Election plus 11 days

Late counting, a disputed result, new research into voter attitudes, Senate vacancies, and the looming party members’ vote for the state Labor leadership in New South Wales.

Sundry updates and developments:

• As noted in the regularly updated late counting post, Labor has taken a 67 vote lead in Macquarie, after trailing 39 at the close of counting yesterday. However, there is no guarantee that this represents an ongoing trend to Labor, since most of the gain came from the counting of absents, which would now be just about done. Most of the outstanding votes are out-of-division pre-polls, which could go either way. The result will determine whether the Coalition governs with 77 or 78 seats out of 151, while Labor will have either 67 or 68.

• Labor is reportedly preparing to challenge the result in Chisholm under the “misleading or deceptive publications” provision of the Electoral Act, a much ploughed but largely unproductive tillage for litigants over the years. The Victorian authorities have been rather activist in upholding “misleading or deceptive publications” complaints, but this is in the lower stakes context of challenges to the registration of how-to-vote cards, rather than to the result of an election. At issue on this occasion is Liberal Party material circulated on Chinese language social media service WeChat, which instructed readers to fill out the ballot paper in the manner recommended “to avoid an informal vote”. I await for a court to find otherwise, but this strikes me as pretty thin gruel. The Chinese community is surely aware that Australian elections presume to present voters with a choice, so the words can only be understood as an address to those who have decided to vote Liberal. Labor also have a beef with Liberal material that looked like Australian Electoral Commission material, in Chisholm and elsewhere.

• Political science heavyweights Simon Jackman and Shaun Ratcliff of the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre has breakdowns from a big sample campaign survey in The Guardian, noting that only survey data can circumvent the ecological fallacy, a matter raised in my previous post. The survey was derived from 10,316 respondents from a YouGov online panel, and conducted from April 18 to May 12. The results suggest the Coalition won through their dominance of the high income cohort (taken here to mean an annual household income of over $208,000), particularly among the self-employed, for which their primary vote is recorded as approaching 80%. Among business and trust owners on incomes of over $200,000, the Coalition outpolled Labor 60% to 10%, with the Greens on next to nothing. However, for those in the high income bracket who didn’t own business or trusts, the Coalition was in the low forties, Labor the high thirties, and the Greens the low teens. While Ratcliff in The Guardian seeks to rebut the notion that “battlers” decided the election for the Coalition, the big picture impression for low-income earners is that Labor were less than overwhelmingly dominant.

• As reported in the Financial Review on Friday, post-election polling for JWS Research found Coalition voters tended to rate tax and economic management as the most important campaign issue, against climate change, health and education for Labor voters. Perhaps more interestingly, it found Coalition voters more than twice as likely to nominate “free-to-air” television as “ABC, SBS television” as their favoured election news source, whereas Labor voters plumped for both fairly evenly. Coalition voters were also significantly more likely to identify “major newspapers (print/online)”.

• Two impending resignations from Liberal Senators create openings for losing election candidates. The Financial Review reports Mitch Fifield’s Victorian vacancy looks set to be of interest not only to Sarah Henderson, outgoing Corangamite MP and presumed front-runner, but also to Indi candidate Steve Martin, Macnamara candidate Kate Ashmor and former state MP Inga Peulich.

• In New South Wales, Arthur Sinodinos’s Senate seat will fall vacant later this year, when he takes up the position of ambassador to the United States. The most widely invoked interested party to succeed him has been Jim Molan, who is publicly holding out hope that below-the-line votes will elect him to the third Coalition seat off fourth position on the ballot paper, although this is assuredly not going to happen. As canvassed in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Financial Review, other possible starters include Warren Mundine, freshly unsuccessful in his lower house bid for Gilmore; James Brown, chief executive of Catholic Schools NSW, state RSL president and the husband of Daisy Turnbull Brown, daughter of the former Prime Minister; Michael Hughes, state party treasurer and the brother of Lucy Turnbull; Kent Johns, the state party vice-president who appeared set to depose Craig Kelly for preselection in Hughes, but was prevailed on not to proceed; Richard Sheilds, chief lobbyist at the Insurance Council of Australia; Mary-Lou Jarvis, Woollahra councillor and unsuccessful preselection contender in Wentworth; and Michael Feneley, heart surgeon and twice-unsuccessful candidate for Kingsford Smith.

