Australia - 7 September 2013

[morgieb]

Question: how hard will Labor fight the mining tax's repeal?

Depends on whether the tax does anything, which it sounds like it doesn't.

With the carbon tax, Abbott's DA policy just seems bad. While the evidence around a carbon tax is unclear, it's just sounds ridiculous and economically unsound.

BTW what is Xenophon's position on the carbon tax?

[morgieb]

Xenophon support repeal, but repeal and replace. No one I know in climate science/advocacy etc etc takes direct action seriously.

Ehh?

[morgieb]

Xenophon support repeal, but repeal and replace. No one I know in climate science/advocacy etc etc takes direct action seriously.

Ehh?

He's basically on the same page as Rudd... replace with an ETS.

Fair enough.

Given the carbon tax is becoming an ETS anyway, that will make it hard for the Coalition to repeal barring an extremely lucky roll of the Senate dice (the right need to win 4/6 in at least two states, possible but unlikely).

[morgieb]

Was that the same Teddy that used to post here?

[morgieb]

I think Labor barely hang on to Hindmarsh (my predictions say it'll be the closest loss), keep Adelaide due to Greens preferences (seats like that don't swing that much) and hold on against a large swing in Wakefield.

As for La Trobe, I reckon Labor lose it, but it'll go to whoever wins the election. Ditto Greenway.

[morgieb]

Teddy's predicting a 97-50-3 result.

Paul Murray says this is precisely Latham's prediction, actually.

Given what Teddy was banned for, it makes sense

[morgieb]

I'm having trouble funding more than 15 I could confidently names as losses.

Funding?

[morgieb]

What I expect on election night:

* NSW to look ugly. I predicted a loss of 7 seats in the Sydney commuter belt, and there could be more. Nevertheless, the swing will be largely restricted to Sydney, and the worse fears of a wipeout will be dumbfounded.
* Victoria to depress Labor, but there are too many safe seats to really hurt them.
* Queensland to hold up wellish, although there'll be a further swing in Brisbane at least.
* South Australia to swing hard, but it ultimately won't cost them further seats.
* Not much change in Western Australia.
* Tasmania to look ugly, but at least Labor will sort of hang on.
* No-one to talk about territories, yet some further movement away from Labor.
* In general, 3rd parties to underachieve. Although I predicted that the LNP will lose Fairfax, I'll now say that the 3rd parties won't really dent the current pendulum. Personally, the KAP won't do much, the PUP will underperform and a lot of Senate bolters won't happen.

At the end of the day, it won't look that bad, but it'll make it hard to win government back. But it could still easily be Queensland 2.0.

As for the Senate (my HOR predictions are in another thread)

NSW: At this stage, I'll say 3 LNP, 2 Labor, 1 Green. One Nation not getting Liberal preferences will screw them given that the LNP will probably be around 3 quotas . Shooters & Fishers an outside shot of gaining the last seat off the Greens, though.

Victoria: Lean 3 LNP, 2 Labor, 1 Green. Think the LNP will be high enough to ward off FFP for the 3rd right spot.

Queensland: Not really sure how to call this. But given that the Greens have more infrastructure in the state than the Palmer United Party, I'll say they win the last seat with the PUP's preferences. 3 LNP, 2 Labor, 1 Green. I initially had Katter winning here, but his party seems to be slumping.

South Australia: 2 Liberal, 2 Labor, 1 Xenophon, 1 TCS. The Climate Skeptics, you may ask? Well, they've got a very good preference flow, and with Xenophon here, it makes it harder for the major parties to get near a 3rd quota. Plus the slogan "No Carbon Tax" may get them some votes, a negligible proportion too, but enough to snatch the last seat.

Western Australia: 3 Liberal, 2 Labor, 1 Green. Though it will be close for the last seat between the Greens and the Nationals. NFI how the preference flows will go.

Tasmania: Undoubtedly the most boring election - I expect the Liberals to get around 3 quotas, Labor to get around 2, and the Greens to get around 1.

ACT: Hard to see Liberals doing worse here than in 2010, given this is probably one of the few locations in Australia where the Gillard-but-not-Rudd population is more than negligible, and a general swing towards the Coalition, despite the candidates for the Liberals and the Greens, so 1 Labor, 1 Liberal.

