go to next posts Nicholson in The Australian

welcome to               Mumble 2004: Go to post redistribution pendulum

October 3 Taverner poll in Sun-Herald Not a million miles from fellow at left, it talked to 'more than 800' Aussies across four marginal seats late in the week to show 'a remarkable turnaround' for Labor. But at about 200 respondents per seat, little wonder the individual results are weird, eg 60 40 in Parramatta.

And the Canberra Times polled, according to a reader who saw the hard copy, 207 voters in Eden Monaro to show Coalition ahead 56 to 44. Similarly rodent-like.

A reader's prediction: Chris Woolley, who claims to have form, sends a prognosis much like mine. (That is, a slightly increased majority for the Coalition, but perhaps a small [say 0.5 percent] two party preferred swing to Labor.) Here.

Update. Another reader, Ray Sanderson, begs to differ. Update update: Jim Mackintosh goes with Chris. (Rest assured this outbreak of participatory democracy ceases after October 9.)

The point about the grey vote

The thing about the over 55/over 65 vote is that the vast majority always has voted Coalition and always will. It's like voters outside the capital: the aim is not to win them all over, or even anything like half, but enough to add to the majority of under 55s. Now, your typical outer suburban mortgage belt swinging seat has a young demographic; oldies are found further in, and out in rural seats.

Adelaide has an old demographic, as do its inner marginals, Hindmarsh and Adelaide. The regional NSW seats of Robertson, Paterson, Richmond and Page, plus my nomination of the surprise seat, Cowper, also fit the category. These seats are certainly a better bet than the mortgage belters the party has hitherto obsessed with.

Anyway, here's the table that everyone else has had. Mine also shows 2001 swing (to Labor, so negative means to Coalition) - always relevant - AEC categories and seat links. Only outer metro is ranked 27. As always, red Labor Coalition blue. Apologies for crumby formatting.

Top 30 seats by proportion of over 65s

October 2 No Nielsen today 

But 'Tiser polls in Adelaide marginals suggest incumbents on both sides doing well.

Alan and John

Our PM, like most people who derive esteem from fights against people too weak to hit back, is fundamentally twitchy. But Alan Ramsey confuses that with real vulnerability. The fact that John Howard is insecure about Mark Latham isn't proof that he empirically should be. What makes Howard a perceptive observer?

More on Sensitive New Age Nature-Cyclist Glenn Druery

Further to Mr How-to-get-a-senate-spot with one-percent. Following yesterday's post, Glenn wrote (referring to my headline) "'Bush-bashing yobbo hits back!'  thanks.. I said cyclist not motor-cyclist", to which I asked "But Glenn, do you now, or have you ever owned a 4wd?", to which he replied "Yes, but I never drove it."

You be the judge. Here's Antony Green in SMH during 1999 NSW election on Druery.

Greyhairs

Tim Colebatch in The Age on oldies. The rankings he refers to can be found in pendulum gallery; sixth link from bottom in right hand frame. Margins are shown.

The two NT seats bring up the rear because, presumably, of low Aboriginal life expectancy. The outer western Sydney trio of Macarthur, Lindsay and Hughes are also near the bottom (146, 140 and 137 respectively), choc-full of young families. 

South Australia has many oldies. It also has an electorate called Grey, but Grey is not as grey as the rest of the state; it ranks 72.

Easy to imagine elderly women taking a shine to Latham; an article several weeks ago noted Kalgoorlie Liberal member Barry Haase's annoyance at the old biddies telling him that Mark Latham is a 'scallywag'.

But for younger ones he might be a bit of a worry.

October 1 Morgan: 52.5 to 47.5

Yes, Newspoll has Labor ahead while Morgan has the opposite. Funny-peculiar.

Looking forward to Nielsen (presumably) tomorrow.

APSA

Gave a conference paper this week (I'm first year PhD) at the Australiasian Political Studies Association Conference in Adelaide. It's on my hobby horse, the myth of 'Howard's Battlers', and it's here. [Danger, extremely large PDF!] Also zipped here (but still too large - about 300 kb).

Bush-bashing yobbo hits back!

