The electorate of Canberra covers the southern half of the national capital together with the bulk of the Australian Capital Territory’s thinly populated remainder, with northern Canberra accommodated by the seat of Fraser. Both seats were created when the territory was first divided into two electorates in 1974. The Australian Capital Territory had been a single electorate since the expansion of parliament in 1949, but its member only obtained full voting rights in 1968. A third electorate of Namadgi was created for the 1996 election, accommodating Tuggeranong and its surrounds in Canberra’s far south and pushing the Canberra electorate north of the lake to include the city’s centre and inner north. However, the previous order was reinstated when the seat entitlement to slipped back to two at the 1998 election, in large part due to Howard government cutbacks to the federal public service. The two ACT electorates presently have enrolment of around 130,000 voters each, compared with a national average of around 96,000.
The Australian Capital Territory electorate was won by an independent at its first election in 1949, but was held by Labor after 1951. Kep Enderby came to the seat at a 1970 by-election and carried over to Canberra in 1974, serving as Lionel Murphy’s successor as Attorney-General in 1975. He was then dumped by a 10.4% swing to the Liberals at the December 1975 election, and for the next two terms the seat was held for the Liberals by John Haslem. The seat’s natural Labor inclination finally reasserted itself in 1980 with the election of Ros Kelly, who served in the Hawke-Keating ministries from 1987 until she fell victim to the still notorious “sports rorts” affair in 1994. Kelly’s indulgent departure from parliament a year later was followed by a disastrous by-election result for Labor, with Liberal candidate Brendan Smyth gaining the seat off a 16.2% swing.
Smyth unsuccessfully contested the new seat of Namadgi at the 1996 election, and Canberra was won easily for Labor by Bob McMullan, who had served the ACT as a Senator since 1988. The reassertion of the old boundaries in 1998 caused McMullan to move to Fraser, the Labor margin in the redrawn Canberra being 5.1% lower than the one he secured in 1996. Canberra went to Annette Ellis, who had entered parliament as the member for Namadgi in 1996, while Fraser MP Steve Darvagel agreed to go quietly after a brief parliamentary career which began when he succeeded John Langmore at a by-election in February 1997. Ellis added 7.2% to an existing 2.3% margin at the 1998 election, and held the seat safely thereafter.
In February 2010, both Ellis and McMullan announced they would not contest the election due later that year. Large fields of preselection contestants emerged for both seats, with the front-runner in Canberra initially thought to be Michael Cooney, chief-of-staff to ACT Education Minister Andrew Barr and a former adviser to opposition leaders Mark Latham and Kim Beazley. However, Cooney shortly withdrew amid suggestions Kevin Rudd was ready to use national executive intervention to block him. The eventual winner was Gai Brodtmann, a former DFAT public servant who had established a local communications consultancy with her husband, senior ABC reporter Chris Uhlmann. Together with Andrew Leigh’s win in Fraser, Brodtmann’s win was seen as a rebuff to local factional powerbrokers who had pursued a deal in which the Left would support Mary Wood, adviser to Housing Minister Tanya Plibersek and member of the Centre Coalition (Right), and the Right would back the Nick Martin, the party’s assistant national secretary and a member of the Left, in Fraser. However, Brodtmann was able to build a cross-factional support base of sufficient breadth to prevail over Wood by 123 votes to 109.
The Liberal candidate for the coming election is Tom Sefton, a Commonwealth public servant who has served in Afghanistan as a commando officer. Sefton polled a respectable 4.2% as a candidate for Molonglo at the October 2012 Australian Capital Territory election.
[Bishop has made some howlers but I think she is under-rated.]
How?
[Morrison … front-runner if Abbott fell over.]
Agreed. If he were to be PM he would get a shellacking over not turning back the boats. His religiosity versus his humanity would be exposed.
NOOOOOOO!!!
Newspoll must be in high 40% TPP for Labor… we need to keep Gillard in the drivers seat for the Labor annihilation.
Anything less would be a blight on the voters.
