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May 28 Queensland academic Graeme Orr sent this in about The Cherry Paper.

May 26 Reader Geoff Lambert sent in this about below John Cherry paper.

May 25 

update: a little birdie gave me the Nielsen questions

ACNielsen gives a whopping 56 to 44. That's close to Beazley-esque, although Latham is yet to eclipse Howard on preferred PM, as Beazley often did. Here's the table.

Oh, and the Lemmings stay!

May 24

Update: Here's the Cherry paper in pdf.

Glenn Milne in The Oz reports a paper by Democrat number cruncher John Cherry on preferences at the 2001 election. Its moral is that Democrats can more effectively direct preferences than Greens - so do a deal with them instead! This might be so, but at a glance there's this "stunning conclusion" that "no seat was won or lost because of Green preferences."

This would be stunning if it were true, but it ain't. Several seats certainly would have had different results had Green preferences flowed differently. Take one example, Dobell in NSW, won by the Libs Ken Ticehurst by 560 votes after full distribution of preferences. In total, 2333 Dobellites voted Green. According to Cherry's paper, 67.6 percent of these preferences favoured Labor (while 32.4 went to the winning Liberal.) That means 1577 of those 2333 flowed to Labor's Michael Lee, while 756 went to Ticehurst. What would have happened if 80% of Green preferences (instead of 67.6%) had favoured Lee? Lee would have received about 290 more two candidate preferred votes, Ticehurst would have got 290 less, and Lee would have won (by about 20 votes). Of course, if 100% of Green preferences had flowed to Lee, he would have won more comfortably; if 100% had gone to Ticehurst, his margin would have been bigger.

In that respect, Green preferences decided Dobell. Something similar would apply to several other seats. This has been a rush job; will look at it again tomorrow. (If Cherry and Milne meant to say that Green directing of preferences made no difference in any seats, that's a different assertion, and probably true)

On other matters ... we should see an ACNielsen in Fairfax papers this week. Along with Morgan they're the only pollster to understand the importance of preferences, but Morgan went mad in late 2001 and is not yet fully rehabilitated.

May 22 Mr Ramsey's numbers

The often cranky, sometimes crude but always cuddly Alan Ramsey demonstrates his psephological prowess in this sidebar - by giving his darling Mark a seat head start.

Unca Alan reckons Labor has 64 seats to the government's 82, but he must be using pre-distribution numbers because it's really 63 to 83. And, once again showing he couldn't be bothered with the intricacies of preferential voting, he declares that Labor needs to beat the Coalition on primary votes.

Late last year Ramsey reiterated his view that Howard gave Beazley a "hiding" in 2001. But today he uses that 2001 result to show that only six seats stand between Howard and a hung parliament.

He's got Lathamitis bad.

On another topic ... former Federal Liberal President John Valder held out the tantalising prospect on ABC radio this week of Howard losing his seat of Bennelong at the election while the Coalition retains government. 

Knocking off both Howard and Latham (from the opposition leadership) might be a pretty good result for the country. As I've said before: I don't know what we did to deserve it, but eight and a half years of Howard is penance enough. To follow it up with a couple of terms of Latham would be cruel and unusual and possibly against the Geneva Convention.

Morgan says 52.5 to 47.5

May 18 (ii) Crikey'd again

Today's crikey newsletter contains these familiar words: "Hillary Bray's immediate reaction to the latest Newspoll was that the opposition will be happy leading the vote and trailing on the other stuff. It is just where an opposition wants to be. Two years ago Crean got a small Newspoll post budget bounce putting him on 51/49, although last year he got none and languished on about 47/53".

Anyway ...

Another thing: The Australian (which publishes Newspoll) made an almighty clunk on the porch this morning. Was this David Barnett monstrosity, occupying about half the opinion page, really necessary? (Sampling: "We have probably never had a better prime minister"; "Famously, he would walk along a corridor with his eyes fixed on distant visions" ...)

May 16 Taverner poll

May 14 Opinion polls

Morgan surveyed the scene on Wednesday night and found the government back in front 52 to 48. 

Another Adelaide Advertiser poll, of 500 voters across South Australia, found 50 50. That would be a four percent swing to the ALP in that state, in uniform terms an extra three seats.

May 12 This animated Nicholson cartoon, courtesy of The Australian, is funny.

It's a couple of years old; Latham's since been inserted but Malcolm Turnbull remains the embodiment of Republicanism "at long orf".

May 11 A reminder ...

... about Parramatta. That's where Howard's Battlers are supposed to live. But the table below shows the two party preferred votes at all booths in the suburb of Parramatta at the 2001 election. Labor majorities all, aggregating to 57 percent.  Doesn't stop Sydney's media organisations regularly trekking out west to vox pop the salt of the earthies about Their John.

