Call of the board: Western Australia

Another deep dive into the result of the May federal election – this time focusing on Western Australia, which disappointed Labor yet again.

The Call of the Board wheel now turns to Western Australia, after previous instalments that probed into the federal election results for Sydney (here and here), regional New South Wales, Melbourne, regional Victoria, south-east Queensland and regional Queensland.

Western Australia has been disappointing federal Labor ever since Kim Beazley elevated the party’s vote in his home state in 1998 and 2001, and this time was no exception. After an unprecedented Labor landslide at the 2017 state election and expectations the state’s economic malaise would sour voters on the government, the May election in fact produced a statewide two-party swing of 0.9% to the Coalition, and no change on the existing configuration of 11 seats for the Liberals and five for Labor.

As illustrated by the maps below (click on the images to enlarge), which record the two-party swings at booth level, Perth typified the national trend in that Labor gained in inner urban areas, regardless of their political complexion, while copping a hit in the outer suburbs. This will be reflected in the seat-by-seat commentary below, which regularly invokes the shorthand of “inner urban” and “outer urban” effects. The map on the left is limited to seats that are clearly within the Perth metropolitan area, while the second adds the fringe seats of Pearce (north), Hasluck (east) and Canning (south).

For further illustration, the table below compares each electorate’s two-party result (the numbers shown are Labor’s) with a corresponding two-party Senate measure, which was derived from the AEC’s files recording the preference order of each ballot paper (with votes that did not preference either Labor or Liberal excluded). This potentially offers a pointer as to how much candidate factors affected the lower house results.

Brand (Labor 6.7%; 4.8% swing to Liberal): Like so many other suburban seats distant from central business districts across the land, Brand recorded a solid swing to the Liberals after going strongly the other way in 2016. This dynamic drowned out whatever impact candidate factors may have had: Labor’s Madeleine King picked up a 7.7% swing on debut in 2016, but this time copped a 4.8% reversal despite theoretically being in line for a sophomore surge. The Senate result was little different from the House, further suggesting candidate factors were not much of a feature.

Burt (Labor 5.0%; 2.1% swing to Liberal): On its creation in 2016, Burt recorded a swing to Labor of 13.2%, the biggest of the election. This partly reflected the dramatic boomtime suburban growth that had caused the seat to be created in the first place, and which has since ground to a halt. The Liberals swing of 2.1% this time was typical for suburbia outside the inner urban zone, overwhelming any sophomore effect for the seat’s inaugural member, Matt Keogh. However, Keogh very substantially outperformed the two-party Senate metric.

Canning (Liberal 11.6%; 4.8% swing to Liberal): Covering Perth’s outer southern fringes, Canning was another seat that typified outer suburbia in swinging heavily to the Liberals, in this case to the advantage of Andrew Hastie. Hastie came to the seat at a by-election held a week after Malcolm Turnbull’s rise to the prime ministership in September 2015, at which he survived a 6.6% swing to Labor, most of which stuck at the federal election the following July. The swing in his favour this time has returned the Liberal margin to the peaks of 2013.

Cowan (Labor 0.9%; 0.2% swing to Labor): Anne Aly gained Cowan for Labor in 2016 by a margin of 0.7%, slightly less than she would have needed to hold out the 0.9% statewide swing had it been uniform. She was in fact able to boost her margin by 0.2%, in a seat slightly out of the range of the wealthier inner urban areas where Labor did best in swing terms. The disparity between the House result and the two-party Senate metric, which records a 1.5% advantage for the Liberals, suggests Aly can take much of the credit for her win, over and above the exercise of the sophomore surge effect.

Curtin (Liberal 14.3%; 6.4% swing to Labor): The most prestigious Liberal seat in the west had a complicated story to tell at this election: Julie Bishop retired after more than two decades as member; the party raised some eyebrows locally by endorsing a Christian conservative, Celia Hammond, despite the seat’s small-l liberal complexion; and Labor initially endorsed former Fremantle MP Melissa Parke, who shortly withdrew after copping static over contentious pronouncements about Israel. An independent, Louise Stewart, held out some promise of harnessing support from Malcolm Turnbull loyalists, but her campaign was torpedoed after polling she circulated showing her well placed to win proved to be fabricated. Stewart claimed to have been the victim of a trick, while the Liberal response to the episode betrayed a certain inconsistency in attitude towards the dissemination of fraudulent documents for political purposes. The loss of Bishop’s personal support and the broader inner urban effect were evident on the scoreboard, with the Liberals down 11.3% on the primary vote and 6.4% on two-party preferred. The Greens continue to fall just shy of edging Labor into second – this time they trailed 17.6% to 15.6% on the primary vote and 20.4% to 19.6% at the last preference exclusion. Louise Stewart finished a distant fourth with 7.8%.

