The final verdict – the whole thing is probably a bit of a side show.

The by-election results did, of course, lead to a particularly risible bit of Newspoll analysis (pace Possum) about the fabulous favour the Libs had done themselves by electing Tony Abbott, but since then, they’ve been kinda subsumed in the broader narrative of the Coalition’s Abbott/Joyce/Return of the Living Dead desire to rebadge ‘Howard’s battler’s’ as ‘Abbott’s Army’. A new piece of punditarial common sense in the making…

No doubt everyone will have forgotten Bradfield and Higgins soon, but in the meantime, Antony Green observes:

In my view there are very few implications that can be drawn from Saturday night’s result. Yes the Liberal Party improved its hold on both seats. However, both seats are unrepresentative of the general electorate because they are both very safe Liberal seats. There was no Labor candidate in either seat, making it hard to assess the results as a normal two-party contest. The Liberal party also ran highly localised campaigns in both seats and this played a part in isolating the result from the internal party shenanigans that went on in Canberra the week before the poll.

In summary, not much happened, everyone should move on.

Instead, journalists and bloggers across the country have become auguries, examining the entrails of the booth by booth results to try and divine some patterns. Godammit, it was an election, it must mean something!!

Green goes on to parse George Megalogenis’ claims in The Australian this morning (which I can’t find online). It’s a lengthy analysis, but the really important implications for Australian politics are contained in the last section:

In its article, the Australian draws implications for the Labor-Liberal contest from the swings in both seats. I think a better case could be made for using the results to examine how Labor voters react to the Greens as a political party.

The Australian is right in drawing the conclusion that Labor voters may react badly if the Labor Party adopted a strong Green agenda. Everything we know about the class support of Australian political parties shows that jobs, the economy and industrial relations are important for defining the differences between the Labor and Liberal Parties. Green issues are emerging as another point of difference, but old fashioned relationship based on the means of production still distinguish between the support bases of Australia’s major parties.

Were attitudes to climate change to dominate the political battleground at the 2010 election, then some of the conclusions drawn by the Australian would be valid. Attitudes to climate change plays an important role in defining Green support in opposition to the support base of the major parties. This is why a by-election between the Liberals and Greens can’t really be used to try and draw conclusions about a contest at the next election between the Labor and Liberal Parties. Some of the Green issues that created a difference between the Liberals and Greens also create a point of difference between Labor and the Greens.

My analysis of what happened to Labor’s first preference vote at the by-election reveals a more complex picture of the by-election than painted by the Australian and highlights the differences between Labor and Green support. The analysis also helps explain why the Labor Party has always wanted to negotiate passage of its emissions trading scheme with the Liberal Party rather than debate the detail with the Greens.

A final note should also be made on the quality of the data. The turnout in both seats was well down on the 2007 election and the informal vote up. The booths that showed the largest swings to the Liberals also happened to be the booths on the edge of the electorate, where the absence of Absent voting at the by-election may have changed the composition of who voted at the booths. Several of the booths with the largest swings, including Toorak West, Hughesdale North and Chatswood, were also booths where there was a dramatic change in the number of votes taken.

Update: The article Antony Green referred to can be found here.

Reports of the amount of money the Libs have been spending suggest that they must be seriously worried about Higgins. It’s difficult to say from this distance, but a number of observers suggest that The Greens’ Clive Hamilton has not run much of a grass roots campaign. That could be scuttlebutt, and I’d be very interested in any views from those closer to the action. But the prospect of the Liberals losing Higgins to The Greens is quite an extraordinary one, and the converse to the ‘Labor should have run’ argument is that it would be an even greater reverse for the opposition than the seat falling to the ALP (though, as Hugo Kelly and Rebekka Power argue, it could be a case of Labor strategists being too clever by half in handing The Greens an inner city Melbourne base).

If Hamilton runs Kelly O’Dwyer close, it will highlight the absurdity of the argument that the Liberals, in rejecting the ETS and elevating Abbott, were playing to their ‘base’. If Higgins isn’t a blue ribbon Lib seat, it’s hard to think of one. As Antony Green observed, while the margin has sometimes been deceptively narrow, the consistency of the Liberal hold on the areas that make up the core of the electorate is what counts.

