The previous thread was getting on the long side, so here’s a new one. Conversation starter: a Roy Morgan poll commissioned by Crikey shows the Prime Minister trailing Labor in his seat of Bennelong by 41 per cent to 40 per cent on the primary vote, and 55-45 on two-party preferred. The sample was 394, which is pretty good for an electorate-level poll. The fortnightly Newspoll will be published in The Australian tomorrow.
UPDATE: 54-46 to Labor in Newspoll; down from 56-44 last time, but Kevin Rudd has a headline-grabbing lead as preferred PM. Elsewhere, England’s finest blogger, Harry Hutton, has made his debut entry on Australian psephological matters.
Geoff R, I don’t disagree with you often, but this is one of those times. In 1998 Labor lost (in part) because they got completely shafted by the luck of the draw. There were a stack of really close seats in which the Liberals overwhelmingly had the donkey vote (were higher on the ballot, not necessarily top).
I did an analysis and found that as near as I could reckon 9 seats were decided by the donkey vote in that election – a lot more than most because there were so many close seats, and the Libs won 8 of them.
Had the situation been reversed Beazley would now be in his third term and Howard would be regarded as an electoral disaster.
If things had split evenly (4 or 5 donkey votes going Labor’s way) the Libs would still have won the election, but it would have been so close that one or two members crossing the floor could bring down the government
According to the pdf of the map of Ashgrove here: http://www.ecq.qld.gov.au/profiles/Ashgrove/mapsDistrictsProfile.html, most (if not all of The Gap) is part of the electorate of Ashgrove.
The reasons the electorate of Ashgrove looks unusual is that it’s partly containing The Gap and sparsely populated areas beyond to the City of Brisbane boundary. The Gap doesn’t have enough voters for a single electorate, and, hemmed in by the seat to the south (Mt Cootha), the seat goes eastwards along Waterworks Rd (the major transport corridor to The Gap) towards the City.
If one wanted to move the areas around Ashgrove to the south of Waterworks Rd into the seat of Ashgrove, they would have to add extra voters to Mt Cootha, and the domino effect of shuffling voters from seat to seat would happen – this is fine, but it would cause a shuffling of voters between seats.
My guess is that the areas including Pullenvale and Brookfield have probably *always* combined with Kenmore in a state electorate as this satisfies the electorate-creating requirements (eg community of interest, geographical boundaries) more than the alternatives, which would be to combine Karana Downs, Pullenvale and Brookfield with Ipswich North or possibly the Jindalee area. My guess is that this is the reason the seat covering Kenmore has been as it has for so long.
Any seat (like Clayfield) needs to have enough electors to meet the quota – if the Nundah area is removed from Clayfield, other areas would have to be added to it.
Well so far all the evidence we’ve had to go on for Andren standing in Calare is Malcolm Mackerras’s anonymous sources.
But perhaps further proof comes from Greg Roberts in today’s Oz who states that “[Dick] Estens is the frontrunner to win Nationals preselection for the western NSW seat of Parkes, held by former minister John Cobb, who is retiring.”
Now at first I thought this was just the usual sad lack of journalistic fact-checking, given the that Cobb has already announced his intention to contest Calare. But if Cobb is running against heavyweight independent Peter Andren, it might indeed spell effective retirement.
The new ‘Calare’ takes in most of the Far West and North-West now, doesn’t it? I’m sure Andren is popular but it must be alot of effort for an independent to canvass such a large area of new territory. i wonder has he given any thought to running in the new Parkes (which is basically the old Gwydir)?
I tend to disbelieve any Roy Morgan polls: there is no way John Howard will lose the seat of Bennelong, even if Kevin Rudd wins the election.
However, after Howard has left politics, I give the ALP a good chance of gaining the seat in a subsequent election.
Speaking as a Labor supporter, I see too many parallels with 2001 and 2004: I wouldn’t be writing off Howard just yet, and winning 16 seats will be no easy task for Kevin.
Evan I agree with what you say about Howard’s seat.
