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.
lizzie
Funny. I have been a civil engineer for over thirty years and never seen Alex or Georgina on a building site.
imacca: “Tanya relaxed but may have hangover?? ”
It was a pretty strange and unimpressive performance this morning by Tanya P, even by her not particularly high standards. (As I have posted often enough in the past, I believe that she is rather overrated as a political performer.)
It was surely a moment for fist-pumping and a bit of jeering at her opponents. There was none of that whatsoever. You might almost have concluded that she was disappointed in the results.
And taking a swipe directly at News Limited – accusing them of promoting the idea of a leadership challenge as part of a conspiracy to help the Libs – was pretty silly. It’s ok for PBers to post this sort of stuff, but the ALP needs to be able to work with all media outlets. The correct line for her to have run was “the press gallery is always drumming up stories about a leadership challenge because it sells papers…”
Perhaps she had a cold. (This seems to be my excuse of the morning.)
Don’t need engineers for sand castles socrates.
So after being told by Katherine Murphy that the whole Get bill came out of a speech by Albanese articulating labor policy, we have a plea to support quality journalism.
I think Tanya Plibersek hit the nail on the head, Katherine Murphy got taken for a News limited ride, quality journalism yes, but why support a News limited subscription service?
MB
Nope. Its good to see a politician pointing out propaganda when it occurs. Its good that the Murdoch lot are reminded they are seen.
meher baba @ #201 Sunday, July 29th, 2018 – 10:17 am
Perhaps they do. But what does that have to do with News Limited? That’s not a media outlet, it’s a propaganda factory.
Calling Murdoch out was the only spark in Tanya P’s pretty flat performance. But yes, they do need to work with all the media, assuming all the media want to be worked with. How worser could Murdoch get.
This is true and was a bit of mea culpa by Murph.
Murphy was the only one who came out strongly against the CH9 takeover of Fairfax.
Itza
No Nazi uniforms using excuse of comedy show on Labor politicians this super saturday campaign.
I surprised that anyone could get a scholarship with a 3rd class Honours degree. The latter’s just an award for showing up, a terminating pass or D grade. Is the scholarship like the one Abbott’s daughter got?
Thank you for that mea culpa Mundo. Your bellyaching did get a bit hard to take at times. But at least you were genuine in your concern about the way things were going, unlike some of the trolls who come on here just to shit stir whenever Labor strikes a bit of troubled water.
I wonder if Shorten will be sending out the feelers to Mark Latham to do anti-Bill robo-calls in every electorate come the general election.
“Alexander Downer: “Our family have been nation builders””
Fuck. Me.
Has anyone analysed how many young voters made a difference in the by elections after the voter enrolments rose due to the Marriage Equality campaign yet?
Just looking at the Daily ToiletPaper web site, lead stories:
Bikie crime
Celebrity break ups
Emma Husar
Rugby League
Diet advice
More crime
More celebrities divorcing
Super Saturday results below the fold. Did they really happen? Not in RupertRooter land.
In the seats where both major parties ran the AEC statistics show:
In Longman just under 31% of first preferences did not go to the two major parties.
In Braddon around 24% of first preferences did not go to the two major parties.
In Mayo around 58% of first preferences did not go to the two major parties.
These stats support the contention, as stated, that neither major party is supported by a large proportion of voters.
It seems that some people here so insecure with their views that they need them supported by journalists and if a view expressed by a journalist doesn’t conform with theirs they are not worth listening to or reading.
It isn’t a problem that journos don’t agree with Labor talking points, but that most of the time (90%) they give the coalition the benefit of the doubt.
Also Murphy today saying voters aren’t buying the policies of the major parties, no distinction between the difference in policies in Labor and Liberal.
We will see a repetition in a couple of weeks time with the COAG meeting on the NEG, and a how it is a test for Shorten™.
Political Alert tweets
The Leader of the Opposition, @billshortenmp is in Narangba today and will join Member Elect, @SusanLambALP for a doorstop at Stelle Rosa Café, 12 noon #auspol
No hiding from Mr Shorten hey Mr Craig Luandy!
@LeVoyageurOz @james00000001 Police have advised Point Piper residents to keep their cats indoors until further notice
Hey Princess. Remind me. How did the Greens go in those 3 byelections?
…
Bushfire Bill @ #172 Sunday, July 29th, 2018 – 9:52 am
I have a couple of Android devices which happily run either Firefox or Chrome.
