The age of entitlement

Prospects for the states’ seat entitlements in the medium term, and the Coalition’s chances of having any left to their name in Victoria after the coming election.

Essential Research should be breaking the New Year polling drought this week. Until then, three things:

• I have taken a look at state population growth trends to ascertain what the states’ House of Representatives seat entitlements are likely to be when the matter is determined a year after the next election. The table below shows how the numbers looked at the determinations following the 2013 and 2016 elections, how they are right now, and where they are headed according to current trends. Note the exact size of the House of Representatives depends on the vagaries of how these numbers are rounded: it will increase to 151 at the next election, because the last round decreed extra seats for Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory while penalising only the ever-declining South Australia. Note also that Tasmania is constitutionally entitled to five seats come what may.

2013 2016 2018 2019
NSW 47.39 47.32 47.29 47.24
Victoria 36.78 37.89 38.25 38.57
Queensland 29.75 29.64 29.68 29.73
WA 16.21 15.58 15.37 15.21
SA 10.63 10.42 10.28 10.15
Tasmania 3.25 3.15 3.13 3.10
ACT 2.44 2.54 2.51 2.51
NT 1.56 1.50 1.47 1.44

It appears quite certain Western Australia will lose the sixteenth seat it gained in 2016; that Victoria could potentially gain a seat for the second electoral cycle in a row; that the Northern Territory is in big danger of reverting to one seat after eighteen years with two; and that it’s touch-and-go for the third seat the Australian Capital Territory will gain at the coming election. Western Australia was lucky not to lose a seat last time, and has since fallen well below threshold, while Victoria’s growth rate of 0.3 seats a year leaves it projected to just make it over the line. Northern Territory’s entitlement fell below two after the 2001 election, but parliament came up with a legislative fiddle to preserve its second seat. Its population then went through a period of growth on the back of the resources boom, which has lately been in reverse. The ACT’s numbers tend to wax with Labor governments and wane with Coalition ones, owing to the parties’ respective attitudes to the public service, so the result of the coming election may have a bearing here.

The Australian reports that Cathy McGowan, the independent member for Indi, “will make an announcement about her political future on Monday morning”. One senses the announcement will be that she is not seeking re-election, as the Voices for Indi group that was behind her successful campaigns in 2013 and 2016 has seen fit to anoint her successor: Helen Haines, a Wangaratta-based midwife and rural health researcher. However, McGowan’s position was that she would wait to see who the group chose before deciding, and Haines says she will happily leave the field clear for McGowan if she wants to continue. The unsuccessful candidates included McGowan’s sister, local lawyer Helen McGowan. It is anticipated that Senator Bridget McKenzie, who recently relocated her electorate office to Wodonga, will run for the Nationals if McGowan retires.

• The Nine Network reports Liberal internal polling shows it headed for a near total wipeout in Melbourne, with only Tim Wilson in Goldstein looking good to hang on. However, this was reportedly conducted at the time of the state election, which raises two issues: whether its proximity confused respondents, and why it whoever leaked it should be doing so now in particular.

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.

1,220 comments on “The age of entitlement”

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  1. Xoanon @ #694 Monday, January 14th, 2019 – 7:33 am

    “Morrison is really scraping the barrel with this Australia Day thing. No one cares about making it a sacred day, and anyone who does already votes for the Tories anyway.”

    I can’t see how fomenting a culture war over Australia Day helps preserve it as a national day. The more divisive it becomes, the more likely it is to be moved, at least in the long term. A truly unifying day of national celebration can’t remain on a highly contested date, by definition.

    The Liberals used Anzac Day as a culture war tool, and look how revered that day is now.

  2. Naked ambition: Jayne Mansfield
    https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/books/naked-ambition-jayne-mansfield/news-story/af083b80267a81efc3b142cfcd300b52
    https://www.outline.com/qGw4gk

    Eventually a very sad story.
    One can only imagine what could have been with an advertising supremo such as a not to be named Orstrayan.

    After the success of the movie, Tashlin ­directed Jayne in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? In it Tony Randall gets TV star Rita Marlowe (Jayne) to front a commercial for lipstick. She does it to make her boyfriend jealous. But in the end, after the success of the ad campaign, she runs off to start a chicken farm with her true love, Schmidlapp, played by Groucho Marx.

    Now famous after the Tashlin movies, she married a muscleman, built a house (the Pink Palace) where everything was pink, including her car, and had a heart-shaped bed and swimming pool. She sold her bathwater for $10 a bottle and was photographed in her pool surrounded by small inflatable dolls in her image. She invited photographers and cameramen into her house for the most intimate of occasions. It was becoming harder for a mother of five children to separate her private self from the public act.