The other fascination about these by-election contests is that they represent the first test of the new Liberal leader in seats held by one of his two predecessors this term (both of whom now hold sinecures courtesy of Kevin Rudd and the Labor government), and of course, the former electorate of the Great Pretender to the Liberal crown. A loss in either one would be a devastating blow. I wonder how the results will be called, and if there’ll be a bit of bar raising by the commentariat, but serious reverses on the primary vote in either or both seats should speak for themselves. Again, the case for Labor not running candidates in by-elections in Liberal seats is that the focus will be all on the opposition, as opposed to the usual media predictathon when governments lose traction at by-elections.

It should be interesting to watch both unfold. Please feel free to add any reports and links to this thread throughout the day!

Update: The Liberals have retained both seats, it would appear with increased margins on the 2PP. Looking at Higgins, the key is the fact that the Greens’ primary vote is less than Labor’s at the 2007 general election. [Update: That previous comment was made with a number of booths still outstanding. But see also this analysis from Rebekka Power.] It’s evident that there are a fair few ALP voters who won’t vote Green, something I noted on a number of occasions. No doubt these results will be spun as a great victory for Abbott, but the missing element in the equation is the absence of a Labor candidate.

Having said that, I still think The Greens made a big mistake by nationalising the contest, and running a candidate like Clive Hamilton. Kelly O’Dwyer’s ‘Mayor of Higgins’ campaign capitalised on his outsider status well, it would seem. I suggested previously that The Greens might have done better to run a well known local – parochialism always plays well in by-elections, particularly against blow-ins, as the Liberal research no doubt showed. As I intimated in the post, there may have been an element of expectations management going on, with the Libs talking down their chances in advance of the vote.

But I think it’s fair to say that The Greens won’t, and shouldn’t be, happy with the outcome.

But the Libs shouldn’t be all that happy either, as they know full well they ran defensive strategies avoiding the big issues of national politics. These seats should be a total shoo-in for anyone with the Libs’ label on the ballot paper.

The final verdict – the whole thing is probably a bit of a side show.

(a) It’s been intriguing to see the focus of political discussion narrow to the Parliamentary dramatics. Journalists – and one suspects, many Liberal MPs – appear to have completely lost sight of the effect that Turnbull’s stand might be having on the public. I’d be very surprised if there isn’t a lot of sympathy for him and his position. Yet those normally obsessed with Newspoll now equate politics with a bunch of lunatics gathered in Nick Minchin’s office, rather than even stopping to think about how all this might be playing with voters. I wonder whether Newspoll will be asking questions about the Liberal leadership this weekend – its owners might not like the answers;

(b) The Liberal Right have shown themselves to be completely unelectable crazies. Liberals are not Republicans and Australia is not America. This appears to be news to some, and it’s hard to know why;

(c) Conversely, text messages and phone calls and emails from Liberal party members and Andrew Bolt’s followers do not equate to a shift in public opinion. The Libs’ only chance of being an effective opposition, and gathering votes in the centre, is to go with Turnbull’s position. The much vaunted ‘base’ will not vote Labor in a pink fit, and a stack of Liberal seats would be at risk if a Leader is elected who is a reactionary on Howard era issues such as climate change denialism and industrial relations. That was clear enough from Kevin Andrews’ press conference where most questions were about the past, and his right wing stance. This is John Howard’s poisonous legacy to his party;

(d) Talk of Turnbull’s ‘management style’ is merely code for the Liberal right refusing to be led by one not of their own. ‘Consultation’ means caving in to dinosaurs. Who’s really the arrogant one in this equation? More likely to be Nick Minchin and his mates;

(e) If Turnbull is toppled tomorrow or on Monday, and leaves Parliament, who really believes an Abbott led Liberal Party would retain Wentworth in a by-election? This is the craziness – Members like Michael Johnson in Ryan calling for Turnbull’s ousting while holding a ‘leafy’ and very marginal seat which has many moderate Liberal voters. It’s not the only one. Kelly O’Dwyer in Higgins, for instance, is going to face a lot of pressure to take a stand on climate change and the ETS in the lead up to the by-election for Peter Costello’s former seat. The Liberals’ actual base is multiple and plural, and they can’t hold it by playing only to the revanchists.

