On reflection, my previous post, intended as the first in a series of “Call of the Board” posts reviewing in detail the result of the May 18 election, was deficient in two aspects. The first is that patterns in the results estimated by my demographic model were said to be “difficult to discern”, which can only have been because I didn’t look hard enough. In fact, the results provide evidence for remarkably strong incumbency effects. Of the 12 Liberals defending their seats in the Sydney area, all but Tony Abbott outperformed the modelled estimate of the Liberal two-party vote, by an average of 4.0%. Of the 15 Labor members, all but two (Julie Owens in Parramatta and Anne Stanley in Werriwa) outperformed the model, the average being 3.4%.
The other shortcoming of the post was that it did not, indeed, call the board – a now-abandoned ritual of election night broadcasting in which the results for each electorate were quickly reviewed in alphabetical order at the end of the night, so that nobody at home would feel left out. You can find this done for the Sydney seats over the fold, and it will be a feature of the Call of the Board series going forward.
Banks (Liberal 6.3%; 4.8% swing to Liberal): After winning the seat for the Liberals in 2013 for the first time since its creation in 1949, David Coleman has now scored three wins on the trot, the latest by comfortably his biggest margin to date: 6.3%, compared with 2.8% in 2013 and 1.4% in 2016. In a post-election account for the Age/Herald, Michael Koziol reported that Labor’s national secretariat and state branch were at loggerheads over the seat late in the campaign, with the former wishing to devote resources to the seat, and the latter recognising that they “didn’t stand a chance”.
Barton (Labor 9.4%; 1.1% swing to Labor): Located around the crossover point where the inner urban swing to Labor gave way to the outer urban swing to Liberal, Barton recorded a slight swing to Labor that was perhaps boosted by a sophomore effect for incumbent Linda Burney.
Bennelong (Liberal 6.9%; 2.8% swing to Labor): A fair bit has been written lately about Labor’s struggles with the Chinese community, particularly in New South Wales, but that did not stop the nation’s most Chinese electorate recording a reasonably solid swing to Labor. This perhaps reflected the quality of Labor’s candidate, neurosurgeon Brian Owler, but was also typical of a seat where Malcolm Turnbull had played well in 2016, when it swung 2.8% to the Liberals.
Berowra (Liberal 15.6%; 0.8% swing to Labor): Most of this outer northern Sydney seat is in the outer part of the zone that swung to Labor, barring a few lightly populated regions out north and west. However, Liberal member Julian Leeser is what I will call a half-sophomore – a first-term incumbent, but one who succeeded a member of the same party (in this case Philip Ruddock), so there was no reversal of the sitting member advantage. So the 0.8% swing to Labor is about par for the course.
Blaxland (Labor 14.7%; 4.8% swing to Liberal): The anti-Labor swing suffered by Jason Clare was fairly typical for Sydney’s south-west.
Bradfield (Liberal 16.6%; 4.5% swing to Labor): Apart from the exceptional cases of Warringah and Wentworth, this was the biggest swing against the Liberals in New South Wales. However, given it was only fractionally lower in neighbouring North Sydney, that’s unlikely to be a reflection on sitting member Paul Fletcher, instead reflecting the electorate’s affluence and proximity to the city. The seat also recorded the state’s biggest swing to the Greens, at 2.0%.
Chifley (Labor 12.4%; 6.8% swing to Liberal): Ed Husic suffered Labor’s biggest unfavourable swing in Sydney (and the second biggest in the state after Hunter), after enjoying the second biggest favourable swing in 2016 (after Macarthur).
Cook (Liberal 19.0%; 3.6% swing to Liberal): As noted in the previous post, Scott Morrison enjoys the biggest Liberal margin in New South Wales relative to what might be expected from the electorate’s demographic composition. Only part of this can be explained by a prime ministership effect, as his 3.6% swing ranked only twelfth out of the 47 seats in New South Wales.
