New South Wales election guide

The Poll Bludger’s New South Wales election guide is now operational – all 30,000 or so words of it. Virtue is of course its own reward, but if you think my labours deserve a little extra you are invited to follow the directions here. Further embellishments, like candidate photos and local issue summaries, will be added in due course. Please drop me a line if you spot any errors, particularly if they’re of a kind likely to invite ridicule. With that out of the way, I really am going to be keeping a low profile around here in the next four weeks or so; heavy duty state election coverage will commence thereafter.

Peel by-election live

Sunday 3pm. Some perspective on this remarkable result. The table below shows the primary vote swing to the incumbent and opposition party and the two-party swing to (or, in this case alone, against) the opposition, at each comparable by-election going back as far as I could find. This is limited to instances where the major parties dominated both the by-election and the preceding general election, and excludes by-elections involving first term governments and those held in the immediate aftermath of general elections.

INC OPP 2PP
Peel, WA (3/2/07) -4.5 -4.8 -1.0
Gaven, Qld (1/4/06) -10.6 3.8 8.4
Victoria Park, WA (11/3/06) -7.9 3.2 4.8
Macquarie Fields, NSW (22/9/05) -13.2 9.9 12.4
Redcliffe, Qld (20/8/05) -10.5 5.6 8.3
Chatsworth, Qld (20/8/05) -13.8 13.3 13.9
Auburn, NSW (8/9/01) -12.9 2.6 11.1
Aston, Federal (14/8/01) -7.7 -1.5 3.7
Ryan, Federal (17/3/01) -7.2 8.4 9.7
Mitcham, Vic (13/12/97) -22.9 5.8 15.8
Parramatta, NSW (27/8/94) -11.0 10.6 9.5

POST-MATCH OVERVIEW. Like every by-election result, this one will open a torrent of speculation about federal implications, leadership implications and all the rest. This time, believe the hype. Today’s by-election was held almost exactly in the middle of the government’s second term, against the backdrop of a sitting member retiring in disgrace and a government that had every reason to fear a backlash. For the Liberals to lose more than one in six of their voters under these circumstances is an extraordinary result, for which nobody can escape blame.

The Prime Minister might claim that the result has no federal implications, as he has routinely done on the morning after each state election disaster. Most of the time he has been right; this time, it’s very hard to construct an explanation that doesn’t involve industrial relations policies and interest rate hikes. Peel may be a safe Labor seat, but it’s also an outer metropolitan electorate dotted with new suburbs rich with wage-earners and mortgage payers, so it scores high on most indicators of federal electoral sensitivity.

Closer to home, the result is an even bigger disaster for the state Liberal Party, and in particular for leader Paul Omodei. The Poll Bludger normally gets exasperated when parties (usually state Liberal parties) go through leaders like tissues, but this time the verdict is clear: Omodei is an electoral dud and must go before the next election. Expect to hear a lot of talk in the coming weeks about alternative leadership scenarios, such as the plan for Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive John Langoulant to parachute in by replacing Colin Barnett as member for Cottesloe.

As for the other parties, Labor should be feeling very pleased with its candidate selection procedures. The Greens have had a good result, though this is partly an indictment of the Liberals’ clear failure to win the confidence of disaffected Labor voters. Similarly, the doubling of the One Nation vote is unlikely to be the harbinger of a new wave of Hansonism. The Liberals can at least claim that 5.0 per cent of their vote went to pro-Liberal independent Gerard Kettle. But they were also spared opposition this time from Family First, whose 3.3 per cent vote in 2005 was not significantly harvested by the Christian Democratic Party.

. Primary Swing 2PP Swing
LABOR 50.5 -4.5 64.5 1.0
LIBERAL 24.2 -4.8 35.5 -1.0
Greens 9.1 2.7
CDP 4.0 0.2
One Nation 4.3 2.1
CEC 0.8 –
Kettle 5.0 –
Woodward 2.2 – COUNTED: 79%

9.20pm. It’s actually worse for the Liberals than I thought. Turns out there WERE two-party results coming through, but they could only viewed in aggregate, not booth-by-booth. This count is more-or-less complete for this evening, and it shows a 1.0 per cent swing to Labor. Table now amended.

