Time for a new thread. For the want of anything better to hang it off, I hereby reprint my piece in Crikey last week on prospects for the Senate. This does not mean discussion on this thread need be relevant to this topic.
Like so much else this year, speculation about the Senate election has been guided by “the narrowing”: that mystical force that would drive swinging voters to the Coalition once the campaign focused minds on economic management. It’s now clear to all but a dwindling band of die-hards that this hasn’t happened and isn’t about to.
It is thus necessary to revise the view that the Coalition will be strong enough in the Senate to make life difficult for an incoming Rudd Government. The Liberals and Nationals instead find themselves in danger of losing a swag of seats, which opens up a dizzying range of possibilities for the Greens.
A case in point is Kerry Nettle’s bid for re-election in New South Wales. Earlier in the year it seemed safe to assume there would be a traditional three-all split between left and right, with Nettle fighting a probably losing battle with Labor’s number three, Senator Ursula Stephens. In that context, any improvement in the Labor vote would have been damaging for Nettle. Now it seems Labor might be strong enough to win Stephens a seat without excluding Nettle, perhaps even bequeathing her a measurable surplus as preferences. That would boost Nettle’s chances of overtaking and defeating the Coalition’s third candidate, Senator Marise Payne.
The story is similar in Victoria, given that Labor and the Democrats have thought better of repeating their 2004 preference exchanges with Family First (who nonetheless have a vague chance if they can match their vote at the state election).
There has been a further stroke of good fortune for the Greens with the entry of independent Nick Xenophon in South Australia. Such is Xenophon’s popularity that he looks likely not only to win a quota in his own right, but also to deliver the Greens a substantial surplus. This could help their candidate Sarah Hanson-Young overcome the third Labor candidate, Cathy Perry.
Bob Brown should have no trouble winning a seat in Tasmania, the question being how the remaining five seats will divide between Labor and Liberal. There is familiar talk that Brown might do well enough to also carry running mate Andrew Wilkie over the line, but this at least seems a little too optimistic.
The two states where Labor’s strength does not help the Greens are Western Australia and Queensland. Western Australia does not look likely to produce the huge swing required to cost the Liberals a third seat, so a strong hike in the Labor vote has the potential to squeeze out the Greens. Nonetheless, their candidate Scott Ludlam remains the firm favourite.
Labor is also becoming hopeful of winning a third seat in Queensland, which it has never done before at a six-seat half-Senate election. On the other side of the ledger, there is a chance that the Coalition will lose the seat of Nationals Senator Ron Boswell to Family First, who will harness the entire right-of-centre vote if they get ahead of Pauline Hanson. It’s hard to see how Hanson herself could put a quota together, despite all that has been written about her minor successes in preference negotiations.
The remaining wild card is the Australian Capital Territory, where Greens candidate Kerrie Tucker threatens an historic win at the expense of Liberal incumbent Gary Humphries. This would be especially significant because territory Senators’ terms are tied to the House of Representatives, so that an end to the Coalition’s absolute majority would take effect immediately.
While it is likely that not all of these potential Greens wins will come off, they will probably have around five Senators joining the two continuing from the 2004 election, to be joined on the cross benches by Nick Xenophon and continuing Family First Senator Steve Fielding. The Coalition will be reduced from its current majority of 39 seats out of 76 to around 35, while Labor should increase its current 28 seats by four.
1,322 Comments
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kina do they sound like they know what they’re doing?
Generic Person has done nothing to warrant being banned.
Daniel: good idea mate!
My shock Labor gain predictions:
Hughes
Macarthur
Ryan
Sturt
McEwen
HH 2.10 on sportingbet
#982 El Nino – LMAO
#1075 Xinian – I think that most people would vote Fran Bailey out if they knew what a slug she is. At least Andrew Robb helped out a bit by reminding everyone that Rob Mitchell is the ALP candidate there. If Fran “where the bloody hell” survives this time, she’ll be completely obsolete in 2010.
Shock Coalition gain: Griffith.
I want GP to stay because:
1/ He reminds me why I no longer vote Liberal
2/ I can’t wait to read his drunken rants on this Saturday night and Sunday morning.
Have been watching the odds on Boothby and Sturt for weeks now and they have been rock solid….until tonight. Both are shortening. Boothby 3.00/1.30 into 2.70/1.40 and Sturt 2.30/1.55 into 2.10/1.58. BTW Grey is 4.40
William: you’ve got the power, I’ll defer to your judgement!
Mad Cow: Rudd ought to get up to your part of the world, might be the final impetus Jim Arneman needs to get over the line.
gp, take onwnership of your own actions. of I raised the issue and fair enough Im on WB’s sh*t list. but you decided the length and breadth of your postings.
1102
I like where you’re going with the first two. Some of those Western Sydney seats have the highest proportions of tradespeople, who are most likely to be hit by AWAs. Do you rate Greenway an outside chance?
Kevin Rudd is at the Press Club tomorrow (warm-up for Kerry?) and el rodente on Thursday.
Shock Labor gain: Higgins! Not likely, but wouldn’t it be hilarious to see Costello in tears?
Paul Hodgkin…
I’m not sure, but honestly …
I remember seeing many post about ESJ and his taunt. I remember seeing many ppl, ( ok I think, 2 or 3 taking him up on it.)