There are differences to 2001 and 2004 however. Iraq has turned badly on the government as has the Hicks case. IR is unpopular and Rudd is no Latham. The “its time” factor is having some effect and Howard is beginning to be seen as being past his best. In other words the circumstances and issues are favouring Labor. These are important, significant differences that cannot be overlooked.
I agree with your last sentence but the signs are very positive.
There are several local factors in Bennelong to also consider. In 2004, Andrew Wilkie was in the mix as a strong Green candidate, and the Not Happy John campaign probably had a reasonable effect. The ALP candidate was Nicole Campbell, a local councillor who ran a strong grass-roots campaign that went largely unnoticed by the national media. There has been the recent redistribution, the changing demographics in Bennelong, the imminence of Howard’s retirement, Howard’s history of having a lawyer’s slick interpretation of truth and fairness, and the number of current issues that Howard is not handling well. The captain could well go down with the ship.
Disclosures: I live and vote in the Bennelong electorate. I am not a member of or affiliated with any political party.
Sacha,
I am extremely familiar with the boundaries for ashgrove, i agree that there are towns in brisbane forest park that drag the boundary west, towns for example like peewee bend.
BUt thats not what i was arguing, i was saying that the conservative areas (Gap, Ashgrove) have been grouped with non conservative areas (Newmarket, Alderley, parts of ennogera). When the ecq made the new seat Ferny Grove in 2001 on logic, geography, and community of interest it should have included the suburbs of ferny grove and going south west from there to include newmarket and alderley. that boundary would make sense. However thats not what happened. the boundary goes north defying a geographic boundary and a political bounadry (BCC).
THe only explanation for this is that is ferny grove had taken its natural border there would be an extremely safe labor seat and it would make ashgrove and the seat around samford marginal liberal seats.
The only explantion for the defiance of logic in these boundaries is to create electoral benefits to labor
Apologies to those who have had enough of me going on about state boundaires inside a federal thread.
Sacha, i dont think we are going to agree anytime soon, perhaps we should just let it go
Queenslander, what “conservative” areas should be included with The Gap and Ashgrove in a seat instead of the existing “non-conservative areas”? Are there enough “conservative” voters in the area to allow you to construct an entire state seat? If there are, how would you justify constructing such a seat given all the requirements (such as community of interest) needing to be satisfied when constructing a seat?
The fact that conservative voting areas are combined with non-conservative voting areas doesn’t indicate that the boundaries are drawn to benefit labor.
I’d suggest that if there were more state seats, Ashgrove would probably shrink west allowing it to be more readible won by the Liberals due to a lower quota; ie, there are too few conservative voters in a sea of Labor voters in that part of Brisbane for the Liberals to more readily win the seat.
Charlie .. no, I don’t think the ALP vote will go back at all. I included those margins to illustrate the truely massive effect a “crazy man from western Sydney” had on our admittedly conservative (even in the cities) electorates. I think it’s more accurate to look at those seats with their pre-Latham margins when deciding who might win (and based on that QLD looks set for a reasonably easy 4-6 seat gain).
Look through the history of many of the other marginals too and you’ll find they were held by Labor prior to Latham’s 04 election bid. Sans Latham and with public mood turning to areas of traditional ALP strength .. many should be no contest.
“doing the numbers” I’d predict 4-6 seats in QLD, 3-6 seats in NSW, 1-4 seats in VIC, 2-3 seats in SA, 2 in TAS, Solomon from NT and 1-2 in WA. Meaning a “conservative” net gain of 14 seats and a possible net gain of 24. It’ll probably fall in the middle .. 18 or 19 seats.
This is, of course, assuming that no errant planes fly into buildings 8 weeks before the election.
Which are the 1-4 seats in Vic?
And yes, state QLD boundaries have even less business here then the slogan slanging match between Greens and anti-Greens. Although people who made such a noise about that have been remarkably quite. Do I detect a hint of hypocrosy?
Bert I was indeed about to comment that debate about Qld state politics doesn’t really belong here, but it’s not as disruptive as party slogans – it least it is a psephological discussion.