If Rudd wants it, he has to fight for it. End of story.
kirky
yes he is
matt
Given MSM prediction record we can expect ALP somewhere in the 60% range then
As I said mid week, I’m predicting a disastrous Newspoll, but also a poor one with Rudd as alternative Labor leader (primary vote not as high as the 40 in Nielsen)
Eg. Labor are stuffed regardless meme.
on a matter of policy for a change, isn’t turnbull woeful on telecommunications. the whole opposition scheme is half cocked. i’m as much interested if google archive their own global network – but then that’s google.
turnbull vs conroy …. hmmm more expertise please
Geoffrey, how so? If you classify undermining of a leader then yes you are correct.
“undermining a leader” – you are talking about Julia oui?
[1694
This little black duck
briefly,
Why won’t Labor win? If you can’t go past “leadershit” and “polls” don’t bother.]
For several reasons…
People are thoroughly sick of the division over the leadership, and the sense of instability in Government that it generates;
The trends in household income are negative, and voters are responding to this. They would much rather the Government focus on the economy than on their internal tensions;
The reflex is to “give the other side a go” because the Government is perceived to be in disarray, and this sentiment is very very difficult to shift.
Labor need to reclaim a very substantial share of the PV. It is quite obvious that neither JG nor KR are capable of this. They are spent forces.
@GC/1706
I don’t think it was meant to “save” labor per say, but rather limit the seat loss.
@Geoffrey/1707
Turnbull’s own plan won’t be delivered on time with out extra costs+Labor works.
If Gillard remains Leader, for the first time in 25 yeaars I will not give my first preference to Labor.
Shorten, Howes, Farrell, Feeney et al have to be pulled into line or Labor is stuffed for a long time.
As a Labor member, I’ve had more than enough of their behaviour.
Working for Labor principles in the branches is a waste of time when the Labor Mafia weild real power and make hard-working branch members feel disengaged from the whole process.
Smith for Leader? If you want a robot as Leader, go for it.
Psephos
I hate to be boring but I do agree with your summation of prospects for leader of the Liberals.
[If Gillard remains Leader, for the first time in 25 yeaars I will not give my first preference to Labor.]
This week I’ve heard from various people – “I won’t vote for Labor if they dump Gillard” and now, “I won’t vote Labor if they don’t dump Gillard”.
If the average Labor voters can’t agree on something as basic as getting behind whoever leads, then no wonder it’s curtains.
[If Gillard remains Leader, for the first time in 25 yeaars I will not give my first preference to Labor.]
I thought you were in Griffith, which would mean voting against the People’s Princess.
[As a Labor member, I’ve had more than enough of their behaviour.]
Most of which has been instigated and propagated by the Member for Griffith.
[Showson, Rudd became PM because he was a JH clone – he didn’t scare the horses and the public wanted to toss the Libs out.]
Add to that he had a more forthright position on climate change, investment in education, and he promised to abolish WorkChoices.
[You honestly think the ALP will get peace from the MSM if he became leader again how delusional are you – everything from early 2012 would be bought out.]
You’re the delusional one. Do you really think people just vote based on what the “MSM” tells them to do? That’s BULLSHIT! For the overwhelming majority of Australians, they cast a ballot on election date based simply on who they want to be PM between the major parties or which party they want to form government.
My simple argument is as soon as Rudd becomes leader again voters will no longer rock up to the polls on election day simply with the firm motivation of voting against Julia Gillard. Instead they will now have a real choice to make between Rudd and Abbott, and in that context Abbott will be the one who will come off as the riskier option!
[He is not the saviour!]
Sure, he just isn’t Julia Gillard, and that is the most important thing Labor needs at the moment.
Interesting..
The loyalists here are nowhere near as high up the food chain as I might have expected…
We basically have branch members and a couple of staffers on deck at PB.
Otherwise you’d be more in the loop than you are currently.
You actually have no idea what is going down and that genuinely surprised me. I thought I had at least a few of you pinned by now, particularly since most of you come from Victoria, a handful from Sydney and the odd Adelaide & Whyalla diehard.
