So there you have it. Below is a tool for exploring the results at divisional level according to a range of electoral and demographic criteria. Take your pick from the drop down menu, and you will get divisional “yes” votes recorded on the vertical axis, and their results for the relevant indicator on the vertical axis. Most of these are self-explanatory, with the exception of “One Nation support index”. This equals the division’s 2016 Senate vote for One Nation divided by the party’s overall Senate vote in that state, multiplied by 100. So an electorate will score 100 if its One Nation vote is exactly equal to the state average; it will score 200 if it’s double; 50 if it’s half; and so forth. This is to prevent the party’s across-the-board high results in Queensland from spoiling the effect. “Finished school” is measured as a percent of the 15-plus population.
BB
“Anyway, interesting times ahead for those Labor member who scored No votes in the local electorates. Some of the results were so heavily No that you get the feeling that anti-SSM attitudes might spill over into general political positions among the voters. Local members had better tread a wary path.”
Nope, don’t get that feeling at all. The vote in most of these electorates reflects the conservative social attitudes of local non-Western immigrant communities. When it comes to elections, they’ll vote on economics.
I question the constitutionality of some aspects of the Paterson bill which really stretch the meaning of a law with respect to marriage within the meaning of s 51(xxi). I’m not so sure that the activating factor of holding a ‘marriage-related belief’ would be enough to connect it to the head of power. Not that the bill will be considered.
Thanks to all here who aren’t LGBTIQetc. but voted yes in this survey. Granted, it’s not over yet, but your support means a lot.
My absolute pleasure Mr Newbie. It’s unfortunate this SSM plebbyshite had to happen at all.
JimmyD @ #136 Wednesday, November 15th, 2017 – 11:14 am
He’s still looking for Trevor Chapman
BB,
Those high immigrant Western Sydney electorates aren’t going to abandon Labor over gays.
It simply won’t be an issue at the next election even if that is early next year.
Those electorates know the Libs aren’t on their side. The Coalition’s cozying up to PHON to try and keep other seats will reinforce that. The Labor members will win almost all of those seats on primaries.
Turnbull in his press conference referred to the Smith bill as “a good starting point.”
I have heard similar references from others on the Right.
In what ways is it deficient?
In some ways I think it excessive.
Why should the conditions and exemptions in the Marriage Act be different for a SSM to what they are for the rest of us now?
You are effectively creating a separate class of marriage.
I can accept the exempting of existing civil celebrants from having to perform SSMs, that is effectively a grandfathering clause that will have no effect once current civil celebrants retire.
But introducing any differences that would be permanent in nature would be unacceptable.
I recall Tony Burke saying that he made his views clear before the last fed election re his support for SSM. He still got returned by a landslide in his electorate of Watson.
BW,
Yes, I changed it to a month because you’re greatly overestimating how long it will take for this to become so normalised as to be boring.
Mr Newbie @ #153 Wednesday, November 15th, 2017 – 7:32 am
You’re welcome. 🙂
I’m just sorry we had to. 🙁
I hope youse are right about conservative religious backlash not spilling over into general politics.
At least we know now that “Western Sydney” as a voting bloc is a thing.
Proud that every electorate in WA voted #Yes.
‘Mr Newbie says:
Wednesday, November 15, 2017 at 11:32 am
Thanks to all here who aren’t LGBTIQetc. but voted yes in this survey. Granted, it’s not over yet, but your support means a lot.’
I was partly voting for LGBTIQ folk so, no worries.
But I was also definitely voting for myself and the sort of Australia I want.
Hi everyone
I’ve been out of the country a fair bit lately and have only recently caught up with PB’s move.
It’s a great result today: out of step with the prevailing PB wisdom as I usually am, I have always supported the idea of a plebiscite as a mechanism for giving the conservatives an opportunity to put up or shut up. Once the legislation goes through (and it will) the issue will be off the table in a way it wouldn’t have been if it had just been decided by what would have almost certainly been a very narrow vote in parliament. Perhaps I was always more optimistic than some that the result of such a vote would be a resounding Yes, as it has turned out to be.
My other strong conviction, which I have posted on PB in the past, is that the politically conservative electorates would generally vote Yes and that the only large No votes would come from electorates with a high proportion of newly-arrived migrants. The results have exceeded my expectations in this regard, with even most National-voting regions voting Yes, and with some very strong Yes votes in the wealthiest areas of our cities. And the No votes in the migrant-dominated parts of western Sydney and Melbourne were even stronger than I had expected.
I suspect that these trends have some medium-term implications for Labor’s prospects in these regions, particularly if we were to see a split on the right side of politics and a powerful conservative party comes into existence. A non-racist conservative party (ie, not One Nation) could do very well in traditional Labor areas. Perhaps it won’t happen, but it would have to be a worry.
