Welcome to another instalment of the now nearly complete Call of the Board series, a seat-by-seat review of the result of the May federal election. Now is the turn of South Australia, previous instalments having dealt with Sydney (here and here), regional New South Wales, Melbourne, regional Victoria, south-east Queensland, regional Queensland and Western Australia.
So far as the two-party swing was concerned, South Australia was largely a microcosm of the national result, with the Coalition picking up a swing of 1.6% (compared with 1.2% nationally) and no seats changing hands. Similarly, Labor did particularly badly in the regions, suffering big swings in Barker and Grey, compared with a highly consistent pattern of small swings in the metropolitan area. Labor won the statewide two-party preferred vote, as they have done at four out of the past five elections, albeit by a modest margin of 50.7-49.3.
As in previous recent instalments, I offer the following image with colour coding of swings at booth level. Compared with other metropolitan capitals, the divide between Labor swings in inner urban areas and Liberal swings further afield is somewhat less clear here, although the Labor swings are a fairly good proxy for general affluence. This would be even more apparent if the map extended further afield to encompass the Adelaide Hills areas covered by Mayo, where, as noted below, the tide seems to be running against the Liberals, and not just in comparison with Rebekha Sharkie.
On the primary vote, comparisons with 2016 are complicated by the Nick Xenophon factor. The Nick Xenophon Team scored 21.3% statewide in 2016, but its Centre Alliance successor fielded candidates only in the non-metropolitan seats of Mayo, Barker and Grey. Rebekha Sharkie was comfortably re-elected in Mayo, but the party’s vote was slashed in Barker and Grey. Primary votes elsewhere followed similar patterns – to save myself repetition in the seat-by-seat account below, the Xenophon absence left between 16.7% and 20.0% up for grabs in Kingston, Makin, Spence and Sturt, which resulted in primary vote gains of 5.1% to 6.2% for the Liberals, 5.2% to 6.6% for Labor and 2.6% to 3.9% for the Greens.
The other factor worth noting in preliminaries is a redistribution that resulted in the abolition of a seat, part of a trend that has reduced the state’s representation from 13 to 10 since 1990. This caused Port Adelaide to be rolled into Hindmarsh, creating one safe Labor seat out of what were formerly one safe Labor and one marginal seat. The eastern parts of Port Adelaide and Hindmarsh were transferred to Adelaide, setting the seal on a seat that has grown increasingly strong for Labor since the Howard years, while the Glenelg end of Hindmarsh went to Boothby, without changing its complexion as a marginal Liberal seat.
The table below compares two-party results with corresponding totals I have derived from Senate ballot papers, the idea being that this gives some sort of idea as to how results may have been affected by candidate and incumbency factors (two-party results for Labor are shown). This shows a clear pattern of Labor doing better in the House than the Senate in the seats than they hold, whereas there is little distinction in Liberal-held seats. My guess would be that there is a general tendency for Labor to score better in the House and the Senate overall, which is boosted further by sitting member effects in Labor-held seats, while being cancelled out by those in Liberal-held seats. Taking that into account, it would seem Labor’s sitting member advantages were relatively weak in Adelaide and Hindmarsh, which stands to reason given the disturbance of the redistribution.
On with the show:
Adelaide (Labor 8.2%; 0.1% swing to Liberal): The Liberal swing in this now safe Labor seat was below the statewide par despite the disappearance of Kate Ellis’s personal vote. In this it reflected the national inner urban trend, and also the long term form of a seat that has drifted from the Liberals’ reach since Ellis gained it in 2004. However, a divide was evident between a Liberal swing at the northern end and a Labor swing in the south, for reasons not immediately obvious. It may be thought to reflect the demographic character of the respective Enfield and Unley ends of the seat, but this doesn’t explain why the Liberals gained in Prospect immediatley north of the city, an area that would seem to refect the inner urban mould. Nor was there any particularly evident effect from the redistribution, which added to the west of the electorate parts of Hindmarsh, formerly held by Adelaide’s new member, Steve Georganas. The Centre Alliance registered a relatively weak 13.7% here in 2016 – the Greens did particularly well in their absence, lifting from 10.0% to 15.7%, although they are still a long way off being competitive.
