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.
The evolution of the Indigenous Nation continues:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-17/refugees-on-manus-island-to-recieve-aboriginal-passports/11310214
Twomey’s advice:
I’d rather the blog was spammed with The Greens’ position on Homelessness in Australia. There are people, already here,dying on the streets this winter. But we don’t seem to be getting blaring outraged Tweets from Adam Bandt about that. I imagine he just walks by them on the streets of Melbourne like everyone else.
Pegasus says:
Wednesday, July 17, 2019 at 10:05 am
Twomey’s advice:
Constitutional change in Australia is always an uphill battle, but that is no reason to shirk it. Instead, it should be a spur to produce better proposals for constitutional change, develop strong and clear arguments for reform, cultivate widespread public support and undertake vigorous, but honest, campaigns.
The political culture rewards intransigent Opposition. The result is stagnation. We will all gradually fall into paralysis in Green Valley.
No doubt the concerns of many Australians regarding our treatment of asylum seekers have been prompted by this report:
https://www.smh.com.au/national/living-in-the-shadows-asylum-seekers-wait-years-for-protection-claims-20190716-p527pd.html
Once again the ALP has vacated the field.
Had the Greens voted with Labor and not against Labor in relation to the Malaysia Solution, a great many of our political prisoners would not be here. They would not have been taken hostage and held never-to-be-released in our gulag. These prisoners owe their incarceration to the Greens and the Liberals. The gulag of Green Valley will never be emptied.
I believe if there were citizens assemblies convened to discuss and draw up constitutional changes, before taking them to a referendum, they would stand a much better chance of getting passed.
I am personally predicting recognizing First Nations people in the constitution and 4 year terms will be defeated in any referendum in the medium term.
C@tmomma @ #103 Wednesday, July 17th, 2019 – 10:10 am
Right wing playbook #445:
If I can’t see that you’re concerned by an important issue, how dare you express concern about another important issue that I don’t give a shit about.
BB sums up the demise of Fairfax perfectly.
It is no longer a newspaper. It’s a commercial vehicle for the owners. It’s tabloidisation has been on display for a while. It’s also turned into a rag that prefers commentary to news.
In the country edition anything that happens after around 5pm fails to make the next days paper. The good old days are over and out.
Pegasus:
[‘With Labor internally divided about the treatment of franking credits, what will be its post-review policy?’]
You were ubiquitous last night re. your carping of Labor. The real enemy of the progressive side of politics is the authoritarian, secretive, overtly religious Tory Party. Know thy enemy. Ditto briefly.
Wholly mother that is a tops effort William (Sydney, above).
Can someone tell me what it means?
No, seriously, there is some very interesting stuff in there that I need to sit down with a whiskey one night and mull over before I post something about it that either misreads it or is way above my paygrade to make. I will still do that of course.
Al Pal @ #109 Wednesday, July 17th, 2019 – 10:18 am
Yes, but at least Fairfax/nine manages to run the occasional anti-government articles that the publicly funded ABC would never touch.
The party of Trump. Only 4 Republicans voted to condemn his racist tweets.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-lashes-out-again-at-minority-lawmakers-as-house-prepares-to-condemn-his-racist-tweets/2019/07/16/bca3afa4-a7b3-11e9-a3a6-ab670962db05_story.html?utm_term=.8b685248778e
adrian @ #108 Wednesday, July 17th, 2019 – 10:17 am
Oh really? I ‘don’t give a shit about’ asylum seekers? Nice to know that, adrian. Could’ve fooled me, fool.
Actually, fyi, because it seems that you need to be told, I care very deeply about refugees. What I also care very deeply about is that they all get the same chance to be resettled in Australia by Australia considering their cases on a level playing field.
As well as caring about the Homeless.
Simon Katich says:
Wednesday, July 17, 2019 at 10:19 am
😆
It’s certainly not one for when your caffeine level is at a minimum and you still have sleep in your eyes.
Like you I will try appraise it again later, when I can give it more consideration.
It has been drizzly and foggy for a while hereabouts. Yet only 60mm rain for the month so far for what is normally the wettest month of the year. I am starting to see why some farmers are calling it a wet drought.
Mavis Davis says:
Wednesday, July 17, 2019 at 10:18 am
Pegasus:
[‘With Labor internally divided about the treatment of franking credits, what will be its post-review policy?’]
