A classic from the vault

Time for a new thread. For the want of anything better to hang it off, I hereby reprint my piece in Crikey last week on prospects for the Senate. This does not mean discussion on this thread need be relevant to this topic.

Like so much else this year, speculation about the Senate election has been guided by “the narrowing”: that mystical force that would drive swinging voters to the Coalition once the campaign focused minds on economic management. It’s now clear to all but a dwindling band of die-hards that this hasn’t happened and isn’t about to.

It is thus necessary to revise the view that the Coalition will be strong enough in the Senate to make life difficult for an incoming Rudd Government. The Liberals and Nationals instead find themselves in danger of losing a swag of seats, which opens up a dizzying range of possibilities for the Greens.

A case in point is Kerry Nettle’s bid for re-election in New South Wales. Earlier in the year it seemed safe to assume there would be a traditional three-all split between left and right, with Nettle fighting a probably losing battle with Labor’s number three, Senator Ursula Stephens. In that context, any improvement in the Labor vote would have been damaging for Nettle. Now it seems Labor might be strong enough to win Stephens a seat without excluding Nettle, perhaps even bequeathing her a measurable surplus as preferences. That would boost Nettle’s chances of overtaking and defeating the Coalition’s third candidate, Senator Marise Payne.

The story is similar in Victoria, given that Labor and the Democrats have thought better of repeating their 2004 preference exchanges with Family First (who nonetheless have a vague chance if they can match their vote at the state election).

There has been a further stroke of good fortune for the Greens with the entry of independent Nick Xenophon in South Australia. Such is Xenophon’s popularity that he looks likely not only to win a quota in his own right, but also to deliver the Greens a substantial surplus. This could help their candidate Sarah Hanson-Young overcome the third Labor candidate, Cathy Perry.

Bob Brown should have no trouble winning a seat in Tasmania, the question being how the remaining five seats will divide between Labor and Liberal. There is familiar talk that Brown might do well enough to also carry running mate Andrew Wilkie over the line, but this at least seems a little too optimistic.

The two states where Labor’s strength does not help the Greens are Western Australia and Queensland. Western Australia does not look likely to produce the huge swing required to cost the Liberals a third seat, so a strong hike in the Labor vote has the potential to squeeze out the Greens. Nonetheless, their candidate Scott Ludlam remains the firm favourite.

Labor is also becoming hopeful of winning a third seat in Queensland, which it has never done before at a six-seat half-Senate election. On the other side of the ledger, there is a chance that the Coalition will lose the seat of Nationals Senator Ron Boswell to Family First, who will harness the entire right-of-centre vote if they get ahead of Pauline Hanson. It’s hard to see how Hanson herself could put a quota together, despite all that has been written about her minor successes in preference negotiations.

The remaining wild card is the Australian Capital Territory, where Greens candidate Kerrie Tucker threatens an historic win at the expense of Liberal incumbent Gary Humphries. This would be especially significant because territory Senators’ terms are tied to the House of Representatives, so that an end to the Coalition’s absolute majority would take effect immediately.

While it is likely that not all of these potential Greens wins will come off, they will probably have around five Senators joining the two continuing from the 2004 election, to be joined on the cross benches by Nick Xenophon and continuing Family First Senator Steve Fielding. The Coalition will be reduced from its current majority of 39 seats out of 76 to around 35, while Labor should increase its current 28 seats by four.

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.

1,322 comments on “A classic from the vault”

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  4. It just smells very desparate and people don’t like technical arguments so it can only be a negative for the Libs. Look at Newhouse. Prior to all this talk he was getting no traction at all in Wentworth. Since then the whole electorate knows it is a tight race. I think it has helped him. And those well educated swingers in the eastern suburbs won’t like it at all as it smacks of smear….

    there will be plenty more sh$t throwing before the week is out… Labor will do well not to throw too much back….

    on more positive things… looking forward to the ministerial accountability announcement and linking that into AWB, Imigration department, Haneef… etc etc….

  6. Cityblue @ 51: Well I’ll be. Bob Brown seems rather determined to embrace a Rudd govt, despite Rudd seemingly not wanting to know him.

  8. NB Says:
    November 20th, 2007 at 4:51 pm

    Election 2007 Play List (In no particular order)

    Excellent – now how about you configure it a an iTunes list…

  10. Blindoptimist 907 in previous topic said:

    “The coalition really must think the public are idiots – a fatally wrong assumption on their part, as they will soon discover”

    Are you sure about that, remember Tampa, kids overboard, WMD, AWB and so the list goes on and on and on

  11. “In what is likely to prove as a major embarrassment for Liberal Party campaign spokesman Andrew Robb, Labor has refuted claims the 13 hopefuls are all ineligible because they failed to resign from Commonwealth jobs before nominating for parliament.” (Herald – Sun)
    This story just turned nasty on the Libs – the headlines tomorrow won’t be pleasant for them.

  12. Rumour has it that Howard’s former mistress will go public in the next few days and declare herself against WorkChoices. Is this idle gossip or something else?

  13. Nick @ 56 It shows that Bob Brown has learnt from the stuff ups by the Greens in Victoria and won’t allow the Greens to be labelled as “pro-Workchoices” like the greens in Victoria were labelled “pro-nuclear” when tehy voted down a anti-nuclear bill earlier this year.

