Week zero

The Coalition prepares to choose or confirm leaders, Section 44 rears its head once again, and a look at the aggregate two-party preferred numbers.

To allow for a separate thread for the late election counting, which can be found here, here goes my first post-election summary of relevant news to kick off a general discussion thread. Which is naturally less easy to do now that there are no polls or election horse race scuttlebutt to relate. Here’s what I’ve managed:

• Peter Dutton now appears certain to be elected unopposed as the new Liberal leader at the first meeting of the party room after the election winners have been confirmed. There appears to be strong support for the notion that the deputy position should go to a woman, names mentioned including Karen Andrews, Bridget Archer, Sussan Ley, Anne Ruston and Jane Hume. There were some suggestions that Andrews might seek the leadership, together with Dan Tehan, although it always seemed clear Dutton had the numbers.

• The Nationals party room will meet on Tuesday, which could see a challenge to Barnaby Joyce’s leadership from David Littleproud or Michael McCormack. However, the ABC reports it has been put to McCormack that it would be preferable to have a “fresh start”. Mike Foley of the Age/Herald reports Keith Pitt might put his name forward on the “off chance” that Joyce declines to stand, positioning himself as the heir to Joyce’s skepticism on net zero carbon emissions.

• Following her win over Labor’s Kristina Keneally as an independent for Fowler, it has been noted that Dai Le asserted on her Section 44 checklist as part of her nomination for the election that she had never been a citizen or subject of a country other than Australia. Queried by The Australian, constitutional law expert Anne Twomey offered the inuitively obvious point that this seemed unlikely given she was born in Vietnam in 1968 and remained there until her family fled in 1975. However, while a nomination may be rejected if a prospective candidate does not complete the checklist and provide supporting documentation is required, it would not appear a nomination is retrospectively invalidated if the information provided was later shown to be incomplete. The sole point at issue is whether Le does in fact have Vietnamese citizenship, which would appear unlikely based on the account of Sydney barrister Dominic Villa.

• The projections of both the ABC and myself are that Labor will win the final two-party preferred count by 51.8-48.2, from a swing to Labor of 3.3%. This is derived from two-candidate preferred counts between Labor and the Coalition in seats where one is available and estimates of other parties’ preference flows where they are not. I have Labor winning by 51.3-48.7 in New South Wales, a swing of 3.0%; 53.9-46.1 in Victoria, a swing of 0.8%; the Coalition winning 54.3-45.7 in Queensland, a swing to Labor of 4.1%; Labor winning 54.7-45.3 in Western Australia, a swing of 10.2% (their first win in the state since 1987 and best result since 1983); 53.9-46.1 in South Australia, a swing of 3.2%; and 53.8-46.2 in Tasmania, a swing to the Coalition of 2.1%.

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.

3,000 comments on “Week zero”

Comments Page 60 of 60
1 … 59 60

  1. “ looks like we get to scroll on past diatribe after diatribe advocating second preferencing the liberals, because Adam Bandt is the devil. Cos splitters!”

    Doesn’t seem right. I mean – there IS Boer pushing that argument … and no one else.

    I think I was the one who introduced the term ‘splitters’ into this debate and I would have thought I’d made my position abundantly clear: splitters before the filth, every time.

  2. Freya Stark @ #2943 Sunday, May 29th, 2022 – 9:40 pm

    I see a lot of parallel between Albanese and Biden.
    Albanese was the deputy of the last Labor prime minister, Kevin Rudd. He is also the oldest elected Prime Minister on swearing in.
    With the economic climate being dodgy at best, Albanese’s net approval will probably fall into negative territory before Christmas. We could be looking at the most conservative government on record when Dutton wins the next election in a landslide.

    I wish I could tell you what I really think about your truly evil and perverse pronouncements. I just can’t. Because I’m grieving from half a world away for the innocent lives taken this week by an insane individual in Uvalde, Texas, in America, a country that you salivate over frequently and wish Australia was more like. I honestly don’t know how you live with yourself. I can just imagine the cover you’d give to your Antipodean Trump 2.0, should he get into power and when gun laws were relaxed in this country too and we came face to face with a similar tragedy. You and your heartless and soulless opinions make me so mad.

  4. @Wat Tyler

    Very good post.The problem for Labor is history is not on their side.The last four federal governments that went to the polls seeking a second term all copped decent swings against them.

    Hawke in 84,Howard in 98,Gillard in 2010, and Turnbull in 2016 all bled seats. 84 was as good as it ever got for Hawke Keating, Howard never again won as big as he did 98 , Rudd, Gillard, Rudd never got close to 2007 and the same for the Tories and 2013.

    History suggest the first win is the biggest and for Labor this time that is a majority of one. They are going to have to defy history,we are not talking state government here, this is the premier league not the A league.

    They need to be bold and get stuff done that a future Tory government would find very difficult to roll back (dental into medicare for eg) while they have the numbers otherwise the risk is they leave no legacy at all.

  6. C@t
    I’m surprised that you would waste your time even reading Freya’s nonsense let alone responding to it. Do yourself a favour and just block her if she bothers you that much.

  7. Voodoo Blues, agree completely. Give voters a reason to return you to power, instead of just cynically relying on being the default option as the incumbent.

  8. Freya,

    ” He is also the oldest elected Prime Minister on swearing in.”

    Why do you keep trying to come up with some tortured wording to imply Albanese is the oldest PM ever?

  9. Andrew Earlwood, I was referring to the 100 diatribes today from Boer. I don’t understand the constant focus, the ALP actually won govt. last week?

    If people are voting less for the major parties, a second preference arrangement between them would fasten it up even more and become a major political issue. The ALP and Liberals can’t make the people preference the other no matter how loud and orchestrated they may try. So not going to happen.

    Neither party could realistically orchestrate it, due to their own internal politics. So not going to happen.

    Neither would be willing to do the other party a favour. Pretty sure the ALP hate the Liberals and vice versa……

    It’s a non starter argument any way you look at it.

    Would be better for the ALP to work with the democracy the people give them. I would trust they are smart enough to know this in 2022. They don’t really have a choice if people are choosing to increasingly support different political groupings. That’s the democratic system the ALP have to work with.

  10. Moreover it only makes sense if you believe that the ALP would somehow prefer to see a Coalition majority government in power instead of an ALP minority government supported by the Greens. Which they thankfully never will.

  11. “ Andrew Earlwood, I was referring to the 100 diatribes today from Boer.”

    So, Boer being Boer. Scroll on by, its helps (where you around last year for his anti ChiComm diatribes? For. Months. You’ve lucky you only got to wade through 100 Lab-Lib preferring posts today.

  12. Bystander @ #2955 Sunday, May 29th, 2022 – 10:12 pm

    C@t
    I’m surprised that you would waste your time even reading Freya’s nonsense let alone responding to it. Do yourself a favour and just block her if she bothers you that much.

    Know thy enemy. Eventually I may do as you say but until then I have a watching brief on that person.

  13. Now that the argument seems to have (mostly) died for the night, here’s a weird little thought.

    There was plenty of noise made about Labor winning Sturt. That didn’t happen, but something weirder has in SA: on a 2pp level, they seem to have “won” Mayo.

    Its 2pp margin was only 2.54% for the Libs in 2019, and now the Lib vote has crashed more than 10% – some going to Labor and the Greens, some to minor right parties (with inevitable leakage to Labor there). Sharkie was also down 1%. We’d have to wait for the official distribution of prefs, but that looks like a 2pp swing of several % (the actual Lib-CA swing was 8%). That would make Mayo not just a nominal Labor seat, but safer for them than Boothby!

    It’ll be interesting to see the two-party pendulum, when it’s all done and dusted. Warringah is another seat that could end up on the Labor side.

  14. ”History suggest the first win is the biggest and for Labor this time that is a majority of one. They are going to have to defy history,we are not talking state government here, this is the premier league not the A league.”

    Federally. There are lots of examples of new Governments that just scrape in first time winning comfortably next time, e.g. Wran (NSW Labor 1976) and Carr (NSW Labor 1995). We also have Steve Bracks (Labor, Victoria, 1999).

  15. One thing I’ve noticed since the election – Bree has disappeared from Poll Bludger , maybe she really was Jenny Morrison all along or Shari Markson? By the way, what happened to the much hyped Albanese dirt file?

  16. Voodoo Blues says:
    Sunday, May 29, 2022 at 10:00 pm
    @Wat Tyler

    Very good post.The problem for Labor is history is not on their side.The last four federal governments that went to the polls seeking a second term all copped decent swings against them.
    ————
    True but those patterns aren’t immutable. At the State level it’s quite a common occurrence for a new government to first win in minority or a small minority, and improve the position at subsequent elections. (Of course there’s no particular reason to think that might be the case with the Albanese government, beyond the fact that it did not come in with a comfortable majority.)

