Some scattered thoughts on the Victorian election:
• Hats off to Peter Brent of Mumble. His pre-campaign post of October 21 was outstanding in its prescience, and his post-mortem from yesterday said it all in 278 words. I am particularly keen on the idea that the late swing to the Coalition was not so much a reaction to campaign events as something that was always going to happen when minds became focused. This happened uncommonly late in the piece due to the national politics fatigue which has inspired Possum to write off the significance of any federal polling conducted before the new year.
• This is not to say that Labor didn’t make errors, and that the attack ads on Ted Baillieu’s real estate undertakings weren’t among them. Indeed, it may even have been enough to push them over the edge. The Roy Morgan Reactor “worm” responses to various party ads are instructive: the Baillieu Knight Frank ad was easily the most poorly received. The Liberals’ positive ads also went down a lot better than Labor’s, another symptom of the inherent difficulties faced by an ageing government. I suspect the Liberals did very well out of the message that voters should avoid signing on for 15 years of Labor government, which doubtless tapped into awareness of the situation north of the border.
• The debacle for the Greens ran deeper than a simple failure to win lower seats which might be blamed on Liberal preferences. Their 10.6 per cent primary vote was 2.1 per cent lower than at the federal election, and they seem likely to lose one of their three seats in the upper house. My guess is that extravagant claims for their place in a new paradigm lost them support they would normally get from voters who are indifferent to them ideologically, but simply seeking somewhere to park a protest vote. Compounding this was the Liberals’ preference decision, which as well as being damaging in purely instrumental terms reinforced perceptions of a party with a hard ideological edge. It would also have had many questioning their competence, and there was no figure in the state party of Bob Brown’s authority to help negate the idea.
• The election provided a further blow to new paradigm talk by producing the state or federal election result since 1993 in which no independent or minor party candidates won election to the lower house. The defeat of the Assembly’s sole independent, Craig Ingram in Gippsland East, would be troubling news for Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, with Ingram citing locals’ desire to avoid a repeat of the federal election aftermath as a reason for the fatal 14.1 per cent drop in his primary vote.
• Here’s a colour-coded map giving an idea of the swings recorded across Victoria. Labor-versus-Coalition figures in Mildura, Gippsland East and the four inner-city seats have been obtained by using preference flows from the last election. Apart from Labor’s relatively strong performance in the north and north-west of the state, nothing particularly stands out. Sophomore surges are evident in Ferntree Gully, Kilsyth, Hastings, Evelyn and especially Morwell, which Labor were surprised to lose in 2006 and are now locked out by an impressive 15 per cent margin for Nationals member Russell Northe. This is part of an ongoing story of Labor decay in the Latrobe Valley which has been evident at state and federal level over the past five years in particular. Retiring member effects explain the slight swing to Labor in Murray Valley, and perhaps also the heavy swing against them in Essendon. I wouldn’t read too much into the swing to Labor in Mildura, where comparisons are complicated by the fact that there was a sitting independent last time, which may have corrupted my preference calculation.
Mark dear Mark if I thought you were genuine I’d ask for the failures but much wiser than you or I have done analysis that pretty much excludes your whole ‘We wuz bad’ theory and I believe them and think you are talking absolute lib party rubbish – if you ate writing it for them it is even worse – if you have any affection at all for the labor movement please give up on us and move to the great greens or faultless libs so so constantly praise and try and ‘help’ them
Also on continuity watch either people moved to the greens or they didn’t in one talking point you have …. Never mond
Frank i agree. i am not suggesting he gives a stuff about the working classes, what i am stating is that Labor forget about them and it should not have.
I simply hate the Liberal Brand but if you actually state a few home truths you get labelled as a Liberal.
marky,
You’ve always been a Liberal supporter on PB.
Greensborough you still have alot of growing up to do.
confessions @ 891
my number one hope is that the Feds will over rule any move to return cattle there.
The Fed Libs came up with a pathetic attempt to block it originally, proposing satellite trackers on cows and ‘virtual’ fencing – they didn’t even try to pretend that the cattle didn’t cause environmental damage, so a labor government backed by Greens should be even firmer in opposition to the move.
My next hope is that the cattlemen will tell the govt it is too late. They argued with me that taking cattle off the High Plains for even a short time would mean no hope (for them) of return — they’re not the brightest sparks in the shed, you know — as they rely on the cattle learning from their elders about where waterholes etc are, and that the cattle would lose the knowledge and that would make management of them too difficult.
There’s also a great deal of underlying resentment from local farmers who don’t have the same opportunities to graze their cattle at very little cost on public land throughout the harshest season of the year, and from the yuppie types who live in exclusive enclaves on teh mountains like Dinner Plain and don’t really appreciate piles of cattle poop on the doorstep of their multi million dollar hideaway.
On the negative side, Ted Ballieu’s bro in law was one of the cattlemen, so there’ll be a lot of pressure on him personally to come through.
I ended up in a strange position on this one, as I managed to throw a lot of sand in eyes and as a result the mountain cattlemen locally regard me as vaguely sympathetic!!