Barker (Liberal 18.9%; 5.1% swing to Liberal): The Barossa Valley swung to Labor, but the rest of this seat followed the script of regional Australia in going strongly enough to the Liberals to substantially increase Tony Pasin’s already safe margin. A majority of the Centre Alliance collapse (from 27.6% to 2.9%) ended up with the Coalition, although the United Australia Party recorded an above average 5.9%, while the Labor primary vote made a weak gain of 4.7%.
Boothby (Liberal 1.4%; 1.3% swing to Labor): Labor once again failed to realise hopes of reeling in this southern Adelaide seat, despite it reflecting the national trend of affluent suburbia in recording a 1.3% Labor swing that overwhelmed whatever sophomore advantage may have accrued to Liberal member Nicolle Flint. The absence of the Centre Alliance left 18.5% of the vote up for grabs, and the Liberal, Labor and Greens primary votes were respectively up 3.5%, 7.7% and 3.8%.
Grey (Liberal 13.3%; 5.6% swing to Liberal): Another big regional swing to the Liberals, in this case to the advantage of Rowan Ramsey, who came within 2% of losing to the Nick Xenophon Team’s Andrea Broadfoot in 2016. Broadfoot ran again for the Centre Alliance this time and was down from 27.7% to 5.1%, of which a fair bit was accounted for by the entry of One Nation and the United Australia Party, a further fair bit went to the Liberals, while the Labor primary vote hardly budged.
Hindmarsh (Labor 6.5%; 1.9% swing to Liberal): The Liberals recorded a swing perfectly in line with the statewide result in a seat that is effectively a merger of the safe Labor seat of Port Adelaide, whose member Mark Butler now takes the reins in Hindmarsh, and what was previously the highly marginal seat of Hindmarsh, which extended into more Liberal-friendly territory further to the south. The income effect took on a very particular manifestation here in that the booths along the coast swung to Labor while those further inland tended to go the other way. With the Nick Xenophon Team taking its 17.0% vote into retirement, each of the main parties made roughly comparable gains on the primary vote.
Kingston (Labor 11.9%; 1.6% swing to Liberal): For the most part, this once marginal but now safe Labor seat followed the national outer urban trend in swinging to the Liberals, though not be nearly enough to cause serious concern for Labor member Amanda Rishworth. However, separate consideration is demanded of the northern end of the electorate, which is notably more affluent, particularly in comparison with the central part around Morphett Vale. This northern end consists of two parts separated by the Happy Valley Reservoir — the coast at Hallett Cove, and Flagstaff Hill further inland, the latter gained in the redistribution. For whatever reason, the former area behaved as did the rest of the electorate, whereas the latter swung to Labor.
Makin (Labor 9.7%; 1.1% swing to Liberal): So far as the electorate in aggregate is concerned, everything just noted about Kingston equally applies to Makin, which remains secure for Labor member Tony Zappia. There was perhaps a slight tendency for the more affluent parts of the electorate (in the north-east around Golden Grove) to do better for Labor than the low income parts, but not much.
Mayo (Centre Alliance 5.1%; 2.2% swing to Centre Alliance): As the Nick Xenophon/Centre Alliance vote tanked elsewhere, Rebekha Sharkie had no trouble repeating her feat of the 2016 election, when she unseated Liberal member Jamie Briggs, and the July 2018 Section 44 by-election, when she accounted for the now twice-unsuccessful Liberal candidate, Georgina Downer. Downer trod water on the primary vote this time, but nonetheless won the primary vote as Labor recovered market share from Sharkie after a particularly poor showing at the by-election. Sharkie’s winning margin of 5.1% was slightly down on her 7.5% by-election win. The Sharkie factor obscured what may be an ongoing trend to Labor in the seat, with Downer winning the Liberal-versus-Labor vote by a very modest 2.5%. This partly reflected a 2% shift in the redistribution, but there was also a 0.7% swing to Labor that bucked the statewide trend.
