• Glenn Milne reports in the Sunday News Limited papers that “definitive” Labor polling “shows voter reaction to Mr Howard’s retirement plans has become a ‘blocker’ to the Coalition’s other campaign messages, devaluing the Government’s promises and policies in all key areas”.
• In the wake of Wednesday’s interest rate rise, much was said of marginal seats suffering high levels of mortgage stress. Nassim Khadem of The Age pointed to a concentration of such seats in the 5 per cent to 10 per cent range in Victoria, including La Trobe, McMillan, Corangamite, Deakin and McEwen. The Sydney Morning Herald noted that affected seats in and around Sydney included Lindsay and Parramatta, now all but written off for the Liberals, along with Dobell, Robertson and Macarthur.
• Michelle Cazzulino of the Daily Telegraph wrote on Wednesday that “confident Labor strategists are predicting an upset victory in Danna Vale’s electorate” of Hughes, held with a margin of 8.5 per cent. Joe Hildebrand of the Daily Telegraph named it with Macarthur and Paterson among seats Labor was targeting “in a strategy to spook the Government and draw precious resources away from a handful of must-win seats” – namely Lindsay, Dobell, Macquarie and Eden-Monaro.
• Dennis Shanahan of The Australian is always good for a dose of cold water. On Wednesday he related suggestions from state front-bencher John Aquilina that “NSW Labor Party polling in marginal seats is not as strong as published polling”. Aquilina would only say that Labor “would win the western suburbs seat of Lindsay and had a chance in Macarthur, Dobell and Eden-Monaro, but he doubted they could pick up more”. Labor’s chances in Bennelong and Wentworth were not rated, and talk of Robertson was dismissed as “a lot of hype”.
• The Coalition has nonetheless targeted Robertson with a promise to repair a section of the Old Pacific Highway at Somersby, which has been closed since a family of five was killed following a road collapse in June. The Newcastle Herald reports that “no dollar figure has been attached to the promise”, but it is expected to be around $10 million.
• In Eden-Monaro, Labor has promised to spend $23 million from Defence Department funds upgrading the road from Queanbeyan to the Joint Operations Command headquarters, which the government stationed in Bungendore in an especially shameless act of marginal seat pork-barrelling. Andrew Fraser of the Canberra Times notes Labor has failed to provide funding for the more dangerous section of the road from Braidwood to Batemans Bay, the business end of which has been redistributed to the almost-safe Liberal seat of Gilmore.
• Tim Colebatch of The Age detects good news for Labor in an enrolment boom in McEwen, La Trobe, Corangamite and McMillan. This is because the increases have been concentrated in the urban areas of these mixed electorates, which are the stronger for Labor. Even bigger increases have been recorded in Bennelong and Wentworth, though the impact here is harder to read. Jenna Price of the Canberra Times also notes a sharp increase in enrolment in the Australian Capital Territory, suggesting this increases the chances of a Greens Senate win at the expense of Liberal incumbent Gary Humphries.
• Andrew Burrell of the Australian Financial Review reports that “the Labor Party has launched a prime-time television advertising blitz aimed at saving the highly marginal Western Australian seat of Cowan, amid mounting fears that the retirement of popular MP Graham Edwards could deliver it to the Coalition”. With further Labor advertising focusing on Stirling, Burrell discerns “a sign that Labor is behind in those seats”, and is conversely confident of gaining Hasluck and retaining Swan and Brand (the latter of which has been the subject of some slightly surprising recent chatter). The report also says “ALP figures privately doubt the veracity” of the recent Westpoll survey showing them trailing in Cowan, Stirling and Hasluck. Those three electorates plus Swan have been the targets of the Perth variations on Liberal marginal seat television ads.
• Michael Bachelard of The Age reports that the Greens decided on Friday to direct preferences to Labor in every Victorian seat, which it has never done before. The decision was apparently made after Lindsay Tanner succeeded in embarrassing the Greens over split-ticket how-to-vote cards being distributed at a pre-poll booth in Menzies, held by bete-noir of the left Kevin Andrews.
• Sam Strutt of the Courier-Mail reports of “polling indicating a huge swing” in the Sunshine Coast seat of Fisher, which Peter Slipper holds for the Liberals on a margin of 11.4 per cent.
