Election plus three weeks

A look at how the religious vote might have helped Scott Morrison to victory, plus some analysis of turnout and the rate of informal voting.

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.

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.

1,359 comments on “Election plus three weeks”

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  1. Tristo @ #347 Monday, June 10th, 2019 – 8:16 am

    Ray Sanderson

    @sando88
    I have heard reports that Centrelink are actually receiving phone calls from retirees and even pensioners asking when they get their ‘franking credit’ payments. Karma is approaching for Morrison and his crew.
    5:42 PM · Jun 9, 2019 · Twitter Web Client

    This must be a joke of some kind. Nobody can be that stupid – can they?
    Reassure me please somebody – anybody.

  2. What Andrew Wilkie actually said re support….

    https://www.smh.com.au/federal-election-2019/the-price-of-power-key-independents-list-their-conditions-for-support-in-next-parliament-20190430-p51iqe.html

    Only one of the independents, Mr Wilkie, refused to negotiate at all with the major parties in the event of a tight election outcome that repeated the hung Parliament of 2010 or the minority government Mr Morrison has led since late last year.

    “I will not do a deal with one party or the other to help them form government,” Mr Wilkie said, adding that his experience in 2010 showed that he could be “taken for granted” if he cemented a deal with one of the major parties.

    “I’ve learned that you don’t have to have a deal to be in a very fortunate position in the Parliament.”

  3. Section 44
    https://theconversation.com/the-section-44-soap-opera-why-more-mps-could-be-in-danger-of-being-forced-out-116955

    One thing we learned from the recent election campaign is that the political crisis over Section 44 of the Constitution has not gone away.
    :::
    It all comes down to leadership. Up to now, both the Coalition and Labor have been primarily motivated by partisan advantage: how can we use Section 44 to score a political point?

    The Joint Standing Committee showed that with a willingness to collaborate, there is a path forward to solving the problem. The best we can hope for is that after the trauma of the last few years, and the evidence of the continuing decline in support for the main parties, political leaders will see that acting constructively on Section 44 might actually be in the best interests of both parties.

  4. Union panel discusses the Right to Strike campaign

    https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/union-panel-discusses-right-strike-campaign

    MUA activist and Right to Strike organiser Erima Dall said the result of the election was a setback, but that the lesson is: “We have to break the rules in order to change the rules. The ACTU’s official Change the Rules campaign put all its eggs in the Labor electoral basket.

    “The question we face now is how to build a labour movement strong enough to fight and win, no matter who is in government.
    :::
    “We need to build an independent, progressive union movement. This includes convincing the unions to take a leading role on the environment, including climate change.

  5. Ms Cut and Paste disagrees. What a politician, in this case, Andrew Wilkie, says publicly about support or otherwise of a government in the case of a hung parliament, is to be believed over the report of a private conversation now revealed after the election.

    I know who I am going to believe.

  6. c@t

    “I know who I am going to believe.”

    Yes, we know too,as it’s predictable that you ignore evidence that is contrary to your opinion.
    Like when you claimed the Greens wanted to be in an Alliance with Labor after this election. And you posted an article from 2013 to prove it.

  7. Socrates @ #357 Monday, June 10th, 2019 – 8:49 am

    Morning all. Thanks BK. With the prospect of another recession looming I am reminded of the disastrous crash in commercial property values in the 1990 one. Dubious valuation rules that prevent rents matching market reality may see the same problem recur.
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-06/ghost-shops-haunting-new-developments/11184644?section=business

    It’s all teetering on the edge of the precipice:

    Jobs are the main factor keeping Australia’s economy from recession
    By business reporter Michael Janda

    Australia’s economy is hanging tough, stubbornly refusing to capitulate to recession after a world-record 28 years of growth.

    But some of the threads it is hanging by are fraying, and chief amongst those is strong employment.

    Even as Australia’s economic growth rate dropped off the edge of a cliff mid-last year — with quarterly growth plunging from 0.9 per cent in the June quarter to 0.3 per cent in September and down further to 0.2 per cent in December — the unemployment rate fell too.

    It declined from 5.3 per cent to 5, then bottomed out at 4.9 per cent in February this year.

