Time for part four in the series that reviews the result of the May 18 election seat by seat, one chunk at a time. As will be the routine in posts covering the capital cities, we start with a colour-coded map showing the two-party preferred swing at polling booth level, with each booth allocated a geographic catchment area by means explained in the first post in this series. Click for an enlarged image.
Now to compare actual election results to those predicted by a demographic linear regression model, to help identify where candidate or local factors might be needed to explain the result. I now offer a new-and-improved form of the model that includes interaction effects to account for the differences in demographic effects between the cities and the regions. The utility of the change, if any, will become more apparent when I apply it to regional seats, which confounded the original version of the model. The coefficients and what-have-you can be viewed here – the table below shows the modelled predictions and actual results for Labor two-party preferred, ranked in order of difference between the result and the prediction of the model.
The main eyebrow-raisers are that the model anticipates a stronger performance by Labor in nearly every Liberal-held seats, to the extent that blue-ribbon Higgins and Goldstein are both rated as naturally highly marginal. While this could prove a portent of things to come in these seats, it might equally reflect a model leaning too heavily on the “secular/no religion” variable to cancel out the association between income and Liberal support in the inner cities.
As in Sydney, the numbers provide strong indications of incumbency advantages, with both Labor and Liberal members tending to outperform the model and thus appear at opposite ends of the table. I suspect this reflects both the obvious explanation, namely personal votes for sitting members, and a lack of effort by the parties into each other’s safe seats. A tendency for parties to perform more modestly when a seat is being vacated is not so overwhelming as to prevent strong results relative to the model for Labor in Jagajaga and Liberal in Higgins.
With that out of the way:
Aston (Liberal 10.1%; 2.7% swing to Liberal): Aston attracted a lot of discussion after the 2004 election when the Liberals recorded a higher two-party vote than they did in their jewel-in-the-crown seat of Kooyong. Now, for the first time since then, it’s happened again, and by a fairly substantial margin (the Liberal-versus-Labor margin in Kooyong having been 6.7%). As illustrated in the above table, the swing places Alan Tudge’s margin well beyond what the seat’s demographic indicators would lead you to expect.
Bruce (Labor 14.2%; 0.1% swing to Labor): Located at the point of the outer suburbs where the Labor swing dries up, cancelling out any half-sophomore effect that may have been coming Julian Hill’s way after he came to the seat in 2016.
Calwell (Labor 18.8%; 0.9% swing to Liberal): Among the modest number of Melbourne seats to swing to the Liberals, reflecting its multiculturalism and location at the city’s edge. Maria Vamvakinou nonetheless retains the fifth biggest Labor margin in the country.
Chisholm (Liberal 0.6%; 2.3% swing to Labor): Labor’s failure to win Chisholm after it was vacated by Julia Banks was among their most disappointing results of the election, but the result was entirely within the normal range both for Melbourne’s middle suburbs and a seat of its particular demographic profile. The swing to Labor was concentrated at the northern end of the electorate, which may or may not have something to do with this being the slightly less Chinese end of the electorate.
Cooper (Labor 14.6% versus Greens; 13.4% swing to Labor): With David Feeney gone and Ged Kearney entrenched, the door seems to have slammed shut on the Greens in the seat formerly known as Batman. After recording high thirties primary votes at both the 2016 election and 2018 by-election, the Greens crashed to 21.1%, while Kearney was up from 43.1% at the by-election to 46.8%, despite the fact the Liberals were in the field this time and polling 19.5%. In Labor-versus-Liberal terms, a 4.2% swing to Labor boosted the margin to 25.9%, the highest in the country.
Deakin (Liberal 4.8%; 1.7% swing to Labor): While Melburnian backers of the coup against Malcolm Turnbull did not suffer the retribution anticipated after the state election, it may at least be noted that Michael Sukkar’s seat swung the other way from its demographically similar neighbour, Aston. That said, Sukkar’s 4.8% margin strongly outperforms the prediction of the demographic model, which picks the seat for marginal Labor.
Dunkley (LABOR NOTIONAL GAIN 2.7%; 1.7% swing to Labor): Together with Corangamite, Dunkley was one of only two Victorian seats gained by Labor on any reckoning, and even they can be excluded if post-redistribution margins are counted as the starting point. With quite a few other outer urban seats going the other way, and a part-sophomore effect to be anticipated after he succeeded Bruce Billson in 2016, it might be thought an under-achievement on Chris Crewther’s part that he failed to hold out the tide, notwithstanding the near universal expectation he would lose. However, his performance was well beyond that predicted by the demographic model, which estimates the Labor margin at 6.6%.
