Educated guesswork

Statsmeister extraordinaire Geoff Lambert has sent through an exhaustive statistical analysis of recent polling trends, and concluded that the number of seats won by Labor will have a nine in front of it. Read all about it here. In other prediction news, I have contributed an assessment of the state of play in the Senate to Crikey. For those who can’t or won’t read this, a quick summary. I think it most likely that New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania will go three Labor, two Liberal and one Greens, Western Australia will reverse those numbers for Labor and Liberal, and South Australia will go two Labor, two Liberal, one Greens and one Nick Xenophon. Queensland is a tricky one, but if I had to put my money somewhere it would be on three Labor and three Coalition – though neither the Greens nor Family First can be written off. I will also go out on the same limb as Malcolm Mackerras and tip Kerrie Tucker of the Greens to defeat Liberals Senator Gary Humphries in the ACT. That points to a huge result of six Senate seats for the Greens. The Coalition will be down from 39 seats to 34, Labor will be up from 28 to 32, and the Greens will double their numbers from four seats to eight, with Nick Xenophon and Steve Fielding joining them on the cross-benches. I must sadly concur with the consensus that this election will mark the end of the Australian Democrats.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,009 comments on “Educated guesswork”

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  1. What a joke Jai-Mei truly is. All the intellect of the mildly amusing fictional character whose character she had to flog.

    Deal with reality. Many people here attack various Coalition figures purely on the basis of their physical traits. Howard, Hockey, Ruddock and, especially, women like Bishop J. Yes, you disagree with their politics. But you play the lowest cards in the deck to make your point.

    Why? Lack of class? Probably. Lack of cerebral ballast? Certainly. Just a bunch of sad cases that require a Labor-governed welfare state to enforce the sort of society you need to survive.

    A society where the productive (and invariably Liberal voting) people work hard, employ people, and are taxed to the end of the world by a Labor Government that is purely interested in using this productivity to maintain its strong voter support base amongst the unemployable and the mediocre.

    It’s ironic. Kevin Rudd and Labor need the productivity, initiative and flair of the Liberal Party’s natural constituency to make their policies even remotely plausible. If he relied on Labor’s natural constituency the Australian economy would collapse within a day.

  4. Julie smashed Smith tonight.

    Never send out a bore to sell a revolution it ain’t gonna wash with the masses.

    Reasons Why Julie did well.

    – explained we’d have no money for education if Labor had kept running up debts, because the tories have paid off the 96b we can spend it on education

    – The Tory’s pledge to increase the 6 soon to be 10b endowment fund is now a me-too Rudd policy, an original Tory policy supported by Labor lock step.

    – Computer access for Australian school students is at 100% and Labor’s plan to connect them to their broadband network won’t happen for 6 years until 2013.

    – Explained how computer access is being dealt with cooperatively with the States and high speed broadband internet access used by tertiary institutions is being now trialled with schools.

    Julie Bishop should the Libs lose or if Costello becomes PM will be a good chance for the Deputy Leadership and in my view tonight she outperformed Smith.

  6. Isabella, that’s just bollocks. So there are no hard working, left-leaning, educated people in Australia? What a ridiculous argument to make.

    It seems to me you can’t see past your own superiority complex.

  8. In temporary defence of Julie Bishop, she has stopped Brendan Nelson’s practice of politically interfering in research grant decisions. Nelson appointed some right wing gatekeepers to the approval process and then personally overturned a number of independent recommendtions for political reasons. To her credit, Bishop has not repeated this practice.

    But she has lied. Earlier this year she publicly claimed that she had research showing that performance pay for teachers had all sorts of benefits. When it finallly came out, the research sowed nothing of the sort.

    And she has continued Nelson’s practice of micromanaging universities to ensure they maintain a politically correct line on employment relations. The party that claims it believes in letting the market decide is the most interventionist in history.

    Even with a 7 or 8% swing, she will keep her seat, while many of her MInisterial colleagues go under.

  9. Glen,

    I don’t think Smith is going to be the frontman selling the Education Revolution to the masses – I reckon it’s going to be some bloke named Kevin…

    But yes, I do agree with you on the point that Julie Bishop beat Smith in the debate tonight.

    But does that really matter in the scheme of the election overall?

    Nope

  12. Shame about the Democrats.
    I think I would also be more willing to believe Lambert’s mathematically discovered conclusion rather than any journalist. You know how they say “There WILL” be a narrowing etc. Perhaps it was the Government that created the myth and the media, as usual, didn’t question it?
    I’m glad about the minor parties gaining more representation in the Senate too; even if the Democrats can’t keep the bastards honest hopefully the others will!

  13. BBD @ 94 – the problem with unoin democracy is the same with problem with popular deomcracy: you get punters whose votes are swayed by clever positioning rather than awareness of the issues. As an example, take ‘Global Warming’. As an immediate issue, many CFMEU members’ jobs are threatened by action on global warming, but in the long term their interests and their families’ interests are served by taking a hit on carbon trading, renewables, etc.

  14. No 107

    All the left-leaning commentators are all demanding extra welfare for bludgers to maintain this ambiguous concept of “fairness”.

    The only thing that is fair is keeping what you earn, not leeching from others.

  15. Very interesting analysis by Geoff Lambert. I particularly liked the Monte Carlo simulation that shows random factors can generate patterns of noise around the trend that look pretty much like the actual poll data. This certainly lends support for his use of linear trends for the parts of the series within the “tip points”, and provides good reason for us not to get too fixated on the noise from poll to poll.

    97 or 100 would be an amazing result, although I am in Hume, and I am sure that will be safe for Alby Schultz.

  16. 100- isobella

    Productivity growth has fllen by 50% under howards watch

    We were also about 40% above OECD average and now we are 16% below the OECD average.