Spence (Labor 14.1%; 3.0% swing to Liberal): As well as changing its name from Wakefield, the redistribution removed the rural territory that formerly leavened the Labor margin in a seat that now encompasses Adelaide’s low-rent north, up to and including Gawler. For those with a long enough memory, it more resembles the long lost seat of Bonython, a Labor stronghold through a history from 1955 to 2004, than Wakefield, which was a safe Liberal seat until Bonython’s abolition drew it into the suburbs. Consistent with the national trend of low-income and outer urban seats, Labor member Nick Champion emerged with a dent in his still considerable margin.
Sturt (Liberal 6.9%; 1.5% swing to Liberal): In the seat vacated upon Christopher Pyne’s retirement, swing results neatly reflected the distribution of income, favouring Labor at the northern end and Liberal in the south. Whatever the impact of the loss of Pyne’s personal vote, it didn’t stop Liberal debutante James Stevens scoring a primary vote majority and 1.5% two-party swing.
Guytaur says:
Sunday, November 24, 2019 at 9:18 am
FredNK
Instead of posting what if fantasies Centrists need to face up to the reality it was the LNP, not Labor or the Greens that destroyed sensible successful climate policy.
That includes a lot of journalists who also ignore this reality.
The LNP, journalists and the Greens did not support Rudd, fact. You guys need to face up to what you have done. The company you keep and the consequences.
A little less same-same, a little less of the adani, adani adani chant and a little more serious policy development in the current environment would be helpful. The Greens have failed as a party and failed the environment. It does not have to be that way.
Frydenberg is the worst speaking Treasurer I can recall.
This $10k offered employers to hire people over 50 just encourages them to “churn” through the unemployed. They only need to employ someone for 3 months to qualify for this payment. They can hire 4 different people during the year and have $40k of their wages paid by taxpayers.
poroti @ #100 Sunday, November 24th, 2019 – 6:24 am
Dunno. I fell asleep as soon as he opened his mouth.
guytaur says:
Sunday, November 24, 2019 at 9:21 am
I will put it another way.
Despite what is said on this blog the Greens are not seers rummaging through chicken entrails able to predict votes in LNP party rooms.
And on the basis, the Greens are fully responsible for the falling of Rudd’s legislation as the voting record shows if they had of voted for it it would have passed. Face up to what you have done and stop the sanctimonious crap.
Government can act efficiently but not be panicking.
FredNK
You guys need to stop scapegoating the Greens because Labor failed.
Fact is the Greens voted for the Gillard Government Carbon Price.
Fact. It’s the LNP that’s the party responsible for Climate Policy failure.
Not Labor not the Greens.
Labor and the Greens can be proud they voted for the only successful Climate policy.
“I see the Centrists are back to blaming the Greens for a failed bill instead of recognising the Greens voted for Gillards Carbon Price. ”
guytaur…..voting for “Gillards Carbon Price” does not exonerate the Greens for kicking off the chain of events that gave us PM Abbott, for who’s perfidy and sheer dickheadedness we are still paying.
I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Frydenberg and Taylor speak up close and personal as energy ministers.
Angus is a much, much more dangerous proposition for Labor to confront.
imacca
Stop demanding the Greens be seers rummaging through chicken entrails to predict LNP party room votes.
guytaur
‘..the Greens are not seers rummaging through chicken entrails able to predict votes in LNP party rooms.’
Exactly my point. And yet that is the Greens’ justification for not supporting the CPRS when the 2 Liberal Senators did.
Zoomster
Your whole argument rests on the fantasy of what if the Greens did this Abbott would never have torn up any climate legislation.
Stop trying to blame the Greens for Abbott’s actions.
frednk @ #51 Sunday, November 24th, 2019 – 8:43 am
You can seriously propose that we must open new coal mines to prevent exporting jobs to Indonesia and then claim that my posts are nonsense?
