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.
guytaur @ #399 Monday, June 10th, 2019 – 10:04 am
I did learn something, guytaur! Like, how Green is that Think Tank!
The Australia Institute is a progressive Australian think tank conducting public policy research on a broad range of economic, social, transparency and environmental issues in order to inform public debate and bring greater accountability to the democratic process. Wikipedia
Director: Ben Oquist
Founder: Clive Hamilton
Founded: 4 May 1994
Leader: Ben Oquist
Type of business: Think tank
I also learned this:
Ben Oquist – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Oquist
Benjamin Richard “Ben” Oquist is the Executive Director of The Australia Institute, an independent Australian think tank conducting public policy research on a …
Career · The Australian Greens · The Australia Institute
Thank you, guytaur. Did you think I didn’t know this already!?!
KayJay,
You don’t do subtlety, do you? Opacity, yes, subtlety, no. 🙂
Cat
There you go again. Using the Label Green as an excuse to remain ignorant.
Your loss. Labor’s loss if they are doing the same.
Pegasus (and other Greens her)
I am not a Green nor have I ever voted Green. But you have my sympathy.
Both C@t and Briefly are shaping up for yet another day of anti-Green irrational ranting. It is in their DNA ….. Pavlovian in fact. IMHO their repetitive and highly predictable rants spoil this place.
I am unsurprised that Wilkie’s value system is aligned to that of Liberal moderates. But unlike Coalies, he is not captured or dominated by RWNJ values. I have heard him talk enough times to accept that he is basically a good man, and I would always prefer a good person with Liberal values, than a bad person (ie bigot or dickhead or religious ideologue ……. like the North Qld fool in a hat) with Liberal values.
I have no doubt that Wilkie will always vote against Bills which have a RWNJ purpose. I am equally sure that he will not give carte blanche support to Coalies, unlike the fool in the hat from North Qld.
guytaur @ #403 Monday, June 10th, 2019 – 10:13 am
guytaur,
One day you will learn that what is right and what is politically possible are sometimes two completely different things. Have you ever stopped to consider that is why The Greens remain steadfastly on ~10% of the vote, election after election?
The Gs are splitters. As long Labor is divided, the counter-Labor voices – the Reactionaries – will have an automatic advantage. The Gs add to the advantages held by the Reactionaries. They surely know this. We’re entitled to conclude this is deliberate. They should be delighted by their success in the last election. They helped procure a significant swing away from Labor in Queensland. They have helped deliver a conservative Senate. The splitters have increased the power of the Reactionaries.
psyclaw,
I am not a Green nor have I ever voted Green. But you have my sympathy.
Both C@t and Briefly are shaping up for yet another day of anti-Green irrational ranting. It is in their DNA ….. Pavlovian in fact. IMHO their repetitive and highly predictable rants spoil this place.
Boo hoo, psyclaw, call the wahmbulance! Would that some Labor supporters on here ever dare question the Green orthodoxy and propaganda pasted up here by making reference to reality!?! How dare we, eh?
I don’t rant.
For repetition, no-one comes close to Rex or nath or the other G choristers.
I have an entirely legitimate view of the G campaign/s. No-one from the Greens has yet challenged or denied or refuted or disputed or erupted at my main proposition – the Gs hope to disable and then destroy Labor.
They refrain because it’s the truth. The truth should be stated.
Green voters and the Green political party are two separate things. The intentions of one may not reflect the intentions of the other.
So statements such as ‘the Greens are campaigning against Labor’ and “Greens give Labor 80% of their preferences” are not necessarily connected.
Both can happen without one of them being untrue.
Can we PLEASE not spend another day arguing about how The Greens are always right and how if anyone disagrees with that premise they are the devil incarnate, or a Labor supporter, or both!?! Especially if they dare present realpolitik evidence to support their assertions!?!
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.
That reflects the green voters, not the Greens party. It also probable indicates the Greens parties campaign to destroy Labor is not what their first preference voters want, and in the end the parties campaign to destroy Labor will be the destruction of the the Green party. There will however be a lot of damage to Australia on the way.
I think the Green party needs to reflect on this, instead of complaining that Labor is fed up with it.
Cat
One day you will stop to think about what you are declaring as politically impossible and reality are two different things.
If you had read the article instead of just dismissing it for its source you might get this point.
We have some facts of where votes went. We have consensus that scare campaigns work.
My opinion happens to be that Labor was weak in its message so the Palmer scare campaign worked. The thing is I happen to agree with Dennis that Labor going Liberal lite or timid is not the tactic to win the election.