    But those falls are reversing, and now the biggest threat Australia’s economy is facing is that unemployment appears to have troughed and is climbing again.

    The jobless rate rose to 5.1 per cent in March and 5.2 per cent in April — back to where it was in August last year.

    Morrison’s economic challenges

    Despite campaigning on a strong economy, every indication is that the Government is returning to face a weak and slowing economy.
    That’s not a crisis, far from it.

    As the Treasurer pointed out when discussing the GDP numbers on Wednesday, unemployment rose in April despite the creation of more than 28,000 jobs.

    That’s because participation rose — the proportion of people either in work or looking for it is around record highs.

    That means more Australians are working than at any time in history.

    “The strong labour market is one of the reasons why the fundamentals of the Australian economy remain sound,” Josh Frydenberg told reporters.

    Government spending holding the threads together
    The problem is that its one of the only reasons the Australian economy remains sound.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-10/jobs-are-the-only-thing-keeping-australia-from-a-recession/11184636

  8. “She offered the opinion that Labor should merge with the Greens. I said I’d be in favour of that too, but that the Greens were determined to destroy Labor and that we’d soon Split again. ”

    What the hell is this?
    Is this still going on here?
    80% preference flows and that means the Greens are trying to Destroy Labor… It’s madness.

  9. C@tmomma says:
    Monday, June 10, 2019 at 8:59 am
    Ms Cut and Paste disagrees. What a politician, in this case, Andrew Wilkie, says publicly about support or otherwise of a government in the case of a hung parliament, is to be believed over the report of a private conversation now revealed after the election.

    I know who I am going to believe.
    ___________________________
    No doubt you will tell us in boring and excruciating detail what it is you believe.

  10. Ketan Joshi

    Half of your bluetooth devices: won’t pair with anything unless you reset everything to factory settings 20 times and pray for at least half an hour

    The other half: will pair immediately with literally everything within 100m including plants, animals, your children etc

  11. a r says:
    Sunday, June 9, 2019 at 11:58 pm
    briefly @ #324 Sunday, June 9th, 2019 – 11:46 pm

    She offered the opinion that Labor should merge with the Greens. I said I’d be in favour of that too
    And she believed you? Hilarious!

    Naturally, if the G campaign against Labor – a campaign that threatens social democracy, social justice, environmental protection and civil rights in Australia – were to be brought to an end, I’d be delighted.

    The unalloyed truth is the G leadership would not be in it. They detest Labor and hope to destroy us.

  12. “The unalloyed truth is the G leadership would not be in it. They detest Labor and hope to destroy us.”

    I like to imagine statements like this in a ‘Darth Vader’ voice.
    They sound dramatic that way.
    Not tedious and repetitive.

  13. The G project is an anti-Labor project. The Anti-Labor plurality, now totalling 2/3 voters, includes the G PV. This is very serious for Labor. It represents an existential threat to social justice, social democracy, environmental protection and civil rights. The incomparable achievements of Labor in the 20th century are all in jeopardy, not least because of the treachery of the Gs.

  14. Astrobleme,
    And we know you will always support Pegasus. Not even being willing to acknowledge that what politicians say in public can be completely different from what they tell political players in private conversations.

    It’s not me making it up, ask Jackol, he read the same article.

    Oh, and cute that you are wishing, like the Populists, to erase history from the public record. It was a Labor-Greens Alliance in 2013, and Richard Di Natale had suggested a similar arrangement in 2019. If Labor was again in the position of needing to form a Minority Government.

    If Australian voters on 18 May return a parliament where Labor is forced to govern in minority, then the Greens leader has some clear expectations. He wants a seat at the table as Labor implements its climate policy, as happened during the 43rd parliament. “I would hope Shorten would show the maturity that Julia Gillard demonstrated and bring people to the table to negotiate constructively.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/apr/18/richard-di-natale-labor-should-come-to-negotiating-table-on-climate-policy

    Demanding ‘A seat at the table’. Hmm, sounds a lot like this:

  15. C@tmomma @ #360 Monday, June 10th, 2019 – 9:04 am

    “The strong labour market is one of the reasons why the fundamentals of the Australian economy remain sound,” Josh Frydenberg told reporters.

