Houses in order

Early federal election talk portends a busy time on the preselection front over the coming months.

Still very quiet on the polling front, but speculation of a federal election later this year has given scribes plenty to work with over the quiet season:

• A report in the Age/Herald concludes the most likely months are October and November, with Liberal Party officials being told to have their act together at least by August. However, it is noted that “the pandemic could derail any possible plan for an early poll”.

• The above report also relates that the Queensland Liberal National Party’s Senate ticket is to be decided by May 1. This presents the Coalition with a difficulty, in that second position is reserved for the Nationals and duly assured for Matt Canavan, leaving Liberal up-and-comers James McGrath and Amanda Stoker in a high-stakes battle for first and third. The loser will at least be able to console themselves with the knowledge that the Coalition has won at least three Senate seats in Queensland at each of the seven elections since 2001.

• Also noted in the report is a fact that escaped my notice amid the excitement of events in the United States — namely, that the Western Australian Liberals finalised their Senate ticket in early November. This occurred at the same time that Ben Small, a logistics manager at Woodside Energy and owner of a bar and restaurant in Bunbury, was chosen to fill the vacancy created by Mathias Cormmann’s retirement. Small will take third position on the ticket behind Michaelia Cash and Dean Smith, both of whom have gone up a notch in Cormann’s absence. Smith had to overcome a bid by religious conservatives to dump him in favour of Albert Jacob, mayor of Joondalup and former state member for Ocean Reef. Peter Law of The West Australian reported the move was “perceived by some within the party as retribution for the eight-year Senator’s very public campaign for marriage equality in 2017”.

• There are a whole bunch of redistribution processes in train at the moment. At federal level, draft boundaries for Victoria and Western Australia are due to be published by the end of March, respectively to be finalised on July 26 and August 2. The redistributions will increase Victoria’s representation from 38 seats to 39, and reduce Western Australia’s from 16 to 15. A state redistribution process also began in Victoria last month, with draft boundaries due at the end of June and final boundaries to be published on October 14. In New South Wales, submissions are being weighed up to draft boundaries that were published in November, and while no date is set for their finalisation, it could roughly be guessed that it will happen in March or April.

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.

3,068 comments on “Houses in order”

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  2. C@tmomma says:
    Sunday, January 31, 2021 at 9:38 pm

    Actually I do – in the UK.

    And a close family friend who did two 14 day quarantines in 6 weeks to visit his mother after diagnosis of terminal cancer and subsequently to attend the funeral.

  8. The Coalition and Labor are locked in a dead-heat electoral fight as the major parties prepare for battle over the economic recovery and jobs ahead of a potential federal election later this year.

    An exclusive Newspoll conducted for The Australian shows the electoral contest tightening over summer as Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese both suffer falls in their approval ratings.

    Popular support for the ­Coalition has fallen a point to 42 per cent, with Labor maintaining a primary vote of 36 per cent.

    This has resulted in the government losing the electoral advantage it enjoyed over the opposition in November, with the two-party-preferred contest narrowing from 51-49 to 50-50.

  10. Bucephalussays:
    Sunday, January 31, 2021 at 9:45 pm
    How many seats does that move the pendulum?

    Who do you think we all are Anthony green?

  11. Bucephalus @ #2963 Sunday, January 31st, 2021 – 9:43 pm

    C@tmomma says:
    Sunday, January 31, 2021 at 9:38 pm

    Actually I do – in the UK.

    And a close family friend who did two 14 day quarantines in 6 weeks to visit his mother after diagnosis of terminal cancer and subsequently to attend the funeral.

    So why so hard-hearted? Other people, like myself, have family members overseas as well and I miss them terribly and if they want to come home, as an Australian-born Australian citizen, he should have every right and privilege to do just that!

  14. Kevin Bonham:

    The expected 2PP for those #Newspoll primaries would be 50.5 to Coalition so it’s likely the Coalition was slightly ahead prior to rounding.

  17. So, a world wide emergency – the pandemic.
    One would expect, as in a world war, where people are worried for their very survival, that the incumbents would win in a poll. 50-50 seems pretty good for an opposition to be in.

  18. C@tmomma says:
    Sunday, January 31, 2021 at 9:49 pm

    “So why so hard-hearted?“

    Up to June ‘20 – completely understand not coming back because we were still learning. Jul-Dec ‘20 understand the difficulty getting on a flight. Jan ‘21 onwards – you were told but you didn’t listen.

  19. Bucephalussays
    I just did the maths, at 50/50 TPP it would be a 1.53% swing to Labor, and they would only pick up 3 seats if the swing was uniform

    Bass TAS, Chisholm VIC and Boothby in SA

    Still not enough to form government

  20. timbo says:
    Sunday, January 31, 2021 at 9:54 pm

    There’s no election on the close horizon and most voters really aren’t engaged. Until an election is called or is getting close to the mandatory date the swinging voters who determine the outcome aren’t making their decision.

  21. Yes, Catmomma, on the face of it a good result for ALP. Maybe the recent exposure has helped.

    I like Albo and I think there is broad appeal/trust across the electorate.

    Big mountain to climb, given Morrison’s marketing skills and an unhelpful media,

  23. Lynchpin @ #3021 Sunday, January 31st, 2021 – 9:59 pm

    Yes, Catmomma, on the face of it a good result for ALP. Maybe the recent exposure has helped.

    Labor should take a lesson from this. Being seen to do something actually helps.

    Imagine how well Labor would be doing in the polls if they had been seen to be doing something for the last 12 months.

  30. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/giuliani-biden-ukraine-russian-disinformation/2020/10/15/43158900-0ef5-11eb-b1e8-16b59b92b36d_story.html

    U.S. intelligence agencies warned the White House last year that President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani was the target of an influence operation by Russian intelligence, according to four former officials familiar with the matter.

    The warnings were based on multiple sources, including intercepted communications, that showed Giuliani was interacting with people tied to Russian intelligence during a December 2019 trip to Ukraine, where he was gathering information that he thought would expose corrupt acts by former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

  35. Bucephalus @ #3018 Sunday, January 31st, 2021 – 9:55 pm

    C@tmomma says:
    Sunday, January 31, 2021 at 9:49 pm

    “So why so hard-hearted?“

    Up to June ‘20 – completely understand not coming back because we were still learning. Jul-Dec ‘20 understand the difficulty getting on a flight. Jan ‘21 onwards – you were told but you didn’t listen.

    Don’t be willfully ignorant. No one knew a more infectious variant would appear. Not to mention, as Quasar pointed out, people have been trying to get back BEFORE that date but have been gazzumped by others or simply missed out in the seat lottery many, many times, through no fault of their own.

  36. Kevin Andrews gone?

    When will the Liberals finally drop Abetz? Any other Howard-era Liberals besides those two still hanging around?

  37. Correct me if I’m wrong about the assumptions behind Newspoll since the election, but didn’t it undergo a rejig to iron out a number of problems that seem to have overestimated Labor’s primary vote and also the flow of preferences? If so, I’m not sure that 50-50 is actually 52-48 just because of the disparity between polls before last election and the actual election result. I’m think that 50-50 is actually 50-50 (+/-1% for margin of error and rounding).

    Of course, given incumbency, very positive personal ratings for ScoMo and the propensity to pork barrel and engage in marketing spin, it may well end up being 52-48 at the election (or worse).

    I think Botfly actually summed it up best earlier today: if the punters are feeling perky at the election, Labor wont win. Otherwise I think Albo and Labor have a real shot at this. …

  41. It pains me to say, but Lazy Susan and Dutts still have political careers that are relevant. The same cant be said of Broadbent or Kim Il Carr, for example. Or Joel – now he’s decamped to the backbench.

    Snowden is interesting: he keeps winning a marginal seat, which has its own oddities. However, surely it must be time for Territory Labor for renewal.

  42. Dutton’s leadership ambitions will probably go the way of Bronwyn Bishop’s in the 1990s. In both cases they have a great deal of appeal to certain segments of the population – angry white Anglo folk. However, their ambition vastly exceeds their capacity and competence.

  43. I’m hawkish on this figure. Bill Shorten won ~60+ news polls, then LOST.

    The actions of the government are not those worried by a bad poll. Sentiment and apathy is with the government. Infact, I don’t really know why we give a flog about newspoll.

    Read that qualifier to the stats on that table.
    This survey was conducted by YouGov… and is based on 1512 interviews among voters conducted online!!!!!!
    So you know all those Craig Kelly types out in rural QLD. They didn’t get captured in this.
    Regretably, they do vote.

    Party over.

  45. I thought part of the news poll reset was an attempt to capture those type of voters South.

    One wonders whether there may have even been an over correction.

  46. Engagement method affects the stats. Online only! Think about who posts here and how representative they’d be on their views.

    Also, in the rural electorates that Labor didn’t win, think about the NBN, engagement with media and tech. I expect that that poll is skewed, because Australia hasn’t been a country this last year. It’s been a set of states. So if there’s an oversample from Victoria then that may be ALP friendly.

    I just wouldn’t put much stock in polls from newscorp. The actions of the government and the sentiment of the journalist class to the government is probably a better indication of ALP success.

  49. Newspoll still isn’t bouncy enough.

    Seven polls since the last election, all in the range 50-50 to 52-48. Where’s the occasional 54-46 or 47-53 the other way outlier? It’s just not behaving like a random sampled poll.

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