leadership change when Julia Gillard replaced Mr Rudd last June. By comparison, 64 per cent of the people who voted Labor in 2007 and then stuck with the ALP at the 2010 election said they disapproved of the way Mr Rudd was ousted.
The survey results provide the first hard evidence of the impact of Labor’s leadership change on its electoral support at last year’s poll.
I don’t think it’s right to say that this is “hard evidence”, in the absence of any findings about whether there was a direct impact on vote switching. Unfortunately, there’s no mention of the poll on the webpage of the Australian Election Study, so we have to rely on what Fairfax has reported. It is, however, suggestive. Hopefully we’ll learn more.
“I don’t think it’s right to say that this is “hard evidence”, in the absence of any findings about whether there was a direct impact on vote switching.” – yet, when it comes to the science of climte change you are quite happy to accept a “balance of probabilities/statistical distribution/pascal’s wager/can’t find any other explanation line of reasoning.
Be a climate skeptic while you still can Razor – its a dwindling trade. One of the big ones just went over to the other side: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/04/local/la-me-climate-berkeley-20110404
Isn’t that a rather large number of people changed their vote? [Getting back on topic.] 79 % is nearly all of them. The maths are beyond me, but its a lesson Labor won’t forget. Just because somebody’s ambitious it doesn’t mean they’re up to the job.
And the electorate ain’t dumb.
The CPRS was starting to look shaky by the time that it was dropped. Problem was that it had got so complex it was impossible to defend against someone like Abbott who was making sweeping attacks.
Problem for Labor was that there was no plan B. They had done all this detailed homework on the CPRS without doing homework on other ways of meeting their 2020 commitments. Gillard could have recovered if she had had a credible plan B in place before the election. It didn’t have to be complex. The 2020 target could have been reached by concentrating on cleaning up electricity.
Instead, the big item consisted of borrowing Obama’s cash for clunkers program without understanding why it made sense for the US. It all left Gillard coming across with not much more real commitment than Abbott.
I confess I have no evidence on the leadership change that Rudd’s dumping cost votes but that is because I see it as self-evident.
Senexx
Spot on!
@1 – Razor, social statistics is not the same thing as climate science. The end.
Theses are the issues about Rudd, which I found/ find problematic:
1. Rudd had worked himself into a psychological state and
2. The cabinet was falling apart — Rudd had no political capital left mainly because
3. He’d alienated himself from the ALP factions. Which is, fundamentally, the internal structure of the ALP.
4. Rudd’s top-down leadership style is not compatible with social-democratic values.
I think that Rudd doesn’t have what it takes to be prime minister. He projects the feeling that he has witnessed some horrible event, which he keeps very dear to himself, as it is his motivation — and, I’m the first to admit, that this is a case of terrible, arm-chair psychological speculation and maybe I’ve been influenced by an article or two too many — but he seems somehow brittle and unstable. Perhaps he was thrust into the leadership too early, before he’d had the time to fully mature. But maturity seems incompatible with a contemporary political career. Latham and Tanner are train wrecks at opposite ends of the tracks.
I think Merc said, a few days ago, that the prime minister can’t afford to make the kind of terrible mistakes in judgment that Rudd did, and I tend to agree, that that’s probably a fairly good summary of what happened.
And to get right back on topic, the numbers really don’t seem that extraordinary: Rudd one on a big swing, which Labor probably was never going to be able to hold on to. Rudd himself had almost wrecked the government and people perhaps wanted the chance to be able to vote him out of office themselves.
The linguistic synapses are smoking.
I also don’t think it’s surprising. The whole affair shocked people and created an atmosphere of crisis that was impossible to disperse.
“brittle and unstable”, “time to fully mature”, “terrible mistakes in judgment”, “almost wrecked the government”
You see I find phrases such as these extraordinary. I just didn’t see any of this and I don’t think I was the only one in Australia who “missed” it. Also, this type of rhetoric could be deployed about any number of leaders at any given moment anywhere in the world. The Rudd sacking was a terrible blunder and the armchair strategists just have to face up to it (assuming they have faces, i.e they’re not faceless men)
I’m not in Australia at, Patrick, so I could well be wrong, but talking to my dad, who’s long-term Labor even he was hopeful that Gillard was going to be able to turn Labor’s fortunes around.
