While Labor’s by-election performances were nothing special in historical terms, it was undeniably a good night for the party, thanks largely to an unexpectedly clear win in Longman. Five campaign opinion polls had Labor slightly behind in the seat, before the election eve Newspoll found them edging to a 51-49 lead. Labor actually appears headed for a winning margin of around 4%, bolstering a fragile 0.8% margin with a swing of 3.4%. The big surprise was the near double-digit fall in the Liberal National Party primary vote, which leaves them struggling to crack 30%. This is well below the 34% attributed to them by Newspoll, to say nothing of a series of ReachTEL results that had them approaching 40%.
The LNP slump rendered redundant what everyone imagined would be the decisive factor, namely the flow of One Nation preferences. Despite this, One Nation were the other big winner in Longman, adding around 7% to their 9.4% vote from 2016. This indeed flowed a lot more strongly to the LNP than in 2016, reflecting the party’s how-to-vote card recommendation and the fact that they clearly picked up much of the LNP’s lost support. After receiving 56.5% of One Nation preferences in 2016, Labor looks to have scored only a third this time.
The Braddon result was less good for Labor, notwithstanding that they have clearly won, and that this looked in doubt throughout the campaign. The main change from the 2016 result is that independent Craig Garland scored a creditable 11.0% (although it may come down a little in late counting), chipping a few percent away from each of Labor, Liberal and the Greens. Rebekha Sharkie’s win in Mayo was of about the anticipated scale: her present lead over Georgina Downer after preferences is 8.6%, compared with her 5.0% margin in 2016. Sharkie’s primary vote performance was even more robust, up from 34.9% to around 45%. This bespeaks one poor aspect of the by-elections for Labor – after playing dead at two successive elections, its vote in Mayo has fallen all the way to 6.0%.
In the two WA seats, Josh Wilson did notably better in Fremantle than Patrick Gorman did in Perth, although neither was in the least bit troubled. Wilson gained 11.6% to gain a clear majority on the primary vote, with the Greens treading water at 17% and the Liberal Democrats garnering enough stray Liberals to land in the low teens. Despite the 42.3% Liberal vote from 2016 being up for grabs (compared with 36.9% in Fremantle), Labor only made a negligible gain on the primary vote in Perth, with the Greens also only up slightly. The rest spread among a large field of 15 candidates, with independent Paul Collins the strongest performer among claimants to the Liberal vote. Turnout was notably subdued in Perth and Fremantle, and looks likely to settle at around 70%.
If you click on the image below, you will find an accounting of the swings in Braddon and Longman and, in the former case, an projection of the final result. Since the swing on votes counted in Braddon thus far is exactly zero, it concludes Labor’s existing margin of 2.2% will be maintained. Also featured are regional breakdowns for Braddon and Longman, with the former broken into the larger towns (Burnie, Devonport and Ulverstone) and the remainder, and the latter into Bribie Island area and the remainder. This doesn’t turn up anything particularly interesting: especially in Longman, the swings were remarkably uniform. Craig Garland’s vote was a little lower in the larger towns, but there was otherwise little distinction to speak of in Braddon.
“Labor will still hit them with the ‘they’re not dead, they’ll be back after the election’ line and it will hurt a bit, but they can simply say the Parliament has spoken and move onto some other topic that isn’t quite so toxic.”
Yup, and that will be the basis of the “Labor Lies” campaign they are hoping to run. Which worked so well in Longman on Saturday. 🙂
ALP will win the next election by a landslide and bill shorten will be a great PM
I thought Murphy said on Insiders this morning that the result made the NEG more likely, so it must be.
Listening to Joe Walsh, Seriously Folks – “Life’s Been Good”, about to move on to Cheap Trick, Live at Budokan.
From the twitterverse!
WOW!!!!
The main corporate tax cuts bill, has never been presented to the senate, not once.
Don’t believe twitter.
“All right Tokyo… are you ready”
Greensborough Growler @ #654 Sunday, July 29th, 2018 – 5:21 pm
LOL seems like today’s Insiders where the press gallery refused to mea culpa is going to become something of a meme. Love it.
“From the twitterverse!”
Suspect people getting a little carried away GG. 🙂 Not even the Libs would hit the PANIC button this soon. It would be such a bad look.
“Bracing for possible internal blowback because of the poor result, senior Liberals pointed out on Sunday that the home affairs minister had been prominent in the Longman campaign. “Dutton was all over Longman, he had more involvement than any other minister,” one senior government figure noted.”
Senior Liberals – code for Pyne and any other ‘moderate’ (sic) that will be dumped to the back bench if the Right gets Trumble.