Fraser (Labor 14.2%; 6.1% swing to Liberal): Newly created seat in safe Labor territory in western Melbourne, it seemed Labor felt the loss here of its sitting members: Bill Shorten in Maribyrnong, which provided 34% of the voters; Maria Vamvakinou in Calwell, providing 29%; Tim Watts in Gellibrand, providing 20%; and Brendan O’Connor in Gorton, providing 16%. The newly elected member, Daniel Mulino, copped the biggest swing against Labor in Victoria, reducing the seat from first to eleventh on the national list of safest Labor seats.
Gellibrand (Labor 14.8%; 0.3% swing to Liberal): The city end of Gellibrand followed the inner urban pattern in swinging to Labor, but the suburbia at the Point Cook end of the electorate tended to lean the other way, producing a stable result for third-term Labor member Tim Watts.
Goldstein (Liberal 7.8%; 4.9% swing to Labor): Tim Wilson met the full force of the inner urban swing against the Liberals, more than accounting for any sophomore effect he might have enjoyed in the seat where he succeeded Andrew Robb in 2016. Nonetheless, he maintained a primary vote majority in a seat which, since its creation in 1984, has only failed to do when David Kemp muscled Ian Macphee aside in 1990.
Gorton (Labor 15.4%; 3.0% swing to Liberal): The swing against Brendan O’Connor was fairly typical of the outer suburbs. An independent, Jarrod Bingham, managed 8.8%, with 59.2% of his preferences going to Labor.
Higgins (Liberal 3.9%; 6.1% swing to Labor): One of many blue-ribbon seats that swung hard against the Liberals without putting them in serious danger. Nonetheless, it is notable that the 3.9% debut margin for Katie Allen, who succeeds Kelly O’Dwyer, is the lowest the Liberals have recorded since the seat’s creation in 1949, surpassing Peter Costello’s 7.0% with the defeat of the Howard government in 2007. Labor returned to second place after falling to third in 2016, their primary up from 14.9% to 25.4%, while the Greens were down from 25.3% to 22.5%. This reflected a pattern through much of inner Melbourne, excepting Melbourne and Kooyong.
Holt (Labor 8.7%; 1.2% swing to Liberal): The populous, northern end of Holt formed part of a band of south-eastern suburbia that defied the Melbourne trend in swinging to Liberal, causing a manageable cut to Anthony Byrne’s margin.
Hotham (Labor 5.9%; 1.7% swing to Labor): The swing to third-term Labor member Clare O’Neil was concentrated at the northern end of the electorate, with the lower-income Vietnamese area around Springvale in the south went the other way.
Isaacs (Labor 12.7%; 3.4% swing to Labor): What I have frequently referred to as an inner urban effect actually extended all along the bayside, contributing to a healthy swing to Mark Dreyfus. The Liberal primary vote was down 7.4%, partly reflecting more minor party competition than in 2016. This was an interesting case where the map shows a clear change in temperature coinciding with the boundaries, with swings to Labor in Isaacs promptly giving way to Liberal swings across much of Hotham, Bruce and Holt.
Jagajaga (Labor 6.6%; 1.0% swing to Labor): Jenny Macklin’s retirement didn’t have any discernible impact on the result in Jagajaga, which recorded a modest swing to her Labor successor, Kate Thwaites.
Kooyong (Liberal 5.7% versus Greens): Julian Burnside defied a general Melburnian trend in adding 2.6% to the Greens primary vote, and did so in the face of competition for the environmental vote from independent Oliver Yates, whose high profile campaign yielded only 9.0%. Labor was down 3.7% to 16.8%, adrift of Burnside’s 21.2%. But with Josh Frydenberg still commanding 49.4% of the primary vote even after an 8.3% swing, the result was never in doubt. The Liberal-versus-Labor two-party margin was 6.7%, a 6.2% swing to Labor.
Lalor (Labor 12.4%; 1.8% swing to Liberal): The area around Werribee marks a Liberal swing hot spot in Melbourne’s west, showing up as a slight swing in Lalor against Labor’s Joanne Ryan.