What you don’t seem to realise is that’s what Albanese is saying too.
The point is that blaming the Greens for Labor’s Adani fail is blame shifting and failing to address why the scare campaign worked.
If some Labor people just stopped saying it was the Greens that won it for the LNP they might actually address why the good Labor policies did not win the campaign.
The bottom line for you Labor partisans is you need to choose coal or the climate. Do that and then you can campaign strongly. Not get wedged like you did with boats on refugees.
Look at what’s right and what’s the best way to get there. It’s what the LNP do. They in fact go to ridiculous lengths to back coal over climate. It’s worked.
Labor has to be as hard. First step is not blaming others for Labor’s actions.
No matter how much you want to point the finger at Bob Brown’s convoy it was only able to be used as a scare vehicle for the LNP because Labor let it be so.
That’s letting the LNP blame the Greens for Labor’s actions and Labor falls for it time and again. You do it with refugees and you do it with coal jobs.
This says way more about Labor than the Greens
The historically valid proposition is that social justice, social democracy, environmental protection, civil rights and economic prosperity are in jeopardy in Australia. The risks to these values are substantially increased by the destruction of the Labor plurality. This destruction is an objective of Green strategy. It must be opposed by anyone who adheres to the values mentioned above.
The destruction is sufficiently severe now that even if the Pro-Labor-prefs of the G PV were ‘passed back’ to the historic Labor plurality, Labor will be unable to win. This is because a consequence of the anti-Labor campaigning by the Greens is to drive past-Labor voters away to the Right – to One Nation/Palmer and/or other Rightwing lanterns.
The Greens are destroying social democracy in Australia. They’re doing so with the same degree of deliberation as the Liberals. They have become an instrument of the Reaction that we see now in bloom in this country.
Mr Klan had been pursuing Watergate, but suddenly stopped.
For what it’s worth, I agreed with everything Albo said last night in Fremantle. He’s easy to like and easy to listen to. He has a tough job. So tough now.
If Briefly raves on half as much on the campaign trail, as he does on here, I would safely say, that he is doing much more damage to the Labor vote than any Greens voter. Methinks he’s in need of more than a Bex nowadays.
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/opinion/economic-growth-is-an-unnecessary-evil-jacinda-ardern-is-right-to-deprioritise-it/31/05/
Seriously briefly, your posts seem more numerous, more repetitive and more tedious than those of Rex and nath combined.
In any event what is the point? All you are achieving is turning people away from this blog.
For the ridiculously small amount it’s worth…
I don’t ‘talk at’ voters. I listen to them. I’m interested in learning from them. I’m eyes and ears with voters. Elsewhere, I hope to speak. I think my speech is well-informed by what I learn from voters. I do have a very clear understanding of the difference between listening and speaking. I can do both. I can regulate my conduct. I’m good at it.
Voters are what it’s all about. I love them. I enjoy them all. Voters expect so much more than they have been offered. It’s imperative that political parties understand what voters are thinking and why. That’s my mission. I don’t have a polling company at my disposal. But I have my senses and my curiosity.
I also have my belief in the imperishable value of the dignity of working people. This keeps me going.
Cat
an example about what is not impossible.
The Greens and Labor working together in partnership. Just like in the ACT or NZ.
That’s not impossible because it’s the reality in the ACT and NZ.
When you look at that reality then you can work out that it’s how you present the case to voters that counts. Not declaring something is impossible because it’s difficult
When are the CFMMEU and Labor going to expel Setka? You can’t accept domestic violence from someone is that prominent a position. The guy is a disgrace. No one can complain about the phrase “union thug” while he is around.
Neat little trick you have, guytaur, of turning what someone has said to you back around at them and using it in your attempt to subdue them. However, it won’t work with me because there is nothing that can persuade me from the fact that you live your political life through your phone and computer screen and not out in the real world as others of us do. For that reason you can put up all the links you like but it won’t ever be able to change the lived experience of others. Or the election result, where it was strongest for the Coalition, or why.
Adrian….I’ve not posted here much at all for a few days. I post in bursts. I can’t sit on the screen all day. I hope my posts register with readers. This is what I intend. There is no point whatsoever in posting statements that never register. I’m not wallpaper.
I think I’ve changed the tenor of things here over the years. For one thing, the unutterably nauseating sanctimony of the Greens has been diluted. This is a very good thing.
