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”

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  11. [kakuru
    Posted Friday, September 10, 2010 at 4:22 pm | Permalink

    ….

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

    Oh yes remind us again about the secret internal polling being peddled by the labor right as they tried to whip up support to dump him.

    You got the meme wrong, it was supposed to be ” it was only 52% because of soft support from Green voters”.

  15. KAKURU – The numbers weren’t great in the few marginals where the NSW ALP Right machine were getting polls taken. Funny we haven’t heard about any polls in marginal Vic, SA, etc etc.

  20. [Let’s just say I’m an insensitive bastard and leave it at that.]

    Diog, you only find that out today? you mean i have wasted all these years 😥

  21. Reason : not electorate pressure; did consider seriously, offers from both sides, so why: esp. family (+ friends & also political ramifications too), independence important,

  25. [3116 ruawake
    Posted Friday, September 10, 2010 at 4:27 pm | Permalink
    Oakeshott has declined the offer.

    ltep keeps his tipping record intact. ]

    come on now and me i know what his wife may have said, to him
    gee with a 4th baby any day come on who would not my oh either we would need 2 nannies

  26. Wants to ensure regional package carried out by keeping independence, appreciated offers of both sides, refers to political orgs. that might threaten regional plan (doesn’t answer, refers to “faceless men”) refers to something that happened to day (I don’t know what that is – a vague reference to media I think perhaps the OO?)

  28. Who was the News journo having a go at him about something I couldn’t discern (bad connection on ABC24), and then said “you’ll see it published in the Australian” and Oakeshott said something along the line of “go for it”

  29. ZIZEK – Have you watched any of the docos about Zizek – especially the one where he admits to being terrified when he has to play with his 4 year old son? Very interesting guy (as, of course, you would know)

  30. [Said that Abbott also offered a porfolio]

    Didnt he get a come-on from Iemma as well? he gets more come-ons than the whores on the 7th Avenue.

  31. 4.31 and the Australian story is still on about

    ‘Oakeshott warned against taking ministry ‘

    Get your political news first n Poll Bludger.

  35. i think he is very wise, to. In 12 months may be, by then he will have had more experience, being an idependent would may be not give you a lot of experience
    portfolio work perhaps.

    Tony Burke would be great in that ministery.

  36. Wise move from Oakeshott.

    It would have made stable government extremely difficult had he accepted the offer and it reduces the impact of this ridiculous smear campaign against him by News Limited.

  37. Peter Brent said that Oakeshott would be more likely to lose his seat than Windsor, as his support at this election was not nearly as high and he hasn’t been in long. And that if he took a ministry he’d probably lose his seat. So I think he made the correct decision.

  38. I think his 17 minute speech announcing the government. It had to be comprehensive so that the nasty little Nats here couldn’t say “you didn’t think of this/you didn’t think of that” etc.

  39. Probably good Oakeshott didnt take the Minsitry. keeps the legislative/ executive lines clean, and that distinction actually matters in this situation….

  40. spur 212
    I’m sure fear of News Ltd had absolutely no part in his decision. I think he’s bigger than that. (It won’t stop them anyway.)

  41. GWEEDS – I’ve developed a real respect for Peter Brent. He was the first out of the blocks to say the Julia move was not smart. How did he call the election?

  43. GG

    [Diogs,

    “Let’s just say I’m an insensitive bastard and leave it at that”.

    You’re a pussycat.]

    Can I use you as a character reference at the hearing?

  45. Thanks, Signore Calabrese for the sylus advice.

    Finns, it may come to buying a new one, but I’d like to try to rescue my old one first. Very attached to it, lots of memories, some I actually do remember.

  46. Oh I bet News Limited had no part in his decision.

    Still, it does take the heat out of what they’ve been doing over the last couple of days.

  47. Antony Green, on the other hand, in one of his rare predictions, thinks he is safe. (OMG – 2pp in Lyne -early postals 80% to Nats!)

  48. [Finns, it may come to buying a new one, but I’d like to try to rescue my old one first. Very attached to it, lots of memories, some I actually do remember.]

    ah Ari, but do you have the first print of “Sgt. Pepper”?

  49. [3144 george
    Posted Friday, September 10, 2010 at 4:38 pm | Permalink
    Ali Moore on ABC24 “selected not elected”!]

    does she mean the gov,. or the pm

    would she say the same re the other way around i wonder.
    no wonder i dont watch any thing on that 24/7 u know i wonder if it will last

    i dont know any one who actully turns it on the through the day, do any of u.

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