On Andren: if he runs in Calare and wins it, he deprives the Nationals of that seat and allows Labor to win Macquarie. He thus helps Labor. If he runs in Macquarie and wins it, he deprives Labor of that seat and allows the Nats to win Calare. He thus helps Howard. Andren has always been pro-Labor, which was why Labor ran dead in Calare in 1996 when Simmons retired, allowing Andren to win and shut out the Nats who would have won it otherwise. He would certainly support a minority Labor government if we have a hung parliament. It was thus seem logical that he would help Labor by running in Calare rather than helping Howard by running in Macquarie.
Well, you would hope so, but he’s been very cross that Kerry Bartlett has been going to functions in Lithgow and someone I know offered to help him out in the mountains and he said yes … this is when we need someone from the new Calare to tell us how he’s behaving out there so we can decide if he’s just hedging his bets and playing with our heads or if he’s serious about moving to the east.
While those of us who grew up with Gallipoli and Breaker Morant would have no doubt that 70 unarmed Australian soldiers in a training role could take 1500 or so british troops any day of the week, Blair’s stunning backflip comes to cloud this weeks political Howard wedge.
On the same day the Govenor of the Reserve Bank announces the next move in interest rates is likely to be up and not down.
Surely a national security threat like Howard can’t win against the polling with another interest rate rise?
Adam, what I meant about party slogans not being as bad is because at least they were federal. I guess which one is less disruptive is what this thread is. FEDERAL psephological discussion or federal PSEPHOLOGICAL discussion.
The 1-4 seats in Victoria is possible, I agree. McMillan (5.0) is a huge chance. I’d also be looking at Deakin (5.0), Corangamite (5.4), La Trobe (5.9) and McEwen (6.2). You can throw in Gippsland (7.8) as a long-shot, since more than 5% of that margin is from the 2004 election and could easily be very soft Nationals support.
I’m a little more optimistic on NSW, Alex. Treating Macquarie as an ALP seat, there’s Parramatta, Lindsay and Eden-Monaro that are within 3.3%. All will fall unless something fundamental changes in the next seven to eight months. Wentworth is only 2.6% as well, but I have my doubts there as mentioned above.
On the other hand, I think that Bennelong is very vulnerable. If it goes on election night it’s going to cost me a fortune, after I shout everyone in the pub. Then there’s a swathe of semi-marginal/semi-safe seats along the North Coast and slightly inland – Dobell, Page, Paterson, Cowper and Robertson. For some reason Northern NSW is the rogue province in the Coalition’s rural empire. Richmond has fallen, New England belongs to an independent, Andren will probably win in Calare and even Vaile might be in trouble if Oakeshott runs against him. The ALP should be targeting the region very heavily.
There’s also a small handful of seats that
I honestly think that only Wentworth is likely to buck a general swing towards the ALP. Whether the swing is enough in each of the seats is obviously a different matter. We shall see.
The other state in which I think you’ve been a little conservative is South Australia. Why only two or three seats here? At this stage, I’d put Kingston, Wakefield and Makin squarely in the ‘gain’ column. Further, I think that Boothby is attainable if the swing is on. Toppling Pyne in Sturt would be almost as good as seeing Howard and Turnbull go, but I think he’ll survive. Nevertheless, there’s four seats in SA that the ALP can win, and three of them are the types of seat that will only survive if the Government itself survives.
Other than that, I’m broadly in agreement. I will have to look longingly at Kalgoorlie – the chances of it falling in the middle of this particular resource boom are slim.
Please ignore the ‘There’s also a small handful of seats that’ – I meant to delete that.