Macnamara (Labor 6.2%; 5.0% swing to Labor): Talked up before the event as a three-horse race, this proved an easy win for Labor, who outpolled the Greens 31.8% to 24.2%, compared with 27.0% to 23.8% last time, then landed 6.2% clear after preferences of the Liberals, who were off 4.6% to 37.4%. The retirement of Michael Danby presumably explains the relatively weak 5.0% primary vote swing to Labor in the seven booths around Caulfield and Elsternwick at the southern end of the electorate, the focal point of its Jewish community. The result for the remainder of the election day booths was 9.7%.
Maribyrnong (Labor 11.2%; 0.8% swing to Liberal): Nothing out of the ordinary happened in the seat of Bill Shorten, who probably owes most of his 5.0% primary vote swing to the fact that there were fewer candidates this time. Typifying the overall result, the Liberals gained swings around Keilor at the electorate’s outer reaches, while Labor was up closer to the city.
Melbourne (Greens 21.8% versus Liberal; 2.8% swing to Greens): The Greens primary vote in Melbourne increased for the seventh successive election, having gone from 6.1% in 1998 to 22.8% when Adam Bandt first ran unsuccessfully in 2007, and now up from 43.7% to 49.3%. I await to be corrected, but I believed this brought Bandt to within an ace of becoming the first Green ever to win a primary vote majority. For the second election in a row, Bandt’s dominance of the left-of-centre vote reduced Labor to third place. On the Labor-versus-Liberal count, Labor gained a negligible 0.1% swing, unusually for a central city seat.
Menzies (Liberal 7.2%; 0.3% swing to Labor): Very little to report from Kevin Andrews’ seat, where the main parties were up slightly on the primary vote against a smaller field, and next to no swing on two-party preferred, with slight Liberal swings around Templestowe in the west of the electorate giving way to slight Labor ones around Warrandyte in the east.
Scullin (Labor 21.7%; 2.1% swing to Labor): Third-term Labor member Andrew Giles managed a swing that was rather against the outer urban trend in his northern Melbourne seat.
Wills (Labor 8.2% versus Greens; 3.2% swing to Labor): The Greens likely missed their opportunity in Wills when Kelvin Thomson retired in 2016, when Labor’s margin was reduced to 4.9%. Peter Khalil having established himself as member, he picked up 6.2% on the primary vote this time while the Greens fell 4.3%. Khalil also picked up a 4.2% swing on the Labor-versus-Liberal count, strong even by inner urban standards, leaving him with the biggest margin on that measure after Ged Kearney in Cooper.
Marcos De Feilittt @ #149 Friday, August 9th, 2019 – 4:05 pm
Yeah I know…in the end my anger got me back on the horse.
And it’s an increasingly tired old hobby horse. 😐
Lizzie
My response to that purposed newstart wedge would be okay government you have your card but we promise when in government to restrict its use to only people with existing administration orders.
I am assuming other states are similar to Victoria where to be on an administration order means you are seemed unable to manage your own financial affairs, this wont be the case for most people on newstart.
veeeery tired and a bit dead by the look
Those Kooyong numbers look out so i checked and the AEC has them has
Libs 49.41%
Greens 21.24%
ALP 16.83%
Yates 8.98%
My assessment of Victoria was that it generally went as expected besides a better than expected Liberal performance in Deakin.
The Aston / Kooyong results show the fault line in the metro split between traditional liberals/conservatives in Kooyong and suburban conservatives in Aston.
Aston has become a solid Liberal area. Whereas Kooyong still solid but looks to be one redistribution from becoming marginal but as I wrote a few weeks ago about Cooper returning to safe ALP status, so Kooyong will probably swing back to being safe Liberal at some point.
Having spent a few weeks on the Sunshine, Gold and Pacific Coasts, I now know why no-one is listening to P1 about the end of times.
Everyone is having a good time. Now. While it lasts.
P1 might as well be talking to swimming pools. Or the Japanese. Or wombats.
Nicholas, just enough MMT precepts are applied to prevent the economy from sliding into outright recession. But the defaults in the order are almost always a) capital protection and b) labour repression. This reflects political expedience/exigency as understood by the Liberals – by the ruling party. It’s poor economics but it has been very successful politics.