But I CLEARLY remember him saying
wrong terms …DENIED
NFI if he was talking about you
William I think you should at least look objectively at who here has made negative comments (like ’senseless drivel’) about other bloggers.
Rodent however is fair game.
No 1111
I stand by my opinions expressed, but I don’t believe I should be vilified for “hijacking the thread” when I was responding to a question you posed.
No offence but from a guy who usually says ‘Moo”
that’s rich
No 1115
I think that is a clear double standard mad cow.
Up here in Qld – just saw B. Joyce on LL. What a hoot! He thinks that it will be close but he stands to be corrected after the election! I vote for Joyce to headline at next years Melbourne Comedy Festival. Vale agrarian socialism in Australia.
Daniel, I heard from a good source today that Labor is getting swings of 8% in Western Sydney seats. Greenway and Macarthur might be a bridge too far, but considering Rudd has visited both recently, Labor must think they’ve got some sort of chance in both.
Andrew Robb thinks it is close in Florida.
shock poll result: gippsland. please let it happen.
Howard Hater,
Is there anyone else you want purged from the blog?
HH I rang them up tonight and put it to them. No response. Just ‘trust us’.
ESJ: I’ve been to Hay-on-Wye. My impression was that it’s full of nice people who read The Times.
Kerry must be feeling confident that the Tories will lose. If they get back in, the ABC will be made to pay for this breach of discipline.
I have a list of people who havent been sufficiently ideological zealous headed by Paul K.
1109 Grey @ 4.40. Wa hey! There’s my super sewed up. I kid you not i had a dream about it the other night
Oh and add this to the shock Labor gains list. It’s been there for Labor before
ESJ: it’s up to William to decide! If others like Generic Person, that’s OK, I can live with it.
Now that you mention it. Who’s this William Bowe guy?
HH, even reducing costello to 2 percent will take the wind out of his sails and make him harder to take seriously within the party
ESJ @ 1126,
Am I on that list?
And should I be happy if I’m on/off it?
Where is possum – teacher and prophet – when you need him! I am bored by opinion and rhetoric; and crave some clear talk on the polls (if that’s not an oxymoron). Can things swing around in the last week, the last three days, the last night? Is it still possible that Howard can win?
As far as Sturt goes, it seems to have been just out of reach the whole campaign, and I expect it to remain so (unless there is a major Rodent implosion over the next few days). Boothby is more plausible, as Labor’s notional vote has been suppressed by the “Nicole is a bimbo” impression – there’s scope for some waverers to be convinced.
If a dud like Belinda Neale can win Robertson, Jim Arneman can take Paterson.
I’ve read Jim’s bio. An ambulance officer and someone obviously with a broad life experience would be a good addition to parliament.
Hey, I don’t think GP is technically a troll, but he has said some personally negative things about other bloggers. Itd be nice if William could apply the rule that *any* comment that reflects negatively on another blogger gets deleted, but sheesh, he’s gotta be pretty sleep deprived by now.
Did the australian poll.
Howard = cross-breed mongrel
Rudd = Golden Retriever
Who’s going to get the jobs in KR’s ministry?
Specifically would be interested in views on any or all of:
Foreign Affairs
Defence
Environment
A-G
Immigration
Health
Education
Arts
No 1132
Labor’s swing will only matter if the swing is in all the right seats.
In the end, discussing polls is tiresome. The only poll that counts is election poll.
Sorry I’m late guys, just logged on finally, long day campaigning.
Did I miss anything?
Libs found a plan for the future maybe?
Isabella on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be far removed from Tabitha. Anyhow, so long as the bandwidth holds up, all of this will be an interesting ‘historical record’ I guess. I’m still not sure why William does it. He could quite easily insist the blog is about psephology and then make executive decisions about when posts stray.
1108 Diogenes:
“Have been watching the odds on Boothby and Sturt for weeks now and they have been rock solid….until tonight. Both are shortening. Boothby 3.00/1.30 into 2.70/1.40 and Sturt 2.30/1.55 into 2.10/1.58. BTW Grey is 4.40″
Internal Coalition polling shows Sturt is a 50-50 deadlock, and there is an expected 6% swing in Boothby, which will see Cornes trounce Southcott. The swing is on in SA big time folks.
No 1135
Mad Cow, in the last several days, I’ve been labelled as intellectually incapacitated, stupid, dickhead, idiot, homophobe, loser, imbecile and so forth.
All such personal attacks are from those of leftist persuasion.
Big Blind Dave:
No plan for the future.
Howard’s still stuck in the past.
He just likes referring to the future by talking about the ALP’s past and ignoring the past when it comes to his own record.
You can be sure Combet, Shorten, McKew, Debus and Kelly(assuming they all win) will be considered for ministries.
viggop – gday – i was in the back row in 1971 green square – with terryg, walc, denish – i am rickb
Delroy. Issue of the Day.
Are you ready to die? What plans have you made?
BBD – Howard has a plan for the past. He doesn’t like history so he is going to rewrite it at taxpayers expense.
HH he’s a great bloke in person.
Btw another bit of inside info. Apparently Baldwin is averse to doornocking. All he does is arrange photo opportunities.
1139 Big Blind Dave. The latest brilliant decision by the Tories is that they are not going to govern even if they won on Saturday.
http://petermartin.blogspot.com/2007/11/spin-doctor-howards-ultimate-promise.html
LNP ads = suck
Labor ads = good
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