go to next posts Nicholson in The Australian

welcome to               Mumble 2004: Go to post redistribution pendulum

July 25 Pendulum update: poll bludger links

The latest addition to pendulum gallery: links from my individual seats to Poll Bludger's ones. These are below Antony Green's at the bottom of each seat's page, which appear in the right hand frame. Look for the animated logo shown at left here.

July 21 Is there anything on this planet more boring and pointless than election date speculation? Pontifications on the possible behaviour of groups of voters (such as appear here ad nauseam) is one thing, but the endless second-guessing of the internal machinations of a particular individual's (and his advisors') mind is another. People like to think they 'know' John Howard, but of course they don't.

And hanging off his every nuance delivers further unwarranted gravitas to someone who is surely the most over-praised Prime Minister in Australian history. We get variations on:

• Howard still hasn't decided, he'll do so at a time of his own choosing. Oh, the panache!

• He's decided but has told no-one apart from Janet and Melanie! He'll let us know when he's ready. 

• The wiliest politician in generations is playing with us.

• This is the crucial point, Barrie: John Howard's always believed governments should go the full term.

• This is the crucial point, Barrie: Howard knows the political cycle better than anyone.

• And, eventually, when it finally does come - he's chosen such and such a date! Amazing. He's taken a risk, but he knows what he's doing.

All evidence of his surefootedness, confidence and dexterity. Such power, exercised with aplomb. We'll never see his like again. [Note: heavy irony.]

July 20 Super Tuesday ACNielsen and Newspoll on the same day - 52 to 48 and 51 to 49. Let's average them to 51.5 to 48.5, which could go either way. 

July 19 Another big poll week? Four weeks ago saw both a Newspoll and ACNielsen in the same week. ACNielsen had been running them every four weeks, timed for a non-Newspoll week (Newspoll does them fortnightly) but a long weekend had seen them run in sync. This led to Fairfax publishing theNielsen on the Monday to get in first.

However, the Age and SMH have none today, so we'll have to wait and see. Perhaps they're waiting 'til next week to get out of sync again. But we should get a Newspoll tomorrow.

Picking an fight with Antony

Last week I claimed here that Antony Green had said/written something he hadn't. He fired off an email and I took the offending words down. His email had begun "Oi!" and ended with: 'I don’t mind arguments but I don’t like being verballed. Antony'

It therefore behoves me to pick an argument with him about something he did say. It's a claim he often makes, including on the the ABC election site, like this:

"It must be remembered that not since 1961 has a party formed government without winning at least half the seats in New South Wales. On that basis, chalk down the fact that Labor needs to win half a dozen seats in NSW if it hopes to win office in 2004."

In other words, winning a majority of NSW electorates is a necessary but not sufficient condition for ALP success.

Elsewhere Antony says that the election will be decided in NSW and Queensland. In the sense that these two states account for 78 of the 150 house of representatives seats, that's obviously true. And Queensland will certainly be important.

But Labor needing a majority in NSW to win? I don't think so.

The ALP has been obsessed with forming national majorities based on NSW  - and western Sydney in particular - for decades. They obsess today still. The fact that they've only gone from opposition to government at two elections since the Great Depression (Is federal Labor the least successful centre-left party in the liberal democratic world? It must come close.) indicates that the strategy of getting poor support everywhere but every once in a while getting such a large vote in NSW as to put them over the line isn't that hot.

As evidence of the poor electoral capital of the largest state, see the 1987 election. In this table showing seat value per vote, it's Labor's best effort: a 24 seat majority with just 50.8 percent of the two party preferred vote; in uniform terms Labor would have won with just 47.5 percent of the vote to win.

It is true that Labor got a NSW majority at that election (29 out of 52), but it was its worst NSW result of any election from 1983 to 1993. The ALP's best NSW result was 1993, when the Keating  government won with 51.4% but would have lost government with just half a percent less. The moral: NSW is a shocking vote-gobbler for Labor that gives little in return seat-wise, and vote for vote the ALP is better off looking elsewhere.

On Antony's specific assertion: Labor has 19 NSW seats today. If you go to the NSW component of the pendulum gallery, you'll see that, assuming Labor regains Cunningham, they need another six seats to take most of the NSW seats to get 26 out of 50. The five from Dobell to Page (not counting Calare) all look pretty gettable, but not any of the rest, unless there's a big Labor swing on.

