I had a paywalled Crikey article on Friday on the religion factor in the election result, drawing on results of the Australian National University’s Australian Election Study survey. Among other things, it had this to say:
The results from the 2016 survey provide some support for the notion, popular on the right of the Liberal Party, that Malcolm Turnbull brought the government to the brink of defeat by losing religious voters, who appear to have flocked back to the party under Morrison. Notably, the fact that non-religious voters trusted Turnbull a lot more than they did Abbott did not translate into extra votes for the Coalition, whereas a two-party swing to Labor of 7% was recorded among the religiously observant.
The charts below expand upon the survey data featured in the article, showing how Labor’s two-party preferred has compared over the years between those who attend religious services several times a year or more (“often”), those who do so less frequently (“sometimes”), and those who don’t do it at all (“never”).
Some other post-election observations:
• Rosie Lewis of The Australian reports the looming Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters inquiry into the election will examine the three-week pre-polling period and the extent of Clive Palmer’s campaign spending. There is not, it would seem, any appetite to explore the debilitating phenomenon of fake news proliferating on social media, for which Australia arguably experienced a watershed moment during the campaign through claims Labor had a policy to introduce a “death tax”. This is explored in depth today in a report in The Guardian and an accompanying opinion piece by Lenore Taylor. That said, not all of the mendacity about death taxes was subterranean, as demonstrated by this official Liberal Party advertisement.
• As best as I can tell, all votes for the House of Representatives have been counted now. There was a fall in the official turnout rate (UPDATE: No, actually — it’s since risen to 91.9%, up from 91.0% in 2016), which, together with the fact that not all votes had been counted at the time, gave rise to a regrettable article in the Age-Herald last week. However, as Ben Raue at the Tally Room explores in depth, the turnout rate reflects the greater coverage of the electoral roll owing to the Australian Electoral Commission’s direct enrolment procedures. This appears to have succeeded to some extent in increasing the effective participation rate, namely votes cast as a proportion of the eligible population rather than those actually enrolled, which by Raue’s reckoning tracked up from 80.0% in 2010 to 83.2% – an enviable result by international standards. However, it has also means a larger share of the non-voting population is now on the roll rather than off it, and hence required to bluff their way out of a fine for not voting.
• The rate of informal voting increased from 5.0% to 5.5%, but those seeking to tie this to an outbreak of apathy are probably thinking too hard. Antony Green notes the shift was peculiar to New South Wales, and puts this down to the proximity of a state election there, maximising confusion arising from its system of optional preferential voting. The real outlier in informal voting rates of recent times was the low level recorded in 2007, which among other things causes me to wonder if there might be an inverse relationship between the informal voting rate and the level of enthusiasm for Labor.
Tristo….voters will not know whether you’re a fantasist or an alarmist or just an opportunist rejoicing in their misfortunes.
I am looking for a definition for ‘over-egging’
Anyone?
AE
Yes as long as you can blame everyone but Labor. The Greens make a handy scapegoat for Labor failure
Senator Murray Watt just threw Setka under the bus on News 24.
Tristo says:
Monday, June 10, 2019 at 4:07 pm
@Mexicanbeemer
I have to praise whoever developed this disinformation campaign, it worked very well…..
Labor really needs to develop strategies for the next election to counter such disinformation campaigns.
Yup. The Lib-kin run a full time disinformation campaign against Labor. It’s one of a number of Labor-hostile narratives.
There are some of us who have noticed. We’re standing against the tide of malice.
Astrobleme @ #605 Monday, June 10th, 2019 – 4:10 pm
Astrobleme? 🙂
Right, let’s say the Stop Adani convoy had never happened. In this parallel universe, are we to assume that the exalted God Emperor Bill would now be beginning his glorious thousand-year reign, the mine would no longer have any chance of proceeding, and this comments thread would be all love, sunshine and puppies right now?
