The Western Australian Electoral Commission has completed its weekend preference distributions from seats in doubt, providing Labor with a small degree of consolation through wins in Albany (a heroic effort by sitting member Peter Watson, who picked up a 2.6 per cent swing to retain his notionally Liberal seat) and Kwinana (believed last week to have fallen to independent Carol Adams). That puts the final result at Labor 28, Liberal 24, and Nationals four, with three independents: Liz Constable (Churchlands), Janet Woollard (Alfred Cove) and John Bowler (Kalgoorlie). All are committed to support the new government in one way or another, with Constable promised a position in cabinet and Bowler agreeing to act in concert with the Nationals.
Before I launch into FIGJAM mode, it behoves me to own up to my various errors over the past six weeks. As is always the case when I ambitiously attempt to pick the result of every seat, I made quite a few wrong calls: I did not pick the Liberal wins in Jandakot, Southern River, Mount Lawley, Wanneroo and Morley, and I wrongly believed Labor would lose Albany, Collie-Preston and North West. In a nutshell, I underestimated the anti-Labor swing in Perth and overestimated it elsewhere. I was embarrassingly dismissive of what proved to be a spot-on Westpoll survey from Morley a week before the election, describing the ultimately victorious Ian Britza as the “stop-gap Liberal candidate”. The Nationals’ haul of five or even six upper house seats also came out of left field, defying my prediction that Christian parties would hold the balance of power. And of course, I hesitatingly predicted Labor would win the election with a one-seat majority: a pretty good call with regard to seat relativities, but wrong with respect to the direction of the result.
With that out the way, here are some highlights of my observations over the past six weeks.
Eleven seats and 5 per cent is certainly a big hurdle, but I don’t think it’s undoable. Labor should rue the missed opportunity of calling the election last week.
For all that, the Liberals have more going for them than interstate observers might assume. WA has hardly been a happy hunting ground for Labor in recent years: Geoff Gallop’s unspectacular re-election in 2005 was the only time the party’s primary vote has topped 40 per cent since 1989, a period covering seven federal and four state elections. Published polling during the Buswell period was not as bad for the Liberals as might have been expected, mostly putting Labor’s two-party lead at around 53-47. Buswell’s departure has also lanced a number of boils, reconciling vocal dissidents including former front-benchers Rob Johnson and Graham Jacobs. Underdogs they might remain, but discerning punters should find those odds from Centrebet more than a little tempting.
Of course, the polling leak and accompanying talk of internal panic might just be a ruse to boost Labor’s winning margin rather than avert defeat. On the other hand, the shift to the Liberals recorded in last weekend’s polls was entirely consistent with the anti-Troy Buswell effect that was well understood to be at work in the preceding surveys. We have evidence now that is not merely anecdotal that the perception of arrogance is starting to bite. And those generous odds from Centrebet are still there for the taking.
I’ll eat my hat if the Nationals back a Labor government.
Such conclusions required no great insight, based as they were (excluding the last one) on the state’s voting record, the well-understood workings of the political cycle and polling which showed Labor’s mid-year lead was built entirely on the unpopularity of Troy Buswell. These considerations nonetheless failed to penetrate the judgement of the ace political guns at The West Australian, who repeatedly insisted that Labor was home and hosed.
The Labor hierarchy knew better of course, and on two occasions presented the media with accurate internal polling which the paper’s too-clever-by-half commentators disdainfully dismissed out of hand. When the first such announcement was made in the second week of the campaign, The West’s report gave equal prominence to the views of optimistic “Labor insiders”, while Robert Taylor argued in his comment piece that Labor was cynically creating a misleading impression by providing selective data.
The second announcement came early in the final week when Labor’s scare campaigns over uranium mining and GM crops were reaching a hysterical pitch, collectively sending a message that was surely impossible to miss. However, Taylor responded with a piece which should sound eerily familiar to those old enough to remember last year’s federal election campaign:
While the nightly tracking poll on Monday recorded an alarming drop to 45 per cent for the ALP from a high of 52 per cent on a two-party preferred basis last Thursday — the same night the last Westpoll gave Labor a 54 per cent vote — other key indicators remained strong for the Government. Foremost among them were the 55 per cent of people who believed the Liberal Party was not ready to govern. It’s hard to see those people walking into the booth on Saturday and voting for a party they don’t believe can be in government. There’s no doubt that Labor heavies are worried by the sudden drop in support. But there’s also no doubt they believe the election is still there to be won and that the raw primary vote figure can recover just as quickly as it dropped. Even on the figures released yesterday, Labor only has to improve between 2 and 3 per cent by polling day and it wins. That’s because after the one vote, one value redistribution, on paper at least, Labor enjoys a 17-seat majority … But 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. And it showed that the new train line to Ellenbrook and the blatant scare campaign on uranium were working, though it also confirmed that when the Liberals finally got on message at the weekend and hit the electorate with advertisements about Labor’s failed promises, people started to listen. But again, only 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.