The best thing about last week’s Q&A was Robert Mann.
I mean c’mon Patrick, the first rule of politics is that you need to have the numbers. Rudd had, for many, unbelievably, lost the support of his party.
“lost the support of his party”
And the ALP just about lost government, brilliant. There’s been plenty said about how a properly run Rudd campaign would have seen the ALP returned in their own right, plenty of historical precedents for a government coming from behind to retain government, of course we’ll never know but the survey appears to provide some support for that position.
And yes not being in the country would make it harder to trust your judgement on these matters.
Yeah Pat,
there were and are problems, but we do know what happened. It is possible to blame the party for what happened, but even then Rudd has to take some of the responsibility.
In any case Rudd’s demise was spectacular. There probably aren’t that many cases around the world of something similar. Gordon Brown led UK-Labor into oblivion.
It was a strange time. The GFC had strangely skewed politics.
Joe, cheers – I believe Rudd ultimately proved to be not suitable for PM because he made the wrong call about something very important to the future of the nation. That is, there is an actual demonstrated case of Rudd’s unsuitability, based on fact, based on his observed behaviours, in office (much as I wish it weren’t so) — and, from the horse’s mouth, Rudd himself admits as much.
Whereas….
…Sorry? Do you get that from his consistently calm demeanour under questioning, or his articulate and forthright admissions of failure, or his cheery bonhomie on every darn public appearance??
Srsly, if we have to write political obituaries for Kevin Rudd, would it be too much to ask that they are based on things that actually happened, rather that what “seems”…? David Marr has a lot to answer for!
But back directly OT…
I think voters do get browned off by leadership spills in office. The fact that PM is not a directly-elected position is irrelevant — modern campaigning is relentlessly Presidential and voters want the leader they “voted” for…Keating won exactly one election after nicking the leadership from Hawke, and golly he was lucky to get away with that. Whereas Gillard hasn’t even managed to win one, and she is no Paul Keating…
Well, I watched the David Marr interview on Insiders and read the article, and they both weren’t in themselves convincing, but I stand by my perception that Rudd seemed to be in a psychological state before and definitely after Kyoto. His world seemed to have fallen apart. That’s usually a depressing thing for most people.
I think he has a very porcelain exterior. What facts are there to base my perception on? I don’t know him personally — the main fact is the dramatic nature of his dismissal. There are other minor things, which could be seen through the lens of an antagonistic media…
I thought Rudd was heading for a breakdowm by the set of his mouth and the look in his eyes. He could have got some help slowed the decline or he could have bumbled through and taken Labor to the same or a worse situation than they are in now.
The ALP today is not true to it’s core values as a recent Drum article illustrates. (The perversion of Social Democracy) The ALP disappoints because it is not what people think it is.
“Whereas Gillard hasn’t even managed to win one, and she is no Paul Keating…”
Not sure where you came up with that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_federal_election,_2010
It is worth asking how many people deserted the other parties. In 2PP terms the net swing against Labor was only a few percent. The implication is that a significant number of coalition supporters in 2007 switched in 2010 as well.
The behaviour of the polls suggest that there are a lot barely decided voters who churn between the parties.
The reason that this is social science rather than science (as Kim notes) is that there is no counterfactual: no test to see how voters would have voted if Rudd had stayed as PM.
For example, if Rudd stayed to fight the election and Labor still lost votes, we might have the had a survey saying:
“79 per cent of these voters switching support away from Labor disapproved of Rudd as Prime Minister”.
So, there is really no way to conclude (scientifically) from this poll that Labor did the right, or wrong, thing in switching leaders.
Thanks for the link, Joe2.
72 seats apiece for the two major contenders, in a 150-seat house.
If you consider that to be a victory for the ALP led by Julia Gillard, then it was also a victory for the Coalition led by Tony Abbott.
Nobody won the 2010 election. Nobody for PM!
But didn’t Gillard lie to win the election Merc?
I do find this a bit of self serving nonsense.
