The public release of Craig Emerson and Jay Weatherill’s report into Labor’s federal election campaign has inspired a run of commentary about the way ahead for the party after its third successive defeat, to which nothing need be added here. From the perspective of this website, the following details are of specific interest:
• Labor’s own efforts to use area-based regression modelling to identify demographic characteristics associated with swings against Labor identifies five problem areas: voters aged 25-34 in outer urban or regional areas; Christians; coal mining communities; Chinese Australians; and the state of Queensland. The variable that best explained swings in favour of Labor was higher education. However, as has been discussed here previously, this sort of analysis is prey to the ecological fallacy. On this basis, I am particularly dubious about the report’s suggestion that Labor did not lose votes from beneficiaries of franking credits and negative gearing, based on the fact that affluent areas swung to Labor. There is perhaps more to the corresponding assertion that the Liberals were able to persuade low-income non-beneficiaries that Labor’s policies would “crash the economy and risk their jobs”.
• Among Labor’s campaign research tools was a multi-level regression and post-stratification analysis, such as YouGov used with notable success to predict seat outcomes at the 2017 election in the UK. Presumably the results were less spectacular on this occasion, as the report says it is “arguable that this simply added another data point to a messy picture”. The tracking polling conducted for Labor by YouGov showed a favourable swing of between 0.5% and 1.5% for most of the campaign, and finally proved about three points off the mark. YouGov suggested to Labor the problem may have been in its use of respondents’ reported vote at the 2016 election as a weighting factor, but the error was in line with that of the published polling, which to the best of my knowledge isn’t typically weighted for past vote in Australia.
• An analysis of Clive Palmer’s advertising found that 40% was expressly anti-Labor in the hectic final week, compared with only 10% in the earlier part of the campaign. The report notes that the Palmer onslaught caused Labor’s “share of voice” out of the sum of all campaign advertising fell from around 40% in 2016 to 25%, and fell as low as 10% in “some regional markets such as Townsville and Rockhampton”, which respectively delivered disastrous results for Labor in the seats of Herbert and Capricornia.
• It is noted that the gap between Labor’s House and Senate votes, which has progressively swollen from 1% to 4.6% since 1990, is most pronounced in areas where Labor is particularly strong.
Other news:
• The challenge against the election results in Chisholm and Kooyong has been heard in the Federal Court this week. The highlight of proceedings has been an admission from Simon Frost, acting director of the Liberal Party in Victoria at the time of the election, that the polling booth advertising at the centre of the dispute was “intended to convey the impression” that they were Australian Electoral Commission signage. The Australian Electoral Commission has weighed in against the challenge with surprising vehemence, telling the court that voters clearly understood that anything importuning for a particular party would not be its own work.
• The ABC reports there is a move in the Tasmanian Liberal Party to drop Eric Abetz from his accustomed position at the top of the Senate ticket at the next election to make way for rising youngester Jonathan Duniam. The Liberals won four seats at the 2016 double dissolution, which initially resulted in six-year terms being granted to Eric Abetz and Stephen Parry, and three-year terms to Duniam and David Bushby. However, the recount that followed the dual disqualifications of Jacqui Lambie and Stephen Parry in November 2017 resulted in the party gaining three rather than two six-year terms, leaving one each for Abetz, Duniam and Bushby. Bushby resigned in January and was replaced by his sister, Wendy Askew, who appears likely only to secure third place on the ticket, which has not been a winning proposition for the Liberals at a half-Senate election since 2004.
• Andrew Clennell of The Australian ($) reports that Jim Molan is likely to win a Liberal preselection vote on Saturday to fill Arthur Sinodinos’s New South Wales Senate vacancy. The decisive factor would appear to be support from Scott Morrison and centre right faction powerbroker Alex Hawke, overcoming lingering hostility towards Molan over his campaign to win re-election by exhorting Liberal supporters to vote for him below the line, in defiance of a party ticket that had placed him in the unwinnable fourth position. He is nonetheless facing determined opposition from Richard Shields, Woollahra deputy mayor and Insurance Council of Australia executive, who was runner-up to Dave Sharma in the party’s hotly contested preselection for Wentworth last year.
C@t,
You can’t say what the members think about the leadership now.
There was no ballot to give us the information. 🙂
Albanese was elected unopposed as leader of the FPLP so we will never know if the majority of labor members across the country wanted him as leader.
I posted at the time that I thought Albanese was a poor choice. I still think that. I believe he is a “ yesterday man” whose time has long come and gone.