Note the writer’s determination to overlook the headline figure staring him in the face; his focus on whichever minor indicators happened to fit with his preconceptions; and most of all, his mystical faith in a “narrowing” that would swing the result the way of his prediction. Taylor’s conviction that Labor would enjoy a late 2 to 3 per cent swing was built largely on the fact that that’s what happened in 2005, which apparently had nothing at all to do with Colin Barnett’s last-minute costings debacle.
As notable as the actual content of the article was its placement on page seven. The next day, when Labor predictably declined to assemble the state’s media for a second successive poll leak announcement, the paper splashed a non-story across the front page of its first edition headlined: “Speculation ALP back on track as new polling figures withheld”. It soon became clear that Labor’s polling showed nothing of the kind. Meanwhile, Carpenter continued to signal his party’s very real desperation by repeating the same phrase 14 times in a single doorstop interview.
Such failings wouldn’t be worth remarking upon if all they amounted to was a wrong guess about an election result (there but for the grace of God go I). The problem was that the paper felt the certainty of Labor victory justified it in applying the blow-torch to the government day after day while all but ignoring the Liberals. One example was the feeding frenzy which followed Alan Carpenter’s refusal to confirm Michelle Roberts’ position in cabinet after the election. This prompted an overheated front-page lead headlined “I dare Premier to dump me: Roberts” (as former Liberal leader Matt Birney noted: “She never said any such thing”) plus a follow-up the next day, as well as inspiring the extraordinary lapse of editorial judgement shown to the right. By contrast, Colin Barnett’s refusal a week earlier to confirm Shadow Treasurer Troy Buswell’s tenure didn’t rate a single mention. It fell to other media to pressure Barnett into making what The West would have loudly trumpeted as a “backflip” if the shoe had been on the other foot.
Don’t take my word for it though: Matt Birney offered many pertinent observations about the paper’s story selection while appearing on 6PR’s election night panel, having earlier accused it of “aiding and abetting” his own side of politics throughout the campaign. For my part, I’ve pocketed a tidy sum from a bet laid on the Liberals at the peak of the market. I reckon I deserve it.
UPDATE (16/9/08): Eric Ripper elected new Labor leader following the withdrawal of the popular favourite Alannah MacTiernan. Remarkably, the deputy position has gone to newly elected Kwinana MP Roger Cook, who until a few days ago looked like he had lost the seat to an independent.
The West Australian has certainly not been objective in its coverage, which is unfortunate.
the west australian has become the most ridiculed and reviled paper in australia since they appointed the infantile armstrong as editor. Pity stokes couldnt get on the board earlier on to replace armstrong and his cronies with real journos. im sure the press council will receive a raft of complaints re the election coverage. Unfortunately journalistic standards and code of ethics are in such short supply at the west that armstrong and his board wear upheld complaints about them as a badge of honour. being a toothless tiger the press council tutt tutts at the west and the west gives them the finger. a pity fot the people of wa given that is our only daily. In this election i would suggest that the wests attack on us were worth between 2-3% of the swing. Saying that, we also failed to develop a campaign or strategy to counter their message.
I doubt that you can attribute 2-3% of the swing to the biased reporting of The West. It’s time for Labor to stop blaming everyone else, acknowledge that they were corrupt and incompetent, get rid of the deadwood and get on with the job of being a strong opposition.
I respectfully disagreee – West runs Story attacking Labor, Early Edition at 10pm makes radio previews ie What The Papers Say, and 6PR’s Nightline’s “Preview”. Story then makes Breakfast radio bulletins, then gets followed up during Morning show etc, finally it’s on the 6pm News.
No 4
Voters are not that stupid Frank.
The Daily Telegraph, the most widely circulated Newspaper in NSW, runs daily stories on the scandalous nature of the Labor Party, yet the ALP still performed strongly in many areas at the Local Government elections.
William, can we have a new thread on US politics? The other one is now buried deep beneath the tide of Liberal victory. 😀
[Voters are not that stupid Frank.
The Daily Telegraph, the most widely circulated Newspaper in NSW, runs daily stories on the scandalous nature of the Labor Party, yet the ALP still performed strongly in many areas at the Local Government elections.]
