How’s it swinging

Below is a preliminary Mackerras pendulum/table based on current results. The first thing to note is that the Liberals seem to be enjoying one-way traffic in late counting. They have taken the lead in Dickson, Swan and Bowman, appear home-and-hosed in La Trobe and are strongly placed in Macarthur. An 862 vote lead in McEwen would also normally be a basis on which to claim victory, but there are reports of “the discovery of about 3000 votes wrongly sent to neighbouring Scullin” which don’t seem to have been factored in yet. Only in Herbert has late counting actively improved Labor’s position. They are also keeping their noses in front in Solomon, although the imminent count of electronically lodged military votes might narrow the gap. If these trends continue Labor will end up with a relatively disappointing haul of 84 seats, against 64 for the Coalition and two independents. In that case it would take a loss of only nine seats at the next election for Labor to lose its majority, which would occur on a uniform swing of just 1.7 per cent. Bennelong again emerges as the litmus test seat: Labor can take comfort in the likelihood that it will swing heavily to them in John Howard’s absence. The next seat up the pendulum is Petrie in northern Brisbane, where Labor currently leads by 2.3 per cent.

Labor supporters might assume that federal politics will now follow the precedent established time and again at state level, where Labor enjoyed landslide re-election wins after establishing themselves in power. However, the historical record at the federal level offers the unhappy precedent of first-term swings against every post-war government (though only in 1998 was it greater than 1.7 per cent). I have a high enough opinion of Malcolm Turnbull to imagine he can steer the party clear of many of the obstacles that have faced it at state level, should the party be sensible enough to make him leader. Whoever takes the mantle, they will face the severe difficulty of a party room dominated by members from Western Australia, whose sensitivity to the national mood is indicated by today’s front page headline in The West Australian: “WA Libs demand party stands by WorkChoices”.

26.5 Batman
25.4 Grayndler
24.1 Throsby
23.6 Melbourne
23.3 Wills
22.0 Gellibrand
21.2 Scullin
21.0 Chifley
21.0 Gorton
21.0 Watson
20.0 Port Adelaide
20.0 Sydney 		New England 24.6 (IND vs NAT)
Mallee 21.6
19.5 Calwell
19.2 Blaxland
18.9 Fowler
18.5 Cunningham
17.0 Reid
16.4 Hunter
15.9 Newcastle
15.8 Lalor
15.6 Denison
15.6 Fraser
15.3 Maribyrnong
15.3 Werriwa
15.1 Shortland 		Murray 18.3
O’Connor 16.6
Kennedy 15.9 (IND vs ALP)
Riverina 15.7
14.9 Oxley
13.9 Prospect
13.7 Hotham
13.6 Kingsford Smith
13.5 Capricornia
13.3 Charlton
13.1 Lingiari
12.5 Barton
12.5 Griffith
12.3 Holt
12.0 Rankin
11.8 Canberra
11.2 Banks 		Moncrieff 14.4
Curtin 14.3
Bradfield 13.6
Maranoa 13.0
Mackellar 12.6
Parkes 12.4
Mitchell 11.4
Calare 11.3
Farrer 11.3
Fadden 10.4
9.5 Corio
9.5 Fremantle
9.5 Richmond
9.4 Perth
9.2 Jagajaga 		Warringah 9.5
Moore 9.3
Barker 9.1
Pearce 9.1
Indi 9.0
8.7 Bruce
8.6 Ballarat
8.6 Lilley
8.6 Lyons
8.5 Adelaide
8.0 Melbourne Ports 		Kooyong 8.9
Tangney 8.8
Berowra 8.7
McPherson 8.7
Lyne 8.4
Wide Bay 8.3
Groom 8.1
7.9 Isaacs
7.8 Makin
7.5 Chisholm
7.4 Lowe
7.4 Macquarie
7.2 Parramatta
7.1 Lindsay
7.0 Brisbane 		Flinders 7.8
Wannon 7.3
Cook 7.1
6.9 Wakefield
6.1 Brand
6.0 Bendigo 		Higgins 6.8
Mayo 6.8
Casey 6.1
5.1 Hindmarsh Forrest 5.8
Gippsland 5.7
Menzies 5.7
Goldstein 5.6
Canning 5.4
North Sydney 5.2
Aston 5.1
4.9 Blair
4.8 Bonner
4.8 Moreton
4.7 Leichhardt
4.6 Kingston
4.5 Franklin
4.1 Dobell
4.1 Eden-Monaro 		McMillan 4.9
Greenway 4.6
3.7 Longman
3.5 Dawson
3.1 Forde 		Grey 3.9
Ryan 3.8
Wentworth 3.7
Dunkley 3.5
Gilmore 3.4
Hume 3.4
2.6 Flynn
2.4 Page
2.3 Petrie 		Boothby 2.9
Fairfax 2.6
Fisher 2.6
1.7 Bennelong
1.7 Deakin
1.5 Braddon
1.4 Hasluck 		Hughes 1.8
Kalgoorlie 1.6
Cowan 1.4
Hinkler 1.2
Paterson 1.2
Stirling 1.1
Cowper 1.0
Sturt 1.0
0.9 Bass
0.9 Corangamite
0.8 Solomon
0.5 Robertson
0.4 Herbert 		La Trobe 0.5
McEwen 0.5
Macarthur 0.4
Bowman 0.02
Swan 0.02
Dickson 0.01

