Adam Carr asks: "William, could we have a thread dedicated to idle speculation about the federal election, as you have done for the NSW election?" His wish is my command. By way of a conversation starter, I note that the Australian Electoral Commission recently released an extensive list of parties that have been deregistered by virtue of last year’s electoral law "reforms", one of which sought to do away with minor parties taking the name of major parties in vain, principally Liberals for Forests. This was to be achieved by deregistering all parties that had never achieved federal parliamentary representation six months after the passage of the bill, then requiring them to register again under the new rules. I didn’t think this worth mentioning at the time, as I assumed it would be a fairly simple matter for parties other than Liberals for Forests, leaving aside the irritation of some added paperwork. However, those with their noses closer to the grindstone of minor party politics evidently don’t see it that way. Stephen Mayne, until very recently a principal of the People Power party, had this to say in today’s Crikey email:
The Howard government is known for its cynicism but the deregistration of 19 political parties when the nation wasn’t paying attention on December 27 must surely go down as one of its lowest acts. What sort of democracy allows a government to unilaterally and automatically deregister all political parties that don’t have an MP? Talk about abusing control of both houses … If this had happened before the 2004 election there is no way that Family First would have got up in Victoria because it relied on preferences from the likes of liberals for forests. The strangest part of this debacle is that the media has shown no interest whatsoever in reporting this assault on democracy. Imagine if there was some form of business where the regulator could get away with saying all small competitors were automatically deregistered. The big have got bigger in John Howard’s Australia and the corner store competing with Woolworths knows exactly how all these minor parties must feel.
The practical upshot is that most existing minor parties must provide renewed proof that they have at least 500 members. The exceptions are the Greens, other than the Queensland branch; Family First; the Australian Democrats; the Nuclear Disarmament Party; the NSW division of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (curiously, given that One Nation only ever won a seat in Queensland), and the Democratic Labor Party (which evidently persuaded the AEC it was the same party that existed prior to 1978). I personally am unclear as to how often parties are required to do this in the normal course of events; anyone who can enlighten me is invited to do so in comments.
244 Comments
William, for my (and maybe others) education, can you please explain why “The exceptions are the Greens, other than the Queensland branch…”
If we are dealing with a national registration with the AEC (as I suppose) this makes no sense to me. (Equally so for the reverse situation with the NSW branch of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation).
I agree with the sentiments of Mr Stephen Mayne, this is a shoddy bit of play.
I suppose that it would also be too much to hope that the AEC could fulfill their ethical (if not legal) obligation, and do something constructive sometime soon, to try to get as many younger people as possible to actually enrol as electors? I have heard that the enrolment rate is abysmally low in the younger age group (18 – 19 etc)
Best wishes for 2007…
Geoffrey, the answer lies in the complex and decentralised organisation of the Greens, which has no formal national executive and considerable autonomy for state branches. However, there would be many readers of this site who are better equipped to answer that question than myself.
It seems it is not too late for parties to re-register if they failed to provide the necessary paperwork in time to avoid deregistration.
The Liberal, Labor and National parties also all have separate registrations for their state parties too.
Although, I’m wondering did the law also protect parties that had state representation?
As the Victorian Greens (although I just noticed that the ACT, SA and Tassie state parties don’t have federal representation) were protected, as was the DLP, although I thought the DLP does not have a continous organisational link with the old DLP which used to elect MPs. The only way to explain that is if they counted the MPs elected in the recent Victorian election.
Also, my understanding is that parties are always having to continually show that they have the requisite 500 members. I think the difference with this is that these parties have to go through the whole process of applying to become a registered party, which is more than just having 500 members.
Idle speculation about the federal election …
In Monday’s Adelaide Advertiser a fairly prominent report said that Labor were planning to direct resources towards Parliamentary Secretary, Chris Pyne’s seat of Sturt (leafy Eastern suburbs … and supposedly blue ribbon electorate), held by a margin of 6.8%. This decision comes ahead of a belief in the local state party that Pyne’s margin is soft and the ‘Doctor’s Wives’ theory which supposedly chopped 2% of his margin in 2004 could come rear its head again and wipe Pyne out. I deem this seat to probably have a bedrock of Liberal support which would cut the margin to no less than about 4%, but as the artcile said Pyne has become more known as a factional warrior than a local MP, he might be in danger …
“What sort of democracy allows a government to unilaterally and automatically deregister all political parties that don’t have an MP?”
One in which a government can write the electoral laws.
I would love to see the AEC insist that all political parties demonstrate at least the basic tennants of democracy in their internal operational processes. This would prevent extremist groups headed by strong but deranged individuals leading the sheep astray.
There are some parties not on the list that would be deregistered if this was a criteria. It should at least be a criteria for determining the allocation of public moneys to fund campaigns.
How can “Democratic Labour Party” be allowed but “liberals for forests” not be allowed? The l4f party has never accidently received 40% of the vote. Indeed, their vote at the last election looked just like you would expect from a minor party that wasn’t confused with a major party.
But I’m not surprised the Libs want l4f deregistered. After all, the l4f preferenced the ALP at the last federal election leading to the downfall of Ross Cameron (Parramatta) and Anthony jnr (Richmond).
Not that I am defending the 500 member requirement, but spare a thought for the Germans who vote for minor parties, particularly those who secure less than 5% of the (primary, I believe) vote and do not make it into parliament. I believe this requirement was instituted to prevent the neo-Nazi parties from entering the legislature although it can equally debase the Revolutionary Workers International (for example).
The affront to democracy (however shaky our democracy was pre-1996) posed by the current regime only grows ever larger. A good reading list on the ‘reform’ of electoral laws is provided at the Democratic Audit website at the ANU. I have been in the current affairs darkroom for the past 2 years or so, juggling full time work and part-time study, moving 3 states and starting a new job, but I did notice that the Democratic Audit have published a lot of analysis that may be of use here
http://www.democraticaudit.anu.edu.au (I think or just Google)
Re the democratic process.
It is law that when a union decides on strike action a secret ballot must be held, to stop members being intimidated.
Parliaments would be interesting if the secret ballots applied on legisaltion, surely there are members intimated by knowing they could be deselected if they don’t toe the party line.
One interesting rort is in federal parliament where the National Party was in danger of losing party status when one of thier own, McGauran I think, defected to the Libs.
This left the Nats without the required minimum number of representives and the prospect of reduced funding .
The Nats got around it by claiming McGauran was elected as a Nat and was still a Nat even though he was now a Lib.
Is McGauran the only person in Australia to simultaneously represent two parties at the same time?
Can the Greens and the Democrats and/or other minor parties work this rort to achieve party status.
Rod B, the Nationals were in fact able to maintain party status in the Senate by “adopting” the Northern Territory’s Country Liberal Party Senator, Nigel Scullion, who gave them the extra member they needed to cover the loss of Julian McGauran (to whom you are referring – not to be confused with his brother Peter, who is still with the Nationals). I gather that this slightly dubious arrangement was rubber-stamped due to the Coalition’s control of the Senate, on the basis that the CLP was effectively a branch of the Nationals. However, this goes against the situation in the House of Reps, where the CLP member David Tollner is counted as a Liberal. Were the Greens and Democrats to organise any sort of “merger”, the government would no doubt think of a reason to use its Senate numbers to deny them party status.
Thanks William
This arrangement has always puzzled me as to how they got away with it.
Conspiracy to defraud, conspiring to obtain funds by mispresentation, obtaining a benefit by deceit, would any of these apply here.
Billy, didnt DavidOldfieldwin his NSW upper house seat as One Nation?
Yes, but in the state parliament – this only applies to federal. Unless I’ve misinterpreted something somewhere.
I was idly browsing Adam’s site the other day and noticed David Oldfield was a gnats whisker from winning a seat.. was it Manly ? for the Libs back in.. 95 ?
Correct on both counts, Nora. He was then a staffer to Tony Abbott and a Liberal member of Manly Council.
MANLY (37,946)
Green, Brian ALP 4,666 13.5 (-02.2)
Oldfield, David Lib 15,343 44.5 (-01.2) 49.6 (+00.3)
MacDonald, Dr Peter * 13,092 38.0 (+03.0) 50.4 (-00.3)
Swan, John CTA 516 01.5
Dee, Peter AD 877 02.5 (-01.1)
Concerning the NSW One Nation issue, the material at http://www.aec.gov.au/_content/who/party_reg/infosheets/deregistration.htm notes:
“A party will be automatically de-registered on 27 December2006 unless:
The party makes a claim that satisfies the AEC that it (or a related party) has previously been a Parliamentary party. By section 123 of the Act, parties are related where one is part of another (e.g. a State branch of a Federal party) or both are parts of the same party (e.g. two State branches).”
Thus a state branch of a party that has previously held a seat in another state was eligible to escape deregistration.
I haven’t got the original report on me, but from memory the de-registration of all these parties parties came about for one reason, to remove ‘Liberals for Forests’.
Parties have two routes to registration, one that they have elected members of parliament, the second that they have 500 members. The government wanted to tighten the naming provisions to prevent party names like Liberals for Forests being registered. But the legal opinion was that they couldn’t change the rules retrospectively to remove the existing registration of Liberals for Forests. Hence adopting the method of abolishing all parties that relied on membership for registration, then making them all re-apply under the changed rules. A rather complex procedure but legally allowed as it treated all parties that relied on membership equally. Several other tightening of membership provisions were also implemented at the same time.
Of course, the act still doesn’t include a definition of what exactly a party member is, which was at the heart of the whole mess over Pauline Hanson going to gaol. The Hanson matter, and the Labor party pre-selection rorts highlighted in 2001, have seen the Queensland Electoral Act substantially changed, with registered parties required to publish constitutions on the ECQ website, and the Queensland Commissioner given appeal oversight of party pre-selections.
The NSW election legislation was also greatly tightened after the 1999 tablecloth Legislative Council election, with parties now required to have 750 members, to lodge deposits for registration, to have annual inspection of membership lists and also checks that voters cannot be counted to the registration of two parties.
Despite all the wailing against Labor Party rorts, the Federal government has made no step to tighten up party registrations, apart from getting rid of Liberals for Forests. Still no definition of party membership, and the sort of constitution drawn up by One Nation where members had no rights is still allowed under the Commonwealth Act.
As far as I can tell “party membership” would simply involve signing the piece of paper for the AEC saying you are a party member, wouldn’t it? No membership fee, not even a requirement that those 500 “members” are all actual paid-up members of the party.
And with Liberals for Forests, not only did they preference the ALP, but I know a number of very active young members of the ALP Left who spent election day in 2004 handing out HTVs for L4F in Parramatta while campaigning for Julie Owens.
The Tassie greens are well represented by Senators Bob Brown and Christine Milne! The fact is that Howard has introduced these changes by stealth and has caught a number of minor parties out, particularly as they are run by volunteers and can barely keep up with normal workloads, let alone Howards swifties as well.
The Greens, and many other parties, are not a national party. They have state parties, not state branches. The Greens have no state branches. The Qld greens are on the deregistered list, and I would assume this is because they failed to get the paperwork lodged in time. If your registered party officer has gone away when Howard changes the law, you first need to get a new party officer so you can apply for registration, and sometimes the party constitution requires a general election of that postition, so it can all take time and be a huge PITA.
Anyway, many of those minor parties had party status in the recent vic state election, so they have shown they have the 500 members. It was only those parties that do not have a member of parliament or a senator who need to go through the 500 member test. So the reason Vic Greens and NSW one nation are not on the deregistered list is probably because they got their act together, not because they qualified under some exemption. The same probably goes for the DLP.
Exactly why it should be defined Ben. The original gaoling of Pauline Hanson and her eventual release both turned on case law and past court interpretations of membership as it applies to unicorporated associations. With no guidance from the electoral act on what a member was, the Courts had to fill in the gaps left wide open by the Act.
The registration of parties came about for two reasons. One was a mechanism for party names to appear on ballot papers, the second to do with public funding of elections, though not all states that register parties have public funding.
The current commonwealth electoral act simply states that non-parliamentary parties must have members and must continue to have members. No definition of what a member is, and the Electoral Commissions have had to react to various court judgments, such as those involving Hanson and One Nation.
When Queensland introduced registered parties, they simply copied the Commonwealth provisions. When One Nation was de-registered in Queensland after the original civil case, it was on the basis not that the party had members with no rights to vote, but on the basis it didn’t have members. When Hanson was eventually freed after her gaoling, it was on the basis of re-interpration of the contract law involved in someone signing a membership form, and also the higher standard of proof required in a criminal matter.
The One Nation constitution registered in Queensland was exactly the same as the Commonwealth one, and the Acts at the time were the same. It was only invalid in Queensland because the party had a Federal Senator, not a state MP. If a party has MPs, it is fine to have a party without members, but not for parties with no MPs.
While NSW has tightened party registration, to date Queensland is the only state to use the electoral act to intrude on the internal workings of political parties.
You don’t have to be a conspirancy theorist to be suspicious of why Parliament’s have avoided legislating on the internal workings of political parties.
So parties with MPs don’t need to show they have members? Or is the law different in NSW on a state level? Because I remember filling out a form saying I was a member of a party.
Dave S. mentioned Monday’s report in the Adelaide Advertiser headed ‘Labor to target Pyne’s safe seat’.
As a former Labor candidate for Sturt, I welcome this initiative. It didn’t happen in my day (1987) but our ragtag band still achieved a two-party vote of 43.3 per cent. Tony Barca probably didn’t get a lot of help in 2004, either, and his vote was almost identical, 43.2 per cent despite the Latham handicap.
According to the Advertiser, figures from the 2006 state election, on federal boundaries, show Sturt with a 54.2 per cent lead for the Liberal Party. It should be remembered that 2006 was a very strong year for state Labor, which won most of the seats which make up federal Sturt. That last 4 per cent is the hard part. The south-eastern end of Sturt is tiger country for Labor candidates. The burghers of Burnside do not budge.
Sturt emerged in 1949, stretched across the eastern suburbs of Adelaide. The western end has working class areas and a large Italian population. Most of the electorate is solidly middle class, like Don Dunstan’s old bailiwick of Norwood which is becoming more trendy and less Labor oriented by the minute.
Over more than 55 years, Labor has had just two moments of glory in Sturt. In 1954, the veteran Labor statesman Norman Makin returned from ambassadorial duties in Washington and polled 53 per cent of the two-party vote to defeat the Liberals’ inaugural member, Keith Cameron Wilson. An unfavourable electoral redistribution had Makin scurrying to Bonython and Wilson easily regained the seat in 1955.
Wilson cruised through the next three elections before accepting a knighthood and passing the seat on to his son, Ian Bonython Cameron Wilson, in 1966. Labor that year had a glamour candidate – Norwood footballer and soon-to-be psychiatrist Keith Le Page. But Vietnam War euphoria was overwhelming and Labor recorded a record low two-party vote for Sturt, 33.1 per cent.
The next election, in 1969, was extraordinary. It was Gough Whitlam’s first election as leader and the Liberals were on the nose in South Australia because the Playford gerrymander had brought down the Dunstan Government the previous year. A savage backlash tipped the Liberals out of Adelaide, Grey, Kingston – and Sturt, where the larrikin watersider Norm Foster won by a few hundred votes. Labor also picked up the new electorate of Hawker for an 8-4 seat advantage in South Australia, reversing the 8-3 superiority previously enjoyed by the Liberals.
Ironically, Foster was a rare Labor casualty in the 1972 It’s Time election. Ian Wilson was on his game this time and gained 53 per cent of the vote.
Senator-to-be Graham Maguire polled 48 per cent for Labor in 1974, Don Dunstan’s elder son Andrew got 45.4 per cent in 1980 and Sergio Ubaldi, despite rather than because of his slogan ‘U beauty, Ubaldi!’, netted 46.7 per cent in 1983.
