Email from reader Chris Woolley October 2, who sees a slightly increased Coalition majority ( as do I)

Dear Peter,

I’ve always thought that it is fairly easy to predict the outcome of Australian Federal elections, even the individual seats. Back in 1983 the old National Times newspaper ran a competition which required contestants to select the winner of every seat in Australia , and we have the first prize, a Patrick Cook cartoon, proudly displayed on our family room wall to demonstrate that it could be done, at least on that one occasion. Was it a lucky guess? Probably it was, and so I’ve been content to rest on my laurels for some twenty years. But now I can’t help myself and I’d like to make the point that we have more than enough information already to make a prediction regarding this election. We certainly don’t need any more polls.

There is little evidence to support the proposition that people change their voting intentions in the run-up to an election. Some may say they’re still undecided but they simply don’t want to commit, and what’s more, there’s no reason to believe that their voting pattern is any different from the rest who do commit. If this is true, then the best strategy is to take all the opinion polls over the last month or so, with their different methodologies, and calculate the average. Of course, swings are never completely uniform but deviations are easy to predict. Tasmania was different back in 1983 as I recall. This may be why punters are so confident, and prepared to take a very short quote of around $1.30 about the Coalition winning when the pollsters suggest it will be close. Their combined forecast of a narrow win by the Coalition is still a win nevertheless.

I won’t bother you with the specifics but it certainly looks like the Government will be back with a slightly increased majority. There may well be a swing to Labor with the return of the ‘battlers’ in the Western suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne together with the effect of the ‘Not-happy-John-campaign’ or ‘doctors’ wives’ syndrome or whatever we’re calling it. However, this swing will be in safe Labor and Coalition seats respectively. Medicare Gold, as good as it might have been, has arrived too late to make much of a difference. Unfortunately for Labor, the over-75s made their decisions a long time ago and they need a lot longer than this to change their minds. 

So with many conservative voters agreeing that this has been one the darkest and most shameful periods in our history, we return the Howard government for a fourth term. I can’t believe it but it seems to be true. The choice is clear though, so we deserve what we get.     

Regards,

Chris Woolley.