Dobell (Labor 1.5%; 3.3% swing to Liberal): The two seats on the Central Coast behaved similarly to most of suburban Sydney in swinging solidly to the Liberals, but there was enough padding on the Labor margin to save Emma McBride in Dobell, a marginal seat that lands Labor’s way more often than not.
Fowler (Labor 14.0%; 3.5% swing to Liberal): Labor’s Chris Hayes suffered a swing unremarkable by the standards of western Sydney, or perhaps slightly at the low end of average.
Grayndler (Labor 16.3% versus Greens; 0.5% swing to Labor): As illustrated in the previous post, Anthony Albanese’s personal popularity continues to define results in Grayndler, where the Labor margin is well out of proportion to demographic indicators. Whereas the Greens hold the largely corresponding state seats of Balmain and Newtown, in Grayndler they struggle to harness enough of the left-of-centre vote to finish ahead of the Liberals. They just managed it on this occasion, as they had previously in 2010 and 2016, outpolling the Liberals 22.6% to 21.8% on the primary vote, narrowing to 24.2% to 23.8% after the exclusion of three other candidates. Albanese cleared 50% of the primary vote for the first time since 2007, helped by a smaller field of candidates than last time, and had a locally typical 1.5% two-party swing against the Liberals.
Greenway (Labor 2.8%; 3.5% swing to Liberal): The swing against Labor’s Michelle Rowland was typical for middle suburbia, and roughly reversed the swing in her favour in 2016.
Hughes (Liberal 9.8%; 0.5% swing to Liberal): Craig Kelly did rather poorly to gain a swing of only 0.5% – as a careful look at the results map shows, the boundary between Hughes and Cook marks a distinct point where Labor swings turn to Liberal ones. The demographic model suggests Kelly to be the third most poorly performing Liberal incumbent out of the 13 in the Sydney area, ahead of Tony Abbott (Warringah) and Lucy Wicks (Robertson).
Kingsford Smith (Labor 8.8%; 0.2% swing to Labor): It was noted here previously that Matt Thistlethwaite strongly outperforms the demographic model, but the near status quo result on this occsion did little to contribute to that. This seat was roughly on the geographic crossover point between the Labor swings of the city and the Liberal swings of the suburbs.
Lindsay (LIBERAL GAIN 5.0%; 6.2% swing to Liberal): One of five seats lost by Labor at the election, and the only one in Sydney. Like the others, Lindsay was gained by Labor in 2016, with Emma Husar scoring a 1.1% margin from a 4.1% swing. This was more than reversed in Husar’s absence, with Liberal candidate Melissa McIntosh prevailing by 5.0%. The 6.2% swing against Labor was the biggest in the Sydney area, and produced a Liberal margin comparable to Jackie Kelly’s strongest.
Macarthur (Labor 8.4%; 0.1% swing to Labor): To repeat what was said in the previous post: Labor strongly outpolled the demographic model 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. The swing to Labor, tiny though it was, ran heavily against the trend of urban fringe seats across the country. In addition to Freelander’s apparent popularity, this probably reflected a lack of effort put into the Liberal campaign compared with last time, as the party narrowly focused on its offensive moves in Lindsay and Macquarie and defensive ones in Gilmore and Reid. Macarthur was one of six seats in New South Wales contested by One Nation, whose 8.6% seemed to be drawn equally from Labor and Liberal.
Mackellar (Liberal 13.2%; 2.5% swing to Labor): Jason Falinski’s northern beaches seat participated in the swing to Labor in inner and northern Sydney, though in this case it was a fairly modest 2.5%, perhaps reflecting Falinski’s half-sophomore effect. A 12.2% vote for independent Alice Thompson caught most of the combined 14.9% for three independents in 2016, leaving the large parties’ vote shares little changed.
Macquarie (Labor 0.2%; 2.0% swing to Liberal): A sophomore surge for Labor member Susan Templeman surely made the difference here, with the 2.0% swing to the Liberals being below the outer urban norm, and just short of what was required to take the seat.