8.23pm. I guess the Liberals can say they had pro-Liberal independent Gerard Kettle to contend with this time, draining 5.0 per cent of the vote. The only independent in 2005 polled 0.4 per cent. However, there was Family First last time, who scored a pretty solid 3.3 per cent, which has not been absorbed by the CDP.

8.19pm. Did I say absent votes still to come? Silly me. You don’t get those at by-elections. That mitigates the high turnout a little, but only slightly – it’s nearly level with 2005, compared with a sharp plunge at the Victoria Park by-election.

8.18pm. I expect the two-party count will also come in as a flood, probably in about half an hour.

8.17pm. The trend on turnout was also maintained. Comparing like with like, we’ve got 22,082 today compared with 21,576 in 2005. That would have helped Labor a lot.

8.12pm. No mention of the by-election on the ABC radio news just now. I reckon they’ve missed a pretty big story.

8.09pm. Still to come: absent votes (about 2000 to 2500) and the actual two-party count. The above figures are based entirely on my own assumption as to where the minor party vote will go. BTW, the CDP and Gerard Kettle had Liberal ahead of Labor; Greens the other way around; others no recommendation, except the CEC for whom I couldn’t find an HTV card.

8.07pm. Matter of fact, all the remaining booth results came in at once. Way to kill the suspense, WAEC! It very much appears that the trend in the first batch of booths was borne out in the remainder – both parties down 6 to 7 per cent on the primary vote, translating into a very small swing after preferences.

8.06pm. Big flood of results in. Stay tuned.

8.04pm. Still nothing. Turnout so far is 5331 compared with 4952 from equivalent booths in 2005, a remarkable turn-around on last year’s Victoria Park by-election.

7.55pm. It’s also possible that my preference calculations flatter Labor a little, but nonetheless it’s a very encouraging two-party result for Labor. Unless these booths are aberrant, the remarkable feature of the count is that the Liberals seem to be shedding votes to minor parties and independents.

7.54pm. Still no more results, but my table now compares primary vote figures booth by booth. So Labor only appeared to be holding equal on primary votes because they were Labor booths coming in.

7.44pm. Apologies for those whose comments were in moderation. I’ll turn it off.

7.42pm. The count proceeds at a leisurely pace. We’ll probably get hit with seven booths at once in a few minutes.

7.38pm. None of these booths are from the Liberal-friendly southern end of the electorate, which might explain their poor performance on the primary vote. Remember, the swing figure above for the primary vote is compared with the overall total, whereas two-party only compares like booths.

7.31pm. Turnout actually appears to be up, which is a plus for Labor.

7.29pm. These results are so good for Labor I’m checking my spreadsheet for errors, but it all appears to check out.

7.25pm. Five booths now in, including tiny Special Institutions. Apologies for two-party glitch – working on it.

7.18pm. Reckon I’ve finally got my act together now. So yeah, pre-polls and postals actually accounted for 8 per cent in 2005. Perhaps Labor are doing better than expected here because they organised better this time, the seat not being a foregone conclusion.

7.04pm. I should stress that this is 3 or 4 per cent of the vote. Working on something to show the amount counted.

7.02pm. Pre-polls now in; table updated.

6.53pm. In case you’re wondering, only the two-party result is measured against comparable booths. The One Nation vote on postals is actually only up 2.9 per cent, if that comforts you.

6.50pm. That’s better. By the way, booth figures tend to come in three or four big spurts over the next 45 minutes or so.

6.48pm. There’s a problem with my non-Labor primary swing figures, obviously. Working on it.

6.38pm. Unusually, postal votes are in first. They’ve gone 45.5 per cent Labor, 28.5 per cent Liberal. By my reckoning that’s a 6.3 per cent two-party swing to the Liberals on 2005, although postals might behave differently at by-elections

6.26pm Welcome to the Poll Bludger’s live coverage of the Peel by-election. No results yet, which is good because I still have work to do on my tables and such.

Peel thunder: pre-match report

Alan Carpenter’s year-old WA government faces its first electoral test tomorrow with the by-election for Peel, the seat vacated after Corruption and Crime Commission hearings blew the lid off Small Business Minister Norm Marlborough’s remarkable dealings with former Premier Brian Burke. As usual, this site will provide live commentary as the booth results come in from about 6.30pm Perth time, complete with up-to-the-minute figures adjusted to take individual booth swings into account. Media reports a fortnight ago suggested Labor polling showed it facing a 12 per cent swing in a seat it holds by 13.5 per cent; in today’s Australian, Amanda O’Brien reports that the Liberals consider themselves a "strong chance". Labor state secretary Bill Johnston has told The West Australian that "anything less than 8 per cent would be an excellent result, anything above 8 per cent would be above average". Some noteworthy campaign developments from the past few weeks:

• Chief among the government’s announcements seeking to limit the damage has been a $600,000 promise to free up police from desk jobs to provide security on the forthcoming Mandurah to Perth line, which Robert Taylor of The West Australian says is expected to be swamped by "young hoods from Rockingham, Kwinana and Mandurah".

• Comments on the Poll Bludger’s earlier by-election thread indicate a degree of hostility about the Waikiki electricity substation development, which is said to be on land originally set aside for a school. More than one noted that the zoning amendment was made after a number of people had bought properties in the area. Among those campaigning against the development was Greens candidate Dawn Jecks.

• Labor has also had to deal with criticism from one of its own preselection aspirants, Kwinana mayor and Police Union lawyer Carol Adams, over neglect of the local area in respect to police numbers and intervention services for domestic violence and drug and alcohol abuse.

Below is a map showing the location of the electorate’s 15 polling booths, and a table showing the individual results from the 2005 election. No changes have been made to the booth arrangements from the state election. Note the clear trend of progressively weaker support for Labor from north to south.

BOOTH ALP LIB GRN ALP
2PP		 TOTAL
1. Golden Bay C’ty Centre 50.2 33.3 6.5 58.4 3.7
2. Hillman PS 61.3 24.2 5.0 68.8 5.2
3. Koorana PS 54.5 29.9 6.2 63.9 9.6
4. Leda PS 66.6 16.5 7.1 75.8 5.9
5. Port Kennedy PS 57.2 29.9 5.5 64.1 11.3
6. Rockingham Baptist 55.0 24.7 5.6 67.0 2.3
7. Rockingham Lakes PS 54.8 32.7 3.9 62.5 3.8
8. Secret Harbour PS 49.9 34.5 5.3 57.2 7.2
9. Singleton C’ty Hall 53.1 28.3 7.7 63.7 4.4
10. Tranby College 45.6 38.2 6.0 52.6 7.1
11. Warnbro C’ty HS 55.9 27.6 7.2 64.5 10.9
12. Calista PS 61.4 19.1 9.4 71.4 1.9
13. Charthouse PS 53.7 30.6 7.2 62.4 3.6
14. Cooloongup PS 61.8 22.5 4.6 69.9 3.8
15. Safety Bay SHS 52.1 29.8 5.0 61.6 1.1
Non-booth 53.3 29.5 7.5 62.6 18.3
TOTAL 55.0 29.0 6.4 63.5 100.0

Drawing the lines

The South Australian Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission has today unveiled its draft redistribution of state electoral boundaries, to take effect when the next election is held on March 20, 2010. South Australian redistributions tend not to be greatly momentous, as they are conducted every term. Their other distinguishing feature is that the commissioners are obliged to meet the demands of "electoral fairness", which they endeavour to achieve through boundaries that will deliver a majority to the side of politics that wins the majority of the two-party preferred vote, assuming a uniform swing. Since Labor won 56.8 per cent of the two-party vote in last year’s election, and the Labor side was deemed to have won 30 of the lower house’s 47 seats (including the independent-held seats of Mitchell and Fisher, more on which shortly), their objective was to produce boundaries in which seven seats on the Labor side would fall in the event of a 6.9 per cent swing.

This of course requires the commissioners to work around the vote for independents and minor parties, which in the South Australian context includes the Nationals. This was done by re-calculating preference distributions in seats that did not produce Labor-versus-Liberal two-party results, so that Labor and Liberal candidates were not eliminated at earlier points in the count. On this basis, the independent-held seats of Mitchell and Fisher respectively produced Labor margins of 14.7 per cent and 8.5 per cent, while Mount Gambier produced a Liberal margin of 6.1 per cent. A re-calculation was also necessary in the Nationals’ sole seat of Chaffey as the final two-party result was between the Nationals and Liberal candidates; it produced a Liberal majority over Labor of 21.9 per cent. The Liberal Party’s submission to the commission argued that Chaffey and Mount Gambier should be treated as Labor seats on the grounds that their members, Karlene Maywald and Rory McEwen, have been part of Mike Rann’s cabinet since the pre-election period when Labor did not have a parliamentary majority. If the commission had agreed to this, it would have been required to bring the margins in two extra Labor seats below the level where a uniform swing would have given the Liberals a two-party preferred majority. Since both seats are overwhelmingly conservative by nature, the commission was quite right to reject this self-serving proposal.

Based on the result of last year’s election, the Liberals would have needed a uniform swing of 9.5 per cent rather than 6.9 per cent to win seven seats and government, so the commissioners needed to cut the Labor margins in Bright (9.5 per cent), Morialta (8.0 per cent) and Newland (6.9 per cent) to bring them below the latter figure. To this end, it has been proposed that Bright move north along the coast to take in North Brighton and the southern part of Somerton Park from the Glenelg-based Liberal seat of Morphett, while the industrial area of Lonsdale and the Labor stronghold of O’Sullivan Beach to the south will be transferred to Kaurna. This has cut the Labor margin by 2.6 per cent, making sitting member Chloe Fox the redistribution’s biggest loser. Morialta combines Labor-voting outer eastern suburbs with lightly populated conservative territory in the Adelaide Hills beyond – here the margin has been cut to 6.8 per cent through a transfer at the suburb of Paradise to Hartley in the west, while in the south a stretch of hills territory from Skye east to Basket Range has been added from Bragg and Heysen. Newland, which is immediately to the north of Morialta, has been pulled eastwards into Upper Hermitage, Lower Hermitage and Paracombe by population growth in the outer suburbs, which has done the commission’s job for it by cutting the Labor margin from 6.9 per cent to 5.2 per cent. The Labor members to suffer from these changes are Lindsay Simmons in Morialta and Tom Kenyon in Newland.

Other amendments have been driven by changes in the population distribution, and are only of political interest at the bottom end of the pendulum. The eastern inner-city seat of Norwood, which produced a markedly below-average swing to Labor at the election, has expanded south-eastwards to take Kensington from the safe Liberal seat of Bragg, cutting the Labor margin by a potentially significant 0.6 per cent. There is better news for Labor in Hartley, where Grace Portolesi defeated Liberal member Joe Scalzi last year. The aforementioned transfer at Paradise from Morialta has expanded the electorate’s Labor-voting northern end, while a part of the Liberal-voting southern end at Kensington Gardens will now be wasted for the Liberals in Bragg. The Gawler-based seat of Light, won for Labor at last year’s election by Tony Piccolo with a margin of 2.6 per cent, has been trimmed in three places due to population growth, adding 0.2 per cent to the Labor margin. The other significant marginals, Liberal-held Stuart and Labor-held Mawson, have respectively been changed very little and not at all.

These proposals will now go through a public consultation process, for which the deadline for submissions is 5pm on Monday, February 26.

UPDATE: Greg Kelton from The Advertiser’s take on this is that "Labor’s chances of staying in power at the 2010 state election have been bolstered by changes to electoral boundaries". Further, a "senior Labor source" is quoted describing the redistribution as "a disaster for the Liberals". This conclusion is reached mostly on the basis that Liberal MP Graham Gunn’s seat of Stuart has been made "even more marginal", and is thus "almost certain to go to Labor" when he takes his personal vote into retirement with him at the next election. This highlights a source of confusion that I had glossed over in the above post. Appendix 9 of the draft report tells us that these supposedly calamitous changes to Stuart affect a grand total of 33 voters, in Oodnadatta and William Creek. However, Appendix 11 tells us that the margin in Stuart has indeed been cut from 0.7 per cent to 0.4 per cent. Similarly, other seats that are mooted as being unchanged in Appendix 9 – Mawson, for example – are listed with altered margins two appendices later (Mawson having gone from 2.3 per cent to 2.7 per cent). Unless someone can explain this to me in the next few days, I will attempt to get an explanation from the State Electoral Office on Monday.

FURTHER UPDATE: Antony Green (who else?) has the answers in comments. It turns out that the commissioners must go so far as to project the electoral impact of population trends over the next three years in calculating a "fair" outcome (which in this case go against the grain of the last election, when the Liberal vote held up remarkably well in Stuart). So Kelton is wrong to say the redistribution has significantly harmed the Liberals in Stuart. Antony makes another point that occurred to me: this system punishes marginal seat holders who do their job well and build up a personal following by taking their gains away from them, the very popular Chloe Fox being a case in point.

Also from Greg Kelton comes an opinion piece reporting a "strong feeling among political observers" that "the time has come for a new system". This is a defensible proposition as far as it goes, but most of the assertions that follow are head-scratchers of one type or another. To deal with them in turn:

• The present system of redistributions following each election is "resulting in many MPs not living within their respective electorates or having to change addresses every three years". This sounds at best like an exaggeration. The current redistribution affects about 60,000 out of a little over 1 million voters, or 5.7 per cent of the total. On this basis, the likelihood is that two or three sitting members will be moved a very short distance out of the electorates they represent. If party rules make this a problem (there is no law demanding that MPs live in their own electorates), they should probably be relaxed.

• The "consensus" is that the Electoral Reform Society’s proposal for seven multi-member electorates chosen by proportional representation "would be much fairer". Coming from anyone other than The Advertiser, this assertion would not cause my eyebrows to raise quite so. But this is the paper which in November 2005 editorialised in favour of abolition of the upper house, saying those who believed in "checks and balances, particularly in the form of minor parties and independents" were suffering a "fundamental misunderstanding of the strength of our democratic system", having failed to notice that elections were held every four years. It now proposes that those checks and balances be duplicated in the other chamber.

• Under such a system, "boundaries would not have to be redrawn after each election". Why ever not? The capital’s share of the state’s total population will continue to grow, and that of remote areas will continue to decline. It would accordingly be necessary to redraw the boundaries of the proposed seven regions so equality of representation was maintained.

• "A Liberal voter who lives in Treasurer Kevin Foley’s electorate of Port Adelaide might as well not bother voting because he has no chance of getting a Liberal candidate up in the area. The same applies to a Labor voter in the safe eastern suburbs seat of Bragg". This is at best partly true, so long as those voters also have an upper house to elect. Furthermore, complacent, corrupt or incompetent members in safe seats can be dumped in favour of independents. The threat of this occurring gives members an incentive to observe minimum standards of performance, and parties to withdraw endorsement from those who fail to meet them.

• "The major parties oppose multi-member electorates because it would end the system of putting party loyalists into Parliament and it would give minor parties a much better chance of winning seats". South Australia’s upper house, which the aforementioned Advertiser editorial told us was "a haven for underperformers, union hacks and those gripped with the politics of self-delusion and self-importance", is elected from just such a system. In fairness though, the Electoral Reform Society model under discussion proposes rotating ballot papers that would avoid the problem of unloseable positions for party favourites at the top of the ticket, although Kelton neglects to explain this (presumably being mindful of the need to avoiding boring his readers senseless with technical minutiae of the type that is the Poll Bludger’s stock in trade). It would however create a more complex voting system and a sharp upturn in the informal vote.

Idle speculation about the federal election

Adam Carr asks: "William, could we have a thread dedicated to idle speculation about the federal election, as you have done for the NSW election?" His wish is my command. By way of a conversation starter, I note that the Australian Electoral Commission recently released an extensive list of parties that have been deregistered by virtue of last year’s electoral law "reforms", one of which sought to do away with minor parties taking the name of major parties in vain, principally Liberals for Forests. This was to be achieved by deregistering all parties that had never achieved federal parliamentary representation six months after the passage of the bill, then requiring them to register again under the new rules. I didn’t think this worth mentioning at the time, as I assumed it would be a fairly simple matter for parties other than Liberals for Forests, leaving aside the irritation of some added paperwork. However, those with their noses closer to the grindstone of minor party politics evidently don’t see it that way. Stephen Mayne, until very recently a principal of the People Power party, had this to say in today’s Crikey email:

The Howard government is known for its cynicism but the deregistration of 19 political parties when the nation wasn’t paying attention on December 27 must surely go down as one of its lowest acts. What sort of democracy allows a government to unilaterally and automatically deregister all political parties that don’t have an MP? Talk about abusing control of both houses … If this had happened before the 2004 election there is no way that Family First would have got up in Victoria because it relied on preferences from the likes of liberals for forests. The strangest part of this debacle is that the media has shown no interest whatsoever in reporting this assault on democracy. Imagine if there was some form of business where the regulator could get away with saying all small competitors were automatically deregistered. The big have got bigger in John Howard’s Australia and the corner store competing with Woolworths knows exactly how all these minor parties must feel.

The practical upshot is that most existing minor parties must provide renewed proof that they have at least 500 members. The exceptions are the Greens, other than the Queensland branch; Family First; the Australian Democrats; the Nuclear Disarmament Party; the NSW division of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (curiously, given that One Nation only ever won a seat in Queensland), and the Democratic Labor Party (which evidently persuaded the AEC it was the same party that existed prior to 1978). I personally am unclear as to how often parties are required to do this in the normal course of events; anyone who can enlighten me is invited to do so in comments.

Peel thunder: match line-ups

The Western Australian Electoral Commission has unveiled the candidates for the February 3 Peel by-election, who are listed below in ballot paper order. More information will be added here as it becomes available.

Brian McCarthy (Citizens Electoral Council). Amanda Haines of the Mandurah Mail reports that McCarthy is "a powerhouse operator with Alcoa for 30 years until his recent retirement, he also served as a convenor for the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union for almost 10 years". He is the chairman of the party’s state executive committee and was its candidate against Kim Beazley in Brand at the 2001 federal election, and in the new seat of Murray at the 2005 state election.

Robert Woodward (Independent). The Mandurah Mail reports that Woodward "owns and operates a customised taxi service catering to community members with disabilities and has also been employed in public transport and banking".

Brent Tremain (Christian Democratic Party). A Port Kennedy resident and owner-manager of a brick paving business, Tremain was also the CDP’s candidate for Peel at the 2005 state election. He has a campaign website called VoteSmartPeel.com.

Gerard Kettle (Independent). A Rockingham city councillor and manager of the Warnbro Fair Shopping Centre, Kettle came to notice during the 2004 election when he ran as an independent against Kim Beazley in Brand, after originally nominating for Liberal preselection. Styling himself an "independent Labour" candidate, the ALP argued that Kettle was in fact running at the behest of the Liberals. Roger Martin of The Australian reported that Kettle was sub-leasing half of his campaign office at Rockingham City Shopping Centre to the Liberal candidate, Phil Edman.

Paul Papalia (Labor). Papalia is a counter-terrorism expert and decorated former navy diver who served in Iraq during the 2003 war and with the United Nations Special Commission in 1992 and 1993. His preselection has attracted numerous comparisons with that of Peter Tinley, the former SAS major endorsed as Labor’s candidate for the federal seat of Stirling. Graham Mason of The West Australian reports that Papalia won an administrative committe vote eight votes to six ahead of Pamela Kay, a Left-backed candidate of apparently low profile. The committee is normally dominated by an alliance of the Left factions and the two members of the "New Right", but Alan Carpenter succeeded in securing backing for Papalia from the New Right members and Senator Ruth Webber. Webber had become alienated from her AMWU Left faction after losing a winnable spot on the Senate ticket, when the faction shifted its support to East Metropolitan MLC Louise Pratt. Kwinana mayor and Police Union solicitor Carol Adams had earlier been mentioned as the front-runner.

Craig Bradshaw (One Nation). Bradshaw is the proprietor of an engineering business and one of the party’s three state vice-presidents.

Dawn Jecks (Greens). The Mandurah Mail reports that Jecks has "a background as a geotechnician and laboratory business manager in WA’s resource development industry", has "worked on the Preserve Point Peron for the People campaign", was "a founder of the Rockingham Anti-Nuclear Group (RANG)", and "helped to oppose the proposed Waikiki electricity sub-station". Jecks has been busy recently writing letters opposing uranium mining to publications including the Sunday Times and The Bulletin.

Graeme Coleman (Liberal). A local businessman and former head of the South Coast Business Development Organisation, Coleman was preselected after what was described as a "four-way battle". Others mentioned as potential Liberal candidates were Rob Brown, the candidate from 2005, and the aforementioned Phil Edman, the federal candidate for Brand in 2004.

New South Wales election: open thread

New reader "Politically Correct" has weighed in at my last Peel by-election post with some unrelated thoughts on the New South Wales Liberal Party, mostly concerning the state election that will be held on March 24. I have relocated it to this post to give it a more suitable home, and hopefully to stimulate further election-related discussion among the Poll Bludger community. A form guide to the February 3 Peel by-election will follow either tomorrow or the day after, depending on how good a time I have this evening. I am also making good progress on my seat-by-seat New South Wales election guide, which is optimistically scheduled for launch at the end of January.