Otherwise, Wilson was pretty much untroubled until Young Liberal upstart Christopher Pyne, 25, usurped him in a preselection coup and scored the first of his five easy victories in 1993.
Labor has had 23 tilts at Sturt using 19 different candidates for just two successes. Only twice has Labor chosen a woman – Ann Pengelly (43.2 per cent in 1977) and Lindsay Simmons (41.8 per cent in 2001, and now state member for the previously Liberal seat of Morialta, which is within Sturt).
We are now told that Labor is courting a high-profile footballer, a media personality and a young and successful Italian businesswoman as its new candidate for Sturt. Good luck. The party has tried a high-profile footballer, Italians and women before without success. Maybe now, under the Rudd-Gillard dream team, the time is ripe.
Sean, as far as I can determine there was no provision for those parties up for deregistration to escape it by nominating their 500 members. Rather, those with 500 members would need to be deregistered and then re-register. So PHON (DNSW) would have had to make a claim to the AEC to show they were related to a former parliamentary party. “Queensland Greens” presumably could have escaped deregistration by the same method had they (a) wished to and (b) made such a claim in time. As far as I can tell the timeframe for making such a claim was at least three months from the passage of the legislation on 22 June to the cutoff on 25 September.
However, aren’t Senators Brown and Milne not “Tasmanian Greens” (deregistered federally 2001) but “Australian Greens”?
Phil, I enjoyed your wonderful analysis of the electoral history of Sturt. A good read. I have a vague knowledge of where SA seats lay back until the 80s, but beyond that I have no idea. It was great to see more than half a century of Sturt politics laid out neatly for digestion.
Personally I see Pyne as being untroubled by anyone, high-profile or not, he has room to take a substantial swing and the bedrock of Liberal support in the southern end of the electorate is surely immoveable.
SA will enjoy a much more interesting 2007 election than other states, and I don’t believe my state bias is the only thing to make me say that. Kingston is the Liberal’s most marginal seat nationally, but Kym Richardson has been working hard and local labor insiders have told me he may be very hard to budge despite the aspirational outer-suburban territory he represents being hardest hit by interest rate rises and the IR fallout. The ALP have picked a candidate who polled well against Independent Bob Such MP, in the state election battle of Fisher which includes some of the northern territory of the electorate.
In Makin Trish Draper is retiring and Bob Day is taking over. It’s not my end of the city but from talking to colleagues Bob Day is a bit of a hero in the north eastern suburbs (he built most of the houses up there) and the battle between him and local Mayor Tony Zappia (the ALP’s candidate) will be both fierce and entertaining. Impossible to predict.
Wakefield is another seat which should be Labor held but which was squandered by the Latham debacle. David Fawcett picked it up by a few hundred votes in 2004 and like Richardson in Kingston he has worked the electorate hard. Will this count on election day? Again it is probably far too early to even be making a guess.
The two seats wooed by Latham in 2004, Hindmarsh and Adelaide, are painfully marginal, but should both be held. Hindmarsh is by Steve Georganas by just over 100 votes and he’ll shore that margin up with a positive swing. Adelaide is harder to predict, but I expect a similar result.
Boothby in the inner southern suburbs is one to watch. A margin of just over 5% makes Andrew Southcott look safe … but I think his margin could be cut to maybe 1%. If I were Labor I’d be focusing efforts on this electorate rather than Sturt.
Views anyone?
If there is any sort of swing on Adelaide and environs will turn the colour of Howard’s embarrased face. Adelaide, Hindmarsh, Makin, Wakefield and Kingston are all so marginal, Labor will consider them won and put all efforts into Boothby and Sturt to paint the whole town Red.
The key will be the ability of the major parties to woo the Family First vote now running at ~6% in SA. Unlike the Greens, the FFP vote is reasonably directable, and all those juicy conservative votes will be very attractive.
The carrot will of course be Senate preferences, which I suspect are unlikely to be harvested by FFP, as I expect the the Liberal vote will drop below three quotas, which will mean there will be little conservative leverage to propell them past an increase ALP vote. But still such a deal will be attractive to them if it breaks the ALP nexus with the Greens, depriving them of a seat.
Antony: “The One Nation constitution registered in Queensland was exactly the same as the Commonwealth one, and the Acts at the time were the same. It was only invalid in Queensland because the party had a Federal Senator, not a state MP. If a party has MPs, it is fine to have a party without members, but not for parties with no MPs.”
The party had 11 MPs ?
Timeline (I think)
Early 1998, QLD Election 11MPs Elected
Late 1998 Fed Election 1 Senator Elected
I don’t see how the situations are different ?
On another topic, The Liberals for Forests are a bogus preference harvesting party and their de-registration is a good thing. Hopefully they stay that way.
Just thinking.. so the Nuclear Disarmament Party is in no danger of de-registration ?
Nora, they didn’t have 11 MPs when they were registered before the 1998 election. They had 11 MPs after the election. The civil case that de-registered the party was based on the party having no MPs and not having 500 members when first registered.
Ben, NSW has abolished the seperate registration for parties with MPs. All parties under the NSW Act, whether represented in parliament or not, must have 750 members.
Nora, one extra time-line element. Pauline Hanson elected 1996 and forms One Nation as an already sitting MP. That’s how they got registered Federally.
In talking about Sturt, I forgot to mention that the main benefit for Labor of a strong challenge to Christopher Pyne is that it may force him to concentrate on his own turf. Pyne is a strong campaigner and last time backed Simon Birmingham to the extent that he failed by just over 100 votes in what otherwise could have been a comfortable win for Labor’s Steve Georganas in Hindmarsh. Georganas and Kate Ellis in Adelaide are excellent sitting members and should have few worries. As for Boothby and the more marginal Liberal seats, more later.
I think that a few people are counting their chickens a little here, remember no one can stuff up quite like the labor party. If anything we are more likely to see Hindmarsh and Adelaide go Liberal than Wakefield and Makin go Labor. The ALP should care more about losing what it has rather than wasting money on sitting members in safe seats.
The NDP got two MPs elected, as far as I know, Jo Vallentine in WA in 1984 (who later co-founded the Greens WA), and a guy in NSW in 1987 in the double dissolution.
With the Greens, WA and NSW both can claim to have both previously-elected and currently elected MPs. In the case of WA, they had Senators at a time when they weren’t part of the Australian Greens. I’m still scratching my head over how Victoria got registered.
Didn’t the High Court find that the NDP guy elected from NSW was not properly elected? (I forget the precise details.)
Sacha, you are referring to Robert Wood, whose election was overturned on the basis that he was a UK citizen. The vacancy was filled by Irina Dunn. Adam Carr explains: “Dunn was nominated by the NDP on the understanding that she would resign her place when Wood had become an Australian citizen and thus eligible to be appointed to the Senate. When she declined to do so, she was expelled from the NDP and sat as an Independent”.
Regarding the NDP it was Robert Woods who was elected. Jo Vallentine was a member of the NDP at her election, but became an Independent soon after (following the internal disputes who the SWP are often accused of bringing on – but thats another story!). In relation to the Vic Greens, it may well be that Christine Milne has decided to be a ‘Victorian Green’ for the purposes of the registration, as Senator Brown has always called himself “an Australian Green” (and run as such). Qld Greens would have lost their registration as they have never had a Federal MP, nor could they find one who would say they were. They may or may not seek registration.
Another party caught in this is the Tasmanian Liberal-front party ‘Brendan Rayner’s Green Liberals’ who were seeking registration last year (having 500 “members”), but now will fail the registration test. Also, the Progressive Labour Party will not be able to re-register due to their name, even if they can muster 500 members. The Republican Party I understand will seek reregistration, and as they had over 500 (but not 750) qualified members when seeking to maintain NSW registration, so should be able to manage it. Socialist Alliance should also be able to manage the 500 as well, but I don’t think ‘No GST Party’ or ‘Custodial Parents’ will bother (or get over the line in time for the next Federal election).
Irina Dunn was actually a member of a party after leaving the NDP – the “Irina Dunn Environment Independents” which were registered in 1989 and deregistered in 1992. This period of electoral history (around the mid-80’s to mid 90’s) is littered with small enviro parties, some friendly to each other, some not. The list on the AEC website makes fascinating reading – http://www.aec.gov.au/_content/who/party_reg/deregistered/index.htm
Targeting Sturt certainly seems a quixotic undertaking! If South Australian Labor can deliver Kingston, Wakefield and Makin, I’m sure all in the Federal Party will consider the State Branch to have done a very good job indeed. A net contibution of three seats (provided they hold Adelaide and Hindmarsh) to the 16 needed nationally is surely all that’s expected of them and maybe they’d do best to just make sure they achieve that! Those three pick-ups would give Labor a 6-5 advantage in SA seats, surely the best they can hope for given the State’s 2PP totals for Labor over the past few decades.
As an aside, three seats will be more than two much richer State Branches are likely to contribute. The Victorian Party might win McMillan, but it’s next two most obvious targets, Deakin and Corangamite, are hardly Labor-friendly territory. The NSW Party will have two easy-to-spot targets, Greenway and Eden-Monaro. But where to then? Page without a candidate like Harry Woods is very unlikely; Lindsay, Bennelong and Wentworth impossible given the profile of the sitting Libs, no matter how much the redistributions in the latter two might make Labor think they’ve got a chance. So for NSW Labor to contribute a third pick-up to the national total, we’re looking at Dobell, Robertson or Macquarie, all requiring swings of 6% or more. Having to also defend post-redistribution Parramatta and coming off an expensive State election, I think NSW’s contribution might make three seats in much smaller South Australia look like a real bounty!
Dave B, the redistribution has put Greenway beyond doubt – Malcolm Mackerras estimates that its margin is now 11 per cent (hasn’t Louise Markus done well for herself). Macquarie is now a notional Labor seat with a margin of 0.5 per cent; conversely, Parramatta is now a notional Liberal seat with a margin of 1.1 per cent on the boundaries as originally proposed, although these were altered slightly after the consultation process. The margin in Lindsay is now 2.9 per cent – not impossible, no matter how much we all love Jackie Kelly. The table I compiled on this post might interest you, despite being based on the original proposal.
Thanks William, I hadn’t seen those figures on NSW. Maybe NSW Labor can go +4!
I live in Cowper and despite my best hopes, Labor certainly won’t be taking this seat, so it’s hard for me to imagine pick-ups in any of the seats around or below it on your list. Will be interesting to see what happens to Morris Iemma’s grip on the Central Coast state seats in March, perhaps that will give us some indication on whether Dobell, Paterson and Robertson will really be in play for Rudd.
The Changes to Parramatta were almost purely cosmetic.
It just meant the City Office Space was back in the electorate, and would have only affected a few electors (and made marginal difference to the swing).
Queenslander is right. The Labor Party certainly knows how to shoot itself in the foot. And no one really expects the Rudd-Gillard electoral honeymoon to last at current levels for more than a few months. But though it’s far too early to prognosticate, it’s probably fair enough to suggest that Howard is rather more tarnished than last time and that Rudd will do better than Latham. Interest rates won’t play so well for the Liberals in 2007; climate change is a big new issue; Rudd should be attractive to Family First voters (who tipped David Cox out of Kingston in 2004 and are a strong force in Makin); our Iraq involvement is on the nose; and petrol prices may well go up again. Against that, Labor now has to contend with Liberal sitting members in Kingston and Wakefield, as well as a cleanskin Liberal candidate in Makin (where the vulnerable Trish Draper was let off lightly last time). If there’s any kind of swing on, these three seats should go to Labor – but don’t put your house on it yet.
Phil what does it mean to ‘prognosticate’? I think you have just invented a word, mate ….
Prognosticate means to predict, usually on the basis of known information.
I talked to Pyne not so long ago… in northern Sturt (working/middle class), he has been experiencing a small swing towards him, while in Southern Sturt (trendy Burnside), Greens votes (”doctors wives”) have saw a small swing against him.
The seat is takeable and Pyne’s reaction, should it fall, would be priceless.
I think Family First preferences may be key to winning the next federal election. You can see in the Victorian Election all the swinging ALP voters moved to Family First before moving on to the Liberals as preferences. I’m sure some conservative churn was involved but I think half the Family First result was ex-Labor, thus the 2% 2PP.
John Howard may stay in power on the back of disgruntled Liberals voting Family First and coming back to JH as preferences.
When people are ready/almost ready to throw a government out, there is often a rise in third party vote as voters choose to plump for a third party, such as the DLP in 1972, Dems in 1980, 1990 and 1996. (I’m probably a bit off the mark here).
Thus Family First preferences could be critical.
I’m not saying FF will set the world on fire, but 6% is quite possible. The Greens may get 10% but Family First is more of a stepping-stone party of left-right transition than the Greens (ALP -> Greens, prefs -> ALP = nil effect)
Antony: On Pauline Hanson/One Nation, thanks, I’m with you now.
As the second sentence quoted here suggests, the Advertiser had it back to front.
I’ve crunched the numbers, and it was Labor who would have won Sturt on last year’s state election figures. With somewhere between 54 and 55 per cent of the two party preferred vote.
http://compulsoryvote.googlepages.com/sturt.html
Nora,
There was no rise in the DLP vote in 1972. The vote fell from 6.0 per cent in 1969 to 5.3 per cent in 1972 (or from 11.1 per cent in the 1970 Senate election).
It is as unwise to use State Results to predict federal ones, as it is to use federal ones to predict state ones…
Though the fact that voters vote differently and sometimes at high margins says a lot about last 8 years for State Liberal Parties and the Federal ALP
If parties had to have been, at some point, a “parliamentary party” (at either state or federal level) before this legislation was introduced, then why are Liberals for Forests on the chopping block? Wasn’t Janet Woollard (MLA for Alfred Cove in WA) elected as a Liberals for Forests member?
only federal MPs count for registration.
Quick statement: this deregistration business is crap! Can’t it be stopped?
* Dave: No.
* Re South Australia: much as we would all love to see the Honourable Christopher Maurice turn a deep shade of puce on losing his seat, I think Labor would be well-advised to concentrate on wining back Wakefield and Kingston, seats where Rudd’s brand of Christian earnestness should play well. The only other SA seat I would put money into would be Makin, although I agree that Labor missed its best chance there in 2004.
* Does anyone here have any local knowledge of the situation in Calare and Macquarie? Which one will Andren contest? Is Kerry Bartlett standing again? Who is Labor running against him?
*Is Jackie Kelly retiring or not?
To Adam,
I think Andren is contesting Macquarie, if he did not Labor would win the seat in a caner. However Andren has a chance in a contest against Labor.
I’m not totally sure, I think so, if she did Labor has a chance of picking up Lindsay.
Andren refuses to comment on the issue until after the NSW Election. However I suspect he’ll run in Macquarie as his chances are better in a “labor-like” electorate than in the new Calare.
The new Calare is most likely to be conservative as it takes up nearly half the state. John Cobb, the current Parkes Nationals MP intends to run in the new Calare.
You can’t tell me with an electorate the size of the new Calare the AEC is independent or that it is good for democracy.
And we’re all better off with independents in power than out.
While Andren could win either seat, I would think Calare is an easier option. Andren will get significant media coverage of his campaign in Calare but not Macquarie. Half of the new Macquarie, the area he does not currently represent, gets all its television and radio from Sydney. That means no coverage on local television news or on local radio talkback. That is the opposite of the position if he runs in Calare.
“You can’t tell me with an electorate the size of the new Calare the AEC is independent or that it is good for democracy.”
Well there are a couple of very large electorates – eg Kalgoorlie, Grey, Farrer, Maranoa, Kennedy and the outback NT one. I don’t think that their sizes have much to do with the independence of the AEC.
I also reject any suggestion that the NSW boundaries were influenced by political considerations. The fact is that western NSW is losing propulation and designing seats that conform to community of interest is very difficult. This solution is as good as any, although I regret the unnecessary loss of the name Gwydir.