1. Rudd had worked himself into a psychological state and
Oh brother, arm chair psychologist making a diagnosis more to do with either the MSM meme, Labor hack meme after the knifing or simply a existing prejudice.
2. The cabinet was falling apart — Rudd had no political capital left mainly because
Rubbish. Cabinet was cabinet and the only difficulty it had was Swan/Gillard on the ETS shelving and their immediately leaking it to the media. The ‘problem’ with cabinet was Rudd’s refusal to be a factional hack and Gillard’s desire to white ant for his job.
3. He’d alienated himself from the ALP factions. Which is, fundamentally, the internal structure of the ALP.
He was never in with factions from the beginning. One can probably surmise that from the day they made him LOTO they had in the back of their minds to replace at the first opportunity should he become PM. Which they did.
4. Rudd’s top-down leadership style is not compatible with social-democratic values.
Well, just a nothing comment. Labor spent more than a decade in opposition because of its toxic factionalism. Rudd was outside most of that and succeeded and probably was most popular with the public because of the freedom he had from this debilitating poison, for a time. Again how much of this allegation is simple MSM and Labor hack meme. Much of it I would guess.
I cant let this nonsense go unchallenged.
‘I thought Rudd was heading for a breakdowm by the set of his mouth and the look in his eyes. He could have got some help slowed the decline or he could have bumbled through and taken Labor to the same or a worse situation than they are in now.’
How on earth could anybody make a diagnosis like this, it is utter rubbish and impossible. This is tea leave, chicken guts fortune telling type of comment.
Having created a ridiculous straw man it is used as evidence for the following suggestion. Bumble through? Taken to a worse situation?
Rudd who played with Howard’s mind, Rudd who when Gillard called him out of Brisbane for help immediately was able to make cut through statements. And of course we have a whole history of elections to suggest that Rudd from the position he was in was highly likely to have won that election and was in fact gain support in the polls for his Mining tax fight.
The entire comment is simply a Rudd slag.
Spot on Thomas Paine at 24 and 25. Incurious and Unread at 21, I would say that it is blindingly self-obvious that there can be no counter-factual because Rudd did not stay on – he was deposed. So, we have to deal with the real world.. Now, if 79 per cent of the voters who switched away from Labor said they disapproved of the way Labor handled its leadership change, we do know what those commenting thought about the reality of Rudd being deposed. And, with nearly four out of five of those switching from Labor disapproving of the way the leadership change was handled, I think it is significant.
‘– I believe Rudd ultimately proved to be not suitable for PM because he made the wrong call about something very important to the future of the nation.’
Really, shelving the ETS for two years, with the reasons as stated, and despite his mercurial effort at Copenhagen and epic negotiations with Turnbull that got them to within one day of having an ETS passed. Pretty harsh I would say. The suggestion is that because Rudd didn’t go to a DD election he was thus unfit to have been PM, and he was taking the advice of the seniors of his Cabinet who everybody says he should. Except when they don’t agree with it.
It would then mean that many of our PMs were not fit to be PM.
Pig Iron bob. Bob Hawk failing on the promise of no child living in poverty. Plus numerous examples of Howard. And probably many PMs in history, say those supporting a White Australia policy and so forth.
Also this dramatic ‘ something very important to the future of the nation’ is a long stretch. We realise of course that the only benefit of Australia being early with an ETS was symbolic and that going ahead was never going to save the world, without China or the USA.
JohnL
“there can be no counter-factual because Rudd did not stay on”
Well, if Rudd did stay on, there would still be no counterfactual. That is my point. No poll can tell you anything about the counterfactual.
If it signifies anything, it is that Gillard has her work cut out to bring those voters around for the next election.
As someone who regularly glances through the comment sections in the Punch and the Tele and Herald – don’t ask me why, perhaps I’m constantly looking for some evidence, any at all, that the Australian population is changing, or maybe I just love pain – I notice this meme has been hammered and hammered and *hammered* ever since JG got the PMship. “Julia (it’s always Julia to these people) knifed Rudd in the back”, over and over again. There’s a reference to it in just about every thread in these places. Whether it’s an obsession of the readers themselves or whether Liberal hacks are placing a few well chosen sockpuppets, this narrative is being reinforced over and over again. I don’t see how it could not lose the ALP votes.
