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welcome to               Mumble 2004: Go to post redistribution pendulum

October 27 A Mr Stephen Loosely, who predicted a Labor win, now knows (in the Oz) - like everyone else - why they lost, and it's the standard: "to regain national government, Labor needs to be viewed as the better alternative in international affairs and economic security. These issues were pivotal strengths for the entire Hawke-Keating period of government, when the Coalition was marginalised."

Wrong. What's important is how Labor won power in 1983, not how they kept it for the 13 years. Once they're in (and they do a competent job or more) they'll be seen as the safe, sensible option and the Coalition will indeed be marginalised, at least for a few elections.

Pardon self-indulgence, but I recall telling a journalist over the phone early in the month that whatever happens, we should all remember what we were thinking before election day, because after that a mass mindset kicks in. 

Howard's spot is the history books is now secure, but it looked shaky before October 9 because many Australians were tired of the government and ready for something else. That something was, however, too risky, and (apart from 'Mickey Mouse goes to Iraq') not different enough.

Macho economic talk from oppositions sends voters scurrying. I can't think of any opposition that prevailed due to perceived superior economic credentials; instead, they've convinced people they wouldn't make a mess of it. They've occupied the middle ground but presented something different. Install a Mini-Me ridgy-didge Howard as leader, and you'll get Howard's strength - interest rates - as the issue. Give voters something different to think about, and interest rates won't be front and centre. 

Infatuation with Howard in large part led to the Latham leadership in the first place. There's this from a couple of years ago.

Another thing ...I hate 'roosters'. Media references to 'the roosters' are really really boring. It was never much of a tag in the first place, and I wish they'd stop!

October 25 Senate count

Bryan Palmer of Oz Politics reckons this: "It looks like Glenn Druery has been using my Senate Calculator to generate the analysis he provided to you. The Senate figures from AEC jump around quite a bit (and votes appear and disappear from the system a regular intervals). Not sure why, but it may explain the Queensland anomaly. (I got caught out similarly with Tasmania on Monday 18 October."

Mr Latham

How long will Latham last as leader? It's likely those record high approval ratings are gone forever, for the simple reason that about 30% of the population really really wanted Labor to win, and their expectation that Marky-Mark was the one to do it led them to rate his performance highly. The same people contributed to Crean's shocking ratings, because they thought his chances were next to nothing (wrongly in my opinion).

Probably Latho's preferred PM numbers will go south too. On voting intentions, past experience suggests a post election jump for the government, which dissipates; my guess is Latham will hit the lead again in a few months.

October 24 Latham's required swing?

Going into October 9, Labor's on paper uniform swing required to win  was about 1.7 percent. Now, on rough calculations, it's about 4.3 percent. Ie they would need about 51.5 percent two party preferred to win next time. These things aren't to be taken literally, of course.

Senate count

Here's me in the Fin Review on basic Senate electoral concepts. Minds, as Richard Burton would say, immeasurably superior to ours actually follow the count. Got this from Antony Green yesterday. And still-in-with-a-chance NSW candidate Glenn Druery, who likes nothing better on the weekend than a 'roo shoot in his 4B with a few mates and a couple of slabs, sent this. Geoff Lambert reckons this.

October 23 Ramsey watch; Malcolm's pendulum works

Alan Ramsey, for whom that lovable rogue Latham can do no wrong, shows in the SMH today how to put the best spin on an awful result. He used to call Beazley's 2001 loss a hiding, disaster etc but this one, which is worse, is not-too-bad-actually. And anyway it's the fault of backbench dead-wood; heaven forfend that Boofhead had a hand in the thing.

Alan also reveals, not for the first time, a lack of familiarity with preferential voting. It wasn't the 'marginal seats campaign' that minimised the seat losses despite the huge primary vote difference (46.5 to 37.8), but, of course, preference flows that brought the two party preferred result to 52.7 to 47.3. That was 1.7 percent swing to the Coalition, which if you plot on the pendulum correctly produces a net gain to Coalition of four.  So the Mackerras Pendulum worked a treat this time.

Here's preferential voting made easy.

Paul Kelly today, 'PM is beyond Menzies', is 95 percent empirical nonsense, but Paul is a national story-teller and facts are incidental. Batten the batches, we're going to get alot of this stuff. The consensus goes like this: Howard is a brilliant politician, Latham is quite brilliant too, but it turns out Howard is even more brillain than we thought. He was much too good even for Latham.