However, he is the leader. What he does over the 18 months will be the important issue. All he is doing now is laying the groundwork for the Albanese led labor party. Out with the old, in with the new. As he is entitled to do.
doyley @ #590 Sunday, November 10th, 2019 – 12:44 pm
Are you sure your criticism of Albo has nothing to do with your support of the CFMMEU/Setka ?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1193285940216614912
@RBReich tweets
The most important political divide is not left vs. right, liberal vs. conservative, Democrat vs. Republican.
It’s democracy vs. oligarchy. https://twitter.com/DelRey/status/1193233677859340295
I’m old enough to remember back when Gillard was PM, the June 2010 leadership spill being uncontested by Rudd was treated by the Labor rusted-ons as a sign that she enjoyed full, undivided support from the party. I am certain if I looked up old posts from that era, I’d see it here too. Now uncontested leadership elections apparently mean the leader isn’t necessarily legitimate or supported by the party.
guytaursays:
Sunday, November 10, 2019 at 12:43 pm
Actually science doesn’t disagree, as science hasn’t shown us how to move instantly from coal to renewables.
“ Science and the base disagrees with you on coal. Its that simple. A narrow union view has to stop. Labor has to appeal beyond the unions. Especially this coming week as the anti union legislation goes to parliament.”
My view on coal accords with science. It also accords with economics and politics as well.
My view on Labor’s future is that it needs to be, as it was has been, a case of ‘unions plus’. The ‘plus’ part of the equation has changed, that much is clear.
But you are not of Labor and have some basic comprehension problems, which is suspect extend to a basic comprehension of ‘the science’ you keep invoking like a religious fanatic would invoke the name of ‘Allah, Yehweh, Buddha or the spaghetti monster’.
RI @ #1469 Sunday, November 10th, 2019 – 12:24 pm
Bollocks indeed. You have said many times you are pro-Adani, and believe it should go ahead. And, given the twisted logic you try and use to justify this position, calling this a “rational and informed view” just makes you look even more out of touch with reality.
Oh, and by the way – the politics of the environment seems only to be a problem for Labor. Whether you agree with them or not, everyone else seems able to come up with one.
If Labor would just stop trying to walk both sides of the street, they might be able to do so as well.
Desi
My memory says that Rudd didn’t contest the leadership then because he knew he didn’t have the numbers. The majority backed Julia.
ABC TV News 24 now on death watch and running bushfire porn. Falling over themselves to show pictures of disaster, both still and video.
They breathlessly tell us they will be “crossing to the Prime Minister” as soon as he’s ready. I’m fucked if I know why they bother. There’s nothing he can do except grandstand, telling us how wonderful and proactive he and his government are. But don’t worry, bushfires have been with us since Captain Cook.
Even around here Morrison’s name has become mud. Relatively speaking, the Pacific Palms area is rather bolshie. But we still only managed a low 40s 2PP for Labor, up against some dopey Nationals nonentity.
The message that Morrison’s scrimping on spending money to save his trophy surplus is now set in stone. Rightly or, most likely in this case, wrongly, he’s copping immediate blame for the fires, with Gladys Berejiklian’s motorway and apartments-obsessed government running a close second in a photo finish.
Nobody up here gives a stuff whether Sydney becomes the Manhattan of the Pacific, or not. They couldn’t care less that billions have been squandeted on metro rail and Spaghetti Junction expressway tunnels to funnel even more office workers into the CBD. And as far as the smirking ScoMo is concerned, fuck his Surplus ship and all who sail in it (especially if it means cuts to Health, Education and other government services). There are no posh GPS schools in Forster to shower with taxpayer funded Arts and Culture centres.
He knows this is bad for him. So does Gladys know it’s bad for her. Even the ScoMo smirk disappeared for a few minutes this morning. Berejiklian was ashen faced. An appropriate expression in her case. She just cut the RFS budget. The $13 million “savings” therefrom would fund about 10 metres of motorway to nowhere. And when or if Morrison’s Surplus comes there’ll be a queue up here to help shove it up his ample arse.
Why do you think Bowen dropped out?
Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #1507 Sunday, November 10th, 2019 – 12:52 pm
Instantly? You have a “magic button” you can press?
If so, please go ahead and press it.
The world would thank you.
guytaur
GK has to been seen saying she is opposing Adani. She represents Cooper, an inner city, latte-sipping electorate full of these dastardly lefty elites and hipsters (to use the labels bandied by some around here). It is a Greens versus Labor seat. Last election it decisively swung to Labor. Next election if she has been perceived as toeing the Labor Right highway, the seat could swing the other way ensuring a victory for the Greens.
Desi
Tell me.
Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #1501 Sunday, November 10th, 2019 – 12:44 pm
That’s a very convenient straw man you have erected there.
