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”

Comments Page 18 of 25
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  1. C@tmomma
    says:
    I thought I heard the clown car pull up.
    You really are low rent.
    _____________________________
    You can continue to deride the art of clowning and circuses in general but we have provided more genuine happiness than any other form of live entertainment. It has been described as the ‘sacred art’ and has ancient roots in our culture.

  2. a r says: Monday, January 14, 2019 at 1:34 pm

    phoenixRED @ #833 Monday, January 14th, 2019 – 12:23 pm

    Trump Bashes Jeff Bezos, Praises National Enquirer After Divorce News

    Sorry to Hear Bozo’s Divorcing Great Work, Nat’l Enquirer!

    I really don’t think Trump wants to introduce criticism for infidelity and/or divorce. That’s can’t end well for him.

    Or perhaps it can, given how hypocritical his base is anyways.

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

    Maybe I am too old fashioned and living in the past – BUT …….this is the PRESIDENT Of the United States dealing in these tawdry sleazebag messages against someone he obviously hates with a passion – the office of president has no integrity or dignity anymore ……

    someone on twitter :

    Stephen King‏ @realStephenK62

    If Bezos committed adultry, and even if he sent sexual texts or sects/pics with a consenting adult, it is nothing more than tRUmp and other have done numerous times. It has cost tRUmp 2 maybe 3 marriages.

    Hypocrisy at it’s best and the MAGA rubes eat it up.

    Again :

  3. C@tmomma
    says:
    nath is the epitome of rough. Rough as guts. He’ll piss on a woman given the first opportunity just because they have shown everyone that he is full of crap.
    __________________________________________
    that is just a pathetic slur, I can’t understand how you can say these things against people and expect to be treated kindly in return. Which you do.

  4. Maybe I am too old fashioned and living in the past – BUT …….this is the PRESIDENT Of the United States dealing in these tawdry sleazebag messages against someone he obviously hates with a passion – the office of president has no integrity or dignity anymore ……

    Just imagine the howls of outrage from his political opponents if President Obama had tweeted stuff like that about Bezos or Elizabeth Warren?

    Yet Republicans sit silently and turn a blind eye when it’s their guy in the WH.

  5. Peter Stanton
    “I am fairly confident that the indigenous families living in shacks on the outskirt of our towns and cities are not laying awake at night worrying about Australia Day. Can we let it go and focus on real issues.”

    You are not a patriot then. On Jan 26, I will grab my Australian flag, wrap it around my person as a cape, and abuse anyone who looks remotely foreign. We have to keep our traditions alive!

  6. Rex @11:50AM. “He doesn’t have the debating skills to win over the voters… ?”

    OK Rex, that’s a fair point.

    Now Bill Shorten has to choose his battles. It’s a Fabian strategy that he is adopting and this is, in my opinion, the correct approach.

    Morrison wants to talk about asylum seekers, boats, Australia Day, African gangs, Islamic terrorism, anything and everything except what’s important. Morrison’s trying to pick fights he thinks he can win. He’s avoiding those he can’t. Further, his friends control the mainstream media with a host of mainstream megaphones ready to jump to Morrison’s support.

    Bill Shorten needs to avoid the traps being set for him and tell Labor’s story.

  7. AR

    I really don’t think Trump wants to introduce criticism for infidelity and/or divorce. That’s can’t end well for him.

    Or perhaps it can, given how hypocritical his base is anyways.
    _________________________________________

    According to 538 Trump still has a 40.6% approval rating. That’s a huge number of people who refuse to face facts or whose standards are so low they are prepared to turn a blind eye to his malfeasance.

    The US has not faced a more critical crisis to do with the President since the civil war. Not even Nixon, who could still be regarded as patriotic, even if his conduct was fundamentally bad. Never has there been a President who could seriously be regarded as an asset of a foreign power (whether knowingly or through rank egotistical stupidity and avarice).

    So people like Mueller have to look beyond the possibility of impeachment, which is fundamentally partisan (and demonstrably so the two times it has occurred) and actually create an environment where a huge majority of the country (including those who voted for Trump) accept that he is not acting in the interests of the USA. This takes time and the ongoing leaks, I believe, are creating the environment for this to occur.

  8. nath @ #854 Monday, January 14th, 2019 – 1:49 pm

    C@tmomma
    says:
    nath is the epitome of rough. Rough as guts. He’ll piss on a woman given the first opportunity just because they have shown everyone that he is full of crap.
    __________________________________________
    that is just a pathetic slur, I can’t understand how you can say these things against people and expect to be treated kindly in return. Which you do.