I mostly use Firefox because I can add various Addons such as ARs C+ which enables the quote and preview functions. The result is that I then have a mini version of my desktop machines.
☮ 😎 ☕
ItzaDream: “How worser could Murdoch get.”
Much worser.
Prof. Higgins @ #189 Sunday, July 29th, 2018 – 8:10 am
Have to disagree with that. The Grauniad would’ve noticed that there were a lot of visitors to their UK site from Australia. Enough of them to warrant launching an Australian version. Similarly The New York Times has opened a dedicated Australian based office due to the amount of traffic their main site gets from here. I suppose you could also add the extremely lowbrow Daily Mail as well.
The country is better off for them doing that alongside The Saturday Paper, Crikey and others. Otherwise we’d be restricted to Murdoch, Sevenwest, a cowered ABC/SBS and now Nine/Fairfax.
Vive la diversité.
All that aside, I still think Murpharoo should go, to realise her ambition of becoming Brian Trumble’s head of publcity.
Pegasus @ #217 Sunday, July 29th, 2018 – 7:27 am
So what?
The results also show that more than 50% of voters prefer the Labor candidate over any other.
BK @ #2 Sunday, July 29th, 2018 – 6:57 am
A timely reminder of the main reason the ALP must win the next election, must introduce an EIS, and and why all coal-fired power stations must be shut down ASAP.
Waiting another 30 odd years before we stop burning coal is not just dangerous – it is suicidal 🙁
Methinks Alexander is just a little full of himself. As if he thinks the voters actually owe him and his family something for being rich and pompous. Wanker.
I rarely watch Insiders these days, but after Barry’s mea culpa call I wondered how the panel would respond. Why did I bother?………..Savva I did not expect anything of but the other two were in “look the other way” and “we do not make this stuff up” mode when it comes to the topic of Labor leadership.
As somebody mentioned earlier on, there you have the CPG in all its glory. Expect little and not be disappointed I guess. I thought Malcolm Farr sounded like a pompous git, though Murphy did come close to admitting perhaps too much time had been spent with trivia or ‘theatre’ as she put it.
Interesting we had Pyne in full spin mode, but unlike an earlier poster, I thought Tanya was careful in her comments. Her dig at the Murdoch media was quite subdued and I saw no reason for her to do any air punching. After all, Labor has won two tough by-elections not government – just yet.
And of what it is worth, I thought the ABC panel were pretty ordinary last night. I don’t think they are particularly pro/anti any party but entertaining, full of insight and enthusiasm, no.
Peg, Greens First preferences
Braddon – 3.96%
Fremantle – 17.11%
Longman – 5.00%
Mayo – 9.40%
Perth – 19.46%
Apart from the homeless Liberals swelling the WA numbers, do you think the party is satisfied with these results?
guytaur @ #212 Sunday, July 29th, 2018 – 8:26 am
We discussed it last night. The media coverage stopped at ‘voter numbers were up’.
zoomster @ #184 Sunday, July 29th, 2018 – 10:05 am
Albo’s agenda was very transparent. If the factions wanted him, he was available. We all know that.
And around all the traps that counted, SFA went to the Greens.
I thought Tas was supposed to be a Greens stronghold. Yet the party did very poorly in Braddon yesterday.
Confessions
Thanks. So all the signs are as previously argued. Higher participation by youth more progressive voters I guess. 🙂
“In a Facebook post, Mr Downer – a former foreign minister and long-time diplomat – blamed supporters of the Centre Alliance candidate Rebekha Sharkie for bringing “horrible hate” to the district.
The post under his name said those who were responsible for insults aimed at his daughter “must be new arrivals”.”
https://www.outline.com/CcCYAe (Already linked above)
I suppose these “new arrivals” like the “estate people” in Midsomer. Certainly nothing like nice ‘respectable’ “Liberal” supporters:
Rex Douglas @ #229 Sunday, July 29th, 2018 – 10:33 am
Spin. 100% spin.
I didn’t even see the speech, and can’t imagine very many other people did either. Virtually nobody would have heard of it, if not for the “leadership rumblings” narrative the media confected from it and then repeated ad nauseam.