Anyway, I can now look forward to wedding bells chiming next year for a close member of my family, so I’ll be sipping a glass of bubbly tonight.
BiGD
That’s what makes me think he’s preparing the ground for his normal shilly-shallying.
Bushfire Bill @ #161 Wednesday, November 15th, 2017 – 7:42 am
But they consist of many different religious and cultural groups, so it’s hard to see them uniting into into a significant entity.
What about all those religious people who can’t marry because same sex couples are allowed to? They’ll just have to remain virgins.
The Right’s gut instinct in Australia will always be anti-immigrant, xenophobic, anti-poor, anti-Islam, pro-white and pro-christian.
US, ditto. The Republicans might have been able to mobilize conservative latinos but they spend most of their time alienating them.
Trump has mobilized extraordinary turnouts by minorities in the latest state elections.
IMHO, the Right might find it useful to set up islamic astro turfing operations in the west with a view to running muslim candidates who give their preferences to the Libs.
I think some are reading too much into the big No vote in some areas of Western Sydney.
The Labor party view has been clear from the get go in that they supported ME and people in those electorates have known for ages.
If there was any linking of the SSM survey and day to day politics it would of been showing up in the polls, as far as I am aware it hasn’t.
s
Probably right, IMO.
75% Yes in Warringah is not going to topple Abbott anytime soon, either.
Comment on Fairfax’s “Pulse” – “62-38 sounds like the LNP’s TPP vote by December.” If only…
Virtually no Muslims up here in Sydney’s north-west, so I guess it was the Chinese who dragged the Yes vote south, with a touch of Hillsong in Greenway.
You’d have thought that if the “freedom” bandwagon had been strong then electorates like Warringah and Mackellar would have had low Yes votes. With Sydney’s north-west electorates being solidly conservative, similar to it’s North Shore and Eastern Suburbs electorates, the “freedom” argument seems to have failed, in deference to religious conservatism.
Boewar, I am in Lindsay. If it had voted No and Emma Husar had voted that way in a parliament vote I will still vote ALP at the next election. Proud of my electorate today.
Is something supposed to happen when I change the select-box value in the article? Nothing seems to happen.
Mackellar chiming in. Tree tories abound in the northern beaches. And normal greens. And children of conservatives who vote yes.
Very high 45% NO vote in Lingari, easily the most Aboriginal electorate in the country. It seems that the Indigenous community also has strong reservations. Would be great to get a breakdown by postcode, to analyse seats like Leichardt, but I don’t believe this will be happening?
sonar: “I think some are reading too much into the big No vote in some areas of Western Sydney.
The Labor party view has been clear from the get go in that they supported ME and people in those electorates have known for ages.
If there was any linking of the SSM survey and day to day politics it would of been showing up in the polls, as far as I am aware it hasn’t.”
The big No vote means what it looks like it means: a large proportion of the newly-arrived migrants of Western Sydney and similar parts of Melbourne are deeply religious and socially conservative. I don’t think the issue of SSM alone is significant enough to them to sway them away from Labor
But Labor’s policy compass has been gradually turning leftwards in recent years, and this brings the party into areas that would seriously concern many of these socially-conservative voters: eg, a stronger emphasis on gender neutrality, or a softening of the line on boat people (for whom many migrant groups have far less sympathy than most Anglo voters).
The main saving grace here for Labor is Pauline Hanson, who sends a very strong signal to non-European migrants that the Australian political right is not a happy home for them.
Regardless of immigrant communities votes on the SSM survey, they know which side of politics will be on the side of disadvantaged minorities, and it ain’t the coalition.
In a strange sort of way, Labor’s support for marriage equality strengthens its credentials to look after other minorities (eg Muslims, Refugees, migrants in general) even if some of those groups disagree with some of the positions Labor takes on some issues.
A split in the right will have no effect other than to split the right.
Homophobia is not anywhere near enough of a unifying issue to join disparate religious groups together in competition to the issues that divide them. Simply ask such a ‘non-racist party conservative party’ what it’s position on say Palestine is and poof the Muslims are gone. That’s before you get to the economic conflict between the entrepreneurial migrant conservatives and the welfare dependent migrant conservatives.
The breaking down of the loose threads that hold the various strands of the right together are no more a threat to Labor than the DLP was to Menzies.
Nearly 5 million Australians voted to deny basic rights to groups of people that are accessible by other Australians.
Despite a majority vote that figure is very disturbing.
And despite a majority vote the lnp is actively looking at ways to curtail those rights in the proposed legislation to restore equality, that is just as disturbing.
The lnp is determined to keep whatever aspects of howards apartness legislation that they can.