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.

720 comments on “How’s it swinging”

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  1. 96 LOL bet you were worried in 1941 – you would have lasted 2 days if the japanese had invaded! hehehehehe

    90 ‘One of the great things about Australian democracy is we know on election night who the Prime Minister is.’ – subject to counting the rest of the votes – can howard still win hehehehe

  2. “can howard still win hehehehe”

    Ave it 07, No, Howard is gone.

    Last election he picked up an extra 0.8% swing from postals etc.

    He is currently 1.7% behind, so no miracle story can be expected there

  4. TO WILLIAM BOWE

    William your opening comment of the one way late count to LCP is confirmed by the EXTRAORDINARY SWING TO LCP OF 55.89% since midnight Sat nite !!

    midnight Sat nite total 2PP votes were 10,045,871 Labor 5,365,501
    midnight Mon nite total 2PP votes were 10,294,616 Labor 5,475,230

    Of the 248,745 2PP votes since counted the LCP has 55.89% & Labor 44.11%

    One assumes the subsequent count would have been over all 150 seats , so William
    how can such a massive swing to LCP occur on such a large sample
    of 2.41% of ALL votes counted ???

  7. What was going on? Was it national? At my polling booth in Kings Park (Greenway) many things had changed since the State Election, as well as previous Federal and Council elections. We were removed from our normal positions in the car park, where we were more than 6m from the entrance door. The site has a fence and gate at about 6m, so it has a natural barrier. But on Saturday, we were sent out onto the very inadequate footpath ( it was grassy, uneven, very narrow, too many entrances). In my view, we i.e. Lib, ALP, GRN, should all have been fined for obstruction, as no one could get past.

    The worst indignity, however, was that we had to go elsewhere to go to the t*ilet!! Previously, we were allowed inside as long as we covered up or removed any party insignia. I was given a spiel about OH&S and WorkCover, but it all seemed dodgy to me. Thankfully it was not too hot, so we were able to limit liquid intake. But I was working all day. It was most distressing to have to call home to be collected when I needed to wee! At least I am a local, unlike the shipped in Liberals!

    There were also issues with the witnessing of the empty ballot boxes and security tagging. Previously, this was done by one of the party scrutineers. We (that is the Libs and I) have no idea who did it this time. All we saw was a scribble. Also, we did not witness the removal of the security tags at the end of polling. Normally, a scrutineer checks those too. This bit makes me wonder – election fraud? Seems a possibility.

    I’m not having a shot at the staff at the booth (well, perhaps I am), as the bloke in charge seemed to be reading from the book the entire time. MMMM, I wonder, where was that efficient woman from the state election?

    I am in the process of writing to the AEC as it bothers me that procedures were changed with no notification etc.

    I was wondering if anyone else had the same or similar experiences?

  10. It doesn’t look like Parliament will be sitting before the end of the year, so 2011 will probably be the next poll (excluding a DD of course).

    By that time, there’ll be a whole new politican dynamic, with Labor having set the agenda for the preceding 3 years.