Astonishing 🙁
ML
‘Was this the case? Were they worse off?
If so, in what way?’
nath is over egging the pudding, as per usual.
The majority of SDA members were better off.
The retailers used the fine print to screw casual workers.
“Too big to nail” perfectly sums up the big 4 banks.
Lol. “The banks are too big to nail” for malfeasance. Good one, Mark Kenny. 🙂
Snap! ‘fess. 🙂
Mark Kenny: “Westpac too big to fail? Also too big to nail?”
Be careful of a denying Scott Mortison.
He has a habit of rejecting political positions, then turning “on a dime”: accepting as manifest common sense and good policy what he previously asserted was complete madness, and then not only taking the credit for it, but claiming he was always in favour of it, and indeed was its greatest advocate.
Journalists will nod sagely, vaguely point out this hypocrisy, then move on by stating soberly that, for these kinds of reforms to really stick, only the Coalition could be seen to be sponsoring them, and that this was Labor’s bad luck – to see their ideas stolen by the Libs and Nats – but hey, “Rudd v. Gillard v. Rudd” ruined everything for all time.
It worked with Medicare, the Banks, with the NBN, with SSM. And it could work with Climate Change.
guytaur says:
Sunday, November 24, 2019 at 9:31 am
FredNK
You guys need to stop scapegoating the Greens because Labor failed.
Fact is the Greens voted for the Gillard Government Carbon Price.
Fact. It’s the LNP that’s the party responsible for Climate Policy failure.
Not Labor not the Greens.
Labor and the Greens can be proud they voted for the only successful Climate policy.
Labor tried. The Greens ran interference or couldn’t provide the support needed to make it stick.
It sums the situation up. The Greens are the party that damages and the party that can’t.
Only one SA seat showed a swing to Labor – Boothby, where Natalie Clancy picked up 1.3 percent and won the vote on polling day, only to be pipped by prepoll votes.
An outstanding effort by a terrific young candidate who came within an ace of snatching Boothby back for Labor for the first time since the Libs took it in 1949.
But for franking credits she would have romped it in.
C@t ( edit: and Zoomster),
some of the things my union leaders did drove me to screaming point, but they are all that we have in the constant battle for workplace rights. I often argued for changes from within the tent.
Non-participants who fabricate bullshit about them in order to undermine their work need to be called out. Such people are either malicious or breathtakingly stupid.
guytaur says:
Sunday, November 24, 2019 at 9:31 am
FredNK
You guys need to stop scapegoating the Greens because Labor failed.
Fact is the Greens voted for the Gillard Government Carbon Price.
Fact. It’s the LNP that’s the party responsible for Climate Policy failure.
Not Labor not the Greens.
Labor and the Greens can be proud they voted for the only successful Climate policy.
guytaur we have the facts; the greens sunk Rudd’s legislation and we now have nothing. The rest is speculation. In doing Labor over the Greens did environmental policy and the nation over.
Player Onesays:
Saturday, November 23, 2019 at 11:51 am
No one ever said you couldn’t install panels in the region and get electricity.
It’s just that, for a given number of panels you won’t produce as much there due to the cloud cover for a significant portion of the year.
I suggest you explore the difference between direct and diffuse solar radiation.
The whole premise of the concept is that they can produce a more consistent and larger output in Australia and send it to Singapore at a price that is competitive in that market.
If they can, great, but if they can’t they’ll toss a fair bit of money down the toilet trying.
Why are you so against exploring the concept?
*cough* Gladys Liu.
FredNK
My last post to your denialism.
The Greens are NOT responsible for the actions of Tony Abbott.
We may ‘only’ be 1.3% of global emissions but many national hands make light global work in dealing with Climate Change.
guytaur says:
Sunday, November 24, 2019 at 9:49 am
FredNK
My last post to your denialism.
The Greens are NOT responsible for the actions of Tony Abbott.
imacca summed it up well.