So unless the ALP wins big, it's unlikely they'll get a NSW majority. A more likely scenario is something less than 26 in that state, plus enough from other states to form government.

A national victory is probably a necessary condition for a NSW majority, not the other way around. There's plenty more fish in the electoral sea than those in NSW. Especially in Queensland.

July 17 Morgan says 54 to 46, but 54 percent think Coalition will win compared with 22% for Labor.

There are two schools of thought regarding the influence of expectations on election results. One is the 'bandwagon effect' - that the expectation of a win increases its likelihood. The other is the opposite: that a combination of the underdog effect, bet-hedging, people not not wanting to deliver too great a majority to one side and just plain contrariness makes the expectation of a comfortable victory something for a party to avoid at all costs. If you subscribe to the latter, as I do, then Morgan's poll combination is excellent for Labor. 

July 15 Labor leadership

Anyone familiar with this site knows I like Kim. I confidently predict (as Malcolm Mackerras would say) that his elevation, while value-adding Labor's foreign affairs credentials, will be broadly problematic for Marky Mark - Beazley's ability to articulate a position will contrast with The Leader's lacklustre presentation skills.

July 14 How many votes will Latham need?

Last Saturday's Australian Financial Review 'Lies and Stats' column (here) looks at two party preferred votes and margins since 1949. Historically at the federal level, the ALP has needed significantly more than 50% to gain office (up to 1972 helped by boundaries favouring the bush), but on the rare occasions they're in government, the terms tend to turn in their favour - at least during the Hawke government.

Relevant tables here and here.

Further points not permitted by space in the AFR: Latham is likely to do relatively well in safe Labor territory, much of which swung to Howard in 2001, and very possibly make inroads into the mortgage belt but not enough to gain seats. Both these factors further indicate a high two party preferred threshold for Labor victory.

However, the possibility of making ground in the regions, much of which actually swung a bit to Labor in 2001, works the other way. In strictly mathematical terms, a uniform 2.8 percent swing to Labor in non 'metro' seats alone, but no swing elsewhere, would give government to Latham with 50.1 percent of the national two party preferred vote.

However, if we had to construct an election-winning swing to Labor in 'metro' seats alone, it would need to be 3.7 percent, which would translate to 51.2 percent of the national vote.

So watch the regions. (Unlike most people, including the much quoted commentator John Howard, I operate on Labor needing 11 seats to form government, not 8, because it is reasonable to assume that Tony Windsor and Bob Katter would support the Coalition. The eleven also assumes Peter Andren would support Labor in a hung parliament and that they win back Cunningham or Michael Organ supports them.)

More at pendulum gallery.

July 13 Return of the Bomber

Two fine recruits in the last month and a bit. (The other is bald and sings.) Should go down well in WA too.

But Kim's in the wrong job of course.

July 9 Morgan: 51.5 to 48.5

The trouble with Mark

The most likely outcome of the next federal election is an increased majority for the Howard government. This may or may not involve a two party preferred swing to the Coalition. (Perhaps even a small swing to Labor.)

Here's the problem with Latham: he's a strategist, not a communicator. Knows the value of a multi-faceted brand-name and the need to construct an alluring picture, to let punters join the dots and feel involved. 

Comes up with effective five second six o'clock news grabs. But at anything longer or more substantial he is flat, uninspiring and evasive. He can't present - let alone defend - a policy or stance.  And he has difficulty reconciling his party's inclinations with his own.

Yes, a creative strategist, but 'crazy ideas men' need the filter of sensible heads. 'Reading to kids' - big tick. 'Out of Iraq by Xmas' - interesting idea Mark, but not for us at this stage.

Latham's fatal flaws are threefold: 

(1) He doesn't understand that swinging voters desire - perhaps above all - safety. Governments fall when people think a change would be good and the alternative looks not-too-bad and won't stuff it up. It's rarely because they really, really like the opposition leader. (Actually, this was the lemmings' mistake.)

(2) He thinks you can adopt the same election strategies from opposition as from government, forgetting the respectability inherent to incumbents.

