Australia 2022 Election

[GoTfan]

I do think the Coalition will end up winning. A decade of Liberal government and nothing accomplished.

[morgieb]

I do think the Coalition will end up winning. A decade of Liberal government and nothing accomplished.

This feels a weird election to assess. Not sure whether 2019 trauma is to blame or whether it's because of how people see the candidates (Scotty disliked but approvals holding up better than you'd might expect and Albo not really being seen positively) but I honestly have no idea where this could go. I could see the Coalition pulling it out of the fire, I could see Labor winning in a landslide.

Most likely result seems a narrow Labor majority but it's certainly not something I feel comfortable prediciting.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

What are the minority government scenarios here? What numbers do labours/collation require for a minority government?

[morgieb]

What are the minority government scenarios here? What numbers do labours/collation require for a minority government?

It depends on the size of the crossbench. As for who the crossbenchers might back:

* Bandt - will support Labor
* Wilkie - supported Labor in 2010, and holds a left-wing electorate. Will support Labor.
* Katter - should support the Coalition, but does seem friendly with Albanese and the state party are on decent enough terms with the ALP.
* Sharkie - has hinted she'll back the Coalition.
* Steggall - unclear. Has hinted that she might back the Coalition if Morrison goes, but that seems unlikely. Her big issues seem ones that Labor will advocate for better than the Coalition.
* Haines - no idea. Maybe Coalition as her seat is usually a conservative one.

As for the Teals - see Steggall. Le was ex-Coalition so might back them for that reason, but her seat (if she wins it) would otherwise be safe Labor.....

Any other Indies I've missed?

So if one party reaches 74, they'll hold minority government. 73 and under and it's a complete lottery. Maybe the party that wins the most seats will win, but it'll be unstable as hell and the chances of there being another election soon afterwards will skyrocket.

[Pulaski]

Katter would definitely support the Coalition, no chance he'd support Labor. He supported the Coalition in 2010 and his seat is very conservative. Plus, he's a nutter.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Something else that's moved Libs away from preferencing the Greens is their expansion away from purely being an environmentalist party and having a broader policy agenda (which of course is made up of standard left-wing stuff). I think the "Tree Tory" voter phenomenon is very much alive but these voters are much more likely to bolt towards a teal independent that cleverly keeps a narrow focus than ever vote for or preference a Greens candidate that they see as some kind of pseudo-Marxist.

Is there actually room in Australian politics for a conservative enviormentla policy ? I remember hearing something about some science party. I guess Sustaniable Australia is a bit like that with their stance on cutting economic immigration, but they haven't had much mainstream succses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Australia

Historically that would have been the electorate of the Australian Democrats tbh

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Something else that's moved Libs away from preferencing the Greens is their expansion away from purely being an environmentalist party and having a broader policy agenda (which of course is made up of standard left-wing stuff). I think the "Tree Tory" voter phenomenon is very much alive but these voters are much more likely to bolt towards a teal independent that cleverly keeps a narrow focus than ever vote for or preference a Greens candidate that they see as some kind of pseudo-Marxist.

Is there actually room in Australian politics for a conservative enviormentla policy ? I remember hearing something about some science party. I guess Sustaniable Australia is a bit like that with their stance on cutting economic immigration, but they haven't had much mainstream succses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Australia

Historically that would have been the electorate of the Australian Democrats tbh

I thought the greens bit off the biggest chunk of their electorate, in providing a center-left not labour option ?

[GoTfan]

Murdoch media, subtle as always!

https://twitter.com/MartinPakulaMP/status/1520526986145591296

[S019]

Labor launched their campaign in Western Australia today. Albanese's speech made some attacks on the government and he also revealed a few new policies. I noticed a particularly strong focus (throughout the speech) on Labor's plans for aged care, the NDIS, the housing crisis, and energy.

[GoTfan]

Labor launched their campaign in Western Australia today. Albanese's speech made some attacks on the government and he also revealed a few new policies. I noticed a particularly strong focus (throughout the speech) on Labor's plans for aged care, the NDIS, the housing crisis, and energy.

Interesting.

I would've lobbed some national security stuff in there myself.

