Supercalifragilecologicallyfallacious

Ground zero in the swing against Labor: areas rich in religious, low-income workers in the construction, manufacturing and retail industries, preferably in Queensland or Tasmania.

Ben Phillips of the Australian National University has been hawking research showing the demographic indicators that associated most clearly with the federal election swing, with the clearest patterns relating to Christianity, which correlated with a swing against Labor, and education and income, which went the other way. Evidently the Australia Institute has done something similar, with findings reported by Ross Gittins in the Sydney Morning Herald.

In considering research of this kind, one must acknowledge the perils of the ecological fallacy, whereby inferences about the behaviour of individuals are inappropriately drawn from aggregate-level data. My favourite illustration of this point relates to American politics, wherein the Republicans’ strongest states are those of the dirt-poor deep south, whereas wealthier voters favour the more conservative party in the United States as surely as they do here. As such, it should be recognised that Christian areas swinging to the Coalition need not signify that Christian voters did.

Nonetheless, the relationship between swings and the demographic features of the areas in which they did or didn’t happen is interesting in and of itself, and really all we have to go on until the Australian National University eventually publishes its Australian Election Study survey, particularly in the absence of intensive and high-quality exit polling that is conducted in the United States.

My own number crunching along these lines has involved collecting demographic measures of the areas in which each polling booth is located, and using multiple regression analysis to determine how well they predicted the primary vote swing to or against Labor. The results were as interesting for what didn’t prove predictive as for what did. In particular, an electorate’s age profile appeared to have little impact on its swing – or at least, none that couldn’t be better explained by other variables that might themselves correlate with age. This theme was picked up on in the article linked to above by Ross Gittins, which argues against the widely held notion that franking credits was the main culprit behind Labor’s poor show.

After a bit of trial and error, and whittling it down to variables that didn’t appear to be separately measuring identical effects, the most instructive variables proved to be income, home ownership, education and industry of employment, with a few ethnicity measures registering as worth-including-but-only-just.

Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)  
(Intercept) -6.9363 0.581753 -11.923 < 2e-16 ***
Median Income 0.318518 0.149976 2.124 0.033719 *
Home Owned 0.032418 0.005457 5.94 2.97E-09 ***
Secular/No Religion 0.105852 0.007944 13.325 < 2e-16 ***
PrimaryIndustry 0.007588 0.008037 0.944 0.345122
Construction -0.071534 0.015903 -4.498 6.95E-06 ***
Manufacturing -0.115724 0.016538 -6.998 2.82E-12 ***
Retail Trade -0.061778 0.018229 -3.389 0.000705 ***
Prof/Sci/Tech 0.147833 0.021587 6.848 8.05E-12 ***
Education/Health 0.054147 0.01123 4.822 1.45E-06 ***
Indian/Sri Lankan 0.045852 0.018952 2.419 0.015571 *
East/S-E Asian 0.016341 0.007274 2.246 0.024706 *
VICdummy 3.132668 0.18731 16.724 < 2e-16 ***
QLDdummy -1.626883 0.190881 -8.523 < 2e-16 ***
WAdummy -0.538074 0.244318 -2.202 0.02767 *
SAdummy 5.385121 0.267704 20.116 < 2e-16 ***
TASdummy -2.856952 0.369256 -7.737 1.15E-14 ***
ACTdummy -3.811539 0.6012 -6.34 2.43E-10 ***
NTdummy 0.879791 0.853752 1.03 0.302807

The numbers in the “Estimate” column show the coefficients, i.e. how much each increment of that variable associated with the Labor swing. Three stars at the end means the effect is highly significant, two stars somewhat significant, one star of some significance, and with no stars we can’t say with any confidence if the relationship was positive or negative.