What is now startlingly evident is that you are droids.
I know Kevin Rudd’s handle on PB and even he hasn’t been around now for weeks.
This little club might just about to be drinking its Kool Aid, William.
It has been a most fascinating journey, to say the least.
Thanks, briefly
[People are thoroughly sick of the division over the leadership]
Evidence?
[The trends in household income are negative]
Valid.
[ the Government is perceived to be in disarray]
By whom?
Your fourth point is not a reason.
gloryconsequence
stop being such an old fashioned pessimist
the government is being pulled down by people undermining and whiteanting the party, the true leader and stopping a strong anti opposition campaign. when everyone unites the poll will swing back. good old carlton
bluepill
i am still here. revealed
@ggreenwald: Dear Media: if you’re not talking about this when reporting on Snowden, then you’re not reporting the whole story http://t.co/CByx3aQVf1
geoffrey.
I could have taken the ‘red pill’, you know that. 🙂
LIked your comment nevertheless!
🙂
[the government is being pulled down by people undermining and whiteanting the party, the true leader and stopping a strong anti opposition campaign. when everyone unites the poll will swing back. good old carlton]
Oh FFS! The Cult of Gillardism has been delivering this same sermon for the last 2.5 years but if anything the polls have gotten worse over the last few months!
[1698
confessions
briefly:
Better that than the party changing leaders (YET AGAIN!) and heading into certain defeat whereby the leadership changes makes it look as though it has walked away from everything it legislated for this term.
They tried that once already, and look how that turned out.]
You may be right, but the prospects are that Labor will be reduced to a scattering of seats in most States, and a core of Victorians.
In this case, the LNP – populated and armed by ideological zealots – will almost certainly take aim at the union movement with the intention of disabling it and with the hope of completely crippling the ALP as well. At a very crude level, this election poses an existential threat to Labor, and they have to fight for their very survival.
The LNP should not be underestimated. Every settled social achievement since the 1970’s is at risk in this situation, including Medicare, Commonwealth funding for schools and health, the Super system and the progressive income tax system.
showson
irony! (mike) carlton meant rudd, julia the termite
wow a few scores been settled on pb lately. bit of bloodbath in the ring
Gaffhook …. for JG
modlib …. agin ”
sean kickMe …. for JG(slimy begger that he is-double blind)
murdoch’s for rudd.
rudd, rudd, rudd.
every flamin’ where….
leadershit here. leadershit there.
acres of print. soundbites, soundbites…..
tell me something.
if rudd is the answer …..
if rudd is the one …. to save Labor
if rudd is the one …. to beat abbott
if rudd is the only one to do this.
why does murdoch give him so much space?
huh?
what’s murdoch pushing for rudd, when abbott is the annointed one.
cos, y’know …..
‘she won’t go away.’
‘she won’t go away ….. ‘
‘why won’t she just go away ?’
why won’t she just lie down …… ?’
….’and go away …. ?’
So.
rudd, rudd, rudd.
Murdoch CAN make HIM go away.
But.
Not.
Julia Gillard.
…. and you know.
Julia Gillard……
is going to debate
with Tony Abbott.
Tony’s eyes will bleed.
‘cos, you know ….
‘she won’t go away.’
‘she won’t go away ….. ‘
‘why won’t she just go away ?’
why won’t she just lie down …… ?’
….’and go away …. ?’
Jackol@1655
Actually it is far more difficult to calibrate a new poll using election data because election data is so scarce compared to data from already calibrated polls. Indeed, if a new pollster has been consistently producing results similar to calibrated polls and then happens to get an election outcome wrong by a few points, that’s probably because its last pre-election poll was an unlucky dud rather than because it is a dud pollster. To accurately calibrate using election results alone you could need decades of data. We have decades of data for other pollsters but it could be just as easily argued that those are not true calibrations because of the possibility that various changes (like landlines vs mobile) mean that only the last election or two of calibration is actually useful.