I dont really wish to go over all this, other than to say I’d wager the average swinging punter just thought the whole debacle reflected badly on the ALP as a whole.
Of course it lost them votes.
Thomas Paine, I seem to have hit some exposed nerves. I think you are a bit too tightly wound yourself. You seem rather angry. There you go, and no chickens were harmed.
You got yourself all tangled up with trying to justify Rudd’s competance because when he played with Howard’s mind was well before he got close to a breakdown by trying to manage everything himself. And when Gillard called him was well after he was out of that stressful situation.
I happen to think the job was well beyond his emotional capabilities.
Towards the end of Rudd’s tenure as pm it looked as if Mr Abbott was going to win the election.
Nice summary here.
Rudd had failed to deliver — regrettably without a net. There’s a kind of blithe stupidity to Rudd’s politics:
PJKeating back in 2008.
@23 Joe2 — heh.
Do any of the armchair psychologists have anything to say about Rudd’s marriage, hmmm? I mean the fact that he and his wife publicly share moments of mutual affection and admiration, the fact that they have raised a gaggle of children, are both ambitious and successful in their own right, and that the basis of their relationship is clearly a meeting of both minds and hearts — well, there’s only one conclusion to be drawn — the whole thing is an empty, loveless sham put on for the cameras, and is so brittle and full of anger, it will dissolve at any moment! And the children are actually the maid’s!
There. BTW I could tell all that from the way Therese brushed some lint off her soulder once when she was standing behind Kevin at a presser.
“Towards the end of Rudd’s tenure as pm it looked as if Mr Abbott was going to win the election.”
Bullshit!
Well I don’t have a vote, as I live in a safe Labor seat so any change in my voting patterns doesn’t have any effect at all.
However, if I had lived in a marginal seat I would have been more inclined to vote Labor in 2010 than 2007. Rudd was just awful, even before he was in power it was obvious he was awful (just as it’s obvious than Abbott is completely unhinged).
I had hopes for Gillard, but now it seems she’s terrible too, in a different way.
Bob Brown for PM!
Precisely.
What’s more, it turned out to be really bad politics
Mercurius @ 33, perfect example of a Straw Man Fallacy.
Thomas Paine @ 25, please take note of the Straw Man by Mercurius @ 33.
Been watching a lot of ABC24 lately. The scrolling bar at the bottom of the screen interests me a lot! It is now midday on Sunday. “ANZ chief slams Gillard govt as weak”
has been on rotation since Friday morning. I’m wondering if it’s going to make the full week.
Towards the end of Rudd’s tenure as pm it looked as if Mr Abbott was going to win the election.
Merits of Rudd’s axing aside, that is patent horseshit. Based on the history of other first term governments, he would have handily beat Abbott.
Regarding Razor @1
Pascal’s Wager is a rational approach to a future event (the Eternal Life Hereafter, an ecological disaster) but not to a past event (the reasons for the election result). The argument is, of course, if we’re wrong about Hell, or mass starvation, we’re going to look pretty silly aren’t we? The real costs of religious belief/greenhouse gas reduction aren’t that great, after all.
As for probabilistic/statistical explanations, they’re the bread and butter of science.
I know a lot of people who felt betrayed the end of the Rudd leadership. I don’t think we can say with confidence how things would have turned out if he stayed. I was always going to be voting Green, but it was Rudd getting the chop (and Rebekkah’s strident support of Realpolitik) that drove me to actually become a Watermelon.
As for global warming, I guess you’re trying to stir up trouble, which can be a good thing.
@37, Salient, no straw men required — just show me Rudd being angry. That’s all it would take to convince me. You know, an actual display of this toxic anger that supposedly infests the man and poisons everything and everyone around him, as David Marr would have us believe.
The suggestion that being “angry” made him unfit for PM is the real straw man in the room. I mean, Winston Churchill was a total shit, ornery and disagreeable — but who else would you rather have had leading Britain during WWII? What made Rudd ultimately (and sadly) unfit for PM was that he botched the single biggest issue before the government of the day. And he knows it.