So, to pick one of the more striking results, for every 1% of population identifying as secular or “no religion”, Labor’s vote tended to be around 0.1% higher, independent of all other factors. Or to raise the stakes a little, Labor typically did 1% better in swing terms in places where 40% of the population identified as secular as compared with those where 30% did so. Note that the “median income” refers to weekly family income, and is measured in thousands of dollars – so an area with $2000 median family income typically did 0.3% for Labor than one with half that.

The biggest surprise for me is that “primary industry” – percentage of the workforce in mining, agriculture, forestry and fishing – had no significant explanatory power in and of itself. This doesn’t sit well with the drubbing Labor copped in central Queensland and the seat of Hunter, for which I can’t offer a ready explanation, except perhaps that I should have broken out mining and measured it independently of the others.

However, a significant negative effect is recorded for the other blue-collar industries of construction and manufacturing, together with the generally low-wage retail sector. This, remember, is independent of the effect of income, such that Labor would have suffered a combined whammy of the various effects in low-income areas with large workforces in the aforementioned industries.

On the other side of the coin, the “professional/scientific/technical” industry designation recorded a strong positive association with the Labor swing, and this too needs to be understood as part of a double whammy with the income effect. This was evident in the large-but-useless swings Labor picked up in blue-ribbon metropolitan seats. The positive effect recorded for education/health is interesting, perhaps suggesting a public-versus-private sector effect.

A fair bit has been said of Labor’s bad show with the Chinese community, but it was actually found that the “East/South-East Asian” population had a slight positive correlation with the Labor swing. However, the recorded effect is very likely drowned out by the strong positive result for “secular/no religion” variable, which records the effect of the swing against Labor in the various ethnic enclaves of Sydney and, to a less extent, Melbourne.

Finally, the “dummy” variables simply record how much of the swing could be explained by the state in which a booth was located, again independent of all other factors. Note that no measure for New South Wales is included, as it serves as the benchmark against which the other states and territories are being measured. The strong positive result in South Australian reflects that this is a primary vote measure, and both major parties rose in South Australia off the demise of the Nick Xenophon Team.

The r-squared value for the model is around 0.25, which is to say that all of this explains only about one-quarter of the variation in the Labor swing. In a future episode, I might take a closer look at what the model fails to predict by looking at individual electorates that bucked the various demographic trends just noted.

Note also: the new post below on the count for the Senate, in which only Queensland appears still in doubt, and the ongoing one dealing with close races in seat for the House, albeit that yesterday’s counting provided essentially nothing new to report.

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.

1,092 comments on “Supercalifragilecologicallyfallacious”

Comments Page 19 of 22
1 … 18 19 20 … 22

  1. Mexican

    You don’t have to say how you are going to pay for it. After all we still have not had the LNP say how they are going to pay for the Franking Credits. No matter what our suspicions are.

  2. C@t – I fully appreciate your response. The franking credits simply wasn’t fair, nor sensible. I’m for commercial entities being strong, and having a lot of small investors who can use the tax thresholds provides a healthy pool of investment money.

    In an earlier comment, I was emphasising categorising asset classes for the purpose of enabling more smaller investors and limiting how much large investors can invest in renty seeky places. Large investors need to be encouraged to take some risks and not expect everyone else to pay for the “privilege” of protecting and increasing their wealth while limiting the places small investors can invest safely.

    Make the valid point that there are limits to how much can be invested in say, the housing market, beyond which it becomes a speculative asset bubble. The purpose of our housing market should be housing everybody as well as providing *small investors* a safe place to build their nest eggs in exchange for the flexibility of renting for those who renting is convenient for.

  3. mexicanbeemer

    the ALP should be positioning itself as the sound economic managers with a plan to tackle disadvantage and protecting living standards.

    If many people are going to be unemployed (as in much greater numbers than now) the Newstart or equivalent must be made more realistic.

  4. guytaur @ #887 Tuesday, May 28th, 2019 – 5:50 pm

    Cat

    Labor being “white anted” by the Greens only worked because Labor people keep listening to the Conservatives spin. As the Alberici article points out. It was Franking Credits what won it for the LNP.