    It is pointless, at this point, to try and pontificate about what that dynamic might be.

    There’ll be Labor stuff-ups, certainly. No-one is error-free. The telling issue will be how Rudd deals with the screw-ups. If he faces-up to them and is seen correcting the mistakes, this could well be a positive after years and years of Howard’s “I’m never wrong” denialism.

    There will also be the continuing fallout from WorkChoices (remember, Labor has said it will let current AWAs run to term, so there will be people in 2012 still getting screwed at work, courtesy of the Howard Government and the Liberal Party). This won’t help the Libs, especially if they are stupid enough to hold onto WorkChoices in some form as policy.

    Finally, as Socrates says, there will be a certain amount of dirt exposure covering the Howard years.

    Aside from any enquiries or Royal Commissions Rudd may set-up (and he might well choose not go down this path. Remember that not many Governments are keen on “investigating” their predecessors’ misdeeds, lest someone do it to them later), there’ll be the usual leaks and buckets that emerge from time to time from a disunited, faction-riven and struggling opposition.

    Lets face it, if the moderates like Turnbull win leadership, there’ll be a load of pissed-off rightwingers and vice-versa.

    And the traditional remedy for such people (on both sides of politics) has always been The Well-Placed Leak.

  12. Seriously though – this dodgy looking figure of LNP 55/ ALP 45: is that simply because they’re counting pre-polls, and lots of oldies were involved?

    In which case, should postals/ absents swing it back? What order are things being counted in?

    On other matters: The Libs are pissing on Howard bigtime today. His legacy hasnt lasted a week after being electorally smashed by Rudd. This is a particularly enjoyable read:

    http://www.theage.com.au/news/federal-election-2007-news/lib-moderates-ditch-workchoices/2007/11/27/1196036892879.html

    eg Victorian MP Russell Broadbent said the party must end the shift to the right that occurred under John Howard. In a declaration that positions him to the left of Kevin Rudd, Mr Broadbent blasted as “ridiculous” and “berserk” the decision to give millionaires tax breaks on their private school fees.

    BAHAHA!!! 🙂 Howard “ridiculous” and “beserk”!!

  18. Perusal of the individual booth results on the aec website provides some interesting reading. Before the election there was some talk about what effect the equine flu issue might cause – check out the booth results in the seat of Hunter: 2PP swings against the coalition of more than 20% in Scone and nearby Aberdeen and Murrurundi with Labor winning all the booths in those towns, not something that I think has happened before!
    Also interesting to note very big swings to Labor in Nambour with Labor winning all the booths there bar one, and very close in the one it didn’t get, that must be a first. Could this have anything to do with Rudd’s personal connection to this town?

  19. Soozie

    The use of toilets and the placement of the boundary marker of the polling booth at a Federal election are all within the remit of the AEC official in charge of the polling place.

    Kings Park booth is in fact Kings Park Childcare Centre. Perhaps the Director of the centre had specified that the toilets were not to be opened to the public – which is what you were on the day ie. HTV hander outers are not in any way “official”

    As to the sealing and opening of ballot boxes you should have your candidate make a formal complaint if you truly believe there are grounds to do so.

    In 40 years of screw-in-earing I have never seen one instance of malfeasance by an AEC official (or for that matter at state or local level). Mistakes yes but not of a nature that would cause an election result (even at booth level) to be brought into question.

    We can be very proud of the way elections are conducted in this country.

  21. “Generic Person Says:
    November 19th, 2007 at 12:54 am No 49
    What a joy it will be on Saturday evening, when I will no longer have to argue with petulant school children; John Howard securing a fifth term in office with the largest majority in Australian history.”

    🙂

  23. soozie

    The rules defining the ‘polling place’ had in fact changed. Where I was they said 6m from the ‘polling place’ sign. The AEC official said that they could enforce the entire grounds of the ‘polling place’. I guess that’s what happened in your circumstance.

  24. Yes – it’s very much at the discretion of the officer in charge. The OIC at my booth made it quite clear that he didn’t care where we were as long as we weren’t actually inside the booth.