McMahon (Labor 6.6%; 5.5% swing to Liberal): The swing against Chris Bowen was well at the higher end of the scale and, typically for such a result, followed a strong swing the other way in 2016, in this case of 7.5%. This was among the six seats in New South Wales contested by One Nation, whose 8.3% contributed to a 7.4% primary vote swing against Bowen, and perhaps also to the size of the two-party swing.
Mitchell (Liberal 18.6%; 0.8% swing to Liberal): Where most safe Liberal seats in Sydney were in the zone of inner and northern Sydney that swung to Labor, Mitchell is far enough west to encompass the crossover point where Labor swings gave way to Liberal ones. This translated into a modest 0.8% swing to Liberal member Alex Hawke, and very little change on the primary vote.
North Sydney (Liberal 9.3%; 4.3% swing to Labor): Trent Zimmerman’s seat caught the brunt of the inner urban swing to Labor, the 4.3% swing to Labor being the state’s fourth highest after Warringah, Wentworth and Bradfield, the latter of which just shaded it. Labor managed a hefty 8.3% gain on the primary vote, largely thanks to the absence of Stephen Ruff, who polled 12.8% as an independent in 2016. The one independent on this occasion was serial candidate Arthur Chesterfield-Evans, a former Democrats member of the state upper house, who managed only 4.4%.
Parramatta (Labor 3.5%; 4.2% swing to Liberal): Parramatta marks the crossover point where the Liberal swing in western Sydney begins, producing a 4.2% swing against Labor’s Julie Owens that only partly unwound the 6.4% swing she picked up in 2016.
Reid (Liberal 3.2%; 1.5% swing to Labor): The Liberals maintained their remarkable record in this seat going back to 2013, when they won it for the first time in the seat’s history, by limiting the swing to Labor to a manageable 1.5%. While the 3.2% margin is only modestly higher than that predicted by the demographic model, it was achieved despite the departure of two-term sitting member Craig Laundy, who is succeeded by Fiona Martin.
Robertson (Liberal 4.2%; 3.1% swing to Liberal): Similarly to neighbouring Dobell, the Central Coast seat of Robertson swung 3.1% to the Liberals, in this case boosting the margin of Lucy Wicks.
Sydney (Labor 18.7%; 3.4% swing to Labor): The inner urban swing to Labor added further padding to Tanya Plibersek’s margin. The Greens continue to run third behind the Liberals, who outpolled them by 26.6% to 18.1%. As is the case in Grayndler, this presumably reflects local left-wing voters’ satisfaction with the incumbent.
Warringah (INDEPENDENT GAIN 7.2% versus Liberal): Zali Steggall took a big chunk out of the big party contenders in recording 43.5% of the primary vote, but the largest of course came from Tony Abbott, down from 51.6% to 39.0%. Abbott won four booths around Forestville at the northern end of the electorate, but it was otherwise a clean sweep for Steggall. She particularly dominated on the coast around Manly, by margins ranging from 10% to 18%.
Watson (Labor 13.5%; 4.1% swing to Liberal): In a familiar suburban Sydney pattern, Tony Burke had an 8.8% swing in his favour from 2016 unwound by a 4.1% swing to the Liberals this time.
Wentworth (Liberal 1.3% versus Independent): Listed as a Liberal retain in a spirit of consistently comparing results from the 2016 election, this was of course a Liberal gain to the extent that it reversed their defeat at the hands of independent Kerryn Phelps at last October’s by-election. There was an unblemished divide between the northern end of the electorate, encompassing the coast north of Bondi and all but the westernmost part of the harbourside, where the Liberals won the two-candidate vote, and the southern end of the electorate, where Phelps did. As noted in the previous post, there was a swing to Labor of 7.9% on the two-party preferred count, but this was testament more than anything to Malcolm Turnbull’s local support.
