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.
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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.
Mundo – Yeah great, not one person on the program prepared to finger Abbott, the Liberal party, the coalition. Not one prepared to say the coalition have completely fucked us.
It’s like the Gillard government never happened.
Unfucking befuckinglievable.
You’re right, but it really doesn’t take much to join the dots, all the evidence was there.
C’mon, C@t – you can top 46 if you put your mind to it 🙂
‘zoomster says:
Friday, July 19, 2019 at 6:55 pm
Boer wasn’t touting Faruqi as a game changing leader who would boost the Greens membership overnight.
I was asking the posters who were saying that why they thought she was.
I got crickets.’
Faruqi appears to be intelligent and a competent manager. This is what makes her stand out from the Greens ruck.
They are all good at the old instagram but the majority are yet to get off the pot.
KJ
Would that be based on an unfinished Austen novel?
sprocket_ @ #1102 Friday, July 19th, 2019 – 7:05 pm
I’m happy watching the British Open Golf, thank you. Way more interesting than being involved in Days of Our Greens Lives. 😆
phoenixRed:
Contrary to another’s view earlier in the thread, I appreciate your assiduousness in exposing Trump for what he’s worth. Do keep up your good work.
Without the environment, you have no economy. You have something like this: https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/dust-bowl
This issue doesn’t have to be partisan. In fact, in the recent NSW election, the SPP won 3 rural seats and the Greens one. That election demonstrates that habitual National voters will change their vote over climate change – provided that the candidate avoided “who cares about your jobs, the planet is DYING!!!” rhetoric and talked about how ecological sustainability keeps farms, industries and local communities alive.
Without the environment, you have no economy. You have something like this: https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/dust-bowl
This issue doesn’t have to be partisan. In fact, in the recent NSW election, the SPP won 3 rural seats and the Greens one, all on overt pro-environment platforms. That election demonstrated that habitual National voters will change their vote over climate change – provided that the candidate avoids “who cares about your jobs, the planet is DYING!!!” rhetoric and talks instead about how ecological sustainability keeps farms, industries and local communities alive.
Mavis Davis @ #1106 Friday, July 19th, 2019 – 7:15 pm
+1
Beats reading about people’s trips to Bunnings. 😐
Worst drought ever?
Seems unlikely based on the research.
How would we go with a 1500 yr dry?
Which might be responsible the dis-junction in Aboriginal art and culture in the Kimberley, ~4-5000 yrs ago, including the well known Wandjina.
Or just a dry few decades or centuries as appears to have been the case pre-European arrival over the last couple of millenia.
Any assumption that dry periods can’t last decades or even centuries in Australia appears wrong.
Evidence of ENSO mega-drought triggered collapse of prehistory Aboriginal society in northwest Australia
https://ro.uow.edu.au/scipapers/4722/
If it matters at all who is in power as to whether it rains or not, it doesn’t. Apparently 2011 was likely the wettest year in the last 500 or so years, with the (in)famous Gillard, Greens and Indy government that introduced the only effective reduction in carbon emissions in power in Australia.
Seems any historical correlation between natural climate cycles and dry/wet in Australia has been broken since the mid-seventies too.
500 years of drought and flood: trees and corals reveal Australia’s climate history
https://theconversation.com/500-years-of-drought-and-flood-trees-and-corals-reveal-australias-climate-history-51573
The Coal-ition of the willingly ignorant in, Lib, Nats, Lab and PHON want us to celebrate coal, or at least shut up about the possible outcomes of current business as usual.
The already more denuded landscape and fragmented forest lands has even less chance of surviving than it once did
CN
The Right has failed the environment totally.
Payback time has arrived. Just ask the 20 or so inland NSW towns that are running out of water. Period. Water being trucked in in milk tankers. Lunatic stuff.
The Right’s current obssession is subsidizing farmers with tens of billions, is insane economic policy on top of insane environmental policy. The latest in the climate change ATM withdrawals is another $4.9 billion chit.
Meanwhile, Ley, Environment Minister opines that farmers are not getting enough of the MDB water and that she is not sure about any connection between land clearing and extinction.
Absolutely stupid stuff and all the Right’s own doing.
They own it and they are trying to buy their way out of it.
I look forward to their solution for the dead Great Barrier Reef.
Boerwar @ #827 Friday, July 19th, 2019 – 7:07 pm
Indeed so. Published posthumously.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/may/26/love-friendship-review-whit-stillmans-austen-drama-is-a-racy-delight
I chanced on the movie while checking tonight’s TV fare and was completely taken by Lady Susan bullshitting her way out of one arrangement into another.
And now it’s goodnight from him.
Anyone for cricket, NRL or miscellaneous shootemups ❓ 💤💤
‘Quoll says:
Friday, July 19, 2019 at 7:24 pm
Worst drought ever?
Seems unlikely based on the research. ‘
Quite right. The necessary qualifier is ‘…in the 120 year record’.
‘Citation Needed says:
Friday, July 19, 2019 at 7:16 pm
Without the environment, you have no economy. ‘
The entire Coalition economic and environmental policy is based on ignoring this totally.
KJ
Thank you. The inner Austen outed at last?