I agree that Andren can probably win whichever seat he contests, and I agree with Antony’s points on why he should probably contest the new Calare rather than Macquarie – but I was asking if anyone *knows* which one he is going to contest, to which the answer seems to be no. Also no-one knows whether Bartlett or Kelly will stand again. OK.
I’d bet on both Bartlett and Kelly standing in 2007, especially given comments in the Blue Mountains Press (Bartlett) after redistribution, and in the Sydney Papers (Kelly) at the time of the Howard/Costello blip.
For anyone who thinks that it’s really easy to design a reasonable set of boundaries given all the restrictive criteria, I suggest that they actually try and do it themselves. It might be more difficult than it seems.
Suburban electorates, and much of the new Macquarie is this, are not good for independents. Remember Susan Davies in 2002. I know its fun to endlessly speculate about indivdual seats but by and large they go with the swing. Rudd, like Howard in 1996, is the type of leader who will induce a fairly uniform response across the electorate.
This is a rather new issue and maybe should have its own thread, but there are federal implications.
Going through the Vic state election results I noticed that some seats did not have nearly as many voters as was predicted by the boundaries commission when they drew up the stte upper house seats. Looking further, I found that the whole state was actually about 60,000 voters down on the commission’s expectations (I shouldn’t really say they predicted, as they just used data supplied to them).
In fact, total enrollment had only grown by 8,000 or some such figure in 20 months from when the redistribution process started.
Now Victoria’s population has grown vastly more than this. Consequently I conclude that either very few new people have been enrolled, or else vast numbers of people have been kicked off the roll so that the proportion of the eligbile population on the roll fell significantly over that time.
An extra 60,000 voters, spread fairly evenly across the state would probably not have changed the election result much, but if the federal election is closer (as I anticipate) it could matter. And given the legislation changes preventing people getting on the roll after the election is called the issue is even more serious.
Does anyone know why it is that the electoral roll has not matched the rise in population in the last two years in Vic, and whether the situation is the same in other states?
In response to Stephen L’s comments above.
Much of the growth of Victoria’s population has come about through overseas immigration and overseas temporary residents (i.e. foreign students). Under the constitution apportionment is based on population not voters. Only Australian citizens can vote though non citizens and non voters (those under 18) are still counted for apportionment purposes.
Therefore states such as Victoria and NSW where there are high numbers of resident non citizens or Queensland which has a younger population profile have average electorate sizes that are smaller than SA for example where in the last 30 years there has been little immigration and the demographic profile is older.
Once the number of seats has been apportioned between states, the distribution between seats is determined by enrolled voters. In the Victorian case, the numbers are possibly skewed because the AEC normally does a roll update in the 6-12 months before an expected e;ection and the Victorian poll would have missed this.
Quick note
What is happening in the labor seat of Brand ? who is replacing the bomber for the labor party?
The margin is 4.7% .
No-one called Burke, one can be fairly certain.
Brand has never been a particularly safe seat for Labor and Beazley nearly lost it in 1996 (perhaps due to his carpetbagging antics). The coming federal election could be a bad one for Labor in WA if they aren’t very careful. Swan and Cowan and both at considerable risk. Adding Brand to that mix would mean stretching campaign funds and meaning that marginal Liberal held seats (Stirling, Hasluck and to a lesser extent Kalgoorie) may have to be ignored in order to shore up Brand, Swan and Cowan.
there is just no way at all labor can win by focusing on Cowan, Brand and Swan, they really have to look after themselves.
Hasluck, Stirling and other seatins including maybe Don Randall’s seat (whose name escapes me briefly) needs to be the focus.
And without the benefit of targetted electorate polling you would have to say the fabulous 2 pp numbers Beazley had for most of last year plus the bump / bounce Rudd has got would shift the focus again (for example on those numbers for most of the last year Hasluck is just a Labor gain – even before local factors like the brickworks and the actual sitting member are taken into account).
“The Qld greens are on the deregistered list, and I would assume this is because they failed to get the paperwork lodged in time.”
Just to clear this up: There was no paperwork to lodge. This deregistration was automatic and unavoidable, and the Q Greens can reregister at no cost if they choose. And they may not, because they don’t contest Federal elections as Qld Greens. Neither the SA Greens nor the Tas Greens are registered federally (http://www.aec.gov.au/_content/who/party_reg/registered/index.htm)
The biggest pain out of all this though, is the damage done to the Q Greens reputation, within the party and without. The number of queries I’ve fielded about the competence of the Party’s management that ‘allowed’ this to happen is quite disheartening.
d
Last I heard, the word was that the Brand preselection would go to Gary Gray, the party’s national secretary from 1993-9 and current director of corporate affairs at Woodside.
Dave S Says: ” The coming federal election could be a bad one for Labor in WA if they aren’t very careful.” I take it you are a Western Australian. I won’t hold that against you (joke!!!!). As a Victorian and obviously not on the scene over there, could explain why Labor could do badly in WA? Are there any Federal poll figures that you’ve seen of recent times that indicate this? Just curious and somewhat surprised that Labor could do poorly in that state.
Beazley being leader boosted the ALP vote in the west in 2001, and there was a strong (and correct) expectation in my circles that not being leader would detract from it in 2004 (hence a swing of over 5% in the West against the ALP last time).
I would imagine a similar thing may be on the cards again. Small States have small state issues to throw into any mix. Dumping a local leader for a Queenslander and a Victorian could do something.
The West also has strong economic performance, very low unemployment, and the weakest re-election result for a state ALP government in the country.
The West today suggests the left is to get behind Sharon Jackson (former Member for Hasluck) if she wants Swan. It was never clear she wanted Hasluck again, but rumors have had her running again there.
Whether Mr Gray would want to run in Hasluck would be an interesting question. The West also has David Ritter, ALP candidate for Pearce last time expressing an interest in any winnable seat.
Magpies – um are you suggesting down an additional 5% on the last result or similar levels to the last result ie down 5% on the 2001? That you correlate the vote with Kim would no doubt please him but is there any evidence for it being Kim rather than other factors?
I’m also not at all sure you are reading the Gallop wins all that well – the miracle election result other labor leaders got in the second election arguably came to Gallop in his first, defeating an incumbent Government in reasonably good economic times – and in a fundamentally undemocratic system.
I still feel at this time based on 2pp results, without any internal targetted polling to help me, labor would not be worried at all about existing seats on the basis it would be hard to do worse than 2004, would be pencilling in Hasluck and maybe even Stirling as wins and looking at the next bracket of seats for winnable coalition targets. And Howard looks like he wont be lucky enough to avoid a Feb interest rate rise so looking at Hasluck, Stirling and maybe Canning there are a lot of hurting mortgages in that belt and even if Howard forgets they will not have forgotten the ‘mortgage calculator’ scam ‘no interest rate rise under howard’ line they were blanket bombed with last time.
Thanks for the info..
The Lib candidate for Brand is Phil Edman? whats the back ground here?
He stood before in the last election
The conventional wisdom seems to be that the displeasure of West Australians at not having ‘their’ Kim at the top of the ALP ticket was expressed and fully exhausted at the last election, and that Rudd’s performance could hardly be worse than Latham’s in WA. Swan and Cowan, despite being on very tight margins, would therefore be safe.
Yet like WSM, and from over here in NSW, and having met a great many, VERY parochial West Australians, I just can’t shake the doubt. Can’t forget that Kim resigned the leadership voluntarily three years before the 2004 election, and his leadership ballot loss to Latham didn’t actively remove him from the leadership like his recent loss to Rudd. If West Australians were looking for a sign of rejection, the absence of Kim this time round, given the circumstances, could hurt just as much as last time round.
Can a West Australian give us a low down on the mood over there re a Kim-less ALP?
I wasn’t suggesting 5%… That would be crazy.
I have heard some speculation about Cowan (with a retiring popular local MP) being available.
I would say its more a burke mood than kim mood
I think too much emphasis is being put on the impact of Kim’s departure on Labor’s fortunes in WA. Western Suburbs Magpies Says: “Beazley being leader boosted the ALP vote in the west in 2001, and there was a strong (and correct) expectation in my circles that not being leader would detract from it in 2004 (hence a swing of over 5% in the West against the ALP last time).” You’re talking about an election tha
Sorry, pushed the wrong key. Let me continue. You’re talking about an election that was a disaster for Labor across the country. WA was no exception. I think Rudd will achieve a swing to Labor this election. To what degree I’m not sure but I would expect WA to reflect this swing as well. The Burke trouble over there will pass over – besides all around the country you see people distinguishing between state and Federal issues when it comes to voting. Nothing I’ve seen so far in this discussion has convinced me that WA is a problem for Federal Labor but I can be persuaded with convincing evidence.
Did I understand No Way to say that Sharryn Jackson is challenging Kim Wilkie in Swan? This would be folly of a high order. Not only is Wilkie a highly capable MP, he is also defending one of Labor’s most marginal seats. I can’t find anything at the West Oz’s website about this. Did No Way perhaps mean Brand or Cowan?
It’s the parochial nature of the small states Gary. I’m a South Australian, but my state is similar to WA and I have a lot of connections over there. They are annoyed that Kym has been shunted out. The fact that he is not standing in Brand will be a strong reminder to the Brand electorate that Kym was treated badly by Labor, the seat is not safe, it probably won’t fall, but it could.
The state government is not overly popular in WA. The stench of Burke hangs nastily in the air and the Outcomes Based Education system is an ongoing debacle. These factors, combined with the good factors that can be attributed to the Libs could be a toxic mix for the ALP in the West. Rudd is not likely to resonate with voters over there. He’s an east coast boy and I don’t believe Labor can win the election without gaining at least 2 seats in WA. That won’t happen.
Just looking at some Eastern state press articles from Piers Ackerman. Piers has said that Edman has wide growing support . Laurie Oaks also did an article in the bulletin that hes a knock around bloke . Said him and kimbo have met a few times over a cup of coffee on local issues.
Labour independent candidate Gerald Kettle also shared his office with Edman.
Sounds like Brand is an interesting pastie.
I’m pretty sure No Way does mean Brand. Nothing in The West about Swan.
That’s all speculation on your part Dave. In 1983 Labor sacked the Queenslander Hayden as Leader and went on to a landslide in Qld under Hawke. And Kim (only in SA is it spelled Kym) was NOT treated badly by Labor. He was indulged for far too long in many people’s opinion. The real problem for Labor in WA is its conservatism – which is why Mad Mark was poison there, and why St Kevin the Blessed should do much better.
Anyone who believes anything Piers Ackermann says about anything deserves all they get.
Adam
It just dosent seem to be the normal story in regards to candidates and federal electorates.
The libs in WA did get more of the primary vote in 2004 than any where else in Australia but in brand the primary vote gain was close to 16% to Edman.
The Howard interest rate scare campaign probably also had a bit to do with it of maybe 5%. Kim also wasnt the Leader . Latham however did spend some time in Brand with Kim.
Regional partnerships also had a part to play as well
The reason the Liberal vote in Brand rose by 15.9% was that in 2001 the “Liberals for Forests” polled 11.2% and One Nation polled 6.1%, and most of that vote went back to the Libs in 2004.
Adam
Yep , just had a look at the AEC results for 2001.
In conclusion:In 2001 One nation and “Libs for Forrest” gave there preferences to Labor and in 1998 the same thing happen again.
However in 2004 One nation still had 2.7% of the vote and gave prefences to the Libs . and the other 11.2% of libs for Forrest and say 3.4% of one nation voters from 2001 also change there minds and voted for the libs.
I agree with you but why did one nation and Libs for forrest voters give preference the libs in 2004 and not in 2001 or 1998?
sorry some very careless mistakes – but William got it right.
And no evidence at all but my feeling is that West Australians who aren’t rusted on Labor voters had an affection for Kim but not a passion – and I would be surprised if we slipped from last time. Given my track record I’ll avoid naming electorates but surely Labor would have to be looking at and for ’suprise wins’ rather than suprise losses in WA.
There could be a demographic swing factor in Cowan but again coming of a low base should make this pretty unimportant. Much more important is the number of interest rate rises, the nature of the budget and the timing of the election.
Polarising Labor leaders; Chifley, Whitlam, Keating, Latham don’t do well in Qld & WA. Labor will easily hold Brand. As for the Liberal in Brand being a good bloke, everybody in South West Coast in Vic said the same about the Labor candidate, didn’t stop the seat going with the swing.
If Gary Gray is looking like getting preselected does anyone know if he is still denying the existence of the Greenhouse effect? Now that Howard is starting to be embarrassed by his lack of action on global warming I bet he would just love to have Labor run one of Australia’s more prominent denialists, someone who thinks pretty much every Noble Prize winner on Earth is a liar or an idiot.
It is amazing with all the media on the subject of Brand in relation to Sharon Jackson and Gary Grey .
Where the media fails in this regard is that people living in Brand share a different view.
Neither of these two labor icons live or have ever lived in Brand. Phil Edman a councillor for the City of Rockingham and a resident is the liberal candidate for 2007 election and was in 2004 election.
Without being completely bias it seems the media is pushing that aside.
Geoff R says that the Lib may be a good bloke but if you look at the Vic it didnt matter at all.
Edman was been responsible for lobbying for facilites for the locals for some years with success.
My point is that i wouldnt under estimate the little people.
Look at what happen with Matt Birney in a safe labor WA seat in Kalgoorlie.Which was labor for over 100 years
The difference between Grey and Jackson and the Lib Candidate is that Grey and Jackson have a national profile.
4.7% is marginal and I would think that now the bomber has gone back to teaching the margin may be even be smaller.
Hasluck ,Stirling, Swan,Cowan and Brand have no parliamentry funds for labor . So money will have to be carefully spread out or directed at seats they can win like Swan and Hasluck.
Brand is also a seat labor could keep with enough funds . I would hate to be the State labor director in WA, difficult decisions. However once labor does a poll for the different seats you may find which seats get first class swan and Hasluck are achievable
Kevin Rudd is in the West Australian today backing Gray as the candidate in Brand. Will be a good test for Rudd of his standing in the WA party, particularly with his views on uranium at odds with the State ALP.
These are some of his quotes:
“The reason I want him there is because he is a first-class candidate with first-class business credentials and strong links to the mining sector.
“He is also an excellent representative of his home State, Western Australia, and for all those reasons I have spoken to the national and State secretaries of the Labor Party and expressed my view that I want him to replace Kim Beazley in Brand — and I expect that to happen.â€
Les D also forgets something about Bomber in Brand. He never lived in the seat, and parachuted himself into Brand from Swan in 1996 when a redistribution made Swan almost impossible for him to win. The voters of Brand didn’t seem to mind having a sitting member who didn’t live in the seat, and one who spent much of his time on the East Coast.
Trying again and again pretending it is only a WA election – and Jackson and Gray as good as pre-selected last night, for Hasluck and Brand, respectively. Mark Hasluck a win and Brand an easy retain.
I perhaps foolishy note my disagreement with Mumble who is not looking at the outer suburbs for change – I disagree – Labor has in WA (very roughly at the top end) up to 60% of the 2 pp vote at a State level in booths it only got a 40% 2pp at the last Fed election. There aren’t enough leafy liberals to replace this amount of vote if labor has really lost it for ever.
And no-one has explained to me exactly why they are voting so differently at State and Federal levels.
I’m much more comfortable at a broad level with a sticking with the team in goodish time theory; than I am with the Fed tight financial control (as if Howard has ever delivered that) / state for services theory that goes around.
Swan and Cowan should be easy retains on either theory though looking at where they are.
So until internal polling is leaked showing seat specific trends you would be looking for big money to go to Stirlling and somewhere further up the pendulum. Of course Hasluck and Swan would stay marignal campaigns they are and can’t be ignored.