It’s pretty obvious desperation. Apparently in Trumble’s LNP he’s not the leader. The buck doesn’t stop with him. When you get a shit result, shit on the senior ministers that were out campaigning for the candidate.
Yeah that’ll fucking work.
Seriously I doubt it.
If there was actually going to be a kill they would want to do it quickly. Nothing stops a good knifing like time to work the phones.
Pyne and Bishop in the same room with close proximity to Abbott?
Yeah, no.
Egads, Trump was right! Russia has switched their bots over from supporting the RWNJ’s to supporting the Democrats/leftists.
Rat.Hot off the presses :
Well derr. A bozo on a blog like me could tell you that was what was going to happen last Monday, but our glorious media was still pushing Kill Bill and fantasies of Trumble Triumph.
In the excitement of the by-elections I’ve neglected to mention that my correspondence with Porter over NBN has continued.
NBN have now downgraded my house from FTTP back to HFC, despite a promise from Porter, reflected on the NBN website, that I’d be getting FTTP.
The Minister for communications has written him a nice letter all about how Rreported lived experience is not accurate and that HFC is world class.
Itd probably attrract Williams ire if I were to post a copy of the letter, so here is my response:
Hi XXXXXX
Thanks for getting back to me.
I note Minister Fiefield’s response and am disappointed by his response. You and I both know that regardless of the formalities that the NBN does not operate at arm’s length from the government, and this was certainly not what you implied when you contacted me shortly after the WA election to let me know that this area had been upgraded to FTTP.
When it comes to the claims of the Government regarding the potential performance of the NBN and the reported lived experience of people using it, there is a considerable credibility gap, one which is to the detriment of the Government. To put it more bluntly, I trust the lived experience of other Australians (and accept that some claims are going to be exaggerated) over what the minister says, every day of the week. The NBN is being delivered no more quickly, no better in service quality and no cheaper. Quite an “achievement” in engineering terms.
We’re both experiencing a first at the moment Nathan. You’re working in a now marginal electorate and I’m living in one. Having spent most of my life living in electorates that were very safe at both a state and federal level and getting ignored, it’s now my turn to get some pork. I live about 60 cable meters from the nearest house with FTTP – so not much of a technical hurdle. In mid-2017 you contacted me and promised FTTP internet, something which was reflected on the NBN website. You’ve now gone back on that promise. If Christian wants me to vote for him in the next federal election then he needs to find a way to get my house back on the FTTP list.
One Nation will kill the LNP. Unless the LNP comes up with some way of countering the drift to One Nation then they are toast. Unlike the Green Vote which almost always comes home to the ALP, the One Nation preferences get lost for the LNP. This could be a number of reasons, not least of which is most One Nation voters are not the brightest.
That is interesting rat, obviously Pyne having a preemptive strike against Dutton.
Also Probyn on the ABC site:
“It has been a long while since Australia has had a prime minister called William”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-29/super-saturday-wipes-away-doubt-about-bill-shorten-leadership/10049030
It’s also come to my attention that I’ve been removed from the invite list for Coffee With Christian, not that I could ever have gone, he holds them between 10 and 3, Monday to Friday, which due to work commitments I can’t get to.
I thought Murphy said on Insiders this morning that the result made the NEG more likely, so it must be.
so it must be dead.
PHON voters look for Pauline’s name in every lower house seat and state senate and are confused when’s she not there.
BTW the little redhead battler was on the Queen Mary this weekend. Doing it tough.
Pyne and Bishop in the same room with close proximity to Abbott?
Yeah, no.
Correct.
When the decision to bone Trumble is made Abbott won’t be consulted.
Farewell and best wishes Lee Lin Chin. I too will miss you’re presence. But WTF were you wearing tonight? (I know. Whatever you want.) But still. What was that?
adrian… “For example?
I ask because I rarely watch myself, and have certainly never seen the equivalent of the extremist organisation that is the IPA”
reps from think tanks per capita and the australia institute are semi regular guests on the drum. But no doubt you dont consider them the left equivalents of the ipa :p
Has any journo interviewed one of the Pauline cut outs to get ON’s reaction to the Longman result?
It’s a pity we still don’t have Norman Gunston to interview Pauline in two dimensional form.
For those who never saw Gary McDonald as Norman Gunston:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32ZfKHraP1s
r
Ms Murphy was making the point that, since an early election was no longer a live option, the States no longer had that reason to delay a decision in terms of waiting for an early election outcome.
PHON is to the Liberals as the Greens are to Labor.
Well the cardboard cutout Paulines seemed to work in Longman – the party increased its vote there. 😀
If Christian wants me to vote for him in the next federal election then he needs to find a way to get my house back on the FTTP list.