Durack (Liberal 14.8%; 3.7% swing to Liberal): When she first came to the seat covering northern Western Australia in 2013, Melissa Price had to fight off the Nationals, over whom she prevailed by 4.0%. However, she has since gone undisturbed over two elections as the Nationals have fallen to earth. The applecart was upset slightly on this occasion by the entry of One Nation, who scored 9.5%, contributing to respective drops of 4.3% and 5.8% for Labor and the Nationals, while Price’s primary vote rose 2.6%.

Forrest (Liberal 14.6%; 2.0% swing to Liberal): Nola Marino was re-elected with a modest swing amid a generally uneventful result. One Nation and Shooters Fishers and Farmers were in the field this time whereas the Nationals were not, but this was rather academic as the primary votes for all concerned were inside 6%.

Fremantle (Labor 6.9%; 0.6% swing to Liberal): The scoreline in Fremantle was not particularly interesting, with little change on two-party preferred, and downward primary vote movements for the established parties that reflected only a larger field of candidates. However, the results map illustrates particularly noteworthy geographic variation, with the area around Fremantle proper swinging to Labor in line with the inner urban effect, while the less fashionable suburbia that constitutes the electorate’s southern half went the other way (a pattern maintained across the boundary with Brand, where there was a 4.6% swing in favour of the Liberals). Labor member Josh Wilson was in line for a sophomore surge effect, although this was not his first bid for re-election thanks to a Section 44 by-election in July 2018, which passed without incident in the absence of a Liberal candidate.

Hasluck (Liberal 5.2%; 3.2% swing to Liberal): The Liberals’ most marginal Western Australian seat going into the election, Hasluck delivered Labor a particularly dispiriting defeat, with Ken Wyatt securing the biggest margin of his four election career. The swing reflected the general outer urban effect, although Labor did manage to pick up a few swings around relatively affluent Kalamunda.

Moore (Liberal 11.7%; 0.6% swing to Liberal): This northern suburbs beachside electorate is affluent enough to be safe Liberal, but not fashionable enough to have partaken in the inner urban effect. Third term member Ian Goodenough picked up a very slight swing, as the primary vote told a familiar story of the three established parties all being slightly down amid a larger field of candidates.

O’Connor (Liberal 14.5%; 0.6% swing to Labor): Covering the southern part of regional Western Australia, O’Connor was held by the Nationals for a term after Tony Crook unseated Wilson Tuckey in 2010, but Rick Wilson narrowly recovered it for the Liberals when Crook bowed out after a term in 2013, and the Nationals have not troubled him since. One Nation entered the race this time, but managed only a modest 8.4%.

Pearce (Liberal 7.5%; 3.9% swing to Liberal): Among the many Liberal scalps that went unclaimed by Labor was that of Christian Porter, who emerged the beneficiary of the outer urban effect after being widely written off in the wake of the state election landslide and the coup against Malcolm Turnbull. One Nation landed a fairly solid 8.2%, contributing to a solid 5.2% primary vote slump for Labor.

Perth (Labor 4.9%; 1.6% swing to Labor): One of Labor’s few reliable seats in the west, Perth has undergone frequent personnel changes since Stephen Smith retired in 2013, with Alannah MacTiernan bowing out to return to state politics in 2016, and her successor Tim Hammond failing to make it through a full term. This complicates sophomore surge considerations for current member Patrick Gorman, who retained the seat without Liberal opposition at a by-election in July last year. The swing in his favour reflected the inner urban effect, but he also managed to outperform Labor’s two-part Senate metric for the seat.

Stirling (Liberal 5.6%; 0.5% swing to Labor): In a once marginal seat that looked increasingly secure for the Liberals after Michael Keenan gained it in 2004, this election loomed as a litmus test of how secure the party would look when stripped of his personal vote. The results were encouraging for the party, with new candidate Vince Connelly suffering only a slight swing. The results map suggests a pattern in which the beachside suburbs and areas near the city swung to Labor, while the unfashionable area around Balga at the centre of the electorate went the other way.

