Call of the board: Sydney

Ahead of Newspoll’s apparently looming return, the first in a series that probes deep into the entrails of the May 19 election result.

In case you were wondering, The Australian reported on Monday that the first Newspoll since the election – indeed, the first poll on voting intention of any kind since the election, unless someone else quickly gets in first – will be published “very shortly”.

In the meantime, I offer what will be the first in a series of posts that probe deep into the results of the federal election region by region, starting with Sydney and some of its immediate surrounds. Below are two colour-coded maps showing the two-party preferred swing at polling booth level, with each booth allocated a geographic catchment area built out of the “mesh blocks” that form the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ smallest unit of geographic analysis (typically encompassing about 30 dwellings). The image on the right encompasses the core of the city, while the second zooms further out. To get a proper look at either, click for an enlarged image.

In a pattern that will recur throughout this series, there is a clear zone of red in the inner city and the affluent, established eastern suburbs and northern beaches regions, giving way to an ocean of blue in the middle and outer suburbs. The occasional patches of red that break this up are often associated with sophomore surge effects, which played out to the advantage of Mike Freelander, who had no trouble retaining Macarthur (more on that below); Susan Templeman, who held out against a 2.0% swing in Macquarie; and Emma McBride, who survived a 3.3% swing in Dobell (albeit there was little to distinguish this from a 3.1% swing in neighbouring, Liberal-held Robertson).

The second part of our analysis compares the actual two-party results from the election with the results predicted by a linear regression model similar to, but more elaborate than, that presented here shortly after the election. This is based on the correlations observed across the nation between booth-level two-party results and the demography of booths’ catchment areas. The gory details of the model can be found here (the dependent variable being Labor’s two-party preferred percentage). The r-squared values indicate that the model explains 76.5% of the variation in the results – and doesn’t explain another 23.5%. Among the myriad unexplained factors that constitute the latter figure, the personal appeal (or lack thereof) of the sitting member (if any) might be expected to have a considerable bearing.

Such a model can be used to produce estimates that hopefully give some idea as to where the two parties were punching above and below their weight, and where the results were as we might have expected in view of broader trends. The latter more-or-less encompasses Lindsay, which was the only seat in the Sydney region to change hands between Labor and the Coalition (the only other change being Zali Steggall’s win over Tony Abbott in Warringah). The table below shows, progressively, the model’s estimate of Labor’s two-party vote, the actual result, and the difference between the two.

The first thing that leaps out is that the current leaders of both parties did exceptionally well, with their margins evidently being padded out by their substantial personal votes. Beyond that though, patterns get a little harder to discern. The Liberal-versus-independent contests in Warringah and Wentworth appear to have had very different effects on the Coalition’s two-party margins over Labor, which reduced to a remarkably narrow 2.1% as voters turned on Tony Abbott in Warringah, but remained solid at 9.8% in Wentworth, suggesting Dave Sharma may have accumulated a few fans through two recent campaigns and a dignified showing in the wake of the by-election defeat. That there was nonetheless a 7.9% two-party swing to Labor illustrates that he still has a way to go before he matches Malcolm Turnbull on this score.

The modelled result further emphasises the particularly good result Labor had in Macarthur, a seat the Liberals held from 1996 until 2016, when Russell Matheson suffered first an 8.3% reduction in his margin at a redistribution, and then an 11.7% swing to Labor’s Michael Freelander, a local paediatrician. At the May 19 election, the seat defied the national pattern in which outer urban seats that responded had unfavourably to Malcolm Turnbull swept back to the Liberals, with Freelander in fact managing the tiniest of swings in his favour. In addition to Freelander’s apparent popularity, this probably reflected a lack of effort put into the Liberal campaign, as the party narrowly focused on its offensive moves in Lindsay and Macquarie and defensive ones in Gilmore and Reid.

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.

1,549 comments on “Call of the board: Sydney”

Comments Page 19 of 31
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  1. More brilliance:

    If indecent exposure suddenly spiked all over the UK, one wonders if the producers of Question Time would include at least one frantically masturbating man on the panel each week, to better represent this kooky new craze for frenzied onanism sweeping the UK. They would probably consider it, so long as they made sure they had at least one other person on the panel who would make sure not to masturbate, and in the strongest possible terms.