But Sydney has The Terror and the SMH, we only have The West and the Sunday Times, which is murdoch – talk about dumb and dumber in the media stakes.
THAT is the difference, and only 2 talkback stations 6PR (owned by Fairfax, and ABC 720.
No 7
The SMH has been unrelenting in its criticism of NSW Labor Frank.
Stop making excuses.
If Matt Birney, a former Leader of the LIberal Opposition is openly criticising The West for it’s appaling Bias against Labor, you KNOW something is wrong with the WA Media, as well as Kerry Stokes, a MEMBER of the LIberal Party 500 Club, who is anything but a socialist.
I did not deny there was a problem with the WA media, I’m just saying that you can’t legitimately say that 2-3% of the anti-government swing was a result of media bias because it detracts attention from the rampant corruption and incompetence that characterised Carpenters last two years.
William, Sorry to hear you sold out your independence.. Did they offer you a lot of money??
Do you know if the Western Australian Electoral Commission will be publishing the preference datafiles?
Analysis of the 2007 Queensland senate election indicated that the system elected the wrong candidates.
There are two issues in the way the Senate vote is counted.
1. The calculation of the surplus transfer value and
2. The method of distribution of preferences allocated to unsuccessful excluded candidates.
Western Australia addressed the issue of the calculation of the surplus Transfer value which is now based on the value of the vote as opposed to the number of ballot papers as per the Senate rules .
BUT the second issue has not been addressed.
Analysis of the Queensland result based on the principle that votes from excluded candidates should be treated in the same fashion and redistributed according to the voters allocated preferences as though the candidate(s)did not stand. The only way this principle can be filled is with a reiterative count.
The short of it is that the Greens were denied a seat when they should have rightly been elected in Queensland (Proportionally speaking).
If you do a count of the Queensland senate vote and only included the last standing seven candidates, the Greens would have been elected.
Now I am not happy about that fact but the system did not reflect the voter’s intention and in spite of my political leaning and bias, the fact remains that the system should be fair and accurate. A person should not be elected because of the deficiency in the way the vote is counted.
It is surprising that the Media has not yet picked-upon the issue and concerns about the Queensland result.Its all documents and before the Australian Parliament and waiting further analysis from Anthony Green.
I am not sure if this issue has any effect in WA upper-house results. (You need the datafiles to analysis that outcome). BUT I am sure it will have an effect in the NSW and Victorian Local Government elections.
[ Do you know if the Western Australian Electoral Commission will be publishing the preference datafiles? ]
If you mean this sort of thing (scroll down a bit), then yeah, it’s there. Just copy ‘n’ paste into your spreadsheet / text editor of choice. 😉
I think he might be hoping for something a little more involved than that …
Generic Person: You can’t deny that the blatant pro Liberal bias of THE WEST AUSTRALIAN had something to do with the election result, especially in Perth.
How anyone can call that rag a credible newspaper is beyond me!
Oh well, they’ve got what they wanted!
I’ll happily forget about WA for the next 3 years.
Let that fat oaf Barnett and the Nationals ruin the WA economy!
Those who reckon they missed out on the benefits of the boom reckon they’ll do any better out of the Liberals? LMAO
Watch for spending on welfare and social programs to be cut so Barnett can continue to bribe the National Party.
As for the now Labor opposition: I fear the Burke faction will completely take over the party, and install one of their hacks as leader!
Dear Generic Person,
You seem to enjoy throwing about the accusation that the Carpenter Government was corrupt.
Can you please provide us with evidence to support your repeated claims?
This is a very serious accusation, and you seem so sure of it that you must have some kind of first hand evidence… what is it?
#15 Andos……I support your call for evidence, however in true Tory style I’m sure GP cant and wont provide any. Its their MO to throw baseless accusations and then go quiet.
As I noted in an earlier post, I’m looking forward to the future findings of the CCC which are sure to contain some juicy’s about current sitting Govt (Lib) MP’s. Watch this space. 🙂
Generic Person: Your point about the Terror in NSW is not a rebuttal of Rumpolecats/Franks’s point about the West being a 2%-3% advantage to the Libs.
For all we know, the Terror could be worth 5% or more, but the NSW Libs are so god-awful, that they still can’t get a leg up.
Are you disputing that an obviously biased media (which you accept) has an effect? Or just the magnitude of the effect?
What percentage do you attribute the Libs gaining from the appalling coverage of the West?
At least Morley had some polling showing the libs had a sniff.. Jandakot, the polling was out by almost 10% showing like a 8% margin to labor, yet on the day Francis romped it in.