    Government spending holding the threads together
    The problem is that its one of the only reasons the Australian economy remains sound.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-10/jobs-are-the-only-thing-keeping-australia-from-a-recession/11184636

    Anyone who thinks employment in Australia is at or near record levels has clearly not visited rural or regional Australia recently. The only thing holding these figures up is that people are considered “employed” if they work for at least 1 hour a week – even if that work is done for a pittance, or even without any pay at all (e.g. for payment in kind, for food and lodging, or family farm workers).

    How ridiculous. Welcome to the gig economy. What a third-world shithole Australia is rapidly becoming 🙁

  16. Player One,
    And the most ridiculous thing is, like the dreaded Socialists that the supposedly Free Market Conservatives rail against, it’s the government-funded jobs in the Services sectors, like the NDIS, Health and Education, that are the ones keeping the economy barely afloat. But it’s okay when Neoliberals give public money to support private businesses apparently.

  17. “Oh, and cute that you are wishing, like the Populists, to erase history from the public record. It was a Labor-Greens Alliance in 2013, and Richard Di Natale had suggested a similar arrangement in 2019. If Labor was again in the position of needing to form a Minority Government.”

    The claim was originally a ‘Coalition’, then ‘Alliance’. It was a claimed made by some other poster, and you joined in.

    I posted you two articles form this year where RDN specifically ruled out an alliance.
    So yes, I have seen your evidence-based logic before…

  18. Grand Moff Tarkin: These Green rebels are nothing but a nuisance. The Labor Empire will prevail

    Darth Vader: The G project is an anti-Labor project. The Anti-Labor plurality, now totalling 2/3 voters, includes the G PV. This is very serious for Labor.

    MUCH MORE ENTERTAINING

  19. Cat
    “Australia’s economy is hanging tough, stubbornly refusing to capitulate to recession after a world-record 28 years of growth.”

    Yes I saw that one too. I agree with the problem too, but disagree a bit with the description and cause. Australia’s economy is not “hanging tough” as though under external assault. The rest of the world has emerged from the GFC and has been growing strongly. We should be too. Instead, and despite this, we have been “bumbling along”, suffering entirely self-inflicted wounds. ScoMo has effectively imposed Greek style austerity, cutting real wages, services and taxes, even though we did not have an external debt crisis. Now, like Greece, per capita incomes are dropping and debt is still rising anyway, because the lack of business activity is dropping government tax revenue. So it is lose-lose. The only difference between us and Greece is high immigration. Without it, our economy would be shrinking just as Greece’s did.

  20. ‘Astrobleme says:
    Monday, June 10, 2019 at 9:06 am

    “She offered the opinion that Labor should merge with the Greens. I said I’d be in favour of that too, but that the Greens were determined to destroy Labor and that we’d soon Split again. ”

    What the hell is this?
    Is this still going on here?
    80% preference flows and that means the Greens are trying to Destroy Labor… It’s madness.’

    Being a Greens you are 100% correct.
    All this nonsense that the Greens are not in destructive competition with Labor will be put to bed when the Greens’ 30 year Long March to Victory ends in 2022 – the year of the first of a virtually endless series of victories by the man who is destined to become Australia’s longest serving prime minister – Can Do Di Natale.
    The first priority of the Greens government will be to fix all the terrible messes Labor has created while it was in opposition.
    The second priority will be to continue to hold Labor accountable while it remains in opposition forever.
    The Rapture!

  21. I have criticised PPP road deals as an investment in the finance industry rather than the transport industry. Here is another example of why. Victorian taxpayers will pay 4 times what it cost to build Peninsula Link. It would have been cheaper to borrow the money on a Visa card.
    https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/billions-more-leaked-document-reveals-true-cost-of-peninsula-link-20190609-p51vzs.html

    No wonder the coalition wants EW link to go ahead. With not much happening in business finance, these sorts of deals are sweet earners for those who get the contracts. It is a fair bet the workers who built it were not paid four times the going rate.

    How many times will the PPP road scam be repeated before taxpayers demand it stop?