    This is as a result of reductions in R&D investment, Education and skills investment and introduction of an IR system that allows employers to focus on reducing wage costs as a way of increasing profits as opposed to rewarding productivity increases.

    Try not to believe the spin without learning a bit about the facts

    So how is this utopian Liberal voting society Rudd will lean on more produictive?

    I suppose you believe Libs introduced decentralised wage increases too?

  17. [Never send out a bore to sell a revolution it ain’t gonna wash with the masses.]

    Dear god not more communist manifestos from Liberal hacks.

    [Labor has encouraged a “public service” class. NSW is a classic example.]

    If that is the case, so has Howard – the federal public service is now 15% bigger than in 1996.

  18. 112 El

    I agree mostly with what you are saying. I am a strong believer in “issues not insruments” or “Policies not Politicians”. But the problems you raise are all through our society.

    Look at the increases in “share holder activism” as a comparison with similarities

  21. Well I wil sign off for the night by also agreeing with Generic Person: Communism doesn’t and cannot work. As British Biologist E. O. Wilson put it so neatly:
    “Nice theory, wrong species”.

    Only nine more sleeps till I hear the Rodent squeel. Its a beautiful day…

  25. Here’s a little story of 3 roosters.

    Smithy from WA was a numbers man, as boring as batsh*t, but sure liked to count and sure liked to knife people in the back.

    Conroy from VIC was a bit more colourful than the other two, but still as boring as batsh*t. He too sure liked to count and sure liked to knife people in the back.

    Swanny from QLD was a numbers man, as boring as batsh*t, he was friends with Smithy and also liked to count and knife people in the back.

    Turns out Conroy is best spent getting angry and pedantic on senate committees.
    Swanny can stay on message and is showing he is quite smart. He may even make a reasonable treasurer.
    Smithy will never make a good minister. He has the ability to lose people with his monotone voice like only Bob McMullin in his prime. He has arrogance in spades but judgement is another issue.

    Bishop performed poorly tonight (her teacher-hating attitudes were bubbling just under the surface), however she still handled Smith adeptly and beat him soundly. Won’t win the coalition the election, but it should help to work out what to do with Smith.

  28. 107 Lukas

    The probable problem is indeed the micro management. And the market direction, as you rightly point to.

    Cannot see the bigger picture.

    Which is exactly what Kevin was talking of in his launch.

  30. [ 116Jake Says:
    November 15th, 2007 at 12:15 am

    Would it be too much to ask for even 10% of people to stay on topic? ]
    .
    .
    Jake,

    You haven’t been visiting this site for very long have you?

  31. Chris, IMHO the best thing they could do for schools would be to use Linux. I say that as a s/w engineer in the industry for 25+ years. On the other hand I’m using XP Pro at home right now 😉 – but otherwise all open source s/w like Open Office.

    Using Linux would save $$$, enhance the learning experience for the proto-nerds by using open-source s/w, and let the power users discover what’s possible.

  33. [Would it be too much to ask for even 10% of people to stay on topic?]

    I’m still trying to figure out the reasoning in this PDF.

    I really should’ve paid more attention in stats.

  34. With regard to cost of computers (and networks), Moore’s and Amdahl’s Laws plus the Chinese industrial behemoth will give us computers and networks dropping in price almost exponentially for the next 10 years.

    Interestingly, government departments tend to pay vastly inflated prices (i.e. get ripped off blind or its operatives are fraudulently collusive with suppliers) for their computers so there public spend may not reflect the savings possible with the ever-diminishing cost of computers predicted by the above laws and predicated by technical advances in chip tech. On the other hand, there will be huge numbers of surplus hardly used computers dumped on the auction market for the rest of us not in school.

    One of the interesting aspects of massively ramping up broadband and access to fast terminals for kids is that they are going to become largely independent of their teachers as the latter lose their monopoly over knowledge in the classroom.

    Can’t be a bad thing in itself, but it’s the end of the world as we know it.

  38. Isabella seems very comfortable on her vitriolic high horse.

    I can’t help thinking of the stages of grief. Anger is the 3rd stage, isn’t it?

  42. [61 what’s that sign behind JWH – “Downsville”?]

    No, Townsville.

    And the Caption – “Come the 25th, I can afford to have more than the Nanna Naps I have now”

  46. I am not so saddened by the demise of the Democrats. I am actually quite happy that the three parties which gave us AWAs and the GST will receive their penance at this election.

    I am also happy that it seems Bobby Brown and co. will have the balance of power in the senate and will pull the Labor policies ever so slightly to the left. Even if it is the feral left.

    The campaign is won friends. Do no let the glib defiance of the defeated disarm you.

  47. 136

    Surely there will be a retraction of these articles?

    They can’t be based on facts.

    Hey has anyone actually figure out that if voters were concerned about the economy being destroyed by ALP (or union influence of ALP) that Libs would be 20 points ahead?

    Any danger they might get that message and save their money on the TV ads, they are getting pretty ridiculous don’t you think?

  48. Sorry to bring the thread back to the topic, but I think that the PDF seems to point to the new voting class – the “Rudd Liberals”, in the Coalition non-marginals. I think the previous term, “doctors wives” needs to be binned. It is a bit derisive and patronising.
    Thanks to Mr Lambert. I am going to go to sleep practising my new words for the day – kleptokurtic (sounds like stolen yoghurt) and heteroscedastic.
    I am going to heteroskedaddle now.

  50. A friend of mine who was a former ALP Upper House member here in WA many years ago, was telling me that she was at the movies here in Midland (part of HaslucK and Pearce) and saw an ad for the libs – was very slick and well produced.

    Are these ads national, or only in Marginal seaets ?

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