Australia 2022 Election

[Pericles]

Morrison still leads the Preferred PM polls, at least until the most recent one, I won’t start to feel confident until Albanese has a sustained lead in them.

Yeah especially since the unpopularity is mostly driven by the current omicron wave which seems to already be subsiding, as well as messaging on covid leaving labour vulnerable to a culture war attacks.

They have been behind since the Delta lockdowns mid last year, and Morrison has been hit on many different issues. So it's possible that this is a mood for change election after 9 years of a government that is divided and without much to show for itself, especially because Labor are not providing voters a reason to hesitate like last time.

[Pericles]

I think Morrison might eek out a minority, running solely against Morrison didn't work out too well for labour last time. IDK why they expect it work better this time ?

That's pretty much the opposite of the conventional wisdom that Labor made themselves far too big of a target with all their fancy policies instead of just opposing.

[Pericles]

Gun to my head, I still say Morrison wins.

The polls would have to be really wrong and/or there would have to be a massive swing to him during the actual campaign for this to happen. I realise why pessimism is pretty ingrained amongst the left in Australia now, but its maybe just as possible you are in line for your own 1997

My guess is that it will be a narrow Labor win, with a real possibility of Labor as the largest party in a hung parliament. At this point though, it's looking like too much to ask for him to win properly.

[Pericles]

Gun to my head, I still say Morrison wins.

The polls would have to be really wrong and/or there would have to be a massive swing to him during the actual campaign for this to happen. I realise why pessimism is pretty ingrained amongst the left in Australia now, but its maybe just as possible you are in line for your own 1997

My guess is that it will be a narrow Labor win, with a real possibility of Labor as the largest party in a hung parliament. At this point though, it's looking like too much to ask for him to win properly.

A 54-46 or 55-45 split would surely lead to a clear Labor majority, though.

Oh definitely but I'm guessing it will end up more like 52-48.

[Pericles]

I don't think voters are going to change their minds over this, really.

[Pericles]

Asides from the border restrictions, and with Melbourne as an unlucky exception, Australia and NZ did comparatively well at minimizing restrictions on the domestic population, as well as doing amazing comparatively at saving lives.

[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.

[Pericles]

RBA has raised interest rates. Certainly makes the cost of living argument stronger.

Didn't think they would actually do it in an election campaign and risk swinging the outcome. This is the second time the Coalition has been screwed by a mid-campaign interest rate hike.

[Pericles]

Wentworth is probably most similarly economically and culturally to an electorate like Wimbledon, professionals, wealthy people, socially liberal and elite. The likes of Islington in Australia still vote solidly for Labor; Granalyder, Sydney etc. Australia is probably more class polarised than England in urban metropolises, but voting patterns are largely the same.

The places comparable to Grayndler could be those London constituencies which had a big Green vote in 2015 (by some distance the Green Party's best general election in terms of votes). Holborn and St Pancreas springs to mind, not least because of whose seat it is.

Now that you mention him, Albanese's strategy is similar to Starmer's. Both have been talked down for their small target strategy, but one has a wide open path to victory with just weeks to go. If victory is won, then this should encourage Starmer that the big strategic calls he has been making as leader are sensible.

For New Zealand politics, I would be more encouraged by a Scott Morrison victory for Labour's 2023 odds. Both governments have taken serious blows over their vaccine rollouts and the global inflation surge. Jacinda Ardern could be able to survive what Morrison can't, because she has more personal popularity and there is less of a sense of this being a tired old government. However, no incumbent wants to have an election now and we will just be hoping that we are better off in 2023 than we are on either side of the ditch right now.

[Pericles]

Wentworth is probably most similarly economically and culturally to an electorate like Wimbledon, professionals, wealthy people, socially liberal and elite. The likes of Islington in Australia still vote solidly for Labor; Granalyder, Sydney etc. Australia is probably more class polarised than England in urban metropolises, but voting patterns are largely the same.

The places comparable to Grayndler could be those London constituencies which had a big Green vote in 2015 (by some distance the Green Party's best general election in terms of votes). Holborn and St Pancreas springs to mind, not least because of whose seat it is.

Now that you mention him, Albanese's strategy is similar to Starmer's. Both have been talked down for their small target strategy, but one has a wide open path to victory with just weeks to go. If victory is won, then this should encourage Starmer that the big strategic calls he has been making as leader are sensible.

For New Zealand politics, I would be more encouraged by a Scott Morrison victory for Labour's 2023 odds. Both governments have taken serious blows over their vaccine rollouts and the global inflation surge. Jacinda Ardern could be able to survive what Morrison can't, because she has more personal popularity and there is less of a sense of this being a tired old government. However, no incumbent wants to have an election now and we will just be hoping that we are better off in 2023 than we are on either side of the ditch right now.

I don't know, Arden might be more personaly popular but the NZ electorate is more flexibile and prone to swings than the australian ones. And even a flawless government would be hard pressed to solve the main issue of housing prices driving much of the annoyance with her government.

The one bright side is that housing prices are now coming down and supply is increasing, but the 30% price increase during the pandemic is unlikely to be reversed completely, and home ownership was already out of reach for many young people before then. You have a valid point, but it would be even for us crazy to have a 24% lead wiped out in one election, and New Zealand does like to give each party 9 years in government.