    No, nath, THIS is a pathetic slur:

    Apparently he helped defuse a deranged woman from attacking a North Shore resident. C@tmomma, where were you on the day of the incident?

  9. Scott Morrison
    ‏@ScottMorrisonMP
    Jan 12

    By ensuring councils hold citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day, we’re protecting our national day from people trying to skirt the rules or playing politics.

    1. Whose rules?
    2. Whose politics?

    He’s saying by implication that the First Peoples are only playing politics, which shows his attitude to them. Getting real recognition past ScoMo and friends is going to be a very tough ask.

  10. Steve777

    …Morrison wants to talk about asylum seekers, boats, Australia Day, African gangs, Islamic terrorism, anything and everything except what’s important….

    Those issues are important because they go to what we are as a society. Inclusive, tolerant, peaceful.

    Yet Shorten/Labor let those who promote – division, intolerance, hostility – have their way.

    It’s deeply stained our society.

    Bill Shorten won’t WIN the election by winning the debate.

    Bill Shorten will win the election solely on the Govts internal division and paralysis.

  11. Never has there been a President who could seriously be regarded as an asset of a foreign power (whether knowingly or through rank egotistical stupidity and avarice).

    Never has there been a president who has been outright asked if he is a Russian agent.

  12. Confessions says: Monday, January 14, 2019 at 2:10 pm

    Never has there been a President who could seriously be regarded as an asset of a foreign power (whether knowingly or through rank egotistical stupidity and avarice).

    Never has there been a president who has been outright asked if he is a Russian agent.

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

    …….. he says he was insulted …….. but to this moment he has not DENIED the implied accusation

  13. Christian Porter thinks that everyone wants an investment property. Are WA peeps all so well off???

    “This electorate is aspirational,” he told The Australian in the coastal suburb of Yanchep, 60km north of Perth’s CBD.

    “People want to see the value of their family home go up, and eventually they want to use the ­equity created by that value to buy an investment property.

    “That’s the way they get ahead in this electorate. When you explain to them that they won’t have any of the tax incentives to make it possible to buy an investment property and that in the short term their house price will quickly decrease by 10 per cent, that scares people. If you run policies in this electorate that damage the value of people’s family homes, you will suffer from it.”

    https://outline.com/hZxctt

  14. Kremlin Blessed Russia’s NRA Operation, U.S. Intel Report Says

    When Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin’s brought NRA bigwigs to Moscow, it wasn’t a rogue mission. It was okayed from the very top, according to a report reviewed by The Beast.

    The Kremlin has long denied that it had anything to do with the infiltration of the NRA and the broader American conservative movement. A U.S. intelligence report reviewed by The Daily Beast tells a different story.

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/kremlin-blessed-russias-nra-operation-us-intel-report-says?source=twitter&via=desktop

  15. David FrumVerified account@davidfrum
    7h7 hours ago
    Becoming harder and harder to avoid thinking that Bezos or Sanchez was hacked by a malign actor

    Isn’t the National Enquirer somehow caught up in the Mueller investigation as well?

  16. Lizzie

    My son has a colleague with an investment property.
    In the wake of the end of the mining boom it is worth less than he paid five years ago, rent returns are falling and his bank is hedging on rolling over his interest only loan.
    He wants to get out of it but the market is awash with similar properties.
    I suspect that would be a common scenario over here.
    Bill shorten has questions to answer.

  17. The Liberals are campaigning against themselves. Let them do it. They will not win a single vote by politicising Australia Day; on the contrary they will repel support. Good. Their self-defeating campaigning hurt them very badly in Victoria. They will reprise the result in the coming federal election too.

    The Gs might be lamenting the stupidities of the Liberals, but they too have been goaded into attacking Labor – into an attack that will both harm the Gs and help Labor.

    This is great news for Labor. Simply by avoiding the fights they will profit.

  18. Confessions says: Monday, January 14, 2019 at 2:24 pm

    David FrumVerified account@davidfrum
    7h7 hours ago
    Becoming harder and harder to avoid thinking that Bezos or Sanchez was hacked by a malign actor

    Isn’t the National Enquirer somehow caught up in the Mueller investigation as well?

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

    Former ally David Pecker flips, and Trump probably flips out

    Trump is – or had been – close pals with AMI chief David Pecker, who’d pushed Trump for years to run for the White House, and then used the Enquirer to promote his candidacy.

    The Enquirer, which has aggressively adulated Donald Trump and savaged his enemies, is abandoning the president to save itself from criminal charges.

