One of the big questions floating around the post-election limbo dance is whether ALP State government and state party parliamentary performance had an impact on the ALP results in the federal election.
If we look at the two party preferred margin of the State ALP parties at their most recent poll (all Newspoll here except for Qld where I used some unpublished polling) and compare that to the swing the ALP experienced on Saturday – this is what we get:
The poorer the State ALP has been performing of late, the larger was the swing against the Federal ALP in that state.
The consistency across every state is hard to argue with.
And don’t forget (disgraceful self promotion) – Possum needs a job! For the lovely folks that have responded so far, I’m working my way through them all as we speak and will take a few days. Big thanks!
56 Comments
poss in tas there is still apprehension but we are a labor state ???
the experiment here seems to be working but not much seems to be happening either say, so stability at the moment i think,
but i thought it may not work but it is,
McKim i think is very good and a good minister.
so wonder if that tell you any thing
Pretty much as I thought.
The ALP had the bad fortune to have two ALP state governments that are completely rank at the same time.
Victoria almost cost Hawke government in 1990 (?), so it’s not surprising that two have casued the current mess.
Actually, you could almost make a case that the ALP has performed strongly!
Possum
Correlation does not imply causation.
True Dio – but it’s very consistent. Lets say Rudd was a factor in Qld – but then we have the problem that Qld was bad for Labor when Rudd was still leader.
What about NSW? What was special about that? Let’s say Victoria had hometown girl effect – then how do we explain Victoria being the best for Labor even under Rudd’s last days?
While there’s no doubt all sorts of things were going on – it’s hard to argue that state governments had little or nothing to do with it, especially as Qld and NSW local Coalition campaigns deliberately used Labor state governments as a theme.
That didnt come from a vacuum, it came from their research
POSSUM – I’m sure you are right. But most Federal governments usually have head-winds of one sort of another (bad state governments, recessions, etc etc). The big question though, when judging their electoral performance, is whether there were any self-inflicted injuries. Dumping a PM who, who has a strong economic record to sell, two months before the polls counts as probably the biggest in Australian political history.
Self inflicted injuries are probably too numerous to count Rosa!
I’m not sure you should really include WA in that.
Unloved state oppositions don’t seem to affect the Federal vote – Howard managed to do well in NSW while the state liberals were in dire straits and the ALP government was riding high.
Well, I’d hate to think it was the Liberals’ advertising campaign.
POSSUM – Yes, and now we move to the cognitive dissonance phase when all the wrong lessons are learnt.
I’m not sure what that is meant to mean. The relationship between whether States in the US voted for a Repug governor and whether they voted for a McCain was pretty consistent too.
Even though they are notoriously unreliable during and leading up to an election campaign, I do believe that a number of these type polls in Fairfax on-line media do give a good indication of the mindset of electors regarding Labor’s campaign and the overthrow of KR.
I don’t think that they can be rejected out of hand simply because of the normal type polls that can be manipulated easily teams of partisan keyboard fanatics.
These two in particular can be related to the above graphs quite readily IMO.
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-election/many-to-blame–but-only-one-to-protect-20100822-13axi.html#poll
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-election/odds-shorten-on-next-labor-leader-20100823-13d2g.html#poll
This one that I posted last night on PB also gives a picture IMO of where the Labor campaign brains trust, totally misread the issues that were most likely to influence voters, especially in Qld and to a lesser extent NSW.
I think too much notice was taken of Focus Groups in NSW alone and not the broader picture which was that there were a range of “different” issues in each State which could not be dealt with by one overall approach. The campaign also didn’t effectively try and differentiate the Federal campaign from the State issues in both Qld & NSW.
Clearly the NSW right power brokers used the Federal campaign to try and insulate NSW from a total smashing at the next State election, when what was needed was to concentrate on getting Federal Labor over the line first & foremost and just take their medicine State wise.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-election/anna-bligh-is-finished-20100821-13a67.html#poll
SCORPIO – the smarty-pants backroom boys got so immersed in their focus groups that they missed the elephant in the room: elections are all about the economy. So you axe the architect of your economic record (which is a good one) and you’re in big trouble. That’s why Julia spent all of her time trying to own/disown Rudd’s record, and then finally, desperately embraced his economic record. Nuts. Nuts. Nuts.
Rosa,
As soon as that started happening (right from the start), I knew that the power brokers who engineered the coup, had not given any thought to possible negative aspects of replacing Rudd with Gillard.
All they could see was a golden opportunity to engineer a quick disposal, install Gillard who they thought was a certain match winner and rush to the polls while the electorate was still coming to grips with the fact that the country now had a female PM who had proved effective in her roles as a Minister & Acting PM.
Once the novelty wore off (quicker than even I thought) the Opposition & media were able to point out the negatives which led to a total disarray in the strategy that the power brokers had mapped out which never took those into account and allowed for no plan B.
The fact that Gillard had to take some control of the campaign from them and represent herself to the electorate after only one week of the campaign when the polls started to dive alarmingly says it all.
The campaign never recovered to any degree from that point on and Abbott’s mob with able assistance from the media and the leaks, kept Labor’s campaign on the back foot right through to the end.
Another reason for a correlation is that the same cretins who have screwed up Labor i
at the state level screwed them up at the federal level in the state. You just couldn’t find more incompetent people than Arbib and Bitar if you trawled the sewer.
Diogenes,
You say it much better than me Dio, and with far fewer words too!
Wouldn’t another problem be that the SA state government isn’t exactly popular, as in SA libs would be in power if it wasn’t for good marginal seat campaigning by labor/bad candidates from the libs? I mean the 2pp at the state eleciton was 52-48 libs.
Not doubting the NSW/QLD state governments had an effect, but I guess the question is are they that much worse in popularity than SA to have that big of an effect?
On a side note, the level of interest in AFL football could also explain it. Seeing Abbott attempt a handball on the news surely lost him 1000′s of votes in all the AFL states..
Can Bitar, Shorten, Conroy, Arbib, etc serious turn up in public.
I find it distasteful that these people think they can ruin a great political party and yet they now start working hard, trolling the media, spinning and blaming. Where are the members of the party., where is the leadership aside from these characters. If the party doesn’t standup and get rid of these lot they really are doomed.
One thing missed in the Leaks debate is that the second leak about Rudd, clearly not from him, national security meetings etc led to the third leak. Whoever leaked the bad stuff about Rudd showed how they operate. Bully stuff, and now they blame. The script is really thin here, they are actually one trick ponies, not real smart, they operate on the we will position ourselves in a way that whilst people hate us they will still vote for us as we are better than the others. Its no way to govern, its no way to run a party let alone a nation. If there are people out there who are members of this once great party, start an anti faceless men faction or your party is about to go into the wilderness. At the cost of progressive politics.OMG.
Gillard appearing next to the “Ms Pupppet” a.k.a NSW Premier was a huge mistake. Most voters do not distinguish between the Federal and State Labor Party. Like a brand, one bad product will have negative impact on another products line which is made by the same company.
‘Boat People’ is a wedge issue for the ALP. Similarly, the ETS is a wedge issue for the LNP. It should never have been abandoned. I am surprised that no one picked up why the ETS was abandoned : it is not because of focus group, bad polls, or the ‘Great Big Tax’ scare mongering campaign. It is because the NSW State Government is selling their power station, and they want to sell it before the ETS comes in. To borrow a term used by David Brook of New York Times in describing Sarah Palin, “the NSW Right represents a fatal cancer to the Labor Party”.
Barking,
It looks like they are on a campaign to further damage Rudd now in the hope that attention can be deflected his way and away from themselves.
Bolt made mention during Insiders yesterday that the leaks clearly came from the “north” (he was their chosen outlet to release the “supposed” damning Labor Party internal polling), and there seems to be a further media campaign to discredit the Ruddster.
It can only come from these creeps. They are the ones who should be discredited and I can’t see any upside for Labor in a further campaign against Rudd. Political suicide & protecting your back seems to fit well with these coves.
Scorps
There will be a lot of shit spouted to try and shift the blame from the NSW Right. The leaks, Rudd and the state governments will be endlessly spun as the problem. It’s entirely predictable.
No, but this is not quite the same thing. People don’t feel any need to protest against a poorly performing State opposition (they have next to no impact on voters lives).
Badly performing State Governments, though, are another matter, and the lines of responsibility are increasingly blurred these days, as the Feds move more extensively into areas such as hospitals and education.
I absolutely regard the standing of the state governments of NSW and QLD as pivotal.
The primary for the ALP here is under 25% — not far off Green territory. Both went the privatisation route for reasons that remain unclear and it was deadly — especially in QLD where Anna Bligh fell over the oine campaigning against it.
I think there is a reasonable argument that if Rudd was not dumped we could have saved seats in Queensland but we have to acknowledge Rudd would have had a bad loss of seats in other states.
I have no doubt that a lot of factors that may have cost us seats but there is probably only one that cost us more than six seats.
That issue is the QLD Government and especially Premier Blight. I knew it was going to be tough in QLD but when the LNP used special attack ads based purely on Anna Bligh I knew we were in for a blood bath.
Every school fence and every newspaper as well as the TV were flooded with ads linking Gillard to Bligh. It killed us. It has probably cost us government.
As Fran Barlow said Bligh was elected on a promise of protecting jobs in the public service from the LNP. Within months of being elected she announced a plan to sell large sections of Queensland Rail as well as ports and other assets. She is universally distrusted in QLD and if Labor go to the next election with her as leader they will be reduced to a cricket team.
I worked all day on booths last Saturday and I cannot count the number of blue collar workers who told me they would not vote labor because of Anna and privatisation.
ALP members can argue about the merits and policy value of privatising major assets such as rail or power generation and there may be sound financial arguments in favour of certain privatisations.
I just wish elected ALP elected members would understand that it is never a sound political option for an ALP government. It alienates us from our heartland and makes us the enemies of ordinary people.
If it must be done let the torries do it. Their heartland likes it.
We will continue to bleed in QLD until the Parliamentary caucus summons up the courage to sack Anna. Luckily the polling is showing that the hatred for the ALP is not at terminal levels. The hatred is directed at Anna Bligh who has an approval rating about level with Ivan Milat.
That is why sacking her immediately is the only political
Sorry
That is why sacking her immediately is the only political option.
The interesting thing is that the queenmakers were all youngish men in snappy suits who all all Gen X. There were a range of factors but even though SA and Tas have formed Labor governments with Greens or Independents, the people warmed to Labor at the Federal level.
This despite the controversial elections just a few months ago. I don’t know about other marginal electorates, but the amount of money spent in mine put me in mind of mining companies. I can’t know howver because this information isn’t due for months. Those Independents have a hard job but the young queenmakers were probably right as Julia Gillard looks and sounds more like a Prime Minister. Did those in Queensland dislike Kevin’s dumping and in NSW love the fact that Tony is a Sydney boy. How many Sydneysiders would have been impressed that Tony lives the 24 hour lifestyle?
There are factors in this result that have barely begun to register. For instance how many blokes voted for Tony Abbott because they couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a woman?
Rod Hagen: Sure, and I agree totally – which is why I think WA should have been left out of the chart in the post (since the ALP is in opposition out West).
Seems to me that the ALP state government was a bit less of a factor than the obscene obsession with Western Sydney’s supposed prejudices and the consequent disrespect for the rest of the country’s views. Local members also played a part. Janelle Saffin in Page actually got a significant swing to the ALP by being a dynamic and excellent local member.
Also, with the ALP now perceived more and more widely as being less and less representative of the working underclass and more concerned with sucking up to the big end of town it is not surprising that a fair chunk of that demographic may now see the Greens as their natural friend.
Do we know if the change in religious alignment from a god-botherer to “no-religion” had any effect?
Did the Bible belt swing any more than the rest?
My sense is that the socially conservative demographic resisted Julia for similar reasons to her endorsement by progressives.
The consistent problem of polling is that it tells you what is happening right now, and not in the future.
The other problem is that people are very bad at predicting their own future behaviour, so asking what they would do in certain circumstances has dubious value.
People by and large don’t believe they are affected by advertising, but of course they are. And they don’t like negative campaigning, but act on it’s message anyway.
I thought, and still think now, that Kruddy woulda romped it home, given a good campaign. My ability to be convinced that the ALP can deliver a good campaign is now sorely tested. It was a shambles, and I missed most of it, being overseas. Must have been awful to watch up close.
Just on a slightly different tack, can we stop using the noun ‘impact’ as an intransitive verb and go back to choosing between ‘effect’ and ‘affect’ and showing we have the brains to know which is which?
@ Peter J. Nicol One problem with polls also seems to be that they take what people say they want, on the spur of the question, as what they really want, and what they should ‘get’ from their leaders.
Imagine running a family on the basis of focus groups. After a day I’d imagine that most kids would realise that having all of their wishes acceded to is scary drifting, and not what you want out of a parent.
Some of the expectations and questions put about by the general public during the election made me think that much of the campaign was about rewarding spoilt brat behaviour. Fortunately it has delivered an interesting, unintended outcome.
Rudd would have been hammered IN QLD just as bad as Gillard and would have lost votes for Labor in the other states for his gutless and erratic performance in the last few months of his term as PM.
He had his chance to go with a ETS DD in Feb / March and got spooked by Abbotts bullshit “great big new tax”.I put most of the blame on Rudd and his performance since being sacked by caucus just proves that he was not good enough to be PM of this country.In fact I would piss him off out of the ALP right away esp if Abbott gets to be PM..
State politics shouldn’t have any affect on federal elections but it does because, let’s face it, about 80% of the population are too stupid to understand the difference.
There are hundreds and hundreds of thousands who went to the polls on Saturday not really knowing why they were voting, what sort of election it was or how to vote. And I’m not talking about first-time voters here. People struggle to understand that there are three levels of government each with its own responsibilities. For example, last year in my electorate the local MP sent out a survey so we could all tell him what we thought were the big issues. The top issue by far was roads and footpaths, hardly a federal issue.
If voters have a gripe about anything they’ll vote against ‘the governmment’ at the next election, regardless of what level of government they are voting on and regardless of whose responsibility that gripe might be. No matter what happens or doesn’t happen it’s always ‘the government’s fault, but don’t ask ‘which government’ because you’ll get a blank look.
Compulsory voting may be a wonderful thing and a hard-won privilege, but I’d like to see some sort of intelligence test passed before you get that privilege. If you are too stupid to understand who repairs your footpath or who runs public schools or who looks after Centrelink then you don’t deserve a vote.
And in other breaking news…. analysis of poll data indicates that the pope is highly likely to be catholic
@Diana – that’s not stupidity, that’s education. There’s no law of nature that says schools belong to the State and Centrelink belongs to the Feds & footpaths belong to the Council. It’s how our politicial system happens to be set up – if you’ve never needed to learn that, it’s not necessarily your fault.
The elephant in the room with the State Governments in NSW and Queensland is the issue of privatisation and the commitment by these State Labor Governments to privatising everything or selling everything that is not nailed down, a commitment that is fundamentally opposed to ALP policy and objectives. It is not that long ago (2 years) that the NSW State ALP Conference completely opposed the privatisation program of the then State leadership, but privatisation, particularly of the electricity services is still on the agenda. The unions and ALP party members have been running a vigorous and noisy campaign in Queensland against privatisation and asset sales there that has significantly damaged Anna Bligh’s leadership and the Labor brand. No wonder the Labor brand is on the nose in those states! Privatisation and asset sales are not the only issue but they are a very influential issue in voter disenchantment with Labor.
Wouldn’t you have thought that if it was the state governments, the swing in NSW would be twice the swing in Queensland, rather than the Queensland swing being a bit bigger?
Rosa: Michael Kröger, a big cheese in the Victorian Liberal Party, and a man I can’t stand. Did, however, sound as if he was telling the truth when he said Kevin Rudd had to have left the position of PM. I don’t see what Kröger had to gain, after the event, and the day after the election.
Also, just rerun the appearances of Kevin Rudd on election day. Nasty, slimy, venomous little man that he is.
JOHN: Whereas the state of Victoria voted Labor with a vengence? Don’t forget Victoria is the one State which does have a semi OK Labor Party in control.
I’m almost certain that if the State parliament was as shonky as NSW and QLD there wouldn’t have been such a strong vote.
Bud – you are so right. Privatisation has been a huge mistake in SA and Vic. SA power, gas, and public transport especially.
All ALP state governments embarked on this lunacy in the 80s and 90s, and it is totally reviled.
Poorly targeted tax cuts that only serve to widen the gap between the rich and the poor are also something that ALP governments pursued at that time.
All so they can offer trinkets at election time.
KATE: A mind-bending legal case is currently being brought by my local council, Stonnington, against the State Labor government of Victoria.
John Brumby-Premier- in one of his frequent fits of hubris, declared that all of Melbourne’s inner suburbs which are shopping strips, would henceforth become freeways for a large part of the day. Local councils were ropeable, but were unable to prevent him from doing this.
Then some genius worked it out that while all the new parking directions were going to be attached to roadside polls. So what’s so remarkable about this? I hear you say.
Turns out that all the new notices would be the property of the State Government. Big but, it turns out that the poles are the property of the local councils.
Now there are hessian bags over all the parking notices of Stonnington. People park at their own risk. And everyone is wondering what the outcome of the court case will be.
David Richards#42 – look at how easy it is to rewrite history – it was the Liberal government in SA that was into privatisation and the ALP which was elected on an anti-privatisation basis. It was Jeff Kennett’s government in Victoria which was so keen on privatisation and Steve Bracks was duly elected.
BTW
Were the lost seats howard huggers
worth alook
the result is quite interesting
@Venise
They actually voted Labor federally at a lower rate than at the state level poll suggests. Just repeating that it was the state governments that decided the elections doesn’t explain the massive difference in Qld and NSW, or SA for that matter. Federal and state election results have been very different for decades. Correlation doesn’t imply causation.
Tom Jones – both parties were busy selling things off – it just depended on who was in it at the time. Same as Federally – Keating did a lot of selling off. All governments from the 80s on caught the disease. I’m sorry if it gave the impression that I was suggesting it was solely the ALP that was so doing.
You kind of expect it from the Liberals – so they don’t necessarily suffer as much of a backlash when they do it, but when the ALP does it, they cop a hiding.
It doesn’t take Albert Einstein to figure out that if the Federal & State Labour Party were to bother to think smarter they would have come to the realisation that the country areas are bleeding people & the cities are bloated with too many people. One look around the towns & it is obvious that people are leaving because of lack of employment opportunities. Empty shops & business’ throughout mean fewer goods & services. Fewer jobs for their children. No apprenticeships etc. In the cities the complaints are that there are too many people, fewer housing, extreme traffic congestion, & higher cost of living.
Well Einstein what if the governments made the decision to decentralize as many government departments that are “paper shufflers” in to these rural areas. Gee they might even be connected to the super fast super highway. Super! Possibly that might mean there would be a need for goods & services in the country towns. A need to build infrastructure. Employment growth, jobs for the young of those who move there & the locals. New schools, universities, T.A.F.E.’s & apprenticeships, more housing, better rail & air travel / transport. Why if this idea got out people in the country might think more of the Labour parties than the traditional luddites they vote for.
Wow! That could even mean that rural areas wouldn’t need to send so many of their people, especially their kids (who, unlike their cities counterparts who have the luxury of spending more time with their families), to the cities. Der!!! Oh No!! Less traffic, more housing & less congestion. Oh! What a silly little idea? After all nobody cares about the rural people. Everyone knows that governments are only city centric. Like in N.S.W. Which means Newcastle, Sydney, Wollongong.
Why give the rural areas broadband any way? If this idea were to take the Labour Party might have to count too many more votes. Gee, that’s a serious problem. For the Tory’s.
Get a grip, pull yer finger out, get the “Super Fast Broadband” up & running, build the infrastructure (Rail. Remember Rail?) to handle larger growth in rural areas, decentralize (start with government bodies, then encourage business’, reward those who decentralize {with housing, tax breaks, something of significance etc}).
Think big! Act for all the people in this country not just the city folk. After all isn’t that what has cost the vote this election?????? Imagine that!
Speaking of infrastructure. Water. We are constantly being told water is scarce. Well tell that to north QLD. Where it rain often & flood too. Errrr! Derrrr? If it is so precious, like oil, why don’t we (governments) build the infrastructure to store & transport as much of the rainwater from north QLD. How would it be possible? Pipelines are used to transport oil. I wonder if pipelines could be used to transport water? Gee!!! What if storage dams were to be built in the cities & towns & the water sent from Nth QLD via pipeline?
Oh NO!!! What would we do with all that urine to recycle for drinking? A separate water system for public use on grass etc, maybe. There would be a problem with water companies like Sydney ( insert city or town name here) water not being able to charge for excessive payments for excess water use.
That’s no good. I mean after all we need to let the water that falls from the sky in Nth QLD just go to waste so that we can justify drinking recycled urine, right. If a dam can be built in the desert, just maybe towns can be built there too. An oasis.
Now let’s see. Didn’t some country some where build a huge dam in the desert? Or build a huge canal across a continent? Well goofy! Shucks! Just maybe there is some one out there with a vision for the 21st century to do what is needed for this arid country. Instead of praying for rain & drinking wee.
Just to digress. All this fuss about not enough water to go around in Australia, is it me or weren’t we taught in our wonderful education that Australia is an arid country. So why didn’t the “powers to be” build enough water storage to go around for centuries. At least to outlast the droughts. Maybe they weren’t paying attention in Geography or Science.
Not to mention the employment that would be needed for such a massive project.
It’s the 21st century now, and we the people expect more from those who speak and act on our behalf. Get it together for all our sakes or move aside and let those with vision take over.
Polls! Smolls! Who cares what party you are or what you say about the opposition. We need action! Get up off your arse’s and take control. If you saw the image of Earth from the space probe, you would have thought about how insignificant we really are in the Universe. Our governments plod about arguing & never getting the big picture. Never caring for those at the bottom, thinking that they make some impression & full of their own importance. Fooie! Most of them have never had to struggle, born in to opportunity.
Well here’s a wake up call for you all. We are on a large rock that is traveling through space at 50,000 mile per hour. If we hit some thing or some thing hits us, or the climate changes drastically, or the Earth becomes unstable, forget about your economy, money, wealth, health, education, security, position, status, mortgage, power as none of that will be of any use, if we experience catastrophes of apocalyptic proportions or we move off our orbit, drift out into space where every thing will freeze, permanent night & all life is extinguished. What good then is arguing about deficit, money, wealth, political parties & who voted for what? There would be no life left here on planet Earth. It would be as if nothing ever existed here on Earth. All lost!
This scenario may seem science fiction to you (yes you out there reading this thinking, Fooie! But get a grip. It’s not. It could happen in the next few seconds. Thing travel through space almost or even at the speed of light. It could be tomorrow. There would be no tomorrow. So then how about we pool our brains together (use more than the football half a cell) and stop the stupid petty crap, like ants fighting over an ant hill, get some vision for the 21st Century and the future of the planet.
Do we still want to be in this “Ground hog day” in the future, or do we demand action for change for a better future for all, starting here in Australia?
We the people of Planet Earth hope that those, with intelligent vision, who read this will take action ASAP & that the skeptics will go back to their denial, their drugs of the masses (which keep their minds imprisoned & distracted from the big picture): Football, alcohol, tobacco, drugs (both illegal & prescription), TV & religion. Stand up & be counted for the future of us all.
call me a salmon but I think Labors campaign was brilliant. They manage to dupe voters into believing a future Government under the monk might be a disaster when the current Government under Rudd/Gillard actually IS and has been a disaster. It’s amazing Labor got close to the coalition when you stand up their non achievements and backflips against the previous record of the Liberals. I can only think the personal and irrelevant attacks on Abbot must have appealed to a lot of Aussies. I think Julia got a lot more of the woman vote than any poll cares to find out also. This blame toward states etc is tiresome. People are ignoring the forest for the trees. Bring on another election ASAP. By Tuesday Labor will have racked up a Billion dollars in interst since we wwent to the polls. Ergh
the previous comment was written and authorised by Brian Loughnane and came to you direct from Liberal Hq.
Damn dem wimmin
back to da kitchlken now you ho’s
Gotsumptintasay has done told ya
The other comparison that will be worth considering is comparing the Victorian Senate vote to the aggregated Victorian State Upper-house vote. Whilst in the past it has been argued that the State issues do not mix with Federal issues this is certainly not the case now. In fact when voters are presented with an above the line ballot paper they tend to fall into the same habitual pattern. A bit like backing your football team in the finals. The other problem facing State to federal voting in Victoria is the rules on morality of the ballot are different. This has the undesired potential to increase the informality rate as voters are told different things form state to Federal elections. Clearly there is need for greater standardisation and updating of the Senate counting rules.
The slogan in Melbourne in November will be