Swan (Liberal 2.7%; 0.9% swing to Labor): Together with Pearce and Hasluck, Swan was one of three seats in Labor’s firing line, but Steve Irons was able to secure a fifth successive win in what has traditionally been a knife-edge seat. This was despite the pedigree of Labor candidate Hannah Beazley, whose father Kim Beazley held the seat from 1980 to 1996, when he jumped ship for Brand. The results map tells a family story in that the affluent western end of the electorate swung to Labor, while the lower income suburbs in the east went the other way.

Tangney (Liberal 11.5%; 0.4% swing to Liberal): Liberal sophomore Ben Morton held his ground in this safe Liberal seat, despite the riverside suburbia of Applecross and Attadale partaking of the inner urban effect. He gained 4.8% on the primary vote in the absence of former member Dennis Jensen, who polled 11.9% as an independent in 2016 after being defeated by Morton for preselection.

ANNOUNCEMENT: If this painstakingly compiled post interested you enough that you have made it all the way through to the end, perhaps you might care to make a donation. These are gratefully received via the “become a supporter” button that appears just below, or the PressPatron button at the top of the page.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,840 comments on “Call of the board: Western Australia”

Comments Page 37 of 37
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  2. It’s a shame the pollsters don’t reveal their methodology- like this one…

    ‘The accuracy of the campaign track provided by YouGov has been the subject of public critique since the election. There was an industry-wide failure to predict the result of the 2019 election, with a persistent bias towards a Labor victory.

    The campaign track did get the result of the election wrong. YouGov has a reputation
    as the most accurate research provider. The submission from YouGov identifies the error was primarily attributable to a reliance on 2016 vote recall as a weighting factor.

    That is, YouGov’s surveys included a question asking participants who they voted for at the previous federal election in 2016, and the final report produced from each survey was weighted to adjust for any over or underrepresentation of past support based on the actual results in 2016. While that has been a tool used by quantitative researchers for decades, it served to both overestimate the Labor primary vote and the preference flow to Labor.

  3. guytaur @ #1760 Thursday, November 7th, 2019 – 7:25 pm

    To be clear I think the Democrats won in Kentucky on education as the primary issue.

    That ignores the norm of US voters being notoriously disengaged when it comes to policy issues (Hillary was a policy wonk, for all the good it did her). And also doesn’t explain why the GOP lost 14 points in Mississippi where that issue wasn’t playing (or the clean sweep in Virginia, where ditto).

    The only consistent thing that cuts across all the elections that have shown huge swings to the Dems is Trump’s toxic unpopularity. They don’t need to go big on policy to win 2020.

  5. As your link illustrates P1 – my use of ‘woke’ is a not to subtle jab at the inner urb ‘woke’. In relation to my longish rant – I was suggesting that the bohobos are so woke they can’t see the woods for the trees: for them – and regrettably more generally In ‘environmental debates’- its all about C02. In Australia, it just ain’t.

  6. AR

    I was trying not to overstate national factors in a Governor race.

    Yes Trump contributed. However the closest we have here is voting for a Premier.

    Different levels. Conservative Kentucky is different from Conservative Mississippi.

    All I was saying was the whole Scary Bernie Sanders Red Scourge with his Green New Deal is coming to get you failed.

    I think Education and Health won.
    It’s clear though the scare campaign failed.
    As did the Witch Hunt rhetoric.

    That’s the point. The Democrats know the scare campaigns are failing. Labor doesn’t seem to have realised this yet.

  7. Andrew_Earlwood @ #1805 Thursday, November 7th, 2019 – 9:17 pm

    I was suggesting that the bohobos are so woke they can’t see the woods for the trees: for them – and regrettably more generally – its all about C02. In Australia, it just ain’t.

    There is no doubt that global warming is the most important issue facing all nations. It is just that Australia is so useless on pretty much all environmental issues that we are also facing many other problems as well 🙁

  9. P1: I suspect the task of selling the public on the need to reverse land clearing, reduce – not increase the footprint of the continent given over to grazing or grazing related agriculture (all the feed to fatten up cows to wagyu levels) – saying no to more dams, weirs and levies (in fact removing some of them), preserving primary agricultural land on the eastern seaboard, weening cane farmers off their ‘sugar only’ addictions etc etc is even more doomed than persuading a clear majority to agree to a simple, relatively painless three decades long transition to a zero carbon economy.

    Depressing as all fuck, ain’t it.