    I often have a look at The Australian for information relating to Search For Intelligent Life in the Universe.” Result – nothing so far.
    Old medical joke – Joe Blow had a brain scan – result – nothing found.

    What has all this got to do with Polling. Not much.

    Could have been worse

    Thanks 🌼Zoidlord – saved me from having to puke for myself. 😷

    🌼Zoidlord 🌼
    Monday, January 14th, 2019 – 10:20 am
    Comment #686

    The first thing I see in the morning is…..

    “How Good Is Howard”.

    I puked.

    Over and out. 😵

  3. weatheronPB#

    This week’s BOM forecast maxima for Kenmore:
    Monday 32
    Tuesday 33
    Wednesday 33
    Thursday 32
    Friday 33
    Saturday 33
    Sunday 32

    That’s a big difference to further south! Stay cool and safe.

  4. The MDB is certainly bipartisan, corruption for the corrupt. Someone mentioned yesterday that the remedy needed to fix the non existent MD river system will probably cause a civil war.
    Morrison talking about bipartisanship. Somebody tell him to talk about the dry river beds, irrigators, communities and corrupt politicians.
    After that Morrison can talk about bipartisanship.
    Somebody somewhere stand up and take control of the disaster that is Australia’s inland river systrm.

  5. Morrison can’t even get a culture war right….the date of Australia Day, proven battle ground (however pointless)…can’t wear thongs on January 26, a ridiculous old fogey nonsense.

  6. phoenixRed:

    There’s been much discussion that Mueller’s report will be finalised very soon. The question then is whether it is released to the public or not. Trump said on Fox News that his lawyers are working to ensure that it is not publicly released, funny seeing as he’s said all along that the Russia thing is fake news and he has nothing to hide. If he has nothing to hide then why would he care if Mueller’s report is public or not?

  7. Under the Morrison dress code for citizenship ceremonies, will people still be allowed to wear thongs provided that they arrange for shoes to be photoshopped into any official pictures?

  8. Paul Barratt
    ‏@phbarratt
    4h4 hours ago

    Push for Australian values conversation

    “My rules”, Mr Morrison? Who gave you the power to make rules in this or any other matter? Parliament makes rules, you don’t.

  9. P1, there are plenty of apps that don’t require an Internet connection to work. HereWeGo for Android and Pocket Earth for IOS are two examples that I have used in the outback. Basically you download the street network/terrain file to your phone and then rely on GPS satellites to work out where you are.

  10. So FauxMo intends to lecture the people on Australian values a la Howard. What a shallow man he is. With so many other issues screaming out to be addressed Morrison wants to take us back to the Howard days. He’s shaping up to be the worst prime minister in nearly 50 years.

  11. Confessions says: Monday, January 14, 2019 at 10:43 am

    phoenixRed:

    There’s been much discussion that Mueller’s report will be finalised very soon. The question then is whether it is released to the public or not.

    **********************************************************

    Robert Mueller is a decorated ex-soldier who know how to use strategy to overcome the defences of an opponent

    Nothing has leaked from him or anyone in his team unless it was to deliberately to soften up or panic a person into doing or saying something stupid

    I think he lives by the Sun Tzu laws of warfare – “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.” ……… One way or another he will ensure what he knows will become public either by presenting evidence direct to the public or by the actions of people involved suddenly resigning …….

  12. From Urbanwronski

    In 2006, a meeting of western NSW mayors, chaired by local state MP Peter Black, voted for the Commonwealth to buy the 96,000 hectare Cubbie Station, in southwestern Queensland, the largest landholding in the nation and also the biggest irrigation property in the southern hemisphere, enjoying rights to 400,000 megalitres of water, equivalent to all the water licences downstream in north-west NSW, but it was sold to a Chinese-led consortium. It’s a scandal.

    There were two Australian bids on the table, both more generous than the $240 million winning bid, as the ABC’s Stephen Long reported on Radio National’s PM programme in 2012. At the time Fairfax’s Ann Kent puzzled,

    “There is something odd about Australia. Our politicians expend huge resources and even more hot air wrangling over how to exclude a pitifully small number of legitimate Asian and Middle Eastern refugees from our shores, while they allow, almost without a murmur, the purchase of Cubbie Station, the largest landholding in the country, comprising a number of properties the size of the ACT, by a consortium headed by a Chinese enterprise, Shandong Ruyi.”

    Look at how many millions Dutton has wasted in his fantasy of “keeping Australia safe”.

    https://urbanwronski.com/2019/01/14/cry-me-a-river-the-murray-darling-is-being-destroyed-by-ignorance-and-greed/

  13. Morrison does seem to have a bit of a dictatorial streak.

    He doesn’t appear to think much before opening his mouth, which is often a revealing insight.

    I wonder when he will try to declare a state of emergency and suspend democracy?