No-one with any practical experience of the economy seriously disputes the main understandings of what is called modern monetary theory. This really just describes processes and actions that already occur and in that sense is not theory. It is description. Money is created every day ex nihilo . It is destroyed in the same way every day. This occurs in the private as well as the public accounts. Money is an artifice, a construct. It is not a tangible ‘thing’. Money is as ‘good’ as the willingness of counter parties to accept it from each other. It can be created without reference to anything else, whether material or not. This is well known. MMT makes a point of emphasising this and offers guidance about how much money should be created and how it should be ‘spent/unspent’ by the issuer.
The vernacular language used to comment on the financial and economic order conceals as much as it reveals. The economy is subject to mystification rather than explication. This is political. Within political language – language that is about persuasion and the exercise of power – money and the economy are subject to reification.
The problem we have is not the issuance of money. This is understood and is subject to procedural and legal controls. The problem we have is the destruction of the basis of production itself – the environment. The environmental constant on which most economics rests no longer exists. We have broken the constant. That is, the environment is now implicitly unstable. It is becoming ‘chaotic’. It is already the case that sufficient destruction has been done to the meta systems – the oceans, atmosphere, terrains and biotic processes – of the earth that ‘economic production’ will become increasingly disordered.
Processes of investment drive both the level and content of production and changes in the growth rate of production. The investment process under conditions of private ownership of capital cannot cope with chaos. The presence of chaos will impel contraction of private investment. This will in turn lead to declines in the real resource boundaries in the economy. It’s quite obvious that no amount of private financial capital will be sufficient to undo this. Capital will not be able remake that which it is in the process of tearing apart.
We don’t need a new theory of money. We need a better theory of the economy-and-the environment. We need to consider capital and its counter values – anti capital – within the environment. We need to see the environment as an entity with mutable and uncertain boundaries rather than as an infinite one.
Whereas Kooyong still solid but looks to be one redistributor from potentially becoming more marginal
____________________
Possibly. Kooyong is surrounded on 3 sides by the Yarra and Gardners Creek. It seems the AEC is reluctant to mess with these internal borders so it means that like its last redistribution, Kooyong can only really expand into Chisholm as urban sprawl drags on the borders. If central Box Hill eventually moves into Kooyong, it may make Kooyong more marginal, but it will only mean that Chisholm will no longer be marginal.
Nath
I think a lot will depend on how the AEC handles Higgins/McNamara. Danby is now gone so the AEC may well decide to revisit its 2010 draft in which it sent Caulfield to Higgins with Higgins losing Prahran and South Yarra to McNamara.
Considering Menzies now crosses the Yarra, and there are several shared crossing points between Hawthorn and Richmond then the AEC could send Kooyong across the Yarra, but the AEC is likely to add areas around Surrey Hills which would suit the Liberals, or more of Mont Albert to Elgar Rd that is similar to Surrey Hills.
But that would be closer to Box Hill and could raise the prospect of the AEC eventually adding Box Hill. This was something the ALP has previously suggested, and could happen if the AEC choose to bring Caulfield, Malvern, Glen Iris and Hawthorn or something similar into the one electorate.
Chisholm could shift east by picking up Wheelers Hill from Hotham and its possible one seat in the east could be abolished, if that happened my guess is that could be Aston as its not a federation seat and its not named after a former PM.
Yes. Currency is created by government spending. Currency is deleted by taxation. Currency is best described as the currency issuer’s tax credit. It’s the thing you need to pay the taxes imposed on you by the currency issuer. If the currency issuing government wasn’t enforcing tax obligations denominated in its currency, the currency would be worthless. The tax drives the currency. The tax gives the currency its value.
When Britain colonized African societies they wanted to get the locals to work in the silver mines and on plantations. But the locals had no reason to do that and the British didn’t want to resort to outright slavery or press ganging-type physical coercion. So what did they do? They offered to pay British currency to the locals if they would do the work. The locals said, “No thanks, we don’t need British currency.”
So the British imposed something called a Hut Tax on the locals. The locals had to pay a certain amount of British currency every month for each hut. If they didn’t, the penalty was that the British would destroy the hut. Suddenly the locals really needed British currency, so they agreed to work in the mines and on the plantations. They earned the currency that they needed to pay the Hut Tax. Because so many people now needed the currency, it became valuable in the local economy. People were willing to accept it as payment for debts or for goods and services. So people worked to earn currency and they using some of their earnings for consumption and they used the rest to pay the Hut Tax.
