Seat of the week: Port Adelaide

Keeping things focused on South Australia as the state election looms into view, the latest instalment of Seat of the Week takes us to the state’s safest Labor seat.

Numbers indicate size of two-party preferred booth majority for Labor. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room.

The electorate of Port Adelaide includes Port Adelaide itself and the adjacent Le Fevre Peninsula, including the suburbs around Sempahore and Largs Bay, along with Woodville and its surrounds to the north of the city and, some distance to the north-east, a stretch of suburbs from Parfield Gardens north to Salisbury North, which are separated from the rest of the electorate by the Dry Creek industrial area. A very safe seat for Labor, its margin after the 2013 election was 14.0%, pared back from a redistribution-adjusted 20.9% by a 6.9% swing to the Liberals.

Port Adelaide was created with the expansion of parliament in 1949 from an area that had previously made Hindmarsh a safe seat for Labor. Such was Labor’s strength that the Liberals did not field candidates in 1954 and 1955, when the only competition for Labor came from the Communist Party. Rod Sawford assumed the seat at a by-election in 1988 upon the resignation of the rather more high-profile Mick Young, who had been the member since 1974. With Sawford’s retirement at the 2007 election the seat passed on to Mark Butler, the state secretary of the Left faction Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union and a descendant of two conservative state premiers: his great- and great-great-grandfathers, both of whom were called Sir Richard Butler.

Butler quietly established himself as a rising star over Labor’s two terms in government, winning promotion to parliamentary secretary in June 2009 and then to the junior ministry portfolios of mental health and ageing after the 2010 election. The latter promotion came despite his noted hesitancy in jumping aboard the Julia Gillard bandwagon during the June 2010 leadership coup. Butler was elevated to cabinet in December 2011 when social inclusion was added to his existing responsibilities, and he further gained housing and homeless in the February 2013 reshuffle which followed the departure of Nicola Roxon and Chris Evans. He remained solidly behind Gillard when Kevin Rudd challenged her for the leadership in February 2012, but emerged among the decisive defectors to the Rudd camp ahead of his successful leadership bid in June 2013. The subsequent reshuffle saw him promoted to environment and climate change, which he retained in the shadow ministry following the election defeat.

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.

581 thoughts on “Seat of the week: Port Adelaide”

Comments Page 10 of 12
1 … 9 10 11 12

  3. zoomster@443

    dedalus

    ‘joining dots’ doesn’t mean anything. We have stats on productivity. That you (like bemused) would rather rely on intuition than data suggests you have a weak case to begin with.

    There dedalus, teacher has spoken, now go stand in the ‘bad corner’. 😛

  4. 436
    markjs

    RD @ 371….

    You haven’t discovered torrents yet, then?

    Now may not be the best time for novices to start playing around with torrenting, given the looming TPP agreement so favoured by Abbott & Co, which as I recall looks likely to contain some pretty harsh penalties for copyright breaches.

  5. Here is some good news. Evidence that the alcohol laws are working in Adelaide

    FEWER drunks are being taken to the Royal Adelaide Hospital in the early hours of the morning, prompting claims tough new liquor laws are having an impact.

    Figures released today by the State Government show there were 108 alcohol-related presentations to the RAH between midnight and 6:59am during October and December, compared to 152 over the same period in 2012 – a fall of 29 per cent.

    New liquor licensing restrictions took effect from October, banning the serving of shots, free-drink promotions, highly alcoholic beverages or the use of glassware in pubs and clubs after 4am.

    Pubs and clubs also can no longer accept new patrons after 3am.

  7. ru

    Sorry to hear about your dad and am pleased you got good consular assistance.

    Look after your mum and yourself and hope to see you back soon.

  8. And this as well

    We already know that there has been a 25 per cent reduction in violence and other bad behaviour in the city since the introduction of the late night crackdown.

    A 25% decrease in violence is a good start but there’s still a way to go. Governments can only do so much.

  9. AC@362

    Been offline for a while. Catching up with posts.

    Appreciate your kind sentiments. I am mentally preparing myself for the funeral this week.

