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.
frednk @ #341 Saturday, August 10th, 2019 – 11:21 am
The 99 year lease was only on the New Territories. However without that area Hong Kong island would have been untenable (water supply problems etc) so it made sense to hand it all back.
Hastie casrs Xi as Adolf.
Who then is Chamberlain?
C@tMomma
A correction to my previous statement (and possibly containing further errors…). There are (at least) three different approaches:
1. Fake meat – plant matter made to taste like meat – not meat, but perhaps “alternative meat”
2. Cultured meat – (animal) cells grown in culture – very expensive (this was the $100,000/kg meat, and in fact even more expensive than that), and doesn’t grow fast enough (in the case of muscle cells, which is want people want to eat, as C@t has alluded to)
3. Some sort of hybrid, cultured meat involving plant matter (and possibly insect matter, as someone mentioned) – I assume this is what’s really driving the price down
Also – in the latter two cases – designer meat – if one wants Wagyu with particular parameters (marbling score etc.) it can be produced to specification. This is both a premium product (for people who dial everything up to the max) and also slots into large scale food retailers who will prefer meat inputs that work most effectively with their plant and equipment
Boerwar @ #402 Saturday, August 10th, 2019 – 3:11 pm
Is Bill Shorten or Tony Abbott Churchill?
E.G.Theodore,
The scientist that I was listening to did indeed say that the marbling effect of Wagyu was hard to recreate. In the ‘real’ Wagyu it is indelibly bound to the muscle tissue and infuses the meat with its flavour. He also said that is how you tell fake Wagyu (and it is going around he said, even at high end restaurants), from the real deal, as the fake Wagyu, even though it looks like it has the marbling effect when purchased, when cooked the fat drains away as it has been injected into inferior quality cuts in order to sell it for an inflated price. Therefore, it is doubly hard to produce a laboratory-generated Wagyu for this reason and the fact that the scientists haven’t even got to the point of getting muscle fibres to cohere, let alone getting the fat to last through the cooking process and not just melt and drain away.
So I think we’re stuck with people willing to pay through the nose for ‘organic’ Wagyu for the foreseeable future. It’s difficult to produce the product any other way than on the hoof.
As for other sources of protein, the flavour is something that can be worked on at least.
GG
Cormann has taken one look at where Hastie’s diatribes are taking Australia – recession imposed by China- and has called for some sanity.
Morrison has essentially lost control of the Coalition.
Pegasus @ #392 Saturday, August 10th, 2019 – 1:51 pm
It’s amazing how the same names pop up in revisions of Labors worst moments…
PvO’s column today essentially wonders the same thing, noting that the Liberal partyroom is threatening to split on policy rather than dissent for the sake of it. He referenced superannuation as the issue splitting them, and that it was an outside intervention from Costello that got the backbenchers chattering and threatening to go public with their grievances.
The CPAC conference is getting willing..
The international who’s who of conservative voices, also includes former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and former Breitbart editor-in-chief Raheem Kassam.
“It’s disturbing, it’s concerning and it needs to be fought against,” protester Hersha Kadkol of the National Union of Students told SBS News.
Ms Kadkol and others yelled messages like “unite to fight the right” and “Tony Abbott, what a maggot” that could be heard within the venue during the conference.
Some attendees left the event to confront protests, leading to several scuffles, but a heavy police presence mostly kept the two groups apart.
NSW Police Force confirmed to SBS News one woman was arrested and is yet to be charged.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/one-arrested-as-protesters-face-off-outside-sydney-s-conservative-conference
I’ve a bad feeling Hastie’s long game is trying to take this country to very bad position. His movements need to be closely scrutinised.
The state of ones mind after the’ve returned from the idiocy of war will always be of concern.
Yes he did. The funniest bit was when the Mooch compared Trump with Joe McCarthy.
