Category: Federal By-Elections

It’s been a quiet week on the poll front, and indeed it’s worth noting that polling generally is thinner on the ground than it used to be – the once weekly Essential Research series went fortnightly at the start of the year, neither Sky News nor Seven has been treating us to federal ReachTEL polls like they used to, and even the Fairfax-Ipsos poll has pared back its sample sizes in recent times from 1400 to 1200. I suspect we won’t be getting the normally-fortnightly Newspoll on Sunday night either, as these are usually timed to coincide with the resumption of parliament, for which we will have to wait another week. I can at least relate the following:

• The Guardian has results from a ReachTEL poll of Wentworth conducted for independent candidate Licia Heath, conducted last Thursday from a sample of 727. After exclusion of the 5.6% undecided the results are Dave Sharma (Liberal) 43.0%; Tim Murray (Labor) 20.7%; Kerryn Phelps (independent) 17.9%; Licia Heath (independent) 10.0% and Dominic Wy Kanak (Greens) 6.6%. The poll also comes with a 51-49 Liberal-versus-Labor two-party result, but this a) assumes Tim Murray would not be overtaken by Kerryn Phelps after allocation of preferences, and b) credits Labor with over three-quarters of independent and minor party preferences, which seems highly implausible. The poll also reportedly finds “as many as 52% of people said high-profile independent candidate Kerryn Phelps’ decision to preference the Liberals made it less likely they would give her their vote”, but this would seem to be a complex issue given Phelps’s flip-flop on the subject.

• The Guardian also has results of polling by ReachTEL for the Australian Education Union on the federal goverment’s funding deal for Catholic and independent schools, conducted last Thursday from a sample of 1261 respondents in Corangamite, Dunkley, Forde, Capricornia, Flynn, Gilmore, Robertson and Banks. The report dwells too much on what the small sub-sample of undecided voters thought, but it does at least relate that 38.6% of all respondents said the deal made them less likely to vote Liberal.

• Back to Wentworth, I had a paywalled article on the subject in Crikey, and took part in a mostly Wentworth-related podcast yesterday with Ben Raue of The Tally Room, along with Georgia Tkachuk of Collins Gartrell, which you can access below.

Latest dispatches from the Wentworth front:

• GetUp! has published a poll conducted by ReachTEL on September 17 from a sample of 860. It shows Liberal candidate Dave Sharma on a dangerously low 39.3%, independent Kerryn Phelps on 22.5%, Labor’s Tim Murray on 17.4% and Donimic Wy Kanak of the Greens on 12.6% (after allocation of a forced response follow-up for the 9.7% who were initially undecided). A two-party result of 52-48 for Liberal over Labor is provided, although on these numbers the final count would almost certainly be between Sharma and Phelps, with the latter likely gaining a strong enough preference flow to win. However, Sharma has comfortably the highest share of respondents rating themselves “very committed”.

• Nominations closed last week, drawing a field of 16 candidates, including three independents and an array of minor parties, among them some unlikely prospects in an electorate like Wentworth (Katter’s Australian Party, Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party, Australian Liberty Alliance). The independents include Licia Heath, who has the endorsement of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore and her state parliamentary ally, Alex Greenwich. Kerryn Phelps did not do well out of the ballot paper draw, landing second last place, with Sharma in the middle of the field at number nine.

• Kerryn Phelps’ campaign got off to a bumpy start when she reversed her initial recommendation that the Liberals be put last. Evidently this did not go down well, as she gatecrashed a Scott Morrison event to make the announcement that her how-to-vote cards would have Liberal ahead of Labor.

Friday, September 14

A marathon Liberal preselection that concluded at 1am has turned up something of an upset, with preselectors comprehensively defying Scott Morrison’s edict that the position should go to a woman. The ultimate winner was Dave Sharma, who defeated Richard Shields in the final round by 119 votes to 83. Morrison’s favoured candidate, Katherine O’Regan, crashed out early, managing only fifth place. The other leading woman candidate, Mary Lou Jarvis, was next to go, leaving Sharma, Shields and Peter King standing at the penultimate round. It would seem O’Regan was deserted in droves in favour of Sharma after the latter received the endorsement of John Howard and Malcolm Turnbull.

Thursday, September 13

The Wentworth by-election date was set yesterday for October 20, with rolls closing Monday week, and nominations closing the following Thursday and being declared on the Friday. The most high-profile potential independent, Kerryn Phelps, is reportedly waiting on this evening’s Liberal preselection before deciding if she will run. This is reckoned likely to be won by Katherine O’Regan, in part due to a consensus that the seat should go to a woman. Andrew Clennell of The Australian reports O’Regan is supported by moderate faction powerbroker Michael Photios, and “could get as many as 80 votes in the 120-vote local component of the 206-vote ballot”. O’Regan owns a consultancy firm, KTO, is a former deputy mayor of Woollahra council, and has been a staffer to state minister Robyn Parker and federal minister Warwick Smith.

Also said to be an outside chance is Mary Lou Jarvis, a Woollahra councillor Mary Lou Jarvis who has backing from the Right. Dave Sharma, the former Australian ambassador to Israel initially identified as the front-runner, has so far resisted pressure to withdraw, but Clennell reports one of his main backers, North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman, has switched his support to O’Regan. Also in the field are Richard Shields, former deputy state party director and Insurance Council of Australia manager; Maxine Szramka, a rheumatologist; Michael Feneley, cardiologist and twice unsuccessful candidate for Kingsford Smith; Carrington Brigham, a digital communications specialist; and Peter King, the barrister who held the seat for a term from 2001 before being elbowed aside by Malcolm Turnbull, whom he then proceeded to run against unsuccessfully as an independent.

Following the poll circulated a few days ago by Andrew Bragg, Peter King has been circulating a poll of his own, conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 400. It shows Labor beating the Liberals 53-47 on a generic ballot, from primary votes of Liberal 36%, Labor 29%, independents 18% and Greens 16%. However, this becomes 50-50 when Peter King is specified as Liberal candidate, from primary votes of Liberal 35%, Labor 25%, Greens 17% and independents 13%.

The fortnightly Essential Research result has Labor’s lead at 54-46, down just slightly from its 55-45 in the poll conducted in the very immediate wake of the leadership change on August 24. All we have of the primary vote at this stage is that the Coalition is up a point to 36%. Scott Morrison records a 39-27 lead on preferred prime minister, little changed from his 39-29 lead in the last poll. As with Newspoll, Essential’s second poll of the Morrison era includes its first approval ratings for the two leaders: Morrison debuts on 37% approval and 31% disapproval, while Bill Shorten is on 35% approval, up one on a month ago, and 43% disapproval, down one.

UPDATE: On the primary vote, the Coalition is up a point to 36%, Labor is down two to 37% – solidly lower than Newspoll – the Greens are steady on 10% and One Nation is up one to 8% (their second increase in a row, the opposite of what Newspoll has shown). The full report is here.

The poll finds 47% disapproving of the leadership change compared with 35% in support, widening a gap that was recorded at 40% to 35% in the last poll (the narrowness of which I found hard to credit). Presented with a series of propositions on the leadership change, 63% agreed with the proposition that they had lost trust in the government and wanted a new one; 60% that Morrison “was not elected by the people and has no legitimacy” and “needs to go to an election as soon as possible“; and 67% that they were “sick of the major parties changing their leaders” and “consider voting for a third party to send a message to them both”. Also included are a finding that 69% think a policy to reduce carbon emissions important, versus 23% for unimportant; and leadership attribute ratings which I may or may not take a closer look at when the full report comes out later today.

Also today, The Australian has some results from a poll of 1000 respondents in Wentworth. The poll was conducted for Andrew Bragg, the early Liberal preselection frontrunner who is now set for a seat in the Senate, who seems to be publicising it to back his decision to vacate the field in Wentworth for a woman. A straight voting intention question recorded the Liberal primary vote at just 39%, compared with Malcolm Turnbull’s 62.3% in 2016, with Labor’s Tim Murray on 25% and Kerryn Phelps, who is expected to announce shortly she will run as an independent, on 20%. However, a secondary voting intention specifying a female Liberal candidate found the party’s vote increasing to 43%.

The Daily Telegraph today reports a ReachTEL poll for The Australia Institute showing a lineball result in Wentworth, for which an October 6 by-election is anticipated after Malcolm Turnbull resigns on Friday. However, the poll presented respondents with a speculative list of candidates including two unconfirmed independents: Kerryn Phelps, Sydney councillor and former Australian Medical Association president; and Alex Greenwich, independent member for Sydney and a protege of his predecessor, Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore. Both were credited with 11% of the primary vote, with Liberal on 39% (down from 62.3% at the election), Labor on 29% (up from 17.7%) and the Greens on 9% (down from 14.9%). The poll was conducted on Monday from a sample of 886. UPDATE: This is not exactly correct. See bottom of post for further elaboration.

I have just published a preliminary Wentworth by-election guide, which will be fleshed out as details on the candidates are available. As noted here yesterday, news reports suggest the Liberal preselection frontrunner is Dave Sharma, former ambassador to Israel. However, he faces some high-profile opponents, with the field also including Christine Foster, Sydney councillor and sister of Tony Abbott; Andrew Bragg, a director at the Business Council of Australia and former leader of the Yes same-sex marriage survey campaign; Katherine O’Regan, a Woollahra councillor; and Peter King, tha barrister who held the seat from 2001 until Turnbull defeated him for preselection in 2004. Labor has preselected Tim Murray, managing partner of investment research firm J Capital, who is fluent in Mandarin and has won praise from Alex Turnbull, son of the former Prime Minister.

UPDATE: It turns out the Daily Telegraph was jumbling together results from separate poll questions, one specifying Kerryn Phelps and Alex Greenwich as response options, the other being a party-based options with the usual subjects. It’s from the latter that the 50-50 result derives, from primary votes of Liberal 39.6%, Labor 29.9%, Greens 15.2%, One Nation 2.3% and others 6.8%, after exclusion of the 6.3% undecided. The other set of primary vote figures are Liberal 34.6%, Labor 20.3%, Kerryn Phelps 11.8%, Alex Greenwich 11.2%, Greens 8.9%, others 11.3%. Also featured are a series of questions on climate policy, some of which are a bit dubious, but it does find 66.6% favouring an emissions target in the National Energy Guarantee, with 23.5% opposed; 50.9% saying Scott Morrison’s lump of coal routine makes them less likely to vote Liberal, compared with 21.7% for more likely; and 68.6% saying Morrison will do less to tackle climate change than Malcolm Turnbull, compared with 10.3% for more.