Werriwa (Labor 5.5%; 2.7% swing to Liberal): A half-sophomore effect for Labor’s Anne Watson may have helped limit the swing here in this outer suburban seat.
Doyley @6:37PM.
“I was a strong supporter of labor and Shorten and the policy suite that was taken to the election. From polling over the past few months ( years ? ) and leading into May 18 I thought voters were as well. Even exit polls on Election Day had labor in front.
However, with a PV of 33.34% something was very wrong. I have no idea what went pear shaped…”
That’s pretty much my position. Labor had a good suite of policies, chose their battlegrounds and seemed to be avoiding traps. However, the campaign proper was hopeless. True, it was largely drowned out by the Right Wing Noise Machine, which promoted and amplified Coalition lies, but we always knew that was going to happen. It should have been allowed for, there should have been a plan to counter it.
But we are where we are. Just saying “we were right”, even if we were, then doubling down, isn’t going to work.
P.S. Doyley, autocorrect tried to change your name to ‘Donkey’. I have suitably reprimanded it.
Nicholas
At the state level !!!!!!? if the Coalition are considered the gun economic managers. they inherited a state debt of about $3.2 billion and managed, during a mining boom, to increase the state debt by the same amount each and every year of their government.
I’ve seen people voluntarily sacrifice all credibility and admit they were less intelligent than potatoes on here before, but that is the biggest stupid I’ve ever seen. How to make Frank, look like an objective genius.
On every and all objective measure Morrison is a complete and utter disaster.
Very good BB. Made me laugh anyway.
Cor blimey! We’re all stuffed, with stuffed leaders on both sides of the Atlantic, with a stuffing antipodean dolt:
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/cripes-blimey-phwoar-is-it-prime-minister-boris-johnson-20190618-p51z1n.html
Steve777,
autocorrect has obviously read many of my posts.
Thank you for taking it to task.
Cheers.
Davidwh,
You have got them jumping !
Anyway, on that note time for me to go for the night and enjoy some non political movies.
Mavis Davis says:
Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 8:02 pm
I work with a Pom and Yank.
At least we now have something in common. 🙂
Barney in Makassar @ #358 Sunday, July 21st, 2019 – 8:08 pm
Yeah, you all want to be from New Zealand.
Lizzie:
It is, of course, a matter for you, but I’d prefer your name capitalised. “briefly” is non-capitalised, though most capitalise it; for in most instances they start their sentence with “Briefly”. How dare you assume I’m a pedant, like adrian.
Wot me a pendant?
It’s Time says:
Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 8:13 pm
They might, but no. 🙂
Mavis
I’m just not smart enough to muck about with my original spelling. It took yonks to fight through word press the first time.
Mavis Davis says:
Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 8:17 pm
No, don’t lizzie.
My spellchecker has been trained appropriately. 🙂
Doyley happy to take a hit or two for a brief diversion from Labor/Green wars even if that means I get peeled. 🙂
adrian, you dissed my use of apostrophes- pedantically
Thanks Davidwh. Much appreciated.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/there-ll-be-no-deals-on-drought-relief-bill-says-scott-morrison-20190721-p529at.html
“Prime Minister Scott Morrison has spurned offers to negotiate on a $3.9 billion drought fund in a hard-line approach to the resumption of Parliament this week, piling pressure on Labor to accept his plan without change.
:::
The dispute is one of five clashes in Parliament in the coming fortnight as the government tries to pass the drought fund, new checks on unions, tougher controls on the return of foreign fighters and criminal sanctions on protesters who storm farms while also repealing the refugee medical transfer laws put in place in February.”
Adrian we have just towed a van from Brisbane to the tip of Cape York and return. PB is a cakewalk in comparison.
Bloody ruts, dips and red dust but it was worth every second of the drive.
Davidwh.
“Morrison is going well so far.”