Much closer to the truth is that Howard is a competent politician, but no more, and the ALP put up the one person (out of serious contenders) guaranteed to hand him a fourth term. I've always maintained that even Crean had a better chance of winning than Marky-Mark, and I maintain it still. Damned lemmings buying into the Kellyesque narrative led to this disaster.

And here's the goose for me, for beginning today's 'Lies and Statistics' column in the Australian Financial Review with the line: "From July next year, John Howard will almost certainly become the first prime minister since 1981 to control the Senate". [No link.]The papers today report he probably won't. [update: papers were wrong; I'm a goose no longer.]

October 21 Table: seats by two party preferred swings by state

Go to pendulum gallery, link at top right.

Beazley believers (that is, not that he might have done better, or perhaps fallen over the line, but the most likely result would have been a comfortable Beazley win) are joining me out of the email word-work; journalists, Labor types and others.

Said one in the second category: "When Beazley lost to Latham, I felt, along with others as if there had been a death in the family. Not only had we tossed away a likely win for Beazley but we had also lessened the chances of Latham being able to develop further before being called up."

Others noted that despite Crean's poor performance his two party preferred lingered around 50 percent. Actually, that's not the half of it. Newspoll, as I've mentioned many times, calculated Crean two party preferred differently to Latham's. Latham's final Newspoll two party preferred, published on election day, was 50 50. Under the Crean method it would have been 48 to 52. And even then, Crean rarely scored as poorly as Latham's actual election result, about 47.2 to 52.8. 

Caught Marky Mark on 7:30 Report last night, where he showed he understands that the main task is fixing Labor's economic credibility. In other words, he still doesn't get it.

He also gave Beazley a quick slap, that he (Latham) now has to do the work that should have been done since 1996. God help us all, but at least he didn't go on about Green Valley.

What's Peter Beattie up to? 

October 17 A table: seats by two party preferred swings

Go to pendulum gallery, link at top right.

History lesson

Witness the writing of history. For a while (until the evening of Saturday October 9) we forgot that Howard was the wiliest politician ever to walk the earth and criticised his performance. But now we realise that he always knew what he was doing, he never put a foot wrong; indeed, everything he did was calculated with characteristic precision. The corollary is that most things Labor did in the campaign were wrong.

So the accepted campaign lessons evolve, and this matters because they are learnt. For example, the belief is taking hold that if only Labor had run a better campaign, or had better policies, they would have won.

Paul Kelly  On a related topic, I think I've got a handle on Mr Kelly. He's rightly considered a - perhaps the - doyen of Australian journalism, a major public figure. Anyone who saw his ABC telly series of Australian history a few years ago (repeated recently) can't doubt his broad canvas narrative and interpretive skills and ability to make facts digestible. It was excellent, encapsulating the issues, weaving a story, informing of the main debates. Several weighty books under his belt; The End of Certainty in particular is still much quoted in academic and other circles.

I reckon Paul's a historian. Historians are story-tellers who interpret the past and give it meaning. I'm currently reading John Hirst's History of Australian Democracy, which is beautifully written - simply and clearly explaining the issues and what the thinking was in the 19th and 20th centuries. Like Kelly's work, it gives me the important facts, within that particular narrative.

But we know it's not the whole truth, just the parts that fit a story the nation subsequently settled on.

Sometimes when Hirst puts his two cents into current events he can be ... simplistic and prone to flowery generalisations. (And highly partisan.) The same with a Blainey, Watson or a Reynolds. Their analytical tools, perfect for giving the past meaning, don't work the same way for the present.

Paul Kelly writes about Howard having broken the nexus between Labor's two electoral wings, his being a 'counter-puncher' etc. This might be what political historians write about the Howard government in years to come, but it's not really true.

Paul's advice yesterday on what the ALP needs to do is just the sort of linear stuff with which the blasted lemmings took the country into Saturday's mess in the first place. Kelly reckons that Latham wasn't enough like John Howard all along.

If the ALP believes it was about 'economic credibility', if only they'd run a better campaign, they should have been more like the Liberals ... well, get ready for more losses.

 During the Coalition's 13 years in opposition, no shortage of commentators was telling them that Labor had seized the middle ground and the Liberals had to put a 'wet' like Ian McPhee in to have any hope of winning. Luckily for them, they paid no heed.

Opinion polls

Expect any post-October 9 surveys to show government support comfortably above what they achieved on election night. Such a boost to the winner happens after every election.

October 16 ACT elections For the past 6 months I've lived in Canberra, and so today will participate in a ritual through which ordinary citizens tell themselves they have some ownership of decisions taken by technocrats. We call it an 'election'.