See also the seat of the same name, containing the suburb, which has been held by the conservatives for eighty of its 100 years since 1901.

Parramatta booth two party preferred results 2001

May 6 Morgan says 53.5 to 46.5

May 4 Newspoll

According to Newspoll in the Oz, it's 52 to 48. Compared with a fortnight ago, Coalition's primary vote down one to 42, Labor's steady on 42, but Newspoll's preference strategy obviously more favours Coalition this fortnight.

Last week's ACNielsen also had the majors on 42 each, but with larger minor party support. ACNielsen reads out a list of parties and tends to get a low 'other' category. Newspoll doesn't read out parties, and gets higher 'others'.

May 2 Hurrah for Alex!

'Tiser poll shows Lord Downer safe in Mayo against independent Brian Deegan: Downer on 48; Deegan on 18; Labor on 13. It's a small sample of 400.

For some reason they haven't excluded the 12% 'undecideds'. If you do that (as every other pollster does) Downer easily gets over 50%, which of course guarantees a win. In fact, it probably puts him on about 53%, which is what he got in 2001 (63% after preferences).

In 1998 Democrat John Schumann nearly took the seat with a little over 22% to Alex's 47%; the ALP got a touch under 22 percent. After preferences Downer won 51.7 to 48.3.

Moving right along, a reader was phoned by Newspoll yesterday. They recalled these (approximate) questions: 

Voting choice (nominated major party so no preference question)
Do you agree with the troops staying in Iraq?
Do you think democracy will take root in Iraq?
Do you support PM or Latham on Iraq?
Better PM?

We'll have to wait 'til Tuesday for the answers.

May 1 More thievery

So taken am I to the Australian Electoral Commission's colour coded electoral maps that I've swiped them for the pendulum gallery. I assume they'll let me know if they don't approve. In the meantime, go to pendulum gallery and click "maps" in top panel. Clicking on any seat will, as always, bring it up in the right hand panel. A good first exercise is to go to western Sydney and see, contrary to popular belief, a sea of red.

April 30 The power of Jones

In the washup to the 1998 election, Liberal powerbroker Michael Kroger credited his great "pick and stick" mate Alan Jones with the result. John Laws, he explained, doesn't use his power as overtly as Alan, who probably made the difference between victory and defeat by delivering those "western Sydney" seats.

This of course fits in with the "Howard's Battlers" story, that western Sydney now votes Liberal. Certainly both sides of politics believes in the Power of Jones; witness new ALP leader Mark Latham's generous brown-nosing (unlike Kim Beazley, whose best moment in the 2001 campaign was the on-air fight in which he called Jones a "liar").

There's a problem with the Jones as Kingmaker narrative, and it's in the actual electorates. After the 1998 poll, the ALP was eight seats short of victory, but there were just three seats in Sydney's west (Lindsay, Macarthur and Parramatta) that they didn't hold (they did hold about 13). Including all of Greater Sydney (which is presumably Jones's potential audience) than you can add another two possible ALP wins - Hughes and Robertson. (Stretching Labor's chances much further would have involved the Bob Ellis fantasy of Bennelong.)

(For the Greater Sydney seat situation today, take Dobell from Labor and give it to the Coalition; otherwise it's the same.)

Howard's Battlers are over-rated, as is the power of Shock Jocks.

April 28

Latest ACNielsen puts it at 53 to 47 two party preferred, from primary support of 42 percent each. Here's the table, courtesy of The Age. 

April 27

Further to 1996 prognostications, touched on a couple of weeks ago, Geoff Lambert has sent in two pieces he had published in the Fin Review way back then - one before the election, in which he correctly suggests Howard might win by 44 seats, and one after, explaining his reasoning. Here

April 24 Multiculturalism in the marginal seats

You'd have heard of Marky Mark's unerring ability to imitate the incumbent John Howard, and have noticed that this is what passes for political genius in contemporary Australia. A fine example is Multiculturalism, where once again, Latham is speaking the language of the street, and this is the only way to win back those "battlers".

I've added a table to the pendulum gallery - electorates by proportion of population born in non-English speaking countries. Go to pendulum gallery (in new window) and click on link at bottom right.

It shows that if the folks in marginal electorates are concerned about migrants, they're doing the worrying on others' behalf, because they themselves tend not to live near many. Closest to the top (at 13) is the usually Liberal seat of Parramatta. The next winnable government held electorate is Moreton, ranked 45.