I hope I’ve encouraged the bludgers to see the Greens and Labor differently. I think I have.
guytaur,
New Zealand and the ACT is all you’ve got, isn’t it?
Jacinda Ardern governs with a Right Wing Populist, Winstone Peters.
The ACT government governs a Left Wing electorate. Plus it governs an electorate that is only as big as various NSW Local Councils. Which can also be Greens-Labor. But that doesn’t really prove a thing when it comes to the federal government and what people vote for when they are deciding who will govern them federally.
A journalist with integrity, who was following the watergate saga.
Anthony Klan
@Anthony_Klan
Diogenes says:
Monday, June 10, 2019 at 11:10 am
When are the CFMMEU and Labor going to expel Setka? You can’t accept domestic violence from someone is that prominent a position. The guy is a disgrace. No one can complain about the phrase “union thug” while he is around.
It is not Labors job to stop the Government abusing the free press. We as a group voted the Liberals in. We are all responsible.
It is not Labors job to get rid of Setka, that job belongs to the members of the CFMMEU.
Cat
Wow the personal attack does nothing for your argument except to show you don’t like someone saying you are peddling myths.
That’s my view with your the Greens are to blame for Labor’s loss
My view is the Greens don’t run the Labor campaign
briefly
I try to read your posts with sympathy, because I know you care, but who are you trying to persuade by such endless repetition of sometimes obscure logic? I would like to see your posts more relevant to current events, and less general. Please reconsider your strategy.
“That reflects the green voters, not the Greens party.”
So why would you care what the Greens party say, when 80% come back to you.
IT IS BIZARRE.
“Both can happen without one of them being untrue.”
Indeed, but IF the result is that 80% of the Greens preferences come back to Labor, then it’s largely irrelevant to the outcome what the Greens do.
This continual, repetitive rubbish about how the Greens are trying to destroy Labor or somehow stop them winning is idiotic, and has no basis in what actually happens out in voter-land.
It’s tedious and stupid.
Astrobleme gone for the day!
I thought he was a troll, working his magic, but apparently I was wrong otherwise he would still be at it.
He must be a thinking Green and not liking all the evidence that shows the Green Party is enabling all the bad things to the environment.
You never know a day of reflection may see, that if he cares for the environment, giving Labor your second preference is not enough. You also have to destroy the Greens party. After all, the Greens party only purpose is to destroy Labor. Labor is the only party that can/will do things about protecting the environment.
Oh you are back. ‘rubbish about how the Greens are trying to destroy Labor or somehow stop them winning is idiotic, and has no basis in what actually happens out in voter-land.’
Open your eyes my friend.
The Greens are anti-Labor. They criticise and campaign against Labor. They take campaign funding from Labor.
They support the Liberals.
“You never know a day of reflection may see, that if he cares for the environment, giving Labor your second preference is not enough. You also have to destroy the Greens party. After all, the Greens party only purpose is to destroy Labor. Labor is the only party that can/will do things about protecting the environment.”
I can’t tell if this is sarcastic or serious…
“I thought he was a troll, working his magic, but apparently I was wrong otherwise he would still be at it.”
Well I was away for about 90 mins
And now for something completely different.
As we all know, Scott Morrison is taking a lot of his cues from Donald Trump and the American Republican Party and their backers. That is why, if you want to view the path ahead for the Morrison government as it attacks Free Speech, as implied in the role of organisations like GetUp! and the Unions, as well as journalists and media organisations not sympathetic to it, then you ought to read this thoughtful article about how these things are being suppressed legislatively in the USA:
https://www.politicususa.com/2019/06/08/gop-seeks-to-destroy-first-amendment-and-democracy-itself.html
lizzie @ #432 Monday, June 10th, 2019 – 11:31 am
But those Climate Change cranks, gotta suppress them and their silly kiddies’ School Strikes for Climate, eh? 🙄
KayJay @ #345 Monday, June 10th, 2019 – 8:11 am
Arsehole, Anus, abdominous, Amanda…. Take your pick.
This might be true in land area terms but in population the ACT is not far behind Tasmania which somehow needs two legislative chambers and a whole additional level of local government.
lizzie….
I want to change the political dynamics. Unless we do this we are really in grave trouble. The game has to change. We can see everywhere the germination of tyranny. The only defence in Australia against this has been Labor. And yet Labor is being weakened all the time. We are lost without Labor. Really. This is more relevant to me than anything else.
There is a belief that Labor can ride up at any time to take power and put everything into place again. This is mistaken. All of the other players contrive to keep Labor out of office. This would not matter if there were some other force that could defend the dignity of working people, that could advance all the values I mentioned in my earlier post above. But there is no other such force.