    Peter Lewis of Essential Research was arguing before this latest election that because almost every recent federal election at which a party has won government from opposition involved a big win, that it was very unlikely that Labor, if it won at all, would only win narrowly. I found that a pretty unconvincing argument. It might have been a typical pattern, but there’s no magical cosmic electoral force that means it always has to be that way.

    The other point of course is that if you add Greens seats plus Wilkie (being seats that in previous eras would have been won by the ALP at an election like 2022) the win is reasonably comfortable anyway- 81 or 82 vs 70 or 69.

  18. Bird of paradox @ #2962 Sunday, May 29th, 2022 – 10:28 pm

    Now that the argument seems to have (mostly) died for the night, here’s a weird little thought.

    There was plenty of noise made about Labor winning Sturt. That didn’t happen, but something weirder has in SA: on a 2pp level, they seem to have “won” Mayo.

    Its 2pp margin was only 2.54% for the Libs in 2019, and now the Lib vote has crashed more than 10% – some going to Labor and the Greens, some to minor right parties (with inevitable leakage to Labor there). Sharkie was also down 1%. We’d have to wait for the official distribution of prefs, but that looks like a 2pp swing of several % (the actual Lib-CA swing was 8%). That would make Mayo not just a nominal Labor seat, but safer for them than Boothby!

    It’ll be interesting to see the two-party pendulum, when it’s all done and dusted. Warringah is another seat that could end up on the Labor side.

    You’ll have to probe our 2 Mayo Bludgers more about that. I think BK voted for Sharkie but I’m not sure about Jan. Though I imagine that both Sharkie and Stegall are safe until they decide to hang up their spurs.

  20. And the new government has barely begun and some of you are already talking about 2025 and beyond, why not sit back and let things run their course for the next 3 years instead.
    I am pretty optimistic, change is coming, let us embrace it instead of another round of the stupid Labor vs Greens war.

  21. I doubt Mayo is actually an easy Labor seat waiting to happen. Sharkie’s just did a preference deal with Labor to recommend preferences to each other over the Liberals. Sharkie’s voters would just have been encouraged to vote Liberals low.

    The ALP v. Coalition 2PP in a seat with a different final 2CP (i.e. with an indie or third party making the final two) can be misleading.

  24. That said, with the development and growth of Mt. Barker and continued Metropolitan encroachment into the Hills, it’s possible that the demographics in the seat could shift leftwards over time. Or a radical redistribution (perhaps next time the state’s seat numbers change) could make the electorate swallow in some more Labor booths or spit out some Liberal booths…

  25. Su Dharmapala
    @SuDharmapala

    Australians did not change the curtains on 21 May 2022. The Australian women took the bins out.

  26. Steve777 says:
    Sunday, May 29, 2022 at 10:30 pm
    ”History suggest the first win is the biggest and for Labor this time that is a majority of one. They are going to have to defy history,we are not talking state government here, this is the premier league not the A league.”

    Federally. There are lots of examples of new Governments that just scrape in first time winning comfortably next time, e.g. Wran (NSW Labor 1976) and Carr (NSW Labor 1995). We also have Steve Bracks (Labor, Victoria, 1999).
    *******
    And Daniel Andrews 2014. Like the others, based on delivery in the first term that demonstrated competence and delivery to a cohort of voters who they hadn’t been able to convince from opposition

  27. Age at birthday of year of first swearing in:

    Albanese 59
    Morrison 50
    Turnbull 61
    Abbott 56
    Gillard 52
    Rudd 50
    Howard 57
    Keating 47
    Hawke 54
    …

  28. So Albanese’s still in his 50s. Even if we imagined a scenario where he got to be around for a decade or so, he’d only be in his early 70s towards the end (not the beginning.) Hardly one foot in the grave there.

  29. You’re point Steve 777?? You have shown your complete lack of originality and absolute lack of intelligence by deciding to post those irrelevant statistics concerning the age of PMs at time of swearing in.

    I hope one day you can master the art of independent thought and agency

  30. (Birthday in year left PMship)

    Howard left office at the age of 68.
    Hawke at 62.
    McMahon at 64.
    Menzies at 72.

    I’ve been older than the Prime Minister since 2007.
    I was older than the US President while Obama was in iffice.

  31. Liberals doomed… as if further proof were required the conservative moronic wedge politics in play again…

    Boris Johnson to reportedly bring back imperial measurements to mark platinum jubilee
    Move is an apparent attempt to win support from Brexit voters in seats Tories fear losing.