For those wanting a more psephologically focused forum for discussion of the by-elections than the main thread, which is the Newspoll post directly below this one, I offer the following.

As well as that, some scattered notes and observations:

• Hear Ben Raue and I trade thoughts on the results in a podcast at The Tally Room.

• For those of you still following the count, Braddon and Longman (and presumably others) yesterday saw counting of postals and special hospital booth votes, together with rechecking. In Braddon, 3967 postals and 1224 followed the overall pattern in not swinging at all, leaving the Labor lead at 52.5-47.5 from a favourable swing of 0.3%, which is unlikely to change much from here. In Longman, 7775 postals and 943 special hospital votes swung somewhat more heavily to Labor (4.9% and 7.1%) than the election day result (3.4%). Since the LNP nonetheless won the postals 52.3-47.7, the raw lead has come down from 5.4% to 4.5%, but I’m now projecting a final margin of 4.3% rather than 3.4%.

• It’s not news anymore, but I thought it worth noting that the Daily Telegraph had a report on insiders’ expectations for Braddon and Longman on July 21 that proved unusually prescient, but which escaped my notice at the time – other such commentary having generally been unduly bullish from the conservatives’ perspective. According to the report, “a senior Liberal strategist said the polling was much tighter in Braddon and that while the LNP was still competitive in Longman, Labor would have to be considered in the box seat”. Also quoted as a “senior Labor source” who said Labor had “made considerable ground in the past couple of weeks”, and that the party was now feeling “pretty confident”.

• If by-election booth results in a spreadsheet-style format are of any use to you, I am maintaining them online for my own purposes for Longman and Braddon.

While Labor’s by-election performances were nothing special in historical terms, it was undeniably a good night for the party, thanks largely to an unexpectedly clear win in Longman. Five campaign opinion polls had Labor slightly behind in the seat, before the election eve Newspoll found them edging to a 51-49 lead. Labor actually appears headed for a winning margin of around 4%, bolstering a fragile 0.8% margin with a swing of 3.4%. The big surprise was the near double-digit fall in the Liberal National Party primary vote, which leaves them struggling to crack 30%. This is well below the 34% attributed to them by Newspoll, to say nothing of a series of ReachTEL results that had them approaching 40%.

The LNP slump rendered redundant what everyone imagined would be the decisive factor, namely the flow of One Nation preferences. Despite this, One Nation were the other big winner in Longman, adding around 7% to their 9.4% vote from 2016. This indeed flowed a lot more strongly to the LNP than in 2016, reflecting the party’s how-to-vote card recommendation and the fact that they clearly picked up much of the LNP’s lost support. After receiving 56.5% of One Nation preferences in 2016, Labor looks to have scored only a third this time.

The Braddon result was less good for Labor, notwithstanding that they have clearly won, and that this looked in doubt throughout the campaign. The main change from the 2016 result is that independent Craig Garland scored a creditable 11.0% (although it may come down a little in late counting), chipping a few percent away from each of Labor, Liberal and the Greens. Rebekha Sharkie’s win in Mayo was of about the anticipated scale: her present lead over Georgina Downer after preferences is 8.6%, compared with her 5.0% margin in 2016. Sharkie’s primary vote performance was even more robust, up from 34.9% to around 45%. This bespeaks one poor aspect of the by-elections for Labor – after playing dead at two successive elections, its vote in Mayo has fallen all the way to 6.0%.

In the two WA seats, Josh Wilson did notably better in Fremantle than Patrick Gorman did in Perth, although neither was in the least bit troubled. Wilson gained 11.6% to gain a clear majority on the primary vote, with the Greens treading water at 17% and the Liberal Democrats garnering enough stray Liberals to land in the low teens. Despite the 42.3% Liberal vote from 2016 being up for grabs (compared with 36.9% in Fremantle), Labor only made a negligible gain on the primary vote in Perth, with the Greens also only up slightly. The rest spread among a large field of 15 candidates, with independent Paul Collins the strongest performer among claimants to the Liberal vote. Turnout was notably subdued in Perth and Fremantle, and looks likely to settle at around 70%.

If you click on the image below, you will find an accounting of the swings in Braddon and Longman and, in the former case, an projection of the final result. Since the swing on votes counted in Braddon thus far is exactly zero, it concludes Labor’s existing margin of 2.2% will be maintained. Also featured are regional breakdowns for Braddon and Longman, with the former broken into the larger towns (Burnie, Devonport and Ulverstone) and the remainder, and the latter into Bribie Island area and the remainder. This doesn’t turn up anything particularly interesting: especially in Longman, the swings were remarkably uniform. Craig Garland’s vote was a little lower in the larger towns, but there was otherwise little distinction to speak of in Braddon.