    On the topic of triple J, my kids also listen to this station and follow the top 100 every year. I am familiar with the riptide song and a few others in the list, but the majority of songs are foreign to me. It is moments like this I know I am getting old.

  10. victoria@458

    AC@362

    Been offline for a while. Catching up with posts.

    Appreciate your kind sentiments. I am mentally preparing myself for the funeral this week.

    On the topic of triple J, my kids also listen to this station and follow the top 100 every year. I am familiar with the riptide song and a few others in the list, but the majority of songs are foreign to me. It is moments like this I know I am getting old.

    I identify with your sentiments. 😀

    In fact I don’t even recognise a lot of it as music. 😉

  11. zoomster@390

    and, guytaur, I’ll add that the end of your post is also silly. Australia has very low unemployment figures compared to most of the world – if Spain and Greece aren’t shipping people to Mars, I doubt we will be.

    No, not to Mars, but they have some crazy ideas though –

    Europe’s Modest Proposal To End Unemployment: Slavery

    Centre of planning and Economic Research in Greece has proposed a controversial measure in order to deal with the problem of increasing unemployment in the country.

    The measure includes unpaid work for the young and unemployed up to 24 years old, so that companies would have a strong motive to hire young employees.

    Practically, what is proposed is the abolition of the basic salary for a year.

    ….”Unpaid” work sounds a lot like slavery to us…

    At the same time the “export” of young unemployed persons was also proposed to other countries abroad, as Greek businesses do not appear able to hire new personnel.

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-24/europes-modest-proposal-end-unemployment-slavery

  12. rn

    So sorry to hear of the passing of your dad. All the very best during this time, and hope your mum is okay in light of being in transit when this occurred.

    Take care

  13. In general, prior to the election of the Scullin Government and the onset of the Depression, the Commonwealth had no part in providing unemployment relief, which was usually dispensed by the States as emergency aid as payment for unskilled manual work.

    The central objective of economic policy in 1930 was in essence extremely simple – the preservation of external and internal national solvency. It is symptomatic of the state of mind of policy makers that this was accorded a higher order of priority than the prevention of mass unemployment.

    No Federal Government had developed a centralised means of delivering unemployment relief before the Great Depression. While Labor Party ideology favoured unemployment insurance as a right, only Queensland had a modest contributory scheme. Instead extensive public works programs funded by overseas loans were commonly used by the States to alleviate unemployment. Other than that, relief for the destitute took the form of charity, with monetary assistance and very basic food rations being provided through a patchwork of agencies and private benevolent organisations in which the participation of Government was incidental.

    Throughout the 1920s the unemployment level had been consistently high at around 8%. In 1927, however, it began to increase steadily and the advent of the Great Depression saw it soar to an unprecedented national level for which such ad hoc relief arrangements for the destitute were patently inadequate. At the same time it was no longer feasible to raise external loans to facilitate public works.

    There is a series of references given here, for example:

    http://guides.naa.gov.au/working-for-the-dole/chapter1/index.aspx

    Unemployed relief – drill halls and shelters for unemployed, 1923–32

    Unemployment relief – women, 1930–31

    This item documents the routine denial of relief work for women and includes correspondence from individuals and from the Women’s Workers Union and the Women’s Vanguard (Labor Women) about the necessity to provide relief work for single and middle-aged women who were supporting themselves. It includes some details about the responses of the various State Governments to this issue.

    Unemployment benefit payments from the Commonwealth were introduced by the Chifley government and were conceived as social insurance. They were expressly described this way in the tax system:

    There was a major extension of the social security system in 1945 with the introduction or Commonwealth unemployment and sickness benefits in the form of flat-rate payments financed from general revenue and subject to an income test. The Queensland scheme of unemployment insurance was superseded by the new benefits. The introduction of these new benefits took place against a background of major changes in the revenue-raising functions of the Commonwealth and the States. The Commonwealth took sole responsibility for income tax in 1942, and thus expanded substantially its capacity to raise revenue. While the exigencies of World War II had much to do with this change, its broader effect was to facilitate an expansion of the Commonwealth’s role in social security as in other areas.