  14. This story had little time to be seen as a stuff up by Labor (of course it wasn;t anyway). The WHOLE story will be told tonight and tomorrow and it is a bad look for the Libs.

  15. Thanks William for this free-fire zone!

    Anyway, when the Libs are reduced to using websites as the basis for their claims its quite clear that they are trying to latch on to anything to distract attention for WorkChoices Mark 2, otherwise known as the “Arbiet Macht Frei” employment policy…

    A person may well have been on a board, or council…it doesn’t make them responsible for the updating of the body’s bleeding website….

    Give me a break

    also, btw, has anybody seen Jeff Kennett with his new ‘tash? surely it must be done for charity…otherwise he’s angling for the job of “arbeits-gauleiter-uberalles-steh-auf” ambassadorship in a returned Howard government…..

    and yes, I know what he is on the record as thinking of both Howard and Costello!

    anyway, just hope the cameraden in the NSW Liberal right cabal are going to be up for a bit of counselling from beyond blue once this all goes down…alex hawke, david clarke and john howard group therapy is now in session…

    And Guido: welcome back!

  16. JIm @ 59:

    Wrong mate, Labor has rejected it lock stock and barrel. This will hit the 6 O’clock news and the current affairs shows as a desparate Libs smear campaign gone wrong.!

  19. ooppss, another own goal by the libs. I suggested they would implode but my God even I can’t believe how pathetic, panicked and desperate they have become.

    One thing we do know now is they DO NOT believe they have a hope in hell. There is no way they would panic and clutch at desperation like this if they thought they had even a remote chance of hanging in.

  20. Jim. it’s out there now??? are you kidding. average jo and joanne are stuck in their cars at peak hour listen to a couple of moron comedians spin tunes from 90’s boy bands and Oz idol winners. OR they are at home doing the after school battle with the kids… “no jimmy you cant have another coke. sit down and watch the telly or play your playstation!”. OR they are still at work, or at the gym etc….

    its only us that have probably taken too much notice of this. it’ll all be gone in about 40 mins. Tony Jones will chuckle about tonight in his intro and then it will exist no more….

  22. cityblue @ 63: I like this new direction from the Greens, I think their moral high horse, holier than thou attitude has definitely hurt them in the past, and if they want to become a major contender they will need to make some painful ideological compromises of the kind that the major parties make all the time. This could be some small steps in the right direction imho.

  26. Oakes will go big time on the Robb blunder. It will be a shocking look for the Libs in tomorows MSM – reinforcing the “mean and tricky” image. Their campaign is unravelling like none other in recent memory.

  31. “Rumour has it that Howard’s former mistress will go public in the next few days and declare herself against WorkChoices. Is this idle gossip or something else?”

    Yes, but what does his current mistress think?

  32. William, just kicked some more in the tin for bandwidth, keep up the great work, will put some more in when my bets come in after Saturday (oh happy days).

  35. Did anyone else here (straight) get perturbed by the Howard and Costello duo interview? How many think that ppl would have seen and heard that and gone ‘EEEwwwwWW!’

    I know I was dry retching on the inside.

  37. I am reading a book “Excellent cadavers” about the mafia assassination of the leading anti-mafia prosecutors, Falcone and Borsellino. After they were killed, everyone said “You just cant beat the mafia” except for one former mafiaboss turned informer who said “No, you are all wrong. This is a sign that they are totally desperate and they are about to lose.”
    This desperate and despicable act by Team Rodent and Robb will be seen in the same light when the bloodbath takes place on Saturday. Let there be no compassion for such a deplorable bunch who have run the country based on the politics of greed and fear.

  41. The Labor denial was firstly in edited into the original article. Then removed. You can limk to it as above, but it seems news has removed the denial from the main web page….?

  46. LIBERAL Party assertions that 13 Labor candidates are ineligible to stand in Saturday’s election are ‘baseless, ridiculous and desperate’ the ALP has claimed.

    In what is likely to prove as a major embarrassment for Liberal Party campaign spokesman Andrew Robb, Labor has refuted claims the 13 hopefuls are all ineligible because they failed to resign from Commonwealth jobs before nominating for parliament.

    Mr Robb said legal advice suggested the ALP candidate for Wentworth, George Newhouse, may be ineligible for parliament and had compounded the problem by refusing to release relevant documentation.

    Twelve other ALP candidates may be similarly affected, Mr Robb said.

    However, Labor has just released a statement saying all 13 resigned from their positions in accordance with electoral guidelines.

    ”All 13 candidates standing for the Australian Labor Party in this Saturday’s election are eligible to stand for public office,” ALP spokesman Alex Cramb said. ”This afternoon’s press conference by Andrew Robb was pure desperation.

    ”The claims against the 13 ALP candidates cited by Andrew Robb were cobbled together from web sites. All 13 candidates are valid and they resigned.

    ”Mr Robb’s claims are baseless, desperate and ridiculous. These claims are completely untrue.
    The Liberal party is desperate. They have nothing left to say”

  48. Gerr – I saw a clip of it after one on Kevin and Therese’s Morning interview. Costello was talking about his political marriage with Rodent – very unpleasant conjunction of associations.

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