  22. Astrobleme,
    You can write apologia for The Greens until the cows come home, and you will, as you seem to think force majeure is some kind of tactical brilliance on your part, and my links are better than yours one-upmanship, however, the truth is, whether your links say anything different, that the public perception, when Richard Di Natale demanded ‘a seat at the table’ of a Labor Minority Government should one occur as a result of the election, in order to determine Climate Change policy, and it probably wouldn’t have stopped there, that the electorate saw 2013 all over again. Especially in Queensland, where the retarded Stop Adani convoy of The Greens had been.

    You may wish to deny the realpolitik with a couple of links, but they don’t alter the facts on the ground one iota. The public perception was 2013 Redux. As a result of Richard Di Natale demanding ‘a seat at the table’ in a Minority Labor federal government.

    And that’s the last thing I’m going to say to you because you obviously don’t do reality.

  23. Astrobleme

    Paul Keating said coal was dead in the same interview he talked about the security nutters on the ABC.

    If Labor had campaignined on exactly that the Adani issue would not have been a distraction. I fully expect Labor to use that issue to blame the Greens despite the evidence.

    Edit: sorry those that don’t listen to Paul Keating

  24. Socrates

    Yes it is population growth.

    For eg. Melbourne is growing by 125,000 people a year. Same as adding a city the size of Ballarat.

    Of course this is putting much pressure on transport, infrastructure and services. Fortunately state Labor are working hard on delivering projects. It takes time.

    My overall view is that at least here in Melbourne (a place which is still very liveable) and surrounding regions, crime resulting from the distribution, dealing and use of drugs is causing dysfunction in the society.

    I’m not convinced that the state is getting on top of this insidious problem.

  25. Labour COULD promise to close down Australia’s uranium mining and nuclear industries, gut the ADF, close down ALL facilities that just might enable the deployment of nuclear weapons, eliminate GMOs 100% from the environment, and fly in an endless supply of refugees as per the policies of the Greens.
    But if Labor did do that then the Coalition would be in government all of the time instead of most of the time.
    Anyway, there is no need for talk about a coalition. Waste of time.
    In 2022, after 30 years of victorious thought leadership and an endless string of policy triumphs by a mysterious political osmosis, the Greens will form government in their own right.
    They will then deploy a dazzling array of 100% culturally pure policies that will stop global warming in its tracks, restore extinct species wiped out by Labor neglect, force wages up by whatever, eliminate poverty, ill health, homelessness, old age, and which will restore the environment to its 1788 pristine state. PLUS: there will be no drilling of the GAB!

  26. Morning All!

    An observation of the world this morning: Nostradamus devotees must be rubbing their hands together with glee.

    We have: Anti-Christ figures in power in all three major world powers causing havoc (especially economic/financial); instability at the top or weak leaders in many western nations that ‘were’ very stable; a raft of r-w nutters in power is smaller nations; leaders refusing to stand down for elected govts to take over; riots in HK, Moldova and Kazakhstan; recession tipped in many countries (including ours); water crises; wars in the Middle East (still); the resurgence of r-w (Nazi?) style leaders everywhere; climate change is getting to tipping point where we can destroy the planet …. and a Morrison govt in Oz!

    Is Armageddon in the offing????

  27. guytaur @ #380 Monday, June 10th, 2019 – 9:38 am

    Just so Cat and Briefly’s myths don’t dominate uncountered.

    https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2019/june/1559397600/richard-denniss/morrison-election-what-we-know-now

    guytaur,
    Same-same with Astrobleme. A link to a Greens sympathetic author doesn’t trump the reality on the ground in the election campaign and the public perception.

    Get back to me when you have actually spoken to real people who aren’t in your political bubble with you.

  28. Cat

    If you read the article you would not have said that. Shades of Ben Shapiro calling Andrew O Neil of Spectator fame a left wing shill.

  29. Jenauthor

    It is all looking rather grim.

    For those rubbing their hands with glee with the prospect of a new world order, I would ask how is that going to look?

    And also, who will benefit?

    I haven’t said much of late re the Trump and Brexit/china/Russia/UAE nexus.

    I am still confident, despite some apprehension these days, that this shit show has a karmic feel to it and it will work to expose the huge levels of corruption that of course predated Trumps ascension to the Whitehouse.