I’m a little skeptical about the whole Kim factor pulling up the Labor vote when he’s leader and WA parochialism kicking in and punishing Labor when Kim’s not leader. For starters, Howard isn’t from WA either, so shouldn’t that cancel each other out? Perhaps it’s more a case of the Labor vote being inflated when Kim was leader and it returning to more stable levels when he’s not. In which case WA is a naturally conservative state where Labor should be content with having its current 5 seats. But I’m not too warm to that idea either, history doesn’t seem to vindicate that theory the same way as it does in QLD.
Instead, I just think 2004 was a nightmare for Labor in WA because they had one Mark Latham as leader who, in my recollection, barely visited the state. Without allowing himself access to the WA media market (i.e. The West Australian) Latham sold himself short and sacrified critical WA votes. Combined with low unemployment, a resources boom and, ergo, overall solid economic conditions, why would WA voters swing to Labor? In these circumstances, the rejection seems logical.
2007 won’t be as bad for 2004 in WA. My guess is swings to Labor in Stirling and Hasluck and, given their thin margins, probably gains. Kim Wikie in Swan will survive another day to fight another battle. No chance for Labor in Canning, so they’ll have to wait it out until 2010 before they can be in the hunt there. The big question mark is Cowan. The incumbent is retiring whose personal popularity undoubtedly saved this seat for Labor. I think alot of Liberals-who-voted-for-Edwards will come back to the fold. Assuming this swing is offset by voters returning to the Labor fold after the Latham debacle, this seat is safe for Labor. Labor just has to hope that Graham Edwards isn’t as popular as convention makes him out to be.
I think that the ’safe incumbents due to good times’ theory that No Way refers to is far to simplistic. While we have had economic good times internationally speaking it has been quite scary for a lot of people.
I was handing out for Labor in the 2001 election when an old guy came up to me and said sorry he usually votes labor but that he’s worried that the Indian navy, which he saw during the war, was going to invade us so he had to vote liberal.
So while the economic good times are largely continuing, especially if oil prices stay down, I think the fear of terrorism that dominated 2001 and was a big issue in 2004 is starting to quickly wane. Once that does the need for a leader willing to send people to war for no clear purpose diminishes
If the ALP scraps its no new mines policy then that there will probably be a small swing from Labor to the Greens which may get them over the line in a few inner city seats and could leave them with a bi-cameral balance of power.
If the AlP dumbs a non residential candidate in Brand the seat will become liberal
Labor’s primary vote is down 2 per cent in the latest Roy Morgan poll, but it still leads by 15 per cent 2pp, 57.5 per cent to 42.5. A lot of Liberals must be apprehensive.
The Liberals will become seriously worried if NSW Labor can substantially limit the electoral damage, which should be coming there way in spades at this election, by running an essentially anti IR campaign. Given that the Federal Liberal top guns will be there as well, a relatively easy Labor win in NSW will turn out to be the blueprint for a Federal campaign. Hell, if you can save the Iemma government on the “strength” of Howard government policies what can you do against the Howard government itself?
I believe there will be some drop off in the polls for Labor. There will be a honeymoon period. However, I believe there has been a collective sigh of relief in voter land that now we have an alternative to vote for and many of those people will be hard to swing back to Howard. I would expect Labor’s primary vote to hover between 43 and 45 percent of the vote from now on. In anyone’s terms that is a winning margin once translated into two party preferred. The Liberals will have to work overtime to peg Labor back.
I agree that if a strong IR campaign can save the worthless hide of the NSW Labor government, then Howard should start to be seriously worried. But (and I’m sure I will be saying this again many times), it is far too early to start making sweeping statements about an election which is still probably 9 or 10 months away. Let’s see how St Kevin’s ratings hold up once the Murdoch press come back from holidays and starts to monster him.
Adam,
The Australian has given Kevin Rudd a choice. In preparation for the possibility that the Liberals might one day lose office, The Australian’s policy is that there be two Liberal Parties for the voters to choose from – the current one and a paler ALP version. The campaign to take the Labor out of the Australian Labor Party has recommenced in earnest. If Kevin Rudd goes along with this, he won’t be monstered.
The Australian editorial remarked, “How Mr Rudd handles the unwinding of Mr Beazley’s deadly embrace with the union movement will be crucial to his long-term success†(5/12/2006). It went on to state, “Mr Howard immediately highlighted IR and trade union links as the wedge issue through which to undermine Mr Rudd.†This campaign was supported by Dennis Shanahan (“Howard presents the real challengeâ€), Paul Kelly (“Labor had to gamble but task is dauntingâ€), Steve Lewis (“Tough task for Labor neophytesâ€), Richard Gluyas and Joseph Kerr (“Rudd told: don’t maintain the rageâ€) ands Peter Switzer (“Ditch Beazley’s tough IR policy, Rudd toldâ€). That is a total of six articles in the one issue all advising Labor to forget about its raison d’etre. This will not doubt continue until the election.
The Australian’s campaign continued the next day. Its editorial stated, “Labor appears to have woken up. Mr Rudd is seeking to bring the Government to account for talking tough on national reform in health and education, but failing to deliver…In education, he was a critic of the Studies of Society and Environment syllabus, which failed to provide students with chronological frameworks for understanding the history of Australia…In Aboriginal affairs, the Goss government was able to overrule education bureaucrats to have the word “invasion” removed from history texts. Mr Rudd was given responsibility to limit the impact of land rights claims. He has real conservative credentials on education. But Mr Rudd has also mounted a sustained attack on the Work Choices laws to preserve Labor’s link with the union movement while undermining the Government’s claim to be family-friendly.†(“Opposition back in the reform raceâ€, The Australian (editorial) December 06, 2006)
Its front page story managed to combine its campaign for two Liberal Parties with its campaign against the teaching profession.
“Also yesterday, Labor Party sources said Mr Rudd was likely to take an uncompromising position on political correctness in the education system and had spoken of placing the concerns of parents above those of pressure groups such as teachers’ unions.†(“Rudd calls on states to corner PMâ€)
Janet Albrechtsen added to the campaign:
“Ditch the working-class man and embrace aspirational, upwardly mobile new worker…
“Meanwhile, across the nation, men and women were in their factories, shops and offices just getting on with it, ignoring the downtrodden working-class man rhetoric of Beazley, Barnes and the ALP. It was a powerful reminder why Beazley’s mantra of being Mr Experience had become a synonym for Yesterday’s Man…
“The ALP is now a party of reactionaries. It represents an Australia that no longer exists…
“Rudd has a different role. He needs…pick the party up by the scruff of the neck, shake the unionist ticks and fleas off and reposition it at the centre of Australian life. That will necessarily offend the out-dated union mentality built around the myth of the unhappy worker.
“…the new Opposition Leader has committed Labor to Beazley’s backward path of ripping up Work Choices, restoring the power of unions. That makes him a loyal union friend rather than a protector of Australian workers….
“If Rudd can drag Labor back to the centre – tapping back into the changing nature of the working-class man and woman – they might just win the next election.†(“How to forge a modern Labor Partyâ€, Janet Albrechtsen)
Alan Wood naturally gave his support.
“Kevin Rudd’s industry policy agenda could have dangerous echoes of the Beazley-Crean era…
“Rudd has the opportunity to do that since he won against strong union opposition. But there is little evidence in what he has said since becoming leader of any intention to do so.†(“Waiting for new ideas to create the great divideâ€)
Paul Kelly added his analysis, but actually shoeds an astuteness which I have longed for members of the ALP to display in understanding what Labor has to do to win.
“Rudd proclaims “a new leadership style” for Australia yet he is poised to run a campaign in which Howard will cast Labor as the political wing of the industrial movement, an identity that is 100 years old, an identity that is about the past, not the future.
“The risk for Rudd when he upholds the IR policy, calls for an industry policy and talks up the need to save manufacturing is that he sounds like the Sunshine State’s Simon Crean…
“Rudd will try to wedge Howard. He will launch a frontal assault on Howard’s political fortress, his synthesis of economic liberalism and social conservatism. From his writings, Rudd wants to bring to a zenith Labor’s argument that Howard’s Work Choices undermines family values. So he will cast Labor’s policy not as a 100-year-old throwback but as proof that Howard’s market-based ideology will turn Australia into the wrong sort of nation. Herein lies Rudd’s idea of the “fork in the road” election.
“In political terms, Rudd seeks to mobilise a coalition of social democratic, conservative and Christian sentiment against Howard. He wants to fracture the voting coalition that has sustained Howard since 1996.†(“Rudd’s pitch to the conservativesâ€)
A few days later, there was more:
“Rudd’s strong stance and his careful instincts probably inhibit the most effective policy change he needs to dramatise his newness and to cripple Howard’s main critique: soften Labor’s industrial hard line by offering a concession on workplace agreements. This would outrage the unions and horrify much of the ALP…Softening Labor’s industrial hard line would totally transform perceptions of Rudd, his authority, his economic credentials, and if you have to nominate the one single action most likely to alarm Howard, this would be it.
“Rudd, however, may be a political prisoner to Kim Beazley’s structure. It is unclear how much he wants to change or can change the policy framework. The official Labor position, outlined by Beazley after his defeat, is that Labor is poised to win the election by teaming with the unions against Work Choices. Howard’s defence is built on this premise. He moved quickly last Monday to paint Rudd as a new face with an old policy. If Labor wants to fight on IR, then Howard will oblige.…
“The next successful ALP federal government will develop pro-market reforms where Howard has failed. That will be its historic mission. The sooner Labor faces this reality and talks this truth the better.†(Paul Kelly, “Rudd makes his standâ€, The Australian, 9/12/2006)
The editorialist re-inforced the message:
“From parliament to trades hall, much of the labour movement has lost touch with the electorate. The unions are desperate to defeat the Government’s workplace reforms and are intent on forcing Mr Rudd to campaign on what is a third-order issue for everybody but union officials. This will leave him open to the accusation that his credentials as an economic reformer are phony.†(“It’s time for Labor to follow the leader†(editorial), The Australian, 9/12/2006)
Another voice later joined the clamour to take Labor out of the Labor Party:
“Surely if Rudd recognises the economic powerhouse that is the non-unionised sector of the economy and is prepared to dedicate a portfolio to it, the corollary is he must also recognise that the union stranglehold over Australian workplaces cannot – and should not – be reinstated if he wins office…
“A softening of Labor’s position would weaken Howard’s capacity to attack the Opposition for getting in the way of job creation.†(Glenn Milne, “In for businessâ€, The Australian, December 11, 2006)
A week later, the campaign continued in two editorials on the same day:
“For years, Labor MPs and their paymasters in the craft and public sector unions have accused the Prime Minister of being a class warrior committed to punishing the poor, in part by reforming the labour market. Such nonsense cost Labor the last three elections. And Mr Howard is banking on Labor MPs trotting out the same inane arguments to lose the next one. He will probably get his wish if union leaders force Mr Rudd to campaign on a promise of reinstating union power… Canberra complains about the quality of school curriculums in essential subjects such as maths, science and English, and even convened a summit on teaching Australian history. But the Government has left the states to deal with the all-powerful education unions…For Mr Rudd to obey such apparatchiks, and make returning Australia to the old days of union-dominated workplaces his big election issue, would ensure another loss for Labor, allowing the Prime Minister again to portray Labor as the enemy of the reforms that have brought so much prosperity.†(“A Rudd awakening is what Labor needs†(editorial), The Australian, 19/12/2006)
“From 2000 to 2005 NSW received a tax windfall of $20 billion from GST and state taxes, but largely squandered this on extra recurrent spending and growing the public payroll.†(“The blame game†(editorial), The Australian, 19/12/2006)
The Australian never includes any figures on the long-term changes in spending or public sector salaries to justify its oft-repeated references to the supposed over-spending on the public sector. As for “all-powerful education unionsâ€, we can only wish!
For any Labor victory in the next election to be meaningful, Kevin Rudd will have to resist the pressure on the ALP to discard its 100-year old core of meaning. Industrial relations remain a key issue, and if the ALP backs down on this, we can ask what purpose there is in having a Labor Party.
Chris Curtis and Adam, everything you say is true but you’re overlooking one thing, The Australian is not read by the average voter. Its readership is relatively small. After the NSW election we will see if the IR issue is a potent issue or not. I believe Rudd will maintain Labor’s IR stance with minor changes.
As far as having the press monster you is concerned the Herald Sun tried to make life as difficult as possible for Bracks before and during the election and that is Victoria’s and Australia’s top selling newspaper. We know what happened there. Don’t make the mistake of crediting the press with more influence than they really have on the average voter. Voters make up their own mind.
Adelaide’s Sunday Mail reveals today that Labor is courting top-rating radio man Tony Pilkington to run against Christopher Pyne in Sturt. Pilko is said to have discussed with friend and Labor dealmaker Tom Koutsantonis MP the vulnerability of Pyne in Sturt, which on last year’s state election figures would be a Labor seat by 4.5 per cent (instead of a Liberal seat by 6.8 per cent). The Sunday Mail says Pilko “laughed off” the idea of exchanging his high-paying radio job for a tilt at becoming a backbencher. “There is no chance in the world of me running,” he is reported as saying.
Pilkington was mooted as a Labor candidate for Makin in 2001. Right-wing boss Don Farrell even took him to his local sub-branch meeting, to meet the troops, but that was less than a PR success when the sub-branch president asked the radio star: ” Who are you?” Nothing more was heard of the venture.
With Pilko out of the running for Sturt, Labor may still be considering a “high-profile former footballer” or a “young and successful Italian businesswoman” as its candidate. At least Labor is aiming a bit higher in Sturt than in knife-edge seats where the preselection process is all pretty humdrum. Gone are the days when South Australia produced members of the calibre of Mick Young, Ralph Jacobi, Neal Blewett, Chris Hurford, Gordon Bilney and Richie Gun (not to mention Clyde Cameron and Norman Makin).
Gary,
You are right about how few read The Australian, but Labor MPs read it, and it has already helped them dump Kim Beazley and back down on the independent contractors’ law, so I don’t put it past them to be spooked into backing down on other aspects of their IR stance if The Australian keeps up the pressure.
The thing that worries me with the IR laws is that they are so extreme that Labor’s vote should now be 60 per cent plus. This shows how much Australian society has already changed – and no, I don’t simply blame John Howard for this.
One lesson from Victoria, on which I admit to becoming rather monotonous, is that the previous Liberal Government and their IPA allies were so successful in changing the language in which people can think that the replacement Labor Government basically thinks the same way. If you read the way The Australian presents Labor’s education policies, you would realise that they would sound equally at home in the mouths of Liberals. There has been a massive shift in fundamental political attitudes in Australia in the past 15 years. The Australian, with its relentless campaigning, has to affect only some opinion leaders for the change to filter through to larger numbers of voters.
With the Family First vote rising – 4.3 percent in Victoria this last election, and almost 7 percent in the seats they ran in at the Queensland election, what effect will this have on the Federal election?
If they do another blanket preference deal with the libs this would seem to bode poorly for labor, no? Although if Labor can somehow manage to work a preference deal with them to somehow run even a split ticket Labor might have a fighting chance what with a sensible leader this time round.
The reason I mention this may be important is because at the Victoria election the “2% swing from Labor” was not a swing to Liberal but rather seemed to be a swing to Family First – if FF is picking up Labor voters and then sending the preferences to the Libs it could be bad news as 2% will mean a lot at this election.
What are your thoughts – my thinking is that Labors only chance this election is to do a deal of some kind with FF, as unpopular as that may be with some of the further left Labor members. On the other hand, obviously a lot of Laborites think FF is a good thing if they are jumping ship and starting to vote for the FF alternative.
The biggest issue with the ALP doing a deal with FF is a scare campaign by the Left over the repeat of the Feilding election. I’ve heard houndreds of ALP voters who said that they were voting ALP in VIC only because the ALP wouldn’t deal with extremists (their words) again. Also I’ve heard huge rumblings from the enviro/social movements (Not the Greens) about handing out for the Libs if the ALP deal with the ALP, and continue to do so until they get the message.