Yeah, right. The only difference in this parallel universe is that this thread would consist of mouth-foaming, nappy-soiling raging against the Greens for not campaigning with sufficient emphasis on stopping the mine. “They’re supposed to be an environmental party first and foremost, so how could they have neglected such a key issue? No wonder Labor lost, when they were left to do all the heavy lifting on their own! YOU FILTHY LIB-KIN SABOTEURS!!!!11!!1”
@ar:
“Hasten slowly” is a deliberate oxymoron. Correct. It is an English rendering from a classical adage: “Festina lente”. Another rendering is “more haste, less speed”.
In the context that Albo was using the phrase, he was referring to the fact that with the election due in 2022, he was going to go slow in putting together his team and Labor’s policies NOW to – hopefully – hasten the time when Labor next wins government: i.e. in 2022 and not at some later date. In other words, he didn’t want to engage in knee jerk reactions to Labor’s election loss that may have the long term effect of binding Labor unfavourably at the next election.
I would have thought all of that obvious. Silly me.
“Right, let’s say the Stop Adani convoy had never happened. In this parallel universe, are we to assume that the exalted God Emperor Bill would now be beginning his glorious thousand-year reign, the mine would no longer have any chance of proceeding, and this comments thread would be all love, sunshine and puppies right now?”
No Labor would have still lost, but would have kept Longman and maybe Herbert and who knows, killed off Kartoffelkop in Dickson. There are limitations in the Adani convoy issue. Acknowledged.
“AE
Yes as long as you can blame everyone but Labor. The Greens make a handy scapegoat for Labor failure”
I’m sorry. When have I ever done that? Never. You just don’t comprehend what I post. Assuming you actually read the posts in the first place.
No. The Greens did well. It was only a problem for Labor because of Labor trying to be everything to everyone.
Yep, The Greens, stuck on their eternal 10%, happy in their little inner city/sea change enclaves, blissfully ignorant of the rest of Australia.
*golf clap*
And then there’s Labor. Trying to piece together a win that can see them form government. Or as you like to sneer, guytaur, ‘trying to be everything to everyone’.
Now, as I asked you before, guytaur, have you EVER had to support a family or anyone other than yourself? Because until you do, you have nfi.
Andrew_Earlwood
I can understand your utter frustration if you have close relatives working in environment area. 🙂
@briefly
I believe the disinformation campaign waged during the election was despicable. However damn it was very effective, well designed and executed. The disinformation campaigns during the 2016 US Presidential Election and Brexit Referendum weren’t as effective as this.
Andrew_Earlwood @ #613 Monday, June 10th, 2019 – 4:21 pm
I don’t think he does, A-E. His replies are so quick to ping back that he maybe reads a sentence and riffs off that.
AE
Labor told the coal miners it was taking real action on climate change.
Blaming the Greens for that message is scapegoating. It’s exactly the same throughout with Labor policy failures. It’s been blame the Greens because that’s easy to do. Especially when you have a right wing media willing to demonise the Greens. Or as the Newscorp editor put it. Destroy the Greens.
The failure of Rudd’s CPRS was all Labor’s
“Astrobleme? ”
and yet I haven’t egged anything! 😉
Just been trying to bat away Briefly and Boerwar and Frednk’s eggs.
Please note that I haven’t said anything negative about the Labor Party (other than than should have been aware they were losing, and that the campaign in general was a bit weak).
Cat
I have more idea than you do. I went through all this with the Franklin Dam with family living and working on the West Coast.
Some of them voted for Howard. Edit: Later on of course
“I can understand your utter frustration if you have close relatives working in environment area. ”
My brother is a zoologist. An alternative passion of his is archeology. As I quipped to him the other day, thanks to the Greens he can now be both. Simultaneously.
My sister is a marine biologist researching coral on the reef for her PhD. I suggested a title for her thesis: “counting the dead and bayoneting the wounded”. She has never even considered voting for the Greens given what they did in 2009 over the CRPS.
Mogotrone says:
Monday, June 10, 2019 at 1:02 pm
I do think the green candidates damage labor’s vote. When scrutineering on election night, I noted the substantial number of voters that voted green first and liberal second. They are delusional and think they can ease their conscience and somehow they think they have done their bit for the environment. If there was no green candidate they would have to think seriously about policies and vote labor to help Gobal warming and the environment.