It would be more honest if you came here daily and posted an apology to all ,for all the Greens have done.
imacca says:
Sunday, November 24, 2019 at 9:31 am
“I see the Centrists are back to blaming the Greens for a failed bill instead of recognising the Greens voted for Gillards Carbon Price. ”
guytaur…..voting for “Gillards Carbon Price” does not exonerate the Greens for kicking off the chain of events that gave us PM Abbott, for who’s perfidy and sheer dickheadedness we are still paying.
Chris MatthewsXR
@damelarksong4
As reported in the SMH 1.3% of the soldiers in WW2 were Australian, but no one says we made a negligible contribution. Also Germany contributes 1.3% but has made strenuous efforts to reduce its carbon footprint well beyond the Paris accord requirement. #insiders
Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #127 Sunday, November 24th, 2019 – 9:48 am
And I suggest you explore the difference between ‘climate’ and ‘weather’.
When you can demonstrate that you understand it, you might get taken a bit more seriously.
“ Well Labor could make the contrast.
But they won’t.
It’s the Labor way.”
Comrade. I am heartily sick of your bullshit.
Labor did make the contrast. In parliament. In press releases. In interviews. Ad nauseam. That contrast got printed at about paragraph 8 in Fairfax ‘for balance’ and got maybe 8 seconds at the end of 2 minute anti labor screed on ‘their ABC’. Once and ‘for balance’. And nowhere else, ever.
So take your bullshit and stick it: if you can’t see how the decks are stacked against what I understand is your party by the Rupeverse, Lil’ Kerry World, Costello Land and ‘their’ ABC, then you are a hopeless case (I think you claimed ALP membership, but apologise – to the party – if I have gotten that wrong).
Player One says:
Sunday, November 24, 2019 at 9:57 am
Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #127 Sunday, November 24th, 2019 – 9:48 am
I suggest you explore the difference between direct and diffuse solar radiation.
And I suggest you explore the difference between ‘climate’ and ‘weather’.
When you can demonstrate that you understand it, you might get taken a bit more seriously.
How about you go away and look up diffuse solar radiation, a little study can deal with ignorance, you don’t have to continue making a fool of yourself.
C@tmomma @ #130 Sunday, November 24th, 2019 – 9:51 am
There was a recent article (not sure I could find it now) where the government very carefully claimed that Australia is ‘accountable’ for only 1.3% of emissions. They carefully avoided claiming that Australia was ‘responsible’ for only 1.3% of emissions, because that would be a lie. We are ‘responsible’ for 4% to 5% of global emissions, which makes us one of the biggest emitters on the planet.
But we are only ‘accountable’ for 1.3% by the accounting method preferred (naturally) by all the big emitters.
Australia – yet again demonstrating that it is the Lucky Country 🙁
frednk @ #135 Sunday, November 24th, 2019 – 10:05 am
How’s your crusade to open new coal mines coming along?
Player One says:
Sunday, November 24, 2019 at 10:06 am
frednk @ #135 Sunday, November 24th, 2019 – 10:05 am
How about you go away and look up diffuse solar radiation, a little study can deal with ignorance, you don’t have to continue making a fool of yourself.
How’s your crusade to open new coal mines coming along?
As I said P1, you don’t have to continue making a fool of yourself.
@Danama
“ Right. So you’re claiming that Abbott would’ve allowed those 2 senators to cross the floor to pass the bill. You seem to have a better view of Abbott’s character than I ever will.”
Make, you are doing a sickening job of historical rewrites today, but the above takes the cake: it is not a hypothetical – those those Senators gave Abbott to two fingered salute and DID cross the floor. Their vote is recorded in Hansard. That’s a historical fact.
Moreover, their vote wasn’t some sort of confected Kabuki play either. Both senators did so believing that they would face consequences- namely disendorsement at the next round of senate preselections and both retired from the senate before that inevitability occurred. So, if the Greens did vote for the imperfect, then the CRPS would have passed into law.