And those ALP favourites Macarthur, Hughes and Lindsay are way down the list, ranked 60, 64 and 77 respectively.

As I never tire of pointing out, the Liberal voting outer suburbanites are some of the wealthiest people in the land - plus the most politically pampered. In fact, they're Howard's battlers! 

• Gary, son of Roy, claims it to be 54.5 to 45.5. However, more people believe the government will win. The perfect combination for Labor.

April 23 South Australia

A chappy called Phil Robins ran for Labor in the SA seat of Sturt in 1987. Here he streams his consciousness on today's Labor-friendly electoral situation in that state.

April 21 More on Sol's preference strategy

The last email Mr Lebovic of Newspoll sent me, a couple of months go, ended with the words "no further correspondence". I had, naturally, been enquiring about preferences. As we know, Newspoll now elicits second preferences and extrapolates them. But how, exactly?

There's something funny going on for Labor to get three quarters of the preference flow, as they did in yesterday's poll (see below). Newspoll might, for example, be using similar methodology to Saulwick, in which case their two party preferred is of no use whatsoever. But while Sol keeps his cards close, we'll never know.

April 20 (ii) Crikey, that's flattering.

Hmm. Item number 5 in today's (April 20) crikey email - reproduced, in part, below - contains some oddly familiar information.  (See my post immediately below that.) 

"Labor seems to be picking up almost 75 per cent of preferences, according to Newspoll's calculations. Can this really be true?

Back in 2001 minor party and "other" preferences split 58 to 42 Labor's way.

Things have changed since then. Today's poll has the Greens on six per cent, the Dems and One Nation on one each and those amorphous "others" on seven.

It's logical to expect with Pauline's band of bigots down, the Dems disintegrated and Bob Brown's bunch proving Abraham Lincoln's maxim that you can fool some of the people all of the time that Labor's share of the preference flow would increase - but so dramatically? 

Newspoll only looks at second preferences - then extrapolates. Sol slacks. A C Nielsen and Morgan go for the full kit and caboodle. "

Crikey is generally nice to me, giving me the odd plug, so I don't mind. Still love them. Below is what I uploaded a few hours earlier.

April 20 Newspoll preferences

Newspoll has 53 to 47 for the second fortnight in a row. Preferences, however, look odd. The Coalition is ahead 43 to 42 in primary support, which means of 15 remaining points, preferences favour Labor over the Coalition in the ratio 11:4. Percentage-wise that means Labor gets 73 percent of preferences (ie Coalition gets 27). (Obviously, Newspoll's rounding might put this out a little - we don't have their raw numbers)

At the last election minor party/other preferences split 58 to 42 Labor's way. Now, with One Nation down and Greens up, Labor's share would increase - but to nearly three quarters?

The survey has minor parties on: Democrats 1, Greens 6, One Nation 1 and "others" 7.

These days Newspoll treats preferences with more respect than they used to, but still not with quite enough. Instead of pushing for full preferences, they just ask who'll receive second ones and extrapolate from there. (ACNielsen and Morgan extract full ones.)

It's difficult to believe those two party preferred numbers from such primary support, but there we are.

• It's worth noting that if this survey had been taken in 2002 when Labor was led by poor old Simon Crean, it would have been reported as: the Coalition is ahead by one point, 43 to 42. And throughout 2003, when Newspoll and Mr Shanahan at the Oz had discovered preferences but were only "notionally" distributing by the 58 to 42 noted above, the headline two party preferred would have been 51 to 49.

They started getting second preferences in January this year. That Mr Latham is a lucky fella.

April 16

Reminder: the big boofy bloke is going down. Don't blame me, blame the December 2 Lemmings who handed Howard a totally unnecessary fourth term.

History will pin the loss of this unlosable election on Latham's amateur hour foreign policy, but that's only part of the story. Under the genius of Howard-Lite, every rhetorical punch-through validates the status quo, which is John Howard.

The ALP had a chance, like the US Democrats, to offer a fresh break, someone to clean up the mess. Instead the Lemmings came up with John Hewson: an erratic, inarticulate version of what's already in place. Why vote for that over the safety of the Real Thing?

Still, look at it this way. If a country gets the leaders it deserves, rather than those it needs, Australia must have done something pretty crook to warrant eight years of Howard. But then to add eight years of Latham? No country's that bad.

April 14 Another time capsule

Read Unca Alan Ramsey's 1993 election call, which ended like this: 

"Whatever ground it makes up elsewhere, Labor is going to lose the election in Queensland, South Australia and over in Perth. Ten years and a million unemployed are insurmountable.

I don't believe it will be close at all."

Will try to find others for that poll

• Added bonus, PJ Keating's victory speech