Ill take the blame for the state boundary thing.
there will be no agreement in the forseeable future
I haven’t spoken to anyone in the Victorian ALP who thinks we can pick up seats here this year. We already hold 19 of 37 – if other states did as well we would be in government now. We have a swag of marginal seats to defend (Isaacs with a new candidate, Holt, Bruce, Bendigo, Ballarat, Chisholm and Melbourne Ports) and that’s where our resources should go. We know from long experience that Deakin and LaTrobe just don’t swing – they have changed a lot from the Whitlam-Hawke era, and are strongholds of the McMansions class these days. The same is true of Dunkley which you don’t mention. Corangamite gets talked up every election, but this is very fanciful. It’s true it contains a slab of Geelong suburb and the Surf Coast towns, but it’s still basically a Western District seat. McMillan is a coal-and-forestry seat – Peter Garrett will not go down very well there. McEwen may be a possibility as the northern suburbs spead into it. Nothing is impossible, but in calculating which 16 seats Labor is going to win to knock off Howard, I wouldn’t count on any contribution from Victoria.
Yeah I agree with Adam here, Victoria will not the decide the election. If its a real landslide seats like McMillan or Deakin may fall, but in that case Labor won’t need to win them anyway.
I live near McEwen, and the ALP don’t have a hope(though I wish they did).
From capaigning there I’ve found that Fran Bailey is seen as a great local member, even when people take into account the stuff she does federally that people don’t like.
From what I can understand, Fran gets praise for anything positive while Howard gets blamed for anything Fran does wrong. And these people dont like the Liberals.
Macquarie would be a gain following the redistribution, and yes they’ll hold they now “nominal” Liberal Parramatta. Jackie Kelly should have some personal vote .. but probably not enough to save her in Lindsay. Eden-Monaro and Dobell would shift to the ALP with a half-decent national swing. Bennelong also has a good chance of falling as all the “Howard Haters” (as Downer calls them) will be out in force there. Page has been held by Ian Causley since 96 though his margin was shaved considerably in the 2001 election. Paterson actually suffered a bigger “Latham backlash” though ..
Bert .. the 4 Vic seats are Deakin, McMillan, McEwan and LaTrobe .. all on tight margins going into the last election. McMillan was actually held by Labor going into 04 (that was the “conservative “1”) and LaTrobe was Labor all through the 80’s . with Hawke losing it in his very slim ’90 election.
The government has had a terrible few weeks. Howard should be happy the election is a probably 9 months away. If it were held today I doubt he would win.
Events are driving the Coalition. The Coalition needs to drive events. What they need to do is put the focus on the strength of the economy (and the risk of Labor squandering it), hammer the hell out of the state governments (NSW in particular – but after the Iemma’s probable win) and attack the opposition every chance they get if they want to chip into Labor’s lead.
Howard should be counting his blessings that events pass over the horizon after the media and the public have had enough dwelling on them. Remember the global warming disaster from last week? It has basically drifted off the front pages for now, Iraq however, has taken its place. My guess is that providing nothing drastic, the issue will fade of the front pages fairly soon.
Ahhh .. I just read the posts above mine .. I shall bow to local knowledge 🙂 Still think McMillan has to be a chance though .. alot of money will be thrown at “Clean Coal” investments to shore up north QLD seats .. and they “did” vote Christian Zahra (as a then 25/28 yr old) in at 2 elections in 98 and 01 .. and the current member can’t have built too much of a profile in only 3 years.
Broadbent held McMillan before, from 1996 to 1998. He also held the former Division of Corinella (which included Wonthaggi) from 1990 to 1993. So it wouldn’t be correct to say that he doesn’t have a profile. Further to that, he’s been one of the four backbench opponents of Government policy on asylum seekers.
It concerns me that an ALP staffer like Adam dismisses the chances of winning any seats purely on the basis that they already hold a majority in Victoria. Frankly, whether the ALP holds 6, 12, 19 or 35 seats in Victoria is completely irrelevant to whether they can win seats like McMillan.
The following seats I know very well McEwan and Dunkley, I cannot see either changing for the sitting MPs are very good campaigners.
I was thinking if the ALP wanted to scare the living daylights out of the Liberals, they should get Kylie to run in Kooyong for my reading of that Bluest of blue seats is Petro isn’t popular and neither is Howard.