In the Hut Tax example it was really obvious that the tax was driving the currency’s value. In our own economy today it isn’t so obvious, which is why most people assume that currency comes from the private sector and that the Australian Government harvests currency from the private sector in order to spend on government programs.
William:
In this article Isaacs has 3.4% swing to Liberal but I think it actually swung to Labor?
The stretch of the river dividing Richmond/Collingwood from Kew/Hawthorn is more powerful than a state border! It defined religious and political differences in Melbourne for a hundred years.
Thanks Caf, fixed. Kooyong errors corrected also.
Boerwar @ #156 Friday, August 9th, 2019 – 4:58 pm
You are listening. If enough people followed our example, our grandkids might even have a future. It’s probably too late for it to be a rosy one, but they may at least have one.
Nath
In the 1960s, The seat of Yarra covered Richmond and Hawthorn when those differences were far more pronounced then they are today.
Richmond south of Bridge Rd today shares little in common with the Richmond of old, so much so that local Labor greats like Scullin and Tudor wouldn’t recongise it.
Saw this comment in the Guardian in response someone accusing people they disagree with of “virtue signalling”:
Very apt I thought.
The other major right wing virtue signals are climate denial and, especially in the USA, conspicuous religiosity.
Interesting to see some of my comrades pile onto Bramston for reporting the the truth that certain Shorten backers (Kim il Carr, ffs) are piling onto Keating for pointing out the bloody obvious.
Victorians should consider themselves lucky that they have one seat left at the leadership table, let alone that their annointed one is Sir Charles Marles with his plummy Timbertop accent. Of course, Marles only serves as the proxy Hand of the King for the true leader of Westeros, Littlefinger.
Player One says:
Friday, August 9, 2019 at 11:08 am
….
That depends. Are we talking Magic Money, or real money?
Come on; explain to me how banks make money.
I can explain to you how governments do.
briefly @ #157 Friday, August 9th, 2019 – 5:06 pm
What we need is a theory does not perpetuate the myth that either population or the economy can grow indefinitely.
If any single thing is killing the planet, it is this mindless pursuit of growth.
frednk @ #168 Friday, August 9th, 2019 – 5:57 pm
I’m sure Nicholas will only be too pleased to explain. At length. Every day. Forever.
Player one
What we need is a theory does not perpetuate the myth that either population or the economy can grow indefinitely.
—————————–
That is already the case because today’s mainstream economic theories doesn’t argue that growth is indefinite.
Andrew_Earlwood @ #167 Friday, August 9th, 2019 – 5:53 pm
The obvious, which none of you partisans will acknowledge, is that Shorten and Bowen were hopeless salesmen.
You are right to mock the Victorian element though. Shorten, Carr and Marles will hold federal Labor back for as long as they are involved.
Actually, federal government finance is poorly understood by politicians, public servants, academic economists (with a few exceptions), and the general public. This is why we constantly hear ignorant claims that this or that can’t be done because the federal government doesn’t have the money. In truth the government creates the money -it cannot run out. So it is ridiculous to claim that the government doesn’t have the money. The government can always spend whatever it likes (subject to Parliamentary approval – that is the democratic check on the process).
The policy question is whether the spending achieves a valuable public purpose and whether the spending mobilizes real resources in an efficient and appropriate way. The policy considerations need to be assessed. The spending might not be pursuing a valid public purpose. There might be other goals that are more important. The goal might be appropriate but the method might be inefficient or unsuitable.
The fiscal question is whether the spending would be inflationary. If the spending would compete with other spending for a scarce resource, there could be inflationary consequences. If the labour market is very tight – if there is true full employment – a big increase in government spending could be inflationary. The inflation issue needs to be assessed.
But there is never a financial problem.
That’s the key point.
If that fact was widely understood in our society, we would have a very different set of policies.
nath @ #162 Friday, August 9th, 2019 – 5:40 pm
Xavier, Trinity, MLC on one side – the school of hard knocks on the other. 😆
Mexicanbeemer @ #171 Friday, August 9th, 2019 – 6:01 pm
This is an interesting read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth
Guess what groups were most opposed to the notion that growth has limits? If you guessed “professional economists”, you win a prize – a lecture on economics from Nicholas.