    I am now going to subscribe to Seamas O’Reilly’s columns. Something I don’t do very often at all, so as not to clog up my inbox or my mind. However, he seems to be worth it.

  4. Michael Koziol @michaelkoziol
    ·22m
    Tony Abbott when asked by Alan Jones this morning about the prospect of wind turbines in his former seat of Warringah: “The last thing we want is what I regard as the dark satanic mills of the modern era spoiling our landscape.” #auspol

    Coal mines, cement works and rubbish piles don’t count?

  5. Our Government’s arrogance.

    I think she makes a very valid point.

    Peter Dutton dismisses Jacinda Ardern demands for Australia to stop deporting New Zealanders

    …
    “There are a number of areas where it will be completely legitimate for a New Zealand citizen to be deported back to New Zealand if they engage in criminal activity,” she said on Thursday.

    “But we have seen cases where there is also almost no connection of an individual to New Zealand who had been deported.

    “I consider that to be a corrosive part of that policy, and it’s having a corrosive effect on our relationship.”
    …

    https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-19/dutton-dismisses-ardern-demands-to-stop-deporting-new-zealanders/11324382

  7. lizzie says:
    Friday, July 19, 2019 at 11:51 am

    Michael Koziol @michaelkoziol
    ·22m
    Tony Abbott when asked by Alan Jones this morning about the prospect of wind turbines in his former seat of Warringah: “The last thing we want is what I regard as the dark satanic mills of the modern era spoiling our landscape.” #auspol

    Coal mines, cement works and rubbish piles don’t count?

    I suppose it does go against doG’s Will that we should do everything we can to pollute and destroy its creation. 😆

  9. sustainable future @ #875 Friday, July 19th, 2019 – 11:06 am

    Does anyone else here see irony in Shorten, from the right, having a progressive agenda and Albo, allegedly from the left deciding to be mini-me to scomo?

    He’s a fucking disgrace so far.

    He should ask Beasley how well being a spineless windbag against a wiley and populist leader works.

    Does this now mean the Vic right is to the left of the NSW left? It would not surprise me given the rise of the knuckle-draggers in NSW.

    Had an interesting exchange with CFMEU guy (voter) at prepoll HTV before the Federal Election. I think he had just come from the Labor Day march here in Brisbane and fitted the CFMEU stereotype – tall, wide, bearded and wearing a hiviz jacket.

    His opinion was that Shorten was in fact a leftie and Albanese was a right winger. Although that opinion might owe something to internal ALP dynamics, it’s starting to look more and more credible.

  10. I suspect if KK went to PNG to try and inspect conditions in the detention centres there (as if), and then deported, this would be labelled an effing disgrace by the same individuals who are dissing McKim.

  11. Barney

    Of course it’s a valid point. There is an age below which (?) a child cannot be held accountable for criminal activity. Dutton is pretending that NZ is responsible for a person reared and educated in Australia. He is a cruel, vindictive bastard – alleged. 😉

  12. Boerwar says:
    Friday, July 19, 2019 at 11:56 am

    BiM
    The solution is for the criminals to stop behaving like criminals.

    When you think about committing a crime …

    Just say NO!

    Yeah, nah!

    I can’t see that working.

  13. SF

    The irony has not been lost on me.

    Albanese has always been big on leftist rhetoric but his participation for around 20 years in the neoliberal Labor agenda bears witness to how inauthentic he really is.

  15. it’s the aluminium sheets with a polythene filler sandwiched between them. It’s the filler that’s flammable: up to 8 times more so than some woods.

    The aluminum too will burn quite vigorously in the presence of a strong oxidizer. Though works a lot better if you powder the aluminum first.

  19. a r @ #915 Friday, July 19th, 2019 – 12:01 pm

    it’s the aluminium sheets with a polythene filler sandwiched between them. It’s the filler that’s flammable: up to 8 times more so than some woods.

    The aluminum too will burn quite vigorously in the presence of a strong oxidizer. Though works a lot better if you powder the aluminum first.