——————————————————-
I don’t think that has anything to do with being delusional or trying to ease their conscience as those people might be Liberal mined economically but prefer the Green’s policies on climate change or refugees or they might just like the Liberal candidate but don’t want to vote Liberal upfront. or they don’t like the ALP policies or candidate but again don’t want to vote Liberal upfront.
“My sister is a marine biologist researching coral on the reef for her PhD. I suggested a title for her thesis: “counting the dead and bayoneting the wounded”. She has never even considered voting for the Greens given what they did in 2009 over the CRPS.”
You mean, strike a better deal in 2010?
Maybe if as much effort went into trying to win those voters over as goes into attacking them for voting/being Greens that wouldn’t happen as much. Just a thought.
Tristo
People are surprisingly easy to mislead, even people that should know better, I heard a podcast probably six months on the ALP policies and one of the people on it said that they knew of trustees that believed the ALP’s policies were the law despite the ALP being the opposition.
Astrobleme…..that did not happen and now we are left with nothing
Puzzlement. Leigh Sales = Ita Buttrose?
Scout
What did not happen? Laws being passed by parliament?
“You mean, strike a better deal in 2010?”
I think mean 2011 right?
If so, “better” = political suicide. The progressives lost (another) 1,500,000 votes with that ‘better’ deal. Instantaneously. Overnight. And that loss of confidence was not borne by Labor alone. So you can’t blame it on the RGR leadershit. Not when you’re team lost 800,000 senate votes at the following election. Not when you have been stuck at 8-10% ever since.
“Better” = electoral devastation with the filth winning everything. And putting the environment to the sword irrevocably in the process as well.
There is a limit on what the Australian voting public would accept. You’re ‘better’ is so far across the line that it is a toxic joke.
All members of the order of Australia instantly acquire the enmity of all other Australians. Only being Australian of the Year attracts more hostility as Adam Goodes experienced.
“Astrobleme…..that did not happen and now we are left with nothing”
Ahh ha hah haaaaaaa
Of course, there was nothing for Tony Abbott to Ax! How ignorant of me.
And Julia Gillard was a ‘Liar’ for nothing…
I have been happily (more often than not) reading this blog since sometime around 2007. I read WB’s postings with relish and have learnt a little about polls but I must say that since the election there are a number of people that are posting here that have made it unbearable to read below the line.
I do not have to name them as they are quite obvious as to who they are and the miserable place they are making this site for other regular readers. If their objective is to make this place a shithole for others then congratulations you have done it, if their objective is to find fans and converts to their message then you are so fucking off the mark you are making yourselves appear as complete fuckwits. WB, I apologise for my language but I am truly sick and tired of day/night after day/night of the same arseholes coming here and dominating every discussion and posting the same drivel everyday and night.
Do you posters really think that the general reader wants to read the same comment day after day, do you really think that you are going to sway a single person to your side, especially as we have read the same comments since the 20 April 2019. Are we to see you posting the same comments until the election in 3 years time.
Why don’t you set up your own blog, seek members and then you can happily have the same conversations you have had here until the cows come home.
If this was my blog I would have told you to all fuck off a long time ago, as this is WB’s blog and he seems to have the patience of job then I will come here to read when he makes a new post. I really can’t be bothered filtering out the constant stream of greens/labor bullshit.
I hope you are all happy that you are slowly driving away people that have been here for so long.
lizzie @ #629 Monday, June 10th, 2019 – 2:44 pm
That’s some incredible chutzpah. Surely most Australians would be wondering who in blazes is Leigh Sales and why is she lecturing us?
AE
Wow you just love slurping the right wing Kool Aid.
Anything to avoid blaming Labor.
I say that in the full knowledge that the media coverage was more hostile than the Whitlam era to facts.
sustainable future says:
Monday, June 10, 2019 at 2:59 pm
“The consequence of the Greens intransigence is that environmentalism is dead in this country.”
what utter bullshit.
SF, the only party that will do anything for the environment is Labor. They are prevented though, by the Greens.
The Greens relentlessly criticise Labor, thus helping the environmental vandals, otherwise known as the LNP. When Labor were in power but required the Greens to do something about the environment, the Greens voted against the CPRS.