“Very high 45% NO vote in Lingari, easily the most Aboriginal electorate in the country. It seems that the Indigenous community also has strong reservations. Would be great to get a breakdown by postcode, to analyse seats like Leichardt, but I don’t believe this will be happening?”
Also a very low turnout. Hard to tell if Yes vote is low because participation is low, or if both Y and participation is low because of demographic factors.
Peterjk23 @ #177 Wednesday, November 15th, 2017 – 11:05 am
Those least likely to have voted in Lingari will bee the indigenous voters, so it may well be a reflection of the same conservative non-indigenous vote showing up in the western Queensland electorates which voted no.
The Cormannator looked happy earlier. He should too as we’ve just spent, out of the public purse, at least $122m so that the ‘moderates’ in the Liberal Party are confirmed to have ascendancy over the RW Nutters. They’ll bash Abetz, Andrews and their ilk with this endlessly.
“Regardless of immigrant communities votes on the SSM survey, they know which side of politics will be on the side of disadvantaged minorities, and it ain’t the coalition.
In a strange sort of way, Labor’s support for marriage equality strengthens its credentials to look after other minorities (eg Muslims, Refugees, migrants in general) even if some of those groups disagree with some of the positions Labor takes on some issues.”
This appears to be the view of some Muslim leaders, who made a tactical decision to adopt a low profile in the SSM debate.
I think the “migrants in general” constituency doesn’t exist any more to the extent that it possibly once did (although there was always a variety in the political affiliation of different migrant groups: eg, back in the 70s and 80s the Eastern Europeans and a large element of the Italian community were always more inclined to vote Liberal than, say, the Greek community).
Anyway, these days, my impression is that (apart from a short-term leap when Rudd was leader) Labor has been progressively losing its one-time grip on the Chinese community and has never made much headway with the rapidly-growing Hindu community (who tend to be both socially and economically conservative).
They are already a significant entity – ALP heartland.
Even Howard’s so called battlers were those outside of the main immigrant heavy Western Sydney like Lindsay and Macarthur which were much more Anglo mortgage belt. These electorates are now becoming more diverse and will become more and more safe ALP because of it.
Hume is the next electorate that will head in that direction as the large migrant communities in the new estates around Camden Valley Way start to drag the population gravity North.
Well Antony Green wasn’t convinced by the argument put to him by Greg Jennett that high ‘No’ votes in safe Labor seats will affect them.
Here is a table of electorates voting.
:medium
https://twitter.com/mumbletwits/status/930599085937123328
C@tmomma
“Well Antony Green wasn’t convinced by the argument put to him by Greg Jennett that high ‘No’ votes in safe Labor seats will affect them.”
No more than high Yes votes in blue ribbon Lib seats like Warringah and Goldstein will effect the Lib vote there.
Mark Kenny calling it a win for Turnbull.
FFS Kenny. He put us in this situation. Hes cant claim it.
Darc @ #155 Wednesday, November 15th, 2017 – 11:33 am
and Pixie Wheatley.
It would be a win for Turnbull over the fringe elements in his own party, had he bothered to loudly campaign in favor of a ‘Yes’ vote.
But if it’s being described as a win over Labor, that’s pure fantasy. Labor wanted to just have the vote in Parliament and get on with things, months ago.
Now you’re just taking the piss. The biggest Hindu communities in Sydney are in Greenway, McMahon, Parramatta, Reid, Fowler and Werriwa. Labor has a lock on all of those apart from Reid and Laundy will currently be bricking it. Only in Parramatta and Greenway did Labor even need to go to prefs and it’s not likely they will fail to win them on primaries next time.
If (and it’s a massive if of which I have seen no evidence for and plenty against) the Hindu community aren’t in Labor’s bloc then they aren’t making much of an impact.
The Silver Bodgie @ #194 Wednesday, November 15th, 2017 – 9:31 am
Probably busy applying cilices
I would say that the highs and lows are spread amongst all parties so really there should have no effect on normal elections, it appears that people made up their own minds how they feel at the moment. This should all blow over after the legislation is passed. People will just forget all about it.
Here’s Abbott’s statement ~
Note:
1. The old either / or ploy. Thanking the 4.7 million support for marriage between a man and a woman – as if the Yes voters don’t support the hetero union.
2. Freedom of conscience for all, not just the churches. Discrimination tarted up as conscience. Conscience will be the new thing. Like doG told me to do it (Used to be the devil).
I still think the wording of the Question had bias, and that too might have had greater impact on new immigrants.
Should the law be changed (flags a NO right off for those not sure or uncertain and don’t want change) to allow same sex couples (flags a NO with horrible thoughts) to marry.
Should marriage be a civil right available to all citizens removes all negative bias and would have been a much cleaner question.
It is kind of pleasing that Western Australia Yes vote was so high.
Even more pleasing that WA has proved to be more progressive and enlightened than NSW.