    Oxygen being a pretty damn fine oxidiser. 🙂

  20. ajm @ #908 Friday, July 19th, 2019 – 11:57 am

    sustainable future @ #875 Friday, July 19th, 2019 – 11:06 am

    Does anyone else here see irony in Shorten, from the right, having a progressive agenda and Albo, allegedly from the left deciding to be mini-me to scomo?

    He’s a fucking disgrace so far.

    He should ask Beasley how well being a spineless windbag against a wiley and populist leader works.

    Does this now mean the Vic right is to the left of the NSW left? It would not surprise me given the rise of the knuckle-draggers in NSW.

    Had an interesting exchange with CFMEU guy (voter) at prepoll HTV before the Federal Election. I think he had just come from the Labor Day march here in Brisbane and fitted the CFMEU stereotype – tall, wide, bearded and wearing a hiviz jacket.

    His opinion was that Shorten was in fact a leftie and Albanese was a right winger. Although that opinion might owe something to internal ALP dynamics, it’s starting to look more and more credible.

    Or could it be the case that a right winger in the Victorian party is to the left of a left winger in the NSW party?

  21. John Passant on Albanese and the ALP:

    November 2015:
    Anthony Albanese Is Not Too Left Wing To Win Government. Indeed, He’s About Right
    https://newmatilda.com/2015/11/02/anthony-albanese-is-not-too-left-wing-to-wing-government-because-hes-not-left-wing/

    Left and right in the ALP are now more about tribal divisions than principle. Albanese himself has been a key player both as a Minister and leading member of the party in its degeneration to the anaemic, scared of its own shadow party the ALP now is, bereft of any working class politics.

    Indeed, at times the Party has been better able to deliver shifts in wealth from labour to capital than the conservatives could ever imagine.

    Labor would not be unelectable under Albanese, especially if he adopted a left cover. However if elected to government Albanese’s real neoliberal agenda would become clear to people and they would reject it and him too, just as they rejected the neoliberalism of Tony Abbott and may well do of Malcolm Turnbull, given time and the lived experience of the deleterious impact of his anti-working class policies.
    :::
    Because Albanese is no Jeremy Corbyn

    June 2017: Albanese as Corbyn?
    https://enpassant.com.au/2017/06/14/albanese-as-corbyn/

    May 2019:
    Could Jeremy Corbyn lead the Australian Labor Party?
    https://enpassant.com.au/2019/05/20/could-jeremy-corbyn-lead-the-australian-labor-party/

    Five leading Labor politicians are circling for their chance to lead the party. None of them are Corbyn’s bootlaces. Instead of a new beginning, whoever leads Labor it will be more of the same conservatism, with a slight whiff perhaps of vaguely left-wing policy. Having said that, the election result has probably killed any notion in the eyes of the leadership contenders of a policy program that makes Labor a target in any way.
    :::
    I cannot contain my enthusiasm. Another Labor hack to lead Labor nowhere.

  22. Pegasus says:
    Friday, July 19, 2019 at 11:58 am

    I suspect if KK went to PNG to try and inspect conditions in the detention centres there (as if), and then deported, this would be labelled an effing disgrace by the same individuals who are dissing McKim.

    McKim went knowing this would be the most likely outcome.

    If he was serious about visiting, he would have coordinated the visit through the PNG authorities and only left once everything had been worked out.

    If they didn’t approve the visit he could make the same point he is trying to now, except there would be no doubt that it was PNG stopping the visit and not their understandable reaction in denying the wishes of an arrogant foreigner, who thinks he can do what he wants in another Country.

  23. Gangland identity Roberta Williams is under investigation over an extortion and kidnap plot following allegations she imprisoned and assaulted the producer of her proposed reality television program.
    …
    “There were six people there including Roberta. I was told, ‘Talk and we will kill you, your mother and the kids’.

    “They slapped me in the mouth, stomach, chest, she slapped me and choked me. They put electric flex around my neck. One guy pulled a pistol from his pants and put it to my head. He hit me on the thigh to make me sit down and then tied me up.

    “They told me I owed them 20 grand. They said I’d got them the foot in the door and they didn’t need me anymore. They said they had no use for me and I had to sign over my rights.

    https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/talk-and-we-ll-kill-you-roberta-williams-allegedly-kidnapped-tv-producer-20190719-p528s6.html

  25. lizzie @ #917 Friday, July 19th, 2019 – 10:02 am

    Dan G

    Please explain Tweetdeck to an innocent?