Northern Territory: 1 Labor, 1 Liberal. Doubt Labor gets under a quota, if they do, they may get swamped by the First Nations Party (basically a party for Indigenous rights, kinda like the Maori Party in New Zealand).


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Also, Palmer apparently opposes the carbon tax, yet supports an ETS. So even if he does win it'll be hard to get repeal through the Senate...virtually impossible if the Greens get the last seat in South Australia.

[morgieb]

What time do the polls close?

6pm.

[morgieb]

Speaking of said Newspoll, PVO previewed it on Twitter by saying "my oh my oh my." Since everyone else is saying 53 or 54 Coalition, presumably either showing a swing back to Lab or a double digit Coalition lead.

I reckon he's probably trolling. But I reckon it's the latter.

[morgieb]

Final predictions. Mixture of polling data, along with some gut, because preferences will do weird things and predicting exactly what'll happen will be tough.

Queensland:

ALP --> LNP:
Moreton
Petrie

IND --> LNP:
Fisher

LNP --> ALP:
Dawson
Herbert

LNP --> PUP:
Fairfax

Senate: LNP 2 (-1), ALP 2 (-1), KAP 1 (+1), FF 1 (+1)

New South Wales:
ALP --> LIB:
Banks
Kingsford Smith
Reid
Robertson
Parramatta
Werriwa

IND --> LIB:
Dobell

IND --> NAT:
Lyne
New England

Senate: LIB/NAT 3 (-), ALP 2 (-1), GRN 1 (+1)

Victoria:
ALP --> LIB:
Corangamite
Deakin
LaTrobe

LIB --> IND:
Indi

NAT --> LIB:
Mallee

Senate: LIB/NAT 3 (-), ALP 2 (-1), WIKI 1 (+1)

Tasmania:
ALP --> LIB:
Bass
Braddon

IND --> LIB:
Denison (probably the single biggest upset I'm predicting...Labor preferencing Wilkie last here)

Senate: LIB 3 (+1), ALP 2 (-1), GRN 1 (-)

South Australia:
no change

Senate: LIB 2 (-), ALP 2 (-), XEN 1 (-), GRN 1 (-)

Western Australia:
LIB --> WANAT:
Durack

Senate: LIB 2 (-1), ALP 2 (-), GRN 1 (-), WANAT 1 (+1)

Northern Territory:
ALP --> CLP:
Lingiari

Senate: CLP 1 (-), AFNPP 1 (+1), ALP 0 (-1)

Australian Capital Territory:
no change

Senate: ALP 1 (-), GRN 1 (+1), LIB 0 (-1)

House of Representatives Total: Coalition 85; Australian Labor Party 59; WA Nationals 2; Greens 1; Katter's Australian Party 1; Palmer United Party 1; Cathy McGowan 1

Senate Total (χάος): Coalition 32; Australian Labor Party 26; Greens 11; Australian First Nations Political Party 1; Democratic Labor Party 1; Family First 1; Katter's Australian Party 1; WA Nationals 1; Wikileaks 1; Nick Xenophon 1

You don't think Lindsay will go Liberal?

I suppose the argument here could be what Scott said about asylum seekers, but 1. it won't hurt that much in that electorate and 2. it was probably too late in the game anyway.

What's the worst Labor could do you all think?  Of course here's another one, what's the worst Liberals could do?  I know Liberals probably won't lose seats but just wanted to ask this.

Worst Labor could do is for the Liberals to get above 100 seats. I doubt a 1975-esque election could happen, but it might, and a lot of the big-name pollsters are saying 54/46 (although going by the election calculator, that says 90 seats for the LNP).

NFI for worst for the Liberals....probably Liberals having less than 80 seats.

[morgieb]

You can watch any of ABC, 7, 9, 10 or Sky News, but I'd recommend the ABC, and I have NFI how many of them are geo-blocked.

[morgieb]

Apparently a 'pessimistic' mood in Kevin Rudd's electorate.

But surely it's too safe to lose?

[morgieb]

At least it won't be a landslide #silverlinings

[morgieb]

Yeah, I can't see Labor losing that much seats on a 36% primary votes.

[morgieb]

RB, can you think of any way of getting around reading articles which are blocked for non-subscribers? I don't want to give my money to right-wing corporations

[morgieb]

I think Emerson's jumping the shark here.

I guess Craig Emerson thinks that Kevin Rudd's leadership was a horror movie. It shocked him right out of his brain.