You are entitled to your opinions – like claiming that Abbott would have simply rolled the CRPS in 2013, just like he did with the Carbon Pricing scheme in 2014, but you are not entitled to your own facts.
So why hasn’t this stimulated the economy? Because it’s not the cash-strapped who received the money.
Suppose Rudd did go for a double dissolution in February-March 2010. Business was expecting a CPRS to be legislated, although no doubt the fossil-fuel industry was lobbying furiously mostly out of sight. The media will not have had a chance to get its anti-Labor campaign in order. Even the real 2010 election campaign wasn’t anything like the feral “kill Labor” campaigns we saw in 2013 and 2019. So barring major gaffs Labour almost certainly wins. Tony Abbott is destroyed as Opposition Leader unless he goes unexpectedly close (as he actually did in 2010 in very different cicrcumstances). Rudd probably remains PM, at least for another couple of years.
So the CPRS is legislated in early 2010, possibly in a joint sitting. Is Malcolm reinstated as Coalition Leader? Or does Joe Hockey get a turn?
The next election is due by early 2013. The CPRS has been in place for nearly two years. The sky hasn’t fallen in, but meanwhile the boats have restarted and Murdoch is ramping up moral panic on boats and batts. How do things go? The Coalition, under Turnbull or Hockey or whoever they replace either with, probably goes feral, but are they determined to pull down the CPRS? Or make it more busines-friendly, loading it up with exemptions and concessions. The probably bodgy it up like they have Paul Keating’s National Super scheme, but it would be fixable and might still work, albiet not as effeiciently as we would want.
I think that December 2009 was a true turning point in Australian history.
frednk @ #138 Sunday, November 24th, 2019 – 10:08 am
Sadly, in that contest I am seriously outclassed here on PB 🙁
Tell us again how we are exporting coal-mining jobs to Indonesia? That one never gets old!
Player Onesays:
Sunday, November 24, 2019 at 9:57 am
😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆
Didn’t your limited intellect understand those big words like “diffuse”, “direct”, “solar” and “radiation”?
Is a basic and integral part of Meteorology!
https://blogs.crikey.com.au/rooted/2010/05/17/the-smoking-gun-labor-always-planned-to-shut-the-greens-out-of-the-ets/
Labor playing political games that blew up in its face.
Who ever would have thought.
“So why hasn’t this stimulated the economy? Because it’s not the cash-strapped who received the money.”
These franking credits paid out are mostly just sitting in the bank accounts of well-off retirees earning little or no interest. Little or none will be spent.
Barney in the rabbit hole of fuckwittery @ #143 Sunday, November 24th, 2019 – 10:14 am
Sure. As are the terms ‘climate’ and ‘weather’. Perhaps you would like to try and explain the difference? I am sure you must have had time by now to look it up.
I am probably not the only one here who finds your reluctance to do so just a little puzzling.
The young people probably think it really is funny – remember Prince – Harry was it?
https://www.theage.com.au/national/very-disturbing-people-dressed-in-nazi-uniforms-confront-shoppers-at-supermarket-20191119-p53c5q.html
You’ve got to wonder why The Greens try so hard to be self-defeating.
Steve777 @ #145 Sunday, November 24th, 2019 – 7:17 am
Nonsense. Yacht club memberships aren’t cheap and neither are annual holidays to exotic locales. It’s a miracle that they don’t actually have to live off their capital in retirement.
Player One says:
Sunday, November 24, 2019 at 10:12 am
frednk @ #138 Sunday, November 24th, 2019 – 10:08 am
As I said P1, you don’t have to continue making a fool of yourself.
Sadly, in that contest I am seriously outclassed here on PB
Tell us again how we are exporting coal-mining jobs to Indonesia? That one never gets old!
Not my fault P1 that you can’t see that a demand for coal will be met, and that Indonesia has large coal reserves.
I have pointed out many time this is a demand side problem. Fortunately people a lot smarter than you, me and the Greens are dealing with the demand issue in a realistic fashion by bringing down the cost of renewables.