    NSW Senate candidate Glenn Druery (note belated correct spelling, my mistake; Lambert spelt correctly) emails thus:

While on the topic, reader David Howard is the other person who understands; he sent the following:

In case your readers are interested in how someone with 1% of the vote can win a senate seat in NSW, I have made up a fictional but realistic vote for NSW and then distributed preferences to show how the Liberals for Forests could win the 5th seat and in the process hand the final seat to the Coalition.

I couldn't find all the official abbreviations for the parties so I made up my own.  First line is the 2001 first preference vote. The second line is a guess at first preferences for 2004. I then distribute preferences going down the page. I cheat a bit by knocking out several of the really small parties at the beginning but later knock out one party at a time.

Votes follow each party's distribution. For example, when CEC is first knocked out it goes to the ex-services but when the ex-services are knocked out the CEC vote goes to the Democrats even though the Ex Services preferences go to Liberals for Forests. I hope you can understand it.  

Hindmarsh 

Our Chappy On The Spot in Adelaide (where I am now actually), Phil Robins, reports on a 'Tiser poll in Hindmarsh, the electorate with the most oldies in the country:

September 30 A 4WD hoon in the states' house?

Reader Geoff Lambert sends this about NSW Senate candidate Glenn Druery: that he's pulled such a beautiful set of preference deals with a plethora of extremely minor parties to be guaranteed a spot. I recall Antony Green saying the same thing about the same guy in 1999 NSW upper house election. (As Geoff points out, he just missed out.)

September 28 Newspoll

'Bad feeling' not borne out, Newspoll (no link) in at 52 to 48 (50 50 under Simon Crean preference distribution). 

September 27 Morgan 50 50 (face to face). They follow up last week's senate debacle with the ludicrous call 'Hung Parliament looks Likely'

Here's why that's not true.

Have a bad feeling about tomorrow's Newspoll.

September 26 Greens in Melbourne

Strange Nielsen poll in the Sunday Age. The headline, 'Greens to double vote in Tanner's seat', grabs the attention because the Greens got 15.8 percent of the primary vote in Melbourne in 2001, just a few percent shy, after a pile of Democrat preferences, of beating the Liberal into the final round and taking the seat from Lindsay Tanner with Lib preferences. Twice that is nearly 32 thirty percent, which would probably spell curtains for Tanner.

But the survey actually has the Greens candidate Gemma Pinnell on 27 percent, Tanner on 49 percent, the Lib candidate 21. 

Pinnell only gets 38 percent of the two candidate preferred vote to Tanner's 62, which doesn't seem right and it's probably not. Nielsen is very very good because they elicit full preferences from respondents ("Which of these two would get your preference?") but perhaps it's not appropriate when a minor party or independent is in the run-off. Liberal voters, like Labor ones, are notorious drones with 'how to vote cards' (that is, they tend to follow them) and with the Libs preferencing Pinnell (Libs always preference Greens ahead of Labor in HoR seats) the two party preferred vote would be much tighter. 

Still, with 49 percent, Tanner could expect enough leakage and other minor preferences to get over the line.

Mr Ramsey, Mr Howard and Bennelong

Alan Ramsey is nothing if not a wishful thinker when it comes to Marky Mark, and yesterday in SMH  he meaninglessly transposed booth votes from the 2003 NSW election onto next month's federal one to find John Howard losing his electorate of Bennelong. Correct - and if everyone in Australia voted as they did at their most recent state poll, one third of federal cabinet would be out of parliament and Latham would romp home with a 50-odd seat majority. If my Lotto numbers pop out on Monday night I'll get to see more of the world. But none of these things will happen.

Howard's closest ever brush with defeat in Bennelong was in 1993, 53.2 to 46.8. That election saw Labor's best two party preferred NSW result (54.4 to 45.6) since 1974 (coincidentally when Howard entered parliament). Those clever lemmings have ensured nothing remotely like that will occur on October 9. 

(At the 2001 federal election, NSW voted 48.3 to 51.7, of which Bennelong recorded 42.3 to 57.7. At last year's state poll NSW went 56 to 44.)