  14. PeeBee

    Google maps itself provides a similar facility. Download maps and save them as what they call offline maps and they can be used when out of signal range.
    Requires a bit of forethought and planning, something lacking in many people these days.
    I must be lucky, google maps has never led me astray, even in the back streets in Barcelona.

  15. Barney

    I only discovered a day or two ago that Morrison was porobably involved in the Tampa crisis. Unsurprising. I hadn’t remembered that he had been around so long.

  16. “Morrison talking about bipartisanship”

    Morrison doesn’t do bipartisanship.

    As to the Murray Darling Basin, Labor tried to fix it in the face of strident opposition, the Coalition and their mates have been screwing it over for 5 years. They own the mess. It’s not bipartisan.

  17. Rossmcg @ #718 Monday, January 14th, 2019 – 6:59 am

    PeeBee

    Google maps itself provides a similar facility. Download maps and save them as what they call offline maps and they can be used when out of signal range.
    Requires a bit of forethought and planning, something lacking in many people these days.
    I must be lucky, google maps has never led me astray, even in the back streets in Barcelona.

    Don’t try using it in China!

    The position or the map is displaced, so you are often in a different street to the one it thinks you are in. 🙂

  18. Barney in Go Dau:

    [‘Morrison does seem to have a bit of a dictatorial streak.’]

    And he does have God on his side. The brain fart he had about our embassy in Israel may have resulted from a conversation he had with the congregation at the Horizon Church, which incidentally seats 1200.

  19. Lizzie “I only discovered a day or two ago that Morrison was porobably involved in the Tampa crisis. Unsurprising. I hadn’t remembered that he had been around so long.”

    “In April 2000 Morrison returned to Australia to become state director of the Liberal Party of Australia (New South Wales Division). He oversaw the party’s campaigns in the 2001 federal election and in the 2003 New South Wales state election.” See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Morrison#Professional_careerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Morrison#Professional_career

    I think that we can be pretty sure that he was involved in the Tampa crisis.

  20. @BreakfastNews

    Prime Minister @ScottMorrisonMP says the fish deaths in the Murray-Darling Basin are a “devastating ecological event” and $5 million is being put towards a native fish recovery strategy #auspol

    Is he going to provide oxygen tanks or fish paramedics?

    It’s not the fish that need recovery, it’s the whole river system.
    What’s Barnaby’s opinion? ROFL (except it’s not in the least bit funny).

  21. Australia Day, as it is so crudely called, should be deleted. It’s not the birthday of Australia. It’s the day the raping started, the people and the country. Vide MDB. Raped.

    Nothing good can come of this till a Republic is born, based on peace with the first peoples. Then we might celebrate.

  22. phoenixRed:

    Yes Mueller has played a blinder so far.

    It’s also good to see Democrats using their oversight powers and putting the Toddler in Charge on notice after his attempts to intimidate Cohen ahead of his congressional testimony. Shows how absolutely gutless the Republicans are.

  23. Some interesting facts about the South Magnetic pole.
    (1) Because opposite poles attract, the Earth’s South Magnetic Pole is physically actually a magnetic north pole.
    (2) The South Magnetic pole is moving at approx 10-15km per year, unlike the North Magnetic pole, which is moving at 50km per year.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Magnetic_Pole
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-14/north-magnetic-pole-shift-forces-arctic-navigation-update/10712742?section=world
    (3) The South Magnetic pole is heading towards Australia.
    (4) The South Magnetic pole (64.28°S ) is further from its Geographic pole than the North Magnetic pole (86.29°N ) is from where it “should be”.
    (5) The North Magnetic pole appears to be heading towards the North Geographic pole, while our southern version is also heading north, and away from the South Geographic pole.

    It’s a fascinating planet we live on.

  24. Good point.

    Max Gross
    ‏@Max_Gross

    Morrison says Australia Day is for all Australians yet clearly rules out Indigenous Australians by insisting on January 26

  25. I always thought the north magnetic pole was heading away from the north geographic pole?

    I remember Top Gear doing a special where they drove to the ‘north pole’ and it turned out that it was the magnetic pole and that was on land.

  26. Greg Brown

    @gregbrown_TheOz
    ·
    22h

    Bill Shorten has committed to keeping Australia Day on January 26 if he is elected prime minister and has left the door open to supporting Scott Morrison’s proposal to force councils to hold citizenship ceremonies on the national day #auspol

  27. lizzie

    lizzie says:

    Prime Minister @ScottMorrisonMP says the fish deaths in the Murray-Darling Basin are a “devastating ecological event” and $5 million is being put towards a native fish recovery strategy #auspol

    Is he going to provide oxygen tanks or fish paramedics?

    He’s having a bob each way. Remembering of course that all contracts will be given to maaates.
    .Meet Murray the Cod

    And look out for.