  11. I should add. My point about looking at the Democrats is they seem to be fusing the progressives with the Blue Collar vote besides the scare campaigns failing.

  12. First, the publicly available Newspoll figures had a persistent technical error that overstated Labor’s primary vote, understated the Coalition’s primary vote

    What was the ‘persistent technical error’, or doesn’t anyone know?

  14. Holy shit did Trump really say this publicly? 😆 Everything Trump Touches Dies, even his own damned self!!

    Beshear’s victory, assuming it holds, was both revealing and important because Trump and incumbent Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) chose to make the race a referendum on the president. Trump offered a sound bite for the ages when he declared at a Bevin rally on the eve of the election: “If you lose, they’re gonna say Trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world. You can’t let that happen to me.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/tuesdays-elections-sent-republicans-a-strong-message/2019/11/06/f6b64fa6-00c5-11ea-8501-2a7123a38c58_story.html

  18. C@t

    See my post at 9.08pm. I’m hoping William will explain this weighting, as outlined on pp70-71 of the report https://alp.org.au/media/2043/alp-campaign-review-2019.pdf

    ‘It is difficult to say what, if anything, the campaign could have done differently in hindsight to address this concern. The use of vote recall is a standard practice, but on this occasion, created significant error in the outcome. This error was perpetuated amongst a range of published polling at the same time.
    Why the error occurred is difficult to identify. YouGov has hypothesised the framing of the 2016 election on Medicare and the change of prime minister contributed to many people who voted Labor in 2016 incorrectly recalling their previous vote. Whether this is correct cannot be definitively answered.

  19. Cat

    The article mentions Federal Labor, and Queensland Labor. Who have the Coal Industry directly embedded in the Qld Premier’s office? In fed Labor’s shadow ministry?

  20. Thanks, sprocket. So you’re saying ‘vote recall’ is the technical error that led Newspoll to overstate Labor’s PV and understate the Coalition PV?

    You wonder why they used it at all to inform their calculations. It’s obviously a very fluid number these days from election to election.

  21. Sprocket,

    Some telling analysis here..

    The review commissioned an ALP internal statistical analysis of categories of voters who swung from and to Labor to more fully understand the demographic swings at the 2019 election. We are able to determine voting patterns at the SA1 level, the smallest grouping reported by the ABS.

    Using this rich dataset, the internal statistical review determined voting patterns by running various regression models designed to isolate the effects of one variable while holding all others constant. The variables included were: age, weekly household income, educational attainment, unemployment rate, net rental loss, franking credits, place of ancestry and religious identification. The main findings are described below.

    When all other variables were controlled for, SA1s with a high proportion of the following groups were associated with a swing against Labor:

    • Voters aged 25-34 years living in outer-urban and regional areas;
    • Christians;
    • Coal mining communities;
    • Chinese Australians; and
    • Queenslanders.

    There is overlap between some of these groups, such as Christians living in Queensland and mine workers aged 25-34 years. However, each characteristic was an independently statistically significant contributor to the anti-Labor swing.

    Thanks so much for this post.

    I was thinking that unless Labor could do a good statistical analysis of where they lost, it would. be hard to recover. I was concerned that Labor did not have the resources es to do this, but they hav e done exactly what I would have counselled.

    I must say that getting any of:

    • Voters aged 25-34 years living in outer-urban and regional areas;
    • Christians;
    • Coal mining communities;
    • Chinese Australians; and
    • Queenslanders.

    back will be tough for Labor. but at least we know where the problem lies.

  23. Pegasus @ #1818 Thursday, November 7th, 2019 – 10:28 pm

    Cat

    The article mentions Federal Labor, and Queensland Labor. Who have the Coal Industry directly embedded in the Qld Premier’s office? In fed Labor’s shadow ministry?

    The article says nothing about anyone in the Queensland Premier’s office as directly tied to the Coal industry as the person Morrison has in his office as a policy adviser.

    Also, I would take that article more seriously if it explained the more nuanced position of the Labor Party wrt the difference between Metalurgical Coal and Thermal Coal, instead of writing emotive garbage like this:

    Even the opposition center-left Labor Party is hooked, pushing for emissions cuts while continuing to support more coal mining.

    “They’re trying to play both sides,” said David Ritter, the chief executive of Greenpeace Australia. “They’re avoiding the work that’s necessary to create a clean energy economy.”

    and seeking out David Ritter for a suitably biased comment. Obviously he refuses to acknowledge that Labor federally are unable to do anything about creating a clean energy economy and then just ignores what Labor governments in the states where they have power ARE doing.