Wether it happens is an entirely different matter.
I wasn’t talking about The Australian, which I agree is mainly a vanity sheet for the Quadrant clique. I was talking about Murdoch’s sabre-tooth tabloids.
How misguided are these people who refer to FFP as an “extremist” party. FFP are a centrist party on socio-economic issues, conservative only wrt traditional family values. The fact that over 4% (not 2%) of the decline in the ALP vote in Vic went to FFP is testament to the fact that there is significant synergy with the ALP right and FFP. FFP are more akin to the DLP which managed a similar feat to Fielding at a state level. Each have synergy with Labor values. I expect the FFP dealing with ALP to continue.
The reasons for the blanket HoA deals between the Libs and FFP at the last Federal election were:
a. FFP rightly assessed that a Latham Labor controlled by the extreme Green would be a lethal cocktail for the country; and
b. Labor failed to engage with them, whereas Howard promised to do Family Impact Assessments on all legislation. Another one of Howard’s broken promises. FFP will be wiser this time.
As a professing Christian, Rudd will have appeal to FFP that Latham didn’t, and the difference in integrity compared to Howard will be like night and day.
Chris,
I believe what you are seeing is a more pragmatic Labor. For Beazley to have had any chance at the next election everything had to go his way. Labor knew Beazley was unpopular without The Australian telling them. Every other paper and poll was saying the same thing. The moment Beazley mage his Rove gaffe he was a dead man walking. I personally believe Labor has made the right move in regard to the leadership.
You are absolutely correct about their education policy and their back down on the independent contractors’ law but what they have done is read the electorate. In these cases and possibly a few more to come Labor must go with the electorate on certain issues. IR is unpopular with the electorate, why in the world would they change their policy on this? As I said at the beginning Labor is more pragmatic now and realises if you want to get into government to make the changes you and many others want to see made certain popular policies of the coalition need to be maintained. A fact of life I’m afraid.
Why is it that everyone refuses to believe it possible that the Right-wing parties can never be extreme, yet the Greens have always been.
I even heard the same people who are defending FF were the same sorts as those that were/are saying that One Nation wasn’t extreme.
Ray what you are basically saying is that people who want to burn lesbians at the stake just because they are lesbians are not extreme.
I might point out that the Greens (a so called extreme and sensationalist party) were telling people 14 YEARS AGO that we were running out of water and oil and climate change was real. You beleive now don’t you?
Maybe if people listened to the Greens more often better things would happen a lot sooner.
FFP immediately dissociated itself with the “burning lesbians” comment, if ever it was actually made. They are not a homophobic party. That said, they do believe that marriage (as per legal definition) should have a status commensurate with its unique function of procreation and nurture of children, and the concept of the family as the atomic unit of society.
One Nation however, were racist to the extreme, unlike FFP circa their stance on refugees etc.
FFP supports the green aganda of the Greens, but opposes many of its anti social/family policies.
One Nation wasnt racist or extreme
Global warming is NOT real
and Kevin Rudd is a smug arrogant little man with a mark latham size chip on his shoulder, and the country will learn this about rudd sooner rather than later (for our own sakes i hope so)
FF not extreme!!!!!!!!!!! No way. They take the Bible and some Victorian English social attitudes and blend them together into a nasty and deeply homophobic, discriminatory attack on the rights of human beings and hide it quite dishonestly behind the word ‘family’.
If marriage was a Christian institution (rather than a social institution the church decided to take control of sometime) the battle was lost when hetrosexual civil unions were recognised.
On the procreation / children raising analysis proposed in this post only fertile couuples intending to breed should be given a marriage licence. Clearly they don’t believe this rubbish themselves.
Nice they don’t actually want to burn lesbians to death, bit of a shame that the veener over the irrational and unchristian hate is so thin, and the deep and nasty homophobia so clear.
Queenslander, I realy realy, hope you are joking there.
Ray, I support your right to free spech – but don’t you ******* dare call The Greens anti-family. My family will be very upset.
I don’t know what page some of you guys are on, or what media fallacies you have been believing.
FFP is not anti-gay, they are pro marriage. They do not discriminate against homosexuals, but they do advocate for the rights of children to at least be given a chance of being nurtured with both their maternal and paternal influence in a family. Thus the added protection for the nucleus of that atomic unit, ie marriage. There was never any suggestion that this must be a church recognised insitution. No way No Way. And your suggestion that it be restricted to fertile couples is your concoction only, not mine or that of FFP.
The rationale can be defended on the basis of social function alone and quite independent of the religious contraints you unfairly ascribe.
So Ray you and FFP support equal legal and social rights and protections for gay and lesbian relationships – and can see no reason at all not to call them ‘marriage’?
This was not my understanding and if you and they fully support the rights of gay and lesbian people to be treated as equal human beings with exactly the same rights and protections for their relationships as the hetros get I apologise unreservedly and I am delighted to be wrong.
If in fact I was right and FF are dead keen on treating homosexual couples as some kind of lesser humans not entitled to the same legal protections and privledges in their relationships as a hetro couple then I am not the one who needs to apologise.
As for my construction – you said: ”
That said, they do believe that marriage (as per legal definition) should have a status commensurate with its unique function of procreation and nurture of children, and the concept of the family as the atomic unit of society.”
Now assuming that is logical your expression of the family is distinguishable from a gay or lesbian relationship only by the stupid legislation no doubt supported by FF types and the breeding function. Whether a hetrocouple is barren or not breeding by choice clearly they shouldn’t be allowed in the ‘marriage’ club if they are lacking the key ingredient you identified … you identified not me.
Now the reference to the legal definition incorporates, I assume because the statement does not make it explicit, the gotta be one man – one woman test – having sex as God instructs.
Now after a quick snide reference to Jacob and sons, particularly the story of Tamar and her twins (stars in the line of David), noting the chosen people the Christ and the new covenant starts out with a family and breeding stock that includes maids and amatuer prostitutes – I’ll come to my point – how (and you can bring the bible back if you need, you excluded it not me) other than homophobia do you get to the point you need a man and a woman in a marriage definition.
And even if you do why wouldn’t you extend all the rights and privledges currently associated with marriage to these relationships that fail whatever test you come up with.
Finally in my passion I point out that the most stupid things claimed on behalf of FF is some kind of crusade against the greens (I use your words) ‘anti-social – anti-family’ agenda. It is so absurd that it begins to make Bush truthiness convincing.
How could supporting basic human rights for all be an attack on any family – even if you pick a stupid excessively narrow definition that is relatively rare in any society over any substantial time frame.
Are you suggesting the lesbians next door some how threaten your marriage? Is this sacred institution, the cornerstone of the society you seek, so weak and fragile that it could crumble just because of what is going on – on the mattresses next door? i am very curious to know, and please no personal details, but I would love to know just how society is threatened by extending basic human rights to the boys or girls next door?
If indeed it is it is a far more fragile thing than I feared.
Let me conclude that there is one logical and consistent explanation for why someone might think the legal rights of the people that have sex next door should be less if they are the same sex – homophobia.
Now lets hope labor has the guts to stand up for the outcast and weak against iniquity and evil some would do to them. And lets hope labor helps keep them out of parliament.
A quick clarification – I love democracy even when it throws up idiots like Bush – so when I say ‘lets hope labor helps keep them out of parliament’ I do not mean to imply the will of the people should be thwarted, merely that Labor should ensure their ridiculously small vote doesn’t translate into seats, with the help of votes from good god fear labor voters who are happy to treat the people next door as human beings whatever sexual preferences or country of origin they have.
Okay, okay, time out… I seem to have started a flame war here!! I was trying to ask a legitimate question about strategy here and seem to have started a battle about the merits or lack of merits about Family First… that was not my intention…
My question was, will it be possible for Labor to win the coming election if they don’t do a preference deal of some kind with FFP, at least in the form of inducing them to run a split ticket? It appears that at the Vic election Labor had 2% of their voters spill to FF (or 4% according to Ray above) – if that happened at the Fed election and FF had a preference deal with the Libs this would effectively render the two party prefered a good couple of percentage points in the Libs favour – not a good thing in what is likely to be a very close election, would it??
It seems that, like Family First’s policies or not, perhaps Labor needs to play smart and make the deals necessary to get elected, not just pacify their most vocal members. I’d be interested to hear (sane and reasonable) thoughts on this one, especially from some of the members here who have studied these things longer than I have.
No Way (an apt characterisation of your view)
I have no problem with gays being afforded many rights which are currently the privilege of married (by legal definition hetrosexual) couples eg. superannuation etc.
There are some rights pertaining to family life that I would be prepared to fight for remaining the exclusive domain of married couples, eg. adoption, access to IVF etc. So no, unashamedly I declare that, on the basis of a healthy functioning society that affords children the right of nurture of both parents, gays should not have all the rights of marriage. Sadly, sometimes marriges break down and children are hurt, which is a large contributer to a dyfunctioning society. This is even greater reason to give them added protection.
But of the remianing rights, I fail to understand why you would discriminate against a whole category of domestic co-dependants. That is couples that share a life together but do not have a sexual relationship. Surely these are entitled to equivalent rights. I seems to me that you are the one who is discriminating on the basis of sex.
You bring in the bible to justify your arguement. I won’t even go there. I believe very much in the independence of church and state, and my arguement stands independent of any expression of faith.
I detest as much as you the manifestation of the religeous right in the Bush administration and I detest the fact that Howard is taking us there.
One can be a social conservative and yet hold to the socio-economic tennants of the left, and don’t underestimate the numbers in the ALP that agree with me.
Politikal… you are so right this blog is dedicated more to psephology than political idealism. I just could not let that twaddle go uncorrected.
From a strategic point of view the ALP have no choice but to deal with FFP in the upcoming election. If they are to wrest control of the Senate from the Coalition, they must restrict them to two senate places in at least two states. History is stacked against them, and the coalition currently have more than three quotas outright in every state. As well as inducing a swing in that chamber, ALP must work with all cross benches and minors to restrict preference flows to the Coalition, otherwise it will find itself with an obstructionist Senate. Fielding has supported Labor in opposing most controversial Howard legislation, including IR.
It has been shown that FFP vote are quite directable by HTVs, so the ALP has a good chance of receiving the FFP votes in marginals where they have a social conservative standing. There is room for negotiation. FFP preferences to Liberals could have cost the ALP up to 5 seats at the last election. With the growing electoral pull of FFP, I expect the impact to be even greater, and in a tight election this could even determine government. But the ALP will have to break its tight nexus with the Greens in order to maximise the flow of all those juicy conservative votes. Given that the Green voters will direct preferences to ALP regardless of the HTV, this will cost them little.
Labor can win and will win without FF preferences. I find the suggestion that voters go to FF from labor (as opposed to swinging voters moving to lib and libs moving to FF) unconvincing. The election is going to turn on interest rates and work insecurity. FF will have little bite in this environment.
I think I largely agree with No – other than child birth and raising there is no way other than homophobia to justify deliberate discriminate between couples. That Ray can’t understand why having and raising children as the key plank of social policy doesn’t count out non-reproductive heterosexuals but does exclude homosexuals seems inconsistent.
I’m not sure there is any evidence children are disadvantaged or damaged with two fathers or two mothers but sadly, as FF and the PM evidence, our society isn’t even mature enough to look at the question carefully – and I think if you did look at the question carefully you’d find factors rather than sexual preference behind any disadvantage or damage. Still rampant homophobia is going to create some issues for its victims – who knows.
Also clearly a healthy extended family, loving and tolerant, will provide a plethora of loving role models for the kids. The 1950’s mum dad and two kids behind a white picket fence model really should have lost its gloss by now – but some cling to it.
As a lawyer I find Ray running away from the bible quite funny. The history of law and criminal law is very much Bible influenced and to pretend otherwise is quite foolish. Really the whole anti-gay thing only makes sense either as an ignorance fear of unknown or biblical thing.
Yes, but will voters from the left who are normal ALP voters continue to vote ALP if a preference is done with FF? Remember only a small part of the left vote Green then ALP, most others follow the party tickets. Sa for example.
Does anyone know if Gary Gray is standing against Phil Edman in Brand?
Good point Enviroyouth – but if the ALP left voters didn’t vote for ALP who would they vote for?? Most of them, I suspect, would rather puke before voting for Howard. So while there may be threats of a mass defection from the ALP, they don’t have much choice in the long run.
Also, I think the new Rudd leadership is trying to win the swinging, more conservative voters who were concerned about the possible eccentricities of Latham (whether real or imagined, I’m just making an argument here). In order to do that he needs to appear to lean more to the right wing side of politics. This could be achieved by a major media uproar about preferences going to FF… he would likely pick up some of those swinging voters (say 1-2 percent of the vote) plus another 2-3 percent of the vote in preferences from a FF split ticket he would have lost to the Libs otherwise.
This would theoretically gain Labor 3-5 percent of the vote, a huge margin in what is going to be a close election.
Yes, as you mentioned, there may be some Greens or other left wing voters who decide to protest this and vote for Howard above the ALP – but I can’t see many of them actually following through on this threat, at least on a large scale. Perhaps 1-2 percent of the vote would be lost through this, being generous.
That leaves a good couple of percentage points gained overall, if you follow my logic…
I’m talking about lower house seats here – I would think FF would easily be induced to run split tickets everywhere in exchange for some Senatate preferences, considering that’s where they’d be focusing on getting people elected.
So my thinking is, as much as many hate FF, perhaps they are the key to this close election. With a couple of percentage points of the vote at stake, I can’t see how Labor can afford NOT to deal with them this time around.
Anyway, just a few theories to make for some more interesting conversation! It will be fascinating to see how to all unfolds as the year progresses.
I could be wrong Joe but I don’t think the State Exec has met yet, but it looks a pretty safe bet.
Left wing Labor voters do have somewhere to go, The Greens, and if enough people do so then seats will start changing.
Gary,
I agree that Labor has to be pragmatic, but there comes a point at which pragmatism completely takes over, and I do not want to elect a Liberal-lite government. The IR laws are unpopular, but not as unpopular as they would have been 20 or 30 years ago when Australians had more awareness of the role of unions in creating wealth and justice in our country.
Labor will also be ruthlessly pragmatic on preferences. It cannot win in the Senate, so it will focus on the House of Representatives and leave a hostile Senate to be dealt with via a double dissolution later. It will do a preference deal with Family First and the DLP if it needs to. It may lose votes from some, but almost all of these will come back as preferences.
The DLP has not contested House of Representatives seats for years, so its preferences will only be of use in the Senate, though if it is thinking clearly, it will contest House seats in Western Victoria as a way of maintaining and building on the support that got Peter Kavanagh elected.
Family First will probably be more willing to recommend preferences to some ALP candidates this time, given its experience of the Liberals’ broken promise on Family Impact Statements and given its distaste for the Howard Government’s IR laws, which no party called Family First could possibly support.
Labor will no more want to be dependent on the Greens in the Senate than it wanted to be dependent on them in Victorian Legislative Council, but it won’t have the same room to move, as the Greens are well-entrenched and will certainly win Senate seats this year and in any double dissolution.
OK sorry if my love of human rights got a bit passionate – but I was provoked someone tried to suggest FF wasn’t extreme.
But back to the voting issues – is there any evidence for Labor voters going in large numbers to FF. Or is it just a case of a fall in one primary and an increase in another? If it is the latter you have some work to link the two.
Is there any evidence it will be a close election. Many seem to assume Howard will win by a mile – the 2PP polls are saying Labor will win by a mile – so the whole close election theorem is based on the assumption either the polls are wrong or people are going to switch in pretty big numbers over the campaign.
Then on the top there is the idea that labor needs FF preferences to win and that somehow they should or can get them? I just don’t see it – but if you are a FF spinner it is a lovely house of cards you have built.
Most voters are, unfortunately, not psephologists and instead tend to be quite efficent, in terms of information, in the way that they decide who to vote for.