    There was a further development of specific relevance to social security in 1945. The Commonwealth split the personal income tax into two components. One, the social services contribution, was to be used exclusively to finance social security cash payments. Revenue from the contribution was paid into the National Welfare Fund, from which all such cash payments were to be made, but there was no link between personal contributions and entitlements. The fund was supplemented by subventions from payroll tax and general revenue. In the event, the social services contribution was again merged into a single personal income tax in 1950. All cash payments are now made direct from general revenue.

    http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/94713ad445ff1425ca25682000192af2/8e72c4526a94aaedca2569de00296978!OpenDocument

    The LNP are stepping away from unemployment benefit as a form of social insurance. These payments are to be seen as “relief” that must be earned by the performance of menial work. Depending on the state of the economy and the enforcement measures used by the Government, becoming unemployed may end up meaning workers become the unofficially tied, below-award labour supply to the aged care and local government sectors. So much for the dignity of labour.

  15. Ah Ha!

    I KNEW this would happen. As predictable as little green apples…

    A CHANGE TO YOUR AGL ENERGY PLAN

    Dear Mr. Bushfire Bill,

    We’re writing to let you know that your current AGL Select (TM) 23% fixed benefit period for your electricity Energy Plan is due to expiren on 18 February 2014 however, you’re all set to continue for a further period with AGL as outlined below.

    What’s changing?
    From 18 February 2014, a new 2 year AGL Select (TM) 13% fixed benefit period will apply to your electricity Energy Plan, unless we hear from you.

    This means that for the next 2 years you’ll receive 9% discount off the usage charges under your market contract on EVERY electricity bill, guaranteed. Plus, for each electricity bill you pay on time you’ll receive a 4% discount on the usage charges under your market contract. And another thing… this Energy Plan no longer has an Early Termination Fee.

    What happens next?
    If we don’t hear from you by 18 February 2014, then your AGL electricity Energy Plan will automatically continue for a 2 year Select 13% fixed benefit period. This letter forms part of your Energy Plan with AGL, so please keep it for future reference.

    If you do not wish to continue with this arrangement, please contact us on 131 245 and we’ll be happy to discuss your options with you.

    Yours sincerely,

    xxxxxx
    General Manager,Marketing & Retail sales.

    Apart from the legal nonsense that one party can bind another if the other party does nothing (settled many, many years ago Felthouse v. Bindley, 1862!), Abbott’s going to have a hard time of it telling the punters their electricity bills are going DOWN, when they’re ripping discounts away like this.

    For the record my PREVIOUS discount was 16% off the usage charges, plus a further 7% for paying on time.

    This compares to the *** ALL NEW *** 9% and 4% respectively? Exciting, eh?

    Get it? The difference between the previous discount and the *** ALL NEW *** discount is from 23% to 13%, equalling 10%… pretty well EXACTLY the value of the Carbon Tax.

    Probably just a co-incidence.

    Whether this is a vote of confidence in Abbott’s ability to get the Carbon Tax repealed, or a vote of despair, there’s going to have to be splainin’ done by Abbott little gofer, Hunt, plus his boofheaded Treasurer, Hockey, to get around this one.

  17. Something for zoomster:

    The ABS published its quarterly broad labour underutilisation measures in the November release.

    In the November-quarterly release, total underemployment fell by 0.2 percentage points to 7.6 per cent and the ABS broad labour underutilisation rate fell by 0.3 points to 13.4 per cent (the sum of unemployment and underemployment).

    There were 941 thousand persons underemployed. Overall, there are 1.7 million workers either unemployed or underemployed.

    The next update will be in the February Labour Force data release.

    —

    The (word missing) of labour wastage is now at least 13.4 per cent. Add to this the impacts of the falling participation rate over the last two years and the figure is well above 15 per cent.

    The most striking aspect of a sad picture remains the appalling performance of the teenage labour market. Employment has collapsed for that cohort since 2008. I consider it a matter of policy urgency for the Government to introduce an employment guarantee to ensure we do not continue undermining our potential workforce.