Marky,
You’re a Lib. Plain and simple. You need to come out of that closet.
Zoomster, where are the car stickers that say mountain cattlemen do damage to the high plains. I am fed up see those yellow and green stickers on Melbourne cars. This kind of publicity unfortunately works wonders.
What a child you are Greensborough.
marky,
What a Lib you are.
marky
my advice to the party at the time was to try and create a similar public sentiment – to educate the general p. on the damage cattle do and get them on side, and undo the romantic image the cattlemen cultivate.
So they ran a few ads which got the cattlemen all huffy – even ones who secretly agreed cattle shouldn’t be there – and gave up.
Difficult sometimes to get across the message that you have to keep arguing the case even if it offends some people, although I think the attitude was more that it was all done and dusted and thus there was little point in doing so.
However, they did at least accept my argument that if it were to be done, it was best done quickly, and the longer the cattle were off the harder it would be to get them back on.
Enough, you two (particularly you, GG).
William,
My only hope is that Marky lives under the rule of the Good Queen Fiona Richardson. (That would be sublime).
We can hope that works, but no doubt legislation will have to be reintroduced and it will have to get through the upper house. So lets hope these right wing ideologues do not get control of the upper house. More worrying for me i noticed that the Nationals have the water ministry and Planning is apart of the regional development portifolia and Bailleau talked about economic development playing a major part- nothing about environmental preservation and protection.
Steve Newnham would not have lost this election. He would have put the Greens in their place.
zoomster:
It doesn’t sound all that encouraging, to be frank. For the Feds to take the issue over would require the Gillard govt to deny Baillieu delivering on one of his election promises, and could give Baillieu cause to be recalcitrant on say health reform. And the connection with Baillieu’s brother makes keeping the promise even more compelling. Perhaps the federal Greens might step up on this, and I’m willing to write to the Fed environment minister if you think it might help.
marky @ 914
[More worrying for me i noticed that the Nationals have the water ministry and Planning is apart of the regional development portifolia and Bailleau talked about economic development playing a major part- nothing about environmental preservation and protection.]
I made a similar comment this morning about the water. I hadn’t noticed then tht planning and regional development had been merged. Baillieu may talk soft, but there are the same basics there.
lizzie,
Planning Minister is Matthew Guy.
GG
Do you know anything about his background?
One thing I know about Newnham …. he was the mug who did the deal that put Fielding into the Senate.in 1994..in a deal to get FF prefs for Jacinta Collins who was acceptable to the FF Party because of her extreme right-swing neo-DLP views,on subjects such as abortion and euthenasia… it might be said that Newnham gave us Fielding and his band of happy clappy christian zealots!
Look at the damage Fielding did to the Rudd and Gillard Govt…that the work of the clever Newnham….and I quess his wife Fiona Richardson might be just as silly!!
deblonay,
As a matter of fact, you are wrong. Please don’t embarrass yourself further. Newnham had nothing to do with the Senate deal in 2004.
He did however, win the State election in 2006 as State Secretary.
I have seen about six different people blamed for the Fielding deal.
I have never bothered to find out if any one person in particular was to blame; I think it was probably the outcome of a bit of a groupthink.
lizzie,
Matthew Guy was apparently spawned at the Greensborough Hospital, joined the Liberal Party and was elected to the Upper House in 2006. He is allegedly the Liberal connection to the Northern suburbs. But seeing as Labor holds , and continues to hold every seat there was no opportunity for him to sleaze in to the lower House.
Spoken of as an up and comer. Unfortunately, dribble mouth, lack of intellect and a general lack of persuaion skills are seen to be a hold back on his career.
Will be under pressure from day 1.
z,
Feeney did the deal.
GG
And he’s got planning and regional development???? Well, that says how important those ministries are to the Libs. Not.
lizzie,
No he has Planning.
Regional Development is Ryan.
Sorry, GG. Took Marky’s word.
Feeney.
Well.
Will have to leave catching up to another day. Need to get up for the big announcement tomorrow morning (NASA not FIFA) – think they are probably going to announce a method of detecting chemical signatures of alien life. Am hoping they have actually found them in Mars rocks near the Mars rover. streaming online at 6 am but bound to be overloaded with geeks from across the globe!
Feeney he is adam’s boy isn’t he?
Terry Mulder on Jon Faine after a series of policy questions: “I’ve hardly found the washroom in my office.”
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/its-time-brumby-took-some-personal-responsibility-for-defeat-20101202-18i4l.html
Excellent summary, IMHO.
Agree Lizzie. There was enough wrong with the Brumby government that I’m not all that sorry to see it go (though only because Ted B. seems a nice guy and is politically moderate). I think they got what they deserve.
I’ve just noticed that Justin Madden only scraped in with 51.6% 2PP in Essendon. In contrast Judy Maddigan got 49.9% of first preferences in 2006 (and 61% 2PP). It would have topped things off nicely if he’d been booted out, although consigning him to opposition after years as a minister isn’t a bad consolation.