• The verdict from the wind chimes merchants of Dobell is in: “Everyone knows when Labor is in unions run the country”. Ken Ticehurst remains remarkably media-shy.
• Samantha Maiden of The Australian peruses a Poll Bludger comments thread. All good fun in my view, but the folk at Club Bloggery are not taking it lying down.
1,127 Comments
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I would be a bit suprised if they put Crean as a speaker. I would think they would want a freindly independant as with NSW.
Centaur: if Smirky loses Higgins, I’ll get naked and do cartwheels down my street, after a lot of cold ones of course. Just to see that smirk wiped off Costello’s face!
That woman was so right.
This is a forum for red-ragger try-hard Labor supporters, who are desperate for the polls not to come right.
Is there an AC Nielsen poll tomorrow? Or another Galaxy?
The Speaker won’t be an independent after 11 years of Opposition. The party would be fuming.
OK Paris.
Hi there Hilton. You might like to nick off, also.
On the mystery of the unusually high price for Mr Howard at Centrebet etc. First of all the theory that Liberal war room is whacking on 10 g now and again to artificially keep Johnny’s price low, to give the impression that he’s still in the game, is not very realistic. That’s because, let’s say there is 20 people in the know, at least one or two would quietly go away at lunchtime, slip into Westpac and remortgage the home and whack on 100 grand privately, knowing that the price is artificially low. The result would be that Johnny would blow out to 4s and Maxine to $1.01.
Point 2. I think the market is genuinely unaware how much the boundaries have shifted since the last election. On the other hand, it is not so much the incumbency factor that is keeping Howard’s price low but affection and gratitude by the high number of over 50s in the electorate, and old money such that live in Hunters Hill, Putney, parts of Ryde and Epping and Eastwood.
Further, Maxine is good copy and she is getting more press than a challenger in her position would normally get and hence the inflated expectations.
Having said all that Maxine has firmed a lot to 2.40 at Centrebet, from about 3.15. And she is good value up to about 1.75.
Centre at 884
That’s not how it has played out in a number of the thinner seats that I know of. A couple of 3 figure bets have moved the prices on a number of seats around the markets.
The other problem here is “if the bookie believes”.
Quite frankly, there a quite a few of us here that know more about which seats will fall than the bookies and what is passing for the “expert knowledge” of some of their so called consultants in this area.
You only had to look at the original odds that were set for the individual seats to know that the bookies were fed an awful lot of drivel from day 1.
On the crowds issue – even though there is a whole lot of shenanigans and process operating around the individual seat markets, the “crowd” is why the main game was showing until very recently the ALP winning, but not picking up enough seats in the individual seat markets.
The effects of a large market flow through. If the seat markets were as large as the main market, the sum of the seat markets would be reflecting a predicted outcome a lot similar to the “who will win the election” market.
881,
Burgey, the DT themselves are the ones who promoted the Monday Bennelong special earlier this weekend. It will be there only they aren’t telling us what is in it excepting to say that it will surprise everyone.
Like an earlier poster, I don’t know why they would sit on it if negative to the government and deliberately post it on the campaign launch day unless Rupert has changed his colours. Because, lets face it, if it is positive to the rodent, that wouldn’t be a surprise now would it? The only genuine surprise would be a sizeable leap poll wise towards Maxine.
Oh , btw, to another poster – campaign launches are 2pm Monday Libs, 2pm Wednesday Labor.
Bennelong boundaries haven’t shifted much since 2004 have they? I understood the redistribution only shaved his margin by 0.1%.
C de F.
It all depends on how much of their resources they may be willing to spend on expert advice/ information etc..
Being an election, certainly relatively little compared to horse racing.But still these guys are in the business of getting it right (whether they do or not is not is debateable) and are prepared to accept wagers of upto six figures.
No, not at all – no desperation. The polls came right in December ‘06 and have pretty much stayed that way. Thanks for your concern though.
Fair dinkum, this blog’s rollin’ like a runaway train!
Footsie, That’s great news that Rove is ridiculing El Rodente in between the Lib attack ads. Particularly enjoy the writing on the wall when it’s on nation-wide punter TV. Shows like Rove’s are the bush telegraph of 21st Century Oz.
George – I’m still playing with it.
I’ve just got the AEC enrolment numbers for each seat, by age, formatted today (which is what I’ve been after) – so I hope to populate it soon.
You’ll be the first to know (actually you’ll be the first of 4 to know as I received 4 different calculators graciously provided to me by people reading that conversation!)
Gotta love the intertubes.
A quick word to stick up for Glen and his ilk. In the words of Voltaire “I may not agree with a word you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it”. And I find the blogs from Glen etc very interesting (except for Tabitha who is just irritating). It gives us an insight into the mind of the enemy, we learn something occasionally and we can hone our debating skills. And I actually agree with him about not wearing KevinO7 in the booth, it somehow seems undemocratic.
Centre @ 884, what do you make of Betfair odds then? (They are set by the punters).
So if your a guy can you wear a dress in the booth?
Who cares what you wear in the booth?!?!
If the pond life that comes after you is influenced by a badge or a form well that’s their problem.
Charlie
Stephen Conroy WILL be in Cabinet he is one of labor’s best in the senate.
Deputy Leader’s in the senate have alway been in cabinet
This is a bit of a giggle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8jEaBbO9Os
A fairly even-handed piece from our friend Mr Milne:
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22737604-5013650,00.html
Seems like Labor are going to drop the partially polite approach they’ve taken so far with respect to JWH.
To me regulating what someone wears seems un-democratic.
Kevin Rudd will be on Rove next week.
Diogenes, I hope you still have your lamp. Glen i can live with quite happily. Some of his apparent fellow travellers appear to be interested only in insults, which doesn’t strike me as particularly helpful. It’s enough to drive you back into that barrel of yours!
James, who does he squeeze out of the Cabinet I posted?
Centre @ 884
It depends on the bookie. I’m a professional gambler on the races (have only recently taken an interest in election betting) and I find it highly unlikely that any of the major corporate bookies in Australia would back their judgement to the extent of a $100k bet on the election. It’s often overstated how much bookies know – the fact is they don’t need to know that much to turn a profit. The big ones of course will have done serious research, but won’t know any more than most of the guys here, and for that reason are unlikely to have any firmly held opinions along the lines of ‘Howard will definitely hold his seat and I’ll lay him to London’.
Re: the earlier converstaion about ‘mug punters’ ruling the market and bookies not knowing what’s smart money and what’s dumb – that’s partially true but the basic fact is that people betting a lot of money are generally not doing it for fun. Market shifts are worth watching because they’re caused by the big bets – not generally by the ‘crowds’. This explains why the statement the other day about ‘90% of bets being for the coalition’ didn’t lead to any movement in the market – the bets were from cheerleaders and not people who were backing their judgement.
Re Henry at 908
“On the mystery of the unusually high price for Mr Howard at Centrebet etc. First of all the theory that Liberal war room is whacking on 10 g now and again to artificially keep Johnny’s price low, to give the impression that he’s still in the game, is not very realistic. That’s because, let’s say there is 20 people in the know, at least one or two would quietly go away at lunchtime, slip into Westpac and remortgage the home and whack on 100 grand privately, knowing that the price is artificially low. The result would be that Johnny would blow out to 4s and Maxine to $1.01.”
Have you not heard of honour among thieves. They wouldn’t rat on the rat would they?
Possum Comitatus Says:
“George – I’m still playing with it.
I’ve just got the AEC enrolment numbers for each seat, by age, formatted today (which is what I’ve been after) – so I hope to populate it soon.
You’ll be the first to know (actually you’ll be the first of 4 to know as I received 4 different calculators graciously provided to me by people reading that conversation!)
Gotta love the intertubes.”
Cool Poss, thought you might be waiting on those numbers
Looking forward to an article by you once you play with the numbers.
Diogenes @ 916
I’d second that, some of the debates that go on here are a joy to watch. I could do without the abuse that sometimes gets hurled, though but I guess that’s just a reflection of Real Life anyway.
I will stick up for Tabitha though. Irritating as she may be, she is amusing in an “Boys are silly, throw rocks at them” kind of way.
The clock is ticking for Howard unless he pulls a rabbit out of his hat?? I see Louise Markus (Greenway) everynow & then at the station & always tell her that the Libs are gone & will be decimated. I tell her that she will survive but the weasel & his ilk are goneski. After a few months of doing this when she sees me now the confidence she had before the campaign seems to now be gone. Maybe she’s resigned to the fact. If any other Liberal Parliamentarians read this blog the message is the same. You’re party is gonski in 07. Never ever divide the country like your leader has done since 1996. It is in the genes of all liberals to be mean spirited, greedy, tight fisted who rule for their liberal mates at the expense of the rest of the nation.
