Automatic enrolment in Victoria
Yesterday Antony Green posted on the Victorian government’s automatic enrolment legislation. This would go further than the NSW act as it gets youngsters onto the roll for the first time. Also in NSW, there seems to be a possible unspoken agreement to hold off on the publicity until after the federal election so as not to play havoc with that portion of the federal roll. This is not possible in Victoria which goes to the polls in November unless the federal poll is early; Antony sees here possible evidence for an August federal election.
Green ^%$ preferences
Antony also posted on Green polling. His first commenter pondered Green preferences flows.
Possum posted on this this week using Nielsen poll data, concluding that Green preferences in the last seven months have moved in tandem with first preference support for the major parties, which means they increasingly favour the Coalition.
Possum reckons the “ALP Protected Left Flank Hypothesis” that “the ALP can lose primary votes to their left (the Greens) because they ultimately get them back via preferences” is “mostly piffle at the moment”. Hmm. This seems to assume all the recent increase in Green support in the polls comes from ALP support.
Like Charles Richardson in Crikey (subscription required) I have difficulty contemplating a path from Labor-voting to Coalition-voting that goes through Green-voting. Like him I reckon some (probably most) “new” Green supporters in today’s polls come from Labor and some (a minority) from the Coalition, and some of Labor’s primary vote is also going straight onto the Coalition’s. If these new Green voters then preference the party they came from, this is consistent with Possum’s Nielsen data.
At elections such a trend has not been in evidence, for example the Coalition v Labor primary vote gap was larger in 2004 than 2001 but so was the Green preference flow to Labor. (Don’t have 2007 numbers.)
It’s just one set of numbers from one pollster, so we shouldn’t get carried away.
Anyway, Possum’s strategic advice, that the ALP should “concentrate on the wider electorate as far as policy positioning is concerned” applies even more if you do accept the “ALP Protected Left Flank Hypothesis”.
I think the ALL Green votes return to the ALP on preferences hypothesis has been dead for a while. Actual on the ground evidence suggests that where the Greens issue a pro ALP HTV card preference flows are in the order of 75-85% (depending on the electorate). Where no preference is issued it drops to 70-80%.
So you can be assured that if you lose 4 primary votes to the Greens (from an ALP perspective), only 3 will come back.
As to how that applies with the current polling is anyone’s guess.
The following may or may not be useful regarding Green preferences. The seat of Fremantle (at State level) was won by The Greens on the basis of Liberal Party preferences. It had been a Labor seat since its inception. This preferencing by the Liberals in this one seat contributed to a shift in Green preferences throughout the State – throughout all the electorate. The result was a 67& ALP preference and a 33% Liberal split. (A strikingly similar figure to the recent Federal polls on Green preferences).
Bob Brown has said that the Green how to vote card will have ‘2 sides’ – one with the ALP preference, the other with The Coalition preference. If so, then a similar split to the 67-33 in WA, seems likely at Federal level.
On the issue of softening ALP preferences from Green voters – down from 80% in February 2010 to 68% in June. It is a mystery because when the Green vote was 10% . . 80% flowed to Labor. When the Green vote increased to 15% . . only 68% flowed to Labor. Which means that, of the 5% increase, (10 to 15), less than half this increase seemingly came from Labor. More than half from the Coalition.
How so? Well, 68% of 15% is 10.2 (approx.) . . . 32% of 15 is 4.8 (approx). So, the Coalition flow from Green voters has jumped from 2% in Feb. to 4.8% in June … An increase of 2.8% – or well over half of the increase of 5%. Labor has increased from 8% in Feb. to 10.2 – (2.2%) or less than half the increase in Green votes.
What to make of it all, is beyond me.
But I’m interested in what others may make of it all.
Fremantle was not won by the Greens on Liberal preferences. There was no Liberal candidate.
The flow of Green preferences to Labor at the 2008 WA election, as taken from the distribution of preference tables, was 68.5%. The same figure for 2005 was 69%, not much difference.
