To crank up the action a little ahead of the big occasion, there will henceforth be daily posts profiling key seats, and accompanying threads for discussing them. Today we visit the south coast New South Wales seat of Gilmore (full election guide entry here), where the Liberals are defending a 0.7% margin in the absence of retiring incumbent Ann Sudmalis, the member since 2013. This has developed into a complicated contest between high-profile Liberal candidate Warren Mundine; an independent, Grant Schultz, who was elbowed aside as Liberal candidate to make way for Mundine; a well-credentialled Nationals candidate in former state government minister Katrina Hodgkinson; and the Labor candidate, Fiona Phillips. In a snub to Mundine, Hodgkinson has received endorsements from both Ann Sudmalis and her predecessor, Joanna Gash.
Gilmore was created in 1984 and held for its first decade by the Nationals, before a redistribution exchanged interior territory for Kiama in the southern Illawarra, strengthening Labor and causing the Liberals to supplant the Nationals as the competitive Coalition party. Peter Knott gained the seat for Labor in 1993, then fell with the Keating government’s defeat in 1996, when Joanna Gash picked up a decisive swing of 6.7%. Gash established a strong electoral record in retaining the seat through to her retirement in 2013, her best win coming with a 10.1% swing when Peter Knott attempted a comeback in 2001. This may have been influenced by Knott’s assertion during the campaign that the recent September 11 attacks had been a case of American foreign policy “coming back to bite them”.
Gash’s successor, Ann Sudmalis, had an unspectacular electoral debut in 2013, suffering a 2.7% swing despite the heavy defeat of the Labor government. She was then saved at the 2016 election by a 1.3% redistribution adjustment, which was followed by a 3.0% swing that brought the margin inside 1%. Recent reports suggest the Liberals are not optimistic – in an account of a potential pathway to victory being plotted by party strategists, Saturday’s Financial Review listed Gilmore among four seats rated almost beyond salvaging, and thus in need of balancing with gains from Labor elsewhere. Another recent report in The Age said Labor’s internal polling had them ahead, by an unspecified margin.
LNP has 2 aboriginal candidates in this election. How many does ALP has?
Off the top of my head I can think of 2 Indigenous ALP candidates:
Linda Burney (Barton)
Jana Stewart (Kooyong)
Probably more that I don’t know of.
I can’t see how an ex-ALP president will be palatable to liberal voters. Yes he’s high profile but wouldn’t it be like running Michael Kroger as a labor candidate in a marginal seat? O
Pat Dodson and Malarndirri McCarthy are a couple of senators I can think of.
Ven, how about Malarndirri McCarthy in the Senate from the NT? Add in Pat Dodson and that’s at least two indigenous Labor Senators.
There is so much bad blood between the various Coalition-aligned candidates in Gilmore and their local, state and federal backers that there is bound to be some preference leakage back to Labor, greater than usual. On top of that, the Coalition loses the incumbent member in this regional seat. Expect this seat to swing to Labor by more than the national average.
ALP indigenous candidates atthis election include:
Pat Dodson – Senate WA
Malarndirri McMarthy – Senate NT
Tania Major – Senate Qld
Lib indigenous candidates at this election include:
Warren Mundine
Ken Wyatt
Jacinta Price
I suspect there may be a couple more on each side of the political fence.
Live within the seat and Fiona Phillips has been a constant presence since almost beating Sudmalis last election. Apart from there being tight preference flows from the 3 coalition candidates into 1, I cannot see any way that the Fiona will not win this seat. The face of stability compared to the rabble.
Even in a year when the tide was flowing towards the Libs this would be a hard seat to hold considering the shenanigans that have gone on. In 2019, the tide is going the other way so they really have no chance.
All the evidence suggests that Ann Sudmalis was a dud from Day 1 and the Libs are paying a price for it now.
Does anybody know if Schultz preferences goes to Libs or Nats first?
Conversely to the increased preference leakage, there are so many right-leaning options to assign first preferences to instead of Labor, potentially keeping them + Greens below 50% primary vote. Not that it matters, of course, if that cancels out with the leakage to produce the same big 2PP swing.
calumnious fox says:
Wednesday, May 1, 2019 at 1:59 pm
Conversely to the increased preference leakage, there are so many right-leaning options to assign first preferences to instead of Labor, potentially keeping them + Greens below 50% primary vote. Not that it matters, of course, if that cancels out with the leakage to produce the same big 2PP swing.
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I think it more likely that the higher “Lib+Nat+Schultz” PV, relative to straight “Lib or Nat” where only one contests, would come from “Other” rather than from “Lab + Grn”.
Think of it like this: if neither Katrina Hodgkinson nor Grant Schultz contested, would their “anti-Liberal / anti-Mundine” voters really have switched to Labor or the Greens, and not to UAP, PHON or some independent? I think it unlikely.
I don’t think Labor or the Greens will be losing much PV because the “Coalition coalition” are presenting three faces in Gilmore in this election. But the Coalition will certainly be leaking preferences to Labor more than usual because of the animosity between Mundine, Schultz & Hodgkinson.
I also think both the Labor and Liberal parties agree with this assessment.
BBS, Shultz is not preferencing anybody. I was at the candidates forum last night at the salubrious Husky pub.When Grant speaks,if you close your eyes you would swear you were listening to Gerry Harvey[ I wasn’t buying!]. He certainly came across as the most rational Tory there,whereas Hodgkinson is a nasty, lying, thick as two planks blow in. Carmel Mc from the greens was brilliant and Fiona held her own. Warren was very poor.
Labor will win this seat and there may be a very large swing to Labor. It should give Labor supporters a good early morale boost on election night, but trying to generalise from this seat may be misleading.
William could you explain, if you haven’t already done so somewhere, why it is that every commentator on the election says,”Bloggs is defending a 4.6% margin in Woop Woop,” when the margin occurred in a previous election three years ago and so much has changed since then. I accept that if Bloggs was elected in Woop Woop with a 10% margin 3 years ago it’s unlikely that so much has changed as to lose it this time around. But any 3-year-old margin of less than, say, 5%, surely has little impact now?
I am not sure this is going to help Mundine
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/01/liberal-candidate-warren-mundine-backs-mccormack-over-comments-supporting-one-nation
The only word of caution is that this electorate has a lot of ‘self-funded’ retirees, especially in the southern part. The franking credits issue could bite there.
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TPOF says:
Thursday, May 2, 2019 at 2:16 am
The only word of caution is that this electorate has a lot of ‘self-funded’ retirees, especially in the southern part. The franking credits issue could bite there.
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Do the self funded Retirees have white boats/ Yachts?