[DL]

Two. We polls out today. News poll still has Labor ahead on 2PP 53-47 and essential has Labor ahead 54-46. Were it not for the polls having underestimated the Coalition in 2019 people would regard this election is a done deal and a Labor win as a virtual certainty. Presumably polling companies have tweaked their models to avoid repeating the mistake of 2019

[GoTfan]

Two. We polls out today. News poll still has Labor ahead on 2PP 53-47 and essential has Labor ahead 54-46. Were it not for the polls having underestimated the Coalition in 2019 people would regard this election is a done deal and a Labor win as a virtual certainty. Presumably polling companies have tweaked their models to avoid repeating the mistake of 2019

2019 gave us in the ALP a hell of a lot of shellshock. You think the 2015 UK election was a shock? This was even worse.

It is true that the polling groups-NewsPoll in particular-has tweaked their modelling and indeed accurately predicted the result of the SA election when most of us believed the Liberals would hold on with the backing of independents. Neither side is putting much stock outwardly in the polls though because this is the first time those tweaks are being tested at the federal level.

[DL]

Sometimes pollsters can over correct and the error in polls doesn’t always go the same way. In 2010 and in 2017 the polls in the UK underestimated Labour. In 2015 they underestimated the Tories. In Australia there tends to be less polling misses because voting is compulsory and so there is less of a differential turnout factor. Apart from 2019 I think in every other Australian election I can remember the polls were highly accurate. Though wasn’t there an election in the early 90s when Labor under Paul Keating had a shock win when everyone echoed them
To lose?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If we think back to 2019 the last poll before the election to give Labor more than 52% on the 2PP was conducted in early April, before the campaign period began. Labor's lead during the campaign was constant but narrow: it only required a small polling error for a different outcome and that is what occurred. With present polling there either needs to be a larger polling error or a narrowing of the polls and the same small error for the same outcome as last time. Neither of these things are impossible, but we should be rational about these things.

[icc]

If we think back to 2019 the last poll before the election to give Labor more than 52% on the 2PP was conducted in early April, before the campaign period began. Labor's lead during the campaign was constant but narrow: it only required a small polling error for a different outcome and that is what occurred. With present polling there either needs to be a larger polling error or a narrowing of the polls and the same small error for the same outcome as last time. Neither of these things are impossible, but we should be rational about these things.

Quite - this is obviously a hostage to fortune, but it rather reminds me of 1997 in the UK. A big Labo(u)r lead which people don’t believe due to the shock of the previous election.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Does anyone have a link to labours manifesto ?

[Pulaski]

An interesting section on Radio National this morning with former senator and current analyst John Black, which you can listen to here if you're as boring as I am. A few points from him:

- He's putting Braddon (Tas), Bass (Tas), Boothby (SA), Chisholm (Vic), Swan (WA) and Pearce (WA) firmly in Labor's column. The only one I'd dispute is Pearce. It's in WA where there's an extremely popular Labor government and the current Liberal member Christian Porter is resigning in disgrace, so it's a good pickup opportunity, but the margin of 7.5% means I wouldn't bank on it just yet.

- On current polling, Black also has Casey (Vic), Lindsay (NSW), Reid (NSW), Bennelong (NSW), Hasluck (WA), Brisbane (Qld), Longman (Qld), Ryan (Qld), Dickson (Qld) and Leichhardt (Qld) as Labor gains. I'm sceptical about Bennelong and all of those Queensland seats except Longman. Leichhardt in particular is one I'm very bearish on; it is a marginal seat but the local member Warren Entsch is a well-known moderate and quite popular with his electorate. Plus northern Queensland seems to be trending further and further away from Labor.

- Black is also bullish on the Greens based on a poll giving them 18% of the vote to Labor's 27% in Queensland; these represent +5% and -4% on 2019 respectively. Based on this, he thinks Griffith, Ryan and Brisbane could be in play for the Greens if they can leapfrog Labor into second place. (Griffith is held by Labor, the other two are LNP). Black believes because Queensland hasn't seen a surge of teal independents, voters angry with the Coalition (educated women in particular) are moving to the Greens instead. I'm also sceptical on this because the Green vote tends to be overestimated in most polls, but Black said that Griffith (where he lives) is seeing a particularly strong ground game from them, so might be one to keep an eye on come election night.