This is only my opinion, fwiw, but I think they would have elected him in a canter. Again. 🙂
He wasn’t who I voted for last time but people in the party I have spoken too since the federal election loss have at least wanted to give him a chance. Maybe not so much in Victoria, though. Old allegiances to Bill Shorten seem to die hard.
lizzie @ #1513 Sunday, November 10th, 2019 – 9:54 am
There were three leadership challenges during Gillard’s PMship, with only one of them resulting in her being replaced. The one earlier in 2013 didn’t even have any alternate candidate, and the one in 2012 she won convincingly.
For those who want a dispassionate account of leadership contests rather than relying on memory:
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1920/Quick_Guides/PartyLeadershipChangesChallenges
A reminder to those breathless Adani boosters.
Adani is a NEW mine. Opposing it is opposing expansion of the burning of coal.
Thats the bottom line.
@anderw_lund tweets
Victorian firefighters prepare to fly north to back up crews in NSW and QLD @9NewsMelb https://twitter.com/andrew_lund/status/1193348525821550592/photo/1
Player Onesays:
Sunday, November 10, 2019 at 12:56 pm
????
I’ve never said I’m pro-Adani. Other bludgers might have said it of me, but I’ve never said that. What I argue is as follows:
1. It is desirable – nay, it is necessary – to remove coal from the energy system.
2. The way to do this is to change demand for coal.
3. The way to do that is to promote the use and invest in substitutes, that is, renewables and storage.
4. This works, as can be seen in WA.
5. Attempts to boycott the production of coal in Australia will not work because there is a world-wide over supply of coal.
6. In any case, share of thermal coal supplied by Australia to the work market is small when compared to the total market, reflecting the minor share of seaborne coal in world coal consumption.
7. These factors are already at work in the thermal coal market, where demand is peaking and prices are falling. This is to be welcomed.
There are bludgers who totally misconstrue this argument. They are inveterate liars.
Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #1521 Sunday, November 10th, 2019 – 1:05 pm
Sorry, misread your post. I got confused by the triple negative! 🙂
RI
No you are. You are the one that says opposing Adani means you are pro LNP.
A ridiculous claim.
Its all you have got to excuse your coal boosting position to open a NEW mine so more coal can be burnt.
RI @ #1522 Sunday, November 10th, 2019 – 1:07 pm
I think anyone who has read your many posts where you suggested Adani should go ahead can see who is the inveterate liar here.
guytaur says:
Sunday, November 10, 2019 at 1:04 pm
A reminder to those breathless Adani boosters.
Adani is a NEW mine. Opposing it is opposing expansion of the burning of coal.
Thats the bottom line.
This is entirely misguided. Adani is a proposed mine. It is not a power station. Coal will not be burned in the Galilee. If demand for coal as a fuel declines then less coal will be burned and then less coal will be mined. That is the beginning and end of it. This is already happening. Coal demand is peaking and in many places is already declining quite steeply. This is completely independent of coal mining in the Galilee.
“ Adani is a NEW mine. Opposing it is opposing expansion of the burning of coal.
Thats the bottom line.”
There you go. Basic failure in comprehension.
Adani is a vertically integrated project to provide electricity in India. It was brokered between Mr Adani and the former Indian Congress government. The BJP’s Prime Minister Modi is on record saying that he gives zero fucks one way or the other whether the coal for the coal fired power stations that Adani will build and operate is sourced from the Galilee or elsewhere – those power stations will be built and it matters not whether they burn Galilee coal or coal sourced from the Bowen basin, the Hunter, or Indonesia, India or even Mozambique- which is aggressively stepping up coal production for export (even though it is still a small player).
Even the ‘fertive emissions’ associated with mining coal will come from somewhere, even if the Adani mine doesn’t proceed. Once into the atmosphere it matters not whether those fertive emissions are from a mine in Queensland, Indonesia, India or anywhere else on the planet.
Re Albanese’s ascension to LOTO. It’s all abut the factions.
20 May 2019: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/labor-left-rallies-behind-albanese-as-plibersek-pulls-out-of-leadership-race-20190520-p51p6o.html
I note Albanese is happy to talk about metallurgical coal exports but struggles to even mention the massive amount of thermal coal we export that gets burnt.
Bushfire
I agree about the fire porn as they are endlessly repeating the same bad news.
On the recovery time for those burnt out. A friend of mine and her teenage children were still traumatised at least five years later and demonstrated it in various ways.
As expected the boosters are in with their excuses.
Proposed means new.
Lower emissions does not equal no emissions.
