Random observations

Scattered thoughts on the Senate, the western Sydney electorate of Fowler, Bob Katter, the informal vote rate, and the fine art of poll aggregation.

Time for a new thread, so here’s some very scattered thoughts that it occurs to me to share at this late hour:

• I had a piece on the Senate result in Crikey yesterday, and have been keeping a low profile on Poll Bludger in part because I’ve been busy fielding inquiries from media outlets eager to hear an election wonk’s take on the whole affair. If you’d like to comment on the progress of late counting in the Senate I’d encourage you to do so on the dedicated thread, or at least re-paste your comments there after leaving them on this one.

• I’d also like to encourage those with particular insights to offer on late counting in close lower house seats to share the love in the relevant comments threads, which can serve as useful clearing houses for information for those of us trying to keep up. Note that these posts can be accessed through links near the top of the sidebar.

• So what the hell happened in Fowler? There was, as we know, a much milder swing against Labor in western Sydney than media hype and certain local opinion polls had primed us for. However, that scarcely explains the thumping 8.8% swing enjoyed by Labor journeyman Chris Hayes. What presumably does explain it is Liberal candidate Andrew Nguyen, chosen by the party with a view to snaring the Vietnamese vote in Cabramatta, who suffered swings approaching 20% in that very area. As to what Vietnamese voters might have known about Nguyen that the Liberal Party did not, I cannot even speculate. However, it won’t be the only question the party has to ask itself about its candidate selection processes in New South Wales, for the second election in a row.

• It wasn’t a very good election for Bob Katter, who failed in his bid to bring new allies to Canberra and had his seemingly impregnable hold on Kennedy cut to the bone. One reason of course was that he was squeezed out by Clive Palmer (with due apologies for the unattractiveness of that image). However, another was very likely a preference deal he cut with Labor which in the event did neither party any good. I would also observe that this is not Katter’s first failed attempt at empire-building. At the 2004 Queensland state election, Katter organised an alliance of independents with a view to activating discontent over sugar industry policy, and the only one to poll a substantial share of the vote had done nearly as well without Katter’s help at the previous election. Even the much-touted successes of Katter’s Australian Party at last year’s Queensland election involved it a) absorbing probably transient protest votes which formed part of the huge swing against Labor, and b) electing two members who could just easily have won their seats as independents. Katter’s constituency would evidently prefer that he stick to being an independent local member, and limit his broader ambitious to bequeathing the family firm to his son.

• As well as witnessing an explosion in the micro-party vote, the election has at the very least seen the rate of informal voting maintain the peak scaled at the 2010 election. Limiting it to ordinary election day votes to ensure we’re comparing apples with apples (pre-poll and postal voters being generally more motivated and hence less prone to informal voting), the informal vote rate has progressed from 4.18% to 5.82% to 5.92%. Presumably the Australian Electoral Commission will be conducting a ballot paper study to let us know how much this is down to proliferating candidate numbers leading to inadvertent mistakes, and how much to disaffection leading to deliberate spoilage of ballot papers.

• If I do say so myself, my BludgerTrack poll aggregate performed rather well. The Coalition’s two-party preferred vote is at 53.15% on current counting, which is likely to edge up towards the projected 53.5% as the remaining votes come in. Better yet, there’s a good chance the state seat projections will prove to have been exactly correct, allowing for the fact that the model did not accommodate non-major party outcomes such as the possible wins for Clive Palmer in Fairfax and Cathy McGowan in Indi. No doubt this is partly down to luck. There was some imprecision on the primary vote, with the Coalition about a point too low and the Greens about a point too high (though the model in fact scaled down the latter from the pollsters’ published results), with the circle being squared by a preference allocation method that proved over-favourable to the Coalition, based as it was on the 2010 election result (although I’m pretty sure it still performed better than a method based on respondent allocation would have done).

Nonetheless, the model was certainly successful enough to confirm the wisdom of its basic premise that the best way to read the campaign horse race is to a) only pay attention to large-scale polling, i.e. national and state-level results, b) adjust pollsters for bias according to their past performance where sufficient observations are available from recent history, c) instead use the pollster’s deviation from the aggregated poll trend where sufficient observations are not available, and d) weight the results of each pollster according to how historically accurate/consistent with the trend they have been. As to the performance of the polls themselves, I’ll have a lot more to say about that when all the votes are in. In the meantime, here’s a broad brush overview from Matthew Knott at Crikey.

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.

2,937 comments on “Random observations”

Comments Page 4 of 59
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  2. “During the campaign I was patiently waiting for such as this to be patiently explained to the electorate in plain, simple, brief, concrete language …….but alas…..”

    How could it? It was about Kevin!

    All of these achievements should have been hammered home instead of ignored in favour of yet another instalment of “KRudd’s Ego”

    The economy, unemployment, education, all in excellent shape but KRudd stuffed it and lost. Pissoff!!

  4. It looks as if I may have been the only Bludger to actually have seen the entire Rudd victory speech.

    Betting people should put a little flutter on the speech being by no means the last episode of Rudd as a sort of self-installation in the theatre of the political absurd.