Bonne nuit!
@ Boerwar: I wonder whether winning the election might prove to be something of a poisoned chalice for Morrison’s motley crew. The next 3 years will surely present serious economic, ecological and social challenges for which the Coalition appear almost wilfully unprepared.
The Coalition’s chaos could present opportunities for the ALP. What sort of policies would you like Albanese to propose?
@Citation Needed
Introducing a Swiss style health care system, where everybody has private health insurance and those on lower incomes get subsided for private health insurance. Along with reducing annual immigration numbers considerably, with huge cuts to the level of 457 visa which are used as a cheap source of labor by employers.
Oh, a bientôt then. While I’m busy replying to a pertinent comment, the thread moves on regardless. I must get used to this :p
Lady Susan was finished but written when Austin was very young and not intended for publication. It was eventually published many decades after she had died. Sanditon was unfinished as she was working on it when she became ill.
“And the winner of the Obsessive Compulsive posting award since midday today is…Boerwar with 46 posts!
Followed doughtily by blog spammer-in-chief for The Greens, Pegasus, with 29 posts.
I will say no more.”
That’s the thing with statistics.
Today Cat has made 30 posts up to this comment of hers. No doubt she will be adding to her tally.
If she had included a count of B’s posts before noon, his tally would be a lot higher.
Cat and Boerwar – blog spammers-in-chief for Labor
Kate
Ta.
phoenixRed – I also enjoy (if that’s the right word) your posts on Trump
Is that Georgina Bloody Downer on nodding duties in today’s SA liberal tv announcements?
‘Citation Needed says:
Friday, July 19, 2019 at 7:37 pm
@ Boerwar: I wonder whether winning the election might prove to be something of a poisoned chalice for Morrison’s motley crew. ‘
You are kidding are you not? With power you get what you want the way you want it. It is why the Right will do anything to gain power and to hold it.
Have a look at Trump: quite willing to turn the US into a festering racist hate fest.
Have a look at Johnson: switched from being remainer to leaver. He turned on a dime.
I like William’s idea of a daily limit – the constant sparring matches may then subside a little.
Kate @ #1125 Friday, July 19th, 2019 – 5:51 pm
Yes, I’ve agreed with this concept since the day it was mooted. It can’t come soon enough in my view.
Conspiracy, cock up or both?
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jul/19/afp-adds-more-confusion-about-whether-ministers-consulted-over-raids
A good start would be eliminating the posts which clog the blog with whinges about how the blog is clogged.
Citation Needed:
[‘Oh, a bientôt then.’]
Your pretentiousness has me at a loss.
Bill Maher is on holidays, but Stephen Colbert is still around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mai5kYiRhzU
I believe Anthony Albanese should commit to introducing a national ‘right to build’ laws, along with ensuring financing for infrastructure in new suburbs. That would ensure that there is plenty of affordable housing that people want to buy. Because many people want to inspire a detached home on a quarter acre block. That would certainly appeal to ‘aspirational’ voters. Also Labor should advocate a single minimum wage rate regardless if the work is during the weekends or not.
Boerwar @ #1128 Friday, July 19th, 2019 – 5:56 pm
That would take out 2 posts if today is representative of the norm. Compare and contrast with the number of tit for tat sniping or trolling, inflammatory comments.
KayJay
Accidentally caught the last 10 minutes of Love and Friendship. Now searching for a source to see t all.
The youngish naive man who was talking to the blonde lady in blue dress near the end was so funny. And she remained so straight faced. …….
“It’s so great! I’m going to be a father. My wife told me the day after our wedding……..”
His explanation of how men and women are different (in explaining how normal it is for hubbies to stray and how the idea of wives straying is so ridiculous, even funny) was so naive too, but certainly par for the course for another 100 years from then.
Cheers
Bellwether @ #1101 Friday, July 19th, 2019 – 7:04 pm
and who joins the dots for the average punter?
If it isn’t made clear the tories live to fight another day.
Like I said, it’s as if the Gillard government never happened in relation to climate policy.
Now if only we could get these nice people from the Liberal party to fix the problem.
Lord knows no one else will…sheesh.
Pegasus @ #1068 Friday, July 19th, 2019 – 6:19 pm
How anyone could see the continued detention as anything but a dead weight on the ALP is totally beyond me.
ajm:
The Coalition govt own the mess that is the asylum seeker program. They’ve made it their raison detre for years now, and wholly and solely own the stuff up that it’s become.
Boerwar
Why don’t you start a party. You could call it the Blues.
You have already produced a comprehensive manifesto of approximately 1,000 items. Just make a new list of each of your criticisms of the Greens, with the direction reversed ie claim as Blues’ policy the opposite of each criticism.
It’s gotta be a winner.
Reversing all your criticisms, you would be PM in 2091 (27 years reversed = 72 years)if you get moving now.
Ajm “How anyone could see the continued detention as anything but a dead weight on the ALP is totally beyond me.”
I am not entirely sure what you mean by that. It was the Coalition who have had carriage of the issue for 6 years. They own it.
It was the Coalition and their media allies who cultivated moral panic over the issue, who demonised asylum seekers, who dogwhistled to racists, who rejected the Malaysia solution because they were afraid it might work.