[Pericles]

Minor quibble but Pearce is now notionally a 5.2% margin, not 7.5%. Thanks for the link though, I'll check it out.

[S019]

In addition to what Pulaski said, he noted that Wentworth and North Sydney are favored to fall to the independents, and that the independents have a real shot at Goldstein, Kooyong, and (somewhat surprisingly) Curtin. Also I got the impression that he said Labor was favored in Bennelong (which I agree with Pulaski that it's something to be skeptical of, especially since he seemed to imply it was an easier seat for Labor than Lindsay or Reid), I'm a bit surprised that Banks and Robertson aren't more competitive given how close those seats were in 2016 and the swing to Labor in NSW that the polls are showing.

[DL]

What is that makes higher income people who are socially liberal and care about the environment so résistent to simply voting for the Labor Party, as opposed to voting for all these so called “teal independents”? It’s not as if the ALP stands for socialist Revolution. In the UK just about all of those urban “remain” types who care about climate change vote Labour. Is it some weird cultural vestigial attitude that makes professional university educated types in Australia look down their noses at the ALP because they grew up being told that only “icky manual labourers” voted ALP?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

What is that makes higher income people who are socially liberal and care about the environment so résistent to simply voting for the Labor Party, as opposed to voting for all these so called “teal independents”? It’s not as if the ALP stands for socialist Revolution. In the UK just about all of those urban “remain” types who care about climate change vote Labour. Is it some weird cultural vestigial attitude that makes professional university educated types in Australia look down their noses at the ALP because they grew up being told that only “icky manual labourers” voted ALP?

The ALP has often taken very visible anti enviorment pro fossil fuel positions. If enviormentalism is your main point of contention labour isn't exactly the most attractive party to switch too

[Vosem]

What is that makes higher income people who are socially liberal and care about the environment so résistent to simply voting for the Labor Party, as opposed to voting for all these so called “teal independents”? It’s not as if the ALP stands for socialist Revolution. In the UK just about all of those urban “remain” types who care about climate change vote Labour. Is it some weird cultural vestigial attitude that makes professional university educated types in Australia look down their noses at the ALP because they grew up being told that only “icky manual labourers” voted ALP?

Doesn't the ALP also still represent lots and lots of working-class but socially conservative electorates in western Sydney (that voted against the gay marriage referendum, for instance)? Labor theoretically endorsed gay marriage in 2017 but in practice allowed a "conscience vote" among MPs -- so it was basically neutral, same as the Liberals (who were explicitly neutral). Of the 17 electorates to vote against gay marriage, 11 were Labor-held, including all electorates to vote against gay marriage in Victoria and 9/12 to do so in NSW.

I think the answer here is that the institution of ranked-choice voting, and the Senate providing the system some degree of proportional representation, means that left-wing bobos were largely comfortable forming the Greens instead of joining the ALP (...though some did join the ALP too), which has allowed the ALP to remain somewhat more "populist" than British Labour or the American Democrats. The long-term trend here is towards global norms -- the 2019 result in a lot of historical ALP heartlands in rural Queensland was abominable -- but it's slow.

Also in the Australian system it feels vaguely advantageous to have your electorate be represented by an independent, who isn't subject to any whip and can extract concessions in the event of a hung Parliament. Historically these were rare, but this happened in 2010 and came really close to happening in both 2016 and 2019. (Also, electing independents in case this happens makes it kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy that it'll happen more often in the future.) Given this, it makes sense that highly educated electorates would seek to elect independents.

[支持核绿派 (Greens4Nuclear)]

TL;DR of the last 3 pages or so in 2 mins

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

TL;DR of the last 3 pages or so in 2 mins

Thanks for sharing this with us. I laughed so hard at the video, lol.

[Pulaski]

Minor quibble but Pearce is now notionally a 5.2% margin, not 7.5%. Thanks for the link though, I'll check it out.

Good point, forgot about that. Maybe it is a bit easier for Labor to win than I've been thinking.