Sunday
While Terri Butler’s 2.3% buffer at the end of the night is enough to secure her victory, Bill Glasson can at least claim the uncommon feat of delivering a by-election swing to the party in government. The current margin represents a 0.7% two-party swing to the Liberal National Party compared with the September election result, which is likely to widen a little further on postals.
Commentators around the place have been scrambling to place the result into historical context, mostly with reference to the long record of federal by-elections. A general paucity of swings to governments is easy to spot, but closer examination shows how much swings can vary according to the circumstances of the by-election, and how unreliable a guide they can be to a government’s future electoral performance. The last pro-government swing federally was achieved when Carmen Lawrence moved from state to federal politics in Fremantle in 1994, and it was followed by a shellacking for the Keating government at the next general election two years later. The most recent state example I can think of is the Peel by-election in Western Australia in February 2007, when Alan Carpenter’s Labor government boosted its margin 18 months before being dumped from office.
Given the array of circumstances that can bring by-elections about, an effort should be made to compare like with like. Griffith is part of a long tradition of by-elections held when a member of a defeated government decides opposition isn’t for them. Unfortunately, those involved tend to be senior figures representing safe seats which the opposing party doesn’t bother to contest. During its first term, Rudd Labor only took the field when Peter McGauran departed in the seemingly winnable seat of Gippsland, only to cop a bloody nose for its trouble. Few were surprised Labor stayed out of the fray in Higgins (Peter Costello), Bradfield (Brendan Nelson), Mayo (Alexander Downer) and Lyne (Mark Vaile). Labor likewise went undisturbed during John Howard’s first term at by-elections to replace Paul Keating in Blaxland and John Langmore in Fraser.
The one by-election held during the parliament elected in December 1975 was occasioned by the death of Rex Connor, with the remainder of Labor’s diminished caucus staying put. It was a different story early in the life of the Hawke government, as Malcolm Fraser (Wannon), Doug Anthony (Richmond), Billy Snedden (Bruce), Jim Killen (Moreton) and Tony Street (Corangamite) headed for the exit at a time when forfeiting a by-election was still thought poor form. The last useable example in anything resembling modern history is the Parramatta by-election of 1973, which brought Philip Ruddock to parliament.
From this field of seven, the only result to match Griffith is Richmond in 1984, when Labor picked up a slight swing upon the retirement of Doug Anthony. No doubt this reflected an unlocking of the loyalty accumulating to brand Anthony, which between father Larry and son Doug had occupied the seat for an unbroken 46 years. Even so, the other Hawke government by-elections weren’t far behind, with the exception of Bruce where voters seemed to take a shine to Liberal candidate Kenneth Aldred for some reason. Coincidentally or otherwise, the two worst swings, in Gippsland (a 6.1% swing against Rudd Labor in 2008) and Parramatta (a 7.0% swing against Whitlam Labor in 1973) were suffered by the two shortest-lived governments of the modern era.
However, Griffith looks quite a bit less exceptional if the eight state results I can identify going back to the early 1990s are thrown into the mix. Four swings in particular dwarf those in Griffith, the two biggest being at by-elections held in country seats in New South Wales on May 25, 1996. Results in Clarence and Orange provided a fillip to Bob Carr’s year-old Labor government and a severe blow to the Nationals, perhaps reflecting the party’s recent acquiescence to the Howard government’s post-Port Arthur gun laws. On the very same day, Labor had an historically mediocre result against the Liberals in the Sydney seat of Strathfield, and finished third behind the Democrats in the Liberal stronghold of Pittwater.
The third and fourth placed results are from early in the life of the Bracks government in Victoria, when Labor pulled off rare victories in Jeff Kennett’s seat of Burwood in 1999 and Nationals leader Pat McNamara’s seat of Benalla in 2000. Also higher up the order than Griffith is the Elizabeth by-election of 1994, held four months after Dean Brown’s Liberal government came to power in South Australia. This may have indicated the popularity of outgoing member Martyn Evans, soon to be Labor’s federal member for Bonython, who had been designated as “independent Labor” for most of his ten years as a state member. Rob Borbidge’s Queensland government of 1996 to 1998 did less well, with the looming Liberal collapse in that state foreshadowed by swings to Labor in the Brisbane seats of Lytton and Kurwongbah.
All of this is laid out in the chart above, which ranks swings to the government (positive at the top, negative at the bottom) from the eight federal and eight state by-elections just discussed. Red and blue respectively indicate Labor and Coalition governments, the lighter shades representing state and the darker representing federal. Stats enthusiasts may care to know that the model y=10+44.3x explains 38% of the variability, where y is the government’s eventual longevity in office measured in years and x is the swing to the government across 15 observed by-elections. For what very little it may be worth, the positive 0.5% swing in Griffith associates with 10.3 years in government.