I imagine the ALP are currently running focus groups with voters that voted Labor and then switched to FF, they’ll be hoping to get responses like
“I don’t agree with FF about rights for homesexual couples, but I’ve got young children that I am worried about and FF are the only party that seem to to share my concern”
The point I’m getting at is that the ALP will try to get the votes from FF for free and pay for them only as a last resort
Laugh if you like Jasmine_Andyr. Regardless of my personal faith, I don’t need the Bible to justify my arguement, which stands alone on social grounds.
Ask most people today, in this so called liberal society, whether they believe society is at its healthiest when children are nurtured by their natural parents, and you will get a resounding yes. Our legislation should protect that institution.
By all means tailor rights to match the needs of non-married couples (=gays + domestic co-dependents), but don’t call things the same when they are fundamentally different. Marriage has a different social function to cohabiting couples.
Back on preference strategies… A few people have verified my conclusion that it just makes sense for the ALP to deal with FFP. But I think you will find that it will be much more difficult for FFP to repeat the feat of 2004. There will undoubtedly be a swing back to Labor, and in the Senate race this is sure to bring the Coalition vote below three quotas in most, if not all states. Therefore there will be no preference flow from the Liberals to FFP to propell them above a higher ALP bar. Therefore ALP are likely the harvest the benefit from such a deal this time.
Ray it is true marriage has a different social function. If people get married, they drive the economy. They get a cake, gowns and suits and spend thousands of dollars inviting all their friends and relatives to let them know what, if their really are close enough to be invited, they should already know.
Which is that they want to live together.
People who cohabit just let people know they want to live together, by living together.
That is the only difference, apart from technicalities.
Oh and I’m not anti-marriage.
So – views on the Howard reshuffle? Should Robb have received a cabinet spot and will that cause internal ructions? Is Turnbull going to create enough spark on climate change to boost gov credentials for green leaning middle class? Joe vs Julia – more Sunrise debates on the way?
For sure, our collective political life will be much duller without Amanda on the front bench.
Bob Day and Tony Zappia in Makin will not know what’s hit them! I can garuntee a good media story when the election comes around.
Watch this space!!!!!
I don’t mean to laugh in a nasty way, just in a friendly way, I’m in on the joke good luck with pretending Christian values that permeate our society and particularly those wanting to throw back to the 50’s – but is you want to stick to your theory of special social function good luck hun.
Enviroyouth… How right you are. I have my daughter getting married shortly and believe me I am certainly funding the economy.
But its worth every cent, because there are ocasions in life that are worth the fuss of a decent celebration.
If only couples would put the same amount of effort into preparing for a marriage as they do in preparing for a wedding, this world would be a better place.
I reckon the approach of the ALP to the Greens, if they are smart, should be very different on a national level to that on a state level. In the states (pretty much all of them, except SA where FF are strong), a dominant ALP government would always prefer to have the choice of right-wing parties, be they FF, DLP or CDP, as well as the Greens, rather than simply relying on the Greens.
These small parties have a strong tendency to support the government except on the narrow range of social issues they have a strong stance on. Maybe the DLP would be less like that with a Liberal federal government.
The Howard government benefits from having Family First. In Labor’s federal situation, the Greens will help Labor more if they are stronger. They are reliable in providing opposition to the government. On a state level, the Greens are a nuisance to a Labor government. On a national level, the Greens are helpful to a Labor opposition.
Graham, what are you talking about re Makin?
Ben,
The original DLP was not a right-wing party, and I think Peter Kavanagh’s voting record will show that the new DLP isn’t one either.
FF andSteve Fielding appear to be pretend independents, on matters of legislation which looks like going down in the Senate Fielding and Joyce publically state their views so as to ensure that they both are not voting against the bill. This way the bill goes thru yet Joyce and Fielding can take turns in saying that they stood up to the government.
On FF, any links between it and Howards favoured religous group the Exclusive Brethen?
Sacred social movement – no link to God, never met him, doesn’t talk to them, they are really not fond of biblical references at (sad really would exclude a lot of literature from their reading lists).
The axing of Amanda Vanstone leaves SA with just two Cabinet ministers – Nick Minchin and Alexander Downer, both Dries. A year ago there were four before Robert Hill deserted his fellow Wet, Vanstone, to move to the UN.
Vanstone’s departure takes some pressure off SA Labor, which has had only one shadow minister, the Left’s gifted Penny Wong, since Kevin Rudd dropped the Right’s Annette Hurley.
The SA Labor contingent can expect a bit more firepower after the election when Mark Butler comes in as member for Port Adelaide. Butler, a law graduate, is secretary of the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union, a leading light in the Left faction (Progressive Labor Unions and Sub-branches) – a direct descendant (great-grandson?) of Sir Richard Butler, Liberal premier of the 1920s and 30s.
When Butler addressed a Port Adelaide Labor group last year, an interjector was misreported as having said: “You’re just a grammar boy.”
His actual words were: “You’re just a glamour boy” (a description Mark was happy to wear). Far from being a grammar boy, he was schooled at Unley High, alma mater of Julia Gillard.
If the Right goes on with its intention to deselect Senator Linda Kirk (who has defied orders by voting for stem cell research and the Rudd-Gillard leadership team), a replacement could be Tim Stanley, recently commissioned QC and very unlucky candidate for federal Adelaide in 2001.
I agree with Ben’s comment that, “On a state level, the Greens are a nuisance to a Labor government. On a national level, the Greens are helpful to a Labor opposition.” This can explain why there are such discrepancies in Labor’s strategy towards the Greens in recent elections.
Just to move the debate a little elsewhere, i noted that mumble.com.au is still maintaining that Howard will cut and run before the next election. Recent developments seem to suggest that Howard is gearing up for the federal election witha new bench and trying to set the agenda.. I can’t see him leaving yet.
Regarding the Greens, the ALP might consider whether its current strategy (of rampant ‘pragmatism’ including occasionally preferencing FF ahead of the Greens) isn’t rather counter-productive. If Labor took the radical step of legitimising the Greens to the extent that they represent the views of between 1 in 20 and 1 in 10 Australians (and more like 1 in 5 in some electorates) instead of buying into the silly “the Greens are radical psycho hippies” nonsense pushed by The Australian and the Government, then the Greens would potentially provide a helpful mechanism for maintaining the progressive vote whilst allowing Labor to focus on its (alleged) core constituency of semi-conservative, working Australians.
Instead the Greens are demonised, particularly by the Labor right, and shady deals with extremist right-wing/reactionary parties are apparently fine. If this continues we can expect a Coalition controlled Senate for a long, long time.
I agree Labor cannot sensibly deal with FF at any level, and based solely on the FFP fan/s in this stream I think they are desperate to appear relevant and needed in an election where they are unlikely to be much of either.
Also I think today shows mumble is probably going to get his wish and Howard should stay on to lose. Very dangerous now Howard is laying out election campaign stuff for him to walk away – the humiliation mumble assumes he needs to be trying to avoid would almost certainly follow if he left now the real phony campaign has started – the new leader would have to dump some things and it would start getting messy.
Getting back to election speculation. the federal elections will be cal3ed sometime after July 1. the reason is simple it will mean that any change in fortune will delay the new senate from taking office by one year. John Howard at the president enjoys control of both houses of Parliament. under the current rules the senate takes office in July following the date of the election. Personally I think the rules suck and Parliament should have fixed 4 year terms but political opportunism and dirty politics prevent rational thinking.
Gary Gray has resigned from Woodside, announced internally about 5 minutes ago. Just thought you might like to know.
The Senate term is fixed. The current Senate will finish on June 30 2008, regardless of when the election is called. The Senate election (unless it is a double dissolution, which will not be called) must take place after July 2007.
The reason why Howard won’t call an election until July 1 is because doing so earlier would knock the House of Representatives elections out of whack with the Senate.
Why do our political journalists get paid so much to spread confusion. Steve lewis offers us the following comments on a poll of Sentae voting intentions, financed by an unnamed company back in November last year.
here are the first couple of paragraphs:
THE Howard Government risks losing its Senate majority and the ability to easily pass legislation, as the Greens eye balance-of-power status after the coming election.
As the Coalition and Labor tussle over their environment credentials, support for the Greens has surged to nearly 13 per cent, according to a special Newspoll examining voter intentions for the Senate.
Support for the Coalition has collapsed from 45 per cent at the 2004 election to 37 per cent now, jeopardising its Senate majority.
The Greens could double their Senate numbers – of four seats – after the election due by the end of the year, placing the party in a powerful position to influence legislative outcomes.
This could allow the Greens to block contentious legislation and force the Government to amend its reform agenda.
What Steve does not make clear is that a Senate election after 1 July this year is that the Senators elected then will not take up their positions till 1 July 2008. If the Coalition is returned they will not be able to do anything about the Government legislation till after that date.
However, if the figures quoted are anywhere near correct the coalition will not be returned an they qre the ones that will have a blocking majority for the next six months.
Who does Steve write for? Has whatever organisation shown any recent inclination to report news objectively and carefully?
Much as I would love to believe the Greens are on 13% in the Senate I think it is worth noting that Senate polls are *always* wrong. For some reason people feel the need to say they will vote differently in the two houses, but most end up voting the same way. Some House of Reps polls are wrong, for all sorts of reasons, but taking an average can be an accurate reflection on the situation at the time. Not so for the Senate.
(Of course this could mean the Greens are actually on 18% – one can dream – but I don’t think it is likely).
As has been pointed out this site should be about psephology rather than political ideals, but this nonsense needs to be answered
Ray says: FFP supports the green aganda of the Greens, but opposes many of its anti social/family policies.
Actually Family First has made lowering the price of petrol – ie encouraging people to pollute more – one of their major campaigns. At the state election they repeatedly emphasised their calls for more big dams. That is a policy which would destroy the ecology of the areas below the dams, probably drown the areas behind the dams, and encourage more wasteful water use. At no point did they promote solution such as reducing leakage, rainwater tanks etc.
FF are entitled to promote these policies. What is disgraceful is the way they push them, and then try and say they are not an anti-environment party, and even have their supporters claim these policies don’t exist.
here here Stephen – neither important to labor nor ‘mainstream’ in any meaningful way – whether or not they can remember God on a give day.
Howard will likely call the election in October, for some reason he likes elections in that month. Howard called the 98 and 04 elections for oct with the 01 election delayed until early november for easily assumed reasons.
The previous Labor government on the other hand liked March, with the exception of the 84 and 87 elections which were the result of a changing of the electoral law and a double dissolution the three other elections that Labor called were in March.
A cursory glance of the state elections shows a tendency towards spring or autumn elections as well, but I guess its hard to say what effect something will have on the election date when it is unknown why Howard likes October elections
I think there are some serious question marks on that poll.
The poll claims that we’re on 28.5% in Tasmania. Yet who believes that the Greens are really doing that well? The state-by-state polls usually don’t include Tasmania, as the sample size is so small it has no credibility.
And in general, all state polls which are simply breakdowns of federal figures usually have very high standards of error.
Looking at other state figures they also don’t seem reliable. The Greens polling 14% in Queensland, and less in NSW and Victoria doesn’t make sense, and the idea that WA doesn’t even rate up there doesn’t make sense.
Much as I would like these figures, I can’t seriously believe that it is a credible poll. The only thing I can take from it is that we’re doing well in the polls, but maybe not as well as 13%.
Agreed on the reliability of the Senate poll – unless we know the size of the sample there is no way of establishing the size of the statistical error margin.
The lack of intellectual rigour in reporting of polls by political reporters is unbelievable.
The other interesting question is who commissioned and for what purpose?
To be of any use by the time you disaggregate down to the state level it would have had to have a very large sample and that is not cheap.
Just goes to show that for most stories in the Australian you have to peel away the onion rings – and when you get there you may well have reason for tears.
I think the election timing must depend on the budget and inflation / interest rate rises. If the Govt gets no interest rate rises thru to may and is going to go with a typical inflationary budget in a context where inflation was a bit on the high side anyways (depends how you read yesterdays numbers for how you fall) the election would need to be before and interest rate rise … so could be early in a still tight economy.
The ignorance of political journalists never ceases to amaze. Even if that poll turns out to be correct (which I doubt), even a big rise in the Green vote will make no difference to the overall position in the Senate, for reasons we have discussed before. The seats up for election are those contested in 2001, not those contested in 2004. The best result the Greens can get is to retain their seats in NSW and Tas, and win the Democrat seats in Vic, Qld, WA and SA. So the Senate would then be Coalition 39, ALP 28, Greens 8, Family First 1. For the Coalition to retain control of the Senate in 2008, all they have to do is win three seats of six in five of the six states. I will bet my We Want Gough badge they will do so. There is no realistic chance that the Coalition will lose control of the Senate before 2011, for which we can all send a thankyou note to M. Latham Esq of Bonkersville NSW.
I agree with you entirely Adam about Howard maintaining the majority in the Senate. However, what are the chances of the Greens actually picking up those seats in Vic, Qld, WA and SA? Considering the greens did not pick up in Qld, SA and Vic last time I find it hard that they will this coming election except perhaps Vic. The Greens didn’t even pick up in NSW last time which means re-electing Kerry is going to be difficult.
I can see an improvement in the Green vote at the next election but I guess the question is, is it going to be stong enough to pick up seats?
As I’ve said a number of time, for the Coalition to hold just a blocking half of the Senate would require the very unusual result of them only winning 2 from 6 senate seats in one state, which has occurred twice (NSW 1990 and 1998) in the last 16 years. For the coalition to lose its majority, this would need to happen in two states, which is not very likely considering that there isn’t a strong minor party in the centre (eg the Democrats) to take away otherwise coalition votes.
All the more reason to vote for the Democrats this time around – the only party that can break Coalition control. The Greens are only ever going to take seats off Labor (sadly, the ones who deserve to lose are always at the top of the ticket).
The Greens never have polled better in the Senate than they have done in the House of Reps. This time they might struggle to retain their NSW seat. Family First might do well, depending on the flow of preferences (They are assured of Coalition preferences).
If Labor wins the federal election, the Coalition will lose it’s Senate majority. If the Coalition wins they might keep their senate majority. I bet when Labor is next in power they will make changes to the Senate to prevent something like the Coalition getting a majority there ever again. Increase the number of senators to say 13 or 14 and maybe having the whole Senate elected instead half the senate elected.
Tristan Jones is an early contender for the clanger of the year on this site.
“The Greens have never polled better in the Senate than they have done in the House of Reps”.
Actually the Greens have ALWAYS polled better in the Senate than the House of Reps, except in New South Wales. I have no idea why New South Wales has the reverse pattern of every other state in this – I’d love any suggestions people can offer.
However, in 2004 the Green vote in Victoria was 8.8 in the Senate and 7.45 in the Reps. Likewise (to varying degrees) in Tassie, Qld, SA, ACT, WA and NT.
The last Senate spot is wide open in most states. The Greens would have to be very lucky to pick them all up, but very unlucky not to get at least two. Predicting which ones those will be (other than Tasmania) is basically a lottery.
Tristan
I think Fanily First may be overstated, they did not do well in SA and Vic, I feel people may be worried about a church influence in the community as well as in the government. One place is enough.
The Senate, my perspective:
———-
The Greens
If the Liberal Party persist with their policy of putting the Greens last in the Upper House (Vic & SA) the Greens will have trouble winning more than two senate seats.
Bob Brown is a shoe-in.
Kerry Nettle is in for the fight of her life. LESS THAN 50% chance of re-election vs 3rd ALP.
Queensland will be almost impossible for the Greens to win unless Pauline Hansen performs strongly again. She is the only reason the Greens came close last time – they were almost elected on Nats preferences.
So Tasmania and .. WA? for the Greens.
The deterioration of the Democrats as a source of preferences may harm the Greens somewhat as well.