You were ubiquitous last night re. your carping of Labor. The real enemy of the progressive side of politics is the authoritarian, secretive, overtly religious Tory Party. Know thy enemy. Ditto briefly.
The Left-of-centre is a complete shambles. We are a rabble. Unless and until we resolve the dysfunction that has become endemic on the Left we will never again win a federal election. We have won from Opposition and successfully run a stable, strong and durable reforming government just once in the last century.
The division that now characterises the Left means we might easily wait another century before electing another similar government.
We had a successful run in the 1940s. We had another in the 1980s. We are very far from being able to repeat those episodes.
The Liberals will win with our assistance. Get used to it. Green Valley is home to Blue Town.
Lives on hold: Refugees and asylum seekers in the ‘Legacy caseload’ (2019) / Australian Human Rights Commission
https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/asylum-seekers-and-refugees/publications/lives-hold-refugees-and-asylum-seekers-legacy
Wouldnt it have been better to pass a motion welcoming immigrant and various ethnic representation in congress and encouraging them to express their views on how to make America great?
I disagree with the blanket condemnation of ABC reporting. I think it’s only their politics that are so weak and we all know the reason why. Their medical, scientific, environmental, weather, etc reports are worthwhile and not duplicated by the commercials.
I still don’t want to listen/look at any other news.
On that subject, did anyone else hear overnight that Liberal Minchin has stated that it was the Sydney-centric Abbott and Hockey who had made the wrong decision by killing the car industry?
MD
The incessant myths and misrepresentations about the Greens, as well as the never-ending carping, whining and scapegoating of the Greens deserves some push back.
They didn’t last election. :-/
Surely any reasonable view on how to make America great includes condemning Trump for being Trump, and also racism generally?
SK:
What would be better is if those 161 Republicans who can’t find it in them to express an opinion about Trump’s racism, coupled with the 29 who actively and openly support his views, and the 42 who couldn’t condemn Trump’s views without simultaneously criticising the Democrats, found their spines and their moral convictions and took their party back.
Only 18 of all sitting Republicans in the house and senate openly condemned Trump’s comments.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/politics/trump-go-back-gop-reactions-list/?utm_term=.b30ff7b6517c
Which is implicit in the motion I suggested yet inclusive enough to allow the weak as p!ss republicans to vote for it.
I am starting to think that condemning Trump is just a waste of time (he is fishing for it anyway); condemning the things he says by way of promoting the opposite has more impact. I am sick of it being about Trump.
And dont call me Shirley.
Jaeger
Or more fully…………..”What they perceive,sometimes erroneously, as being in their self interest’ 🙂
Someone in a detention centre on land is usually someone who has overstayed their visa. Are the Greens now proposing that anyone in detention, for whatever reason, should be in the community? In which case, this logically applies to the prison population.*
*There are too many people in prison, but that’s another issue.
zoomster
says:
Wednesday, July 17, 2019 at 10:56 am
Someone in a detention centre on land is usually someone who has overstayed their visa.
___________________________________
It seems disproportionate that someone merely overstaying their visa is automatically detained unless they have made serious efforts to avoid departure. I hope we are giving people an opportunity to leave without detaining them.
I just watched Charlie Pickering interviewing Hannah Gadsby. On Picasso, among other subjects. Delightful.
Simon Katich
I have no idea why, but I have learned through PB that “surely” is verboten. Such a useful word, too. 🙁
C@t, where is your heart? Obviously sold it out to the far-right along with the rest of the Labor Party. How do you sleep at night? Though, I’m honestly not surprised that you’re siding with the far-right/conservatives/racists/whatever you want to call the dregs who support this abhorrent policy. People like you are why I don’t vote for Labor anymore.
Putting that aside, the fact that this asylum seeker is from AFGHANISTAN is more than enough for me to give him the benefit of the doubt. Tragically, Afghanistan is more a warzone than it is a country. Has been for decades. Nobody is safe there. This man is also a Hazara, which means he’s even less safe (if that’s possible) there than others may be. After invading their country and slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians*, Australia has an obligation to help those who survived our invasion. Make no mistake, we owe them help. It’s the fucking least we can do.
*Just for the record, Taliban, Al Qaeda, etc… forces aren’t included in that. I’m talking about civilians caught in the crossfire. Same story in Iraq where hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians were murdered by our invasion.
I’m apologising for my last post, I hadn’t read the full information. I certainly believe anyone in detention should be treated with dignity and compassion.
nath
Usually someone who is overstaying their visa is doing so deliberately and has evaded leaving voluntarily. They’re a flight risk.