Erik Jensen
http://johnmenadue.com/saturdays-good-reading-and-listening-for-the-weekend-28/
Andrew Leigh on how Labor’s deluge of ideas helped it lose the election
Former shadow assistant treasurer says voters needed to go into polling booth understanding Labor’s ‘core philosophy’
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/10/guilty-as-anyone-andrew-leigh-on-how-labors-deluge-of-ideas-helped-it-lose-the-election
Boerwar @ #406 Saturday, August 10th, 2019 – 3:29 pm
There is no doubt that the US can impose severe economic pain on China. However, China will absorb that pain because their political structure enables them to do that. Trump is a populist mouthing glib slogans. But, the reality is that he’s a prisoner to the democratic process and voters tend to vote through their pocket. So, the Trump ethos of being an arsehole to everyone (friend or foe) doesn’t work when the intended target just yawns.
Australia is collateral damage in this process.
The choice we have is do we kow tow to the people who put food on our table or to our great protector?
Pegasus @ #415 Saturday, August 10th, 2019 – 4:18 pm
Noble sentiments but completely detached from reality of voters attention span.
Bernie sounds like a hypocrite
“Unionized campaign organizers working for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s presidential effort are battling with its management, arguing that the compensation and treatment they are receiving does not meet the standards Sanders espouses in his rhetoric, according to internal communications.
Campaign field hires have demanded an annual salary they say would be equivalent to a $15-an-hour wage, which Sanders for years has said should be the federal minimum.”
I think Dr Andrew Leigh has countermanded Erik Jensen’s slur against Labor, pretty decisively.
But Labor Haters gotta hate, so let’s just see whose side they come down on now. 🙂
Dio,
I’m not surprised in the least.
On the meat issue. people forget that in australia, nearly all of our meat comes from pasture and non-grain fodder crops which converts low grade roughage that our guts cannot process into high grade protein. They also ignore that continual cropping is not sustainable and that a pasture phase helps soil and farm sustainability. Grazing animals complement crop production. Figures cited re: the environmental impacts of meat are usually based on more intensive US and european production systems using feedlots and housed animals. the figures for water used by livestock include water needed to grow their fodder – which in Australia is called rain in most areas. These figures also seem to assume/imply that all the water goes down the animals throat never to be released and ignores that water than flows through farms and soil and that animals urinate.
The main issue in australia is further land clearing for grazing, and cows and sheep burps – enteric methane emissions. These can be reduced by feed additives and possibly even vaccines for methanogenic bacteria that improve feed conversion and reduce methane emissions. The land clearing is something state governments should be stopping. Queensland labor is particularly redneck/LNP when it comes to farms and mines it would seem.
I eat red meat once or twice a month and chicken or fish about 2 times a week, with other meals being vegetarian – using a lot of dried pulses (soaked and cooked at home) rather than processed meat substitutes or tinned pulses and eggs for protein. One of my kids is vegetarian, and I fully support him on this, but it isn’t something I feel I need to do and I’ll probably have a fairly vigorous discussion with him if he decided to become vegan. I suspect that sustainably produced meat would have less environmental impact than some of the highly processed meat substitutes.
My fear for a long time was that the conservative media was going to seize on the vegan lobby’s demands that we all go vegan ”to save the planet” as a way of turning most people away from action on climate. this seems to be happening now. I wish vegans would stick to animal welfare arguments and avoid the self-righteousness re: environmental impacts and imply that all animal products are inhernetly worse than vegan products (many of which are highly processed). The message should ‘less red meat and more sustainable meat/food products’.
Sus fut
The future is eating vat food based on termite cellulose digestion genes?
Or we could eat vegans.
I feel a slogan coming on:
‘Be kind to cows. Eat vegans.’
Dio:
Yes indeed. But since that first hit the news some weeks or months ago I understand Bernie has relented and has come to some kind of agreement with his campaign staff about a payrise.
C@tmomma @ #418 Saturday, August 10th, 2019 – 4:39 pm
People like Jensen hold labor to a standard they want to personally impose. They can get farked.
The reality is that Labor is a mainstream party representing the interests of mainstream voters and they are the only alternative Government going round. The election outcome demonstrates clearly that Australian voters are not up for major reform to the system.
Labor are wise to tack to the middle and wear the shouty extremist taunts of the Greens and their ilk.
The political pendulum will swing back again.
Simply, eat more vegies and less meat.
Dio
Not a good look for Sanders.
Opponents of Bernie will always seek to misrepresent anything associated to his campaign.
Eat Greens not cows.
The Lettuce Wars.