While I see the Liberals holding Deakin, I wouldn’t call it McMansion territory, neither is Dunkley about of its vote comes from Frankston which is a somewhat old suburb
Seats I have the ALP winning as of end of February
Corrangamitte, Paramatta, Edan Marnro, Makin, Wakefield, Kingston, Hasluck, Stirling, Canning, Solomon, Macquarie
About half of Dunkley comes from Frankston
* I am an EX-ALP staffer, thanks.
* When Zahra won McMillan in 98 it had different boundaries, taking in all the LaTrobe Valley. Now it only has Moe. It also has Pakenham, a fast growing and solidly Liberal suburb, and a swathe of South Gippsland dairying country.
* As I said above, McMillan is a resources seat – dairying, coal and timber. Latham lost the timber industry workers with his forests policy last time, and they will be hard to get back, even assuming we have a more pro-logging policy this time (this will also affect our chances in Bass, Braddon and Eden-Monaro).
* If we are painted as anti-coal, that will further erode our vote (and this will also affect us in Capricornia, Flynn, Hunter and Paterson). While Garrett’s high profile will get us lots of votes in Kooyong and Higgins where we don’t need ’em, it won’t do us any good in the regional marginals (which is why I gather we are worried about Bendigo).
With reference to Adam’s earlier post saying that the ALP now held Chisholm, Hotham and Bruce and did not during the Whitlam years.
Does it really count when seats have migrated across suburbia – in the 70s Chisholm was based on Camberwell and Surrey Hills now it takes in Box Hill, Clayton and Mount Waverley. Bruce has also migrated south east and now takes in most of what was then Holt.
How much of the now Bennelong did John Howard represent in 1974?
On Victorian seats that may be lost – the Vic libs are very good at selecting good grass roots candidates – the only seat that I would have on the block is Corangamite – both because of an MP that has stayed around too long and Geelong and Bellarine Peninsula growth.
bmwofoz, why Canning? While I’ll be the first to say the margin in the seat is unnaturally large for that electorate, it is still 9.8%.
I’d say it would change if there’s a rough national swing around 5% or more, as I really don’t believe the margin’s a real reflection of what the seat should be, but I can’t see it changing ahead of a lot of closer seats.
And Charlie – on Kalgoorlie, if the swing is on, it’s probably more accessible to Labor than it might seem on first glance. It might be where the resources boom is physically happening, but it’s not necessarily where the rewards are being reaped from the boom – with more people involved in fly-in-fly-out, they tend not to live in the Kalgoorlie electorate as much as they might have 20 years ago. Still, it would be a real long shot for Labor still.
Adam your previous post is as usual well thought out and argued but I think it is too early to say that the ALP will be able to be successfully painted as ‘anti-coal’ and my opinion is that the ball will not role far that way.
The recent decision to disallow upfront tax deductions in respect of non- forestry Managed Investment Schemes, even with a 12 month or greater deferral of implenentation, should assist the ALP in many regional and marginal seats, including the two held by the Liberal Party in Tasmania.
I live in Dunkley, and only part of the electorate is Frankston, and only part of Frankston is the older area. Just near me is the appropriately named Yarralumla Drive, with half acre blocks and large attractive homes on well-tree gardens. It has distinguished itself by having more than 90 per cent of its residents sign a petition to stop disabled people from Kew Cottages living in the street. Other parts of the electorate are also quite well off. The sad truth is that as relative income rises so does voting Liberal. The state seat of Frankston is held by a very good local Labor member, Alistair Harkness. The other state seat, Hastings, was also held until last year by another very good Labor member, Rosy Buchanan, but she lost it to a very hard-working Liberal, Noel Burgess. I am sure that there will be a swing back to Labor in Dunkley, but it would be a miracle if it were big enough to return the seat to the Labor fold.
Of course it counts – a seat is a seat, wherever it is. Some of the regional seats we have lost have changed their boundaries too – Grey for one.
In 1974 Bennelong ran from Balls Head to Kissing Point. The only parts of the 1974 Bennelong which are still in the seat are Gladesville, Ryde, North Ryde and Macquarie Park.