It is what it is. We have to make the best of it. If this is not relevant to you, well, you will find me tiresome and tedious. But it is relevant to me. I don’t have a lot of time. I have to spend it on things that matter to me….on the basic issue, which is the pursuit of equality and dignity.
“The Greens are anti-Labor. They criticise and campaign against Labor. They take campaign funding from Labor.
They support the Liberals.”
You are a bunch of morons.
Enjoy your paranoid idiocy.
‘Diogenes says:
Monday, June 10, 2019 at 11:10 am
When are the CFMMEU and Labor going to expel Setka? You can’t accept domestic violence from someone is that prominent a position. The guy is a disgrace. No one can complain about the phrase “union thug” while he is around.’
Head of nail meet hammer.
‘Astrobleme says:
Monday, June 10, 2019 at 11:39 am
“The Greens are anti-Labor. They criticise and campaign against Labor. They take campaign funding from Labor.
They support the Liberals.”
You are a bunch of morons.
Enjoy your paranoid idiocy.’
Once again a Greens supporter demonstrates why the Greens only have another three years to wait before forming government and fixing every single thing destroyed by the Labor Party while in opposition and fixing Labor’s mental health problems at the same time.
How good is that?
The Green-inclined might one day stop to ask how come it is that someone who believes in social justice and campaigns for it along with others REALLY does consider the Green Party to be among the enemy.
They write me off as an idiot. I’ve never called them idiots (well, I’ve made an exception for guytaur). I don’t write them off. I try to explain the effects of the G campaign. This is not a jest. The critics have shown no capacity to reflect….but, I will persist, even so.
briefly
You are part of the reason Labor lost. Why? You have this mindset that only Labor can represent progressive people. We know this is not true.
Labor is the only major party that is progressive. There is a difference and you should stop carrying on like we have a First Past The Post voting system.
The Greens are progressive they are not the LNP. They are certainly not a front for the LNP and repetition does not make it true.
briefly
I don’t think you understand me. I agree with much of what you say. But IMO the people you need to persuade are not posting on this blog.
Apart from Melbourne, are there any seats which Labor didn’t win, but would have, had everyone who gave their first preference to the Greens instead given it to whichever of the major parties they preferenced higher?
If not, it is hard to see how the presence of Greens candidates as alternatives to Labor cost Labor the election. Except perhaps by spooking Labor into being “too Green” themselves and so alienating swinging voters.
I think Labor should ignore provocations from the Greens (extreme policy thought bubbles, denunciations for insufficient left-wing purity) and focus on the contest with the Coalition. Let the Greens get their 9-11% PV on the far left flank. 8-9% will preference Labor anyway. The 2% who will leak preferences to the Coalition are clearly incoherent enough not to be reachable by rational campaigning in any event.
yabba @ #437 Monday, June 10th, 2019 – 11:35 am
Abdominous, you say. Dammit, you’ve prompted me to actually read some of the so delightfully mentioned Ms. A. Vanstone’s prose.
Time out to recover – although I suspect that the ordinary unsuspecting vaguely disconnected putative 👽 voter 👽 may think her essay is the way, the truth and the light – in which case – man the barricades.
Au revoir.
Can we please have an end to the Green v Labor wars on this blog. This community has seen your messages many many times (including yours, BoerWar).
All you are achieving is driving away anyone that might want to discuss other topics and making the blog unreadable.
I note that I am not the first today to ask for a halt to the incessant meaningless sniping.
This is madness. If you are raped and end up pregnant in Alabama, not only are you forced to birth the baby, but your rapist can claim parental rights to the child!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/in-alabama–where-lawmakers-banned-abortion-for-rape-victims–rapists-parental-rights-are-protected/2019/06/09/6d2aa5de-831b-11e9-933d-7501070ee669_story.html?utm_term=.94a26360226b
Michael A
Sensible post.
The same should apply to speaking about issues and labelling people one way or another.
As we have seen before issues can cross party lines in unexpected ways.
One of the issues about Labor losing is asking why and what can be done better. I say Labor because they are the only real alternative to the LNP.
I posted the Dennis article because he gave a viewpoint that was not blame the Greens.
I thought that was worthy of consideration as a viewpoint to counter a majority narrative that is getting entrenched.
In my view wrongly. It’s not just here either. The right wing media is keen for the Greens to get the blame despite the election vote being good for the Greens.