If Howard had announced troop withdrawal by December, commentators would be proclaiming him an Australian hero, his place in history assured.  Suggest it from opposition and you look irresponsible and dangerous. There's the difference. Ditto turning on the waterworks a la Bob Hawke or 'downhill, one ski no poles' like Keating.

(3) Believing that you have to imitate John Howard on social issues to beat John Howard. That's the killer. It reinforces the incumbent and, while people quite like Latham, they'll vote for Howard.

This is the guy who always reckoned he would have won  in 1998 and 2001. Now, at a point in the cycle when electoral gravity should give it to Labor, they're throwing it away.

What's Kim up to these days?

July 7 Time capsule: The day Alan called Alex a crybaby

Alan Ramsey takes it to Howard's dirt unit in today's Herald. 

This scuttlebutt naturally takes one back a decade to the time Alan reported that opposition leader Alexander Downer had broken down in tears in his office, only to retract and apologise the following week.

Incidentally, the most recent Newspoll at the time had the Downer led opposition on 44 percent to Labor's 45 percent (no two party preferred). Preferred Prime Minister: Keating 49 versus Downer 23 (28% uncommitted).

This week's Newspoll : 43 to 41, preferred PM 50 for Howard, 33 for Latham (17 uncommitted).

July 6 Newspoll: 51 to 49 (no link), the same as Simon Crean's final result. Progress.

Revisiting that Newspoll last November, I found this post of mine on Labor's chances of winning the next election under each of the leadership possibilities:

"1. Simon Crean is still leader: Labor 2 to 1 to win

2. Bob Carr is leader: even money (1 to 1)

3. Kim Beazley is leader: Labor 1 to 2 to win

4. Mark Latham is leader: Labor 10 to 1 to win

5.  Kevin Rudd is leader: 2 to 3 to win.

(That is, Latham is least likely to win and Beazley most likely. Both Beazley and, to a lesser degree, Rudd, are more likely than not to win.)"

Would today change Latham's odds to 5 to 1.

July 5 

Courier Mail's Saturday poll

The headline reads 'ALP Support Marginal' but it should say 'three percent swing to ALP'. The aggregate Labor two party preferred vote in three seats surveyed was 47.1 percent in 2001, now it's about 50. (The individual seat numbers have too small samples and are next to meaningless.) A uniform three percent swing to Labor in Queensland would deliver 4 or five seats, which is about half what they need for victory. Throw in, say, three seats from South Australia and three from NSW and they're there. Unfortunately, the Coalition is likely to make gains in the other three states, which would put Labor back behind the line.

July 4 Malcolm's odds

Heard Malcolm Mackerras on radio today. He said a couple of uncontroversial things: He expects Labor to make gains in Queensland and go backwards in Western Australia; Queensland and South Australia will be the states to watch on election night, Qld  moreso because SA is half an hour behind, so is counted half an hour later.

He was also asked to predict the result, and gave his familiar line: it will be somewhere between a landslide to Coalition and landslide to Labor. His point, that just because we don't know who's gonna win doesn't mean it'll be 'close', is valid.

But Malcolm ranked the relative likelihoods of the four combinations of November US presidential result and our election result, from most likely to least likely:

1. Kerry and Howard to win
2. Kerry and Latham to win
3. Bush and Howard to win
4. Bush and Latham to win

In other words, he favours Kerry to win, and favours Howard to win, but his favouring of Kerry is stronger than that for  Howard.

July 3 Morgan: 54 to 46.

Western Sydney: Mr Latham, from Friday's chat with Mr Laws (about those biffo claims), seems to still think either that Sydney's west is a magic pudding of potential seats, or that the rest of the country shares his and Laws' clichéd and romantic view of the area. See following excerpts.

LATHAM: "I’ve grown up in the western suburbs – every now and then you’ve got to hold your hands up to defend yourself ..."

LAWS: "It’s part of life in that kind of environment, with all respect to the western suburbs. In fact, it is kind of part of the charm of the western suburbs that it is fundamentally pretty tough living and you’ve got to learn to be a survivor ..."

LATHAM: "I’m not claiming to be 100 per cent perfect and that I’ve been a little angel all my life. I’m just claiming to have been a regular person who grew up in the Western suburbs of Sydney, wanted to serve the people of my district ..."

And blaah blaah. For the record, the western suburbs of Sydney, if you define them as everything from Sydney's CBD out to Penrith, down to Campbelltown and back in again, and count every seat that is at least partially in that triangle, contains eighteen electorates, fifteen of which are currently held by the ALP. Only one of the other three, Parramatta, is vaguely winnable for Labor. (Lindsay, next off the rank, would probably only fall in a Labor landslide.)     See maps in pendulum gallery.

As I've recited on innumerable occasions, the big klutz is probably going to deliver Howard an increased majority at the next election, and for a microcosm of his clueless strategy we can take the following snippets of smarm (though best not on empty stomach):

LAWS: "I happen to like you like I like John Howard. But I do subscribe to the theory of fairness ... Let me again say this has got nothing to do with politics; it’s only got to do with fairness and if John Howard were in the same situation I would like to have him in the studio to talk about it too. And you do understand that?"

LATHAM: "Yes, and I appreciate it."

We once had a Leader of the Opposition with the ticker to have an on-air ding-dong with a Radio King (Alan Jones); that was Kim Beazley and it did him no harm at all. Latham doing such a thing is unimaginable; the On-air Grovel is his forte. No doubt his handlers think this sublime; it connects with 'middle Australia', speaks the language of the street, having Laws on side is a plus, and so on.

But successful opposition leaders in the past have found an acceptable spot in the middle ground and then differentiated themselves from the incumbent. They didn't grovel and brown-nose their way onto the Prime Minister's chosen turf.  That just reinforces the status quo and tells people nothing else is on offer except an untried version of the Real Thing. Sure, voters end up reckoning Latham's a top bloke, but they'll vote for Howard, and they'll suspect that deep down Latham agrees they should vote for Howard. 

Every time Latham opens his mouth he legitimises Howard. That's why he's going to lose. (Undergraduate Foreign Policy doesn't help either.)

July 2   Antony Green update

All pendulum gallery seats now have links to Antony Green's ABC page for that seat. I've done this sort of thing before, and nobody from ABC (or Antony) has complained ... yet. Go to pendulum gallery, and when you have a seat in the right hand panel, look for ABC logo at bottom.

July 1 Trivia time: Evolution of "Howard's Battlers"

Research into the myth of 'Howard's Battlers" has led me to examine the evolution of both the concept and the term way back in 1996. It's thrown up a couple of interesting bits of trivia.

My recollection had been that the then Liberal Director Andrew Robb almost single-handedly force-fed the bloody thing into the simplistic, overarching media narrative that naturally follows every election. This is true, but actually he wasn't the first to use the term in public.

That honour goes to the 7:30 Report's then political correspondent Barrie Cassidy in an interview with Robb on the Monday after the March 2 1996 poll. 

This is what Cassidy said in part: "And in the end you got a big swag of the blue-collar workers, a bit like the Reagan Democrats, I suppose, except you would probably call them the Howard's battlers of Australia."

That's the first evidence I can find of the term. My guess is that Robb gave it to Cassidy in pre-interview notes.

For two weeks after the landslide win, Andrew Robb flogged dodgy Liberal Party exit poll data, purporting to show that blue collar workers had voted for the Coalition, to anyone who would listen. Political winners tend to do this sort of thing - start work on the history books ASAP. He spruiked and spruiked and spruiked and the press gallery faithfully and unquestioningly regurgitated.

Robb consolidated his gains at a National Press Club talk on Wednesday 13 March 1996, brought out those exit polls, used the term "Howard's Battlers" several times. Media reports again did their duty.

But here's the other interesting thing. In that speech he accused the new opposition leader, Kim Beazley, of not having "ticker". Howard of course was to use this effectively two and a half years later at an election. I think we now know who suggested it to him.

For a reminder of why "Howard's Battlers" is empirical fantasy, see here and here.)

June 28 Newspoll in the marginals.

The Oz and Newspoll reckon Labor, during April to June, led 52 to 48 in the marginal seats, which are all those with margins of six percent or less on either side. (Numbers at 2001 election, so pre any redistribution.) As the nationwide numbers are 51 to 49, it might seem at first glance that Labor is doing better in the marginals. But that's not the case.

