WA election minus two days

The big news of the last week has been Labor’s publicising of comprehensive internal polling from the marginal seats of Albany, Kingsley, Riverton, Ocean Reef and Swan Hills. The figures show Labor trailing 34 per cent to 48 per cent on the primary vote, or 45-55 on two-party preferred. The trend line in the polling showed that just one week ago Labor was leading 52-48 on the back of a post-debate rally, restoring their fortunes after the much-touted 6 per cent swing picked up the previous week. I assume we’re talking about unadjusted results for the five specific seats, in which case they compare with a 2005 result of 51-49. It must be remembered that there are peculiarities to this particular collection of seats: Kingsley had a slightly anomalous result last time, local issues involving Leach Highway may be biting in Riverton, and Labor doesn’t have sitting members in its notionally held seats of Ocean Reef and Swan Hills. Against this is the fact that Labor can expect a better-than-average result in Albany, as they will be campaigning seriously in the newly added areas for the first time. On balance, the sample of seats used might be expected to add up to a slightly above average swing. If another 2 per cent can be accounted for by the margin of error and late efforts to scare waverers, Labor will still get its nose in front. Otherwise …

Labor is certainly behaving like a party with the smell of death in its nostrils, judging by the pitch of its scare campaigns on uranium mining and GM crops. However, The West Australian remains loftily dismissive of the message Labor is trying to send on polling, and indeed most other things. It should hope for vindication on this score, as last Thursday its front page proclaimed: “Forget talk of a tight race – Labor’s home, say WA’s two best political commentators”. Both of those commentators remain unmoved by the latest Labor figures. Paul Murray writes: “The pretty graphs shown fleetingly on television last night are not the detailed polling figures that are needed to examine Labor’s claims properly, as the ABC journalists who presented them know full well.” Such reliance on polling strategy is compared unfavourably with “Labor titans like John Curtin, Doc Evatt, Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke”, who “bravely plotted their own political courses, according to their consciences, in their dealings with the electors.” You are invited to contemplate a Paul Murray transported in time to the early 1970s, turning out columns in praise of the brave and principled leadership of Gough the Titan.

Robert Taylor writes that Labor “only has to improve between 2 and 3 per cent by polling day and it wins”, which makes it sound so easy. Furthermore, “the poll produced by Labor yesterday wasn’t too much different from the way things were running in the last week of the 2005 election campaign when Geoff Gallop came from behind just a week out to record a comfortable victory” – though on that occasion Labor had the free kick of Colin Barnett’s costings debacle two days out from polling day. Great weight is given to the survey’s other findings: “24 per cent of those polled said they could remember something that appealed to them about a Barnett message while 38 per cent said they could remember and liked something the Premier had said”, while only 31 per cent thought the Liberals ready for government (which interestingly compares with low-20s figures being put around at the start of the campaign). Expectations of the result are much as they’ve always been: 61 per cent of voters believed Labor would win, compared with 18 per cent for the Liberals. The bookies too remain non-plussed, offering $1.25 on Labor and $3.50 on Liberal.

UPDATE: Super-size all that: today the bottom of the front page is headlined, “Speculation ALP back on track as new polling figures withheld”. This is based on Labor’s refusal to release its figures for a second day running. The West is also literally running free Liberal advertising.

Also:

• More on The West Australian: A mirthful Matt Birney told 6PR’s Simon Beaumont that the Liberals had “certainly been aided and abetted by the West Australian newspaper – and more power to them I say, good on you guys, keep it up”. The West responded to this embarrassing assessment by criticising the ABC. Inside Cover’s Neale Prior went so far as to provide a direct number for ABC news chief Kim Jordan, encouraging readers to call and annoy him (anyone got Prior’s number?). Prior noted that the paper had equally been slammed for Labor bias by no less an authority than Colleen Mortimer, a reader who had sent them an email.

• The front page of the Liberal site features the television ad which Labor’s pollsters blame for their apparent slump. I personally don’t find the ad so devastating that it explains a 7 per cent reversal, and find myself wondering if the furore over the TruthAboutTroy website might have crystallised doubts about Labor’s style.

• There’s also a seventh radio ad on the Liberal site, and it’s yet another Whingeing Wendy effort (this time with a male voiceover). Radio advertising has been a point of difference between the two campaigns, with Labor’s jocular style typified by a depiction of Barnett as a quiz show contestant struggling with questions about uranium mining. In an interesting parallel with the federal campaign, Labor’s ads seem tailored for FM whereas the Liberals sound like they made theirs with talkback in mind.