• Federal Labor may have evaded a party membership ballot through Anthony Albanese’s sole nomination, but a ballot is pending for the party’s new state leader in New South Wales, which will pit Kogarah MP Chris Minns against Strathfield MP Jodi McKay. The members’ ballot will be conducted over the next month, the parliamentary party will hold its vote on June 29, and the result will be announced the following day. Members’ ballots in leadership contests are now provided for federally and in most states (as best as I can tell, South Australia is an exception), but this is only the second time one has actually been conducted after the Shorten-Albanese bout that followed the 2013 election. As the Albanese experience demonstrates, the ballots can be circumvented if a candidate emerges unopposed, and the New South Wales branch, for one, has an exception if the vacancy arises six months before an election. Such was the case when Michael Daley succeeded Luke Foley in November, when he won a party room vote ahead of Chris Minns by 33 votes to 12.

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.

999 comments on “Election plus 11 days”

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  1. “It is not their party’s activities. It is the morons who drove a line of trucks into proud communities’ backyards and told them they were killing the planet.”

    Still playing the victim, though.

  2. PuffyTMD @ #396 Wednesday, May 29th, 2019 – 9:06 pm

    It is not their party’s activities. It is the morons who drove a line of trucks into proud communities’ backyards and told them they were killing the planet.

    Fuken senseless dolts.

    Who thought they were entitled to tell the rest of Australia what they could do with their livelihoods. Nay, DEMAND that Labor do what they say WHEN they got elected.

    The high-handed arrogance of The Greens was astonishing.

  3. If the Greens Convoy of Fuckwittery was not going to be so powerful an insult to the electorates it invaded, why the fuke did they waste time money and paid holidays to go there?

    For an ‘On the Buses Trip to Spain’ to see the fuken sun?

    Do not plead the innocent with me.

  5. Astrobleme says:
    Wednesday, May 29, 2019 at 9:03 pm

    …”How sad that the once great Labor Party are just victims of other Parties activities. Totally unable to fight back… Just victims”…

    Labor should take a policy to the next election whereby it promises to dig up great heaving piles of brown coal, to be dumped in any electorate with a Green’s primary vote greater than 15% and set alight.

    (Edit) make that 10%

  7. “If the Greens Convoy of Fuckwittery was not going to be so powerful an insult to the electorates it invaded, why the fuke did they waste time money and paid holidays to go there?”

    I already said I thought it was dumb thing to do.
    Obviously though the Greens felt it would improve their vote.

    But it raises the question, again, on why Labor failed to react, if this was the cause.
    PERHAPS it was that it wasn’t a vote changer?

    And again, if Labor is falling victim to the activities of other groups (and most people are blaming ‘The Greens’) then they will always lose.

  8. “Labor should take a policy to the next election whereby it promises to dig up great heaving piles of brown coal, to be dumped in any electorate with a Green’s primary vote greater than 15% and set alight.”

    I think your anger s making you lose objectivity.

    Anyway, clear that no one here is interested in my thoughts.

    Good night all.

  10. Or maybe the Greens have never spoken with a Queenslander. The only time you do a protest outside a nuclear weapons plant is when it is strategic to do so. You are going to be there for a long time, or you are going have a big rally and some get arrested on camera, or whatever. You do not drive a line of hippy vans into the main street of the town and tell the local bakery they are helping fry kids. (no doubt been done, because there are fuckwits everywhere.) Bob Brown is a seasoned campaigner, though. He should have known better.
    What the hell happened to the experienced activists? ( I am not one, but you can see their work all over the anti-MAD campaign.)
    Greens are wannabees.

  11. Astrobleme says:
    Wednesday, May 29, 2019 at 9:14 pm

    …”I think your anger s making you lose objectivity”…

    It’s not anger.
    It’s my common sense solution to an otherwise intractable problem.

  13. Astrobleme

    The problem with the Greens is the will not own the damage the have done to the conservation movement with their nonsense.

    The Galilee basin being opened up for mining; own it.

  15. I very carefully explained the origins of that phrase, and if it is taken over the ocean here, it could be easily applied to Malcolm Turnbull before anyone else.

  16. So how long have the polls been wrong? One day, one week, one month, one year??
    Without using the retrospectoscope, what should Labor have done differently and when? You could argue they did nothing wrong and all the best evidence showed that Shorten should be PM with 80 seats.
    I can’t describe how pissed off I’d be with my pollster if I was Shorten. The pollsters lost it for Labor more than the Libs, Palmer, Newscorp, Greens, Adani etc.