    Not a convoy by Bob Brown. In saying this I am not saying Brown helped I am saying he did not lose the election for Labor.

    guytaur,
    They BOTH didn’t help the cause of Labor in the election.

  5. A UBI could be paid for by treating it as taxable income and by eliminating all other forms of welfare, concessions and government employment services. the billions saved from there being no more employment services and Centrelink would go a long way towards the cost.

  6. Lizzie
    Absolutely but some people seem to think that by taking from those with somehow fixes social disadvantage when all it will do is give a statistical improvement without doing much in the real world.

  7. I’ll add that it isn’t the franking credits that is the problem, it’s the favourable treatment of wealthy people through super. Super I feel has been a total scam, but I don’t want to get into that right now.

    If anything, the franking credits policy would cause further stratification by limiting investment opportunities for small investors.

  8. @Radguy
    Tuesday, May 28, 2019 at 5:50 pm

    “Death taxes – yeah, have one….”

    Labor are going to cop the scare campaign anyway, so yeah, i like it.


  9. Socrates says:
    Tuesday, May 28, 2019 at 4:24 pm

    Two cheers for Scomo!! He is about to become our highest taxing PM (as % of GDP) since Whitlam! Scomo – number one taxing PM in the 21st century.
    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/morrison-to-clock-up-a-fiscal-record-not-worth-a-guinness-book-entry-20190526-p51r9e.html?fbclid=IwAR3gGH7yBc3qkxt_wrOo5WKA1Z472u7gf8CvbXFDttf3fCLBju0PYeEJgk4

    Morrison is actually taking over from Howard. I you want taxes, vote Liberal.

  10. Why do PB’s think that an economic global downturn will make voters vote ALP. You guys may believe that the ALP are the better economic managers but not a single poll I have seen backs this up. As long as Morrison can argue that the downturn affected all countries the LNP will be fine. They don’t want some mob to come in and spend money, the best the ALP could come up with was pink bats and school halls and a cash hand out of $1000. Laughable really that is the best the ALP brains trust could come up with.

  11. Agreed MB, I’d really like a conversation to happen loudly as to how people working for job networks should be the least worried about losing their jobs, given they know so much about getting a job!

  12. If Australia experiences an economic crisis on the scale of Ireland’s, people are going to get very radicalized on the issue of climate change. Because it will become a debate on how rebuild the Australian economy.

  13. Franking credits, especially after the changes implimented by Howard, were never designed to be more than a bribe for short term electoral gain.
    Its a cancer that must be stopped

  15. Radguy,
    Thanks for the reply. I believe the answer is in a better Labor spokesperson in the Shadow Treasury role and a leadership team who understands the importance of social media in disseminating complex economic concepts with a snappy meme to time poor voters.

    Firstly, there does need to be the sort of modification to policies that you suggest and Labor definitely do not need to throw the economic policy baby out with the bathwater. Their policies were accepted by thoughtful voters but not, it seems, by those who are susceptible to a scare campaign promulgated initially by social media and then by the voters’ nanna and pop. So, as I have observed previously, the Cash back on Franking Credits for No Tax paid, needed to be grandfathered like the Negative Gearing/CGT changes, which were broadly accepted in 2016. And that’s just for starters.

  16. @YBob

    Yep, John Howard and Peter Costello pissed a lot of money up the wall in measures like this and we are paying the consequences of it now.

  18. A deep recession is never good for the sitting government, a severe depression gave birth to the ALP and franking credits are likely to lose their attraction as the major ASX blue chips are under pressure to cut back on dividends.

  19. A UBI is not the answer. I have seen similar experimental data that suggests as much. Better to improve Newstart and other already existing Social Security payments and invest in training for the jobs of the future. They will exist for humans still.