  25. For those who have jumped on the bandwagon in the last week to have a gloat, I am a self-confessed Liberal supporter and voter, who (like many) had trouble in believing in JH in his later days. I argued vigorously for a switch to Costello a few months back, but sadly nobody who had a vote in these matters read my posts here on PB. Pity that.

    Having had various discussions with supporters and members of the Party since the election, I can tell you many were thinking along similar lines. Nobody there wants Labor in power, but the point had been reached where it was probably to our advantage for it to happen. It’s probably good for the COUNTRY for this to happen, the only way a generation shift was going to take place was for us to lose. As hard as it can be to believe, as a Liberal supporter I love my country and want her to see her reach her potential. As such, I understand that a new generation has to come through, and that political parties should never take the public for granted. Thus the loss is a good think in many ways,

    Talk of the Liberal Party becoming a minority party is laughable for two reasons. First, there’s nobody genuine to step up and replace them, second, this sort of talk would have been exactly the same for the Labor party if they had lost. Can you imagine for one second the recriminations that would eventuate if Labor had (SNIP – Please don’t swear, people: your comment will go into moderation, often for a very long time, and will usually get deleted altogether – PB) this up? I recall vividly a few years that there was talk of Labor heading to the trash, I rolled my eyes then as I do now.

    Already there is talk of renewal. I’m split between Nelson and Turnball for the leader – in one respect I would hope Nelson leads for a year or so, before Turnball takes over closer to the election. But that’s not going to happen, so I hope Turnball gets it.

    I also don’t buy this apparent belief that Labor has secured two terms in office. Pretty much every election comes with it predictions that the winner has secured it’s legacy. Three years ago, it was inconceivable that Howard could come close to losing, but look what happened. A competent opposition will grab a couple of percentage points back without raising a sweat – mainly because the noose of Workchoices and John Howard will be removed from the parties neck, along with the ending of the ‘It’s Time’ factor. People who think that this isn’t worth a point or two are kidding themselves. The question is whether this will be capitalised on to get even more of a swing to form government.

    Labor will also have a tough time convincing people that it wasn’t their fault interest rates rose, given their blaming of Howard this year. It could come back to bite them as much as it did for Howard. We will see.

    My hope is that the gloating and cheering which has dominated these threads for the past few weeks (months?) will evaporate soon, and in it’s place a decent debate of policies and ideas.

  26. Time to ‘SCHOOL YOU’ ya POMMY nitwit.

    In Australia we have a preference system that allows for the elected candidate to have a 50 + .01% to claim a constituency.

    For eg …

    Labor = 45%
    Liberals = 45%
    Greens = 10%
    Because there is no candidate that has 50% + then the candidate with the least votes has their vote counted first until it is exhausted. That would be the Greens. If the Greens had a preference deal with Labor & lets say that all the green voters followed the ‘how to vote card’ that is give their 2nd preference to Labor then that magical democratic no of 50% + is reached.

    Labor = 55%
    Liberal = 45%
    Greens = exhausted.

    The winner is Labor in this scenario. In POM land you have what is called a ‘First past the post’ system where the candidate with the most votes outright wins the constituency. For example if a candidate in a count got 30% of the vote and the rest individually got less than that then that one with 30% wins. Even if 70% of voters did not vote for him/her. What kind of democracy is that?

    Looks like us Australians have a far superior model for vote counting and our Labor government is legitimate with over 50% of the vote.

    Talk about Labor government isn’t that what you have in the UK? Piss off you sore LOSER you have no business here!

    PS – Apologies to William if I’m a little forth rite.

  27. Rates Analyst @ 53, you’re almost certainly wrong. Although there may be a few changes (in either direction) in the final count, at present there are only eight seats where Labor is behind on primaries but ahead on preferences: Bass, Corangamite, Deakin, Hasluck, Herbert, Page, Robertson, and Solomon. Even without all of those, Labor would still have won the election.

  29. Pancho 121 that is really funny.

    GP, if you are not busy shredding incriminating documents, would you please make a similar prediction for 2010. Nothing would give me mroe confidence in the result.

  30. So, if the count progresses along these lines, Labor will be on 84, coalition on 64.

    The tories would therefore need 12 seats in 2010, and the 12th seat, as I see it, is Flynn, on 2.6%.