We have had rising emmissions since then. Well done Greens.
‘Astrobleme says:
Monday, June 10, 2019 at 4:10 pm
I am looking for a definition for ‘over-egging’
Anyone?’
Going beyond realistic thresholds in praising something.
Sample sentence: ‘It is impossible to over-egg the benefits of the 2022 Greens government.’
Antonym: ‘under-egg’
Sample sentence: ‘It is impossible to under-egg the benefits of 27 years of Greens Party thought leadership and policy implementation for the poor, the sick, the under educated, the unemployed, and the environment.’
“So you can’t blame it on the RGR leadershit.”
I can, though really it was Tony Abbott.
The 2011 deal was good policy; it worked.
It’s so weird that people here get so upset by this… I think it’s because they like to have someone to kick for their woes.
Andrew_Earlwood says:
Monday, June 10, 2019 at 4:21 pm
____________________
Hopefully Albo ignores any suggestions from your ilk.
I still recall learned prognostications from you about the genius of Shorten/ Bowen’s tax policy and Labor’s ability to run bigger surpluses than the Libs. Worked a treat that didn’t it!
I always thought Labor’s Adani policy was to play a dead bat to the Adani mine’s startup –
○ no federal finance or special concessions,
○ no road or rail building,
○ acknowledge the process so far (i.e. the process out of the control of any opposition),
○ and to not incur any sovereign risk by unilaterally reversing approvals already properly arrived at.
As I said: a dead bat.
We all know the Adani mine was cooked up when the Coalition was in opposition, pre-2013. The first sign of something being up was when two shadow ministers – Bishop and Joyce – accompanied Gina Rinehart to a big Adani family wedding.
That Rinehart is involved up to her ugly neck was also indicated at this time.
Palmer tipped his hand by laundering donations related to the recent election campaign to the Coalition, via his complete financing of a sham “party” that bore more resemblance to the bar scene from Star Wars than to a genuine political outfit. It even had its own Jabba The Hut in the bloated shape of its obnoxious founder.
The irony of Palmer setting himself up as a hero to the unemployed FIFO tradies of northern Queensland still astonishes me for its pure chutzpah, and for the gullibility of Queenslanders. Oh well…
I still can’t see how anyone can really believe there is any money to be made out of Galilee Basin coal, and hence out of any jobs. The banks are certainly not drinking the Adani Kool Aid. Not when, as someone upthread pointed out, Telstra (as well as Big W and Officeworks) sackings FAR exceed anything Adani et al had to offer (especially when you count their latest backpedalling), and no comment at all from the government.
Perhaps Adani’s just a giant tax loss scam? Perhaps they thought Labor would win, and had planned to sue the new government for compensation? Perhaps Wesfarmers, Telstra and Woolies paid off the Coalition just as much as Palmer, Rinehart and Mr Adani? The least likely prospect is that anyone with any rational marbles, from either side of politics, reckons Adani’s a goer.
What IS clear though is that the Morrison government is the running dog of these big donors, and now it’s caught the car.
After three successful elections they can’t just blame Labor with any degree of credibility. They have promised jobs, tax cuts and prosperity, and in quick time. “Shovel-ready” projects are poised to deliver a Tory Utopia. But it can’t happen, and it won’t.
ScoMo himself is the kind of effervescent, overwhelming know-all that won’t last the first few months before he has his ministers screaming with frustration and looking for a way out, if just to escape the intensity of listening to him thump the tub on the subject of his own brilliance. He is a Happy Clapper, full of brass and bravado, a one-man band with 76 trombones. He may be respected – sort of – for getting them out of the immediate shithole they dug for themselves, but he is not loved. And he is not a team player. His win really WAS a miracle. Personality traits like this don’t change with promotion… they get worse. He’ll drive his government mad, and the voters as well. Be assured of that.
Labor never said they’d stop Adani. They just said they’d not reverse it, given proper process had been applied. I don’t know where voters got the impression that Labor was either for or against the project. Seems pretty clear to me it would have died – and will die – a natural death: a useful thing actually, as then we’ll have proof positive that it was likely always a chimera, and that similar future projects will be too. Labor won’t be there to blame for that. Sure the Libs and Nats will try, but they got the chance they paid for. They have to perform now. No more rehearsals. It’s show time.