    The data certainly shows that the new government has to reverse the contractionary bias and that means only one thing – more fiscal stimulus is definitely needed.

    It is time for the conservatives to abandon their free market/anti-government biases and do some public sector job creation, which will arrest the current decline and stimulate private sector activity and employment!

    However, at least one politician will claim in the next week or so that we are near full employment and the government deficit needs to be cut. That is the appalling state that we find ourselves in.

    So that is the true state of the labour market. Tories are in full denial mode and Labor is lukewarm about accepting it an has shown no intention of really tackling it.

    Australian labour market – things are getting worse

  19. Mezzanine

    Since no benefit, only detriment to individuals and society, derives from mandatory sentencing, it is not possible for any beneficial flow-on to victims of domestic violence to magically occur.

  22. Rua … please accept my condolences…

    RD …I only download legal torrents from TVChaosUK.com…

    But IF I did want to breach copyright …I have my HideMyAss VPN a/c to fall back on… 😉

  25. Diog

    a person on the DSP would be counted as unemployed if their answer to the question “Are you looking for work?” is ‘yes’.

    bemused

    we have official stats and we have guesstimates. Official stats allow us to measure unemployment over time as well as between nations. On both measures, Australia is travelling well.

    As with all measurements, different methods will get you different results. I could feasibly come up with a whole lot of arguments to ‘prove’ that unemployment is lower than official figures show…but that is just as worthless an exercise as what you’re doing.

    Unemployment is about as low in Australia presently as we’ve ever seen it (given that in the past figures were artificially low because nearly half the population was excluded from the workforce). Yes, it could possibly be lower. But we could have that discussion without playing silly games with the figures, as you persist in doing.

  29. bemused

    yes, I linked to that exact post from the ABS earlier, so I can’t see how that’s news to me.

    total underemployment fell by 0.2 percentage points to 7.6 per cent and the ABS broad labour underutilisation rate fell by 0.3 points to 13.4 per cent

    Notice that the rates fell – exactly the point I made when I referred to this data earlier.

    The ABS report makes the point that underemployment is at historically low levels and the trend is falling.

    Your quote supports what I have been saying, not what you have.

  30. zoomster@475

    Diog

    a person on the DSP would be counted as unemployed if their answer to the question “Are you looking for work?” is ‘yes’.

    bemused

    we have official stats and we have guesstimates. Official stats allow us to measure unemployment over time as well as between nations. On both measures, Australia is travelling well.

    As with all measurements, different methods will get you different results. I could feasibly come up with a whole lot of arguments to ‘prove’ that unemployment is lower than official figures show…but that is just as worthless an exercise as what you’re doing.

    Unemployment is about as low in Australia presently as we’ve ever seen it (given that in the past figures were artificially low because nearly half the population was excluded from the workforce). Yes, it could possibly be lower. But we could have that discussion without playing silly games with the figures, as you persist in doing.

    Oh right, so Prof. Bill Mitchell’s analysis of the official figures, and what they reveal, is just ‘playing silly games’.

    And there is no defence in saying it is OK because other countries are doing even worse. That may limit what we can achieve, but it certainly should not stop us from trying harder.

    Sorry to challenge teachers authority again, but you are just wrong.

  31. Full Employment does not mean zero unemployment nor is there an actual number to describe unemployment.

    Economist regards certain types of unemployment as unavoidable such as frictional and structural.

    Full employment is defined by economist and various textbooks as something less than employment of 100% of the workforce.

    To achieve full employment, cyclical unemployment is zero another way of looking at it is full employment is the situation where Labour Market balance is consistent with the output of the economy’s potential output level = Cyclical unemployment is absent.

    Source: Macroeconomics McGrawHill

  34. PeeVee

    The problem with using Centrelink as the source of unemployment is not every unemployed person does onto Centrelink benefits either due to the short term nature of their unemployment or due to not being eligible for Newstart.

  35. Fess @378

    For once I have to agree with Tony Abbott. I do not believe that Australian Navy personnel ordered asylum seekers to hold on to hot metal pipes, thereby inflicting serious burns to their hands.

    Any claim that starts with “for once I have to agree with Tony Abbott” sounds too mad to countenance without compelling proof, and at this stage, there is none. That doesn’t mean on accepts the claim against the RAN but we simply need more than the credibility of this regime and an appeal to disbelief. Let’s keep an open mind until we have enough reliable evidence one way or another.

  36. bemused

    just to recap, because it appears you’re drifting a bit —

    1. The ABS measures unemployment, underemployment and overemployment. They do this using an internationally standard method, which is also consistent over time, so we can usefully use their statistics to compare present unemployment with past unemployment.

    2. These figures have nothing to do with Centrelink or any other form of welfare.

    3. These figures show that, for the last decade, Australian unemployment has been below 6% (slightly above ‘full employment’) and underemployment has been trending (gradually) down.

    4. I’m not arguing as to whether or not these figures are changing now, or that we don’t need to look at job creation. (I’ve even hinted at a way this could be done with minimum expense).

    5. I agree that infrastructure spending by governments is the key to ongoing good employment figures; it was directly responsible for maintaining Australia’s good employment rate through the GFC.

  38. Government spending does form a part of the GDP numbers.

    Many seem to underestimate the importance of government to the overall performance of the economy.

  41. zoomster@486

    bemused

    just to recap, because it appears you’re drifting a bit –
    ===
    Actually it is you who appears to be all over the place.
    1. The ABS measures unemployment, underemployment and overemployment. They do this using an internationally standard method, which is also consistent over time, so we can usefully use their statistics to compare present unemployment with past unemployment.

    Yes, the figures used by Bill Mitchell. So your point is?


    2. These figures have nothing to do with Centrelink or any other form of welfare.

    So who said they did? Straw-man stuff.


    3. These figures show that, for the last decade, Australian unemployment has been below 6% (slightly above ‘full employment’) and underemployment has been trending (gradually) down.

    No it is not ‘full employment’. Anyone who thinks it is, is obviously avoiding the unpleasant truth.
    Unemployment and underemployment have shifted very little downward, but at the same time the participation rate has dropped markedly. People have simply given up.
    It the participation rate had stayed at its recent peak, then the sum of unemployment and underemployment would have risen.


    4. I’m not arguing as to whether or not these figures are changing now, or that we don’t need to look at job creation. (I’ve even hinted at a way this could be done with minimum expense).

    Well why create the appearance that you are completely sanguine about the unemployment situation by playing it down?


    5. I agree that infrastructure spending by governments is the key to ongoing good employment figures; it was directly responsible for maintaining Australia’s good employment rate through the GFC.

    Yes, and we need more. We have an infrastructure deficit of many billions of dollars. Time to start filling that gap.

    Here is something from 2006 on the same topic. Note Penny Wong’s ‘shock horror’ reaction. But she is dead right. This is an ‘outrageous waste of potential’.

    Hidden jobless figure may reach 17%

    The situation now is no better and may even be worse.

  42. a person on the DSP would be counted as unemployed if their answer to the question “Are you looking for work?” is ‘yes’.

    Wouldn’t you lose the DSP if you said you were looking for work?

  44. Grog recently showed various graphs which indicated many of the issues regarding falling participation rate and underemployment.

    The labour market over the past three years as been pretty tough even for some highly educated job seekers.

    This was one of the hidden reasons behind the 2013 election result particularly in seats like McEwan where the unemployment rate is substantially higher than the official numbers.

  45. RU,

    My thoughts are with you and your family at this very sad time. Cherish the good memories of your father – I’m sure there are many.

    AC.

  46. Dio

    No, if a person on DSP gains employment they undergo a tapering like effect until the hours and income consume the DSP payment which is then stopped but if the person loses that job within two years they are able to return to DSP, if they are employed beyond two years they need to go though the application process.

  50. Dio

    If they are employed beyond two years (unless that has changed) they need to go though the DSP application process and it is quite possible that they will be placed on Newstart but that isn’t always the case depending on the person’s medical condition or disability.

    Another factor may well be the circumstances of the ceasing of employment.

Comments Page 10 of 12
1 … 9 10 11 12

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *