Of plagues and houses

Results finalised on Queensland’s two status quo state by-election results, and COVID-19 question marks over looming elections in New Zealand, the Northern Territory and for two Tasmanian upper house seats.

Counting has concluded for the Currumbin and Bundamba by-elections of a fortnight ago, with Laura Gerber retaining Currumbin for the Liberal National Party by a 1.5% margin against a 1.8% swing to Labor, and Lance McCallum retaining Bundamba for Labor by a 9.6% margin ahead of second-placed One Nation (UPDATE: Make that a 1.2% margin in Currumbin and 9.8% in Bundamba). As noted previously, the flow of Greens preferences to Labor in Currumbin was relatively weak, though not quite decisively so. Deep within the innards of the ECQ’s media feed, it says that Greens preferences were going 1738 to Labor (72.8%) and 651 (27.2%), though this can’t be based on the final figures since the Greens received 2527 rather than 2389 votes. Had Labor received 79.17% of Greens preferences, as they did in the corresponding federal seat of McPherson last May, the margin would have been pared back from 567 (1.5%) to 215 (0.5%).

I have three tables to illustrate the results in light of the highly unusual circumstances of the election, the first of which updates one that appeared in an early post, recording the extent to which voters in the two seats changed their behaviour with respect to how they voted. Election day voting obviously fell dramatically, as voters switched to pre-poll voting and, to only a slightly lesser extent, outright abstention. What was not seen was a dramatic increase in postal voting, which will require investigation given the considerable anecdotal evidence that many who applied for postal votes did not receive their ballots on time — an even more contentious matter in relation to the mess that unfolded in Wisconsin on Tuesday, on which I may have more to say at a later time.

The next two tables divide the votes into four types, polling places, early voting, postal and others, and record the parties’ vote shares and swings compared with 2017, the latter shown in italics. In both Currumbin and Bundamba, Labor achieved their weakest results in swing terms on polling day votes, suggesting Labor voters made the move from election day to pre-poll voting in particularly large numbers, cancelling out what had previously been an advantage to the LNP in pre-poll voting. This is matched by a particularly strong swing against the LNP on pre-polls in Currumbin, but the effect is not discernible in Bundamba, probably because the picture was confused by the party running third and a chunk of its vote being lost to One Nation, who did not contest last time.

In other COVID-19 disruption news:

• The Northern Territory government has rejected calls from what is now the territory’s official opposition, Terry Mills’ Territory Alliance party (UPDATE: Turns out I misheard here – the Country Liberal Party remains the opposition, as Bird of Paradox notes in comments), to postpone the August 22 election. Of the practicalities involved in holding the election under a regime of social distancing rules, which the government insists will be in place for at least six months, Deputy Chief Minister Nicole Manison offers only that “the Electoral Commission is looking at the very important questions of how we make sure that in the environment of COVID-19 that we do this safely”.

• After an initial postponement from May 2 to May 30, the Tasmanian government has further deferred the periodic elections for the Legislative Council seats of Huon and Rosevear, promising only that they will be held by the time the chamber sits on August 25. Three MLCs have written to the Premier requesting that the elections either be held by post or for the terms of the existing members, which will otherwise expire, to be extended through to revised polling date.

• The junior partner in New Zealand’s ruling coalition, Winston Peters of New Zealand First, is calling for the country’s September 19 election to be postponed to November 21, which has also elicited positive noises from the opposition National Party. It might well be thought an element of self-interest is at work here, with Peters wishing to put distance between the election and a donations scandal that has bedeviled his party, and National anticipating a short-term surge in government support amid the coronavirus crisis. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern may be softening in her opposition to the notion, saying earlier this week it would “depend on what alert level we are at”. There has regrettably been no polling of voting intention in New Zealand in two months, although the government recorded enormously encouraging results in a Colmar Brunton poll on handling of the pandemic in New Zealand and eight other countries, conducted last week.

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.

1,986 comments on “Of plagues and houses”

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  1. Nicholas, your interpretation would have seen you enlisted as a screenwriter for The Life of Brian.

    Seriously funny stuff, as usual.

  4. An absolute MUST READ – especially for you medicos here.

    https://jasonthompsondotblog.wpcomstaging.com/2020/04/10/why-is-eradication-of-covid-19-in-australia-apparently-off-the-table/

    This is someone who has done detailed modelling and come to the conclusion that elimination of the coronavirus within Australia is feasible.

    Our results are broadly in line with those offered by the University of Sydney’s Complex Systems Group headed by Prof Mikhail Prokopenko, despite both being developed totally independently. Interestingly, they also used an agent-based architecture and concluded that there was a real possibility that cases could be eradicated in around 100 days if we all stick to the plan. Maybe both our models are wrong? Time will tell.

    Summary

    So, I offer these results in good faith and to open again the possibility of eradication / elimination of COVID-19 in Australia as a policy option. This most closely resembles the Endgame C scenario proposed by the Grattan Institute in March. On our reckoning, though, and with continued effort, we might already be on the way there.

    We have a real opportunity to push to zero quickly. Rather than easing off, why wouldn’t we take it?

    And the associated research paper with very detailed modelling..
    https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.10218.pdf

    Edit: Note also the criticism in the article of the government’s rhetorical position. Very close to my own comments on the matter.

  5. Simon K, the release of Brian was not intended by the scriptwriters to be taken literally. Brian is an Everyman (or woman!) whose emancipation from all oppression is called for. But don’t believe me, just ask N.

  6. Nicholas,
    Before you start running your mouth again here today, maybe you should read this report by 3 female investigative reporters and one male which was published today in The Washington Post:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sexual-assault-allegation-by-former-biden-senate-aide-emerges-in-campaign-draws-denial/2020/04/12/bc070d66-7067-11ea-b148-e4ce3fbd85b5_story.html

    Read the credentials of the investigative reporters, there are Pulitzer Prize winners among their number.

    Also, if you dismiss it out of hand I will know that you are simply an embittered crank. And probably haven’t bothered to read it.

  8. Daughter has a friend who married a French doctor. His farther has been in intensive care for two weeks with the outcome still uncertain, he has lost colleagues and is on the front line dealing with it all, watching people die. The friends summary, he and France is in a bit of a mess. My daughters comments re the IPA are not printable.

  9. Phoenix R

    We have only had a few months of such bad news – I often wonder how Aussies coped with 1914-18 and 1939-45 when the limited news/media of those days were filled with daily tragic news of our service personnel …..

    The 14 – 18 war was the worst I have heard. Many Australians lived in rural townships with one post office. Each time a telegram arrived the whole village would watch and see on whose door the post mistress knocked.

    WWII had a lower death toll for Aus servicemen, but it still must have been pretty awful.

  10. Vogon Poet @ #1550 Monday, April 13th, 2020 – 1:43 pm

    Jesus was way cool
    Everybody liked Jesus
    Everybody wanted to hang out with him
    Anything he wanted to do, he did
    He turned water into wine
    And if he wanted to
    He could have turned wheat into marijuana
    Or sugar into cocaine
    Or vitamin pills into amphetamines
    Jesus was way cool
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVJ-Wlacc-E

    I reckon he was way cool. The original progressive.

    Just a shame his mates at the time jumped the shark with the miracles and resurrection stuff.

  13. Meher Baba

    Also, didn’t he once say:

    “For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath”

    which sounds a bit the “neoliberalism” some people on PB bang on about all the time.

    I can see that quote might appeal to conservatives like yourself and happy clappy, prosperity theology types like Morrison. Still, it didn’t take much googling to find the following quote from a biblical scholar:

    “Matt. 13: 12 only has meaning when read as part of its context, which is Matt. 13:3–23, the parable of the Sower and the soil-types. It cannot be taken out of context and generalised without severe distortion. It does NOT teach anything about prosperity, wealth, etc. —The context is about spiritual insight, discernment of God’s plan and activity in the world.”

    The use of that very selective quotation brings to mind Galbraith: “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”

  15. meher baba @ #1527 Monday, April 13th, 2020 – 1:11 pm

    Rex: “Why do so many RWNJ bow down before a raging lefty like Jesus ..?”

