This time yesterday, Liberal member Fran Bailey held on to a 32-vote lead in McEwen which, though rapidly diminishing, was calculated by Antony Green to be 77 per cent likely to hold after the few remaining votes were counted. Those votes are now in: the last few absent votes broke 100-93 in favour of Labor’s Rob Mitchell, postals went 37-21 his way, pre-polls favoured him to the tune of 33-23, and further rechecking of booth votes cost Bailey 14 and Mitchell eight. All of which leaves Mitchell seven votes ahead. This is apparently the final result, pending the final recount, which could certainly turn up enough anomalies to overturn a lead as small as this. Adam Carr further argues that with a margin of fewer than 20 votes, “the Liberal Party’s lawyers will be able to scrape up some pretext or another for a court challenge”. He also states: “Unfortunately for Labor, most of the precedents are that the incumbent government loses the subsequent by-election (Nunawading, Mundingburra, Greensborough).”
Mundingburra of course was the Queensland by-election in February 1996 that cost the Goss government the one-seat majority it retained after the 1995 election. The other two are from Carr’s home patch of Victoria. There are probably about five people in the country who can tell you about the 1985 by-election for the state upper house province of Nunawading, and I am not of their number. UPDATE: Scratch that – the result cost the Cain government its short-lived control of the upper house, so probably quite a few people know about it, including me from now on. What’s more, it followed an initial tied result and a win for Labor decided by a draw from a hat. The Greensborough by-election refers not to the one Sherryl Garbutt won in 1989, but rather to the one Poll Bludger commenter Chris Curtis ran in as DLP candidate in 1977, which produced a massive swing to the then Labor opposition. ANOTHER UPDATE: A correction in comments from Brian McKinlay (of McKinlay case fame), who says Carr was in fact referring to yet another by-election for Greensborough which took place in 1973, which saw a Liberal win overturned by the court before being re-confirmed by the electorate. One might respond that the 1996 Lindsay by-election demonstrates that voters do not take kindly to initiators of legal challenges, but perhaps the 5.0 per cent Liberal swing on that occasion had more to do with Labor’s generally poor performance at re-matches than is generally realised.
Anyway, let’s assume now for the sake of argument that this result stands. We now have a new modern standard for close federal electorate results to beat Liberal candidate Ian Viner’s 12-vote win in Stirling in 1974. The historians among you are invited to relate other famous close shaves in comments. We also have Labor on 84 seats and the Coalition on 64, with two independents. This is pleasing from a personal perspective as it’s exactly what I predicted early in the campaign for New Matilda, although I did underestimate Queensland’s contribution to the Labor total. Unfortunately, the day before the election I upped the ante to 87 in a prediction for Crikey, which looked very good on election night but became progressively less good as counting proceeded.
This prediction was highlighted today in The Australian, which has promoted me from confuser of fact with opinion and baser of opinion on ignorance and prejudice to the slightly more elevated title of “pundit”. I suspected at first that The Australian compiled this list as a subtle dig at an online commentariat that had leaned a little too heavily to Labor in its predictions, but that doesn’t explain the inclusion of Malcolm Mackerras. In any case, Brad Norington bails me out in the accompanying article by trying on the line that Labor owes its win to “fewer than 12,000 people across nine electorates”. Those of you marvelling over the seven-vote margin in McEwen are invited to consider an election in which the Coalition held on to power after retaining each of Bass, Bennelong, Braddon, Corangamite, Deakin, Flynn, Hasluck, Robertson and Solomon by one solitary vote. On this basis, I hereby declare that my prediction of 87 seats was only out by 595 votes out of 12,350,549. It would in fact be far more accurate to say it was 0.2 per cent out, which isn’t so bad either I suppose.
UPDATE: Adam Carr on historical close results:
In terms of numbers of votes, the closest result in a House of Representatives contest was 1 vote (13,569 to 13,568), when Edwin Kirby (Nationalist) defeated Charles McGrath (ALP) in Ballarat (Vic) in 1919. The result was declared void in 1920. In 1903 Robert Blackwood (FT) defeated John Chanter (Prot) in Riverina (NSW) by 5 votes (4,341 to 4,336). This result was also declared void. The closest result allowed to stand was 7 votes (13,162 to 13,155), when John Lynch (ALP), defeated Hon Alfred Conroy (Lib) in Werriwa (NSW) in 1914. In terms of percentages of the vote, the closest result was Kirby’s voided win in Ballarat in 1919: he polled 50.002% of the vote. The closest result allowed to stand was that in the Griffith (Qld) by-election of 1939, when William Conelan (ALP) defeated Peter McCowan (UAP), after preferences, with 50.007% of the vote. The closest winning margin in recent times has been 50.011%, polled by Ian Viner (Liberal) in Stirling (WA) in 1974 and by Christine Gallus (Liberal) in Hawker (SA) in 1990.
Mitchell has 50.003%, so his percentage is lower than both Conelan’s in 1939, Viner’s in 1974 and Gallus’s in 1990.
664 Comments
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Kev’s new rules only apply to his side. And it is not like they are laws either…. Just rules.
Work to rule @ 228: “A bit of extra work and you could turn your Sunday arvo exercise into a Masters.”
LOL, thanks.
Believe me, something like that did occur as I was typing. If only I could make some money out of my undergraduate politics degree and I’d even be tempted!
Adam @ 241: “I doubt LaRouche is thought any less a whacko in Cessnock than anywhere else.”
There’s definitely been a CEC cluster there since 2001 when the CEC also got 1,137 – well above their average. It drops back to a more normal 362 votes in 1998 and no CEC candidate at all in 1996.
It would be a strange mining company that didn’t have links with the Liberal Party! The Liberal Party is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the mining industry.
Re Haneef: It might well be that the Liberal leadership thinks Andrews botched the case so badly that he damaged its utility as an electoral wedge. But I still don’t think it did the Libs any harm among the floating voters.
Sorry Melb city, your gripe with the Greens is obviously some personal issue only you understand. Unless you can articulate your problem a lot more clearly, just let it go and stop pushing your barrow on this site.
Labor and the Greens have to, and will, learn to get on for the benefit of both parties.
Triffid – interesting speculation about Downer fishing for a job at Santos. It would be of a piece with that company’s chronic underperformance if they did decide to hire him.
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Sean Look at their preferences and question their tickets. then look at their past Reps in the Senate. voctoria was their intellectal strength and the SA girl was a pin up youth model (No longer youngand no longer in the senate) Apart from Lyn Allison (I recall her time as a Councillor) the rest have not much democratic values. Never did like their split ticket con.
Who would want Downer working for them,the person is a complete wanker,Keating should have buried him when the clown led the Libs.
Does anyone know if Christian Zahra was approached/expressed interest in running in either McMillan or Gippsland?
Hopefully he runs in Gippsland if/when McGauran quits.
B. S. Fairman at 295. With respect.
‘Andrews is likely to go because he was treated badly by Nelson and might see better value outside the game’.
I think he is being treated extremely well, considering.. and with the judicial review of Haneef, he may as well stay in the covers. Worth nothing, except to the US Religious Right, if that.
As for Downer, what value is he really, also soiled, by AWB.
In a rapidly changing foreign affairs environment?
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Natasha Stott-Despoja (”the SA girl”) “was a pin up youth model” for the Democrats?
You recall Lyn Allison (”their intellectual strength”) in her time as a Councillor, but am I right in recalling that you had a failed bid to make it into the council in ‘99?
Not sure but did Downer takeover his old mans seat,never done a hard days work in his life.
There was mention earlier of Howard’s little speech to the NSW libs suggesting they could win next time if they didn’t implode, but no-one seems to have mentioned the rest of that story, which went in quite the opposite direction and is much more fun to read:
“Brendan Nelson will not last 18 months,” one Liberal MP told The Sunday Age. “When he rang to offer me some paltry position on his front bench, I told him to shove it up his arse.”
Others dissatisfied with the new front bench asked why experienced political operators who missed out during the Howard years, such as Victorians Petro Georgiou, Mitch Fifield and Sophie Mirabella, had been left out of the shadow ministry.
“The reason is that he’s hostage to the right wing of the NSW division, those lunatics who will keep us out of power for a decade if we don’t stop them,” one said.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/behave-yourself-and-youll-win-howard-to-libs/2007/12/08/1196813083754.html
Yes, Dogs, not exactly hard. Downer. Not clear about a succession take over, but Wiki reference, a tad unreliable may I suggest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Downer
Try his Parliamentary site/bio for more accurate.
Rod (300),
Eltham was in Diamond Valley. Melb City’s signs helped the Democrats. They polled c17 per cent in the 1977 Greensborough by-election – if my memory serves me right – and went on to greatness…and then they died.
Dolly Downer will earn huge money working for an International foreign affairs think tank
I have to support Melb City on the Democrats, that ’split ticket con’ always turned me off — They failed my “smelly sock test”, not making it clear where they stood, fence-sitting isn’t a valid political policy platform to me — but then I’m old enough to remember their launch, as disaffected pissed off Liberals, faking a small-L liberal centrist image. They never really forgot their Liberal roots, as far as I could see.
But, I do have more hope with the Greens as our third-party, they behaved themselves during the campaign under Bob Brown’s leadership. So far, anyway.
Interesting how that Senate third-party has evolved. If you start with the DLP, splitting from the ALP, and “keeping the bastards honest” (ie non-Communist) through the Menzies years, only to die out into federal political oblivion.
Then almost immediately the Democrats arise from the ashes of a Liberal split to “keep the bastards honest”, to die out the same way.
May we be Third Time Lucky with our Third-Party!
Melb city, get over it!
Pissant game playing by a bunch of amateur wannabes (Labor, Lib, Green, Brown, Blue , Purple, Puce with polkadots, etc etc) in Melbourne City Council in days gone by has next to nothing to do with mainstream Australian politics. (well, I wish it hadn’t anyway!
)
Brennan was my local chemist before he headed there, and a nice enough bloke, but this wasn’t national level politics. More like the sort of stoush you might have behind the wheat silo at West Wyalong!
Judging ANY political entity on the basis of the goings on in the MCC at the time you mention is about as sensible as judging a bottle of wine by the taste of the foil (sorry, these days it is a screw cap!) or a cup of coffee by the shape of the saucer!
Simply put, Labor today depends on Green preferences for election. If it can’t sort out a positive working relationship with the Greens, then son of Johnny H. will back in Kirribili before you can say “Jack Lang”!
Crikey,just read Downer was the shortest serving leader of the lib’s on record,as I said Keating should have buried him and Howard would never had been Prime Minister as the ALP would have been in power for 3 more years and the lib’s would have burnt Howard themselves
Agree with Dogs. Downer is an incompetent. And a big sooky child.
He badly stuffed up Timor – Howard had to step in and fix that, he stuffed up on Iraq, he stuffed up on AWB (I’m being charitable), to the extent he was involved in the free trade agreement, he stuffed it – the Yanks are still laughing, he stuffed up on getting our people out of Lebanon last year – again had to be rescued by Howard. By any measure he is the most useless FM in our history.
The only value he may have is as a conduit to the powerful/influential, assuming they still remember his name, I suspect most don’t want to anymore, but even so his usefulness has a short use-by date.
Ron,Downer has the nous of a fish tank.
Charlie 308
Christian Zahra did a mighty job in McMillan 1998-2004, and I have been wondering what he is doing with his talents. For some info on this topic go to:
http://www.govrel.com.au/news.asp?page=detail&pageid=3245
and
http://news.envirocentre.com.au/lawn/section.php?issue=2006-04-12&key=85§ion=VIC
Zahra began his political career very early and is still young (34) with a young family. Maybe 2010?
#
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Dogs Says:
December 9th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Ron,Downer has the nous of a fish tank.
Ron says:
I agree , but the US think tanks are not paying for his ‘nous’
they are paying for their reputation in having an “Australian Foreign minister”
pro US
Still on Downer.
He is sullied. How much is his old knowledge worth?
Apart from being in the know about the labrynthine structures of the diplomacy circuit?
I would not entertain him as a good bet, given the new Government and his old associations.
And again, AWB?
Ron ,ex FM,are the Yanks really that stupid,Downer is a spent force,should take his Super and go frolick in the Adelaide Hills.
300
Rod. yes it did cause a stir. Mathews was a good member for Casey and a Greta help to me personally. 77 sounds about right maybe earlier 75 ….. I think there was a candidate by the name of Ross… Eltham/Templestowe was the Victorian birth place of the Democrats there was an anti Ring Road movement and I scrutinised my first election in 73 at the age of 16. Handed out TV in 72 and 75 Joined the ALP in 77 executive member in 78/79 moved to the City around 81 over 30 years with the ALP. It easy to dismiss issues as being personal but in reality it is the Greens how have failed to deliver on principle, ideas and policy. hypocrites and charlatans I am afraid. You can write it off as being personal if you want and it makes you more comfortable in your beliefs. I suggest you look harder and think twice before giving your money to a guy in a Koala suit.
the Republican party yanks are that stupid and will pay Dolly big bucks
(its his past ‘title’ they are buying
not his “brains” (I use the word ‘brains’ geberously
To me the Democrats were only slightly less odious than the DLP, with their split tickets, their support for the GST and lets not forget their support for the first wave of Howard’s IR laws. How anyone can complain about the the Dem alternative, the Greens is beyond me. They are a genuine left wing party, not a splinter party from the right and they are much more reliable than the Democrats ever were.
I really hope that Rudd and his front bench play it smart with Nelson. What we do not want is a replay of the humiliation of Sneddon and Downer. Yes it was so entertaining listening to Whitlam and Keating smashing those two incompetents, but in the end it did not work to the Party’s advantage. Lets try to keep the unfortunate looking Man in the top job for as long as possible.
Downers next job will be with a huge multi-national…….he will be heard saying “do you want fries with that?”
Rod, Greens voters need to direct their preferences somewhere. When the choice is between Labor and Liberal that decision is tough. A large proportion of Greens voters don’t follow how to vote cards so really Labor doesn’t need to deal with the Greens at all.
It would be much smarter for Labor to angle for the votes of some of the conservaitve minor parties as this is what really hurts them.
LETS HAVE A POLL ON HOW MANY MONTHS NELSON WILL LAST
my prediction 20 months
Generous, Ron Brown.
Hornet’s Nest. The Big Buzz.
I think the Libs will let him fry for about 12 months, to take all the flack over this and other issues, IR etc, which he will mangle, then move in, like the White Pointers they are.
We are being a bit harsh on people tonight I think.
* Downer did not inherit his father’s seat. Sir Alec retired in 1964 and died in 1981, and his seat, Angas, was abolished in 1977. Downer Jr did do some work as a diplomat before winning Mayo (in roughly the same area) in 1984. Obviously being a Downer didn’t hurt his chances, but his career is mostly his own work.
* Natasha Stott Despoja is a very smart and talented politician, and it’s a pity she wasted her time in an ungrateful and spiteful sect like the Democrats. She came to the leadership too young, and now she is retiring just as she has reached political mauturity. I hope she will come back one day, either as a Green or (even better) as Labor.
On the other hand
* Lyn Allison has always been a total non-entity as far as I can tell.
* Christian Zahra also started too young. He sealed his own fate by voting for L*th*m in 2003. He made a lot of enemies in the ALP, and if he is interested in a comeback he will have a lot of fences to mend first.
Ron,the Republicans have run out of dosh.
I reckon Xmas break nothing doing then parliament starts, collapse of hairdo and random hissy fits, followed by distancing by Lib ‘colleagues’ with Petit Mal taking over by June 2008. 6 months.
312
Jenny
Thanks for that delicious little morsel Jenny. It seems that the hyenas will be growling over the entrails for quite a while if that little exchange is anything to go by. It makes you wonder why Howard would think that anything he has to say is worth more than derision, but I guess that old dementia just kicks right in and the last few months never happened!
It’s going to be the opposite to the election: a date with destiny, versus the slow gnawing disembowlment of one Horatio Hornet and his accolytes.
But bring it on, nevertheless, I say!
Adam,did the seat of Angas cover the seat of Mayo?
LEP
A large proportion of Greens voters don’t follow how to vote cards so really Labor doesn’t need to deal with the Greens at all.
Ron says: do not agree
the Greens are vital to labors past & future electoral success
Angas was mostly a Riverland seat, while Mayo has usually been a Hills seat. There is probably some overlap.
You just have to look at the primary votes to see the value of the Greens. In lots of seats Labor ended up winning, they were well behind on the primary vote. On Green preferences, Labor were able to win seats. Labor is dependent on the Greens whether people like it or not!
Sure, Adam.
Not being particularly harsh on Downer. Yet it is an hierarchical seat. And I know plenty of people who live there. All leanings. Lovers and Haters.
Who, do you know, occupied the seat in the interregnum. Be it Angus or Mayo?
Fair enough Ron Brown… the next step is to explain how and why.
You don’t agree that a large proportion of Greens voters would still preference Labor over Liberal if the HTV cards didn’t direct them to?
How exactly are the Greens vital to Labor’s past electoral success? Also, is it possible that a close relationship with the Greens could damage Labor electorally? (Think ‘04 and the forestry policy)
I say all this as a former Greens voter.
who else are going to prefernce Labor? The DLP, the CEC, Family First? Gimme a break,these parties are sewn up by the Tories. The Greens are the only genuine force that Labor can preference and be preferenced in return.
Adam,Thank you,obviously more people have moved into the hills area extending the electoral area.
Melb city,
The 1977 Democrats candidate for Greensborough was David Ross.
Gary,
The DLP preferenced Labor candidates in Northern Metropolitan, South-East Metropolitan and one other region in 2006, Labor Senate candidates in Tasmania, Victoria and NSW in 2007 ahead of the Liberals and McMillan in 2007.
Chris I know and look what happened, the DLP came back from the dead! No thank you!
Ron Brown
It is imperative that Labor respects the Greens.
The object is to get all parties at the table to reach consensus.
Do you think otherwise???
LEP do the maths which is what the Labor numbers man ACTUALLY DO
Labor got primary 44.04%
Greens got primary 7.64%
Greens HTV card GUARANTEES 75% of 7.64% ie. 5.73%
(before getting slippages from FF , Democrats etc)
ANYONE who wants to argue against chasing Greens HTV preference is a political numbers novice
Gary, you need to distinguish between how much power a party has over how its voters preference. As long as Labor is seen as the more preferable second choice to the vast majority of Greens voters they need to do no deals with the Greens to be elected. Speaking as a former Greens voter, I’d never preference the Liberals over Labor no matter what their HTV card told them to do.
Are you arguing the Coalition is dependant on the conservative minor parties for any seats they don’t win on first preferences? No… because the votes will naturally break according to the way a majority of those voters are inclined to preference.
All this talk is really just the Greens trying to bolster an impression that they have more power than they do. The Greens are largely dependant on Labor preferences to get elected in the Senate (except in Tasmania). If Labor chose to direct Senate preference the Greens last in the Senate then they’d have little to no chance of getting senators elected. Therefore it’s in the Greens best interests to try and deal with Labor the best they can.
You are right Ron Brown, just look at the primaries.
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