In the “political” sense, at least the part about winning and retaining office, he is. Further, all indications are that he is in a far better position than any PM since Howard to push through his agenda. He does have one by the way, as we’ll soon find out. When the polls return, I expect them to show a post-election honeymoon. Everyone’s tuned out. Big business and rent-seekers are delighted.
Then in September, nauseating pictures of best mates Trump and Morrison (baaarrrrf).
In terms of achieving good things for Australia, however…
@Nicholas:
“It would be interesting to see qualitative research about why people voted the way they did in May. Then it would be possible to draw conclusions about which parts of Labor’s policy platform, if any, should be changed. I suspect that a lot of the platform is fine from the public’s point of view and that key factors were 1. visceral lack of comfort and trust in Labor’s leader; and 2. the media’s coverage of proposed tax changes that created losers.
Key lessons might be the obvious ones of:
Choose a leader who is trusted and liked by the public.
Don’t propose any policies that create losers (unless it is a class of losers that is widely seen as villains or at least not widely viewed sympathetically). If you need to do any policies of this kind, do it in government when you have the chance to combine it with a lot of popular achievements that take the sting out of it. Don’t propose it from Opposition.”
____________________________
Amen. Amen.
Also, always remember that polling and focus groups can make for useful servants, but always make for terrible masters. Certainly no substitute for actual learned political judgement through experience and a study of political history.
In hindsight, ‘we’ were all blinded by the Turnbull-Abbott-Turnbull omnishambles into thinking that the voters that mattered were woke to good policy. As if Labor was ever going to pick up 9 seats on Queensland. Especially whilst led by a Victorian.
A great picture from the Moon 50 years ago today:
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190721.html
This day 50 years ago, with lots of other students, I watched the transmission of the landing on a black and white TV monitor in a lecture theatre in the Carslaw Building at Sydney Uni.
Nearly 9.30
Doesn’t look like the sort of pre Newspoll frenzy we used to get around here. 🙂
WOW!
Sorry!
Just teasing.
Meanwhile in the Old Dart..
“Philip Hammond has confirmed he will resign as chancellor if Boris Johnson becomes the new prime minister next week, saying he could not serve under someone who was seeking a no-deal Brexit.
Hammond made the announcement live on BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show, saying he would formally resign just before Johnson replaced Theresa May on Wednesday.
It comes after the justice secretary, David Gauke, made the same pledge, leaving Johnson with the prospect of a group of powerful ex-ministers on the backbenches seeking to block no deal.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/21/david-gauke-to-quit-government-if-boris-johnson-becomes-pm?CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium=&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1563707686
sprocket_ @ #377 Sunday, July 21st, 2019 – 9:35 pm
This is where the fun and games begin. The fightback from Remainers in the Tory Party. I hope they kill Boris Johnson’s political career stone dead, and with it, Nigel Farage and his gang of despicable destroyers of democracy.
Henry says:
Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 1:12 pm
She should have been counselled better zoomster and told, no we won’t accept your resignation, cool your jets and let’s see where the enquiry lands.
Barney says,
Who says she wasn’t?
Who says she was Barney?
Henry says:
Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 9:42 pm
You’re the one making the claim.
C@t said,
“It didn’t sound that way to me going by what briefly posted. Sounded like he knew what he was talking about. But you, on the other hand, are determined to piss on Labor from great heights post election. That I know for a fact. Pfft!”
So you’re speculating on other posters inside knowledge now, particularly ones from Perth. Good work. As for pissing on labor, get a grip.
Henry @ #381 Sunday, July 21st, 2019 – 9:50 pm
Frankly, I don’t give a toss what your opinion is.
Sam on I’m a Celebrity get me out of here, Nova Peris on Survivor.
Don’t be surprised if Emma shows up on the next season of Dancing with the Stars in order to earn a buck and stay relevant.
Governor Tom Wolf (D) on the Van Jones show CNN.