  24. How meta. A snouts in the trough affair to celebrate 25 years of the ultimate snout in the trough. I’m struggling to think of one substantive, meaningful contribution Abbott made to public life.

    The message was unity. The scale was ambitious. As 500 expected guests became 700 and then eclipsed 1000, it seemed every Liberal luminary in Sydney and across the land would be there.

    There was one noteworthy exception, however: Malcolm Turnbull.

    The immediate previous prime minister was flying back from his second home in New York on Thursday night while his own predecessor, Tony Abbott, entertained the massive crowd of friends and foes gathered to honour his 25 years in public life.

    Among those due to speak in tribute were Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Liberal legend John Howard and 2GB broadcaster Alan Jones, who was also the event’s master of ceremonies. Mr Abbott will also receive a lifetime service award.

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/liberals-gather-en-masse-to-honour-tony-abbott-s-25-years-in-politics-20191107-p538ad.html

  25. nath,

    I suppose the inner urban swing to the alp in liberal held seats is a backlash against the removal of Turnbull. I’d expect some correction next election.

    Well spotted. These people are Malcolm Turnbull (and Fraser?) Liberals. They were rightly pissed off at the untimely demise of Malcolm, but will return to the Liberal fold at the next election. As the did in Wentworth, after the brief dalliance with Kerryn Phelps. I was surprised by this – a seat with an independent representative tends to get listened to with more concern – you never know when you might need that independent’s vote.

  26. Among those due to speak in tribute were Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Liberal legend John Howard and 2GB broadcaster Alan Jones, who was also the event’s master of ceremonies. Mr Abbott will also receive a lifetime service award.

    Someone pass me a bucket!

  27. Well you won’t be getting this Queenslander to vote ALP again too soon. Not unless you give me a reason too, and more taxes and a bigger surplus won’t do the trick. Neither will all that Left-identity politics stuff. And I don’t especially care about climate change either.

    But I do care about staying employed, not having health problems and not seeing ScoMo’s smug face on TV.

  28. guytaur @ #1806 Thursday, November 7th, 2019 – 8:20 pm

    That’s the point. The Democrats know the scare campaigns are failing. Labor doesn’t seem to have realised this yet.

    It’s really hard to make direct comparisons between US and Australian politics. Aside from everything around mandatory, preferential voting versus voluntary, FPTP voting, Australia is an outright socialist utopia compared to the US. Even after 6 years of knuckle-dragging right-wing governance.

    I think you’re right that Labor in Australia should go left, hard. Australia can and does accept left-wing ideas that would likely never fly in the US (like public healthcare, public universities, gun control, reasonable employment standards with a minimum wage that’s approximately livable if you work full-time, etc….though we oddly lagged way behind on marriage equality for some reason). People will vote for them, if they’re campaigned on with actual conviction.

    I just don’t think the same principle applies in the US. The electorate there is much more resistant to that kind of agenda and easily agitated against things like “hell yes we’re coming for your guns”. In the US you pretty much win or lose on turnout. You want to fire up your base, without agitating the other side’s.

  29. Historyintime:

    But I do care about staying employed, not having health problems and not seeing ScoMo’s smug face on TV.

    Work hard, eat healthy, turn off the TV, get some exercise, and floss.

    You don’t need a political party, you need a life coach!

  30. AR

    I agree that the direct comparison is very hard for all the reasons you cite. That’s why I find it remarkable that the whole red scare stuff is failing in the US.

    The good part for me is the blue wave seems to be also bringing preferential voting. I think the Democrats are envious of our voting system.

    It’s also why Kentucky is such an eye catcher. Electing the gun control party in the NRA home state.

  32. Douglas and Milko @ #1825 Thursday, November 7th, 2019 – 7:44 pm

    Well spotted. These people are Malcolm Turnbull (and Fraser?) Liberals. They were rightly pissed off at the untimely demise of Malcolm, but will return to the Liberal fold at the next election.

    Perhaps. I’m not so sure that “Turnbull Liberals” are enthusiastic about anything Morrison has done, or is likely to do. I can’t see that demographic being all that enamoured over the lurch to the far right that is taking place under Morrison’s stewardship, nor his worship of Trump. Perhaps these people are akin to the Never-Trumpers in the US GOP. Shall we call them Never-Morrisons?

    Anyway, we shall see.

