Pollytics

Politics, elections and piffle plinking

2010 Pendulum

October 24, 2009 – 8:35 am, by Possum Comitatus

Antony has the new pendulum for 2010 over on his site. What I thought was interesting about it was the chunkiness of the swings for seats for each party around the center of the pendulum – say, a 6% uniform swing each way. If we take Labor first and chart the seats they would gain with a given uniform swing (and note the seat number this would be for them in a new parliament) we get:

alppendulum

The 99th ALP seat would become Hinkler from a uniform swing to Labor of 1.5%. But to get the 100th seat – Boothby – the uniform swing required is 2.9%, nearly twice the swing of the 99th seat. That’s a lot of uniform swing for no action between 1.5 and 2.9.

For the Coalition we have: Read More »

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Greens choose moralising crypto-communist for Higgins

October 23, 2009 – 9:45 am, by Possum Comitatus

The Greens have chosen a pro-net censorship, hysterical purveyor of moral panics and all round crypto-communist to stand in the Liberal heartland seat of Higgins.

A seat where the ALP isn’t running, where the Greens actually stood a chance to take the seat with a really good candidate – but where, instead of showing some political smarts and pre-selecting a blue-Green, have opted to alienate half the electorate straight way and chosen a red-Green in the form of Clive Hamilton .

Absolutely baffling.

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Howard vs. Rudd at 23 months

October 22, 2009 – 7:33 am, by Possum Comitatus

Just a quicky with 3 charts using Newspoll monthly averages -  a  look at Howard vs. Rudd on net satisfaction, preferred PM and the two party preferred over comparative time periods. Rudd is in red, Howard in blue along with their respective axis.

howardryddnetsat howardruddppm

howardrudtpp

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Media, Leadership and the Structural Change of Australian Politics

October 21, 2009 – 9:26 am, by Possum Comitatus

This post could also be called “How to explain nearly everything about big P politics in 4 simple charts”.

Australian politics, or rather the dynamics of the relationship between the public and the party in government, has been undergoing a significant transformation over the last 25 odd years. In many respects, that is to be expected – the speed of the news cycle has changed, the quantity of media has increased dramatically and as a result, political parties, particularly those in government, have adapted to their new environment by changing the tactical and strategic approaches to the way they engage with the public.

We now get governments spending 18 hours a day trying to bump, shift and prod the news cycle in ways that lead to politically beneficial results. We have much more presidential style campaigns and nearly everything about government these days is first pushed through a sort of public relations meat grinder before it gets deemed fit for human consumption.

This change in the way that political parties relate to and engage with the public has significantly changed the way the public perceive the party in government – which in turn probably creates a bit of a feedback loop, further changing the way the Prime Minister goes about that part of his business dedicated to staying in government.

To show it’s how all been working, we’ll take three Newspoll metrics; the Primary Vote of the government, the Prime Ministers Satisfaction Rating and the PM’s Preferred Prime Minister rating – and rather than use each Newspoll separately, we’ll take monthly averages of these ratings to knock out some volatility (so each month will be the average of 2 or 3 separate Newspolls).

To start with, if we take a look at the Howard Government from April 1996 (the month after it was elected) through to the Ryan by-election of May 2001 – what we find is that these three metrics all tracked each other very closely over the period, and at roughly the same level.

howardmk1

The dynamics of the government/public relationship was such that the Prime Minister neither lifted nor depressed the party vote very much. Satisfaction levels and Preferred PM levels generally matched the primary vote level of the government over any given arbitrary period. This was – in terms of political behaviour –the first Howard government… Howard Mk I if you will.

It was ultimately unsustainable. Howard was on a hiding to nothing by the time of the Ryan by-election, where Labor grabbed Brisbane’s heartland Liberal Party seat when John Moore retired. In response to what then looked like an impending smashing at the 2001 election, Howard dramatically changed his behaviour – becoming a much more populist style leader and becoming much more aggressive in the way he managed the media.

If we now move on to the Howard Mk 2 era, from June 2001 through to October 2007, we can see the dramatic difference this had on the dynamics of the government/public relationship. Read More »

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Essential Report – GFC Management Edition

October 20, 2009 – 8:13 am, by Possum Comitatus

This week’s Essential Report comes in with the primaries running 49 (up 2)/ 37 (steady) to Labor, washing out into a two party preferred of 58/42 the same way – no change since last week. Both the Greens and the broad “Others” are down 1 to 7 a piece. This comes from a rolling two week sample of 1903, giving us an MoE that maxes out around the 2.2% mark. The headline two party numbers may seem a bit odd, with no change occuring this week even though the ALP primary jumped 2 points – this comes down to the likely nature of rounding errors. Last weeks result was probably between 57.5 and 57.8 while this weeks result was likely between 58.2 and 58.4 (thereabouts)- so on both cases it comes out to 58 rounded.

Additional questions this week focused entirely on economic management and perceptions. These ran from a sample of 1100 giving us an MoE that maxes out around the 3% mark.

Overall, how would you rate the performance of the Rudd Government at handling the Australian economy?

economichandlingEssential tells us on the cross tabs:

Results followed party lines – Labor voters were more likely to rate the performance of the Rudd Government at handling the Australian economy as excellent/good (94%), while Coalition voters were more likely to rate it as not so good/poor (63%). However, 34% of Coalition voters rate the performance of the Government at handling the Australian economy positively.

How do you think the Rudd Government is addressing the global financial crisis?

Ruddgfc1

ruddgfc2

The cross-tabs say:

The results followed party lines – Labor voters were more likely to think the Rudd Government is addressing the crisis well (94%), while Coalition voters were more likely to think the Government is addressing it poorly (52%). However, 40% of Coalition voters think the Rudd Government is addressing the crisis well.

Read More »

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Newspoll Tuesday – More pain for Malcolm

October 20, 2009 – 5:58 am, by Possum Comitatus

Newspoll Tuesday via The Oz rolls around again, this time with the primaries running 48 (up 1) / 34 (down 2) to Labor, washing out into a two party preferred of 59/41 the same way – a one point gain over last week’s special Newspoll. The Greens are steady on 10, while the broad “Others” are up 1 to 8. This comes from a sample of 1144, giving us an MoE that maxes out around the 2.9% mark.

Oh dear.

With the phone poll average in the sidebar now showing 109 seats going to Labor were the latest round of phone polls repeated at an election, there must be some pretty nervous Coalition marginal and not so marginal seat holders.

Look back at the tactics of the Opposition over the last few months where every card from the Howard era was played. Rising Interest Rates…. tick. Labor’s debt…. tick. Boat People….. tick.

It’s like that episode of the Simpsons where Lisa tests the difference in learning capability between a hamster and Bart. Sure the cupcake is electrified, sure every time he tries to grab it he gets shocked – after a few tries even a hamster would learn – but Bart keeps grabbing away time and time again, hoping that this time he won’t be zapped. Hoping this time it will be different.

When you change governments you change the country – as Keating said, but the national zeitgeist also changes with it and pulling these old cards out from the Oppo benches is a roadmap to failure.

I was surprised by the absence of additional questions today measuring the public perception of asylum seeker issues. Something has been influencing the metrics and it’s a good bet that might be it. In the usual charts below, you might notice that Rudd’s slow incremental increase in his personal satisfaction level has hit a big bump, with sats going down 4 and the dissatisfaction going up 4. This is pretty unusual when you also get an increase in the primary vote.

Turnbull’s satisfaction rating only fell by a point, but his dissatisfaction rating leapt 6 – with 5 of those points coming from his undecideds. For Turnbull that’s a bit dangerous since the recovery in his personal ratings involved shifting people on net from dissatisfaction into undecided… then into the satisfaction territory – from what we can tell. In one respect he’s lost 8 weeks worth of recovery in his personal standings.

UPDATE:

Arsehattery of the Day

Over in the Op-Ed section of the Oz, John Pasquarelli dreams a little dream.

As Christmas Island readies to put up the no-vacancy sign, the hitherto silent Libs have broken out, led by Philip Ruddock and Kevin Andrews, and already the polls have spiked substantially in their favour, no doubt creating more grief for Malcolm Turnbull, who is handcuffed to the usual suspects in Wentworth and whose only comment to date has been a limp-wristed call for an independent inquiry.

Something has spiked – I’d be checking my drink.

The usual charts come in like this: Read More »

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Push vs. Pull – Asylum Seeker Numbers and Statistics

October 19, 2009 – 10:50 am, by Possum Comitatus

Round 42 in the never ending war against ratbaggery brings us to the argument of what drives asylum seeker numbers – push factors vs. pull factors.

Proponents of the push factor view claim that the numbers of people attempting to enter Australia to seek refugee status – including those that arrive by boat – are primarily driven by events outside of Australia’s direct control. They argue that events like war, political unrest and other causes of human displacement and general misery around the world create a supply of asylum seekers that spread throughout the globe seeking sanctuary and a better life, and that the numbers coming to Australia are primarily a function of these events rather than domestic Australian policy.

The Pull Factor school of thought on the other hand claims that it is primarily Australian domestic policy responses that define the number of people seeking asylum in Australia. They argue that there is always a large supply of those seeking asylum around the world, and that marginal changes in Australian domestic policy lead to large changes in the proportion of that global pool that will choose to seek asylum in Australia rather than alternative destinations. The Pull Factor school ultimately argues that marginal changes in the deterrence level of Australian policy is the difference between pushing asylum seekers away to be someone else’s problem, or pulling them toward Australia to become our problem.

Fortuitously, we have a handy little natural experiment available to test the broad accuracy of the Pull Factor school. Firstly, Australia and New Zealand exist in the same part of the world, meaning that we would expect to experience the same regional dynamics when it comes to localised asylum seeker numbers. Secondly, we are both relatively desirable destinations with a western orientation and free from any internal political persecution of minorities. Thirdly, and most importantly, over the last 15 years or so Australian and New Zealand border protection policy became sharply divergent. From the end of 2001 Australia implemented the Pacific Solution while New Zealand policy has remained fairly consistent over the entire period.

If the Pull Factor school of thought was accurate – if pull factors really do dominate asylum seeker numbers – then we would expect to see very little correlation in total asylum seeker application numbers between Australia and New Zealand – afterall, our respective policies are different and during the Pacific Solution period were vastly different.

If we take the total asylum seeker application numbers for both Australia and New Zealand over the period of 1994-2008, we can run a scatter plot and regression line to see if there is any correlation.

ausnz

This tells us that those carping on about Pull Factors as being the dominant effect, are engaging in a few pull factors of their own. The Australian and New Zealand experiences are highly correlated in a very strong statistically significant way. This is the exact opposite of what would occur were our respective domestic policies the dominant influence on our respective asylum seeker numbers.

Something else is driving our numbers together – giving us this high correlation.

We don’t have good numbers for total global asylum seeker applications, but we do have good data on the following 38 developed and borderline developed nations: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Rep, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Rep. of Korea, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States

If we compare the combined Australia and New Zealand numbers against this global 38 group, we get: Read More »

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Generational Voting Power

October 16, 2009 – 10:31 am, by Possum Comitatus

Continuing on from yesterdays post about the historical voting patters of four generations of Australians (Pre-War, Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y) – Kymbos asked in comments about generational voting power. If we use the ABS data for historical population estimates by age, we can figure out the proportion of the electorate (those aged 18 and over) that each of these generations represent – effectively giving us a measure of their electoral power and how it’s changed over the years.

First up, we need to define when the generations start and finish. I’ve used the pre-War Gen Blue as being born in 1945 or earlier, the Boomers as being born between 1946 and 1964, Gen X being born between 1965 and 1980 while Gen Y why comes in as being born in 1981 or later.

Once we tally up all the numbers and break them down into proportions for elections years corresponding to the primary vote data of yesterday’s post, this is what the generational voting power looks like – with a projection for 2010 (click to expand).

genvotingpower

You can really see how the premium vote the Coalition receives from the pre-war generation is getting quickly washed out of the system and replaced with a generation that votes much more heavily toward Labor. Effectively, a generation of voters that votes 60/40 for the Coalition is being gradually substituted for one that votes 60/40 the other way. The practical political problem for the Coalition is that it’s difficult for them to move away from that older generation politically and pivot towards a much younger demographic, as the majority of  party’s membership base is over 60.

Think of the vast generation gap that exists between the youngest and oldest cohorts of the electoral roll on climate change, same sex marriage, censorship laws, asylum seekers, immigration policy and general technology issues – how will the Libs pivot towards Gen Y when on any of these issues the views of the party’s older membership base is incompatible with the majority view of Gen Y, a generation whose vote the Libs will increasingly need to be electorally competitive?

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The Grey Vote: Ageing and Cohort Succession

October 15, 2009 – 11:07 am, by Possum Comitatus

This is the name of a new academic paper (still in working form) that Aaron Martin and Dr. Juliet Pietsch are currently writing – and they were extraordinarily kind enough to let us have a little bit of a peek before it gets published. The abstract of the paper lays out the broad contents and purpose:

This paper examines to what extent older and younger generations of Australians contribute to or disrupt the stability of the Australian party system. The Australian and international literature would lead us to expect that older generations contribute to the stability of the party system in a number of ways: by being less likely to vote for minor parties, having a stronger partisan identification and being socialised into a voting pattern at an early age. Using data from the Australian Electoral Study this paper will test these expectations by looking at generational effects. In doing so we find that older Australians contribute to the stability of the Australian party system by being less likely to vote for a minor party and being more likely to vote for the same party over time. We also find that young people have a weaker partisan identification and enter the electorate less likely to vote along parental lines. Controlling for a variety of factors we find that generational factors are strong predictors of voter volatility.

While that is extremely interesting in and of itself (and it really is, the research is a cracker!), where the paper really pounds into the pointy end of modern electoral politics is through their analysis of intergenerational voting behaviour.

One of the themes we regularly explore here on the blog is the notion of the Coalition’s Demographic Train Wreck – how historically the Coalition have received a premium level of voteshare from the generation born before World War 2 (that we call Gen Blue), how that vote has delivered them electoral benefits for over 30 years – but it hasn’t been replaced in the following generations, leading to a structural decline in the Coalitions vote as this older generation continues to become a smaller proportion of the total electorate. Our most recent piece on this can be seen over here.

Our work on this topic was largely derived from the excellent research undertaken by Ian Watson (whose historical age-cohort Newspoll data we use regularly). The most recent update of his paper, “Is demography moving against the Coalition? Age and the conservative vote in Australia, 1987 to 2007” can be found on his site.

The Grey Vote: Ageing and Cohort Succession adds a new dimension to this argument by not only using the Australian Election Study to track the primary vote of 4 generations of Australian voters (Depression Era/Boomers/X and Y) since 1967, but also delves into issues of partisan identification over time, increasing minor party vote levels, the declining influence of parental voting patterns on a persons vote and how this all washes into the potential for future electoral volatility.

With permission (aren’t they just fabulous), we can have a look at how some of this is playing out. The first thing to note here is that the data comes from the Australian Election Study – which is a large post-election poll undertaken in the weeks and months after every Federal election. The one problem that the AES has though, is that it tends to slightly inflate the vote for the party that won the election, and slightly deflates the results of the major party that lost – but only by a few points at most. In some respects, this is almost unavoidable as it’s an extremely common occurrence for these types of “post event” polls and goes to the psychology of a small proportion of the public either liking to be on the winning side, or not recalling their actions and simply going with the majority.

So saying, the patterns involved here are consistent across both time and differing political flavours of government administrations – so the trends are robust.

First up, using the data in the paper, we’ll track the four generations of voting behaviour for the Coalition primary vote. (just click to expand the charts)

lnpprimarygens

As we can see, those born in the Depression Era have a consistent and considerable pro-Coalition voting disposition compared to any other generation. Also worth mentioning is how each subsequent Read More »

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How voter enrolment changes election outcomes

October 14, 2009 – 8:44 am, by Possum Comitatus

Last week the Australian Electoral Commission had an interesting media release about the estimated 1.2 million eligible voters that aren’t on the electoral roll.The media release stated:

In the continuing search for 1.2 million Australians missing from the electoral roll, the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) released information today indicating just who in Australia has the greatest chance of risking their vote in the next election. Electoral Commissioner, Ed Killesteyn explained that Australians aged 18 to 34 years or anyone who has moved house in the last three years, have the greatest likelihood of not being on the electoral roll. “The fact is the younger you are the less likely you are to be on the electoral roll, with young people aged 18-24 years accounting for nearly one third of the 1.2 million eligible Australians missing from the electoral roll,” he said.

So that got me thinking, what would have happened in the 2007 election if those missing from the electoral roll actually enrolled, turned up and voted? Would it have changed the election result – if so, by how much?

First up, we need to look at the AEC estimates of the age breakdowns of this missing 1.2 million odd people.

aecestimates

As we can see, the younger you are the more likely it is that you aren’t on the electoral roll. To show the approximate difference between the actual electoral roll at the 2007 election, and a hypothetical electoral roll where these 1.2 million eligible voters are added, we can take those above numbers as given for their minimum values. For example, we will assume that rather than there being over 370,000 18-24 year olds missing, we’ll assume that there actually is 370,000 18-24 year olds missing. This way, we’ll end up with a conservative estimate – a “if all eligible Australians voted at the election, it would have changed the result by at least this much” type of thing.

Once we combine these numbers with that of the electoral roll in 2007 we get:

rollbreakdown

This shows what proportion of the electoral roll each age cohort makes up, both at the 2007 election and for our hypothetical “full enrolment” alternative. What we see here is that young people would make up a larger proportion of the voting electorate with our hypothetical “full” electoral roll compared to what we actually had in 2007. 18-24 year olds would be 1.6% larger in weight, 25-34 year olds 0.8% larger – while the older cohorts would make up a smaller weight in voting terms were we to have a a 100% enrolment rate.

This is important, because we know that the younger you are, the more likely you were to vote for the ALP in two party preferred terms in 2007. So would this new age composition of the electoral roll have changed the election result, and if so, by how much?

To start things rolling on the vote projections, we need some good age breakdowns of the two party preferred vote at the 2007 election. Fortuitously, we have arguably the most accurate estimates in the country, by age, of the ALP TPP vote at the last election. You can find the gory details of how it was created over at the top of the Gen Blue post where we first used it (and it’s worth a read if you missed it).

Next up, we need to make an Read More »

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