  5. Andrew

    Posted Tuesday, September 10, 2013 at 9:59 am | Permalink

    why is Mesma being blamed for Bracks. Watch out Mesma, scapegoating has started already
    —————————————

    because she is the one who sacked him for political reasons, not for unsuitability or lack of performance

  9. Speaking of bad candidate choices, How did Labor expect to win Cowan with Tristan Cockman? After all those terrible porn movies he was in? Who can forget “Cockman Comes Again”?

  11. Did they promise to sack Bracks?

    If not it is a surprise.

    If it is a surprise is it is a lie.

    It it is a surprise it is also a broken promise.

    Chaffbag Award to Bishop for sacking Bracksie.

  13. KEVIN-ONE-SEVEN
    Posted Tuesday, September 10, 2013 at 7:39 am | PERMALINK
    If Shorten can cause only half as much damage to the libs and he’s caused to his own party, he’ll do a fantastic job. This is the time to look forward, rather than back.

    —–well said. shorten is not charismatic he is machine man.
    emerson is duldo. he should be grateful rudd did not quit in 2010 – not thinking clearly then. a leak if done is not end of world and gillard had done a lot of things by then. what is wrong with this party? rudd and gillard should be remembered only for strengths. rudd went quite well in campaign – labor has a good image still. rudd should have continued. but shorten is no replacement. he is the federal equivalent of robertson. yes have trashed party he will lead.

  16. Having spent three years setting the house on fire Rudd rode to the rescue and saved a footstool. It is on the lawn outside the burnt out shell of what was a reasonable Labor Government.

    Someone asked what rules could be used to expel Rudd from the Party.

    How about working hard to contribute to wrecking a Labor Government?

    Or isn’t that against the rules.

  17. Psyclaw
    Thank you for welcome home, it is good to be back even though I had to change my twitter description with new regime

    Tincurl is a very shortened version of what you have said so I can put it on Twitter, I can do it on my laptop but it is playing up at the moment

  18. OK.

    The Bludger Chaffbag Award goes to anyone on the Government side who breaks the solemn and repeated promise of no suprises and no excuses.

  20. “Having spent three years setting the house on fire Rudd rode to the rescue and saved a footstool. It is on the lawn outside the burnt out shell of what was a reasonable Labor Government.”

    Perfect!

  21. http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/union-boss-to-replace-carr-in-senate-20130909-2tgct.html

    does anybody here look at Howes and think – “Yes! he’s the sort of person I want running and representing Labor.” they just don’t learn/get it do they? I look at him and see a future Graeme Richardson and a party bereft of ideas and passion and where talent is less valued than head-kicking, number crunching, branch stacking, chronyism and power bloc playing. I despair for the progressive cause when turds such Howes rise to the top. If labor leadership goes to Shorten they show themselves to be a party of the past and will spend a decade out of power because their agenda will differ little from that of Abbott – IR will be their only key point of difference. On all else (increasing privatisation of health and education, tax law to benefit the big end of town, inhumane refugee policy – and especially the stripping back of 40 years of environment protection law) they will be pretty much in lock-step. Please Albo – take the job and the party back from the Right

  24. @alpsa: Mike Devereux has said #holden will shut its SA operations if the Libs follow through on its promise to cut funding to the industry #saparli

  26. Dio

    ‘Burke and Plibersek seem to be the only adults left in the Labor Party.’

    It is interesting how the Liberal spin doctors managed to persuade Australians that the Liberals, who will now hasten our mass extinction event as well as speed up AGW, managed to get themselves typecast as ‘adults’ and to get Labor people typecast as ‘children’.

    This is in the face of the ‘adults’ leader punching holes in walls, nodding his head and generally demonstrating a rather immature attitude to women.

    I hope that whoever dreamt that one up got their comms strategy bonus, and that their house backs onto a eucalypt forest and is at sea level.

  28. “@MayneReport: Clive Palmer’s Tasmanian Senator supports carbon pricing! Big Clive quickly learns that a 6 year Senate term nourishes independent thinking.”

  29. lefty e
    Posted Tuesday, September 10, 2013 at 10:27 am | PERMALINK
    Burke and Plibersek seem to be the only adults left in the Labor Party

    Sometimes leaders emerge this way

    ——-they would do (quote well perhaps

  30. Boer – I agree. Rudd has to go. He is a labor rat in the mould of Billy Hughes and will not stop destabilising because he thinks people will again love his fake public persona as much as he does. Kick out his dud backers as well and renew the party. did you vote informal? how did it feel?

  31. Yeah, Ive gone right off Shorto. I love Albo,but tend to see him as the deputy you need – the one who kicks heads.

    Burke and/or Plibersek for me: they’re standing head and shoulders above the rest in the washup.

    And no Paul Howes, for crap’s sake: what was that about rewarding treachery Emmo?

    I see there’s been a record low turnout to vote and record high informal: punters going right off all the parties at the moment.

  33. “@MayneReport: Clive Palmer’s Tasmanian Senator supports carbon pricing! Big Clive quickly learns that a 6 year Senate term nourishes independent thinking.”