There are 49 seats in Newspoll's definition of 'marginal', and at the 2001 election the two party preferred vote across all of them was 50.5 to 49.5 in Labor's favour. It may seem strange that Labor performed better in the marginals, but it really depends on how many seats each party has in that range and what their margins are. If the ALP happened to have more than the Coalition, it would pull that aggregate vote their way.

Actually, the numbers are split: 25 seats to the Coalition and 24 to ALP. However, many of those Coalition seats that were won with between 50 and 56 percent two party preferred were close to 50 50, while the Labor ones tend to be at the safer end of the spectrum (closer to 56 against 44). That is, the Coalition's marginals are on average more marginal. Newspoll's marginal seat surveys include more relatively safe Labor seats than Coalition ones. That's why 52 percent in total isn't so hot.

The Newspoll pro-Labor swing in the marginals is 1.5 percent (from 50.5 to 52%), which is not, in uniform terms, quite enough to form government. (1.7% is the Mackerras 'point of pendulum'.)

Newspoll indicates that Labor is doing better overall than in the marginal seats.

June 25 Newspoll April - June consolidations plotted against pendulums.

As they do every three months, Newspoll has crunched their quarterly numbers . The main advantage of this is big enough sample sizes to make meaningful individual state and other demographic data. ( No link in Oz, but when Newspoll posts the tables in a couple of days I'll link to them.)

Note: for the following, you should open the pendulum pendulum gallery (new window) and toggle between there and here. First click the top left link to see the full federal pendulum, then do the same for each state, whose links are next to the full pendulum's.

Overall, Newspolls for April to June average out to 51 to 49, which is a two percent swing to Labor from the last election. Plotting that against the full pendulum gives them eleven seats up to Calare (which Independent Peter Andren will retain), the barest of majorities, assuming support from Andren and either a win in Cunningham or support from the Green's Michael Organ. (Remember, pendulums don't pretend to know which which seats will change hands, just the net number.)

What if we look instead at the states?:

NSW swings to Labor by something like one and a half percent, which gives three extra seats. Victoria goes to Labor by 3%, which sees Labor win four seats. Five percent in Queensland gives them six more electorates. That's thirteen in all, already enough for victory. What about the other three states?

South Australia moves by three percent, to give two extra seats, WA by about one percent, to deliver an extra seat. Tasmania and Northern Territory don't get mentions, presumably because sample sizes are still too small, so we'll ignore them. (Which assumes Labor keeps six of the seven seats there.)

So, assuming Labor wins back Cunningham, the state by state breakdown gives Latham a comfy majority of ten seats.

Of course, no opinion poll is this accurate, and even if those two party preferred swings transpired, no one would pretend that those exact numbers would result.

The most important lesson is that Queensland, not New South Wales, is the state to watch.

Newsflash Antony is open for business! (Blonder it seems.) That is, the ABC has finally put up his site. Eventually I'll link to his pages from the seat pages in my pendulum gallery.

June 23 I've got that Lemmings feeling again. If you don't laugh you cry, which does no-one any good. So what if we get another term of John Howard? The country has survived worse experiences - I just can't think of any right now.

Unca Alan, who is one of those people you can't help but love, thinks wishfully about opinion polls, including the unsubstantiatable following:

"... in each of the past four elections (1993, 1996, 1998 and 2001), newspaper polls invariably, in their research in the months before election day, underestimated the Labor vote and overestimated the Coalition vote, sometimes quite markedly. The political parties know this and so do those analysts who know what they're talking about."

That's a new one. If anything, the opposite is true.

June 22 Newspoll also says 52 to 48. Like Nielsen, taken on weekend (Nielsen must have worked hard to get it out on Monday), so we can add the samples together to get a pretty accurate poll. That's another way of saying that when two reputable opinion polls find the same thing we should take notice. Here's Mr Shanahan.

June 21 AC Nielsen has Labor in front 52 to 48. That would probably translate into a Labor win, although remember 1998 when Beazley lost with over 51 percent and would have needed, in uniform terms, almost exactly 52 to win. That was because of whopping wins in safe areas like western Sydney, but not enough votes in the marginals (outer suburban mortgage belt, regional areas etc). As Latham is supposed to have made massive inroads in the "heartland", we can expect lots of wasted Labor votes at the upcoming election, so they might need every bit of that 52 percent.