  30. The Coal government is responsible for raids on a journo and the ABC.
    So all messages (here and Twitter) seem to be criticising Labor for not stopping the legislation in ?1947.

    Labor’s at fault, as always. Never the Coalition. 😡

  31. ‘jenauthor says:
    Monday, June 10, 2019 at 9:42 am

    Morning All!

    An observation of the world this morning: Nostradamus devotees must be rubbing their hands together with glee.

    We have: Anti-Christ figures in power in all three major world powers causing havoc (especially economic/financial); instability at the top or weak leaders in many western nations that ‘were’ very stable; a raft of r-w nutters in power is smaller nations; leaders refusing to stand down for elected govts to take over; riots in HK, Moldova and Kazakhstan; recession tipped in many countries (including ours); water crises; wars in the Middle East (still); the resurgence of r-w (Nazi?) style leaders everywhere; climate change is getting to tipping point where we can destroy the planet …. and a Morrison govt in Oz!

    Is Armageddon in the offing????’

    You left out all the small stuff that punches above its weight, bark beetles and earth worms:

    https://e360.yale.edu/features/small-pests-big-problems-the-global-spread-of-bark-beetles

    https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/earthworms-carbon-emissions-boreal-forest-climate-change-a8927501.html

  32. guytaur @ #384 Monday, June 10th, 2019 – 9:45 am

    Cat

    If you read the article you would not have said that. Shades of Ben Shapiro calling Andrew O Neil of Spectator fame a left wing shill.

    Way to miss the point, guytaur. Reading the article changes nothing. It’s an article by a Greens supporting egghead. No one cares. The reality is public perception. That is the election currency just past and the Coalition traded on it to a win.

  33. Richard Denniss just completely fails to understand the electorate/s. He does not understand voter-motivation. He does not understand affiliation/disaffiliation. I very much doubt he spoken to even 10 real-life voters in marginal seats about their political views in the last 10 years.

  34. Cat

    In other words. Label the person Green and nothing they say is at all relevant to you.

    Edit: not even the Labor policy he says he was a major part of writing.

  35. Grand Moff Tarkin: But the Greens support most Labor values, and were very useful during the 2010-2013 rebellion.

    Darth Vader: All this nonsense that the Greens are not in destructive competition with Labor will be put to bed when the Greens’ 30 year Long March to Victory ends in 2022 – the year of the first of a virtually endless series of victories by the man who is destined to become Australia’s longest serving prime minister – Can Do Di Natale.

  36. Green-leaning voters are the victims of a con-job. They are largely Labor-positive. But the Green Party is an anti-Labor outfit.

  37. lizzie says:
    Monday, June 10, 2019 at 9:50 am

    The Coal government is responsible for raids on a journo and the ABC.
    So all messages (here and Twitter) seem to be criticising Labor for not stopping the legislation in ?1947.

    Labor’s at fault, as always. Never the Coalition.

    1917 I think, but your absolutely right.

    It’s the same with the CPG giving the Government so many free kicks.

  38. guytaur @ #390 Monday, June 10th, 2019 – 9:53 am

    Cat

    In other words. Label the person Green and nothing they say is at all relevant to you.

    No. However, if they acknowledge reality, as I have, then, yes.

    As, for example, it seems as though Jordan Steele-John has, with his acknowledgement that Coking Coal still needs to be mined. Which is Labor’s position, basically, btw.

  39. jenauthor
    Monday, June 10th, 2019 – 9:42 am
    Comment #382

    Morning All!

    An observation of the world this morning: Nostradamus devotees must be rubbing their hands together with glee.

    Is Armageddon in the offing????

    All in all – everything’s working out well – somewhere ❗

    Revelation 6:8 King James Version (KJV)

    And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

  40. Cat

    Read the article. It’s by someone from a think tank. It’s not my words. You can agree or not with Mr Deniss. However it does give you a non Murdoch view of the election loss.

    You might just learn something

  41. What is the worth of a gong when a person who publicly (a) refutes the fact that smoking causes cancer, and (b) proclaims the fact that AGW is a nonsense and orchestrates the demise of a LOTO on that basis, is awarded the highest version. Minchin FFS.

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