[Pericles]

Malcolm Turnbull endorses teal independents

Wow, he is pissed about losing the leadership and that they didn't go along with him on climate change.  Maybe some moderate Liberal voters will agree with him.

[Pericles]

Let’s not get into Covid restrictions again.

Yeah, when we start to get into "list of nasties" labels inclusive of Trudeau and Ardern, I'm left thinking of the kind of person whom, if ranked choice balloting existed in Canada, would put PPC first...

Given the context and the amazingly low death tolls in our countries (the point of restrictions and why 2022 is different), that sounds like a 'list of heroes' to me. I think the more interesting verdicts on Covid responses will be the elections of state governments that actually made the decisions. It should cause the pro-Covid crowd to go nuts if Dan Andrews wins comfortably later this year. He's not on my list of heroes though because he could have been more competent in 2020 and stopped the outbreak (and therefore the lockdown) earlier.

[Pericles]

The best ad so far in the Australian election campaign.

Anecdotally, in my safe Labor area, the phrase "it won't be easy under Albanese" seems to have a lot of cut-through, which is the kind of thing that doesn't change an election result but it will probably stick in people's heads long after he takes power.

Surely that's a pretty weak scare campaign? The "Bill Australia can't afford" makes Labor actually sound harmful and has a more understandable meaning-plus the ground work was there for it. This one almost insults people's intelligence-obviously life isn't going to be easy at the moment but who is making it worse or better? And that might just remind people it's not easy now. It just goes to show they can't give people a real reason to fear Albanese.

Apparently, Labor's No More Morrison ad is cutting through the best with the "that's not my job" line. Hilariously, the Liberals have put out a counter-ad showing that the quotes Labor got that from was actually him saying something good not just evading responsibility. This kind of nitpicking obviously doesn't address the perception people have of him, or the two other famous quotes in the ad.

[Pericles]

I think Labor can be pretty worried they'll end up barely short of a majority, but it is looking good that Albanese will be PM, and very likely that there won't be another majority for Morrison.

[Pericles]

SMH: Parties expecting minority government, aiming for 74 seats

It's hard to tell if this is spin or an accurate assessment of the race. There is also some speculation about individual seats in the article. The 74 seat target comes from the comment that Willkie and Bandt would back Labor, while Sharkie and Katter would back the Coalition. That feels about right but is it in doubt?

[Pericles]

On a uniform swing Labor needs 51.8% to win a majority. So it is a very close one, doing slightly worse than the polling and ending up on 51% likely won't be good enough for a majority. Scott Morrison obviously is quite far from winning another majority of his own.

[Pericles]

On a uniform swing Labor needs 51.8% to win a majority. So it is a very close one, doing slightly worse than the polling and ending up on 51% likely won't be good enough for a majority. Scott Morrison obviously is quite far from winning another majority of his own.

Couldn't the Libs theoretically retain a majority government on, like, 48-52 if the increase in ALP support is concentrated enough in the inner cities? Granted, I'm pretty sure that'd require everything going right for them (i.e., a disastrous polling failure worse than 2019's resulting in the largest city/suburban split in Australian history) to work, but still, it doesn't seem like an impossibility, esp. in the event that the expected swings in some seats don't materialize & the indy surge falls flat.

They're notionally on 76 seats at the moment, and would be under that with a 0.4% uniform swing. I guess they could get lucky in the ultra marginals but they just can't afford a 3-4% swing. Maybe if they can bring the 2PP to a tie, but it's just hard to see. Plus, having a swing concentrated in urban areas would be good for the independents. While some of those seats are relatively safe, seats like Wentworth and then Kooyong are already within striking distance.

[Pericles]

Here's my prediction, but hopefully I'm low-balling Labor by a few seats:
Labor: 74+6 51.3%(+2.8%)
Coalition: 68-9 48.7% (-2.8%)
151 seats
76 for majority

Labor gains Boothby, Chisholm, Higgins, Pearce, Reid, and Swan.
Independents gain Goldstein and Wentworth from the Coalition.
Greens gain Griffith from Labor.

With the notional changes of Labor gaining Hawke and the Coalition losing Stirling, those numbers should add up.

[Pericles]

Very early but the teal independents are doing well.

[Pericles]

Shame about Flynn, pretty good swing but not good enough.

[Pericles]

Seriously WTF 2 Green MP's from queensland, this is weird. Did anybody predict that ?

The seats were known to be targets for them, I actually predicted Griffith for them, maybe that was a lucky guess.

[Pericles]

ABC suggesting that Labor getting better swings with Chinese language speakers. Not a surprise but interesting to see-if it plays out.

[Pericles]

I'm not Antony Green but I do not see how the Coalition can form a government under these numbers.

Bribe the Greens, Net zero by 2025. The Real story of this election is that saying " Screw the Enviorment" is suprisingly not a very popular political postion.

Seriously, what are the chances of this happening even if the numbers are there?

It's impossible because green parties also have other left wing beliefs and ScoMo who held a lump of coal in Parliament can never not be the greater evil to them on the environment either. Rural conservative voters and urban green voters just want different things.

[Pericles]

Confirmed that Labor is at least on track for a minority government.

[Pericles]

Frydenberg's vote is down 6%. There was a lot of speculation about that one, is he out? And maybe the double whammy happens if Dutton loses too.