    It’s an add on to chrome or firefox that allows you to view the tweetstream of one, or several different accounts (if you have more than one), as well as send tweets, replies, likes, follow hashtags and more.

    It’s fairly simple once you’ve got it loaded. I’m not the best at explaining things though so the best bet is to read the help page. I’m also sure there are videos on YouTube that show you how to get it set up and running as well.

    https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/how-to-use-tweetdeck

  26. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/31/behrouz-boochani-asylum-seeker-manus-island-detained-wins-victorian-literary-prize-australias-richest

    “The winner of Australia’s richest literary prize did not attend the ceremony.

    His absence was not by choice.

    Behrouz Boochani, whose debut book won both the $25,000 non-fiction prize at the Victorian premier’s literary awards and the $100,000 Victorian prize for literature on Thursday night, is not allowed into Australia.

    The Kurdish Iranian writer is an asylum seeker who has been kept in purgatory on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea for almost six years, first behind the wire of the Australian offshore detention centre, and then in alternative accommodation on the island.”

  27. lizzie says:
    Friday, July 19, 2019 at 12:01 pm

    Boerwar

    But what if they’ve done their ‘time’ and reformed?

    That’s not the point being made.

    The issue NZ has is that these people have no connection to NZ apart from being a citizen.

    They’re in Australia because their family moved here and they have spent virtually there whole life here.

    What they are, is what we made them and we should wear that, not dump them on someone else.

  28. Bert
    Albo has been fine, its only been two months since the election and the ALP are going through a policy review process. Albo needs to peak on election eve, not two weeks into a new term and more importantly he hasn’t made any mistakes. So far Albo and Chalmers have sounded better than Shorten and Bowen.

  29. Rick Wilson’s latest, unfortunately paywalled.

    “Send her back” is the new “lock her up.”

    Hannah’s Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism has been on my mind recently, for obvious reasons, but Donald Trump’s shout-fest in Greenville, North Carolina, Wednesday night brought one passage back into sharp focus. Considering the intent of the Nazi regime as it consolidated power, Arendt wrote, “To know the ultimate aims of Hitler’s rule in Germany, it was much wiser to rely on his propaganda speeches and Mein Kampf than on the oratory of the Chancellor of the Third Reich.”

    Spotting the real Trump isn’t tricky. It’s a matter of listening to the words he cares about, and not the scaffolding of speechwriting and consequent spin in which they’re contained. Soviet defector Victor Kravchenko wrote in his 1946 memoir, I Choose Freedom, “Behind the ostensible government was a real government,” and the real government of Donald Trump isn’t in the “he’s not a politician” excuses from allies or the bleatings of his cable surrogates—an idiot cadre of trout-pout blonde nonentities and pomaded men in shiny suits with tie knots the size of cantaloupes.

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-readies-his-mob-for-the-race-war?ref=wrap

  30. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/31/behrouz-boochani-asylum-seeker-manus-island-detained-wins-victorian-literary-prize-australias-richest

    The date on this article being spammed at us by the Greens’ stenographer-in-chief is January 2019

    Why we needed to see it again, beyond an attempt at pity porn, is beyond me.

    I have sympathy for the guy but I feel he is being used by The Greens in a not very nice way. Today, as a sideshow alley attraction for the Nick McKim circus.

  31. Dan G

    Thanks 🙂
    I’m also thinking there might be a bug in the new format of Twitter but maybe no one else is complaining.

  33. Maybe the ‘animal spirits’ Morrison wants to unleash, have already been on the job building dodgy apartment blocks.

    Now if only we had some federal body, like the Australian Building and Construction Commission to investigate these rorts, and come down hard on the dodgy builders.

  34. lizzie @ #895 Friday, July 19th, 2019 – 11:35 am

    KayJay

    A little puzzle for you today… Since the ‘improvements’ on Twitter (which make it faster – it was deadly slow before) it frequently needs reloading, and I mean several. Is it just me? I use Chrome.

