Nothing succeeds like succession

The first word to reach the Poll Bludger on the matter of Geoff Gallop’s likely successor as WA Premier comes from the inimitable Andrew Landeryou, whose sources tell him that "Labor moderate State Development Minister and tough guy Alan Carpenter is likely to prevail". That would have been my tip if anyone had told me this morning that Gallop was about to pull the plug, which I would never have believed. The rest of Landeryou’s analysis sounds similarly on the money:

Deputy Premier and harmless Treasurer Eric Ripper seems much less likely, with the Left’s cunning powerbroker Health Minister Jim McGinty also a distant prospect (at least in his own mind) if there’s a split in the Right which seems unlikely. Carpenter has a comfortable lead in early caucus head-counting, largely on factional grounds. Right leader and Steve Smith ally in the New Right part of the Right, Police Minister Michelle Roberts is also a prospect and is reportedly testing her support, while Carpenter is unfortunately stuck in London and is presumably at Heathrow right now showing a degree of passenger anxiety that would normally see one detained.

As they say in the classics: Game on …

Geoff Gallop to resign?

Perth radio is suddenly abuzz with rumours that WA Premier Geoff Gallop is about to announce his resignation on health grounds. Developing …

UPDATE (12.48pm WST): NineMSN reports "BREAKING NEWS: Gallop to resign as WA Premier due to illness".

UPDATE (1.04pm WST): Gallop has delivered a press conference announcing he has decided to quit politics as he has been battling depression. This means a by-election will be held for his safe south-of-the-river seat of Victoria Park. Treasurer Eric Ripper will become Acting Premier but the Poll Bludger’s understanding is that he has never been considered a likely successor. Those who have been include State Development Minister Alan Carpenter and Police Minister Michelle Roberts.

UPDATE (1.10pm WST): Reports at ABC Online and NineMSN (thanks Chris).

UPDATE (1.22pm WST): Gallop’s media statement now online here.

Just say when

Saturday’s Mercury informs us that speculation about an early Tasmanian election has not gone away, with little change in the dates under discussion – late February or early March still being the popular tip. Crikey is reading significance into an appearance by Paul Lennon and wife Margaret in the Australian Women’s Weekly issue scheduled to hit newsstands on January 23, noting that Bob and Helena Carr featured in a "paid puff piece" in the magazine shortly before the 2003 election in New South Wales.

For my part, I’m still sorting my way through the sewers of South Australian politics to prepare my intricately detailed guide for their election on March 17, which is still about two weeks away from completion. Antony Green’s effort is currently up and running a ABC Online, complete with attractive turquoise colour scheme.

UPDATE (12/1/06): Looks like that early Tasmanian election is now off the menu.

UPDATE (13/1/06): Or maybe not. Professor Richard Herr of the University of Tasmania tells today’s Mercury that the need for Lennon to avoid parliamentary scrutiny over the Betfair issue might make an early election more likely (tip of the hat here to Christian Kerr at Crikey).

Compelling arguments

Derek Chong, Sinclair Davidson and Tim Fry go in hard against compulsory voting in a paper for the Centre for Independent Studies’ Policy journal, entitled "It’s an evil thing to oblige people to vote". Good economists all, the authors characterise compulsory voting as "a wealth transfer from those individuals who would not vote, and from the Australian Electoral Commission, which expends substantial sums of money tracking down individuals in order to enrol them to vote, to political parties". They also cite various legal precedents to muddy the waters for pedants who argue that Australia has "compulsory attendance at a polling booth" rather than "compulsory voting". In partisan terms, the study concludes that compulsion is bad for the Coalition, broadly neutral for Labor (except insofar as what’s good for the Coalition is bad for Labor), good for the Greens and independents and a disaster for the Australian Democrats.

Tip of the hat here to Andrew Leigh at Imagining Australia.

Miscellany

The Poll Bludger has been taking it a bit easy lately, so the following developments had passed unremarked:

  • As predicted, the Australian Electoral Commission’s calculation of the states’ representation entitlements will see New South Wales lose a House of Representatives seat and Queensland gain one (its second gain at successive redistributions). Antony Green suggests that the most likely outcome in New South Wales is that Riverina will be abolished, with all electorates up the Hume Highway through to south-western Sydney sucked south-westwards to fill the vacuum. Other rearrangements will be required by stagnation in Labor’s south Sydney heartland, which could pull the Prime Minister’s already precarious electorate of Bennelong into Labor’s orbit. A respondent to Antony in Crikey argues that the shortfall in south Sydney is greater than that in the outer west, and that the AEC will be compelled to wield the knife here instead.
  • Special Minister of State Eric Abetz has issued a press release announcing a package of electoral law amendments to be introduced to Federal Parliament. They include the contentious proposal to close the electoral rolls on the evening the writs are issued; a requirement for authorisation of electoral advertising on the internet that will expressly "not extend to ‘blogs’"; proof of identity requirements for enrolment and lodgement of declaration votes; and various measures regarding donations to political parties and their disclosure.
  • South Australian Premier Mike Rann has come out for the abolition of the State’s upper house, announcing that it will be one of three options put to voters at a referendum in conjunction with the 2010 election. The other two will be maintenance of the status quo, and reform to shorten MLCs’ generous eight-year terms. In one of the dopier editorials of recent memory, The Advertiser endorsed abolition by arguing that advocates of "checks and balances" suffer a "fundamental misunderstanding of the strength of our democratic system", namely that there are – wait for it – elections held every four years. The editorial acknowledged "the infamous excesses of Queensland’s system over the years" (which occurred under three year terms), then said nothing further about them.
  • Speaking of South Australia, their election is fixed for March 18 and the Poll Bludger’s seat-by-seat guide should be up and running in a few weeks. Life could get complicated if there is substance to mounting speculation of an early election in Tasmania, widely tipped to be called for one of the three Saturdays between February 25 and March 11.
  • By-election bloodbaths

    The Pittwater by-election stands as a disaster of historic magnitude both for the New South Wales Liberal Party, which has lost its third-safest seat, and for the Poll Bludger, who has lost $25. Apologies are due to Alex McTaggart and to various journalists whose prescient remarks about the Liberals’ troubles received short shrift on this site.

    In my defence, I was in good company – my assessment was echoed by Antony Green, whose recent Parliamentary Library background paper on New South Wales by-elections from 1965 to (early) 2005 provides historical perspective on the scale of the disaster. The paper notes that major parties have often declined to nominate candidates because they felt that leaving the field vacant for independents was the best chance of depriving their opponents of the seat. Until yesterday, the tactic had not been particularly successful. Antony lists 24 "one-sided" by-elections held in New South Wales between 1975 and 2004, to which two more were added at the triple M by-elections of September 17. Of these, the only defeat for a major party candidate was at last year’s Dubbo by-election, and this did not represent a loss for the relevant major party (the Nationals) because the previous member had also been an independent.

    This should not come as a surprise, because newcomer independents traditionally win their seats on the back of major party preferences. Once they are privy to the advantages of incumbency it is not uncommon for independents to turn in results as good as that achieved yesterday by Alex McTaggart, but getting their foot in the door normally involves finishing second and then surging ahead on preferences from a third-placed major candidate. That McTaggart was able to skip this phase and outperform Paul Nicolaou on the primary vote underscores the magnitude of the catastrophe for the New South Wales Liberals.

    As the Sun-Herald puts it, "the result has left poll specialists reaching for history books to find when a safe seat had swung so demonstrably against one of the major parties". In the Federal arena, the examples that spring to mind are Bass in 1975 (when Labor’s primary vote fell 17.5 per cent), Canberra in 1995 (when it fell 21.8 per cent) and Cunningham in 2002 (down 6.1 per cent, but with the result being a historic loss to the Greens). At State level, the Sunday Telegraph quotes Antony Green citing the Coffs Harbour by-election of 1990, when the National Party vote fell from 67.3 per cent to 37.4 per cent. But this was partly influenced by an increase in the number of candidates from two to seven, and the Nationals still won the seat by a two-party margin of 5.4 per cent.

    Since my command of the subject is sketchy, I would be grateful if readers can help me put together a list of noteworthy State by-election massacres. Major disasters only please – as a rough guide, it will take a primary vote swing of at least 15 per cent to make the cut. To get the ball rolling, here are three examples that do spring to mind – note the home state bias.

    Benalla, Victoria (13/5/2000). Locals were not pleased when Nationals leader Pat McNamara quit parliament not long after the unexpected defeat of the Kennett Government, and reacted by sending the party’s vote down from 57.4 per cent to 41.0 per cent and delivering the seat to Labor for the first time in its history. Unsuccessful Nationals candidate Bill Sykes would go on to narrowly recover the seat from Labor’s Denise Allen at the otherwise disastrous 2002 election.

    Floreat, WA (16/5/1991). Now the member for the successor electorate of Churchlands, Liz Constable came to parliament in this safe Liberal seat at a by-election brought on by the death of Andrew Mensaros. Constable was the popular local choice for a Liberal preselection that instead went to the favoured candidate of controversial powerbroker Noel Crichton-Browne. She contested as an independent and scored an easy win with 49.0 per cent of the primary vote, with the Liberal vote falling from 63.3 per cent to 37.0 per cent in a field vacated by Labor.

    Geraldton, WA (13/4/1991). Carmen Lawrence’s Labor Government was already reeling from the WA Inc fiasco when a botched reshuffle caused three dumped ministers to quit the Labor Party, depriving it of its parliamentary majority. Geraldton MP Jeff Carr quit parliament altogether, prompting a by-election at which the Labor vote fell from 47.6 per cent to 16.6 per cent, leaving the Liberal and National candidates to fight it out for first and second place. The narrow winner was Liberal candidate Bob Bloffwitch, who would go on to suffer an electoral meltdown of his own at the 2001 State election.

    Surfers Paradise, Queensland (5/5/2001). Upon conceding defeat after the disastrous 2001 election, at which he had taken his party from 23 seats to 12, Nationals leader Rob Borbidge told supporters that his own seat of Surfers Paradise was among the casualties. This puzzled election watchers who correctly believed him to be about 5 per cent in front. It may have amounted to wishful thinking, as his resigned his leadership and parliamentary seat immediately upon his re-election. The resulting by-election reduced the National Party from a near primary vote majority (49.7 per cent) to the status of a minor party (8.0 per cent). Votes were lost to the first Liberal Party candidate in the seat since 1992, John-Paul Langbroek (21.2 per cent), and to Gold Coast mayor and independent candidate Lex Bell, who won the seat with 35.9 per cent of the vote. The result meant the end of the National Party as a force on the Gold Coast, although they still won’t admit it. The seat returned to the Coalition fold at the 2004 election partly because Bell had became mired in local scandals, but also because the Nationals left the field free to the Liberals, who again ran with Langbroek. Tip: Darryl Rosin.

    Bass Hill and Rockdale, New South Wales (2/8/1986). The writing was on the wall for Barrie Unsworth’s Labor Government after the two by-elections marking the departure of his predecessor, Neville Wran (Bass Hill), and another MP in a safe seat, Brian Bannon (Rockdale). Unsworth used Rockdale to make the necessary switch from the upper to lower house a la John Gorton in 1968, but received the shock of his life when a 17.1 per cent dive in the primary vote combined with hostile independent preferences to bring him to within 54 votes of defeat. The result in Wran’s old stronghold was even worse, with a 22.2 per cent drop on the primary vote delivering a 103 vote victory to the Liberal candidate. Although Unsworth was swept from office at the subsequent State election in 1988, both Bass Hill and Rockdale reverted to type and were easily won by Labor. Tip: Geoff Lambert.

    Pittwater by-election live

    . McTaggart Nicolaou CDP IND GRN DEM
    Primary 40.2 38.2 8.2 6.0 7.5 0.9
    Swing -22.3 +5.3 -6.5 -1.2
    Two-Candidate 56.1% 43.9% 82% COUNTED

    8.36pm. News report on ABC Online.

    8.32pm. The last reporting booth, Avalon (the electorate’s second biggest), has added insult to injury – the only booth with a primary vote majority for McTaggart, his two-candidate vote was 65.6 per cent. His overall raw two-candidate vote is now up to 55.9 per cent, so it seems my calculations were doing their job.

    8.30pm. Only the two-candidate result from Avalon still to come. I have McTaggart on 56.1 per cent, compared with a raw figure of 54.6 per cent.

    8.23pm. I somehow failed to notice that the large (9.5 per cent) Avalon booth had yet to submit its results earlier. It’s the biggest booth in McTaggart’s Northern Ward and its result has further widened his lead.

    8.15pm. Most of the two-party count is now in. The SEO has McTaggart with 54.4 per cent and Nicolaou on 45.6 per cent. Special votes evidently lean particularly in the Liberals’ favour because my projection has McTaggart on 53.0 per cent. Either way, the outcome is not in doubt. After earlier having laughed off Liberal talk of a primary vote below 40 per cent and a 46.5-53.5 defeat on two-candidate, I now promise never to disbelieve a politician again.

    7.58pm. An ordinary night at the office for the Greens, whose supporters have evidently jumped on the Alex McTaggart bandwagon. Those who thought the Democrats had already hit rock bottom have been given cause to think again. Patricia Giles and Robert Dunn both polled disappointingly.

    7.55pm. The last primary vote figures for the night are in, from Mona Vale (10.2 per cent) and Mona Vale Beach (3.4 per cent). Nicolaou at least led on the primary vote in these booths, but in both the Liberal vote was down 23.1 per cent.

    7.50pm. Now to survey the damage. The Liberals did not do quite so badly outside of the Pittwater Council area – the lost about 15 per cent of the primary vote in Narrabean and 12.7 per cent in Terrey Hills. But within the council area their vote was down almost half, generally moving from the sixties to the upper thirties.

    7.44pm. Well, I got one thing right – my preference estimates were all but perfect. Results from four booths show McTaggart getting 49.5 per cent (I gave him half), Nicolau getting 16.1 per cent (my guess was 16.6 per cent) and 34.4 per cent exhausting (33.3 per cent for me).

    7.41pm. Another flurry of results leaves only two booths to be counted, one of which is Mona Vale, the electorate’s largest. But with McTaggart ahead on the primary vote, nothing can save the Liberals now.

    7.22pm. Eight booths are in all of a sudden and it’s clear we have a boilover here – barring a miracle in the larger booths, McTaggart has won.

    7.15pm. It might also be worth mentioning that the actual two-candidate vote at War Vetarans Home (616 votes) was 59.7 per cent for Nicolaou and 40.3 per cent for McTaggart.

    7.11pm. Presumably the SEO is maintaining its habit of providing booth results in indigestible bursts. Allow me to while away the time with two small observations – a) the exhaustion rate is almost certain to be lower than the War Veterans Home reults suggest; b) the Scotland Island booth actually had an increase in turnout, from 198 to 219 voters, and dit not record a single informal vote.

    7.00pm. There were 86 votes for the four minor candidates at War Veterans Home – of these 32 went to McTaggart, nine went to Nicolaou and 45 exhausted. A tiny sample, but if representative, it will mean that my two-party calculation flatters McTaggart. I will wait for another booth before I replace my estimates with the actual results.

    6.41pm. Results from two quirky small booths are in. Scotland Island is particularly eccentric, having voted 47.7 per cent for the Greens in 2003. This time both their vote and the Liberal vote (from 30.1 per cent to 19.6 per cent) is way down. In the smaller War Veterans Home, the Liberal vote is down from 66.8 per cent to 53.6 per cent, enough to almost make it interesting if played out over the whole electorate. Also interesting to note that the booth is not in Pittwater Council.


    Click for full-sized image

    Welcome to the Poll Bludger’s live coverage of the Pittwater by-election. Providing my internet connection behaves, the site will provide updates every few minutes on the progress of the count as each booth result comes in. The first of these should be in a little after 6.30pm EST. The table above will provide raw figures for the primary vote along with a two-candidate preferred calculation which assumes that a) the primary vote swing for or (more likely) against the Liberal Party will be the same in uncounted booths as in those for which results are available, and b) that half of the preferences of the four minor candidates will go to independent Alex McTaggart, a sixth will go to Liberal candidate Paul Nicolaou and a third will exhaust.

    The above map provides a rough idea of Pittwater’s council ward boundaries, which should shed some light on local variations in voting patterns. The electorate also includes populated areas of neighbouring Warringah Council around Terrey Hills (part of which is beyond the western limit of the map) and Narrabean. The map also includes the locations of polling booths and provides percentages figure indicating each booth’s share of the total vote at the 2003 State election. There will be one change in the booth arrangements for the by-election, with the Lagoon Street booth (located a short distance north of the Narrabean booth) replaced by Narrabean Beach (located further south). The percentage figure provided for Narrabean Beach is that for Lagoon Street, hence the asterisk.

    Both McTaggart and Greens candidate Natalie Stevens represent the Pittwater Council’s Northern Ward, where the tickets they led respectively polled 25.7 per cent and 18.6 per cent of the vote at last year’s council election. Christian Democratic Party candidate Patricia Giles is a former mayor who represents Central Ward, where her ticket polled an impressive 49.2 per cent. The remaining candidates are independent Robert Dunn, another former mayor, and Democrats candidate Mario Nicotra.