Saturday
| # | % | Swing | 2PP (proj.) | Swing | |
| Timothy Lawrence (SPP) | 570 | 0.8% | +0.7% | ||
| Geoff Ebbs (Greens) | 6,890 | 10.2% | +0.3% | ||
| Christopher Williams (FFP) | 651 | 1.0% | +0.3% | ||
| Karel Boele (IND) | 458 | 0.7% | |||
| Anthony Ackroyd (BTA) | 526 | 0.8% | |||
| Anne Reid (SPA) | 379 | 0.6% | +0.1% | ||
| Terri Butler (Labor) | 26,356 | 39.0% | -1.6% | 52.5% | -0.5% |
| Melanie Thomas (PPA) | 1,051 | 1.6% | |||
| Travis Windsor (Independent) | 585 | 0.9% | |||
| Ron Sawyer (KAP) | 694 | 1.0% | +0.4% | ||
| Bill Glasson (Liberal National) | 29,456 | 43.6% | +0.9% | 47.5% | +0.5% |
| FORMAL/TURNOUT | 67,616 | 71.2% | |||
| Informal | 2,093 | 3.0% | -1.8% | ||
| Booths reporting: | 42 out of 42 | ||||
Midnight. Finally got around to adding the Coorparoo pre-poll voting centre result.
9.22pm. Or perhaps not – Coorparoo pre-poll voting centre still to report, which is likely to amount for a lot – 5859 votes cast there at the federal election.
8.51pm. Morningside 2PP now in, and I’d say that’s us done for the night.
8.36pm. Camp Hill reports 2PP, leaving just Morningside. Glasson and LNP reportedly not conceding, but 2.4% leads (which accounts for the fact that the LNP is likely to do better on postals – Labor’s raw lead is 3.3%) don’t get overturned on late counting.
8.29pm. That’s all the fixed booths in on the primary vote; the outstanding ones referred to in the table are special hospital booths that may not actually exist (but did in 2013). Camp Hill and Morningside still to come in on two-party, and then I think we’re done for the night. It’s been a pretty quick count.
8.03pm. Two more booths a slight move to the LNP.
8.00pm. Four more booths in and a slight tick in Labor’s favour on the swing projection.
7.53pm. One more primary result and a number more on two-party preferred, it remains unclear who will end up with bragging rights to the negligible swing. What is clear though is that Terri Butler is over the line.
7.45pm. Thirty-two of 43 booths reporting, and the picture of a status quo result is unchanged.
7.36pm. A big rush of results that taxed my data entry chops to the limit has produced very little change to the projection, which essentially looks like no swing at all.
7.26pm. Coorparoo Central was a tricky one from a booth-matching perspective, as it’s a “merger” of two booths from the 2013 election.
7.25pm. Coorparoo Central, Greenslopes, Morningside South and West End in on the primary; Buranda West and Norman Park South on two-party. Upshot: a bit more breathing space for Terri Butler, who will be difficult to pull in from here.
7.19pm. The informal vote seems to be down pretty solidly.
7.18pm. I note that none of the booths from the electorate’s north-western latte belt have reported yet.
7.15pm. Bulimba, Carina Heights, Greenmeadows and Norman Park find Labor still with its nose in front, despite a slight swing against. Annerley has also reported a two-party result, so I’ve switched on preference projections based on the booths that have reported so far. This finds Labor’s share of preferences up 6% on 2013.
7.12pm. Annerley, Bulimba Heights and Norman Park South booth results provide better news for Labor, with Butler now pulling into a projected lead. However, I’m still going off 2013 preferences here, as only two very small booths have reported two-party results.
7.03pm. Holland Park and Buranda West are in, and also Murarrie on two-party, and the swing to the LNP is sticking, as is the extremely close projected result.
6.53pm. Another small booth on the fringe of the electorate – Mount Gravatt East in the south-east – and it’s another bad result for Labor, down almost double digits on the primary vote. I’ve switched off the preference swing calculation for now, so the two-party is going off 2013 preference flows.
6.50pm. The preference result is in from Holland Park West, and Labor has 7.2% more preferences than it got in 2013 – but we’re only going off 14 votes here. Nonetheless, my model is extrapolating off it to project the result for the other booth, causing Labor to go up about 1%. Bottom line: hold off reading anything into anything yet.l
6.42pm. Both booths are on the very fringes of the electorate: Holland Park West in the south and Murarrie in the east. The dynamic nearer the city may well be very different. I’ll stop getting a “#VALUE!” result on the Stable Population Party when I get a result from a booth where their vote in 2013 wasn’t zero.
6.38pm. Two very small booths on the primary vote provide a measure of encouragement for Bill Glasson, suggesting a very close result if 2013 preferences are any guide.