Thus opening new coal mines is expanding the coal industry. Thus its helping to expand the burning of coal and yes that does mean more coal burning and releases into the atmosphere though at a lower rate.
Instead of killing you by speeding at you we will do it at half the speed.
The climate scientists warning was crystal clear. Thats the science. Fossil fuel reduction has to happen.
Not expand it by opening new mines on the excuse that those outside our jurisdiction are going to do it.
Bye bye to every quarantine law we ever had. Bye bye to the gun laws. etc.
Desi
Yes. Because Rudd originally said he would contest, and he didn’t have the numbers. Everyone – including Rudd – acknowledged that at the time.
Since then, the leadership rules have changed, and the members were given a say.
Albo denied them that this time around, which is disappointing.
It also means he didn’t have the opportunity to set out his agenda before assuming the leadership.
Andrew_Earlwood @ #615 Sunday, November 10th, 2019 – 1:12 pm
It’s the same angle the NRA run with.
We supply the coal bullets for others to use and kill the environment.
Desi
‘Why do you think Bowen dropped out?’
Well, he certainly hadn’t had a chance to see if the members would back him, so we don’t know.
My personal opinion – based on some evidence – is the horse’s head scenario.
Rex
The argument is we won’t export machine guns instead we will export rifles.
ABC RN Rear Vision -The Berlin Wall: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/the-berlin-wall/11645496
Also: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-10/germany-celebrates-fall-of-berlin-wall-30-years-on/11690418
RI @ #1526 Sunday, November 10th, 2019 – 1:12 pm
Are you back on this one again? How many times does this have to be debunked? Even your own links – the ones that that you tried to use to support your argument – showed you were wrong. Or (at best) being deliberately misleading.
Here is your own link – again – as you seem to have conveniently forgotten – again …
https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2019/sep/the-changing-global-market-for-australian-coal.html
Guytaur,
How does that compare with expanding production at an existing mine?
The claims made by the Greens about Adani are wildly exaggerated. Global demand for thermal coal is 8,000 million tonnes pa. Queensland ships 1% of this volume, 80 million tonnes pa. Adani, if it ever goes ahead, is planned to supply 26 million tonnes pa, or 0.26% of world consumption. This would be a bit more than 10% of the existing total Australian -NSW + QLD – shipments of thermal coal. It would compare with Indonesian exports, now at 400 million tonnes pa, or with Chinese consumption, which is around 3,200 million tonnes pa.
These facts are well-understood in Queensland even if they are concealed by the Greens.
Barney
Adani is not an existing mine so your point is irrelevant to the argument
The link I posted upthread: https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1920/Quick_Guides/PartyLeadershipChangesChallenges
Also details how leaders are elected within the political parties for those who want a dispassionate grounding in the facts.
@JacktheInsider tweets
Imagine being this ideologically obsessed – to wave away people’s grief and sorrow, to contradict the NSW RFS Commissioner – to foot stomp some specious point. In case anyone’s wondering, this is what makes you are an arsehole. https://twitter.com/CampbellNewman/status/1192736723974807552
Unprecedented bushfires? I don’t think so. Try Nov 1926, Nov 1953, Nov 1956. Takes 5 minutes to find on National Library of Australia digitised newspapers database. Check out 25 Nov 1956: https://twitter.com/CampbellNewman/status/1192736723974807552/photo/1
Re arms trading – (Unsaid) We know we are exporting death but we don’t care the use to which they will be put (as they rub their hands togther with glee at the obscene amounts of money they are making).
It’s about time Shorten was held accountable for his sly, treacherous, reprehensible actions following the 2016 election, when he so ruthlessly employed his trademark standover tactics to make sure the leadership ballot was unopposed, thus denying anybody else the opportunity to serve as Opposition Leader for the following term. Inconsiderate cad!
RI @ #1540 Sunday, November 10th, 2019 – 1:24 pm
I can’t believe you persist with this.
You are morally, ethically, economically and scientifically bankrupt.
Rex Douglas says:
Sunday, November 10, 2019 at 1:16 pm
I note Albanese is happy to talk about metallurgical coal exports but struggles to even mention the massive amount of thermal coal we export that gets burnt.
The seaborne thermal coal market, from all sources, is 18% of global thermal coal consumption. Australia ships 200 million tonnes pa of thermal coal, or 2.5% of total global volumes used.
The Greens should stop lying about coal.
There’s a market for trading in death; it’s our moral duty to satisfy the demands of the market. Consequent deaths? Pfffft.
RI @ #1547 Sunday, November 10th, 2019 – 1:30 pm
You first.
Provide it or it doesn’t exist.