———-
The Democrats will finally die this year. Sandra Kanck will remain as a pseudo-independent historical relic.
———-
Family First will double their vote from the last Federal Election. 4% National, with strong results in SA/QLD (5 or 6%) offsetting poor performances in NSW/WA 2%.
They have a fair chance of snagging another senate seat.
The most important aspect of Family First for pundits is the effect of their lower house presence on a change of government, depending on their preferencing.
Liberals with narrow margins will be hoping the ALP and FF don’t do a lower house/upper house preference swap.
Tristan says: “If Labor wins the federal election, the Coalition will lose it’s Senate majority.” Dear Tristan, would you care to bet any amount you like on that proposition?
Tristan,
The federal government cannot make the Senate elected all at once without changing the constitution. A referendum used to be required for this, but given various High Court decisions, I suppose the government could sign a treaty with New Zealand corporatising the Senate and then use the external affairs power and the corporations power to have it declared constitutional.
The government can however abolish proportional representation and divide the states into single-member senatorial districts without any constitutional amendment. Given the way Helen Coonan and the like carried on when the government did not control the Senate – she could have been Paul Keating – no principle would be permitted to stop it doing so. Practical politics might.
The only prediction I make is one I have been making for years: the Democrats are finished. No ifs, no buts – they will lose all their Senate seats – and it will be their own fault.
Chris,
An amusing thing for me, is that if you consider the new DLP to be the same party as the old DLP (which the AEC does), then the DLP will out-live the Democrats.
Chris, that is an idea of truly Santamarian craftiness. Remember it for when we are in government. One of the great ironies of recent political history is how the Whitlamesque centralising drive of the Howard Government has created all these lovely new powers for the next Labor government. Never again will a Bolte or a Bjelke-Petersen, or the Constitution, or the Senate, be able to obstruct us.
I would think there is a fair chance the DLP will outlive the Liberals and the Nationals as well.
I’m not sure the Liberals would want single member senate elections in Tasmania (for example) or the ACT, and it would just create another series of lovely redistribution programs across the various states, additional to the lower house.
I think both parties also like the existing system.
Speaker,
I do not accept that the current DLP is the same organization as the original DLP, though I do accept that it is philosophically similar. The original DLP voted to disband in 1978. John Mulholland argues that this decision was unconstitutional. There is no way that the issue will ever go before a court, so we just have to agree to disagree.
Philosophically speaking, the DLP will outlast the Democrats, whose self-destruction is probably related to the fact that they had no natural constituency in the way that every other parliamentary party has had. Just being middle-class and middle-of-the-road isn’t enough in the long run. They should have amalgamated with the Greens years ago.
Adam,
I am not sure that the DLP will outlast the Nationals and the Liberals. I think the DLP has many years of life in it yet, but I do not think either the Liberals or the Nationals are approaching extinction, even if they lose the federal election. Look overseas at the Whigs/Liberals/Liberal democrats!
I am a federalist because I believe in the spread of power. However, the Liberals with typical short-sightedness have created the possibility for the most powerful federal Labor government ever.
My hope is that, if Labor wins, it does not use this unprecedented power to pursue the economic rationalist line evident in some comments on education.
Western Suburbs Magpie,
Both major parties whinge when they do not control the Senate. (I’d prefer the whinging to the result Queenslanders gave us in 2004). There would be a huge outcry against whichever party tried to eliminate the minor parties from the Senate. I do not think principle stops them – look at what Labor and the Liberals attempted to do to the Greens in Tasmania – but each major party knows that single-member Senate seats could result in the other party controlling the Upper house when the first party is in government. They prefer the minor party with the balance of power to that scenario. The desire for total power probably explains the stupidity of the Victorian Liberals in passing up three opportunities to influence the nature of proportional representation in the Legislative Council.
I think the real obstacle to the major parties making the Senate single member electorates is Tasmania. Without a change in the constitution they would still get 12 seats. Tasmania is electorally flat, that is the variations across the state are relatively small, and it is not uncommon for one party to control all the lower house seats.
A single member system would often see one party win all six seats there. Since Tassie often goes against the mainland it would not be uncommon for one party to have a majority in the house, but virtually no Senators in Tasmania. Since the other states will always have pockets of opposition support this would mean that it would be quite common for the opposition to have control of the Senate in their own right.
Ironies of history – for decades conservatives feared that if a federal Labor government was not impeded by the states, the Senate or the High Court, it would procede to bring in the Red Republic. Now the fear is that Labor will “implement the economic rationalist line.” In fact, Chris, a Rudd government will probably be the nearest thing to a Christian Democrat government Australia has ever had.
I reckon anyone involved in any way with Great Barrier Reef tourism are going to be looking very carefully at party policies on how they will try and save the reef. It could change quite a few seats.
Howard has done a good job of rallying the right-wing vote behind him, why should conservatives vote for Families First when they have John Howard, unless they are committed Christians? Labor finds it more difficult to rally the left-wing vote, hence the Greens are stronger than Families First.
Labor finds it hard to keep the left vote because most of its policies have drifted right of centre. Simple as that.
I miss Ray advocating that FF is a moderate centeralist party. Hilarious to see the US VP (who I understand is coming here) find himself unable to answer a very fair question about why did doesn’t apply the inhumane anti-lesbian policy of the Bush II administration to his own daughter … funny how homopobia loses its power when dealing with your own daughter – not funny he is too gutless to challenge the vicious and unfair policy of the Administration he is part of.
I suppose you are a Greens supporter No Way ?
The Greens are the most wacko, self-righteous party in Australian Politics. They have managed to hide so far but accountability is coming.
Banning Leather, GM Food Anti Science, Stupid Dangerous taxes on Currency Transactions and Investment.. the health policy includes “Alternative Medicine” – (Aura Rebalancing and Crystal Therapy ?)
Embarassing!
So Family First is against Gay Marriage ? Wow how weird, no one holds that opinion.. umm except for most of the world.. and the Libs, Nats and.. Labor. Wackos.
The Greens are not against banning leather, what gave you that idea?
They also aren’t anti science.
Alternative means accupununcture, chiropractic, things of that nature.
In South Australia’s most marginal federal seat, Kingston, Labor is ahead 56-44 on a two-party preferred basis, according to an Advertiser poll of 592 voters on Monday night. Of those who helped Liberal Kym Richardson win by a handful of votes in 2004, 10 per cent now say they will vote for Labor’s Amanda Rishworth.
The Advertiser says: “If the swing to Labor was repeated across Adelaide, the ALP would win all of the city’s marginals [two of which it currently holds] and out under pressure the Liberal seats of Sturt and Boothby, held by Christopher Pyne and Andrew Southcott.”
The Kingston poll showed primary support for Labor at 37 per cent with the Liberals at 29 per cent, Greens and Family First each 6 per cent,
Democrats 2 per cent, others 5 per cent, undecided 13 per cent.
I guess in relation to the Kingston poll all the usual caveats – but it is fantastic – hopefully targeted polling is getting a feel for how volatile the ‘rudd bump’ in the polling is? If we assume the Beazley base (consistently in 50+ 2pp for labor) is solid then it is the demographic spread and volatility that will be key. I would like to know a bit more of the demographics of the seat – but still great to see 2 pp in a marginal hitting not too far below the rudd bump.
‘Greens hater’ there are a lot of latham supporters (pre-last election) who will be delighted to see hate explicitly expressed in Australian politics again. I am not one of them.
Nor am I a green supporter, although the greens have many very well thought out and expressed policies that would clearly benefit Australia. This contrasts them with FFP which has scarry and dangerous policies it is not at all open and clear about. Take the rather interesting example above with willingness to treat homosexuals as some kind of subhuman animals.
I wonder how Downer has been affecting Kingston. In the last two weeks there was a report in the Advertiser saying that Downer pushed a regional grants coordinator to favor Mayo, which neighbours Kingston, and this week Downer took Julie Bishop around tiny schools in Mayo that getting their funding reduced to the same per student rates that every other school in the state gets, the view that the hills are more important to the liberals than the south is coming through pretty clear in the local media
Enviroyouth:
The Greens want leather banned.
http://www.vic.greens.org.au/about-the-greens/policy/policy-documents/Animals300606
3.1.4 Ending the captivity and killing of animals for the cosmetic and fashion industries, including the use of fur and skin.
Skin = Leather
MUA, that actually refers to fashion frippery such as mole skin coats.
Not in all areas.
Thanks Snow and Phil. Re a tight marginal in WA, no polling that I can remember, but I do know the Howard pork barrel is about to rain (or in once case has already started) on the electorate. Will be interesting to see how this affects things.
“There is no realistic chance that the Coalition will lose control of the Senate before 2011″
Two words and two numbers: “Double Dissolution 2008/2009″
The new government will be popular and have some central planks of their platform (IR reforms, for instance) frustrated by a disoriented and fractured opposition. They’ll save up a small collection of popular bills, and if they work quickly they’ll catch the opposition and minor parties on the hop and storm home.
“The Greens want leather banned.”
That’s not an Aust Greens policy and this thread’s about the Federal election. The policies of the Victorian Greens shouldn’t be relevant.
d
The Greens policy on banning leather is relevant federally in proving the Greens are weird and unfit for a balance of power role.
Wanting to ban leather, even if it was a policy and you haven’t even established you are reading the Vic Greens policy right, makes the greens unfit for a balance of power exactly how?
Anyone who sees my leather shoes or belts will know that the animals did not get sacrificed for anything resembling the fashion industry.
Darryl is of course correct that the Coalition could lose control of the Senate before 2011 if a Rudd Government is obstructed by the Senate and calls a double dissolution election in 2008 or 2009. But it will not happen as a result of the outcome of the 2007 election.
Labor Prime Ministers obstructed by the Senate have two precedents: Scullin and Whitlam. Scullin rejected advice to call an early double-D and his government was destroyed (admittedly more by the Depression and Jack Lang than by the Senate, but the rejection of the Fiduciary Notes bill was a major factor in Scullin’s demise). Whitlam called Snedden’s bluff and called a snap DD in 1974, obtaining a Senate which would have passed at least some of his legislation had it not been corrupted by Tom Lewis and Joh Bjelke-Petersen. Is Rudd a Scullin or a Whitlam? I don’t claim to know.
“The Greens policy on banning leather is relevant federally in proving the Greens are weird and unfit for a balance of power role. ”
The Australian Greens policy is relevant, yes and what you’ve quoted is NOT the policy of the Australian Greens. Does this mean you think the Aust Greens are not weird and unfit?
Realistically, Labor would have to be doing well in Kingston – the most marginal seat in the nation – if it had any expectations at all of winning government.
You are very right Phil, just wiht numbers like those you’d be tempted to move focus a little bit and pour money in the less marginal coalition outliers.
Would be silly to pork barrel won seats (or if you are Howard – lost seats). Couldn’t be giving up ‘winners’ currently in coalition hands but the bruvvers and sisters could all land next door rather than in these marginals that must fall and fall solidly or Labor is playing to lose.
Stephen L,
Thanks for that view on Tasmania. I guess 12 Tasmanian senators from the same party would though things out a bit.
Adam,
The ironies never end. Tony Abbott thinks the DLP “is alive and well inside the Howard government†despite the clear evidence that the DLP senators would have voted down both lots of the anti-family IR legislation. A former DLP vice president is worried about how right wing the ALP has become, with the spread of the economic rationalist PPPs and performance pay for teachers, not to mention a socialist left premier who sold the State Bank to the Commonwealth Bank, which was then privatised, as the last announcement to the ALP caucus before the budget presentation so that no Labor MP had time to object. An ALP insider thinks that a “Rudd government will probably be the nearest thing to a Christian Democrat government Australia has ever hadâ€. I hope you are right.
Kevin Rudd has the Liberals on the run. The attacks on him and Labor will only grow.’
Thank you,
Chris Curtis
Chris Curtis – I’m curious – if you were Victorian Premier after the 1992 Vic state election, how would you have dealt with the problems facing Victoria?
Sacha Blumen,
I used to dream of being Victoria’s first DLP premier, but alas! I do not see the connection between my post and your question as the sale of the State Bank was before the 1992 election. However, I will give a brief answer. Victoria suffered in the early ‘nineties because of the national recession. In the three years to 1991/92, Victoria’s current revenue was 11.2 per cent of GSP (compared with NSW’s 13.6 per cent), while Victoria’s outlay’s were 12.1 per cent (compared with NSW’s 13.0 per cent (Kenneth Davidson, “Audit Commison report a political exerciseâ€, The Age, 8/5/1993). In other words, if Victoria’s taxation level had been the same as NSW’s it would have had a surplus and not have required any budget cuts. In 1992, Victoria has the smallest public sector workforce of all the states, 17.9 per cent, compared with an average of 19.6 per cent (Michale Salvaris, The impact of Liberal/National policies on employment and public sector spending). Staffing of secondary schools was with a PTR of 10.8:1 about the same as in 1981 under the Thompson Liberal Government when the PTR was 10.9:1. South Australia’s 1990 secondary PTR was 10.5:1. In summary, the madness of 1992-99 was ideological not economic ion motivation. The steps I would have taken would have been to increase taxation to NSW levels, to keep government ownership of the people’s assets and thus the income stream they would provide n the future and to invest heavily in education to build the skills and knowledge of Victorians to face the future. I would also have dumped the low-standard VCE and the pretend abolition of technical schools.
My apologies for the misplaced apostrophe. It’s late.
I hope the “ALP insider” is not meant to be me. I am an ex-staffer to a backbencher, I do not belong to a faction, and I have no access to “inside.”
Adam,
I did mean you when I said “ALP insiderâ€. As you are not in a faction, you obviously cannot be an insider, so please accept my apologies for my unwarranted elevation (?) of your status. I reword my comment as, ‘An ALP supporter and close observer of politics thinks that a “Rudd government will probably be the nearest thing to a Christian Democrat government Australia has ever hadâ€.’
It’s interesting that someone has raised the prospect of a double dissolution.
I actually think that it is all but certain that a newly elected Rudd government will go to a double dissolution in late 2008.
The reason I think so is Industrial Relations. In the case of most policy areas there would be some room to work with a Coalition senate majority and I wouldn’t see the hypothetical Labor government having the backbone to go to an election over many of its policies (it’s new education policies, to take one example of many).
But with industrial relations I would think that Labor would push very hard, and likewise it would be one issue where the Liberals would be harder to budge, and I reckon it would be very advantageous to a fresh Labor government to call a double dissolution solely on the issue of industrial relations against a recently-beaten Liberal government which would still be reeling from the departure of Howard.
Thanks Chris. Which taxes would have you raised, and what would have you done to help the Vic business climate?
Surely Sacha with a higher revenue base helping the ‘business climate’, by which I assume you mean ordinary taxpayers subsidising uncompetative private business, would be much easier?
Just think what Howard could have done for the ‘business climate’ if 11 years ago instead of setting out to destroy education and training he’d looked to improve it? Business might actually find employees with the skills they want today? Bit radical isn’t it?
a question for the constitutional boffins out there….based on a Rudd government being elected in 2007.
Would that government be able to start piling up the double dissolution triggers right away (under the current senate whose term ends 30.6. 2008) or would they have to wait for legislation to be rejected by the new senate (term starting 1.7.2008)??
This would surely make a difference to the timing of a DD as if they had to wait for the new senate … mid (post July 1) 2009 would be more likely.
If they went before July 1 2009, that would trigger a second election before May 2011 as those senators elected would have terms expire 30.6.2011.
From memory, to create a DD trigger a bill must be rejected twice by the Senate in successive sessions, or something like that. I doubt there would be time in the period between the election of a Rudd government in October 2007 and the expiry of the old Senate in June 2008 for this to be achieved, even it were constitutionally permissible.