Canberra gets its own Stateline, which I watched for the first time last night when it had interviews with the Labor Chief Minister and Opposition leader. (Wonder what it features most Fridays?)

Brendan Smyth (Lib) and John Stanhope (Lab) both seemed like a nice boys, and everyone expects Labor to win, probably with the help of independents (proportional representation here) and commentators all have their reasons: the Lib guy is a wimp, he hasn't "cut through", Stanhope is "too good" etc, but you and I know it's the same reason Bob Carr beats John Brogden, Gallop will win in Western Australia next year etc - the cycle.

Senate

NSW Lib for Forests Senate candidate Glenn Druery didn't appreciate being called a four-wheel drive nut the other week, nor a hoon, yobbo and bush-basher, and now emails his dismay at 'pot-smoking hippy'. There's no pleasing some people.

Anyway, Glenn and others sent their Senate calculations in throughout the week. I was going to post them later, but they're probably out of date by now. Everyone seems to reckon the Coalition will have 39 out of 76 seats from July next year, which is a majority, and so can get through whatever it wants and close down committees.

This is the sort of outcome many in the media have been calling for, so let's see what happens. I'm interested in what they do to the Electoral Act. Closing the rolls when an election is called will probably be an appetiser.

If Labor wins the next election (nothing like the long shot everyone thinks it is if they sort their leadership out) they may still have a Coalition-controlled Senate.

Mr Beazley

There is, it turns out, another person on the planet who thinks Kim would have won, and he emailed in response to my Age piece:

  "I agree with you in The Age about Latham and Beazley.  Why did the dills pick Latham?  The idiots!

And how can it be that Beazley did better in 2001 despite the Tampa and 9/11, while Latham performed worse in 2004 with no Tampa, no 9/11 and a failed war in Iraq which Howard supported and Labor opposed? "

However, the position of the other 19,999,998 Australians could be summarised by this reader::

  "In all the wash up and over-analysis of this election, there is nothing so absurd as the
notion that Kim Beazley would have won it for Labor.  What was the thrust of the Libs
negative ads?  High interest rates under the previous Labor government.  Who was
Finance Minister then?  Remember 2001 and the "Beazley black hole"?  They would
have had a field day, and the result would have been worse for Labor.

Bottom line is that the economy is humming, and there are enough people out there
with 400K+ mortgages who were scared into thinking rates would go up ..."

Mr Ramsey in 2001

Alan Ramsey wears his heart on his sleeve, and his Monday SMH column in particular was much noted. Can't find a link, but included this:

"How on earth could we have put this scheming, mendacious little man and his miserable claque back in office for another three years? ... For almost nine years this Government, incompetent in most everything except mediocrity, debauched its word and the people's trust, along with voters' gullibility, their ignorance, their taxes and, in the end, their greedy self-interest ... I thought we had more brains, more self-respect."

But he hasn't always felt that way. After the 2001 campaign - arguably the height of the PM's mendaciousness, during which Alan's Howard-cheering, especially on the boats, was enough to make a Shanahan blush - he celebrated the wily survivor with this piece (headline: 'No Bones About It: He has a Great Average'), which ends: "You don't have to like him or his policies. You just have to give him his due."

Alan's not really a Howard-hater, just a Latham-lover.

October 15 Me again: memories

After Brack's 2002 win I wrote this for The Age, which included, about two-thirds down, the following: 

"Recriminations and self-congratulations naturally flow from electoral wipe-outs, but something is afoot in the Australian collective psyche.

It might, just might, have something to do with Prime Minister John Howard. And either way, it is typically good news for him.

New South Wales followed up Carr's big win with a 4 per cent swing to John Howard on November 10, 2001, the largest of any state. The second biggest swinger was Queensland.

Don't be surprised if Victoria does the same at the next federal election.

Victoria has been federal Labor's foul-weather friend recently, along with Tasmania, the only state to give the ALP two-party preferred majorities at every federal poll since 1990. Saturday's result might, paradoxically, mark the end of this era."

Victoria did indeed post a bigger government swing than Queensland or New South Wales or South Australia. Can't tell yet whether bigger than WA or Tasmania.

And speaking of state trends, expect Labor to win big-big-big in WA next year (whatever the polls say now).

October 14 Me

In The Age, on, of course,...

Antony Green's estimate of final seat washup is exactly as I predicted a week ago. I got the February Queensland state election spot on too (in total, not specific seats). It's lonely being the only person in the country who believes (knows!) Beazley would have romped home on Saturday, so I cling to the little things. 