Oh, and I think Downer senior’s comment about his family being ‘nation builders’ totally vindicates many viewing him as an up-himself, self-important git. And the Liberals try to pin ‘class envy’ on Labor when Downer is bemoaning all those “outsiders” coming in to ruin the feudal holding of the Downer family. Laughable…………….I notice Pynne constantly calling Mayo a “rural” seat…………………..I guess that is because it encompasses Kangaroo Island is it?
“Albo’s agenda was very transparent. If the factions wanted him, he was available. We all know that.”
What? That’s it? That would be the agenda of each of the 68 members of the caucus that ain’t called Bill Shorten. Amazeballs.
Of course, that line is pure post facto deflection. According to the LNP and the CPG on ‘the drip’ Albo was making his move, it was on. Rah rah. All because Albo gave a speech, which Shorten’s office contributed to and approved in advance. Like my comment about Dolly Downer. Fuck. Me.
Alexander Downer’s ‘new arrivals’ are like the ‘nouveau riche’ who the old money aristocracy look down upon.
A very Melbourne/Adelaide thing.
Steve777 – you just beat me to it re Downer.
sprocket,
Why ask me, I don’t know.
Gosh, statistical evidence in support of a contention by a journalist produces the usual deflection, ad hominems and irrelevancies.
Shoot the messenger.
My sources are telling me that Amy Remeikis is counting the numbers and is about to mount a challenge against Katharine Murphy at the Guardian for the Political Editors’ job. No, I’m not just making this up. All the pressure is now on her and it will be a test of her leadership to see if she survives.
Not really. People on this blog are unhappy with Katherine Murphy because she isn’t a policy specialist and sheds little light on what is happening in public policy. All she does is reflect a shallow group-think about the policy options before us. For the most part, she an her colleagues focus on drama and personalities rather than policy. She’s a symptom of the structural shifts in journalism since the legacy media organizations lost their “rivers of gold” from advertisements for cars, houses, and job vacancies. The media organizations no longer have the large revenues needed to cross-subsidize public interest journalism. Public interest journalism involves paying people a decent wage to spend years building up policy expertise and writing high quality pieces. Whatever revenues the legacy media organizations do generate are overwhelmingly allocated to bloated senior executive compensation and to shareholders, not public interest journalism.
We fathers know how easy it is to embarrass our daughters in public, but good grief!
Here’s poor old Georgina Downer trying to look a bit humble with a line of “I know I’ve only just moved back to the electorate but I care deeply about the place and I’m keen to have another crack at becoming your member.”
And then dear old dad comes out with something along the lines of “I don’t know who all these people who refused to vote against my daughter are, they must be some nasty nouveau riche types who’ve recently moved into the borough. I’ll send some beadles out from the manor to give them a good thrashing and send them on their way.”
I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for Downer, but what a goose.
ratsak @ #207 Sunday, July 29th, 2018 – 10:24 am
A few cardboard cutouts of him at the polling booths should scare enough voters Labor’s way. 🙂
It will be interesting, given the flow of PHON preferences to Labor in Longman, if Labor will seek to further solidify their relationship with PHON in order to gain more in Queensland.
“Albo’s agenda was very transparent. If the factions wanted him, he was available. We all know that.”
Not according to Albo. For him “no” means no.
The cut and paste queen and her disciple poke their heads briefly over the parapets and then hastily retreat to the safety of their bunker until their discomfiture dissipates ….
Swipes at News Limited are completely justified. There is no value to the ALP in pretending that News Limited is anything but an attack dog that serves conservative interests.
News Limited are partisan players and they deserve to be treated as such.
I think that facebook post was another, ‘The things that batter’ moment for Alexander Downer.
‘Nation Builders’!?! Tearing down a few thousand trees on your squattocracy property and planting crops? Yeah right.
“Not really. People on this blog are unhappy with Katherine Murphy because she isn’t a policy specialist and sheds little light on what is happening in public policy. All she does is reflect a shallow group-think about the policy options before us. For the most part, she an her colleagues focus on drama and personalities rather than policy. She’s a symptom of the structural shifts in journalism since the legacy media organizations lost their “rivers of gold” from advertisements for cars, houses, and job vacancies. The media organizations no longer have the large revenues needed to cross-subsidize public interest journalism. Public interest journalism involves paying people a decent wage to spend years building up policy expertise and writing high quality pieces. Whatever revenues the legacy media organizations do generate are overwhelmingly allocated to bloated senior executive compensation and to shareholders, not public interest journalism.”
Nailed it, Nicholas.