    I don’t know that he was that much of a lefty: more of a Nimbin-style anarchist who didn’t believe in getting a job, the market, money, etc.

    Also, didn’t he once say:

    “For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath”

    which sounds a bit the “neoliberalism” some people on PB bang on about all the time.

    There is no evidence of any sort, whatsoever, that any person ever made any of the original utterances ascribed to ‘jesus’. None of the ‘gospel according to’ documents ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, were written by the ‘according to’ authors, the source documents having no author annotation at all. No reputable historian says that they were. Three of them quite obviously came from a common source document, as plagiarism detection software reveals with a 99% certainty level, and the other also has large slabs either lifted from the other three, or from the same sort of source. Notwithstanding this, there are also remarkable discrepancies between them, regarding geographic facts, relative timing, and failure to mention what were surely absolutely startling events.

    Whoever made up the ‘Luke’ version didn’t think that it was worthwhile mentioning the famous walking on water incident. Probably thought that people mightn’t believe it. I have difficulty imagining what kind of people would, but then I’m plainly a weirdo.

    All in all, a steaming pile of bullshit, similar to the evolution of Scientology, or Mormonism.

    Fun fact. There are currently around 15 million Mormons getting around. It has taken around 200 years to get to that, although it is still expanding exponentially. That is more than ten times number of christians that had been brainwashed three centuries after christianity was invented. The wonders of modern communication, eh.

    There are around 100 million Americans who believe that Trump is doing an ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’ job in relation to COVID-19. Almost all of them are christians.

    /s

  18. RD

    Just a shame his mates at the time jumped the shark with the miracles and resurrection stuff.

    Always the same, get a name then sell out for the endorsements and merchandising $s 🙂

  20. I can’t help thinking that if Jesus were tried and executed in the early Roman Empire, there would be a written record.

  21. Spiro Agnew’s Ghost@SpiroAgnewGhost
    ·
    12 Apr
    Nobody tell the Evangelicals that as soon as they made a godless, lying, lawless, womanizing conman their messiah, a plague showed up.

    😆

  26. Yabba

    I would be interested in reading more about the plagiarism result that you mentioned. Do you have a link that you can share?


  28. Cud Chewer says:
    Monday, April 13, 2020 at 2:33 pm

    frednk @2:22pm

    Damn, I could have written that!

    Hopefully we can look back on your posts and admire the Precognition, and admire the states for going for it.

  30. Spiro Agnew’s Ghost@SpiroAgnewGhost
    ·
    12 Apr
    Nobody tell the Evangelicals that as soon as they made a godless, lying, lawless, womanizing conman their messiah, a plague showed up.

    I thought it all plays into their whole “rapture” fantasy?

    It’s useful having prophesies that cover basically every possible outcome. Whatever happens you can claim your religion got it right.

  31. Spiro Agnew’s Ghost@SpiroAgnewGhost
    ·12 Apr
    Nobody tell the Evangelicals that as soon as they made a godless, lying, lawless, womanizing conman their messiah, a plague showed up.

    They don’t care about that. What they do care is that he is fufilling prophesies, embassy move, setting up war with ‘Gog’ (Iran). It’s End times baby and he’s helping get it going.

  35. RIP Tim Brooke-Taylor. 🙁

    A life well lived. 🙂

    ––––––––

    Cud Chewer @ #1488 Monday, April 13th, 2020 – 12:00 pm

    Hey guys..

    I got woken up by the manager from Woolies personally delivering groceries. Kudos due.

    Had two deliveries from Woolies. Both on time, and more or less complete (with a couple of substitutions or deletions due to selling out in the day or two between placing the order and it being assembled at Woolies).

    Not a fan of ColesWorth market dominance, but a thumbs up from me for how Woolies has dealt with the situation so far. 🙂

    Haven’t tried Coles, so can’t comment on them. But presumably they can’t afford to be left too far behind Woolies, and their web page shows delivery is available.

  36. No wonder they lurve him.Scary stuff scary electorate.

    Evangelicals Love Donald Trump for Many Reasons, But One of Them Is Especially Terrifying
    End Times.