    Boris like Morrison & Dutton only has one idea .. the moronic “Wedge”
    Really..the UK will descend to third world standard if the Conservatives stay in power much longer.

  33. Just realised the wording of my previous post makes it sound like I don’t believe a scenario where Albanese is around for a decade is possible. I just meant it to sound tentative and was trying to avoid the impression that I’m assuming that’s what will happen.

  35. “Hawke in 84”

    The 1984 federal election doesn’t get spoken about much. Andrew Peacock did well in the debate against Bob Hawke which may have been a factor.

    Labor pollster Rod Cameron suggested that calling the election early to capitalise on polling was opportunistic. Hawke was seen as someone above politics so when he called an early election he lost some of the favor with the public.

    Commentators expected Labor to add to their seat totals. So they were suprised by the swing against the Hawke government.

  36. Yes, I was responding to Freya. When I see numbers that don’t seem right, I like to check. So I’m a bit of a nerd that way.

    After 3,168 days of Coalition rule, we’re now into day 6 of Labor. The country already feels so much better. I am sure that any leftie brawler would be hoping that Albanese makes it to 3,169 and beyond.

  37. Steve777 @ #2980 Sunday, May 29th, 2022 – 10:29 pm

    (Birthday in year left PMship)

    Howard left office at the age of 68.
    Hawke at 62.
    McMahon at 64.
    Menzies at 72.

    I’ve been older than the Prime Minister since 2007.
    I was older than the US President while Obama was in iffice.

    As people born in the 1980s start being old enough to be elected to leadership positions, I’m almost there. So far, I have not been older than any Australian head of government but I am not that far behind Malinauskas and Perrottet. It’s only a matter of time.

    As for POTUS, aside from online buzz about AOC, I don’t know if anyone younger than me is on their way yet but, again, only a matter of time.

  39. It’s a pretty hilarious piece of logic “the two major parties have seen steady declines in support from the electorate in first preferences” the response to which is not “huh I guess the two parties might be coming across as similar and need to provide a clear alternative and vision that appeals to the electorate” but “the two parties need to ally on preferences” to really accelerate that process I guess.

    It really is funny, thankfully no such thing will remotely happen which is good because I like voting Labor and it would prevent it from continuing.

  41. I would take little heart from State Government, that is a completely different arena of politics, Queensland tells you that.It is undeniable that Labor will have to defy an historical trend federally.

    According to the ABC finance bloke Seven of the last ten times the US Federal reserve started hiking rates it ended in recession and the average time between the first rate hike and those recessions is 27 months.

    As I said above go hard or go home, the slow incremental change thing works for right wing governments because their default position is to defend the status quo.

    Labor would be foolish to use this term when they actually have power and have as friendly a senate as they are ever likely to get to just ponce around fiddling with things here or there, but I suspect that is exactly what they will do.

  42. Jesus … K.

    It’s amazing how quickly people run to “historical precedents” when people want to pre-emptively doom about Labor, but conveniently ignore a) politics HAS changed here and globally over the last 15 years b) the times where circumstances have not behaved as precedent would suggest they should.

    FTR – I think Labor needs to balance this opportunity with acting like this is their only shot. Noting in 1984, 1998, 2010 and 2016… there were significant external factors – or poor choices made by the Government in power to bring about those outcomes. Those Governments didn’t lose significant skin “just ‘cause” that’s what happens to governments seeking a second term.

  43. @JRo

    I just scroll past most of it but the little bit of it I have read the subtext is he wants to deny a third of the electorate of any representation via some preference deal to try and lock them out because he doesn’t like their “extremist” politics, extreme meaning nothing more than yuk I don’t like that.

  44. Boerwar’s “save the duopoly” preference campaign isn’t that far from actual practice.

    https://www.afr.com/politics/election-2016-greens-warn-of-alplib-dirty-deal-20160608-gpe6fo

    In reality, there are seat-by-seat deals between Labor and the Liberal Party as both parties fight to keep Greens out of Melbourne inner-city seats and stop Senator Nick Xenophon’s candidates from knocking off sitting Liberal MPs Christopher Pyne and Jamie Briggs in South Australia.

    Michael Danby, Labor’s member for Melbourne Ports, will struggle to maintain his seat and has already signalled he will direct his preferences to the Liberals whose candidate is $7.50 to win, according to bookmakers.

    The Liberals, however, are torn between the John Howard-Tony Abbott model of putting Greens last on how-to-vote cards and the risk of giving Liberal preferences to Labor, which could help make Bill Shorten prime minister.