    Last week, the paper’s parent company, America Media Inc., officially confessed to what the Wall Street Journal reported before the 2016 election: The Enquirer paid $150,000 to former Playboy centerfold Karen McDougal to buy and then bury her allegation of an affair with Trump in 2006-2007.

    AMI further admitted that its principal purpose in making the payment was to suppress the woman’s story to prevent it from influencing the election,” stated prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.

    Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/carl-hiaasen/article223089185.html#storylink=cpy

  19. Rossmcg

    But – but – Labor hasn’t even made the changes to Neg Gearing yet.

    Not that logic will affect Porter’s theme. 🙂

  20. Former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci will be among 12 new contestants competing on season 2 of Big Brother: Celebrity Edition when the reality show hosted by Julie Chen Moonves premieres Monday, Jan. 21 on CBS. (See the entire cast gallery here.)

    https://ew.com/tv/2019/01/13/celebrity-big-brother-cast-anthony-scaramucci/?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=entertainmentweekly_ew&utm_term=0945FE4C-1764-11E9-8B9A-00D94744363C&utm_content=link

    Will he last longer than he did in the White House?

  21. Briefly
    They have nothing else of substnce to talk about.A visionless party who havent got a policy brain cell between them.Next they will be saying we should keep Xmas day as December 25th and New Years Day on January 1st. Its just trivial bollocks as they have nothing positive to talk about.What policies are these numpties going to take to the election? Sound of crickets.

  22. jeremy poxon
    ‏@JeremyPoxon
    39m39 minutes ago

    just talked to a young man – a dual Thai-Australian citizen – who says he recently moved back to Thailand, simply to escape the harassment & bullying he was copping from his Work for the Dole supervisor. he told me: “I had no choice but to escape this hell”

  23. Lizzie

    Labor took the same housing taxation policy to the last election and in the face of the same scare campaign reduced the Tory margin to one.
    I would be happy for them to keep on telling their lies.

  24. Confessions says: Monday, January 14, 2019 at 2:30 pm

    phoenixRed:

    Ah yes, I knew it had something to do with covering up Trump’s malfeasance.

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

    THIS part of the story is important – as it revolves around election violation tampering – with Trump allegedly being in on the deal

    To avoid being charged with campaign-law violations, Pecker flipped three months ago and began cooperating with the feds. He corroborated detailed information offered by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, now bound for prison.

    According to the “non-prosecution” agreement signed by AMI, Pecker met with Cohen “and at least one other member of the [Trump] campaign” in August 2015.

    According to multiple news sources, that other person in the room was the candidate himself

  25. Rex Douglas @ #794 Monday, January 14th, 2019 – 8:22 am

    This trend of Bill Shorten avoiding debates with the Govt is so debilitating re this nations standards.

    We are bereft of political leadership and it’s wearing away at our spirit and sense of decency.

    Labor is in a position of strength, such that they are controlling much of the political debate.

    What the Government are doing is the political equivalent of sledging in cricket, and like sledging it’s purpose is to gain a reaction and distract the focus and concentration.

    If you ignore it, it often makes the sledger more desperate and unhinged.

    Our leaders don’t need to and shouldn’t respond to every bullshit issue that crops up. 🙂

  26. So Porter doesn’t care about people in his electorate not even being able to afford their first home, let alone leveraging one they already have to buy an investment property!?!

    Tells you everything about the demographic he is pitching to.

  27. steve davis says:
    Monday, January 14, 2019 at 2:33 pm
    Briefly
    They have nothing else of substnce to talk about.

    Exactly. Their real problem is they totally lack connection with voters. They are adrift on a sea of their own ignorance.

    They have probably identified that voters are angry and are trying to turn that anger against Labor, just as the Gs try to do.

    Their error is to overlook the reason for the anger. Voters are angry with the LNP. And every time they campaign, they accentuate the animosity.

  28. The tax incentive with Negative Gearing is because your investment is making a LOSS – spelt LOSS in that the costs of maintaining the asset exceeds the income from that asset, so you are LOSING money

    And that LOSS can be transferred to an income stream where tax is payable, reducing your tax liability on that income stream which is taxable

    In the first instance a LOSS must be made

    And if people are invested into a LOSS making investment in a suburb 60km north of Perth then good luck to them

    Fools and their money (in this instance other people’s money because they are borrowed full including by being able to offer collateral security) are soon parted

    Christian needs to get an education

    And, if making money is as easy as asking your banker to buy you a LOSS making property investment then sitting back and getting rich off the Capital Gain, why should anyone ever work?

  29. Good piece by William in today’s Crikey email which returns for the new year today. On how the states will shape a landslide coalition election loss this year.

  30. There must be a few more like this lady.

    @noplaceforsheep

    I haven’t hated on the LNP this much since Howard was PM
    I thought I’d reached my hating limit then but boy, was I underestimating myself

  31. lizzie says:
    Monday, January 14, 2019 at 2:42 pm
    There must be a few more like this lady.

    @noplaceforsheep

    I haven’t hated on the LNP this much since Howard was PM
    I thought I’d reached my hating limit then but boy, was I underestimating myself

    The Liberals are campaigning against themselves tho they seem to be totally unaware of it. They are arousing anger. The astute thing for Labor to do is stay out of the picture.

  32. Confessions says: Monday, January 14, 2019 at 2:43 pm

    Thanks phoenixRed.

    ^^^*****************************************

    Every day its another scandal – and Trumps own twitters are often the main cause of whatever has blown up every 24 hours

    I am sure Robert Mueller is lapping this up – keeping Trumps negativity in the publics face on a daily basis – so by drip, drip, drip …….. Trump looks like an even bigger loser than every yesterday ….

  33. Sohar @ #868 Monday, January 14th, 2019 – 1:24 pm

    Good article in the Financial Times, on the wasted years of Clinton/Obama. Moving to the centre didn’t achieve anything for the Democrats because the right just moved further to the right. There’s a message here for Bill Shorten. I just hope he’s not another Clinton/Blair/Obama type.
    https://www.ft.com/content/12ab216c-1587-11e9-a581-4ff78404524e

    It’s worth pointing out though for most of Clintons’ and Obamas’ terms they were dealing with a Republican legislature and a small but crucial bloc of Conservative Democrats which limited what legislation could be passed into law; this would’ve also applied to any Gore/Kerry/Hillary Clinton Presidency as well.

    Not to mention that Barack Obama was and is much more left-wing than Bill Clinton so calling Obama a ‘centrist’ in the same vein as Bill Clinton is a little bit disingenuous.

  34. lizzie @ #865 Monday, January 14th, 2019 – 11:14 am

    Christian Porter thinks that everyone wants an investment property. Are WA peeps all so well off???

    “This electorate is aspirational,” he told The Australian in the coastal suburb of Yanchep, 60km north of Perth’s CBD.

    “People want to see the value of their family home go up, and eventually they want to use the ­equity created by that value to buy an investment property.

    “That’s the way they get ahead in this electorate. When you explain to them that they won’t have any of the tax incentives to make it possible to buy an investment property and that in the short term their house price will quickly decrease by 10 per cent, that scares people. If you run policies in this electorate that damage the value of people’s family homes, you will suffer from it.”

    https://outline.com/hZxctt

    Broadly, Pearce is split into three distinct parts:
    – Very wealthy coastal suburbs;
    – Growth corridor & urban fringe suburbs, and;
    – Country towns & agricultural areas.

    Over time Pearce has rapidly urbanised and this has transformed it from very safe Liberal to marginal (last election) and it will go safe Labor at this election.

  35. lizzie @ #865 Monday, January 14th, 2019 – 11:14 am

    Christian Porter thinks that everyone wants an investment property. Are WA peeps all so well off???

    “This electorate is aspirational,” he told The Australian in the coastal suburb of Yanchep, 60km north of Perth’s CBD.

    “People want to see the value of their family home go up, and eventually they want to use the ­equity created by that value to buy an investment property.

    “That’s the way they get ahead in this electorate. When you explain to them that they won’t have any of the tax incentives to make it possible to buy an investment property and that in the short term their house price will quickly decrease by 10 per cent, that scares people. If you run policies in this electorate that damage the value of people’s family homes, you will suffer from it.”

    https://outline.com/hZxctt

    I should add that the big issues at both Pearce town halls have been (in order) transport, health and education. Negative gearing came up only once, from a man claiming to own (IIRC) 6 properties in addition to the one he lived in.

  36. Good article in the Financial Times, on the wasted years of Clinton/Obama.

    This is rubbish. Essentially it argues there’s no point electing Democrats. It blames Democrats for the politics of the Republicans. The actors who are responsible for the Republicans are the Republicans.

    Politics is tough for Democrats, for the centre-left in general. Even when they win they lose. FMD.

  37. Oh yeah, on Labor and Bill Shorten debating the government, let’s see :
    Negative Gearing and Capital gains tax changes.
    franking credit changes.
    renewable energy target.
    Paris emission cuts.
    Asylum seeker medical treatment.

    And many more.

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