    The story of Gog and Magog is central to the bloody eschatology long embraced by millions of American evangelicals. In recent years, End Times has gained special political currency as believers have seen any number of Middle East conflagrations as fulfilling Ezekiel’s prophecy, notably the US invasion of Iraq and the war in Syria
    https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/01/evangelicals-are-anticipating-the-end-of-the-world-and-trump-is-listening/
    Gog ,Magog , FMD. Dubya was trying to bring about The End Times.
    …………………………………………………………………………………………………………
    Andrew Brown’s blog Religion
    Bush, Gog and Magog
    President Jacques Chirac wanted to know what the hell President Bush had been on about in their last conversation. Bush had then said that when he looked at the Middle East, he saw “Gog and Magog at work” and the biblical prophecies unfolding. But who the hell were Gog and Magog? Neither Chirac nor his office had any idea. But they knew Bush was an evangelical Christian, so they asked the French Federation of Protestants, who in turn asked Professor Römer.
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/aug/10/religion-george-bush

  38. The leading alternative to an elimination strategy is to hold infection rates at close to one – that is, so each infected person on average infects only one other. It’s the “Goldilocks strategy” – it requires us to calibrate social distancing measures with precision. Too tight, and we inflict extra economic damage for a long time. A little too loose, and infections would again grow exponentially – which can seem manageable for several weeks, until suddenly it isn’t.

    Under the Goldilocks strategy, we could afford to relax at least some restrictions. But events where one person can infect many others would probably remain out of bounds – such as live sport and entertainment, large parties, religious services (at least those that have large congregations), eating out, and socialising at the beach. Domestic tourism would probably also be out, because tourists can spread the virus from area to area. There’s a good chance that many workplaces and university classes would have to stay closed. And a number of activities would have to remain in the “wait-and-see” category, such as schools, domestic air travel, general community socialising, and non-essential retail, except in their current alternative online forms.

    Whatever is required to keep infection rates close to one would need to remain in place until there is a cure or a vaccine – and that probably means for as long as 18 months, assuming either happens.
    Loading

    That’s a long time to be living a severely restricted life. It is also economically very unattractive. Even for activities that are permitted, businesses would know that if infection rates drift up, they may be shut again. This is unlikely to breed the confidence that is essential to business investment. And most of the businesses that are shuttered for so long are unlikely to restart – imposing big longer-term economic costs.

    This is from the article linked above.

    I like the term “Goldilox strategy”. It’s equivalent to the expression I have used “magic knob”. In reality you don’t get that degree of fine grained and instantaneous control.

    The article also points out just how restrictive things would be in a non-elimination end game. Anything involving large groups of people – into which I would include things like the NRL. No domestic tourism and so on.

    What John Daley didn’t mention is that the threat inherent in a non-elimination end game – the threat of the virus getting out of control and then the need for a repeat shutdown – would dampen business confidence.

  39. Apparently WA will be moving from ‘suppression’ to ‘vigilance’ phase, although bans on large public gatherings and border closures will remain for 6 months.

    Health Minister Roger Cook says WA will be able to seriously review its social distancing rules once it has seen a sustained period of very low case numbers, but is warning the state could still see a resurgence of COVID-19.

    But he said WA was seeing “unequivocally great numbers” of coronavirus cases, with new recorded infections dropping as low as three on Sunday and eight on Saturday.

    WA’s success in “flattening the curve” has led to consideration of easing or tweaking some restrictions, but Mr Cook stressed many of the most severe measures would remain for months to come.

    “We really need to make sure we consolidate the gains we have made, by continuing to have social distancing and border-like measures,” he told ABC Radio Perth.

    But Mr Cook said the WA Government was examining what adjustments could be made to “reinvigorate” the state’s economy, without putting public health at risk.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-13/wa-coronavirus-restrictions-to-remain-for-now-to-stop-resurgence/12144286

  40. In these corona killing times across the world and in particular America. This is but a small part of the suffering and killing that has happened to the many thousands of civilians in Syria through no fault of their own. Caused not by a virus but failings of humans. Puts things in perspective.