I’d say Labor’s best chance in Victoria is Corangamite. I take Adam’s point that people have been saying it will fall for years, but some day they will be right (after which the Libs will probably never get it back).
Above that I would say Labor will probably either win all of McEwen, McMillan, Lat Trobe and Deakin, if the current polls are anything like right, or none of them (more likely). Demographic change will also make McEwen a Labor seat one day, but the margin is large enough that it is unlikely to be this time.
Frankston is one of the most class-polarised areas in Melbourne. In 2001 the Frankston Forest booth turned in a Labor 2PV of 65%, while Mt Eliza Central – about 15 minutes drive away – turned in a Labor 2PV of about 20%. Frankston Forest (the old A V Jennings Pines Estate) is where people in Mt Eliza Central hire their cleaning ladies from.
The interest rate rise coming, four since the last election.
I’m feeling that we are heading towards a 1975, 1983 or 1996 election at the moment.
For once, the economy is not the most important issue. I think Howard’s stuffed.
William, I hope you are archiving all this. After the election you should hand out awards for the Most Wildly Inaccurate Predictions.
I share the respect for Fran Bailey’s marginal seat skills, but I wonder if these will be diminished by her being in the Ministry since 2004. She certainly hasn’t shone in Tourism, and her extra responsibilities may have distracted her from her local task.
McMillan will be very difficult, because State Labor did poorly in November, losing Narracan and Morwell on much bigger swings than were experienced elsewhere. This was variously attributed to the decline in the Latrobe Valley blue collar workforce, and a State specific issue related to water.
Deakin is a definite chance for Labor. Phil Barresi is (I think) chair of the backenchers committee on Work Choices, a lively issue in electorates like it. I also fancy Corangamite, because of the way the demographics are shifting. LaTrobe is also a prospect. Bob Charles was a terrific marginal seat campaigner, who held back the tide in 1993 and 1998. The new MP in 2004 is yet to demonstrate Charles’ capacity to defy a big swing.
This all presupposes a significant state-wide swing (5% or more). Labor’s 2PP for Victoria in 2004 fell below 50% for only the second time since 1980. Latham and the bite of the interest rates scare were probably the main factors; however an effective “no tolls” campaign in the Ringwood – Dandenong – Frankston corridor led to exaggerated margins, in seats like Aston, Dunkley, Deakin and LaTrobe, and created the putative risk for Holt.
I used to live in McEwen. One problem is Labor keeps changing its candidate. It had excellent candidates in both 1998 and 2001, but neither one got more than one go at it. I did not live there in 2004 and cannot comment on the Labor candidate for that year. There is something to be said for early endorsement and giving candidates more than one election to take a seat.
My reading of Labor’s chances in Victoria is that it will be tough to grab any seat, even if a swing is on. McMillan represents the best chance but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Corangamite and McEwen are also maybe’s but again, I wouldn’t bet on it.
I agree that Labor should focus on shoring up their marginals. Whilst Labor took a heavy swing in Victoria at the 2004 election, they were “lucky” in that it didn’t translate into seat losses. McMillan was already a nominal Liberal seat thanks to a distribution. Many of the rest came close to falling but stopped short. Bendigo, Ballarat, Chisolm, Isaacs and Melbourne Ports come to mind.
A good result for Labor in Victoria would be a net increase of anywhere between 0 – 1 seat.
The fact that the Labor vote diminished sharply in Melbourne Ports ,in which I live,was due to the fact that many people saw the Labor MHR,Danby as more interested in taking up the concerns of Israel and the well organised Jewish Lobby in the seat.
He is a one-track politician,and not without cause ,is he sometimes known locally as the Member for tel Aviv !
There was substantial l,eakage of Green votes too,due again to Danby
Chris Curtis,
why is it a sad truth that as people get wealthier they choose to vote liberal. Why is it not simply the truth, and a result of the success of the keating revolution
Hrmm… The idea that Labor should be playing defence in Victoria appears not to be backed by Liberal Party optimism. Check out the party website. Preselection for Chisholm has been held open despite the original call for it to be closed last month. Their original Ballarat candidate pulled the pin a few weeks ago. And the Holt preselection has reportedly only attracted two utter deadbeats. They don’t exactly seem to be going out of their way to install quality candidates.