Good riddance.
there is no way Rattus will play the race card now.
thanks Hedley Thomas, Stephen Kean and the lawyer whose name escapes me
Hilton @ 903 You should know the rules: No Anorak – No Blog.
909
Possum Comitatus Says:
November 11th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
“If the seat markets were as large as the main market, the sum of the seat markets would be reflecting a predicted outcome a lot similar to the “who will win the election” market.”
Possum Comitatus is correct, see here:
http://www.ozforums.com.au/viewtopic.php?id=1452
George I replied, thanx
But now I have to go letterbox. I hope the street lights are good!
Anyone else want to help out in Higgins centaur_007@yahoo.com.
It’s only recently that they have thought we have a chance hence the extra bods but the more help we get the better. This seat will be marginal and a win is still possible.
I’ll bet my left one that the swing won’t be under 4%. The sentiment is definately there.
Mark @ 920 – LOL
Finally we have some election action in Wannon! An workchoices attack flyer from ALP appeared in the letterbox today along with drivel from FF. No sign of the libs at all here in my town (Portland). I imagine it is for Senate campaigning really.
The only poster up that I have seen is for Family First, very dark blue and hard to read.
Most of the Lib supporters here that I know that want to say anything are resigned to an ALP govt and hope the losses wont be great.
I don’t see how that would be a ’shock’. A further comeback in the national 2PP would be, but Bennelong? Nah.
Possum,
They are bookmakers. They try to balance their books. Obviously the weight of money they hold WILL have a great bearing on their prices.
The underlying fact is that the total amount bet is not the only factor that determines fixed odds prices. Bookmakers may rely on opinion, information and market forces (which may include the mood of the market).
Mark @ 920 – excellent, wish it was on TV …
Diogenes @ 806,
Betfair don’t set their own odds. You bet with other punters, and the punters set the odds.
It’s a fundamentally different business model to most (if not all) other bookies.
Centre – how much of the price is not related to the betting information the bookies have? I guess it will vary, but as a rule of thumb?
Family first were asked for a please explain on their preferencing of Hansen. gave a very bad account of themselves. The Australian also got their facts wrong, saying that the libs were preferenced before Hansen, its the other way around. There is real anger in the Christian Community about this one. their support in the coming election is likely to be lot less support because of this.
910 Julie – if prevailing wisdom has become that a lead to Howard in the Bennelong is a surprise, then the Libs are in big trouble.
A big swing to him maybe, but which headline is the “shocking” one (and which would get you buying the paper if you didn’t usually?)?
“PM looks set to win his seat” or
“Howard to lose Bennelong”
When it comes to individual seat markets, the predictive power isn’t as good as that of the overall result. In 2001 Centrebet favourites won in 43 out of 47 marginal seats and in 2004 it was 24 out of 32 marginals.
I suspect a similar result this time – this is where the informed punter has a chance to clean up.
If the swing to Rudd is on in a big way, Bennelong will go to Maxine.
Does anyone else think Rodent and Hyacinth’s rather bitchy interview in the Fairfax papers today will hurt the Liberals? I don’t think the average person likes a PM’s wife playing politics.
Stephen, read exactly what I am saying in all my comments. I am providing an example of a $100k bet in a small market. Of course it depends on the bookie, his knowledge and his resources. By the way I am a professional market analyst.
What do you think of Betfair? I think it’s a revolution. Don’t fall for the crap that the outdated TAB trys to dish and spin out.
Gough at 927 — Stephen at 926 nails it, people putting on a poultice don’t do it for fun nor as a matter of honour of belief. What motivates them is pure probability of a win. i.e. greed.
Grog 943
It’s been about 36 hours since I saw the front of the Tele, but the words were to similar to “results that will shock even the most hardened of political observers.”
To me, that sounds like nothing other than a sudden and sharp turn against the PM.
Dyno, it’s fixed odds. It dosen’t matter if you bet with a bookie or punter. Someone is taking your bet.
I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that for Stephen Conroy to have a seat at the Cabinet table, Simon Crean would have to come out.
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