Been quiet the last few days. Little to say. Will post a few things later in week, including number-crunching by, amongst others, that pot-smoking hippy and unsuccessful NSW Senate candidate Glenn Druery.

October 10 Chin up

The media fawning over Howard in the coming days, weeks and months will be too much to bear. Don't believe the hype; he's just a lucky lucky fellow. 

Can't stomach the television this (Sunday) morning, but no doubt Liberal Federal Director Brian Whatsisname will be flogging some dodgy exit polls explaining why Australians did what they did. Whatever he says, don't believe that either.

My prediction looks almost spot-on (although ruminations on Cowper turned out to be rubbish). Those portentous, hung-parliament doom-sayers were, as at every federal election, the biggest gooses.

In fact, here's the goose in their honour.

Pollsters

It's difficult to get two party preferred numbers at this stage, but it seems to be something like 53 to 47, so ACNielsen was far and away the best. Morgan was most wrong of the big three - for the second election in a row - and Newspoll has little to be cocky about. 

The 1998 result was 49 to 51 and 2001 was 51 to 49, so we've now seen two 2 percent pro-government swings in a row. (Expect many mentions of the last time a government got two swings - 1963 and 1966.) And like the last election, it produced a smaller net change in seats than might be anticipated. (A two percent uniform swing on the pendulum would have produced a government majority of 38; it looks instead like 22 or 24. On the other hand, if it only turns out to be a 1.5 percent swing, the pendulum was an accurate predictor.) 

• Update: it looks like the 2pp is about 52.5 to 47.5  which still favours Nielsen over the Newspoll, certainly to the extent they showed a clear Coalition win. It also means the pendulum's predictive powers worked.

Tally Room

Attended National Tally Room last night, and met a few luminaries. Margot Kingston: not happy. Had a photo taken with Malcolm Mackerras (inventor of the pendulum), but I don't like how I look so it won't get posted. MP3ed an interview with Senator Ron Boswell, but my speech is as slurred as my questions are stupid, so you don't get that either. But here's the Poll Bludger William Bowe, here's The Chaser's Charles Firth interviewing Malcolm. (Obviously I plonked myself in the camera's eye.) And this is an uninteresting shot of the room that happens to have Kate from 'The Panel' in the foreground.

Might post again later today. I reconciled to this outcome long ago (see my December rants). If you're happy with the result - congratulations. If you're depressed - it's ok to wallow for a couple of days, but why not recognise it as the joke it obviously is? Really, it's quite funny when you think about it. Someone up there's laughing.

October 9 Election day not a minute too soon; the polls, the polls

The three major pollsters have registered their tickets, and there's something here for everyone. 'Hung parliament!' nuts have both Newspoll, 50 50 from primary support of 45 to 39, and Morgan, 49 to 51 from primary support 45.5 to 38.5. Man of Steel fans can take inspiration from Nielsen's whopping 54 to 46 in the government's favour, with primary votes 49 to 37.   

Marky-Mark acolytes have to dig a little deeper, but it's there. Nielsen (with the biggest sample) was taken over Tuesday to Thursday, Newspoll was on Wednesday and Thursday nights, and  Morgan's (also over the phone) on Thursday and Friday. So if you believe in late swings, and we take the polls literally, there's a big one on for Labor.

Morgan has Labor performing exceptionally in the Coalition's marginals (two party preferred 50.5, up from 47.7 in 2001, ie about a three percent swing), which makes the headline 'Too close to Call - Possible Hung Parliament' a little odd.

So who's right? Nielsen's scenario, though unlikely, can't be ruled out. (Carr, Bracks and Beattie won most recent elections with larger numbers than that.) The other two reside in the usual federal election ballpark. 

You could just average the three out and come to something like 51 to 49, probably an increased majority for the government. Or you could toss a coin.

(Nielsen must be sweating about the curse of Morgan. They'd probably be happy with a government win of any description).

So has the A*se-L*cker l*cked his last a*se? Or will Boofhead implode in an unedifying pile of oozing testosterone? I'll stick with my prediction of the other day, but it really could go either way. 

See you in the Tally Room.

October 8 Newspoll in the marginals Newspoll again surveys twelve government-held marginals and finds Coalition ahead 51.5 to 48.5 compared with 51.2 to 48.8 at the last election. Mr Shanahan's got the bubbly out already, but if we are to take anything from those numbers it's that it's too close to call in those marginal seats.

Election-watchers generally pay too much attention to the seats that happened to end up 'marginal' at the last election. There's a new Labor leader, the terms of the contest have changed and there's always seat by seat volatility. Nearly always, a seat or two bolts out of the blue.

