Top income
brackets in marginal seats
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All
seats held by either side with margins of five percent or less.
Ranked
by number of electors in the top tax bracket. Five
percent could be called marginal. There are 39 of these in all.
On each line is the seat name,
state, current margin, AEC
Geographic category, the number
of high income numbers and
(national rank out of 150).
Does this mini-table tell us
much?
Kalgoorlie's a surprise
list-topper, with the rest of the top dominated by urban seats. Clicking
Kalgoorlie shows a median income ranking of 38, much further down the
scale than 10, its ranking in this list. Kalgoorlie has a high Aboriginal
population.
Ranking-wise, it's a little
bottom heavy, with 18 seats in the top 75 (that
is, with a 75 or lower
in the (brackets), and
21 below. The ones below 75 are on average more
marginal. And the average rank for this lot is 84, which means it is
over-represented by seats with lower numbers of top income earners.
There's also an unsurprising
urban/non-urban split, with city seats predominating in the top.
There's just one seat
(Kalgoorlie) in the top ten, and five in the bottom ten. There are three
in the top 20 and nine in the bottom twenty. And so on.
Conclusion: any
inherent desirability aside, cutting top rates would deliver poor
electoral bang for the buck. It's probably a pitch to the relatively
affluent outer suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne.
But in reality, the regions are where the action will be - or should be, if the ALP is to
have a chance. And there are few people on top dollars there.
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