With what was really just a status quo victory for the Coalition, Albo’s best bet would be to continue with Shorten’s dead bat strategy. When the Adani daydream goes belly-up Labor can pick up the pieces cheap. I’m not too worried about 2022… or sooner, if ScoMo implodes quicker than usual (which in my opinion is more likely than not).
“They are prevented though, by the Greens.”
it’s as if posters here have no idea how the Parliament works…
Astrobleme :’
Please note that I haven’t said anything negative about the Labor Party (other than than should have been aware they were losing, and that the campaign in general was a bit weak).’
Which is still one more criticism than you have levelled at the LNP.
Which is rather odd as they are the great environmental vandals of our time (and in power, thanks to their buddies, the Greens).
PeeBee
“Which is still one more criticism than you have levelled at the LNP.”
How would you know?
Have you done the analysis?
And who cares anyway?
What does it matter?
Why would I complain about the LNP here?
They’re shit. How’s that?
Astro – I liked the 2011 deal. As policy. I’m just not prepared to blind myself to its political toxicity. “It worked” for a brief window until it failed. Politically. However in a democracy “political failure” is the greatest failing of all.
Melancholy sad, yet true.
Labor was for Adani in Queensland and against it in Victoria. Very politically smart messaging. Everybody knows that !
Newpoll tonight? Too early?
BB
I agree that was what Labor was trying to do. The mistake was not seeing the politics. I do think that was due to the polling showing Labor in front b
So Labor did not see that coal workers and their community were seeing that as stopping Adani as told to them by the right wing parties.
Far more important was the death duties scare campaign. At least that’s what I think. I agree with Richard Deniss that Labor should have made a lot more noise about its spending side.
No one gave a fig about the deficit.
Lars Von Trier says:
Monday, June 10, 2019 at 4:56 pm
Labor was for Adani in Queensland and against it in Victoria. Very politically smart messaging. Everybody knows that !
———————————–
Not sure about that, Bill Shorten was clear that the Adani project needed to pass through the process and be commercially viable, individual candidates might have been against it but the official policy wasn’t.
@Lars Von Trier
I don’t believe Newspoll will start polling again until Parliament sits again.
“I still recall learned prognostications from you about the genius of Shorten/ Bowen’s tax policy and Labor’s ability to run bigger surpluses than the Libs. Worked a treat that didn’t it!”
I was wrong. Obviously.
Since the times I wrote those prognostications the ground changed. Labor was being feed data and analysis that was out of date. I wasn’t alone in being wrong footed. I do note in my (partial) defence that I expressed a significant amount of concern during the campaign about the effects of both the Adani convoy as a Queensland Labor killer and the flat footed Labor campaign more generally, noting the effectiveness of the Liberal’s social and mainstream media scare campaigns. I did talk myself out of those concerns, mainly because we were all being feed false data by the pollsters and I was happy to put my spider sense to one side (and ignore what our volunteers were telling us on the ground). I was wrong. Labor was wrong. We lost. By fighting the last three elections instead of THIS election we handed ScoMo a massive rod for our backs and got owned. I admit it.
MB its all set out here:
https://www.broadsheet.com.au/melbourne/city-file/article/bill-shorten-adani-mural-melbourne
Magnificent!
Victorian CFMMEU members need to stand up and get rid of Setka at the next opportunity. The standards you walk past are the standards you accept.
Astrobleme:
Why would I complain about the LNP here?
Answer: because you are a Green. They don’t ‘Criticise LNP’.
They’re shit. How’s that?
Answer: Pathetic. You only did it because you were goaded into it.
You should really get stuck into them. Pick any environmental issue that the LNP are stuffing up, and elaborate. Repeat and Repeat again.
How do I know that the Greens never criticise the LNP on this blog, it is because I asked you to point one comment on this blog where it has happened. You came back with nothing. Nothing.
Andrew_Earlwood says:
Monday, June 10, 2019 at 5:03 pm
____________________
Fair enough!
Self-criticism is good for the soul!