If you guessed “the church”, you win second prize – two lectures on economics from Nicholas.
When was the last time ‘the left’ held a conference where lefties all got together and had a high old time being lefties the way conservatives feel they have to.
I can’t think of any…(and don’t say the last Labor conference,,,,I said left
The Drum tonight is focusing initially on CPAC. Not entirely comfortable.
When you drink half a bottle of shiraz before dinner commas look like full stops…..
Quote: “Trump will transform America permanently.” “Socialists are evil.”
“The obvious, which none of you partisans will acknowledge, is that Shorten and Bowen were hopeless salesmen.”
The obvious, which we partisans were all oblivious to, and you still are apparently, is that no salesmen – not even Don Draper or Jesus Christ – can ‘sell’ tax increases without having corresponding tax cuts as an electoral bribe to the low information, low interest folk who determine elections.
Rex
So it’s a salesman we need as leader?
Most think we need a leader.
Morrison is not a leader.
Morrison will take the money and run. He has form.
9 Dem candidates have met the threshold for the next debates. Biden, Buttigieg, Booker, Beto, Bernie, Harris, Warren, Klobuchar and Yang.
Stop it there I reckon. Perhaps Castro and one of the others with military experience (Gabbard or Moulton). Please, no more.
Maybe add superman….
lizzie
Just flicked on the Drum, who is this Trump apologist.
One of the CPAC leaders. Mike Schaffer?? His wife is working on Trump’s campaign.
Nicholas….I’m pretty sure the RBA and the boffonomes from Treasury understand money. The bankers do. The bankees do not.
Output boundaries exist. Some are technological or engineered. Some are labour-specific. Some are legal or social. And there are environmental boundaries. These latter boundaries are unique in that we cannot easily manipulate them with capital (with investment). They are now changing very rapidly. This has profound consequences for production – for incomes – and welfare in every sense. This will change – is already changing – risk-off/risk-on discount rates, inflation/deflation, production, incomes, employment, the loci of investment, the psychologies of accumulation/saving and the ‘monetising of the future’.
lizzie
Oh thanks, so completely unbiased then.
It’s ridiculous. “America won its freedom from Britain when every individual took up arms, and that is still true.” 😮 Could happen at any moment that individual Americans will need to fight for freedom again???
Y’see, Trump talks about things that no one else will. He’s a hero!
Thank goodness the guy’s gone.
Andrew_Earlwood @ #180 Friday, August 9th, 2019 – 6:26 pm
…but didn’t Labor have ‘bigger and better tax cuts’ than the Opposition …?
Anyway, just thinking how Daniel Andrews finds a federal seat when he hands the Premier reins over to Jacinta Allen.
Clare O’Neil has a firm grip on Hotham which covers his state seat of Mulgrave – likewise Julian Hill in neighbouring Bruce. Perhaps Dan can have a crack at regaining Chisholm ..?
Okay, so ‘Socialism is evil’ because? It seeks to give from those with the most to those with the least. And that’s evil?
Lizzie
A very good supposition, mostly overlooked by the self-righteous.
lizzie
Yeah, good riddance. But he’s back next year, yeehaw.
Goll
I seem to have missed your meaning, sorry. Probably my fault because I’ve been speaking in shorthand.
Goll @ #181 Friday, August 9th, 2019 – 6:28 pm
Morrison is a shonky salesman PM who will be ditched by the voters at the first opportunity if Labor ever find someone who can restore humanity and social inclusion back into our parliament.
We need a strong leader
C@tmomma @ #190 Friday, August 9th, 2019 – 6:38 pm
Yes, according to the LibNats and the Labor right.
What use is unbiased? You have to ask good questions and you often complicated answers. Biased guests are good at telling people what to think in simple terms. Bias… now thats entertainment.
Friday. Time for to go out for a smash of glass and a rumble of boots
An electric train and a ripped up ‘phone booth
Paint splattered walls and the cry of a tomcat
Lights going out and a kick in the balls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-H0uIH5HHQ
‘Individual Americans may need to fight for freedom again’
Why wouldn’t Andrews just retire from politics, as both Bracks and Brumby did?
SK
I love that Jam song. 🙂
Goll
Oh, I get you.
The guy was talking as if individuals needed to be able to take up arms to defend their country. That seems to me to encourage nationalists with guns.