• Ian Taylor, who led the Opposition for a year between the departure of Carmen Lawrence in 1994 and the brief tenure of Jim McGinty, has been expelled from the ALP for endorsing independent Murchison-Eyre MP John Bowler in his campaign for Kalgoorlie. Bowler was one of the four ministers whose scalps were claimed by the Corruption and Crime Commission’s inquiries.

• The Western Australian Electoral Commission predictably dismissed a Liberal complaint against Labor ads attacking Barnett over “nuclear waste”, as its power lies only over material involving “the casting of the elector’s vote”. The complaint nonetheless succeeded in communicating the party’s grievance through news coverage.

• Labor’s big ticket campaign launch item of a rail line to Ellenbrook no doubt has a lot to recommend it on policy grounds, but it inevitably invites speculation as to the government’s electoral objectives. The line will serve the electorates of Midland, Morley, Bassendean, West Swan and Swan Hills. Notwithstanding the complicated state of play in Morley, the only one of the aforementioned which is on the electoral front line is the latter. The Liberals matched the promise in such short order that there was speculation Labor had locked in the policy to pre-empt them.

• Another interestingly targeted policy is Labor’s promise to change the public transport fare structure to make fares cheaper in the outer suburbs. This benefits a wide arc of marginal seats from Ocean Reef on the northern coast through Joondalup, Wanneroo and Swan Hills to Darling Range.

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.

485 comments on “WA election minus two days”

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  4. Voice of Reason #194

    Even if the Libs take every single one of the seats listed, by my count Labor still takes 30 seats and can form a majority government. Are these the seats The West are saying are in play?

  5. she’s got her stories from someone who could be seen as being close to you Frank, or so I hear…

    But were obtained after much harrassment and badgering until Ms Strutt got the quote she wanted according to the original source’s staff 🙂

  7. Dawesville: Kim Hames vs Marion Blair
    Darling Range: Lisa Griffiths vs Tony Simpson
    Kalamunda: John Day vs Juliana Plummer
    Scarborough: Liza Harvey vs Scott Blackwell
    Bunbury: John Castrilli vs Peter McFarlane

    Interesting… these seats haven’t been mentioned that much anywhere, even though they’re very marginal (Kalamunda’s just 0.2% to the Libs, and Darling Range is 0.8% to Labor). Anyone reckon Hames, Simpson or Day might lose their seats?

  8. Anyone reckon Hames, Simpson or Day might lose their seats?

    Darling Range has gained the Darlington Primary School Booth from Swan Hills, and that was a good ALP booth last time.

  9. out of the three i reckon day and simpson have their seats safely and with swings their way but hames may not get such a big swing.

    dawesville is next to mandurah home of the new train line and the hard working david templeman

  10. Darling Range maybe, a lot of $$ has been spent in the former Swan Hills part of the electorate where JR did HEAPS of local work and the Lib candidate is unknown. The other parts of the electorate are around Armadale and Kelmscot sort of

  11. Darling Range maybe, a lot of $$ has been spent in the former Swan Hills part of the electorate where JR did HEAPS of local work and the Lib candidate is unknown.

    And ironically that’s where Graham Giffard lives.

    Yeah, one of Jaye’s strong supporters and a member of the branch is a Booth Captain on one of the booths.

  15. The Hills are rapidly becoming tree change electorates. I can’t imagine any “save perth hills” supporters would vote for or preference the “no logs no jobs” libs either

  16. William,

    Your mission is to grab a dead tree version of The Australian. Unless they will publish Newspoll Friday Night for the Weekend Oz, like in 2005.

  18. i’m quite sure that i have not uttered a good word about the west in years but in fairness, tony mcrae did bring some ill feeling upon himself last election…

  19. Oh and according to Inside Cover, Ian Henke, former Howard Staffer is behind the recruitment agency mentioned yesterday on Campaign Diary.

  21. 218: That’s why I think McRae’s got a pretty good chance to hold Riverton. Last election, he and his seat got splashed all over the front of the West two days in a row… he still won. They must like him there, I suppose…

  23. when is this news poll going to be realised does any one no

    If it’s not in the dead tree version, then definately Saturday.

  24. In Lieu of there being no Newspoll, here is the latest from the unscientific, easily rigged(by deleting your cookies) Perth Now Poll 🙂

    And note there is actually no provision to vote for Greens nor independents.