Bird of paradox: Yes William is right… The WAEC hopefully will publish the raw preference data file. One record per ballot paper. I would not expect the WA upper-house vote to be close. The only way you can scutinize a computer based count is if you have access to the data file. You would be surprised at the number of data-records that warrant further review. It is very easy to make a data-entry error (As w learnt in the Victorian State Election fiasco). The Commissions have not really implemented sufficient checks in the system having taken many short cuts. The WA is the the first state to implement a vote value based calculation of the Surplus Transfer value. Victoria Labor could have readily lost the third seat by a quirk and distortion in the system. (The Greens would have received an additional 7,000 bonus votes disproportional to the voters intentions had One Nation preferenced the Liberal Party ahead of the ALP – with major party ticket votes increasing in value at the expense of minor parties votes).In Queensland’s example the Greens should have won a senate spot but again the system denied them representation not the voters. The Parliament is currently reviewing the system in place (the JSCEM has requested a report from the Australian Electoral Commission) – Bob Brown and his team are also beginning to show interest in making sure the count is correct. Antony Green,having been tied up with the WA result has not yet analysed further the QLD Senate results removing the bias and distortion in the way the AEC counts the vote.In the past everyone assumed that the “odds” of it effecting the results was minimal. And yes it does not change that readily BUT it does. In local government elections it most certainly will effect the outcome. Main stream media had not cottoned on to the facts yet.
No 15
Brian Burke. Case closed.
Given the remarkable closeness of the result and the bias of The West, a less biased newspaper might have meant a different result.
NCB. Case closed.
I WANT MY MONEY.
Damn Sportingbet. Maybe they’re holding out for an independent switching miracle?
Max, I think you’ll get your money when the new govt is actually sworn in.
The obvious bias shown by The West was shameful. There is no doubt they had an effect oon the result. However I really don’t think you can quantify it. I will say this though, Labor missed out by 2 seats and a realtively few votes in a couple of other seats of remaining in government. It wouldn’t take much by The West to have helped swing that election.
Now that it is over, I look forward to seeing the high expectations being dashed of those who see the Liberals as being the great white hope and saviour of the state. Rabble meet government.
Cuppa.. maybe a system that is not based on geography as a means of representation would better reflect the voters intentions. (Problem with a single member electorate system) Do we really need a two house system in State Parliaments? The National Party’s decision to have a claytons coalition and support a minority government is a very expensive decision to make. Changing governments a bit like moving house or office, it is not cheap. Maybe they should have offered support for to retain the existing government. I often wonder how we would go if the best of each party was given a portfolio to manage and government was by the Parliament as a whole.
The more I look at the other states outside of NSW,Victoria and Queensland the more I question the value and justification for State Governments full stop. How can you really justify Tasmania being a State. Talk about overrepresention. Tasmania has less constituents then many mainland Municipalities have.
A prominent Victorian Politician, when asked would they be supporting reform of the Victorian Legislative Council or abolition, surprised me some what when they said they would abolish the State Government altogether if they could – Of course they won’t. but he was right we are way to over governed in Australia. With better communication and a more mobile society we really do not need the levels of government we have. They are outdated and inefficent and ineffective.
Re the swing.
If we look at our first weeks polling and compare it with the final 2 weeks we can clearly see the impact the west had on the outcome. Dont get me wrong in elections there is always a loser, but its generally considered good manners to allow the people to formulate their own opinions based on relatively impartial reporting. Due to the wests extremely dominant role in WA media the punters were fed a diet of vitriolic anti labor venom for 4 weeks. Concurrently no scrutiny was applied to the libs. This reflected the outcome in which people bashed labor but could not endorse the libs because there was precious little to endorse given the media treatment they received. The rule in journalism is simple if you going to apply the blowtorch, apply it consistently. This just did not happen here. Congrats to the Libs, i genuinely wish them well because while we back our sides, the ideological and economic divide between both majors is much smaller than we make out. It just would have been a whole lot better for WA electors if the west had presented a more balanced coverage of both parties. Maybe we wouldnt have had the spectacle of Carpenter and Barnett having to court the independents and nats if people could have really weighed up the options.
DemocracyATwork @ 27: As many here know, Qld prospers with only one chamber.
Hi DemocracyAtWork
Not being very familiar at all with WA politics, I may be wrong here. I always considered the Nats backing the Libs for the final result in a tight race a foregone conclusion. Recalling the federal election where the Nats campaigned very hard against Rudd and Labor. (Acknowledging the differing dynamics between state and federal).