Plenty of data there if anyone wants to analyse it. However an issue is that many of the seat polls weren’t taken directly before the election, so shifts between the poll and the election may be the real cause of “errors”. For instance if there is early polling showing a party is easily winning a seat it may direct its efforts elsewhere thus closing the margin. Two of the three they did very close to the election were very accurate while one (LNP-KAP contest about six days out) was wrong by 9-10 points which was outside MOE for the sample size.
Looking at the 2PPs (or primaries where no 2PPs available), about half of the last 10 seats they surveyed in the 4-5 months leading up to the election they got more or less right given sample size. The other half were in the range 8-11 pts out but three in the LNP’s favour and two against it, in all cases overestimating the leader. (I might check primaries too later since after I did this I realised that of course 2PP is a bit dubious in the OPP setting.)
They got the vote for both the ALP and the Greens in the Melb state by-election within 3 points off a sample size of less than 500. Could have been a fluke but can’t expect better. The Sydney one was tricky because Greenwich was a new candidate who had to establish himself in the campaign.
I think the last is probably the most legitimate of these, if talking about differences that even might produce a really big error. There is no evidence for the major pollsters here that landline only vs landline and mobile vs online makes much difference; it’s all in the scaling. And there’s no evidence from polling-rich places that have a mix of robopolls and traditional methods that robopolls are particularly awful.
People react negatively to being surveyed by phone fullstop. Some react particularly negatively when it’s done by robocalling, but that’s not necessarily a big problem. Lots of things can be scaled around with relatively small errors.
@briefly 1710
I think you make some fair points, but I also think you make the same mistake as many on here, and that is, underestimating the feelings of the electorate towards Gillard. The electorate’s opinion of Gillard is, imho, a far bigger part of Labor’s problem than many here want to admit.
[You may be right, but the prospects are that Labor will be reduced to a scattering of seats in most States, and a core of Victorians.]
Under Gillard.
[In this case, the LNP – populated and armed by ideological zealots – will almost certainly take aim at the union movement with the intention of disabling it and with the hope of completely crippling the ALP as well.]
And how is this good for Labor and the country?
[At a very crude level, this election poses an existential threat to Labor, and they have to fight for their very survival.]
So why on earth would they do that with a leader who is as unpopular as Gillard?
[The LNP should not be underestimated. Every settled social achievement since the 1970′s is at risk in this situation, including Medicare, Commonwealth funding for schools and health, the Super system and the progressive income tax system.]
Hence Rudd should be leader! Unless you think the Coalition winning the Senate is somehow good for the country.
bluepill
yes it has been a fascinating 3 long year journey
hope it has an ending not a train wreck
anything but the yellow pill
briefly:
I sense an overstatement. But in any case, if the predicted electoral wipeout of Labor were to eventuate (which I doubt, ftr), why should the party turn its back on its achievements in office which is almost certainly what will happen if there is a leadership change?
for tragedy, it cannot be beat .
[I sense an overstatement. But in any case, if the predicted electoral wipeout of Labor were to eventuate (which I doubt, ftr),]
And why don’t you think Labor will lose in a landslide? What is your evidence?
Oh that’s right – WISHFUL THINKING.
1718
This little black duck
much obliged, tlbd 🙂
[ People are thoroughly sick of the division over the leadership
Evidence?
The trends in household income are negative
Valid.
the Government is perceived to be in disarray
By whom?
Your fourth point is not a reason.]
Unless Labor can rebuild its PV, it will certainly lose by a very wide margin. I think that qualifies as a reason for defeat.
[Ben Eltham @beneltham 1m
On Sky News tonight: Chris Kenny, Paul Murray, Janet Albrechtson, Tim Blair and Grace Collier. I guess that’s what they call balance]
Post a few years of Abbott, this is what the ABC will look like as well.
SO, your confidence in KR is completely misplaced. He will be shredded by the LNP and the MSM within hours if he is restored.