If they have destroyed/lost their documentation, then even more so. Sometimes it’s hard to work out which country they should be going home to.
…oh, and I didn’t say ‘merely’. I said that’s why they’re in detention. In those cases, they’ve had the option to leave voluntarily.
Centre for Public Integrity launched this am in Sydney by a few anti- corruption warriors in Tony Fitzgerald and Geoffrey Watson
Firefox
If the facts are so cut and dried, surely his case would have been determined by now? These things aren’t left to the whim of the Australian government, but are determined through the process run by the UNHCR.
Australia’s onshore immigration detention ‘unlike any other liberal democracy’:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/18/australias-onshore-immigration-detention-unlike-any-other-liberal-democracy
Firefox,
Sounds like we should relocate all Afghanis to Australia.
All Australia’s doing?
You really do like engaging in hyperbole, it doesn’t do your point any favours.
“Someone in a detention centre on land is usually someone who has overstayed their visa. Are the Greens now proposing that anyone in detention, for whatever reason, should be in the community? In which case, this logically applies to the prison population.*
No, it doesn’t. Prisoners in Australia have been given a fair trial and have the luxury of knowing how long they will be incarcerated for. Innocent asylum seekers who have committed no crime (seeking asylum in Australia is entirely legal, regardless of how someone turns up here or what information they do or don’t have with them) are treated worse than mass murderers.
Martin Bryant – someone who slaughtered 35 innocent people – is treated better than asylum seekers. He had a fair trial. He knows he’ll be in custody for the rest of his life. In fact, he’s actually in Risdon Prison receiving psychiatric care.
Meanwhile, people fleeing wars and murder are shipped to remote islands and left to rot indefinitely.
That’s the kind of fucked up country Australia has become under the Coalition and Labor’s bipartisan policies of abuse and torture.
Boerwar @ #93 Wednesday, July 17th, 2019 – 9:54 am
He lost one (to Phelps) then won one (against Phelps) so other factors must have been in play; the Jewish population didn’t change, not its attitude to Sharma and Israel I assume.
March 2019:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/mar/27/detention-centres-set-for-senate-scrutiny-after-video-revelations
“All Australia’s doing?”
The fact that other countries joined us in this orgy of death doesn’t in any way lessen our responsibility for it. In fact, it just highlights the folly of blindly following the US, especially when they’re lead by someone like G.W. Bush.
Barney in Makassa
You are just as guilty if you are an accomplice and Deputy Sheriff Australia sure is one of those.We broke it we own it. Sucking up to the likes of Dubya has consequences. We need to suffer them so that next time we might think a bit harder before acting.
Firefox @ #138 Wednesday, July 17th, 2019 – 11:31 am
Yes, it seem so obvious.
But you will never get ALP or LNP partisans to admit to the obvious, for obvious reasons.
They will willingly engage in all sorts of logical contortions to attempt to justify their position, endlessly trying to deflect the sad truth.
Firefox says:
Wednesday, July 17, 2019 at 11:36 am
Are you studying journalism?
Rationalisation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalization_(psychology)
poroti says:
Wednesday, July 17, 2019 at 11:37 am
No, I’m in general agreement with what he’s saying.
My point is the extremity of his language.
Reality (n): Something the Greens don’t trouble themselves with.
B
How very selective of you.
A point that could be made against a few other posters, every day, all day.
But you don’t, do you.
How very selective of you.
A point that could be made against a few other posters, every day, all day.
But you don’t, do you.
_____________________________
Ah yes – the curse of tribalism. Always ready to criticise those you don’t agree with of hypocrisy while staunchly and courageously closing your eyes to what you and your allies-in-ideology and party membership do yourselves.
Firefox says:
Wednesday, July 17, 2019 at 11:36 am
“All Australia’s doing?”
The fact that other countries joined us in this orgy of death doesn’t in any way lessen our responsibility for it. In fact, it just highlights the folly of blindly following the US, especially when they’re lead by someone like G.W. Bush.
We owe the existence of our population of political internees to the chicanery of the Greens, who voted with their alter-egos, the Liberals, to defeat Labor’s Malaysia Solution.
The political beneficiaries of the systematic exploitation of this population are the Liberals, One Nation and the Greens. They are hostage-keepers and torturers. They pride themselves on their depravities. The cynicism of the Liberals and the Lib-kin could be thought incredible but it is routine for them.