  20. “Why do PB’s think that an economic global downturn will make voters vote ALP. You guys may believe that the ALP are the better economic managers but not a single poll I have seen backs this up. As long as Morrison can argue that the downturn affected all countries the LNP will be fine”

    why do people think that the ALP manage the economy better than the Libs ?
    Err, history tells us, for starters
    Remember the GFC recession ?
    No ? Well that’s because Australia never went through the GFC recession, unlike the other OECD countries like the US, the UK, NZ et al, then theres the historical precedent, like the 70’s recession where John Winston Howard, as treasurer oversaw the double digit trifecta

  22. a r says:
    Tuesday, May 28, 2019 at 5:50 pm

    nath @ #838 Tuesday, May 28th, 2019 – 4:32 pm

    the problem is not arid lands, the problem is people. We need to bring the global population down to under a billion humans.

    And yet you think I’m get genocidal one.
    ______________________________
    I’m talking about the rational reduction in population over time.
    Which is far from your own evil plans for the eradication of arid and semi-arid living organisms. Your dreams for an orgy of extinction sends a shudder down the fragile spines of all these little Kangaroo Rats.

  23. C@T “A UBI is not the answer. I have seen similar experimental data that suggests as much. Better to improve Newstart and other already existing Social Security payments and invest in training for the jobs of the future. They will exist for humans still.”

    Ok, but how will we as a society react to the increasing number of occupations that technology is rendering redundant ?
    Not even IT jobs, such as programing, and other “professional” higher end occupations are immune from automation

  24. One of the problems IMV is that this Coal govt has demonised anyone who receives any sort of welfare payment. What does it matter if a few ‘unworthy’ people receive money when the majority can be comfortable and not feel so stressed about it.

  25. Mundo does go on a bit, but he’s basically correct.

    Labor needs to learn from the LNP that you never take a backward step, never apologise and always get on the front foot.

    Sometimes I think that sections of the ALP like being in opposition – if some of them ever had a killer instinct it’s long since gone.
    And now the invisible man is deputy opposition leader.

  27. Higher Ed is at some risk because many subjects can be learned quite independently. Lectures can be recorded and learning material can be accessed without setting foot in a classroom.

  29. Lizzie, because an increasing number of jobs will be lost to technology. Therefore the ratio of employed to unemployed shifts to the unemployed.

  30. Give people a choice , you can have favourable treatment to accumulate and manage your superannuation and an amount equivalent to the benefit will be taxed at death or you can pay full taxes at all stages and anything left will not be taxed.
    The average wage earner gets very limited tax concessions whilst working and therefore doesn’t have much to tax in retirement. The wealthy can then make an informed choice

  31. I believe UBI in the long run is a necessity due to the jobs that are going to be lost to automation. With UBI then Automation will actually become a good thing, since a lot of people will have more free time.

  32. YBob

    the ratio of employed to unemployed shifts to the unemployed.

    It’s still no use blaming the unemployed if there are no jobs available.

  33. @Billy Ragg Facebook:

    Meanwhile…the newly elected leader of the Australian Labor Party, Anthony Albanese, quoted a line from one of my songs in his inaugural speech. I’ve known ‘Albo’ for a long time, since campaigning with him in the 1980s. Last year we did a Q&A together at Fairgrounds Festival in New South Wales.

    (I should add that the line quoted was originally coined by a Professor of Sociology named William Bruce Cameron in the 1960s. I just tweaked it a little to make it scan better. You know what we songwriters say: talent borrows; genius steals)

    Well done Albo, and good luck in the new job!

  34. Maybe the problem isn’t revenue but spending, just raising revenue to give people on $25 an hour a special payrise is not good spending when newstart is pathetic. And there is plenty of wasteful spending which has been well documented in recent years.

  36. Lizzie, I’m not trying to blame the unemployed, far from it.
    I am blaming Governments for their inabillity to properly deal with the inevitable shrinking of jobs due to technology.