  42. Whisper @ #1588 Monday, April 13th, 2020 – 1:15 pm

    In these corona killing times across the world and in particular America. This is but a small part of the suffering and killing that has happened to the many thousands of civilians in Syria through no fault of their own. Caused not by a virus but failings of humans. Puts things in perspective.

    Ah!

    But we’re able to largely isolate the effects of war. 🙁

  43. That diagram posted by C@t showing how long coronavirus remains on surfaces has a note at the bottom that specifically says COV-19 is omitted. So it’s all the variations of a cold germ?

  45. Douglas and Milko @ #1557 Monday, April 13th, 2020 – 1:52 pm

    Phoenix R

    We have only had a few months of such bad news – I often wonder how Aussies coped with 1914-18 and 1939-45 when the limited news/media of those days were filled with daily tragic news of our service personnel …..

    The 14 – 18 war was the worst I have heard. Many Australians lived in rural townships with one post office. Each time a telegram arrived the whole village would watch and see on whose door the post mistress knocked.

    WWII had a lower death toll for Aus servicemen, but it still must have been pretty awful.

    FWIW regarding loss in war, in my family a telegram just left in a rural Qld letterbox was the entire notification in April 1945. Just a few months before the end of it all. A package of personal possessions a few months later, was it.

    Missing in action, body never recovered, no grave anywhere, just a name on the honour roll.
    Even 75 years later the impacts on people are evident, and that is just one family out of many millions in the decades since then.
    Similar but different, all tragic.

    BTW his descendants think the $M500 to be spent on the AWM is a bogus waste of money and any glorification of war idiotic. Even with over 30 years of military service from those same descendants. Given the current situation it seems even more ridiculous.

  46. Jolyon Wagg @ #1574 Monday, April 13th, 2020 – 2:39 pm

    Yabba

    I would be interested in reading more about the plagiarism result that you mentioned. Do you have a link that you can share?

    My elder son was presented with it at Uni of Sydney in a course about data analytics, in a segment that was about how Google works, and the software that the Uni uses to analyse student essays and theses for plagiarism. He showed me the comparison of a couple of the ‘gospels’, which highlighted large sections in yellow. I will see if he still has it, because it would be good to be able to refer to it directly.

    Most scholars agree that ‘Matthew’ and ‘Luke’ were written later than ‘Mark’, which they follow closely. The Matthew author then divided version labelled Mark into five portions and used them in order, separating them by other random stuff. The Luke phantom divided the ‘Mark’ book only in two, nine chapters of both weird and mundane invention being inserted between. Mark only accounts for half of the other two. Matthew and Luke each have about 100 verses in common. They differ only in the number of ‘verilys’ (only kidding). Views about the dating of all four ‘gospels’ (based on the vocabulary and script form of the Greek they are written in, amongst other data) vary greatly from about 70–80 AD until the end of the first century where it is believed the gospel of John was last written.

    So ‘John’ the ‘actual’ ‘disciple’ (not) was about 100 years old when he managed to write down, verbatim, in a foreign language, as gospel truth, statements made by some bloke he had heard about 70 or so years before. Some people actually believe that! They know that ‘James’ invented a solar powered dictaphone. Is the whole load of nonsense more or less believable than the idea that Joseph Smith received plates of gold from Moroni, who, as the last of the ancient prophets, had buried them in a hill called Cumorah (near Palmyra, New York) some 14 centuries earlier? Is Moroni a clue?

  47. Mundo
    I would take greater issue if Turnbull didn’t mention it and while i wont be rushing out to buy the book but it will be interesting to see what could take 10 pages to say on it.

  48. 37 pages dedicated to The Coup. Lets see if he puts the party first or remains a miserable ghost. Judging by behaviour post PM, he couldn’t give a shit about any party so should be interesting read.

  50. lizzie @ #1591 Monday, April 13th, 2020 – 1:19 pm

    That diagram posted by C@t showing how long coronavirus remains on surfaces has a note at the bottom that specifically says COV-19 is omitted. So it’s all the variations of a cold germ?

    🙂

    Not much use for me as it only drops below 30 here for a few hours each night.

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