    I am laughing. I told you she’d a be a buttpain!

  34. Why would an ex pm stick around as a backbencher for 3 years? You would only stick around if you wanted to have another crack in a year or two.
    Rudd has to go, it’s pretty simple.

    As for Rudd saving 17 seats, what a crock.
    If he hadn’t the last 3 years whiteanting Gillard labor could have been in a position to win the election.

  35. ‘Burke and/or Plibersek for me: they’re standing head and shoulders above the rest in the washup…..and or Dryfus.

    The ALP will go with Shorten.
    Abbott will increase his majority next time round.

  36. @william7424: “If ever an election was lost not won, it was the weekend’s vote in Australia.”-Bloomberg US News http://t.co/zUQGolevt9 #auspol

    lefty e

    Yeah might even mean there will be the numbers there to block carbon pricing repeal after July now. 🙂

  40. “The factional blame game also continues within the party, with several MPs blaming Right factional powerbroker David Clarke for his decision to back and defend Jaymes Diaz as the candidate for Greenway. One Clarke supporter questioned what option Mr Clarke had when Mr Diaz and his father controlled 80 per cent of branch members in the area.”

    Confirmation from the Tele of what I said yesterday about the Diaz family and branch-stacking in the NSW Liberal Party. Clarke is the Kim Carr of the Liberal Party, although Kim’s drones are usually a bit more competent than Diaz. I’m sure Maria Vamvakinou can count to six.

  42. lefty

    Evidently she only went with Palmer because she needed the money to run. Sounds like she will be out of control.

    BTW Bob Day is making very unhappy noises about Abbotts PPL. Says it only helps working mums not stay at home mums.

  46. A couple of thoughts from handing out HTVs and scutineering on Saturday:
    – Labor have lost the fluro vote. Whether this is the Telegraph and Lindsay effect or because many labourers and tradies now sub-contract, are sole traders and somehow think they have become self employed entrepreneurs I dont know, but anyone who showed up in a fluro shirt steadfastly refused an ALP HTV. Labor needs to reconnect with this group who are still in the PAYG system, are often reliant on a single ’employer’ and in most cases are only in this structure at their ’employers’ behest.
    – The Greens were down in our booth 135 votes in 2010 to 58 in 2013. This is far more than the nationwide swing and I can only put it down to not manning the booth at all.The CDP received almost as many votes as the Greens in a strong ethnic booth and it was manned from start to finish.
    – There were two Libs on the booth. Both were good guys. One was paid though.
    – The number of informals was astonishing. Some 250 out of around 1680. From scrutineering, I would estimate about 70 were protests with the form being left blank, being scribbled on or otherwise defaced. Of the remaining 180, I would think about 120 would have had a single 1 (or tick) in the ALP spot (top position mind you) and most of the remainder in the LIB spot.
    Being in a relatively high ethnic area, one would perhaps expect a higher level of informals but this was particularly frustrating. The HTVs we were handing out had English on one side and Mandarin on the other but we probably needed another set with Arabic.
    – Despite the loss of the local member with a 3% swing in the electorate, we had a 2% swing to the ALP in our booth. It was well signed, well manned and the volunteers ensured no-one walked in without the opportunity of taking a HTV and having any questions answered. Don’t underestimate the number of votes that can be picked up on voting day.
    – A guy going to vote wearing a “Mr Grumpy” T-shirt is not likely to vote for the incumbent, but he still got the opportunity of a HTV and a chance to vent on the volunteer. Welcome to the new world.
    Cheers

  49. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Informal Party for a huge rise in its vote. This was achieved without funding, without special pleading from sectoral and geographical rent-seekers, without the benefit of any booth volunteers and without any advertising budget. The Informal Party has passed the Nationals and is now only 2.5% below the Greens vote.

    The Informal Party notes that it achieved enough votes to make the difference even in this election. Democracy thieves take note.

    At around 6% we are only just behind the Greens. For the future, we have a pool of hundreds of thousands of democracy-disaffected youths.

    At the next elections, we will be urging the youths to enrol so that they, too, can vote 1 Informal Party. We believe that a lot of the microparty vote was also de facto an Informal Party vote as well.

    The Informal Party urges Labor to choose a leader with the following characteristics:

    (1) is honest
    (2) has integrity
    (3) respects others
    (4) consistently supports Labor values
    (5) consistently supports Labor principles
    (6) consistently supports Labor policies.

    The Informal Party urges the Labor Party to throw away focus groups and polling and to develop quality policy around a coherent and consistent set of values and principles. The Labor Party should then stick to these good policies over an electoral cycle.

    The Informal Party also urges the Labor Party to nip any sociopaths and narcissists in the bud early; very early. Because once they are set it is horrendously difficult for decent people to get rid of them. What happens instead is that the decent people leave and you get a situation in which spivs keep trying to do deals with a person who does not get the ordinary notion of ‘deal’.

  50. sf

    ‘how did it feel?’

    My voting experience this election was awful. It was like picking up a popgun in defence of the ruins of Berlin after the Soviets had gone through.

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