Update: Turnbull’s press conference is now on YouTube.

Elsewhere: Politically Homeless.

Elsewhere: Club Troppo, The Stump.

Update: Fresh post – Abbott will stand for the leadership on Monday.

While Possum appeared to believe that The Greens had a shot at Higgins (and blew it with the preselection of Hamilton), Antony Green is much more sceptical. In a new post on his election blog, Green highlights historical data demonstrating that the margin in Higgins somewhat belies how safe the seat probably is in reality. He also argues, on the basis of a number of federal and state by-elections, that a prominent local may well have been a better pick, a point I also made in my post.

In both Cunningham and Fremantle, the Greens ran candidates with local credentials who could concentrate on local issues, classic think global act local politics. Yet in Higgins the Greens have done the reverse, choosing a candidate who lives in Canberra and has no links to the electorate, and is running on a climate change agenda that can only be described as act global politics. It is the exact opposite of a previously successful Green strategy.

As Andrew Norton observes, Hamilton criticising seems to be a politically ecumenical practice in the blogosphere.

Guy Rundle puts a contrary view.

I’m by no means enamoured of some of the ideas Hamilton has put forward over the years, but I don’t know that judging him on that basis is necessarily the most appropriate mode of evaluating his prospects as a political representative. I was also struck by Guy Beres‘ comment:

It’s all a bit incestuous when you think about it. The Greens famously courted Peter Garrett on numerous occasions before his controversial decision during the (pre-explosion) Latham era to join the Labor Party. In years past, high-profile players within the Labor Party organisation seriously entertained the idea of Malcolm Turnbull joining the ALP’s ranks. One does wonder whether Clive Hamilton would be considered an asset as a candidate by the Labor Party. Clearly his strong views on the nature of modern capitalism, climate change and stringent opposition to nuclear power paint him as more of a natural Greens candidate. Leaving aside the much debated travails of Peter Garrett for a moment, just what sort of impact could a few high-profile leftish intellectuals have on the parliamentary Labor party?

My other observation would be that I’m not sure that high profile candidates necessarily fare better in by-elections, where the name of the game isn’t really to attract national media attention, but grass roots campaigning on the ground. I have no knowledge of the degree to which Hamilton has or has not been involved in community politics and campaigning on a local level in the suburbs encompassed by Higgins, but my general view would be that such a candidate would be a good bet for an increased vote. In light of the commentary around the Higgins by-election as a barometer on climate change policy, The Greens might have been thinking that’s the better tack to take.

It’s going to be an interesting contest, whichever way it pans out.

Previously on LP: A couple of earlier posts on the Higgins contest.

Update: Legal Eagle.

Update: Hamilton on Hamilton.

Update: En Passant.

Update: Since this post has largely focused on Hamilton rather than electoral strategy and the likely outcomes in Higgins, I’ve put up a new one on that topic, linking to a recent analysis from Antony Green.

Among his observations:

Safe Liberal seats in Melbourne have never been as safe as the safest Liberal seats in Sydney. In Sydney the price of desirable land with trees and a view plays an important part in sieving people by class. Without the complex geography of hills, plains and harbour shores, Melbourne’s suburbs have always showed more class mixing than Sydney.

Green doesn’t believe Labor will run a candidate. I think he’s probably right, and the clue as to why is disclosed in another of his comments:

The Greens will nominate and poll well in the absence of a Labor candidate. The problem for the Liberal Party in both Bradfield and Higgins is to try and avoid an adverse swing. The Greens will campaign on the need for climate change action, so a swing to the Greens at either by-election would raise pressure on the Liberal Party during Senate debate on the government’s emission trading legislation.

Any swing would allow the Greens to argue the public wants more action on emissions than the government is offering. But it would also allow the government to argue the Liberal Party should at least back the government’s legislation.