Here's the table.

Here are The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.

I had this to say about Newspoll in the Fin Review a couple of Saturdays ago.

Also, Phil Robins in Adelaide has sent in this warning to the PM, with past reminiscences.

June 17 Morgan says 53 to 47. Here.

June 15 No Newspoll today, probably because of long weekend. So we'll have to wait a week. Are we also due for a Nielsen next week? Lost track, but they have been running every four weeks.

June 12 Adelaide correspondent Phil Robins (one time candidate for Sturt) draws our attention to another Mickey Mouse (my phrase, not his) 'Tiser poll, in the seat of Adelaide. Disney-like for two and a half reasons: (1) While sensibly rounding their primary votes, they then strangely give notional two party preferreds to two decimal places (2) they don't extract "undecideds" from of their primary numbers, which is highly misleading, and (2^1/2)  (not as important as the other two) they don't poll quite enough people. About a thousand is a decent number; this one, at 639, is at one of this outfit's bigger ones. This one has Labor ahead 53.2 to 46.8. (Ok, that's only one decimal place; they usually give two.)

June 11 Where's Tony? What's missing from this picture by Bill Leak in The Australian? Answer: Tony Abbott. This stuff is his specialty.
June 10 The first fly in the ointment. Let's hope everyone's got their facts straight.

Peter Garrett's recruitment in Kingsford-Smith is (probably*) brilliant.  

Forget the linear stuff about Green primary votes or preferences, or how many seats they might make a difference in. And of course it ain't about Pete's personal policy choices, which would probably if push came to shove lose net votes after preferences.

A better observation might be that, across the country, many an outer suburban and regional male (where the marginal seats are), of an age similar to Latham, with a couple of kids, has been to Midnight Oil gigs and used to be a fan. And Garrett  is nationally known and respected.

But where it really works is in fleshing out the opposition product. In that respect it is a beauty. The Hawke government two decades ago benefited from a bunch of characters - ex-shearers, farmers, Changi-inmates etc. They gave the party charm, diversity and allure.

In one swoop the opposition team now looks interesting. 

The Kernot experiment blew up in large part because Labor gave her a crap (read marginal) seat. (David Hill got an unwinnable one). The Libs know that you give the high flier blow-ins a safe seat - see Malcolm Turnbull and Brendan Nelson. With Garrett, Labor might have learnt the lesson.

Anyone who remembers PG's NDP Senate attempt 20 years ago (unsuccessful thanks to a Labor and Lib preference swap) knows he's an energetic and disciplined media performer. 

Nor is the Kingsford-Smith shitfight a bad look in the wider community, because riding roughshod over local party apparatchiks is another plus for Latham. And without putting too fine a point on it, he and Garrett complement each other ... temperamentally and aesthetically. 

Now this is product differentiation, a reason to vote Labor. Much more important than policy statements. Marky Mark's not just a Howard clone after all! Much more of this and the Lemmings will go.

* There is, however, the possibility that someone forget to tell PG what "team player" means, that there's room for only one ego. So a one in five chance that it ends in tears.

• Hawke government minister Barry Cohen (disclosure: rolled by right faction after 1987 election) demonstrates his tin political ear in the Oz.

June 3: Morgan poll: 55 to 45

June 1 Emerging consensus takes a hit

Newspoll in the Oz shows the government back in front 53 to 47    !

Only last week Nielsen had Labor ahead 56 to 44; we'll have to wait to see which one is a tad rogue-ish. In a way this fits with the mixed bag of volatile little polls taken in SA and WA, mentioned below.

Because they have to think of something, they (journalists, Sol Lebovic etc) are calling it a "delayed reaction to the budget", which is ludicrous. Still, if you're going to pretend an individual poll means much, you may as well claim to know what caused the "turnaround".

This Newspoll by itself doesn't matter. It certainly doesn't mean anything like "the government would have won an election last weekend". It's the next poll and the one after that, taken together with this one, that count.

But none of that really counts. Latham is now seen as vincible, which at least will make life interesting.