Victorian federal redistribution and other tales

In the event that we do face an election sooner rather than later, one difficulty Labor will have to factor in is what looks like an unfavourable redistribution in Victoria, draft boundaries of which were released during the election campaign. Despite the fact that the number of electorates in the state has not changed, the redistribution commissioners propose a radical overhaul that will abolish the rural electorate of Murray and create the new electorate of Burke in Melbourne’s northern outskirts. While this involves the abolition of a safe Liberal seat and the creation of a new one with a notional Labor margin of 10.8 per cent (as calculated by Antony Green on the basis of the 2007 results), knock-on effects make Corangamite and Deakin notionally Liberal, and McEwen (newly acquired by Labor at the recent election) very safely so.

According to the redistribution commissioners, the sweeping changes have been deemed necessary because relative population decline has made it unfeasible to preserve the existing northern regional trio of Murray, Mallee and Indi. However, this has been disputed in a highly critical submission from Tim Colebatch, a senior journalist for The Age, who calculates that one-in-six Victorian voters will be transferred to different electorates. Colebatch complains there has been a failure to account for future growth in outer suburbs and the inner city, which in partisan terms will mean bloated enrolments in nine Labor seats by 2018 and deficient ones in four middle suburban Liberal seats. It is tempting to speculate the commissioners have been influenced by the fact that redistributions of New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia turned Labor’s 83 seats from the 2007 election into a notional total of 88.

However, another submission from Jenni Newton-Farrelly of the South Australian Parliamentary Library reaches a very different conclusion. Newton-Farrelly has brought to the process her jurisdiction’s enthusiasm for electoral fairness, with reference to margins she has calculated from both the 2007 election and preliminary results from 2010. When these are adjusted to a 50-50 two-party outcome, Labor is found to receive more than its fair share: 20 seats to 17, with no margin in any seat lower than 1.4 per cent. On the results from the recent election, Newton-Farrelly finds the Liberals would have won Corangamite by 0.8 per cent and McEwen by 6.6 per cent, while Labor would have gained Aston by 1.5 per cent.

Elsewhere:

• Antony Green crunches the numbers from seven electorates where there were only Labor, Liberal and Greens candidates and finds “little difference between the 2010 preference flows and the flows in the same seats at the 2007 election”. This comes as a profound shock, as we were repeatedly warned not to trust two-party opinion poll results based on exactly this assumption. Dennis Shanahan of The Australian, for example, wrote on August 2 that Labor’s primary vote had fallen into “the fatal zone below 40 per cent, where the party has only a slight hope of winning, and then based only on heroic assumptions about the results and the delivery of Greens preferences”. I like to think that the moral of this story is that even in this jaded and cynical age, heroism can sometimes still win the day.

• Amusingly, Labor has pulled ahead at the time of writing on the AEC’s meaningless national two-party vote figure, which excludes results from eight electorates. In the past few days I have heard Andrew Bolt, Barnaby Joyce, Kerry Chikarovski and Kenneth Wiltshire (no doubt there were many others) use the progress score on this count to assert that the Coalition had won, which is very clearly untrue. As Peter Brent of Mumble points out, it is almost certain that the complete figures which will be available in a few weeks’ time will show Labor the winner, by however narrow a margin. Smarter Coalition operatives have been limiting their pitch to the perfectly reasonable observation that the Liberal and National parties won “more votes and seats” than Labor.

• In the comments thread from the Mumble post linked to above, Peter Brent tells a reader that “Newspolls will take a breather for a little while”. Speaking of Newspoll, here’s an exchange from Sunday’s edition of Insiders:

Barrie Cassidy: (The Australian) ran the results of a poll on Saturday, not talking about individual seast but country-wide, that more people were in favour of a minority Labor government than a minority Coalition government. Now Glenn, you’ve had some experience with this, they actually polled a week ago and published six days later. That’s unusual, isn’t it?

Glenn Milne: Well, it’s clear they didn’t like the poll results.

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.

3,234 comments on “Victorian federal redistribution and other tales”

Comments Page 62 of 65
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  1. I agree with James though, why does Morgan bother? Is it not more expensive to do F2F? Why bother if it is proven to be less accurate?

  2. [Vernula Publicus
    Posted Friday, September 10, 2010 at 4:03 pm | Permalink
    my say

    I’ve never been polled so I don’t trust any of them]

    no not on the phone me neither.

    i just accidently clicked on your avatar great poem

  4. When I said 4:17 earlier as to when he would say whether or not he would take the job at his 4:15 presser I meant one or the other of:

    a) 4:17 pm

    c) 4 minutes and 17 seconds in

    d) 4 hours and 17 minutes in

    – (b) has been left deliberatly blank so I can claim victory later

  5. [I notice Toolman on “Their ABC” thinks that Oakeshott won’t accept Julia’s offer.]

    if was mrs oakeshott, and had a 4th baby on the way any day i dont think i would want him to either unless we could have a nanny ,

    but i suppose the media want mention that

  6. TTH

    [ Afterall he can hold no blame for Labors near election loss ]

    Of course he (Rudd) can. The party’s poll numbers hit the floor toward the end of his leadership. If Rudd had been kept on as leader I strongly suggest we’d have an Abbott govt – and you’d be even more unbearable.