Oldies and Youngies

The funny thing is, Latham embodies the young, outer suburban mortgage-belters who often decide marginal seats, and was in part elevated to appeal to them. But if anything he's probably driven them further to Howard (they might imagine that if Latham wasn't in the ALP he'd be a Howard man too), and if he wins it'll probably be thanks to oldies. Dobell will be interesting, because it's got lots of both.

Caught Marky Mark laying on the charm with Uncle Ray and then Kerry last night. Whereas Mr Rodent is utterly without the stuff, Latham knows how to do it. These things might make a difference in the last few days. 'Give the new bloke a go'. Wait for tomorrow's polls before finalising predictions. 

Note, dark horse pick, Cowper, has many oldies.

October 7 Tassie Forests

Why Labor's Tassie forests policy? To retrieve first preference votes from mainland Green voters, particularly in vulnerable seats like Melbourne, Sydney and Grayndler, in the process losing some to the Liberals in Tassie. Looked at that way, it's a net shift of after-preference support to the Coalition (because most of those Green votes come back to Labor down the ballot slip) - but restricted to Tasmania. It's not just forest workers; Tasmanians don't like being pushed around by the mainland. Labor holds all Tassie seats today, and  Bass is first off the rank.

Newspoll in the states The final in a series of state-by-state Newspoll two party preferreds in the Oz. They left Tasmania out because sample size was too small 'to be meaninful', but that applies to the other five. (Total sample size 1680, which probably makes the biggest, NSW's, about 500). Below is Newspoll's performance on the final Thursday in the 2001 campaign - worst in Victoria, by almost six percent.

Newspoll final state-by-state poll in 2001 (published Thursday before poll)

Wimpy predictions are good for bet-hedging, but as I've explained many times, not being sure who's going to win doesn't mean the result will be 'close'.

Here's my prediction, consistent with what I've been saying since December 2 2003 - an increased majority for the government - and it has a two in front of it. The (notional) situation today is Coalition 83 and everyone else 67, a clear majority of sixteen. I reckon on Sunday the result might be about Coalition 87 to everyone else 63, a majority of 24. As a specific result it is statistically about as likely as the small ones above, but harder to wiggle out of if I'm disastrously wrong. Will predict again in coming days, specifically after final opinion polls on Saturday. (Notice I'm staying away from how many seats Greens will win, if any. That's too hard.)

Simon's score: Oh, and under a Crean Labor leadership yesterday's Newspoll would have been reported as 52 to 48. (Reminder of what I'm talking about.)

October 5 Newspoll: 50.5 to 49.5

Voicemail warning: if you live in a marginal seat and after work find your answering machine flashing, it might be a message from the PM like this mp3 file. Note the vague wording, so you might think you've actually missed talking to the man in person! [Warning, 400kb]

October 4 Nielsen: 52 to 48 in SMH and Age

Morgan face to face: 48.5 to 51.5

Deja vu: Glenn Milne rabbiting on about a hung parliament. It was silly enough the first and second times.

Lemmings update: three more years

Look, nothing would make me happier than posting the goose on Saturday night. But I can't see it.

Yesterday's Sun-Herald (apparently) advised Aussies to stick with the government because "Latham will be a better leader for three years in Opposition. And when he next steps up to the ballot box, Howard will almost certainly be gone."

Expect a lot of that reasoning next Saturday: 'I like the bloke a lot, but I'll stick with Howard and .. maybe next time.' 

Imagine a pollster asked : 'out of all politicians around today, which two would you like to see as PM and deputy PM?'. My guess is the most popular combination would be Howard and Latham (in that order). There's your problem with Boofhead in a nutshell. Caucus searched high and wide to find the closest among their number to John Howard, because they were obsessed with John Howard and thought only a Howard could beat Howard. Someone who scratches the same psychological itch. But, as Paul Kelly might say, they just didn't get it: that only boosts the incumbent. If the choice is the real thing or an untried version of same, why take the risk? 

Tony Abbott demonstrated this administration's addiction to the automatic lie last week on 'Lateline'. Voters perceive a dysfunctional government that's been in too long, unhealthily obsessed with its leader, willing to do absolutely anything for another term. It is ripe for the plucking. But which opposition leader would votes more likely flow to: the one who advocates muscling up, being as ruthless as the government, with no time for wimps? Or an old softy like Kim Beazley? Or even a hapless plodder like Simon Crean?

Anticipate the company line if Labor loses: (1) they were never going to win anyway; (2) next time they'll do it; (3) at least they went down all guns blazing; (4) it's all Beazley's fault.