The movies being shown lately on SBS suit me just fine. Boychoir showing presently. I get video from Walk the Plank and add subtitles.
Goodnighy again. 😇
Confessions @ #1135 Friday, July 19th, 2019 – 8:10 pm
Doesn’t alter the fact that the prisoners need to be freed somehow, and urgently – to me that is the absolute and I don’t really care any more who benefits or suffers politically in the process. The electorate by voting the coalition back in has decided that they don’t want to oblige the government to solve the issue, so it will have to be solved some other way.
I have been greatly disturbed ever since “children overboard” at the willingness of the coalition to use powerless people for political advantage at every turn, both domestically and in relation to refugees. It actually causes me great distress. I don’t remember it ever being this bad prior to Howard and my memory goes back to Menzies time.
Pegasus @ #1120 Friday, July 19th, 2019 – 7:44 pm
You’re not very creative, are you, Pegasus? Using my own criticism of you back at me.
*yawn*
So I post a lot in the morning when I have constructive conversations with people and then here and there throughout the day when I have time. That’s a world away from starting off with a carefully curated agenda consisting of dredging up virtue signalling articles from as far back as 2015 or 2018, then spending the rest of the day arguing with others about an issue that is essentially a 4th order subject being ginned up by a 2nd rate Greens Senator.
Steve777 @ #1137 Friday, July 19th, 2019 – 8:17 pm
And by playing on the primal fears of the electorate they have dragged the ALP into at least not opposing their policy. I am sure that internal forces in the ALP (I am a member btw) would have resulted in a much more benign policy if it wasn’t for the constant fear of being smashed by a coalition fear campaign.
Without anyone in detention, the whole issue would deflate like a pricked balloon.
ajm:
Yes there are people suffering as a result of the coalition intransigence on finding a workable solution to permanent offshore detention.
They need to work with Labor to bring an end to this mess – a bipartisan solution is the only way forward. But if only they hadn’t jettisoned the Malaysia Solution they might have a way of cloaking their cojones and their pride and reaching out across the aisle.
Not keen on the idea of a daily limit. Sometimes people here might get a bit boring and repetitive – just like real life. No one had to read them. Like the occasional stuff on AFL, if I’m not interested I skim through. I don’t like attacks on other posters.
The rate of posting seems here to be way down since the election, although I don’t know what it was before. This thread is running at about 23 per hour if you ignore Midnight to 6:00 AM.
“They need to work with Labor to bring an end to this mess – a bipartisan solution is the only way forward.”
The Coalition doesn’t do bipartisan.
EDIT: but you’re right – it needs a bipartisan solution.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ng-interactive/2018/jun/20/deaths-in-offshore-detention-the-faces-of-the-people-who-have-died-in-australias-care
“Twelve refugees and asylum seekers have died while in Australian immigration detention on Manus Island and Nauru. On World Refugee Day, Guardian Australia acknowledges those who have died and begins a project to record lives lost in offshore detention”
Article is a year out of date with more deaths in onshore detention centres…..
Children, women and men tortured in our names…..
Relegated by Cat to a 4th order issue.
“The Coalition doesn’t do bipartisan.
EDIT: but you’re right – it needs a bipartisan solution.”
Well agreed.
Sadly, i can see this coming up next time the Coalition do a budget, and i suspect we will be in for a recycling of their 2014 effort. 🙁
Steve 777:
[‘I don’t like attacks on other posters.’]
I don’t know about that. Have I ever told you…no, I didn’t think I did?
My feeling is that some on here prefer the odd biffo from time to time; sure beats the mundane, evidenced by former contributors such as Frank Calabrese, the Finnigans. I mean, I was sometimes up until the wee hours. Now, however, most turn in (or out) before 2200. I blame WB.
Joyce’s Paulian conversion following Gleeson’s ‘landmark speech.’:
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/how-and-why-barnaby-joyce-changed-his-mind-on-an-indigenous-voice-20190719-p528uy.html
Children, women and men tortured in our names…..
Pegasus proving once again that The Greens milk this issue for all it’s worth.
Attempting also to imply that, if you don’t shed tears along with her, every darn time she brings it up here-which has been more frequently than just about anywhere else on earth-that you don’t care. Long bow on a tiny violin but she plays it for all she’s worth.
Of course we all realise how erroneous that assumption is, as I know for a fact that I care very much about the privations the people are experiencing on Manus and Nauru. However, I’m also sentient enough to realise that bellyaching about it constantly on a blog, plus highlighting inane Greens Senator’s stunts on this blog, achieves for these people. Less. Than. Zero.
So spare me the trite condemnation, Pegasus, because, as I observed earlier, you wouldn’t be highlighting ‘Human Rights Dinners’ attended by the well-fed concerned cadre of the Left, you would be going on a hunger strike until something was done about the people on Manus and Nauru you profess to care so much about. As nothing less will get the attention of the government, the media, or the people.
Until such time, I have every right to ignore your virtue signalling and that of the overpaid, over-fed, over-indulged Greens Senators and their facebookable, Instagrammable, stunts.