  17. The very big swings in Hunter occurred in the Hamlets around Cessnock. These are now only minor coal producing areas and their main industry is unemployment and a dormitory for people who can’t afford Newcastle.

    This is the underclass that Labor once represented but commentators on this blog feel can now be abandoned in the quest for the urban middle class. The difficulty and challenge for Labor is that it must be Pauline Hanson in Cessnock and Sarah Hansen Young in Pokolbin

    That and a useless local member

  18. You guys and gals are getting in a tizz about the election and why it happened this way.

    It was the overblown, non costed and bizarrish policies that did them in, day by day by day as Shorten announced them and enough voters thought “what the heck is all this” on the day before and said no.
    I don’t really see why Bill Shorten had to resign, though. He’s not particularly politically likeable but it was the campaign policies that ruined Labor’s chances.

    I do believe if ALP had said they would without doubt increase New Start and increase the tax free threshold they would have won. There’s a terrible disparity in income security in Australia and Labor seem to have given up the ghost in helping the lower end people.

    Also – my personal thought is that Labor should have developed a thorough, well costed well though out policy on mental health issues, drug addiction, where are the rehabilitation centres, family breakdown due to mental illness, homelessness – the whole works. It’s a huge issue in Australia.

    Lost opportunities, so hope Albo can sort it for ALP. Get back to what ALP does best.

  19. Yep. The Greens can make a little desk statue. Of a tree, with ‘I stopped these’ engraved on it. Its Annual Award for the biggest fuck-up.

    frednk @ #413 Wednesday, May 29th, 2019 – 8:50 pm

    Astrobleme

    The problem with the Greens is the will not own the damage the have done to the conservation movement with their nonsense.

    The Galilee basin being opened up for mining; own it.

  21. I think I have been at it for too long. It must be the silence in the bush. I am in an Aboriginal Community in top end WA. The only thing I can hear is dogs barking. Yes. I am tired and emotional.

    And maybe itching for a fight. (sarc)

  23. Jackol @ #378 Wednesday, May 29th, 2019 – 8:14 pm

    why weren’t the ALP aware of it with their internal polling?

    If there is one thing that is crystal clear about this election it was that the ALP were completely unaware of what was actually going on, and their internal polling was simply inadequate and not remotely telling them what they needed to know in order to adjust course and patch up the holes where votes where draining away from them at a rate of knots.

    Why this was so is the biggest question of the ALP campaign and strategy IMO.

    It seems the coals were getting similar polling analysis and were expecting to lose.

  29. No one mentions it. No one mentions politics. It is day to day stuff that I see. I do not know anyone close enough to be game to ask. There are no newspapers. There is TV and mobile data, Foxtel, internet. Maybe in the higher echelons there is talk but not one mention of politics I have heard.
    Aboriginal people are conservative voters too. Not everyone is ALP or progressive. People are sometimes surprised at that.

  30. Shorten still trying his hardest to fuck up Labor some more by planting the seed of future division.
    He can’t stand that he lost fair and square, nobody stabbed him the back, he had free range, and still stuffed up.
    Shorten was and will always be a slime bag. Being supported by Shorten should make Pilbersek’s skin crawl into a dark corner.

  31. The problem with the lets take thhe leafy suburbs strategy is the kind of policy positions Labor would need to adopt to actually WIN those kind of seats.

    We know what those policies are by looking at the “manifesto” of the independent that rolled Abbott.

    She made no secret of the fact that she opposed the Labor tax policy and was in favour of small government in every area of the economy except energy policy (and no doubt town planning, but that is not a federal issue for the most part)

    That is the path Labor would have to take to win the Kooyong’s and Higgin’s and Wentworth’s and Ryan’s of this world and if they go down that path that will be the end of social democracy in Australia.

  33. Confessions
    I thought I had. I must have missed it. I have missed all politics for the last week. I am busy filling in.

    Could someone please shove a large print copy of the HBS novel up her fundamental?

  34. Leave the winning of the blue ribbon seats to the Greens I reckon. It mystifies me why they haven’t gone after them more aggressively to be honest.

  35. Puffy
    I’ve noticed that as well. Quite a few years ago I had a lot to do with the indigenous community and was surprised how conservative many were. The bitterness about Wyatt from some on the left is very ignorant.