  38. I remain suspicious of UBI plans.

    The arguments in favour of it sound way too familiar to those that advocate for flat taxes.

  39. The Aged Care and disability industries are gouging billions from the public purse. If the government was game to truely audit these industries they could divert the money to low skilled jobs, aimed at improving the quality of life for the growing number of people who need human interactions. Aged care providers are spending thousands on robot seals to provide company to people. Surely we can do better than that.
    We spend billions on education, could increased classroom assistants be employed to help take the pressure off the qualified staff.
    I am sure that there are many ways that employment could be increased even as technology closes down some industries. A recent article highlighted that stores are decreasing staff because of the effects of on line shopping, but no shop assistants is one of the reasons I no longer go into the city, especially stores like Myers and DJ.

  40. YBOB – Going all the way back to the seventies is irrelevant , nobody remembers it under the age sixty and our economy was structured very differently.Also inflation was the original source of the seventies malaise, ain’t likely to be a problem any time soon.

    To be honest I don’t think the coalition would cut services in a serious downturn, I think they would just cut taxes to try and stimulate demand and run a large deficit.The service cuts would come as things started to pick up.

    What would Labor propose in the middle of a recession? fight an election on the deficit,advocate tax rises or service cuts to cut the deficit?Budget deficit is never a political problem for the Liberals.

    Face the facts Australia doesn’t turf out Tory federal governments very often, it’s happened three times in seventy years once there in. you need fuckin TNT to shift em’.Something Labor should have though long and hard about back around 2009.

  42. Thanks for that Dio.

    It could find no evidence to suggest that such a scheme could be sustained for all individuals in any country in the short, medium or longer term – or that this approach could achieve lasting improvements in wellbeing or equality. The research confirms the importance of generous, non-stigmatising income support, but everything turns on how much money is paid, under what conditions and with what consequences for the welfare system as a whole.

    I’ve seen some reports from individual UBI trials that confirm benefits in the short term, but nothing that has looked at various UBIs in multiple countries and over the short to medium and long term.

  46. YBob

    Regards franking credits a laThe Rodent . It should be easy peasy to remove. Frame it as a matter of fairness. Even the disengaged could get behind….
    ‘It is unfair and not a fair go that hard working Australians have their hard earned money taken to give a tax refund to those who pay no tax . No other place on earth does this.

    No mention of money or class need ever be mentioned..

  47. Steelydan:

    “the best the ALP could come up with was pink bats and school halls and a cash hand out of $1000. Laughable really that is the best the ALP brains trust could come up with.”

    Gee it must burn that Wayne Swan was awarded World’s Best Treasurer because he spared Australia from the ravages of the GFC! An award that your beloved Peter Costello (“hit in the arse with a rainbow”) never achieved.

  48. https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2019/05/oh-no-this-wasnt-just-average-polling.html
    Oh No, This Wasn’t Just An “Average Polling Error”
    My response to apologist reviews of our polling failure by overseas analysts.
    ——————-
    Very impressive article KB. It will be interesting to see if it elicits a response from Nate Silver et al. I liked particularly the line about it being us who will decide whether our pollsters have committed a major polling failure, and the circumstances in which they fail (badly paraphrased). However I guess it will go over the heads of offshore psephologists.
    Sobering too to read that the national 2PP is likely to end up at least 47.9/52.1 in favour of the Coalition and that it’s the biggest pro-Government swing at a federal election since 1966.

  50. My major concern with a UBI is the “U” (universal) part. I don’t want the likes of Gina Rinehart, Twiggy Forrest, et al getting it.

    It would have to be means tested just like current welfare is at both the income and asset level. By income I mean gross income, not taxable income. And by assets include money tucked away in family trusts, tax havens, and the likes.

    In other words a Basic Income rather than a Universal Basic Income.

    And of course remove all the hoops that the unemployed and disabled have to jump through to get any sort of assistance.

Comments Page 19 of 22
1 … 18 19 20 … 22

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *