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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Can I ask a procedural question? Do the voters in WA get to see whats happening in the count in Vic and NSW on the TV etc? If there was a Ruddslide on with 2.5 hours to go til polling finishes in WA couldnt that affect their vote?
Big Blind Dave-
you must have missed The Urangotan Intervention.
No 1149
What a surprising revelation.
Toby @ 1141. As I said Grey is in the bag
I’m off to bed to dream about more Labour gains. I’ll update you all tomorrow.
Apparently Faulkner is to get a ministerial position.
Faulkner is one of the best I’ve seen, if he had been in the lower house he would have been a good pick for the top job.
Mooooo… ‘v’….on
Yes The Morgan activity was holding onto a slider while they played some ads then move it to left or right according to your feeling. Like ‘the worm’ I guess and they get some demographic info off you and who you intend to vote for.
Yep, it’s all live into WA, at least on the ABC, possibly on the commercial channels as well.
NFF praises Labor on climate change:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Farmers-praise-Labor-on-climate-change/2007/11/20/1195321787605.html
More signs the wheels are coming off?
Well, fine, mad cow, 1140, dontcha reckon?
William is as William does.
Anyway, Tabby has still to learn Howard’s three R’s, and string more than ten words together. Unlike her Mummy, Issie.
Smiling.
He’s also stuck it out through a long time in the wilderness, and contributed much in opposition. Definitely deserves a ministry.
Glad I put $50 on Boothby @ $3 a couple of days ago.
Odds shift on Betfair:
Labor now $1.25 (with $13000 on it), Coalition on $4.80. Out from $1.26/$4.70 10 minutes ago…
1158 Frank- Do some of the more apathetic WA voters watch whats going on re size of swing in the East and then vote late in the day to be on the winning side?
1132 blindoptimist,
I know I’m a poor substitute for Possum, but the clear answer is no.
What could make the polls be wrong? You can eliminate the possible causes of error one by one.
Howard has no rabbits left in the hat. Today’s Robb effort was a bit pathetic.
Rudd’s not going to make a big stuff-up, and most of the rest of the Shadow ministry are sticking to pre-prepared stuff that can’t hurt them.
There’s no way that random variation can be distorting a “true underlying” Labor TPP of say, 51, and making it look like 54. Not with the number of polls and their consistency. The Libs can’t win unless they get (at least) 48, and they probably need 49.
There’s no reason to believe the undecideds are going to break radically in Howard’s favour.
That only leaves one possibility, which is that there’s a systemic error in the way the pollsters source people, or ask the questions, or interpret the answers, or that there’s a substantial number of people who will vote for Howard but won’t admit to it. There could conceivably be a few in that last category, but 3% of the voting population? I can’t see it.
Swing Lowe, are the NFF going to issue a public retraction of their ads?
Dyno @ 1137
Not sure who will get which jobs if ALP wins, but here is my list of some of the best performers for the ALP in the campaign (plus worst performer and some who didn’t seem to appear much on the radar).
1. Roxon
2. Gillard
3. Burke
4. Wong
5. McLelland
6. Smith
Worst performer
1. Garrett
Least Used Shadows (where have they been?)
1. Tanner
2. Fitzgibbon
3. Plibersek
4. Emerson
5. M. Ferguson
Mad Cow: shouldn’t Bob Baldwin be doing some doorknocking, or is he just relying on his TV ads? Yeah, Jim seems like a great bloke!
Damn, I wish Labor had a chance of winning Berowra. They’re not even bothering here, which I guess is smart, because Ruddock’s margin after the election will still be in double figures. All the resources have gone into Bennelong.
I think you’ll find Faulkner heading up a superministry.
Most will have voted before the results start coming in. They’re not all going to wait until the last hour or two before the polls close. In America they can get a result in the Presidental Election before Alaska and Hawaii votes so how do you thing they must feel?
anyone think this thread is a bit long?
maybe Will can do a new one on Libs plans for the future vs Rudds stuck in the past- you know all this talk about “remember the last three Lib governments and conscription and stuff”
I am sure everyone would respond to a campaign about past governments
Been out, got on the computer and discovered that Robb’s petulance was already rebounding. That was nice. Watched Lateline. That Joyce guy is weird. I mean weird. But he is from Queensland so I guess that’s almost normal (based on my last visit there a few weeks ago) (sorry banana-bending bloggers). I must say, that Joyce i/v would make a good ALP ad if you could get people to watch it without tearing out their eyes in boredom or losing the will to live. At last Leigh adds a certain frisson, unlike fat Tony. Also very happy to see that el rodente has now decided to ban the discussion of history henceforth in favour of ‘a narrative’. I assume this is code for banning critique. He also bans history when it reflects badly on him (which it invariably does). He does have a certain smooth irritating style though (like hessian underpants) with his conveyancing lawyer deniable double-talk response to everything. He can’t help himself, he has to lie even when he doesn’t have to. And I must say his line was interesting about changing the government. If you change the government apparently things change. What a remarkable insight he has.
Nicola Roxon: the star of the Labor campaign
Garrett: the dud performer! He’ll be dumped to a lowly Arts Ministry, I predict.
No 1159
That’s strange given that the ALP is running no farmer candidates.
Farmers abandoning the LNP!!?
Jen 1152: could that have been the Libs’ version of the Chewbacca defense? “Look at the silly monkey…”
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6EqjBA82dM8&mode=related&search=
Shanahan & Kelly:-
‘Beware a Labor-Greens axis’
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22786854-5012863,00.html
Martin Ferguson is in the sh..house in outer Siberia where he belongs.
” He does have a certain smooth irritating style though (like hessian underpants)”
nice stuff.
DGW,
I was surprised Tanner didn’t get out more. Perhaps he’s been preparing for his job as the new Peter Walsh. A tough one, that.
Arbie Jay at 1155.
‘Apparently Faulkner is to get a ministerial position’.
Entirely agree with your evaluation.
But how does he get a Ministerial?
Something like the possie Minchin is holding for the next few days?
Never really thought about how Senators get to be Ministers.
Either the word has spread about Howard’s 7.30 report fiasco or someone is jamming the program’s website. I heard the first few minutes and then had to go out and walk the dog, and I haven’t been able to get onto the site all night.
And I wouldn’t bet on the Robb eligibility business having no impact. It’s almost midnight, and the Oz is still running with the Wentworth challenge as its lead story, the Tiser is running ‘Labor’s angry denial’, news.com is running ‘Election could end up in court’, the Telegraph isn’t saying anything, the Hun and the Courier-Mail are running stories along the line of ‘Labor blasts “desperate” Libs’, and the Worst Australian and the Hobart Mercury are obsessed with local stories, as usual, although I think they both ran the Robb allegations earlier in the day without much info about the Labor denials.
This whole gambit is so obviously directed at people who don’t read past the headlines. Sigh.
Martin Ferguson has been making Labor announcements on roads, not that anyone would have noticed. Hopefully Rudd dumps both him and his brother to the backbench.
Dyno @1165, there’s no telling what systemic errors there are in the polls this time around. They’ve tried to learn from their mistakes but for instance to apportion preferences they are pretty much going on what happened last time around.
This is why I’ve been conservative and predicted 53.5 even though the trend is 55.
Having said that, there’s always the chance of unforeseen error in the other direction. Expats. Young people without phones. Better connected ethnic voters. Who knows.
Btw I tried to start a serious thread on the ‘upside risk’ earlier today and I got howled down… when there really are potential ‘oopses’ in the pollster’s methodology, and they do go both ways.
Hope you’re around on sat night
Re: the 7.30 Report. I think that was the first time I’ve seen Howard come close to admitting that interest rates would have skyrocketed even higher than Labor’s when he was Treasurer if they hadn’t been capped. Makes his claim of higher interest rates under Labor sound a bit empty but I doubt most swinging voters would get the point.
Sorry if this has already been mentioned, but the Oz Politics Blog has an interesting discussion about the likes and un-alikes of Oz Politics and Anthony’s calculators, the explanation is simple enough with out erasing the fact it all a bit complicated; and its a nice example of the length the psephos have to go to tell us JWH is a days work for a taxidermist.
http://www.ozpolitics.info/blog/2007/11/20/day-36-report/
958
Glen Says:
…Kerry votes Labor you know it, I know it…
I didn’t know that. Where’s your evidence?
“I Started a Joke” Bob B G Brown.
Now if by 9:00pm on sat night it looks like the polls are headed towards a 55+ national 2PP Im going to be half drunk screaming “the cows are mad and they’re not gonna take it anymore”. My cows will be amused.
All last year Howard sat there and thumbed his nose at Beazley thinking he had to do nothing except turn up to the election.
NOW at the business end of the season it is obvious that he has actually planned nothing, not thought about anything and, is just realing from one disaster to the next. Throwing cash around no longer works and living off Keating/China no longer works.
One thing each party obviously needs is minister for planning re-election starting from day one.
Crikey
A few senators are ministers, Johnston, the lib senator and former legal partner of Julian Grills of Burke fame is minister for justice.
Faulkner will be good, labor has a lot of talent and experience .
For mine:
1. Rudd – let’s face it, his lack of stuff ups is the main reason the voters are going to the ALP.
2. Gillard – well done Julia. Very well done.
3. Swan – economic management was supposed to be the ALP’s downfall wasn’t it?
4. Roxon – to be fair, Tony did most of her work for her. Still, deserves a gong.
1190
Chris Ellis will be a minister- garunteed
Yeah not ideal for Alaska and Hawaii, but really it is pretty unavoidable.
But it doesn’t matter that much. The Democrats usually win Hawaii, and the republicans normally win Alaska.
Plus, they aren’t worth many electoral votes anyway.
The Australian has an interesting (and quite balanced) editorial today:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22794093-16741,00.html
968
Generic Person Says:
I’m not at all homophobic. It is a biological fact that homosexuals cannot conceive children.
They can actually. I’ll leave it to your wicked imagination to work out how.
peter walsh was the hammer of middle class welfare. i wonder what he’d make of Howards ruling class welfare?. Good to see the NFF get their heads out of their collective backsides and support good policy. Labor should put a lot of time into these people when in Goverment because the Tories care not for them
1173 Howard Hater, roxon rocks on, she has been a revelation, loved her spanking of the monk, bet he still can’t sit down.
fav moment of the campaign: costello high’fiving school girls. creepy.
The Robb thing is just burley to try and tempt a few fish. It matters not a jot. It really is the act of los desperados.
On the other hand, at my weekly gathering of a few score ordinary folk of diverse backgrounds tonight, where we speak not of politics, I managed to get an interesting bite from an older Australian, who had heard Dolly’s rant today about Rudd, and who thought he sounded like a spoilt two year old. She has never volunteered a political opinion before. She thinks he’s an idiot. Nice.
I must say Dolly could petulate (petulante?) for Australia. He is truly world class. And so good looking to boot!
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