    My desktop machine is updating presently. I’ll have a look in a little while. Toodles.😇

  38. Confessions says:
    Friday, July 19, 2019 at 12:43 pm

    Decisions, decisions…

    I’d question the decisions he’s already made.

    Long, tight shorts … 🙂

  39. Things are grim in Sydney – GladysB gone missing

    Standard operating procedure for Coalition political leaders complicit in disaster. Go dark. Wait for the 24/7 news cycle to move on to the next disaster. Pop back up, all smiles, with a ‘solution’. Which is usually no solution at all but just another gussied up job for a mate that makes it look like you are doing something.

  41. Fess

    Trump doing his latest racist spiel was most definitely a set up, with a rent a crowd in tow.
    He succeeded in diverting the discussion and focus away from the latest on Cohen and the continuing time bomb of Epstein. When that explodes, the shit is going to hit far and wide.

  42. Barney:

    … or buildings made from wood …

    Actually I think buildings made from hi-tech engineered wood have rather good fire performance. Wood burns slowly and predictably; whereas “cladding” is basically made from petrol.

  47. Enough said.

    Abbott calls wind turbines ‘the dark Satanic Mills’ of the modern era

    “The last thing we want is what I regard as the dark Satanic Mills of the modern era spoiling our landscape,” the former PM said.

    23 minutes ago by Michael Koziol

    (SMH headline)

  48. https://junkee.com/nick-mckim-manus-island-2/214477

    McKim’s account of the situation is backed up by a tweet posted this morning by Behrouz Boochani, a journalist and refugee currently imprisoned on Manus Island.
    :::
    “Immigration officer is very angry at him because of his reporting from Manus island [sic],” Boochani wrote. “It is not the first time that people have been stopped from visiting Manus or deported. Two weeks ago my translator Omid Tofighian was deported from Port Moresby. Before the election an Australian comedian Dan was deported too and many over past six years.”
    :::
    McKim has yet to receive the promised deportation notice, and said that the reason for threatening deportation was not clear to him. “I was granted a 12 month multiple entry visa by the PNG government and am here legally,” McKim wrote on Twitter.

    “Every Kina spent here on refugees has been authorised by the Australian parliament, and there should be accountability on how it is spent. That accountablilty [sic] and truth telling is my job.”

    “I have always treated police, immigration and all PNG people with respect, and obeyed their laws. Offshore detention is not of their making, and has been very difficult for many of them.”

    McKim has now been deported.

  49. Nick McKim spoke with SBS News as he was being ‘forced to leave’ Manus Island.

    https://www.sbs.com.au/news/a-culture-of-secrecy-png-deports-australian-senator-after-manus-island-visit

    “They [still] haven’t given me a reason and frankly I think that’s because I’ve done nothing wrong here,” he said.
    :::
    He said barring an Australian senator from visiting the facilities in this manner was “an extension of the culture of secrecy that exists around Australia’s shameful offshore detention regime”.

    The senator was visiting Manus Island to mark six years since the Rudd government announced all asylum seekers who arrived by boat would be sent to the PNG site.

    “The fact that this happened on the 19th of July, which is exactly six years now since the Labor party announced they were reopening offshore detention, is quite significant. But this story is not about me, it’s about the thousands of people who have had six years their lives stolen,” he said.

    He said his visit was “polite and respectful” but most importantly legal, having been granted a 12-month multiple entry visa.
    :::
    “[The men on Manus Island] are like the corpses that were impaled on the walls of medieval cities thousands of years ago to try and dissuade other desperate people from trying to enter,” he said.

    “It is a dark chapter in our country’s story and it is time we drew it to a close.”

  50. ‘Barney in Makassar says:
    Friday, July 19, 2019 at 12:25 pm

    lizzie says:
    Friday, July 19, 2019 at 12:01 pm

    Boerwar

    But what if they’ve done their ‘time’ and reformed?

    That’s not the point being made.’

    The issue NZ has is that these people have no connection to NZ apart from being a citizen.’

    There is an easy solution: the S44 equivalent.

    If you are a New Zealander wishing to break Australian laws repeatedly, damage or destroy Australian property, injure or kill Australian people, use up valuable Australian justice system resources and finally get yourself jailed at the cost of the Australian taxpayer, you must first renounce your New Zealand citizenship.

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