For the next three years linking Morrison’s immigration policies to Trump could turn those Western Sydney suburbs against the LNP. Even the evangelical ones are very likely to be offended by Trump with the long running US campaign played out with both The Bill of Rights and Civil Liberties being debated.
We are about to have a US civil rights movement thrust into our narrative for the next 18 months or so. The media here can’t help but compare the pair.
The upcoming red carpet treatment and State Dinner will be great campaign advertising for anyone running against the LNP. Be in no doubt already Michelle Grattan has written about the Trump test for Morrison.
That’s if the economy doesn’t dive into a recessionary abyss of course. Even then Trump’s Tax cuts and Morrison’s could be the albatross that ends the LNP better economic manager.
taylormade @ #383 Sunday, July 21st, 2019 – 9:54 pm
You mean like Pauline Hanson?
This from Andrew Bolt ( https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-21/adam-goodes-faced-racism-because-he-was-powerful-charlie-king/11328552 ):
Is funny, because “monumentally ignorant, malicious and self-serving” could well be Bolt’s own epitaph!
Pauline Hanson was on Dancing with the Stars some years back, before the resuscitation or her career. I saw a bit of the episode when visiting family. I don’t know whether she was supposed to be dancing with a star, or whether her partner was.
caf
In a real competitive media world the age would have an opinion column titled Not the racist Bolt column. Free from defamation as a court did find he has made racist comments.
It exercised the right so much they had Brandis declare to the Senate the right to be a bigot in the failed attempt to repeal 18c
Also on Van Jones
That’s the problem Greens and Labor have to address to make the climate heating crisis policy a winner. Even voters who are not coal miners have this experience and don’t trust “just transition” promises.
Edit: Sorry not Van Jones. The Hill Rising with Krystal and Saagar
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/453515-centrist-think-tank-co-founder-warns-free-college-proposal-could-turn-people
guytaur,
I don’t think the judge found that he made racist comments. The findings were more around inaccuracies, errors and misquotes.
Also
“the climate heating crisis”
Please tell me you just made this up.
😉 Davidwh
Nothing about Newspoll on the front page of The Oz, if that’s keeping any of you up. But in an important new development, they do have a headline that reads “Greens ‘hypocrites’ on wind farms”.
Angus Taylor says so, you see.
Trump is doing more tweets about “the Squad”
Barney
Global Heating Crisis is what the Guardian calls it.
Well, if it’s Angus… Quality bull.
“Angus Taylor says so, you see.”
Yup, and i believe him about water matters as well……….but he’s not as credible as Barnaby. 🙂
guytaur says:
Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 10:45 pm
That’s very different to “climate heating crisis”!
Tasmanian Labor media release by Shadow Energy Minister
http://taslabor.com/greens-and-liberals-on-unity-ticket-against-wind-farms/
“The Liberals and the Greens have joined forces in an ugly coalition against renewable energy jobs at the Robbins Island wind farm.
Tony Abbott, Bob Brown, Cassy O’Connor and Angus Taylor are in lock step against the Tasmanian renewable energy sector,” Mr O’Byrne said.”
There, fixed it for them.
Though aside from the weird emphasis on “jobs” rather than on renewable energy for its own sake, Labor’s assessment sounds exactly right. And they can probably add Di Natale’s name to that list, too.
Greens and Liberals on unity ticket against wind farms – That’s the header on Tas Labor media release ….plural…”farms”. Completely misleading and dishonest.
https://www.examiner.com.au/story/6281224/tasmanian-greens-concerned-about-robbins-island-wind-farm-plan/
“Tasmanian Greens leader Cassy O’Connor says she remains concerned about the $1.6 billion Robbins Island wind farm proposal because there was not yet enough detail about the project.
:::
Ms O’Connor said her party was a strong supporter of more clean energy.
:::
“There do, however, need to be a set of standards in place that mitigate negative outcomes and deliver any wind farm proposal the social license it needs.”