  7. Morgan does F2F on politics because its simply tacked on to F2F stuff for commercial clients – doesn’t cost anything, except a few minutes of the interviewers time.

  8. It would be much better for Oakeshott, at this stage, to say that he had been taken to the top of the temple, shown the cities of the plain and decided that he wanted to keep his independence and tender to his electorate.

    Of course, if he makes a good job of the ministry, I’ll be shown to be a crap-artist, again.

  10. Apology in advance for what may be a stupid question(s).

    If Morgan recognises a problem in their F2F polling re a labor bias why do they continue with F2F ? Why not just stick to phone polling which I understand gives a more balanced response?

  11. I love Toolman on ABC24 “he is a man [Turnbull] who set up Ozemail, he is a tech-head…”

    yeah, and I’m a “chef” cause I just put away the shopping

  12. KAKURU – Oh, God. Rudd was 52 – 48 when he was deposed. Sensational numbers for a PM at that stage of the electoral cycle (mainly because Tone truly is a dud).

    Indeed, all the crap we were getting that Green preferences being soft also seems to have been rubbish.

  13. [victoria
    Posted Friday, September 10, 2010 at 3:56 pm | Permalink
    my say

    I asked earlier in the day if BK had been a comedian in another life. He has been on the ball of late! ]

    may be our hearts are lighter,

  17. DOYLEY – My guess is that he has to do the polling anyway (for soap detergents, etc etc) so why not just throw in a political question or two.

  18. [I’ll bet Oakeshotts first words will be:” Thank you. I have decided to accept Prime Minister Gillard’s offer of a Ministry. I hope that offer will be the Ministry for Regional Development – but that is the PM’s call”.]

    I reckon Oakeshott’s first words will be: “Well it’s been a crazy few weeks hasn’t it … and I know you’re all here to hear which way I’ll go on Prime Minister Gillard’s offer of a Ministry, but before I get to that I think it’s only fair to the people of Australia and of my electorate to explain how I came to my decision … “

  20. may be he will say because of family matters and that is very reasonable i would think

    and i would say very truthfull, and then i would think well good on him hes a good dad and hubby.

    wonder how the msm will spin it

  21. [Like it or not, The Australian provides the greatest volume of high standard mainstream journalism in the country on a daily basis,]

    Shanners? Planet Janet? Matt Franklin? Sheridan? (Where’s Caroline Overington these days?)

    Shanners no longer publishes my corrections of his “facts” (with online references, inc those showing he’s contradicted himself); but he still needs frequent correction. That Possum & ?PB had to teach him how to interpret an opinion poll correctly & the meaning of MoE (2007-8) – didn’t he hate it too! – is a measure of his, er, “standard” of er, analysis!

    Janet – well, JH appointed her to the ABC Board in ?Feb 2005, nuff said. Franklin; the one whose moronic question at a Press Club luncheon broke up speaker & the gathering? If your colleagues think you’re ridiculous, what more evidence do you want? Sheridan? I remember when he was a good journo – conservative but incisive. Bob Hawke was PM.

    Let’s be honest. Caroline Overington’s work on the AWB bribery scandal was the OO’s last bit of genuine investigative journalism: the handling of the Dr Haneef case was good, but journalists didn’t suss out the truth, Haneef’s legal team leaked the documents. Since Matt Price’s died & Tim Dunlop closed his blog, just about the only OO national news journo worth reading is George Megalogenis (+ articles from bloggers like Mumble etc, which are usually also posted elsewhere)

    Today’s journos – as more than one analyst has said – are just plain lazy. They expect the news to come to them via RSS feeds, twitter, etc; not go to have to go out & do their own digging. Howard fed them a rich diet of government leaks; Rudd, especially after Mitchell’s claims over the G20 call with George Dubya, didn’t & Mitchell still resents that. OO Journos had a great time “leaking” about what was in the StimPacks, esp the 2nd (eg Tax cuts)- and got them wrong (by that time Treasury knew it had a mole!). Most of them swallowed Grech’s “leaks” whole – until the truth choked them. It was the ABC, not the OO, which broke news of the coup against Rudd.

    BTW: Fairfax journos are more even handed, more incisive, and more often correct that the OO, probably because people trust them and their papers further.

    So, because all the above is on public record – much of it on PB & Possum – I know your comment has to be a joke. But you forgot to add 😉 If you don’t, people might think you’re being serious!

  22. George are you really a chef? wow i never knew that

    Vitato Fumare- i’m not suprised you don’t get polled witha name like that

  24. [ictoria
    Posted Friday, September 10, 2010 at 4:13 pm | Permalink
    my say

    even though the Liberals and the media are behaving disgracefully, my heart is definitely lighter at the moment]

    me to i am i feel so refreshed to day, but cannot concentrate on much yet,
    must get back to the quilts so i have christmas presents, i am sitting here starting to hem one and then its to the machine quilting, so gives me an excuse to be here.

    but soon there will be lots of weeding etc..