    Poll Results

    You have already voted! Here are the results so far:

    Labor
    52%
    Liberal
    46%
    Greens
    0%
    Independent
    0%
    Total votes
    Total of 3467 votes

  25. McRae would most definally lose his seat if mike nahan was a people person and worked to win it his first mail out was the first weekend the election was called need i say more

  27. i no it has a large ethinic community but it is easily a lib seat if you have a look at williams map the booths around shelly are only 60 percent liberal they could easily be 65 or even 70 liberal even willeton is only 52 labour kierath did hold it by 6 % and the boundaries have not changed much the reason why mcrae did so well in the past was his links to the ethnic community in the area which helps him in willenton and parkwood

  29. just to correct my statement the lower both in willeton is 53 which can be won by the libs and the booth just a bit higher sould be more liberal if worked

  30. But this time there is no independent liberal mayor running, which should make it more straightforward.

    The timing has prevented the running of Dummy candidates.

  32. No Westpoll yet? Must be something in it positive for Labor then.

    I reckon both Westpoll and Newspoll will be published on Saturday so as to prevent any last minute announcements, if they were published now, it would give the parties time to work during the night to release some Big ticket item to announce.

  35. Frank @ 232 “The timing has prevented the running of dummy candidates”.

    Really?

    As in “Independents” who are only there to give their preferences to one of the majors – usually conservative, you know the type, High Profile single issue candidates.

  36. Frank Calabrese @ 226

    Articles like that make me wonder who’s editing nowadays. As soon as you read clunkers like “WA was the only state to swing towards the Coalition in the last Federal election” it makes it hard to take the rest of the article seriously. Of course, we all know WA did not swing towards the Coalition in the last election and swung to the ALP by 2.14%.

    They could’ve stated it in other ways of course, for instance it being the only state where the Coalition recorded a greater 2PP vote share than the ALP, or the only state where the Coalition increased its seat count. Finding out this material, of course, only takes a couple of minutes.

  38. Chris Hatton, standing for the Libs in Balcatta, letterboxed my street yesterday with a single A4 sheet in black on white. No photo, tiny typeface. No authorisation statement either.

    I’d have thought the Libs would have tried a little harder to put a dent in Kobelke’s margin, given that he is the Police Minister and they are running strong Loranorder messages.

  39. 6PR announces that a poll of 1200 voters conducted for it by Quick Ideas in Morley, Perth, Midland, Joondalup, Ellenbrook and Cannington has the Liberals leading 48 per cent to 30 per cent. Apparently they did an earlier smaller survey that had Labor on 23 per cent.

  41. If the polling is to be believed and we see a landslide victory to the Libs, then one has to seriously question the mental stability of West Australians. …Seriously, even if you are not happy with the attitude and performance of the Govt, how can anyone in their right mind hand over the reins to a group led by some who just yesterday admitted a lack of policy(detail)??!!?? How is that being ready to govern?

    (I’m shaking my head in confusion as I type this)

  43. William @ 239

    Quick Ideas don’t even appear to be a research company. They are not affiliated in any way with the Australian Market and Social Research Society, neither of their principals are members, there is no evidence that they have any history or expertise in political polling. Salt required.

  44. Labor in WA is really going to lose?
    If Sandgropers are dumb enough to vote for Colin Barnett and the “Chair Sniffer”, that is a sad enditement on our friends in the West.

  45. There are two questions in Morley and my gossip has no-one really sure of the answers.

    Do John D and the Libs together beat 50% (assuming 100% swap of preferences) and then assuming they do who finishes higher of John and the Lib and how do the preferences actually flow.

    I’m not sure anyone knows but I don’t think completely writing off a Lib win would be wise, it is just improbable, while you would expect a fairly tight preference flow from the Libs to John, I’m not sure anyone could bank on it backwards, John would have a lot of supporters from Labor who would be happy to preference him first, but going to the Libs second should be a big ask for these type of voters.

    Has anyone heard seen morley how to votes for any one, I’m not close enough to know who is directing to who. I’m just guessing.

  46. I keep reading that voters are wanting a greater share in the wealth of the ‘Boom’. Yet I never actually read how they want the boom wealth to be shared. Given that it is only a mining boom, surely people involved in mining will receive the benefits? If Labour loses the election because of the concept of people feeling left out, how will the Liberals change this perception?

  50. I would be surprised if the liberal vote was anywhere near as strong as the “leaked polling” and media chatter are predicting. Punters obviously arent happy with labor and want to send a message. I dont for one secong believe however they are seriously contemplating putting barnett and buswell into government. The volatility in the polling is due in part to people venting their anger with the early election and percieved flaws with Labor. Their message has been picked up by Carpenter, who produced a Beattyesque mia culpa last night. Message sent, message received, now let sanity prevail. Labor to win with a reduced margin for sure but still a labor victory. We are different in WA but certainly not insane enough to put the libs in power.

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