  36. Catmomma – labor didn’t explain to qlders that their policies would lead to jobs for qlders.

    Labor should have focussed their sales pitch on the exciting opportunities renewables, not on the necessary sacrifice we needed to make.

    A gas pipeline through qld creates no permanent jobs for qlders, fyi.

  37. I recall Turnbull saying their internal polling had the Liberals in front for much of the time before he was rolled. It could be that the public polls were wrong even back then. Pointing against that could be the results of the by elections.

    Suggestions that Labor should give up on Queensland are misguided. It may take time but Labor need to broaden their appeal and once they’ve gained trust, show that they are deserving to maintain it. Blaming others is definitely not the right start to the process.

  38. Interestingly Wyatt in the past has said that he did not necessarily want the Indigenous Affairs portfolio because people needed to see that Indigenous people could manage other portfolios just as well. It will be nice for our country to get to the day where multiple indigenous Australians hold a variety of portfolios.

    If the rumours of Dodson’s departure come to fruition I would hope the next generation of Indigenous voices within the Labor Party are ready to carry on.

  40. ok i found the post.

    Who is this Mavis Davis when not at the Fwit Family Reunion at the bottom of the sewer pipe outlet to be making comments like that?

    And can someone please shove the whole Harriet Beecher Stowe large print library up her fundamental?

    I am delighted for Ken Wyatt and I hope real good comes from his appointment. I wish him success.

  41. Labor’s national president was indigenous but when the chance came to promote him to Parliament the internal politics of Sussex St meant that a political has-been got the nod. Yet there is an impression here that the indigenous vote should be taken for granted by New Labor

  42. but when the chance came to promote him to Parliament the internal politics of Sussex St meant that a political has-been got the nod.

    Sure, but I’m not sure which particular lesson should be taken from that since I’m pretty confident Labor dodged a bullet in that instance…

  44. Let’s fight to save the planet by keeping quiet./sarc.

    Those criticising the greens and the convoy are angry because they don’t know what to do.

    The greens know what to do and they campaigned for it and made it clear to communities with more control over our direction. Greens weren’t treating them like rubes, the ALP did that.

    All greens did was put the facts to these communities. Being shamed for honesty is not something greens are about to wear. What it really did was show up the ALP.

    The deal breakers I’ve put forward with respect to the ALP are ignored here.

    The binding substance here with the ALP rusteds isn’t commitment to rational governance, it’s tribal. If it was about rational governance, the dealbreakers I’ve specified would be shot down. Instead, silence.

    So lump as much hate as you want on the convoy. Enjoy the hollow victory. I’m sure you’ll figure out just the right words to convince the residents of these coal dependent places how the ALP has so much love for the unemployed and that they will be fine if the floor drops out of the coal market.

  46. ITEP – Judging by Labor’s sub par performance in the Longman and Braddon by elections and the fact he was only trailing 49 – 51 in News poll at the time he was knifed he may well be telling the truth.

    I reckon that last round of leadershit probably shaved a point or two off the the coalition 2pp on election day and saved a few seats for Labor.

  47. Jakol
    I am sure that Mundine would have said “aye” or “nay” at the right time just like every other Labor member of the Senate.

  48. Confessions, there has been talk that Dodson is looking to retire fairly soon. Even if Labor get into government at the next election, he will be 74, which is a fairly advanced age to be commencing a ministerial career. I’m also not sure if the day to day political nonsense suits him.

    On the subject of Bob Carr’s federal career, I agree it was a mistake, and one of many from the NSW right in the Senate in recent years.

  49. Diogenes @ #435 Wednesday, May 29th, 2019 – 9:16 pm

    Puffy
    I’ve noticed that as well. Quite a few years ago I had a lot to do with the indigenous community and was surprised how conservative many were. The bitterness about Wyatt from some on the left is very ignorant.

    Well, to take the original meaning of conservative in politics, slow change, making sure your next foothold is secure before relinquishing the original one, relying on past knowledge, sounds like the sort of thinking that keeps you successful for 60k years on this continent.

    And there is no reason why the desire for gaining and keeping financial/material well-being should be any less than the general population. I am sure due to the complexities of dealing with resource companies, government grants and programs, the problem of distance to bring in goods for their shops , providing housing services etcI would be the ignorant newbie to financial matters compared to most of the folk around me.

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