6.30pm. There have apparently been 2090 ballots cast at the Whites Hill booth, which compared with the 2083 cast at the election suggests a pretty healthy turnout.
6pm. Welcome to the Poll Bludger’s live coverage of the Griffith by-election. With polls closing round about now, first results should be in in maybe about an hour, although this can be a bit variable. Results in the table will show raw figures for the primary vote and booth-matched swings for both primary and two-party vote, together with a projected two-party total based on the booth-matching. Where available, the latter will be based on booth two-party results; at booths where only primary vote totals have been reported, two-party projections will be derived from 2013 preference flows taken together with the “swing” in preferences recorded across booths where two-party results have been reported. I’ll be copping my results off the ABC Elections page, as the AEC annoyingly does not publish booth results as they are reported (or at least, never has in the past). So those without a minute to lose should note that my table updates will lag about that far behind the ABC.
What percentage of the 3.28% conservative PUP vote was Glasson expected to receive?
All of it.
democracy@work @ 185: Your constant harping about analysts like Antony Green whose credibility you plainly resent is just tiresome. Put a sock in it.
triton:
I don’t think it’s as simple as that. It looks as though the turn-out is low this by-election – maybe that’s to be expected.
Some vox pop dude on the news said it’s the 5th time in 3 years voters in that seat have been to an election, state and fed. Qlders will know whether that’s true or not, but that kind of voter fatigue could well have an impact on whether people turn out to vote, and the prevailing mindset at being dragged to a by-election so soon after a general election when the then sitting member promised to see out a full term.
Isn’t it the member’s right to concede rather than a commentator?
ALP commentators on election night wait for the leader to concede, why not LNP commentators?
[democracy@work
Posted Saturday, February 8, 2014 at 9:15 pm | Permalink
ABC Swing to prediction gap narrowing. Now shows ALP +1.5% Swing and a prediction of +0.6 to the LNP.
Previously the ABC web site was reporting prediction swing of +4.7 to the LNP and a +2.4 matched Booth swing to the ALP
Clearly the ABC prediction model is flawed. Sure it will eventually tally.
Antony Green should publish the analysis methodology used his calculations.]
Perhaps it is your analysis which is flawed. Antony’s projection would take into account the Postal votes & Coorparoo PPVC votes which have not been counted. These went strongly to Glasson at the last election and made up about 15% of the votes cast.
don’t think Everything is really Mod Lib, would surely be still fixated on government lies but no mention
Everything@161 … your “analysis” fails to account for Queensland’s wildly altering boundaries which make any long term analysis on seat name alone meaningless. For example did you know the lion’s share of Moreton was once the seat of Forde just a handful of elections ago, while Rankin included Inala and the country town of Warwick, and Griffith crossed the river to include the safe-ish Labor inner city and suburbs?
What lies?
Everything@182
Swing back was very slightly less than the state swing back and a complicating factor was McKew being so clearly tied to Rudd who had been removed as PM.
Is it reasonable to relate nationwide polling to a single seat poll? Such as to conclude that the federal polling must be weak, say?
[Kevin Rudd has apparently joined the crowd at ALP Griffith function.]
He should speak for as long as he thinks is becessary
Oh, he will.
+1 KevJohnno
Here are Mumble’s 4:
[Peter Brent @mumbletwits 27m
@monkeytypist 1996, 1994, 1970, 1920.]
1994 would be Fremantle? Yes?
democracy@work,
[Antony Green needs to publish his algorithm used in his wild predictions and subject it to pier review]
He won’t comment as it’s an “on water” issue.
[DisplayName
Posted Saturday, February 8, 2014 at 9:47 pm | PERMALINK
Is it reasonable to relate nationwide polling to a single seat poll? Such as to conclude that the federal polling must be weak, say?]
Well, I can’t see how a >6% swing AWAY from the government sits well with a 1%(ish) swing TOWARDS the government in this seat, where actual electors are actually voting.
Need more data…..
Or is it because we know something about swings, such as they tend to occur in the same direction across multiple seats?
When’s the by-election for Griffin?
1996 would be Lindsay which doesn’t count.
confessions @ 214: 1970 would be the ACT by-election, which is a bit of an outlier, as it followed the death of the local ALP member Jim Fraser, who had an enormous personal vote.
Mod, one might assume that if a party has a strong federal showing but is weak in one seat, then their votes lie somewhere else in the country.
Recognising that these polls are not all taken at the same time :P.
Good result, as predicted. ALP in a canter.
The $6 GP charge idea was as good as a concession speech written for Glasson.
Dumb bastards.
When’s the by-election for Griffin?
cancelled due to no contest.
Why doesn’t Lindsay count in 96? It was still a by-election.
Instead what we have is an adjustment of confidence in the federal polls. I’m wondering if that’s reasonable. It might be, in the right circumstance.
Thanks pedant.
It was due to some voting technical irregularity and the same candidate (Jackie Kelly) ran in the by-election as the original election.
Based on history, Moddy Everything has grounds to be pleased with the result particularly the small swing although considering Pine-O-Sean was big on claiming the voters would reward Tone for stopping the boats the swing should have been bigger but as many suspect the boats matter little to most voters.
We’ve had similar discussions before. I’m wondering what’s different this time.
Tories trying to spin this result are like hawthorn fans in 2012 and Geelong fans a few years earlier who pointed to all sorts of stats that proved their team should have been on the dais receiving the premiership cup.
They weren’t and glasson lost.
2PP isn’t far off the way most polls have been going of late. Pretty much in line.
It looks like ALL the government wins in by-elections in the last 90 years or so have been outliers:
“1970 would be the ACT by-election, which is a bit of an outlier, as it followed the death of the local ALP member Jim Fraser, who had an enormous personal vote.”
1994 Fremantle (WA Premier coming into Federal Parliament)
1996 Member elected at the main election having to go through the process again as the original result was rendered void due to some technicality I can’t remember
All the other by-elections since 1920 have been lost by the sitting government.
Seriously good result Dr Glasson……I tips me lid! 😉
It is not Brandis’ job to concede but you would hope that Glasson has rung and congratulated Butler at this stage.
Great result Terri Butler.
If that twit Glasson can’t win after two years of campaigning with a former PM retiring then he and the tories really are hopeless.
Well done $6 Bill. Two time loser.
Butler should employ Glasson as her butler in Canberra. Win win.
People need to learn how to win with character 🙂
Why didnt Labor win by 6% instead of 3%? An interesting but inevitably pointless discussion as its trying to account for why 3000 people didnt change their vote (or their preferences). Too many variables, too few people, too far from the next election…..and they are Queenslanders after all. Finding answers will be like herding invisible cats…. Queenslander cats.
232
1920 was an outlier as well. The MP was expelled for publicly opposing British policy in Ireland (There was a war of independence at the time).
Depending on who you believe Kelly was either still a NZer or a crown employee. In either case it is indicative of how little she expected to win. Today’s news shows she is still a political ingenue who is about to add to the Lib dysfunction in Western Sydney
6dollar Bill threw “everything” at the voters of Griffith and still couldn’t win. Maybe “everything’s” the problem?
Tom the first and best:
Well there you go! I didn’t know that, but thanks.
So every by-election win by a government have been “outliers” and there have only been 4 in a century.
Glasson getting a small swing, assuming he does, is a seriously stellar result. Perhaps more faith should have been thrown at him and a concerted anti-union campaign have been waged?
Everything @ 232: The ACT by-election in 1970 wasn’t won by the government: it was won by the ALP, but with a reduced majority, due no doubt to the loss of Jim Fraser’s personal vote. And at the next general election, in 1972, there was a 10.2% swing back to the ALP, bringing Kep Enderby’s vote back to only a little shy of what Fraser’s had been in 1969.
“If you want to see the end of the carbon tax here in Griffith, vote for Bill Glasson”: Tony Abbott on Thursday this week
Well that worked well, didn’t it
pedant:
Thanks…..but I was just going off confessions post from Mumble:
[confessions
Posted Saturday, February 8, 2014 at 9:49 pm | PERMALINK
Here are Mumble’s 4:
Peter Brent @mumbletwits 27m
@monkeytypist 1996, 1994, 1970, 1920.]
So have there only been 3 then, not 1970?
Antony Green was predicting a +4.7% swing to the LNP. How that prediction came about is anyone’s guess, But I am sure it gave false hope to the LNP
I am at a loss to work out how an aggregated matched Booth Swing to the ALP could show a prediction of a massive swing to the LNP.
of course as the vote count progresses the variation between prediction and actual diminishes but clearly something was amiss.. the ABC owes us an explanation.
Publication of the method used is a start and would go a long way into restoring confidence in the ABC itself. Many of the criticism of late leveled at the ABC have merit as journalist and staff continue to misuse and abuse ABC resources in non compliance of ABC Charter and and avoidance of accountability.
I think a $6.00 Bill is order to recognise Glasson’s stoic effort in trying to convince people to buy shit.
To add to the pointless discussion…
the byelection in Blaxland in 1996 (vacated by Keating) increased by 6ish% to Labor. Despite obvious superficial parallels I consider its relevance to tonight’s result to be close to zero.
Indeed – but not for delusional LNP reasons
The turn-out in this by-election is woeful compared with the general election 6 months ago.
65% today (via AGreen) vs 93% in September (via AEC).
Well there goes that referendum on the carbon tax.
Oops sorry Tony and $6 Bill.
The tribe have spoken and you are evicted from the island.