Saturday, August 21, 2010 - Australian Federal Election

[Phony Moderate]

There seems to be an incredible lack of discussion on this, at least compared to the 2007 Federal Election.

[Hash]

There seems to be an incredible lack of discussion on this, at least compared to the 2007 Federal Election.

Discussion in this board, or at least discussion of substance, has declined quite a bit since 2007, atleast imo.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Discussion begats discussion.

[Platypus]

It's an unbelievably dull election, to be honest. Last time was far more interesting because you had the possibility of fundamental change, and also the whole Bennelong factor. This time, people don't expect much to change, and even if Abbot6t did win, they don't expect a huge change in government.

[minionofmidas]

I'm reading. I just don't have much to say. -_-

[You kip if you want to...]

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election/gillards-a-total-failure-says-howard-20100805-11kx0.html

You're really calling the kettle black there, John.

[You kip if you want to...]

Are we still all pretty sure that Labor will win? I'm not.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Are we still all pretty sure that Labor will win? I'm not.

Sure? No, certainly not. The polls are close (another out today has a small Coalition lead, fwiw) after all. But incumbency can be a major advantage in Australia and, as such, Labor are clearly more likely to win. Say, two out of three or something like that.

[You kip if you want to...]

Are we still all pretty sure that Labor will win? I'm not.

Sure? No, certainly not. The polls are close (another out today has a small Coalition lead, fwiw) after all. But incumbency can be a major advantage in Australia and, as such, Labor are clearly more likely to win. Say, two out of three or something like that.

What's the new poll? I've only seen a marginals poll showing a 2.7% swing to the coalition today.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Are we still all pretty sure that Labor will win? I'm not.

Sure? No, certainly not. The polls are close (another out today has a small Coalition lead, fwiw) after all. But incumbency can be a major advantage in Australia and, as such, Labor are clearly more likely to win. Say, two out of three or something like that.

What's the new poll? I've only seen a marginals poll showing a 2.7% swing to the coalition today.

51/49 (Nielsen) according to Pollbludger. Some better news for Labor in Western Australia, though; a poll there has the Coalition leading 52/48 which is a small swing to Labor from 2007.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Bad news for the ALP: a poll of the iconic swing-seat of Lindsay has them trailing 51/49 (swing of 7pts).
Good news for the ALP: a poll of the regional Queensland seat of Dawson (a shock ALP gain in 2007 and an open seat this time) shows a tie (swing of 2.4pts).

The record of constituency polling in Australia is, of course, as diabolical as it is elsewhere.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

51/49 (Nielsen)

The last Nielsen poll was 52/48 to the Coalition, fwiw.

[Smid]

Bad news for the ALP: a poll of the iconic swing-seat of Lindsay has them trailing 51/49 (swing of 7pts).
Good news for the ALP: a poll of the regional Queensland seat of Dawson (a shock ALP gain in 2007 and an open seat this time) shows a tie (swing of 2.4pts).

The record of constituency polling in Australia is, of course, as diabolical as it is elsewhere.

Lindsay was a surprise gain for the Coalition in 1996. Prior to that it was a typical Western Sydney seat that didn't vote for us. It's centred on Penrith, where there was a by-election in late June. Prior to the by-election, Penrith had only had one Liberal MP since its creation in (I think) the 1960s. Federally, Lindsay has probably become something of a go-with-government sort of outer suburban seat with a very slight Labor lean (in my opinion). It's probably the epitome of the "Howard Battlers" seats.

Dawson has some mining communities, I think, so that poll result is a surprise for me. There was another one mentioned in The Age, which said a marginal seats poll of Bowman and Bonner has the Coalition ahead 51-49, but was concluded before Rudd came out and said he'd start campaigning. A large part of Bonner was represented by Rudd once upon a time.

The redistribution prior to the 2004 election created Bonner - the northern part, which votes strongly Labor, came from Bowman, changing Bowman from a Labor seat to a Liberal one. The suburbs in the middle - Carindale and Belmont - are probably Upper-Middle income suburbs and definitely mortgage belt, they voted for Rudd and he was very popular there (mainly because he focused his campaign attention there). His popularity can in part be seen by the large swings in those booths during the 2004 election when he was no longer the Labor candidate, (although they were probably somewhat influenced by the interest rates campaign advertising). The southern suburbs of Bonner around Mansfield and Wishart came from Moreton and are kind of Brisbane's Bible Belt - there are a couple of large protestant churches there, one of which is now affiliated with Hillsongs. The very southern part of Bonner is Rochedale, which also came from Moreton. It was predominantly farming - that sort of market gardening type of farm, but is being subdivided into suburbia.

Anyway, Bonner is probably a slight lean-Labor seat, and Rudd was very popular in a significant part of it - which could make Gillard particularly unpopular in those parts.

Bowman had a problem with printing prior to the last election. The MP was cleared (and the federal police officer in charge of the investigation was the wife of a Labor state Minister, make of that what you will), so there was a stronger than expected swing in Bowman. A very nice golf course estate (where the entire suburb is built surrounding a golf course) and voted strongly Liberal (Cornubia, for the record), was cut out of Bowman at the recent redistribution, making the electorate notionally too close to call. I think some of it is likely to swing back to the Liberals because most people will have forgotten the supposed scandal by now. For this reason, I am somewhat sceptical about doing a poll of Bowman and Bonner and aggregating the results.

Touching back on Lindsay biefly, there was a by-election there following the 1996 federal election because of the surprise win by the Liberals. The new MP had been an Air Force officer prior to the election campaign and Labor thought it would reverse the result if there was a by-election, and so they challenged her election because of the Office of Profit Under the Crown rules (lower down the page of that link actually discusses the Kelly case and provides a link to a Word document of the findings of the Court). Actually, just read the findings and it turns out Labor wasn't looking for a by-election, it was attempting to have the Liberal ballot papers distributed to other candidates, it was the Court that demanded a by-election.

Of course, Governments aren't elected by popular vote, they're elected by individual electorates, so it's entirely possible that the Liberal Party could win the most votes, but still lose the election. In recent elections, this happened in 1998 federally, when Howard was returned with under 50% 2PP, in 2004 Brisbane City Council election, where the Lord Mayor (who is elected popularly) was the Liberal candidate, but he had to deal with a Labor majority council, and probably the worst result (in terms of not reflecting the will of the people) is the South Australian state election from a couple of months ago, where 53% of voters backed the Liberals, and yet they still lost (53% is the point where the election should be bordering on a landslide - most elections don't get much more decisive than that).

There seems to be an incredible lack of discussion on this, at least compared to the 2007 Federal Election.

I don't tend to talk about it much because of my involvement with the campaign.

[You kip if you want to...]

What would happen in the case of a hung parliament in Australia with the 3 INDs and a Green from Tanner's seat? Would there be a pact or is a minority government viable due to the government only falling short of a majority by a handful?

[Smid]

Depends, of course, on the numbers, but the indies are more likely to back the Coalition. Bob "Mad as a" Katter is a former National Party Member (I think he was a Minister in Sir Joh's regime government), and extremely socially conservative, although something of an agrarian socialist. The Greens would back Labor (very obviously).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Newspoll: 52/48 to Labor.

[You kip if you want to...]

Newspoll: 52/48 to Labor.

Primary vote:
Coalition 42
Labour 39
Greens 13

[You kip if you want to...]

Gillard ambushed by Mark Latham. How awkward.

Galaxy poll
51/49 to Labor

42 Coalition
38 ALP
13 Greens

[Phony Moderate]

Morgan Poll:

Labor - 57.5%
Coalition - 42.5%



http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-12/gillard-pulls-ahead-of-abbott-fortnight-before-election-morgan-poll-says.html

[Filuwaúrdjan]

lolmorgan

[minionofmidas]

When pigs fly.

[Phony Moderate]

Australia's Mori?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Australia's Mori?

Worse; Mori gets it right sometimes. They were *shudders* one of the more accurate companies in the last GE.

[You kip if you want to...]

Australia's Mori?

Worse; Mori gets it right sometimes. They were *shudders* one of the more accurate companies in the last GE.

Australia's Angus-Reid? Only it's Labor that do insanely well.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Australia's Mori?

Worse; Mori gets it right sometimes. They were *shudders* one of the more accurate companies in the last GE.

Australia's Angus-Reid? Only it's Labor that do insanely well.

No. Morgan do face-to-face polls.