You’re a dirty rotten liar Grimace. Good luck with the blag.
It’s great to see Turnbull has cheered up after Super saturday results.
Compromising photos of Malcolm Roberts emerge.
The Bring Back Tony crowd emerges.
I don’t have a response yet ratsak. I put a tracking widget in the email and he’s opened it a number of times.
On Friday I got asked to post some material on the community Facebook pagesthat reflected poorly on Porter. After that effort I doubt he’ll be helping me again. He may even get me taken off the NBN rollout all together.
ratsak
Video from a certain Harbourside mansion last night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B12eVCBbGsw
ON are the anti-heroes of RW politics. To choose them is to say “up yours” to the LNP. When a rejectionist voter leaves the LNP for ON there is one further step they can take to express hostility to the party of the banks, and that is to vote Labor.
This will bring the LNP to their knees.
“Labor will still hit them with the ‘they’re not dead, they’ll be back after the election’ line and it will hurt a bit, but they can simply say the Parliament has spoken and move onto some other topic that isn’t quite so toxic.”
Yup, and that will be the basis of the “Labor Lies” campaign they are hoping to run. Which worked so well in Longman on Saturday.
The thing with the tax cuts is we know that this is what the Coalition wants to do. We also got a pretty good insight into what they want to do from the 2014 Budget. They never renounced those measures, just put them on the “things to do when we can get away with it” pile. Want to defer retirement until 70? Medicare copayment (to inevitably be ratcheted up)? $100K degrees? Cut out the dole for under 25s?. Then there’s what they want to cut to pay for the tax giveaway to big business.
It’s certainly not lying to point these out, even though Labor will be accused of lying by the people who lied their way into Government in 2013.
Ms Murphy was making the point that, since an early election was no longer a live option, the States no longer had that reason to delay a decision in terms of waiting for an early election outcome.
Did Murph point out that therefore instead of delaying they’ll just kill it?
Trumble and Josh have nothing to offer the States and no leverage over them. That’s not a negotiating position, it’s supplication.
Greensborough Growler @ #676 Sunday, July 29th, 2018 – 7:44 pm
I really shouldn’t. But…I had a sudden vision of Roberts collecting as many as he could for … something…
“I really shouldn’t. But…I had a sudden vision of Roberts collecting as many as he could for … something…”
I’m half wondering is a few wont go missing and get used later for humorous “art installations” that may appear closer to the general election. 🙂
Actually, were there ever any life size Clive Palmer cutouts around?? 🙂 Nah….that would be evil….
Redneck radio should be fun all day tomorrow. Is it Monday that Abbott usually appears with Hadley?
Ha Prue MacSween.
Just when you think you’ve encountered the stupidest poor excuse for a human rwnj you’ll ever suffer that horror show turns up to disabuse you of your lack of imagination.
‘ratsak says:
Sunday, July 29, 2018 at 7:54 pm
Ms Murphy was making the point that, since an early election was no longer a live option, the States no longer had that reason to delay a decision in terms of waiting for an early election outcome.
Did Murph point out that therefore instead of delaying they’ll just kill it?
Trumble and Josh have nothing to offer the States and no leverage over them. That’s not a negotiating position, it’s supplication.’
If I recall correctly she did not indicate one way or another. It was about the timing of the states’ decisions. I don’t know how the negotiations are going but must admit I had assumed for no real reason that the states were more or less in the NEG bag.
Laming is an ophthalmologist and you’ll remember that I said earlier this week that they aren’t real doctors.
Wombat
I didn’t realise intranasal ketamine is off label (although I’ve only ever seen it IV). They took advice from the children’s hospital in Adelaide. The kids did the trip in relays so they could give them more ketamine if necessary.
The diplomatic immunity thing is very interesting. I haven’t been to a disaster overseas but lots of my colleagues have (one is in Greece at the moment). I suppose getting diplomatic immunity is a guarantee you won’t get in legal problems if there is a bad outcome.
Citizen
On the other hand, here in Melbourne, I daresay talkback radio will be focussed on Vic state politics and the campaign funds saga
kbaguley
@bkbaguley
10m10 minutes ago
Replying to @Qldaah
Dutton will be a tad uncomfortable now….maybe have should seek a safe seat….say Wahroonga.
😀
Turnbull now wants to abandon the Tax cuts for the big four Banks and Tax cheating Multinationals to fool the public into voting for him,
BUT just remember:
When they get back in, The Banks and Multinationals will Win
I read I think on ABC. The preferences from other parties this by-election in Longman is 48%. In 2016 it was 61.5 %
Downers call for drumlines in the Adelaide Hills after a relative was eaten by a Sharkie.