  33. C@tmomma @ #1823 Thursday, November 7th, 2019 – 10:43 pm

    Pegasus @ #1818 Thursday, November 7th, 2019 – 10:28 pm

    Cat

    The article mentions Federal Labor, and Queensland Labor. Who have the Coal Industry directly embedded in the Qld Premier’s office? In fed Labor’s shadow ministry?

    The article says nothing about anyone in the Queensland Premier’s office as directly tied to the Coal industry as the person Morrison has in his office as a policy adviser.

    Also, I would take that article more seriously if it explained the more nuanced position of the Labor Party wrt the difference between Metalurgical Coal and Thermal Coal, instead of writing emotive garbage like this:

    Even the opposition center-left Labor Party is hooked, pushing for emissions cuts while continuing to support more coal mining.

    “They’re trying to play both sides,” said David Ritter, the chief executive of Greenpeace Australia. “They’re avoiding the work that’s necessary to create a clean energy economy.”

    and seeking out David Ritter for a suitably biased comment. Obviously he refuses to acknowledge that Labor federally are unable to do anything about creating a clean energy economy and then just ignores what Labor governments in the states where they have power ARE doing.

    Wasn’t David Ritter the ALP Candidate for Pearce in 2004

  34. Will Higgins and Kooyong type seats swing back to the Liberals?

    Yes but it will be like Cooper, the Liberals will likely continue to see a fall in support while they are in office then see a swing back after a term of a ALP government. There has been a longer term shift in Kooyong with Frydenberg only polling 49% in an electorate that has seen the Liberals losing support at every election since the 1994 by-election except for the 2010/2013 election. Only time will tell if that will that continue, there has been a similar but far smaller shift in Higgins during the same thirty years.

  35. The ALP could have saved itself a lot of time spent on the analysis of their loss and just read this site – it’s pretty clear how out of touch the ALP and Greens are from most voters.

  36. Louisiana’s one state where you really can’t take any national implications from state-level votes – it’s the one place where you will still find old-school Southern Democrats (wiped out in most of the rest of the South in 1994), and so quite often still elects Democrats, especially at state level, despite its strongly Republican slant in Presidential elections.

  39. Greensborough Growler @ #1833 Thursday, November 7th, 2019 – 11:26 pm

    C@tmomma @ #1823 Thursday, November 7th, 2019 – 10:43 pm

    Pegasus @ #1818 Thursday, November 7th, 2019 – 10:28 pm

    Cat

    The article mentions Federal Labor, and Queensland Labor. Who have the Coal Industry directly embedded in the Qld Premier’s office? In fed Labor’s shadow ministry?

    The article says nothing about anyone in the Queensland Premier’s office as directly tied to the Coal industry as the person Morrison has in his office as a policy adviser.

    Also, I would take that article more seriously if it explained the more nuanced position of the Labor Party wrt the difference between Metalurgical Coal and Thermal Coal, instead of writing emotive garbage like this:

    Even the opposition center-left Labor Party is hooked, pushing for emissions cuts while continuing to support more coal mining.

    “They’re trying to play both sides,” said David Ritter, the chief executive of Greenpeace Australia. “They’re avoiding the work that’s necessary to create a clean energy economy.”

    and seeking out David Ritter for a suitably biased comment. Obviously he refuses to acknowledge that Labor federally are unable to do anything about creating a clean energy economy and then just ignores what Labor governments in the states where they have power ARE doing.

    Wasn’t David Ritter the ALP Candidate for Pearce in 2004

    I didn’t know that because it wasn’t mentioned in the article, just his current, not very impartial or honest position wrt ALP policy. I get that people like him want a virtual immediate end to coal mining so as to protect the environment and species viability within it but just to offer the rote Panglossian attack on Coal mining and hence, the ALP’s position on it, is disingenuous and careless at best and a specious self-serving lie at worst. I expect better from a former ALP candidate.

  40. Historyintime @ #1827 Thursday, November 7th, 2019 – 10:57 pm

    Well you won’t be getting this Queenslander to vote ALP again too soon. Not unless you give me a reason too, and more taxes and a bigger surplus won’t do the trick. Neither will all that Left-identity politics stuff. And I don’t especially care about climate change either.

    But I do care about staying employed, not having health problems and not seeing ScoMo’s smug face on TV.

    2/3 of that list tells me you should vote Labor. Even 3/3 because Palacsjuk Labor want you to keep your job too. 🙂

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