Boerwar @ #429 Saturday, August 10th, 2019 – 4:59 pm
Too bitter, comrade.
Greensborough Growler @ #425 Saturday, August 10th, 2019 – 4:55 pm
Exactly. Armchair Generals always think it’s sooo easy to lead.
Sanders was caught with his ideological pants around his ankles.
Pulling his policy undies back on does not ersase the prior vision of Sander’s political privates
SPRUNG!
Rex Douglas @ #428 Saturday, August 10th, 2019 – 4:58 pm
So you don’t do true facts stated anymore? Hmm.
Save the Planet!
Eat your Greens!
Boerwar @ #431 Saturday, August 10th, 2019 – 3:02 pm
Jeez Boerwar, there’s a mental image I could’ve done without 😮
C@tmomma @ #432 Saturday, August 10th, 2019 – 5:01 pm
‘tack to the middle’ .. ‘extremist Greens’ 😆
Typical right wing meme’s… 😆
Boerwar @ #432 Saturday, August 10th, 2019 – 5:02 pm
I’m no wrap for Sanders, but this has a whiff of fake news.
C@tmomma @ #434 Saturday, August 10th, 2019 – 5:02 pm
I don’t ‘do’ misrepresentations like you do.
GG:
It isn’t fake news, but Dio is citing old news unless previously agreed negotiations have since broken down. This from a few weeks ago:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sen-bernie-sanderss-campaign-organizers-reach-deal-for-pay-raise/2019/07/23/dbca3ac4-ace5-11e9-8e77-03b30bc29f64_story.html
William if you are about.
Looking at your stats above, it occurred to me that the ‘sophomore effect’ might be masking a trend whereby the middle is being hollowed out and the extremes gaining more ground.
sf
Exactly so.
And cattle grazing, Australian style, means a more diverse environment than crop production.
I’ve also been musing on the subject of food miles – a kilogram of carrots v a kilogram of steak – but haven’t really crunched numbers on this is any real way. I do know that, when the local farmers had to get out of tobacco, there was a big push to have them take up other crops, which failed due to the small farm sizes and (more importantly) because of the distance to markets.
Although there has been a considerable take up of hop growing and apple orchards in recent times, most ex tobacco farmers have ended up as cattle grazers.
The economics dictated it.
Confessions @ #439 Saturday, August 10th, 2019 – 5:10 pm
It’s fake news to the extent that Sanders is far removed from the decision making process in this case.
It’s not reality or sensible to expect a US Presidential Candidate to micro manage his National campaign.
Fingers Hastie announced that he was going to Canberra to fix the national ice epidemic.
FAIL!
Now the twerp is acting like a home grown Neocon goon trying to stir up a trade war between China and Australia.
The chap’s a fuckwit.
If he can’t run his campaign according to the MMT gods how is he going to run a country according to St Nicholas the patron saint of political fellow travellers?
I’m really sure that Bernie Sanders personally decided the pay level of the original employee agreement for the organizers in his campaign. There was evidence of that in the original story, wasn’t there? Oh there wasn’t? Ok, so it was a smear that was pushed by his political opponents. Situation normal. They can’t defeat his ideas, so they resort to this knucklehead crap.
GG:
It was his campaign staff who raised the issue of a payrise, an entirely appropriate request given the campaign’s policies. While Bernie personally may not have been directly involved in establishing his campaign staff entitlements (and to date it isn’t known just how involved or otherwise he is on that front), his senior campaign management should’ve anticipated this. Esp given how strongly Bernie has campaigned on the issue of a minimum wage.
How good is that?!
And where’s Scotty?
Nicholas @ #445 Saturday, August 10th, 2019 – 5:26 pm
Um, so Bernie isn’t running the show and was unable to intervene to rectify the situation once he found out about it? O…K…
Rex Douglas @ #438 Saturday, August 10th, 2019 – 5:09 pm
The master of the low blow strikes again. Do you think I should be ‘managed out’ of the blog, Rex Douglas?
Now, as I have just seen the contribution by confessions I have revised my position. You see, when the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do sir?
If it had been Morrison dicking around with the minimum pay of Liberal campaign workers the Greens would have done political orgasmic political handwringing.
Comrade Sanders?
He is doing the wrong thing for the right reasons.
As you were.