The AEC has just released its disclosure returns for political party donations in 2005/06. There are hours of fun to be had here, but unfortunately I’m too busy. The only thing I looked at was the ALP (NSW) page, which was topped by a $110,000 donation from North Steyne Investments. This turns out to be the company of Bob Ell, a major backer of pro-development candidates for Tweed Shire in 2004. The council was sacked the following year after an inquiry found the majority of councillors were (the ABC reports) ‘”puppets” of a developer controlled group’. Like I said, hours of fun.
BTW, this is the last time we’ll be privy to disclosures of donations of between $1500 and $10,000, thanks to the government’s electoral “reforms”. Donors can now give $9999 to each of a party’s federal, state and territory branches and nobody will be the wiser.
jasmine, your comment doesn’t deserve a reply.
Sacha,
I would have sought advice from Treasury on the comparative rates across the taxes and charges in Victoria and other states.
I haven’t given much thought to the “business climate†argument. I think most economic factors are controlled by the federal government, if they are controlled at all. I also still hear a lot of hype about how the Kennett government turned around the atmosphere of Victoria from depression to go-ahead, but I have lived here all my life and I never saw it. It was just spin, spin, spin, lapped up by a servile media. If John Cain had lost in 1988, the recession would have hit the Liberals and they would probably have lost in 1992 – and we would have been spared the revolution we didn’t have to have.
“Would that government be able to start piling up the double dissolution triggers right away (under the current senate whose term ends 30.6. 2008) or would they have to wait for legislation to be rejected by the new senate (term starting 1.7.2008)??”
As far as I can tell, there’s nothing in Law that prevents triggers being built up before a new Senate sits. There must be a 90 day wait between a bill being rejected or failing to be passed by the Senate, and the House passing the Bill for a second time (and the Senate failing to pass it again). Then it’s a potential trigger. If a Rudd Government got really busy, you could *theoretically* be back at the polls in Feb 2008. That’s not going to happen, but first half of 2008 is certainly possible.
“If they went before July 1 2009, that would trigger a second election before May 2011 as those senators elected would have terms expire 30.6.2011.”
If there were an election in the first half of 2008, the Senate terms would be backdated to July 1 2007, so there’d be another half Senate election due in late May 2010.
d
Watch out for this article in the Advertiser tomorrow …
Five SA Labor seats ’set to fall’
MARK KENNY, POLITICAL EDITOR, CANBERRA
EXCLUSIVE: PRIME Minister John Howard’s Government faces a potential disaster at the next election, with all five marginal seats in South Australia set to fall to Labor.
The latest Advertiser polls conducted in the Liberal-held seat of Wakefield and the Labor-held Hindmarsh, show voters are abandoning the Howard Government in droves, raising the possibility of a clean sweep of SA’s marginals.
There are five marginal seats in SA of which three are currently in Government hands.
In the inner-western seat of Hindmarsh, currently held by the ALP by 0.1 per cent, a massive 60 per cent of those polled would have voted Labor if the election were held now.
In Wakefield, based around Gawler and extending into the mid-north, the first-term Liberal MP, David Fawcett, would have been easily defeated.
The startling results show the ALP is decisively back in the race for the 2007 election following the potentially damaging change of leadership last year.
The results in Hindmarsh and Wakefield reinforce a trend revealed in this week’s Advertiser poll of the southern metropolitan seat of Kingston, where the ALP led the Liberal Party by 56 to 44 per cent after preferences.
While opinion polls so far out from an election should be read with a degree of caution, the results in South Australia suggest voters may be preparing to switch to Labor after more than 11 years of the Howard Government.
Kingston Liberal MP Kym Richardson said the poll result in his seat was “a kick in the guts,” after working hard in the area for the past two years.
Cheers, thanks Chris.
Just a pair of observations Sacha, nothing particularly stunning or controversial about either. My apologies if I’ve offended you by buying into a private conversation, it was my intend. If the smart alec expression is a bit much I spent to long with narky lawyers and I’m not going to apologise for that but some consideration must be extended to me.
If you are really interested in comparative state taxation, and assuming you don’t have access to a State Treasury, I know the OSR in New South Wales complies a comparative report on state taxes. Not sure if it is public or not. All the OSR’s have web-sites with bucket loads of information on them.
I doubt that polls like the SA one cited above are worth very much during the Rudd honeymoon period. Parliament resumes next week and the political year will start to hot up. Let\s see where we are in the polls in a couple of months. Don\t forget that Howard went into 1998, 2001 and 2004 trailing in the polls, and each time he found a way back into office. The `turn` in 2004 was Mad Mark\s `troops out by Xmas` comment in March – he went down in the polls and never recovered. So let\s see where Rudd is in April. If he\s still ahead then I will start to get excited. (Curse this Indonesian keyboard!)
The ’tiser story above is more sloppy journalism than anything else
It is 3 Liberal marginals to fall, the other two seats (Adelaide + Hindmarsh) have already ‘fallen’!! And the 3 seats are all quite plausible too!!
Whatever, SA will probably more tuned into the Water Wars than anywhere else.
90% of everything you read in the press between now and October will be sloppy journalism. Get used to it.
I think its always worth remembering that opinion polls are just that, a snapshot of opinion at a particular point in time. I’m only really qualified to comment on Hindmarsh, and whatever happens between now and the election, I’d be shocked if this seat isnt relatively safe labor after the next election (5%+). Steve Georganas successfully contested this seat last time after narrowly missing out in 2001 and 1998. Only the previous Liberal member, Chris Gallus’ personal vote has saved this seat for the libs in the past. The previous liberal candidate Simon Birmingham soon moved on from this seat …. The Libs would be better off concentrating on Adelaide, but even that might be asking too much.
As for the Howard water solution … If Morris Iemma was fairly keen, Steve Bracks somewhat keen and Mike Rann not at all keen (repsonse proportional to how far “up” the Murray they are!!) … I think the South Australian public would be pretty sceptical about any state government that cedes power to the commonwealth on this basis. Water may end up being a vote turner down Adelaide way …
Adam
Can you provide statistics on how many and which EU counties are Parliamentary democracies vs Presidential dictatorships ? Also what is your view on Preferential voting as opposed to the two round ballot systems? It would be great if you could develop your database so you could punch in a few basic characteristics and regional criteria and obtain a list. Great site by the way.
The poll results in adelaide are going to have an interesting effect on the Labor party there. Federally Labor hasn’t made any real gains since 1996, even in 2004 when they won 2 seats it was matched by a loss of two seats.
Matched with the huge successes Labor enjoys in state elections I’ve heard a few party members wonder if federal elections are worth the effort.
I think that these poll results are going to help Labor get the volunteers and donations out, which could have a real effect on the election
Good to see you back MelbCity.
If you mean the European Union, then all are democracies.
If you mean Europe, there is one dictatorship left, Belarus.
I’m sure Adam will correct my amateurish knowledge.
If something isn’t done about Melbourne PT by the election there is a good chance that the ALP will lose quite a few VIC seats
MelbCity
I would class every country in the EU as a functioning democracy – in fact it is a criterion for membership. Some of the new members – Poland, Romania – are a bit wobbly, but all have fair elections, free press, independent judiciary etc etc.
Outside the EU, only Belarus can be classed a clear non-democracy, unless we count Azerbaijan and the Central Asian states as part of Europe, which I don’t. Russia is sliding backwards, but we will see what happens at the end of Putin’s term before making a judgement. Serbia has just run clean elections, and Albania looks like getting through a whole electoral cycle without upheavals for the first time. Bosnia is still very shaky.
Afterthought: If Turkey is a European country, it still has big problems, particularly the 10% threshhold which keeps the Kurds out of Parliament, the restrictions on free speech and the continuing unaccountability of the Army and the security forces to the elected government.
Enviroyouth, think most electors can distinguish between state and federal issues.
Interesting opinion poll results in SA and the next 3 months is crucial. Everyone seems to compare Rudd 2007 to Latham 2004 however they are poles apart. Rudd is a more polished operator.
Lets remember, 2001 was won by the Libs on the back of 9/11 (terror threat/Tampa etc) whilst 2004 was won due to Latham’s incompetence (and his skeletons in the closet). This year is a different ball game given interest rates have risen since last election (Howard’s trust issue no longer there) then IR laws (wasn’t even mentioned in 2004 (and therefore trust again exposed – what is planned this time?) plus add Iraq (no going away by years end I believe) and then David Hicks. Whilst no one issue is a vote turner, it does add up.
Plus Rudd is from Qld and is well known up there and ALP has poor representation. A swing of 6%+ in Qld is on the cards.
Trevor how many voters have you actually asked if they know the difference?
Most of the time when I was helping the Greens was spent explaining that Bob Brown was in the senate and had nothing to do with what happened in the Vic Goverment, Bracks is not their local senator, things like that.
Also if the ALP does something wrong they will punish the ALP at whatever election comes next. Its what happened with workchoices where I was. Work choices hurt them, the Libs implemented work choices, therefore the local state libs should be punished.
The reason why the libs got punished at the last state election is a lack good policy and good candidates in key seats and people saw pass Baillieu’s spin. Work choices maybe have help in some area for Labor but you should go and have a look at Narracan and Morwell IR was a big issue and the libs won both seats overall the lack of good policy and ted ballieu was what killed the libs
Melbourne PT WILL NOT be issue at the federal election their bigger issue to deal with like, climate change water, work choices education, national security health, david hicks and the war all before Melbourne PT which, is state issue and it will only be an issue in the inner city if at all. Labor will not loss inner city seat to greens or libs anyway
I’m just repeating what I heard.
Trevor Says: February 3rd, 2007 at 9:13 am. For what it’s worth I believe you are spot on. Howard – the miracle worker (the myth continues) – will find it much harder against a confident and competent Rudd with the issues you mentioned. I’m not convinced Howard is “loved” by the the voting public as much as journalists would have us believe.
In 1990 the ALP were thumped in Victoria in part because the state ALP Government was on the nose.
If Bracks doesn’t fix Public Transport, remembering the Scoresby back flip was to keep PT working could cost the ALP votes.
But in saying that Howard has never been popular in Victoria and all sitting Liberal MPs have solid margins, I’m not expecting too many seats to change.
Melbourne Ports, Chisholm and Bendigo are winnable for the Liberals while I can’t see any clear pick ups for the ALP at this stage, even though I feel the ALP are travelling well.
In 1990 the state was stuffed but the state is fine and bracks is not on the nose.
melborne ports chisholm will be fine for the labor party but bendigo is not looking good
labor can win Corangamite 5% and McMillan 4.8 % and maybe La Trobe, Deakin and McEwen
Adam, I think you have left out some of the mini-states. Liechtenstein (in what I think is a world first) effectively voted to cease to be a democracy a few years ago, giving the hereditary ruler virtually absolute power.
I don’t think the Vatican city can be considered a democracy, and I’m not too sure about Monaco or Andorra.
Still, it’s pretty exciting to think that only one state with more than 50,000 people is not a democracy, even if quite a few are a bit wobbly. BTW, this is certainly off topic, maybe William should create a thread for discussion of international elections
In the event of a double dissolution (could be one next year) I think that the Greens would get their first candidate up in each state and would probably get their second up in Tasmania and might get some of their second candidates up in other states if preferences go well.
We would need to gain a few points to have a chance of winning two senators in a state on the mainland in a DD. I guess it’s possible if we get a swing of a few points, but it would definitely need to include us winning more primary votes, preferences wouldn’t be enough.
But we generally do better against incumbent Labor governments (potential pro-Green voters see Labor as worse and Liberals as no threat) than against incumbent Liberal governments (they see Labor as the way to defeat the Liberals) so maybe we could see our vote go up at a Labor-called DD election in, say, NSW, Victoria and WA.
In answer to Adam’s query further up the page. Here’s Malcolm Mackerras from a couple of weeks back. (I’ve only just come across this article myself.)
Mackerras has also gone back on his November prediction that Howard would win a fifth term. Now he favours Rudd.
Which is curious because his November article in The Australian appeared to factor in the possibility of Rudd ousting Beazley. And the redistribution, the factor he points to now, had also been finalised by then.
Serious error in Milne’s article in the Oz, today. He talks about the 5 marginal seats in SA and how Labor needs 16 seats to win Gov’t. As such, he goes on about how critical SA will be to Labor’s chances of Gov’t (agreed) and makes the logical conclusion that if Labor can take all of SA’s 5 marginal seats it will need just 11 seats to win Gov’t. He has all but forgotten that Labor already hold 2 of those 5 marginal seats and, assuming they take the 3 Liberal-held marginal seats, will need an additional 13 seats outside of SA, not 11. Bad mistake on his part, I think. Thoughts?
Tom and Ben Raue make a good point about how the Greens could win senate seats in the mainland states in a DD. A point they have omitted is that they are likely on current patterns to be long term senators (and in Tasmania possibly 2 long term senators) which would mean that the Greens would have significant numbers in the Senate at the DD+1 election as no sitting senators would be up re-election.
Another aspect of a DD would be that Family First may be able to get few (short term senators) up in Vic, SA, and may be other states.
1. Milne is an idiot and if you read his columns you will go blind.
2. Yes I forgot Liechtenstein, which now cannot be classed as a democracy since the people have surrendered their rights to the Ruling Prince. Vatican City isn’t a democracy but then it isn’t a country either – it’s a sovereign state only to provide a diplomatic personality for the Catholic Church. It has no “people.” Andorra and Monaco are both democracies.
3. I am in Perth at the moment and the chattering classes here are chattering about the Peel by-election and what a disaster it is for the state Liberals. The question is, what implications, if any, does it have for the federal election, now probably eight months away? We have all got used to saying “there is no flow-on from state to federal politics†(because if there was, Kim Beazley would now be PM). But just how hopeless and demoralised can the state Liberal branches get before this starts to flow through into their federal campaigning? Can Howard really carry the election all by himself with no help at all from his very badly broken party machine?
Given this thread ostensibly began as ‘idle speculation about the Federal election’ I thought I might bring it back to that for a moment. It was suggested on the 7:30 report that Howard might try for an August election, largely to get it out of the way before the APEC summit. It’s been suggested that rubbing shoulders with Bush will be more of an electoral liability this time round and Howard doesn’t want to risk being seen too closely with Bush. Interesting thought. I think it’s overstated the importance of the American alliance to an Australian election and given Bush a little too much credit for the way he can influence an Australian election, but what are everyone elses thoughts?
“Tom and Ben Raue make a good point about how the Greens could win senate seats in the mainland states in a DD. A point they have omitted is that they are likely on current patterns to be long term senators…”
You might be overlooking section 13 of the Constitution which gives the Senate itself the power to decide which Senators are long-term and which are short-term. I believe in practice they largely follow the order of election, but I recall in 1987 there was some argy-bargy where the Government and the Democrats argued on the basis of primary votes that certain Democrats should be long-term at the expense of Nats who were actually elected first.
13. As soon as may be after the Senate first meets, and after each first meeting of the Senate following a dissolution thereof, the Senate shall divide the senators chosen for each State into two classes, as nearly equal in number as practicable; and the places of the senators of the first class shall become vacant at the expiration of three years, and the places of those of the second class at the expiration of six years, from the beginning of their term of service; and afterwards the places of senators shall become vacant at the expiration of six years from the beginning of their term of service.
I just noticed Julia Gillard was third ALP candidate for the Senate in 1996.
She’s probably glad she missed out in retrospect.
Just as Howard is glad he wasn’t elected for Drummoyne, and Whitlam that he wasn’t elected for Sutherland.
Yes Darryl, and the impact of the Senate voting the way it did in 1987 was to help the Democrats help the balance of power after the 1990 election. If it hadn’t voted the way it did, the balance of power would have been shared between the Democrats, Jo Vallentine and Brian Harradine (from memory).
Psephophile, is it possible that Milne is considering Boothby (5.4%) and Sturt (6.8%) as potentially marginal, given recent polling in other SA electorates?
This thread’s getting a little on the long side, so I’ve closed it and opened a new one here.