Sky News don’t pretend to be balanced though. Their audience is 85% conservatives and 15% lefties who love self-torture.
Take the glass pill
[SO, your confidence in KR is completely misplaced. He will be shredded by the LNP and the MSM within hours if he is restored.]
That’s for certain. Whether the average punter goes along with that meme is less certain.
A lot of people just want Rudd restored because it’s “fair” and think that he deserves a chance again.
It really is that simple for many people.
Kinkajou,
Every warrior gets that pill and knows when to take it.
“the government is being pulled down by people undermining and whiteanting the party, the true leader and stopping a strong anti opposition campaign. when everyone unites the poll will swing back. good old carlton”
——————-
irony irony is the only response left.
will wait of the b…. poll. hopefully tomorrow is auspicius enough to see change. glad it wont be time for celebration.
power to the people
Gillard definitely in the Death Zone. Climbing without oxygen.
What will the Sherpas do?
@Briefly
Of course the MSM and Coalition will rip in to Rudd, just as they currently rip in to Gillard. The key difference is, there’s a difference between ripping in to someone unpopular in the electorate, as that just plays in to existing perceptions, and taring in to someone who voters have respect for. A very big difference!
geoffrey..
LOL. I know everyone is freaking out but it’s only politics. Seriously. This could be just the medicine the party needs.
I certainly don’t want to see a decimated opposition. Our parties always tend to lurch to their ideological extremes when in power too long.
The ALP will have to prune branches (metaphorically speaking of course!) and treat this as a bit of a bushfire.
If it doesn’t come out of this ‘Born Again’ then I think it will meet the first schism since the DLP and that is disaster for a Centre-Left party in Australia.
Even the Greens will have trouble keeping NSW and Tasmania from ripping their party apart if they shed 25% of the vote in this climate of apathy for the ALP.
The end result will be a loss but these things are rarely as apocalyptic as they seem.
JG shouldn’t have called the election early.. this will be the subject of Australian Politics 101 at universities for years. Blisteringly stupid stuff for a career politician. 🙂
[Unless Labor can rebuild its PV, it will certainly lose by a very wide margin. I think that qualifies as a reason for defeat.]
I think you just did a null sequitur. We were discussing reasons, not outcomes.
[1731
confessions
briefly:
I sense an overstatement. But in any case, if the predicted electoral wipeout of Labor were to eventuate (which I doubt, ftr), why should the party turn its back on its achievements in office which is almost certainly what will happen if there is a leadership change?]
This depends entirely on how the change comes about and on the rhetoric that accompanies it. Change can be construed as necessary to defend and protect the achievements of the last few years, and not as an attempt to repudiate them.
Really, Labor are on the cusp of the worst defeat since Federation. The union movement is at its weakest since at least the defeats of the 1890’s. Fewer than 16% of the workforce belong to unions and an even smaller share of private sector workers are unionized. Collectively, they are in no position to protect themselves against a militantly ideological LNP.
This is really about the survival of the Labor movement as we have known it.
PM Live saying Chris Kenny earlier said Newspoll will have Labor’s primary vote with a 2 in front of it
[SO, your confidence in KR is completely misplaced. He will be shredded by the LNP and the MSM within hours if he is restored.]
This is bullshit because Rudd has copped crap from all sides since he became opposition leader yet he is still very popular!
You don’t seem to understand that the average punter is very sceptical these days bout the media. They just make a judgement about who they think will be a better PM, and Rudd V Abbott would actually be a contest that would work to Labor’s advantage during an actual election campaign.
If you don’t understand this, get out more and actually talk to some people.
If Shorten has aspirations of leadership, he needs to show some backbone. He should come out publicly, tomorrow morning, and make it clear that Gillard needs to move aside in the interests of the party and the country. If he sees himself as a leader, he needs to show leadership in the crisis the party now finds itself in.
[This is really about the survival of the Labor movement as we have known it.]
And you think Abbott winning the Senate because most people hate Gillard will some how be good for the unions?
That’s just insanity.