However, the Federal figures everyone quotes are preference flow data, calculated by only looking at the ballot papers with a first preference for the Green candidate. This value is always higher than the values taken from preference tables, as the tables include votes distributed to the Greens from previously excluded candidates.
After the 2005 election, with the co-operation of the WAEC, I used its tally sheets to obtain real preference flow data on WA preferences, and the Greens preferences flowed 75% to Labor, as they do at Federal elections. That figure included two seats where the Greens preferenced the Nationals ahead of Labor, something that happens in the west.
So I think the 68.5% Green preference figure for 2008 underestimates the real preference flow, as it did in 2005.
I have many reasons to doubt this will be the case.
Have you got a source for that statement?
I need to correct my statement about Liberal preferences in the WA State election. As Anthony has rightly pointed out there was no standing Liberal candidate. What Liberal supporters were encouraged to do and did do was vote Green. Anthony can correct me, but I suspect the Liberal vote would have been about 25-30% had they nominated a candidate ? Or is this too high ?
Either way, the Greens know full well that they were voted in ahead of Labor (the State Attorney General) because of Liberal Party support. This has ramifications, I suspect, for the seat of Melbourne.
Sam: I heard Brown says this on ‘Insiders’ last Sunday.
Colin, the Greens won the seat at a by-election when McGinty resigned. They didn’t beat him.
I’m pleased you’re correcting me, Antony. I admit to having a short memory. But the essential point is that without the support of conservative voters, the Green candidate wouldn’t have won. It was a remarkable loss for Labor in Fremantle, and even McGinty’s backing for the Labor candidate wasn’t enough.
Do you see any parallels with the Federal seat of Melbourne ?
I’ve just read the article from John Black the Labor Senator . . about the ‘wealth factor’ among Greens voters. i.e. The Greens now being the Party of choice for disaffected (but not disillusioned) Liberal voters. If Black is right, then the puzzle I set out previously . . how it seems a bigger chunk of the increase in Green Vote has come from Coalition rather than from Labor ranks . . becomes easier to comprehend. If 2.8% of the 5% increase since Feb. is a shift from Coalition to Green, then it seems likely that first preferences of this group of Greens will flow back to the Coalition.
Perhaps Bob Brown has taken Black’s views seriously, or in fact knows this ‘wealth’ factor well enough himself to propose a ‘double sided’ how to vote card come election time. He would love to keep the new breed of Green on side. What better way than to ‘allow’ them to preference The Coalition.
Colin, I think you are misremembering what Bob Brown said about preferences:
Source: http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/content/2010/s2919430.htm
Seems that you have the transcript Sam . . so I had better be careful what I say. My recollection is that Brown somewhere also said that ‘both sides of the how to vote card’ will be covered. If you have a transcript, is that particular statement not included ? If not, then I must have heard it in some other interview with Brown.
I admit to being a little stunned when I heard it. Hopefully, to save me from accusations of misrepresentation, someone else can also recall Brown’s exact words. The importance of it is such that I remain convinced these were his words . . You don’t easily forget something as significant as that.
But then again, I could be mistaken. Just maybe it was the visual cues . . Brown flipping his hands to indicate two sides to the voting card rather than direct words.
I’ll check the link you’ve provide Sam.
Has anyone remembered that after the so called ‘closeness’ of the Greens MP for Fremantle with the State Liberal treasurer that she resigned from the Greens and is now an independent who sits with the liberal government.
I think there was a major rift between her and the Green party.
It also seems likely that the Green will not hold the seat at the next State election- it has caused a lot of bitterness/
Isn’t Possum at risk of ignoring Peter’s Mickey Mouse hypothesis?
Nielsen’s self-reported Green preferences are based on 10-15% of a survey of about 1000 electors. So we are relying on a sample size of just 100-150 Green supporters as if that mirrored the total Green support base.
Wouldn’t that lead to a MoE in the order of +/- 8%? If so, the historical stickiness of Green preferences at around 70 odd percent Labor would naturally, in the Nielsen figures, appear to bounce anywhere between low 60s to 80% in favour of Labor. Exactly the results Possum quotes.
Happy to be corrected: Possum is Dr Probability & Statistics (whereas I was almost sacked as a statistical maths tutor at uni).
Time for me to eat humble pie . . but worse still to start to doubt my memory.
I have to concede that, if what is written on the Insiders page referred to by Sam, is the full transcript of the interview with Bob Brown, then I’m wrong to claim he said there would be a double sided how to vote card. I must have interpreted his comment’s to mean just that, but clearly I’ve misrepresented what Brown actually said.
Having eaten humble pie, my main point about the split in Green preferences is still valid; that Labor cannot expect to receive the same level of support from the Greens in the next election. Brown is certainly indicating that: “each seat determines where it wants its preference to go and lets our national preference negotiators know that”, and “my advice to voters is vote Green but then put the preference, ultimately for one of the big parties or an independent, in the order of your own choice”.
Perhaps the party has always held this view . . I’m no expert in Green political machinations . . but it does sound an alarm for those in Labor who have hitherto counted on a big chunk of Green preferences.
Living here in The West, the Adele Carles saga is ridiculous. She won the seat as a member of the Greens, and now sits as an independent. I’m sure the Greens in Fremantle are thrilled to bits about it. Their first lower house rep., and she lasts barely a year before defecting. For me, there ought to be a by-election when a sitting member changes allegiances mid-term. Even if the change is to being an Independent. Those who voted Green in Fremantle must feel cheated.
[...] to a gneral disaffection with the government and a Liberal vote (relevant to the current debate about Green preferences) but committed anti-nuclear voters were mostly strongly anti-Liberal. [...]
Peter Mumbled: Possum reckons the “ALP Protected Left Flank Hypothesis” that “the ALP can lose primary votes to their left (the Greens) because they ultimately get them back via preferences” is “mostly piffle at the moment”. Hmm. This seems to assume all the recent increase in Green support in the polls comes from ALP support.
Interesting comments. At the peak of the One Nation era a good proportion of the Hanson vote came off the Coalition
ALP COAL ON ALP-TPP
ELECT96 39.2% 47.0% 46.8%
JUL98 42.2% 32.5% 14.2% 55.4%
change +3% -14.5% +14.2% +8.6%
The ALP primaries were UP at this time (from “Other”?). But of the people seemingly won over to Hanson from the Coalition, about 43% went back in preferences to the ALP instead. This was a very consistent flow, right throughout the Hanson era, not only in polls, but also in State and Federal elections.
As Pauline would say…. “Please explain”
EVERY day, at least 13 asylum-seekers enter Australia through airports, representing 30 times the number of boat people that are supposedly “flooding” across our maritime borders.
“A total of 4768 “plane people” – more than 96 per cent of applicants for refugee status – arrived by aircraft in 2008 on legitimate tourist, business and other visas compared with 161 who arrived by boat during the same period, the Sunday Telegraph reports”. 25/10/2009
The whole issue around the illegal immigrants is pre-election stunt from Julia Gillard. I am worried about the political power of big multinational companies, tens of billions of dollars taken from Australian people every year and how this influences our daily lives and the prosperity of Australia in general.
We do not need a Prime Minster who can not stand up for the Australian interests. Neither Tony Abbott nor Julia Gillard is able to resist the pressure from the big multinational companies.
I am not going to vote for Julia or Tony “the budgie smuggler”. I was a Labor voter in the past however my vote this time will go to Greens and Bob Brown as long as he is not giving his preferences to Labor Party.
hi there – is it just me !! can any one explain why when i type in the yahoo browser “mumble.com.au” i get a different site yet whe i type it in google its ok? could this be a bug in my system or is any one else having same probs ?
alfies