  28. [“I can think of no more significant punishment than to be stripped of the captainship [of the Kangaroos],” Mr. Henson said.’]

    I think the Chief Magistrate has erred. No one should get off a drink driving charge. An 18-month community release order, requiring him to be of good behaviour is not a punishment, albeit he was just over the limit.

  29. Steve777 @ #723 Monday, January 14th, 2019 – 10:07 am

    “In April 2000 Morrison returned to Australia to become state director of the Liberal Party of Australia (New South Wales Division). He oversaw the party’s campaigns in the 2001 federal election and in the 2003 New South Wales state election.” See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Morrison#Professional_careerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Morrison#Professional_career

    Hmm. I wasn’t in Australia then, so thanks for that. This might explain Morrison’s belief in his own political marketing skills, and why he sticks close to Howard.

  30. Speaking of weather.. I found this article from 2013 talking about when the BOM introduced new colours for temperatures over 50C…

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2013/jan/08/australia-bush-fires-heatwave-temperature-scale

    I’ve seen a bit of that pinky/purply colour in recent weather segments on TV. But I can’t the temperature chart online. Any clue? Would like to know if there are any officially recorded weather stations hitting 50C or more.

  31. Cud Chewer @ #732 Monday, January 14th, 2019 – 10:18 am

    I always thought the north magnetic pole was heading away from the north geographic pole?

    I remember Top Gear doing a special where they drove to the ‘north pole’ and it turned out that it was the magnetic pole and that was on land.

    I guess it depends on the time scale of interest. The Wikipedia article shows the following coordinates for the North Magnetic pole.
    (2001) 81.3°N 160.06°W
    (2004 est) 82.3°N 113.4°W
    (2007) 83.95°N 120.72°W
    (2015) 86.29°N 160.06°W

  32. nath @ #732 Monday, January 14th, 2019 – 10:20 am

    Greg Brown

    @gregbrown_TheOz
    ·
    22h

    Bill Shorten has committed to keeping Australia Day on January 26 if he is elected prime minister and has left the door open to supporting Scott Morrison’s proposal to force councils to hold citizenship ceremonies on the national day #auspol

    Not unexpected. He’s sticking to his strategy.

  33. Late Riser

    The nasty fundy has stuck by the ‘Howard Doctrine’. Has he changed since this ? Doubt it.

    Well done Jewellery and Mr Burns for objecting.
    .
    .
    Morrison sees votes in anti-Muslim strategy

    THE opposition immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison, urged the shadow cabinet to capitalise on the electorate’s growing concerns about “Muslim immigration”, “Muslims in Australia” and the “inability” of Muslim migrants to integrate.
    https://www.smh.com.au/national/morrison-sees-votes-in-anti-muslim-strategy-20110216-1awmo.html

  34. lizzie @ #730 Monday, January 14th, 2019 – 7:16 am

    Good point.

    Max Gross
    ‏@Max_Gross

    Morrison says Australia Day is for all Australians yet clearly rules out Indigenous Australians by insisting on January 26

    Also it seems to be more important to celebrate new Australians.

    It all fits into their political bible;

    How to rewrite history!

  35. I would prefer Labor focuses on the Murray Darling and lets Australia day go through to the keeper.
    Morrison wants to talk about Australia day, he doesn’t want to talk about the environment.

  36. “Morrison says Australia Day is for all Australians yet clearly rules out Indigenous Australians by insisting on January 26”

    He means “right thinking” Australians, i.e. the Coalition base.

    He’s using Australia Day as a wedge. He deliberately picked a fight over citizenship ceremonies when he could have left it to voters in local council elections to address the ‘problem’ if they’re concerned.

    How can he possibly believe what he is saying (probably he doesn’t).

    EDIT: JohnR “I would prefer Labor focuses on the Murray Darling and lets Australia day go through to the keeper.
    Morrison wants to talk about Australia day, he doesn’t want to talk about the environment.”
    Agree 100%.

  37. nath @ #734 Monday, January 14th, 2019 – 11:20 am

    Greg Brown

    @gregbrown_TheOz
    ·
    22h

    Bill Shorten has committed to keeping Australia Day on January 26 if he is elected prime minister and has left the door open to supporting Scott Morrison’s proposal to force councils to hold citizenship ceremonies on the national day #auspol

    The weakness of Shorten/Labor to stand up for what’s right and decent (and not such a big deal) is very deflating.

    The Lib-Lab Govts of decades past have a record of destruction re indigenous affairs …and it seems they’re intent on maintaining that into the future.

  38. That is the most interesting part of Morrison Steve777, how much of what he says does he believe.
    I think they have given up and are now just trying to save the furniture.
    He was reported saying yesterday the election would be in May

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