  25. [Why should they report it? It’s clearly not reliable. There’s a pretty good reason why Morgan hasn’t been taken seriously by the media for a decade now.]
    7 Noos took them very seriously during the campaign.

  27. [3073 Andrew
    Posted Friday, September 10, 2010 at 4:16 pm | Permalink
    Mysay, it was will be a severe blow/disaster for Gillard if he says no. She would have failed the first test of the new term]

    yes spin it is. doesnt matter what you say, it s the spin thats spot on

  28. Morgan’s phone polls have always been closer to the other main polls than the F2F. For this reason they are considered more reliable. The 7 polls were phone polls.

  32. [Of course he (Rudd) can. The party’s poll numbers hit the floor toward the end of his leadership. If Rudd had been kept on as leader I strongly suggest we’d have an Abbott govt – and you’d be even more unbearable.]

    I think a Gillard government will be interesting but lets stick to the facts ( the labor right might not like them, tough), polytrend had the two party preferred at 52% to labor and rising, the bottom had past.

    This was followed by Gillard, the upward trend disappeared almost immediately and then started falling. Where we are now had nothing to do with Rudd.

    http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2010/08/09/newspoll-and-galaxy-monday/

  33. BK

    I can’t watch Contrarians today. Foxtel is otherwise occupied. Can you tell me if there is anything of substance being discussed?

    Thanks in advance.

  34. [If Morgan recognises a problem in their F2F polling re a labor bias why do they continue with F2F ? Why not just stick to phone polling which I understand gives a more balanced response?]

    when I said almost all experts agree F2F are not as accurate I was not including Morgan (either because he is an expert who doesn;t agree or because he isn;t an expert – your choice)

  35. My analysis of the completed TPP vote count in Denison.

    We will get some more information about preference flows in the
    coming days but my modelling of the TPPs and TCPs and
    FPVs in the various booths suggest that the flows were
    roughly as follows.

    Out of the 21% of voters who voted Wilkie 1:
    50% of them went on to put ALP above Libs in their prefs and
    50% put Libs above ALP.

    Out of the 19% who voted Greens 1:
    95% of them went on to put ALP above Libs, 5% put Libs above ALP.

    Similar analyis of the TCP votes suggests the following.

    Virtually all the 23% of people who voted Lib 1 went on
    to put Wilkie above ALP.

    Of the 19% who voted Greens 1:
    about 62% of them put ALP above Wilkie.

    So we know that this is a strongly left-leaning seat:
    ALP 66% vs Libs 34% ( in TPP).

    However, the winner of the seat, Mr Wilkie, is supported
    in first preference votes by people who are exactly
    divided down the middle in preferring ALP or Libs.

    If we look at Mr Wilkie’s win over the ALP in the TCP
    race for the seat, in which he got 51% or 33,000 TCP votes,
    vs ALP’s 49% or 32,000 votes we get the following.

    Mr Wilkie’s 33,000 preference votes are made up of (approx):
    14,700 Liberal 1 voters who preferred him over the ALP.
    6,900 people who voted Wilkie 1 but then went on to prefer Lib over ALP.
    6,900 people who voted Wilkie 1 but then went on to prefer ALP over Lib.
    4,700 people who voted Green 1 but then went on to prefer Wilkie over ALP.
    plus
    a few hundred people who voted Socialist Alliance 1 but then preferred Wilkie over ALP.

  36. [BK

    I can’t watch Contrarians today. Foxtel is otherwise occupied. Can you tell me if there is anything of substance being discussed?

    Thanks in advance.]
    victoria
    Your wish is my command.

  37. [Today I discovered that it isn’t a good idea to make jokes about Dr Patel with doctors of Indian background. I’m a bad boy.]

    Dr. Patel & Mrs. Gandhi?

    Diog, do tell 😀

  40. [The 7 polls were phone polls.]
    Morgan’s FTF polls have been reported in the past at times. Even compared to their following phone poll for extra effect, usually showing a swing to the Libs of course.

  41. [Like it or not, The Australian provides the greatest volume of high standard mainstream journalism in the country on a daily basis,]

    I think you have some words missing aftert “The Australia”

    you meant

    The Australian blog Pollbludger provides the greatest volume of high standard mainstream journalism in the country on a daily basis,]

  43. rosa

    [ KAKURU – Oh, God. Rudd was 52 – 48 when he was deposed. Sensational numbers for a PM at that stage of the electoral cycle]

    The numbers weren’t so sensational in the marginals, where Labor was being killed.

  44. Lyne is now being TPP’d

    This will be interesting because no-one knows how Oakeshott’s voters
    split up in their preferences for ALP vs LNP.

  45. victoria
    Guests on Contrarians are Julian Leeser (Menzies Research Ctre), O’Marnie (ex ALP strategist), Time Wilson (usual IPA flack).
    Starting subject is a bagging of Rudd’s inability to handle Foreign Affairs Ministry.

  46. [Do I make that ALP 32, 527 ahead on 2PP now]

    No. 22,527. It’s starting to come down as they’ve begun counting in Lyne and O’Connor.

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