    Interesting. Swings are never uniform blah blah blah….

  31. If we are serious about political leaders then one must conclude that
    Turnbull & Nelson are flakey & support any issue that wins votes ala Howard

    but Abbott IS a conviction politican who I would NEVER vote for
    but who I respect for speaking the policys he believes in.
    Alas , he will not be given the chance over time to persuade voters of his views as the Liberals are looking for short time voter perception to win

  32. I was defending the proportional system – and trying to suggest that the left-wing mandate is as strong as it has ever been, arguably.

    I accept that I may have overstated the number of seats where the ALP wins on preferences – though 76 is only the smallest of victories and the overall point stands.

  33. [ Lefty E, John Howard was no right wing nutter. His profligate spending is a testament to that fact. ]

    It’s a myth that right wingers aren’t big spenders. I lived in the USA during the Ronald Reagan era and his spending dwarfed anything before him.

  35. re Soozie 107

    Where I was, central Queensland, the local AEC officials took the opposite approach, allowing booth workers inside the school grounds to take advantage of the shelter that was available, this hasn’t happened previously and appeared to be widespread across booths in Flynn, Capricornia and Dawson.

  37. Liberal MPs in marginal seats seem to be better organised when it comes to postal votes. It explains why time and time again, they can be anything up to 2% behind in election night, yet still retain the seat after postals and absentees have been counted. A classic example was Trish Worth, former MP for Adelaide, retaining her seat after trailing by something like 1000 votes on election night.

  38. [It’s a myth that right wingers aren’t big spenders. I lived in the USA during the Ronald Reagan era and his spending dwarfed anything before him.]

    That’s because he was working on the “starve the beast” plan, you know, put the government in so much debt that his political opponents can’t propose to spend more money.

  39. Why is everyone worrying about 2010 or 2011? You’re underestimating Rudd if you think he’ll meekly hand government back to the Liberals.

  40. Is anyone surprised that Downer is doing the numbers for Turnbull?

    I thought he’d be doing the numbers for Abbott, because Abbott is the “Keep the Howard Legacy Alive” candidate.

  43. Ha. Sportingbet has already opened a 2010/11 betting market. ALP 1.18, Libs 4.50. Shorter than going into this election…trying to draw some Lib money while they can?

  44. [ Is anyone surprised that Downer is doing the numbers for Turnbull? ]

    Downer and Abbott don’t really like each other. It was obvious when Downer was asked his opinion of the likely candidates for Opposition Leader and said some nice things about Nelson and Turnbull but really struggled to say anything good about Abbott. It’s a surprise considering Abbott’s “good people skills”.

  45. aussieG – a general election (first past…) in New Guinea some 15 years ago resulted in one constituency delivering the winning candidate with slightly less than 5% of the popular vote. Tribal loyalties were at the heart of this exaggerated outcome.
    So there’s democracy and there’s democracy – and results like this would foster feelings, for many voters, of being effectively disenfranchised.
    Preferential voting, two candidate preferred (TCP), isn’t perfect but is much more likely to deliver a winning candidate with broad support.

  48. The Liberals have had a significant advantage in organisation and demographic regarding declaration votes and pre-polls. The organisation is that it is drummed into booth workers to hand out statewide HTV’s to any who seem unsure, each booth receives 100 or more of these. The second feature is the elderly and generally well off nature of Liberal voters ensures they are either absent or voting from home. There has been a gentle change in the declaration votes over the last thirty years. Originally heavily Liberal, then slightly Liberal, now back to strongly Liberal. It is a measure of whether the retirees and elderly are happy with the Liberals.

  50. AussieGuru-Excellent summary. The twit is unlikely to pi#s off though. He enjoys his little hit and run tactics before he has his cocoa and gets tucked into bed by ‘mummy’.

    I think it was a feature of the Thatcher years that the non-tory parties always achieved the higher percentage of the vote but remained powerless. You would have thought Blair/Brown would have changed FPP and they did look at doing some form of PR but then realised that the current boundaries privelege Labour at the moment and decided they would do nothing.

    The Tories still need s sizeable swing to unseat Labour at the next election and are well on the way given the troubles Labour are having at the moment.

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