As for doing away with the states, I can’t come at that! Put it this way. You live in State x. You’re unhappy with the government. You have the choice to move to another state with more a agreeable political situation. Without states, you don’t have that option.
Rumpole: To make a point for GP and others, if Buswell was still leader, the ALP would have won convincingly, regardless of anything the West printed.
The West’s low partisan reporting may have been the difference in the tight election we had, but how do you divorce that from Carps’ crappy timing and crappier campaign?
LOL, it’s funny how you’re all trying to find someone else to blame for the defeat. The fact is that Carps should have one it thanks to the disarray of the Liberals right up until the day the election was called.
The West didn’t just start its venomous attacks at the start of the campaign.
Excuses excuses, boys and girls.
won not one in No 32
So, GP, The West played no part at all? Is that you’re argument?
your, not you’re.
Of course all of this is academic anyway to me. I won’t be thinking about WA politics until the next WA state election, just like I gave it no thought whatsoever during the last term of government.
No 34
Given our interest in psephological analysis, we need hard data before we can draw reasonable conclusions. Whatever effect, if any, the West had on the WA election is not quantifiable.
It is simply nothing but an excuse to blame the defeat of Corpse on them. That doesn’t excuse the outrageous bias of the paper, however.
I agree with getting rid of a lot of local government, but I think the states should stay, but they need to be given less power.
In NSW we are quite happy to get rid of the state government, the average swing away from Labor (Labor vs everyone else) was about 8% which is significant
The West helped the Liberal, but you also have to ask why.
Have Carpenter been arrogant against the media?
Have they have fights with the month piece?
Have Carpenter taken all the pro-carpenter jurnos out of the Media, and put them in the ALP.
We can blame everything on the West, but 34% of voters voted for Carpenter, there must be something wrong in the first place
No 38
Dovif, blaming the media distracts attention from the terrible campaign he ran, his poor political judgement as well as the litany of ministers sacked thanks to being in bed with Brian Burke.
So Labor got 34% and gained 28 seats? Is that correct? Hell, they couldn’t do any worse than that next time you would think and probably better.
I also note Carpenter, in the polls, was preferred leader over Barnett by a reasonable margin, so I’m not sure that Barnett is all that popular.
If you look at the US elections, the media attacking a candidate can be counterproductive, depending on how it’s handled. The attacks on Palin are definitely helping the Repugs. Perhaps the WA Labor Party just needed a Palin replacement as leader!
The interesting thing was that while Barnett wasn’t popular… he wasn’t unpopular either. And that was all that was needed to get over the line. While someone with Buzwell’s baggage would have lost the election, basically anyone else could have won it.
No 40
As William has noted, history shows that governments elected on a knife’s edge elsewhere in the country have been re-elected in landslides.
btw Carpenter only has himself to blame for alot of things – parachuting his mates into safe seats, being arrogant and dismissive of the Journos, which led to them running a vendetta against him… he made alot of mistakes, but if he had taken McGintys advice and gone a couple of months earlier he would have romped it in heh.
To be precise, Labor won 35.8% primary, the Libs 38.5 and the Nats 4.85, thus the combined Lib/Nat vote was 43.3%. A primary that low indicates that voters don’t want the party to be re-elected. I doubt that the West had that much to do with Labor’s shocking performance. The only thing that saved it from being a rout was the Greens 11.9%, and an approx 52-48 to Libs 2PP.
The question is how many seats did the ALP win off the back of Green preferences and how many seats did they win comfortably. Then we can guess as to how well or worse they will do next time. I cannot see a swing against Cautious in 2012, after all their hasnt been a 1 term Tory Government since the 1930s.
Can I assume there will be no more wailing and gnashing of teeth from ALPers about the Greens preferences in Kwinana now that Roger Cook has fallen over the line?
I think it is obvious that Carpenter did all the right things to lose this election and if he had done nothing besides just calling the election they probably would have snuck back in. In fact it might be a study in what not to do.
The thing to observe now is the relationship between the Nats and Liberals.
Grylls had not option considering all his MLAs bar him were against supporting Happy Carps. He was the only one in the LA to want to back the ALP. Colin Barnett offered a reasonable and not outragious deal like desperate Carps made in order to save his bacon, who basically offered everything but the kitchen sink. Cautious Colin knew this and didnt make an over the top deal because he knew the Nat MLAs couldnt stomach keeping a ALP Government in power.
No 48
I don’t expect the relationship to be explosive. So long as Grylls gets his 700 million, he’ll be a happy chappy.