    Weighing heavily on the minds of some Victorian Liberals is the fact that the 2016 budget’s superannuation changes have already disappointed the Liberal voter base. Directing Liberal preferences to the Greens just to give Labor a poke in the eye could be enough to turn away some Liberal voters.

    Liberal and Labor officials are also mindful that directing preferences to minor parties just to thwart each other can have the unintended side-effect of encouraging new, better resourced third parties like the Greens and potentially the Nick Xenophon Team in South Australia, which can make the business of governing even more difficult.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/jun/12/liberals-to-get-labor-preferences-in-three-rural-seats-as-part-of-deal

    The Liberal party will get Labor preferences in three rural seats to help fend off threats from Nationals candidates as part of a deal in which the Liberals will preference Labor ahead of the Greens in inner-city seats where those preferences would have given the Greens a chance of defeating Labor MPs.

    The deal struck between the major parties means Labor will preference the Liberals over the Nationals in the Victorian seat of Murray and the West Australian seats of O’Connor and Durack, strongly improving the Liberal candidates’ chances. But it is a blow to the Greens’ lower house campaign.

    It had been widely speculated that the Liberals could do a deal with the Greens to disadvantage Labor, something openly canvassed by the Liberals’ Victorian state secretary, Michael Kroger, but opposed by the federal director, Tony Nutt, and the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull.

    On Sunday Turnbull promised to preference Labor ahead of the Greens in every House of Representatives seat, making the decision part of his pitch to voters that they should avoid voting for minor parties in the interests of political stability.

    “This is a call that I have made in the national interest,” he said. “Let us be quite clear about this. The big risk at this election is that we would end up with an unstable, chaotic, minority Labor-Green-independent government as we have seen before.”

    The quid pro quo from Labor in that deal is the ALP agreement to preference the Liberals over the Nationals in the three regional seats.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/may/29/anthony-albanese-warns-liberal-party-not-to-preference-the-greens

    Labor’s Anthony Albanese has ramped up his threat against the Liberal party, saying if the party directs its preferences towards his Greens opponent in the Sydney seat of Grayndler he will turn the issue into a national judgment on Malcolm Turnbull.

    He said the Liberal party for strategic reasons had still failed to rule out a preference deal with Jim Casey, the Greens’ candidate in Grayndler, but the delay was putting them on the side of an avowed anticapitalist.

    He threatened to turn this into a national issue if the Liberal party hierarchy did not state publicly that it would not preference Casey.

    “It would be extraordinary if they do, and if they do I’ll have very clear message which is a vote for Malcolm Turnbull is a vote to abolish capitalism,” Albanese said on Sunday.

  45. Ven, the dirt file might have been the refugee boat arrivals just before the election. Thankfully Morrison’s mob couldn’t organise a pissup in a brewery so it didn’t work.

  48. Gabba – from last night

    “Drilling down into coal seams to harvest that same CSG gas also releases methane, since the holes are not completely sealed at their sides, and a goodly proportion of holes are not successfully completed, and are abandoned to spew away, quietly. When the pressure of gas from the seam below becomes too low to effectively recover it, the production hole is also abandoned and rarely, if ever, properly sealed.Open cut coal mines, after they are abandoned, continue to spew CSG into the air sideways from exposed seams, at a gradually diminishing rate.”

    Thanks for that, that was my understanding (albeit limited) too but I appreciate the clear confirmation.

  49. The Reichspud not off to a flying start with the Croods here in WA.

    The Alston cartoon. Albo and wife in bed, Dutton under the bed. She says ‘Oh Anthony. I’m sure most people think monsters under the bed are friendly” . Albo looking at Dutton “Oerrr NO……..only about 19%

  50. Freya Starksays:
    Sunday, May 29, 2022 at 9:40 pm
    I see a lot of parallel between Albanese and Biden.
    Albanese was the deputy of the last Labor prime minister, Kevin Rudd. He is also the oldest elected Prime Minister on swearing in.
    ************
    McEwen (67y, 8d), McMahon (63y), Turnbull (60y, 11d) were all older than Albanese on ascension (59y, 88d). True that they came to power between elections and were not first elected to PM from opposition. McEwen and McMahon were never elected to the office. However, Turnbull was first elected to office on 2/7/16 at age of 60y, 279d).
    So Albanese far from the oldest on first entering office of PM and not the oldest when first time elected to the office.

Comments Page 60 of 60
1 … 59 60

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *