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September 10

Time Capsule A little over a year ago, when poor old Simon Crean was still leader of Her Maj's opposition, I wrote this piece for the Canberra Times, predicting, Malcolm Mackerras-like, that Howard would lose the next election. (At that stage I knew not of the existence of Labor Lemmings.)

The finishing sentences: "Nothing is certain in life or politics, and Jemaah Islamiah, the US State Department or a well-timed Labor crisis could save Howard yet. But barring that miracle, Howard’s end will come at the next election".

Well, JI has intervened, and Centrebet, which was paying an already one-sided $1.48 for a Coalition win to $2.40 for a Labor one, has blown out to $1.30 versus $3.20.

Can I make the obvious point? Imagine Bomber was on offer.

• You might not have seen the Howard and Latham hair sites.

• Or journalist Margot Kingston at the 'Not Happy John' launch. Someone's  taking their celebrity seriously.

• Or that wacky Mr Morgan who (before Jakarta bomb) had Labor even further ahead, 56 to 44.

Campaign pause

Our politicians are real Aussies, which means they greet bombs with outrage directly proportional to the number of  "people like us" blown up. Indonesians and other South East Asians don't fall into that category and have been suffering such atrocities for years, and we barely noticed, let alone cared, before October 2002. But yesterday our Embassy was targeted, so we are livid, we've sent a posse over and our politicians have extended their sympathies to families of the eleven-plus dead and scores of maimed Indonesians. Is such extending a first? Might this be part of the problem?

Anyway, for interest's sake go to the Two Decades of Newspolls and look at the two party preferred graphs after the Bali bombings (near the right hand end). This isn't in the same league, but it's good news for Howard in a political sense and doesn't he know it. The Father-figure Protector of the Nation, set mouth, eyes unblinking, returns to a television screen near you.

Great debate

Latham and Howard have called a halt to the campaign, and Uncle Ray has pulled out as host of the debate because of the changed format. This reminds us of the last debate in 2001, which leads us to that campaign, and we recall that the SMH's Alan Ramsey wasn't always as anti John Howard as he is today. In fact, "close to the PM's office" was an apt phrase during that campaign, and his anti-Beazley rabidity was a thing to behold.

About the one and only debate, Alan wrote:

If you were entertained, informed, bored or a bit of all three by the debate, of one thing you can be utterly sure: that's the end of Ray Martin with John Howard. However the election goes, even if Howard were to change his mind and debate Beazley again this campaign, Martin will never, ever host another television event of any sort involving Howard. Neither, I'm sure, will the Nine network.

Howard has every reason to feel he was very deliberately set up and done over.

Here's the full column. Well, Nine's got the gig again (as if they ever wouldn't under Howard) but Martin's gone, replaced by Laurie Oakes and a gaggle of journalists.

September 7 The polls are tolling

ACNielsen in the SMH and Age has 50 50.

Newspoll in The Oz has same. Coming after the weekend, more bad news for Labor.

50 50 can go either way, but would very probably mean a comfortable Coalition win.

September 6 Margaret Simons on Latham's story

Margaret Simons in The Australian discusses Mark Latham's worldview, in which all wisdom and goodness resides in thick-necked outer suburban white male four-wheel drivers.

All Simons' quotes seem to come from this Australian op-ed piece two and a half years ago.

The big flaw in the model is that these suburbanites that Labor "needs to win back" are quite well off. They live in big extending houses, carports overflowing with four-wheel drives (yes, them again), they might have an investment property and they love their private health rebate.

They live in well-moneyed, low unemployment seats like Lindsay in Sydney, Aston in Melbourne and Dickson in Brisbane, and might even "eat out and buy in domestic help" from time to time. They're classic swingers who help decide most federal elections.

In the cities, the poorest electorates (which tend to be migrant-heavy) still return Labor members. (Go to the pendulum gallery, click 'median income' at right, and see that from 150 up to 89, all Metro seats are Labor held.) The parties go on about "battlers", but the real "battlers" live in safe seats and are ignored.

What about outside the capitals? you ask. Good question. Almost wholly absent from his equation, unlike Mark's outer suburban blokes they haven't necessarily benefited from two decades of reform, they have many marginal seats, their votes are up for grabs and they've always been Labor's best chance for victory at the next poll. 

See non-metro at top right in pendulum gallery.

September 5 Newspoll in the marginals

A Newspoll for the Herald Sun shows 52 to 48 in the government's 12 most marginals compared with about 51 to 49 at the last election. Seats polled: Deakin (Vic), McEwen (Vic), Adelaide (SA), Canning (WA), Dobell (NSW), Eden-Monaro (NSW), Herbert (Qld), Hindmarsh (SA), Parramatta (NSW), Paterson (NSW), Richmond (NSW) and Solomon (NT).

Sample size 1608. Also in the 'Tiser here, with the headline 'PM preferred Leader'. I wrote about this almost meaningless measure in the AFR a couple of years ago. Unlike Crean, Latham's problem is not that people can't imagine him as PM, it's that they can, and it stresses them. But they reckon he's a good bloke and like him as opposition leader. 

Anyway, good numbers for the government. At this stage the lemming remains more likely than the goose.

A hung parliament?

It's that time again. Before every election, the suggestion that we might, just might, get a hung parliament pops up. You know: the polls are close, there's nothing in it, punters can't make up their minds  ....

Annabel Crabb in the Sunday Age adds herself to a list that so far contains folks such as Bob Hogg, Grahame Morris, Dennis Shanahan and Michael Costello. [Update: Glenn Milne in the Oz weighs in with the biggest 'hung parliament!' beat-up of all. Further update: another reckless commentator.] We can also include Antony Green, who says the "prospect" is "real" in this article.

These predictions have always been wrong in the past and they're probably wrong again, for the simple fact that a hung parliament is statistically unlikely. It's like predicting a draw in an AFL match between two equally strong teams.

Admittedly, the probability of three independents retaining their seats widens the window of opportunity. But what Antony, quoted by Annabel, was referring to here is mysterious: "Anywhere between eight and 13 seats [lost by the government] and you basically have a hung Parliament," he said.

The numbers in current parliament are: Coalition 82; Labor 64; Independents 3 and Greens 1.

The notional new numbers are Coalition: 83; Labor 63; Independents 3 and Greens 1.

Perhaps Antony is assuming the Green Michael Organ retains Cunningham, an unlikely prospect. In any event, the window is smaller: between 8 and eleven net seats would need to go from Coalition to Labor to see a hung parliament. Twelve would see a Labor majority (assuming they win back Cunningham) and 13 certainly would (unless other independents get up).

September 4 Polling in Queensland marginals

Before reading this, go here (it will open a new window) and click Queensland at top left. This will bring up the Queensland pendulum. Toggle between there and here. The first seven seats, up to and including Dickson, are the Coalition's most marginal. Newspoll surveyed them for The Australian and found two party preferred voting intentions, over all seven, to be 52 to 48. Those seats, after adjusting for subsequent redistributions, voted about 53 to 47 in 2001. So that's a one percent swing to Labor in the Queensland marginals, which, if taken literally, would yield .. no seat gains for Labor.

Dickson's not really marginal, but has a profile due to Cheryl Kernot's brief occupation.

Another News paper, Brisbane's Courier-Mail, reports a TNS poll in the "trio" of Dickson, Longman and Hinkler. It includes:

The TNS poll, which surveyed 305 voters in each of the three seats, found a stunning turn-around in support for the Howard Government in the seat of Dickson compared with the last TNS poll in late June.

The Coalition now has a 12 percentage point advantage in Dickson adding to the 6 per cent margin from the 2001 election.

While the Liberals held on to a swing of about 2 per cent in Longman, in Hinkler, where the margin was too close to call in June, the Coalition has marched ahead to a 14 percentage point lead.

With no tables and few numbers in the online version, it's not possible to make much sense of this stuff. What's the "swing" in Longman? Are they saying the Libs are ahead in Dickson 62 to 38, or 56 to 44? If the latter, then that's the same as the 2001 result.

Anyway, those numbers are much too small to say anything meaningful about an individual seat. In aggregate, yes. But we don't know what they say. But no sign of a big swing to Labor.

Herald-Sun McNair poll has 55 to 45 in Victoria, a three percent swing to Labor since the last election. The sample of 406, however, is too small to take seriously. Then there's the strange inclusion of La Trobe in this sentence:"The two-party swing to Labor of 3 per cent would see the Coalition lose the seats of Deakin (1.6 per cent), McEwen (2.2), Gippsland (2.6) and La Trobe (3.7)".

But as they point out, McMillan is also now a notionally Coalition but would fall back to Labor if it swings by 3 points.

The biggest majority in Australian history?

A certain Mr Bludger claimed early this week that in 1996 Mr Howard won the biggest majority in Australian history. This is the sort of thing Dennis Shanahan would write, and I corrected him. Mr B. corrected his statement, sort of, changing it to 'equal third'.

Howard got the 'third highest' seat majority (forty) only if you ignore the increase in House of Representatives size; it's been in the 147 to 150 range since 1984. (It started with 75 in 1901, jumped to 121 in '49 and 148 in '84, with small variations around those figures.)

A superior measure of electoral prowess would be the proportion of HoR seats won. On this, Howard comes ninth out of 37. I'm constructing a table of that soon, but in the meantime here's something similar, a list by winning two party preferred votes since 1949. Howard's three elections come sixth, 13th and last.

September 3 Morgan: 51.5 to 48.5

Kiddy Curfew in Townsville; Werriwa three years ago

Herbert MP Peter Lindsay thinks he's in trouble (which he probably is; his seat is first off the Queensland ramp) and plays 'look at me' by calling for a curfew for children. One is reminded of the member for Werriwa's reaction to bad internal polling in his seat in the dying days of the 2001 campaign: Bring Back the Rod.

September 2 Adelaide Advertiser takes a small (558) sample in South Australia and finds 47 to 53. Actually about a one percent swing to Labor from the last election, which would probably yield one or two seats. (See SA pendulum by going here and clicking SA at top.)

August 31 Newspoll says 52 to 48. about a 20 seat majority for Labor on the pendulum. But somehow this translates to "The Newspoll survey suggests the first six-week election campaign in 20 years has started with the major parties neck and neck."

Still, the right direction for the Coalition, with the gap halved.

Furphy Watch: Parramatta: Herald Today (no link) bangs on about Parramatta, 'former Labor heartland' . They're in Parramatta the suburb, but they're also referring to the electorate.

If you go to Parramatta in the pendulum gallery, you'll see that the suburb voted Labor 57 to 43 at the last election. You'll also see that the seat has been held by the Libs and its predecessors for over 80 years since 1901. Never Labor heartland.

August 30 (II)

• Malcolm Mackerras double today. One in the Oz, the other in the Fin Review. The Fin is subscription only online, so reproducing the column is not allowed, but if one did, it might look like this. 

• Antony Green in the SMH

Am adding media election links to right hand panel. So far only ABC, Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Others, such as the Oz, will be added as they appear.

August 30 The result on October 9? 

Four possible outcomes, with odds

1.  A Labor landslide, something like 53 to 47, with about a thirty odd seat majority for Latham. Notwithstanding the rude things I've said about Marky Mark, this could quite easily happen with an 8 and a half year old government that has never been much of an electoral performer nor very popular, has squeaked out of jail twice  and a PM who's not much of a campaigner. 1 in 8 chance

2. A quite close Labor win, probably with regional Australia putting Latham over the line while outer suburban four-wheel drivers (like Lindsay and Aston) stay with the man who presided over a tripling of their house values. 5 in 16 chance.

3. A close-ish Coalition win, with a similar majority to the current one, same as scenario 2 except regions don't move to Labor.  This could even involve a two party preferred vote majority for Labor as safe Labor seats (like those in western Sydney) swing big while the outer suburbs move a little but not enough to change hands. 1 in 2 chance.

4. A big Coalition win, a majority over 30. 1 in 16 chance.

I include a hung parliament in scenarios 2 & 3, but the chances of a hung parliament are very long.

That's one broad brush approach. Others, such as state by state, another day..

Lot's of fun over next 6 weeks, with tables and charts. Don't forget the pendulum gallery.

August 29 On your marks ... October 9 it is

A six week campaign, the longest since 1984. There's a lot of mythology about that campaign, and how it helped Opposition Leader Andrew Peacock establish himself as an acceptable alternative and 'almost win'.

Actually, Peacock didn't 'almost win' in 1984, the swing to the opposition was an ok 1.5 percent, but Hawke government's safety margin stayed at 2.2 percent, the same as in 1983. See this table.

I digress already. Anyway, I think a long campaign will help the government because Latham already has great presence in the electorate and the government will be trying to wear off the shine and open him to scrutiny.

If there's one thing Marky Mark has been good at, it's knowing when to keep quiet and how to remain attractive in an elusive way, at a distance. It's stopped him becoming a whinging opposition leader. Can he keep doing that?  Will he be yukky up close? The risk is that when people do eyeball him for the first time they'll find it off-putting or scary.

On the other hand, Howard may simply now be unelectable. This government has never been popular, or even respected, more tolerated.

August 28 That nice Mr Morgan says it's 55.5 to 44.5, with kindly if unsolicited advice that now is 'Not a Conducive Time For L-NP to Call the Election'.

August 27 Government polling and meta-lying: a tangled web

Poor Mr Howard. Lying about the fact that you lied comes with the territory of lying in the first place. But he found another dimension necessary when denying that government polling shows people believe he's a liar. 

The long uncomfortable pause, followed by that which comes naturally under pressure: another lie, a big one, that the government's polling shows they're doing 'very well'.  Will he find himself having to deny that he lied about what the polling says?

Anyway, best to interpret the opposite: government polling apocalyptic.

ACNielsen .. continued

I hadn't noticed the last column in this table in my rave below about capitals versus rest of country.

It shows swings of 5% and .5% respectively, presumably to Labor, which means 2001 two party preferred votes, again respectively, of 49.5 to 50.5 and 53.5 to 46.5. Different to the AEC's numbers, Nielsen I think  uses phone exchanges instead of electorates. But like the AEC it indicates about three fifths of voters inside capitals, two fifths outside. Their 2001 figures must come from surveys as well.

Reader Geoff Lambert has sent this PDF table, with is of 'the TPP and TPP trend (linear regression) and the predicted date Mr Latham passes below the event horizon (50% but he could lose at 51%). Based on all published polls, smoothed and "bias-corrected"'. He also reckons 50.8 is the average of all two party preferred votes Labor has needed since WWII, and 50.8 is where his graph will be on October 9.

August 23 ACNielsen's quarterly number crunching in The Age

Unlike The Oz, Fairfax papers SMH and the Age are too tight to commission fortnightly opinion polls. That's a pity, because Newspoll is overvalued basically because it's the only outfit that comes out fortnightly and has a nice online archive database.

Anyway, Fairfax pollster Nielsen has consolidated three surveys to produce numbers large enough to be meaningful state by state - at least in NSW, Vic and Qld - and by other demographics. The national aggregate is 52.5 to 47.5.

Here's the table.

The headline reads 'Coalition facing a hiding in capitals' (44.5 to 55.5), with the 'best news' for the government in 'regional Australia', where the Coalition holds a 53 to 47 percent lead. 

We don't know how Nielsen classifies, but using the AEC classifications the Coalition polled 55 to 45 outside the capital cities at the 2001 election and 48 to 52 in them. (National vote was 51 to 49.) Those numbers were nothing special; Labor always does much better in the cities and the Coalition in the bush. 

According to Nielsen, there's a swing to the opposition on in both categories, and if you go to the pendulum, choose 'metro' and 'non-metro' from the right hand panel, and plot swings 3.5 and two percent respectively to Labor, you get a net change of 15 seats, which is enough for Latham form government with about four to spare (majority of eight).

Lemmings update. A reader or two suggests I reconsider my 9 months worth of consistent prognostications of a Latham disaster, given recent published polling. They think I might eat my words.

My response is that if opinion polls continue showing Boofhead way in front, I will start munching. And if the good numbers for Labor stay 'til at least the middle of the campaign, I'll be a flip-flopping. But let's wait and see.

The lemmings are going nowhere!

August 19 Canberra Times: ten myths

Rather cross with the Canberra Times for not telling me about the publication of this piece today until after it had appeared. I had filed before Tuesday's opinion polls, which rendered the line that Crean's "last Newspoll in November last year, for example, was better than Latham's most recent result" grossly untrue.

Apart from that, I stand by it one hundred percent .. give or take a few.

August 17 ACNielsen and Newspoll

Nielsen has 53 to 47 in SMH and Age, with primary votes 39 to 42. Greens on 9, One Nation 3, Democrats 2. Here's the table.

Out of 19 points of minor party and others, 14 flow to Labor and five to the Coalition, which is almost three quarters (74%), up from 58% at the 2001 election. A big Green jump accounts for some of this, but the rest is difficult to fathom.

Newspoll (no link) has 54 to 46, with primary votes the other way round,  42 to 39. That looks more like it.

Alan Ramsey and John Howard

Politics followers with memories beyond last week will recall that during the 2001 election campaign there was no bigger mainstream political commentating (so leaving aside the Piers Akermans of this world) fan of John Howard's refugee rhetoric than the SMH's Alan Ramsey. According to Alan, Howard's every utterance about 'people of that type' was spot on and Kim Beazley was spineless not to join him 100 percent. 

When Labor subsequently set up a Senate Committee to find out who told the PM what and when about children overboard Ramsey called it a 'stunt' and a waste of time.

Now it's Latham who can do no wrong, and it'll be interesting to see what Alan comes up with on the topic in tomorrow's column.

August 15 Taverner poll

A poll in Fairfax's Sydney and Melbourne Sunday papers, of 600 voters in NSW and Victoria, says 53 to 47. Several points about that.

That many respondents mean a four percent margin of error (within a 95% confidence interval). You can see the formula here.

Presumably the only poll those two states because of their papers' readership, but it really would make sense to poll the whole country. They could just spread their 600 phone calls across the country and the error margin would be the same.

Anyway, NSW and Victoria voted almost exactly 50: 50 in 2001, so the Taverner poll indicates a swing of three percent. to the ALP. In those two states alone that would net ten seats, almost enough for victory. In the whole country it would see a Labor win by about 16 seats (similar to the government's today).

A gender break-down showed an eight percent drop in female support for the Coalition (from 42 to 34 percent) with little change in Labor's. Assuming three hundred females were interviewed, this involves a 5.5 percent error margin. That's getting pretty big.

August 13 Time for a Newspoll graph, showing two party preferred support over the last year.

Morgan: 53.5 to 46.5

August 12 Omnipoll

A reader asks about my lack of mentions of Omnipoll, a new pollster which has 'appeared in the Daily Telegraph in recent weeks'.

Says reader, the Tele's Malcolm Farr is involved and Farr 'raves' about them.

I must admit the outfit's existence had passed me by.

From what I can see, News Ltd's Tele, Adelaide Advertiser, Courier-Mail and Hobart Mercury have published two, the first on July 27, which had the Coalition ahead 51 to 49. 

The second, on August 10, after Latham's "stunning" FTA win (fancy neither accepting nor rejecting legislation, but putting up amendments. That's thinking outside the square!), put it at 54 to 46.

Which reminds me, it's time for yet another reminder of something I've been putting ever since December last year, with (annoying to some readers) regularity: Boofhead is going down. And forget all this oh, it's going to be close, only a few seats in it! (as I heard Grahame Morris predicting the other day). 'Close' elections are rare in this country. The Coalition should be returned comfortably, probably with an increased majority. 

Unless, unless .... Caucus installs Beazley.

Do I tilt at windmills?

Update It turns out Mr Bludger has been digging around Omnipoll; lots of info at his August 11 post.

August 7 Alan Ramsey's prescience

Mr Ramsey, much lampooned for putting inverted commas around large junks of his columns, goes the whole hog today with 100% quotations in his main piece. But a little over a year ago he wrote with prescience after Butler's appointment as Tasmanian governor that Premier Jim Bacon will 'learn but it'll be too late'.  How (apart from unforeseeable detail of who would be premier) true.

August 5 And Greg Sheridan finally says something incisive - that Howard's response to Latham's amendments blew it. "The Government should have said Labor's proposed amendments are meaningless but we're happy to pass them ... "

August 4 FTA Marky Mark finally does something smart. The opposition's neglect of PBS as a scare campaign has always been a mystery. It has fine ingredients: tens of thousands of oldies' hip pockets, and one man bravely standing up to foreigners.

But he used the Kilkenny Cats thing on Lateline the other night too. Let's hope they don't keep popping up.

August 3 Newspoll: 50 to 50.

A discernable trend is in, and it favours the Government. Mark Latham now attracts a lower vote than Simon Crean's final Newspoll.

July 30 Morgan says 53 to 47.

July 28 Lemmings update As the day approaches when Lemmings answer for their sins - handing the Coalition an unnecessary fourth term - it's worth asking how much of their own money they put into the exercise. That is, if, as I think likely, Marky Mark takes them backwards at the election, will Lemmings take bullets for their comrades? Do they tend to be in the marginal or safe seats?

I've added an 'L' to Lemming seats in the full pendulum. (Go to pendulum gallery and click full pendulum.) It's a mixed bag, but the furry critters are over-represented in the danger zone. For example, of the seventeen Labor seats with margin of five percent or less (including notionally Liberal McMillan), ten have a sitting Lemming.

Good on them! A leaner but savvier next Labor Caucus.

July 27 Time for a Newspoll graph, showing preferred PM since March 1996.

This singing animated Bush-Kerry cartoon is worth watching - a few times. It'll open in a new window and will probably take a minute or so.  But worth the wait. Toggle between here and there while it loads. (Now an ad at beginning.)