All this “anger” stuff is completely beside the point. And just plain weird. Paul Keating is and was a bloody angry character, but I never saw people suggesting it made him dysfunctional as PM (he was dysfunctional as PM for other reasons…)
Yeah, argue the toss either way, but there’d be a majority ALP 2nd term Rudd govt today if he hadnt been axed.
You’ll even find John Howard is on record stating that opinion.
Personally, I think the ALP minority was a better outcome all round, as it ultimately transpired – but Im guessing most ALPistas wont.
The Rudd is angry meme is all about demoralising him. I think it’s less that Rudd is messing with Julia, more like the media is messing with Rudd.
Would love to know why they want to destroy him but they will either find him a worthy person that needs to be destroyed or a true politician who won’t be destroyed but will let the mask slip.
And if it doesn’t, they can just make it up.
tssk, isn’t it obvious? They destroy him, there’s a bye-election, the LNP wins Griffith and – bingo Abbott’s into the Lodge. Whereupon he will call a DD as fast as he can to, ahem, reconstruct the Senate.
Mercurius @ 41, yeah there’s a whole lot of stuff you’ve brought up there that my post had no reference to but good talking points anyway.
I was refering to him being wound up, stressed, overtired, unemotional except for occasional pressure relieving meltdowns which have been well documented. He took too much on himself, couldn’t delegate enough, didn’t trust enough, shut many people out, didn’t engage.
Others saw in him an underlying anger which fueled him and expressed itself in relationship destroying behaviours.
I see no great problem with certain types of anger although if we were perfect creatures we would understand the origin of our anger and use it better. I am sure Churchill still engaged his people despite being cantankerous. Greg Combet is known for the odd white hot outburst at fools during negotiations. Can’t blame him for that.
The point is that some anger is understandable, forgivable and can be positive but cold wars against people that you need is toxic.
It’s obvious to us Fiona. If Julia and co fall for this then maybe they deserve to lose power.
I don’t know that anyone regardless of their political stripes deserves Abbott.
Its more than just Kevin or Julia.
The issue is does the party have a leader all the powerbrokers can get behind, or more imnportantly – do the Labor powerbrokers realize how important that is for the country. I don’t want 5 minutes of Abbott in the Lodge.
From Michael Pearce a Melbourne lawyer and ALP member since 1976:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/should-the-alp-labour-on-or-is-the-party-over-20110410-1d9ba.html
It is a unrepresentative exit poll and in no way resembles what happened in the 2010 election in either of the two federal seats.
In the seat of Fraser there was a first preference swing away from Labor of 5.29%. Andrew Leigh received 45.81% of the first preference votes. Source: http://results.aec.gov.au/15508/Website/HouseDivisionFirstPrefs-15508-102.htm
The swing is nothing like 1 in 4 Labor voters switching, more like 1 in 10.
In the seat of Canberra the first preference swing was away from Labor of 6.87%. Gai Brodtmann received 44.23% first preference votes. Source : http://results.aec.gov.au/15508/Website/HouseDivisionFirstPrefs-15508-101.htm
Again this is nowhere near 25% of Labor voters switching.
After preferences were counted Canberra -2.67% and Fraser -0.89% against Labor.
This is just lazy ‘reporting’ by Mark Davis of the Age, it certainly does not count as journalism.
It also exposes that we in the bloggosphere take ‘statements of fact’ by professional journalists at face value rather than check easily obtainable figures ourselves.
OOps my bad I made a lazy assumption that because it was an ANU study that it was ACT based. slap me down fast.
@harley, Don’t you think that the reduction in Labor vote in the ACT would be partially due to the fact that both Brodtmann and Leigh are first-timers, so don’t have incumbency advantage?
I&U is exactly right – we cannot observe the counterfactual, which allows all participants in this debate to effectively make one up in a way that suits their respective biases. I’m as guilty of this as anyone.
Harley – two points – first, Canberra isn’t representative of the nation. But second, and most important, the change in the stock doesn’t give an accurate estimate of the flows between parties. So, in principle, you could have no change in the 2pp vote in a seat but have every individual change their vote.