What is wrong with the VEC,
They now have a whole series of bizarre Upper House recount numbers, They are clearly the worst Electoral Commission in the Free world.
Barking
Worse than FIFA?
In previous posts I have accused the brumby govt of being arrogant. It seems that there was even more evidence that I didn’t know about. One example was their attitude on the clearways. I agree with the extensions to aid traffic flow, but they settled on the hours and refused to negotiate. Could have taken off at least a half-hour but stuck in their toes. Made the anger worse.
[In previous posts I have accused the brumby govt of being arrogant. It seems that there was even more evidence that I didn’t know about. One example was their attitude on the clearways. I agree with the extensions to aid traffic flow, but they settled on the hours and refused to negotiate. Could have taken off at least a half-hour but stuck in their toes. Made the anger worse.]
Lizzie, negotiate with who? What evidence was there that the hours selected were worse than other hours suggested?
Businesses hated the hours, George.
Wrong Triton and Lizzie, the gov sat and negotiated thus extending times to 4pm 9from 4.30) but from 3pm 100m from intersection (in some instances only 80m). this was acceptable to all traders bar 1 (a failed liberal candidate) who decided to launch a politically motivated beat up campaign.
George will vouch that most of the people working in the shops parked their cars outside their shops and moved them at lunch time (swapping) to avoid parking fines
There are over 80 off street parks available at any time.
Thanks centaur
Shows I shouldn’t believe anything I read in the papers or see on TV. But why wasn’t there more support from all the others if it was only one big objector?
There were other council areas who also objected (in warlike manner:mad:).
I felt it was a typical example of a few people blocking the needs of many. When there are such traffic problems, clearways d help.
P.S. We are taking about the prahran area in this one, aren’t we?
We are talking about high St armadale mainly. The failed liberal candidate rallied to the other traders, and was in cohoots with the liberal dominated council.
The clearways were the 1st stage of 3 to improve traffic flow. Secondly there were priority tram lanes (installed) and lastly a restriction on some intersections of turns or possibly hook turns.
The projected losses of revenue were ludicrous. It meant that each of the people who normally parked there (say they didn’t go at all) would have had to have spent about $400 each per hour for that hour every day each for the entire year.
For their own selfish reasons and on behalf of the 500,000 road users (riders, drivers, tram users) each day, thanks guys!
I challenge anyone to race me from top of High st to city. I will travel clearway time. you can travel other. I’ll beat you by 20mins
[in cohoots with the liberal dominated council]
Is that Stonnington? Its young mayor was on The Drum recently. I’d been impressed with him until then. He just spouted the conventional Liberal line like a robot. As bad as Akerman.
Aye Titon, that be he
Was his name Smith? I think I heard him with Faine, who pressed him as to whether he wanted to move from local govt to state parl, and he went all coy – practising pollie answers …
Has anyone seen a TPP?
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/daniel-andrews-elected-victorian-opposition-leader-20101203-18isg.html
Andrews new leader and Hulls deputy
Dio 945
Antony says the VEC won’t produce one for at least 2 weeks. I’ve heard 51.5 Coalition
Lizzie, and others,
I know many of the Armadale traders well. I also had a lot to do with them years ago as part of the Trader’s Association.
Some things I know for a fact:
The current president of the Business Association, Eugene Notermans, is a member of the Liberal Party, as are many who work with him in the association. He was recently quoted as saying:
[I know for a fact that we are losing 15 to 20 per cent of our gross turnover at this point]
Really? Show us the figures Eugene. This is the same guy who charges $500 for a shirt that he pays $5 an hour in his own little “cash only” clothing production at the back of his shop. Spare me the crocodile tears. But more importantly, show us the facts! Open up your books, show us your falling revenues. It’s BS.
As centaur points out above, the “carpark swapping” that was/is going on all the time between the traders is the MAIN problem people don’t have enough parking in High Street Armadale. They’ve been crying about it forever but refuse to help the situation by parking THEIR cars elsewhere. The Council continues to buy/redevelop land around the shopping areas to give even more parking for visitors, but there’s only so much money/land for this.
The Liberal Party, having correctly sensed the uproar that was going on between the clearways issue and the planning problems within Stonnington (high rise/multi-dwellings, etc), assisted three Liberal Party members to get into Council. Those Councillors have been spearheading continuing attacks on any planning/traffic policies being implemented, together with the “help” of friendlies like Mr Notermans.
The Council is there to listen to RESIDENTS not business owners. Yes, I know some of those business owners also live in the area, but they are a minority compared to the residents that wish to see a better flow of traffic through their suburbs. But once again, the MSM latch on to the 100 or so idiots that hold up their signs about clearways as a sign of “community fears”, blah blah blah. Our own little “Tea Party” storm in a cup.
And on planning? Let’s see what Big Ted and the Libs do. Last time I checked the developers were bankrolling the Libs, so this one is going to be a whole lot of fun to watch. 😉
George
I think you’ve summed it all up beautifully. Add those campaigns to Big Ted’s “new emphasis” on business and development and we can see which way his planning decisions will jump.
P.S.
Bloody media. Always encouraging fights.