Nor do I think much of the idea that Victoria has already done its bit for the ALP because the state already provides the party with a majority of its seats. (Applied to Tasmania, that means not going after Bass & Braddon.) Given how poorly Labor does in a big state like Queensland, the party has to produce more than just bare majorities elsewhere.
Queenslander,
It is a “sad†truth that as people get wealthier they are more likely to vote Liberal because the Liberal Party is a party that damages the public good. I lived through the 1992-99 Victorian Liberal government, without doubt the worst government of my lifetime, though very good at media manipulation. The Labor Party will always be more concerned with working people and the poor. The middle classes should remember where they came from.
While I don’t share Adam’s cynicism about the ALP’s chances in Victoria, and think it would be foolish to waste money on defence, I think (as a sort-of local) people are misguided to see Corangamite as a potential gain.
By all rights, Corangamite should be a truly marginal seat by now – Stewart McArthur is dead wood who has been around forever, and has had a rapidly decreasing margin for years in what was a once-safe seat. Labor didn’t help itself by running a no-name hack in basically every election in the 1990s, and looks insistent on running Peter McMullin, the ethically-challenged former Geelong mayor, in 2007 – something which will absolutely ensure McArthur gets another three years.
Getting back to the Senate,
One pick up that has not been mentioned is the ALP getting both seats in the senate there. They went close before, 2001 I think, and work choices could be a big issue there with its strong public service base and Howards threatened attack on their conditions through work choices as well as Howard constantly overturning ACT legislation passed by the elected government there.
Chris,
another point not discussed is that as people get better educated they are more likely to vote left. also middle class educated types who live near the city are more inclined to vote left, while those in the suburban diaspora are more inclined to vote right, at least at the moment.
also statiscally the party that holds the poorest seats by income is the National party, followed by the liberals second.
whereas in middle income educated seats the ALP held a clear majority (of the fifty most middle income seats Labor holds something like 30)
The Australian did a report on a range of things such as these on the last parliament.
Brian,
Rubbish. I’m not unfamiliar with Melbourne Ports and have to say that if it wasn’t for Danby, Labor would be in an even more precarious position in Melbourne Ports. The fact is that there is a large Jewish community in and around the Caulfield area and Danby is attuned to their concerns on security and education issues. That’s just plain ol’ good representation. Given Latham’s inexperience (and immaturity) on security issues and his woeful hit list of private schools (which, if it weren’t for Danby would have targetted the Jewish schools in the electorate), many Jewish voters would have swung in behind Howard.
Assume the Senate reference above is to the ACT. The first condition to be met for Liberal Party to lose this seat is that its proportion of the vote must drop below a quota 33.33% and have everyone else preference tightly against the Liberals.
This prospect has remained tantalisingly out of reach – and if the unlikely did happen and the Liberal vote in the Senate collapsed the beneficiary is just as likely to be the Greens as the ALP.
The Greens candidate will be Kerrie Tucker who has a strong community profile and pulled around 17% of the vote last time, if memory serves me correctly
The Liberal Senator, Gary Humphries has on a couple of issues taken a stand supportive of local interests against Federal Government intervention in Territory afairs – positioning himself for a run as someone who is standing up for the local community.
Yet more evidence that events are starting to run away from the government. If readers remember last week, Howard flicked the switch to Iraq to try and paint Rudd and the ALP as weak of national security. Then loyal ally Blair goes and announces that Britain is leaving, and Howard is left high and dry. The veiled hint from the RBA that another interest rate hike is on the way wouldn’t have helped either. Meanwhile Rudd is serenely continuing on his way – he looked very assured on Lateline last night.
I’m wary of the old bugger Howard, though. He’s got truckloads of cash and next to no morals, so I wouldn’t discount any sort of tactic for him to ensure his leagcy as a “Great Liberal” (as opposed to the guy who stayed on too long and condemned the Libs to a decade in opposition).