Email from Malcolm Mackerras on Pembroke (state) by-election in Tasmania

"Dear Peter

The thought occurred to me that your website should notice that there will be a by-election for the Tasmanian Legislative Council Division of Pembroke on August 1. It is caused by the resignation of Labor’s Allison Ritchie. Pembroke is the Eastern Shore Division of Hobart suburbs and falls within federal Franklin. I had expected William Bowe to notice this event but, since his website does not seem to notice it, I thought it might help you to get in first.

The reason for my interest in this subject is that I have developed a theory explaining by-election results by the way in which the vacancy was created. I developed this theory in a recent article in “The Canberra Times”. The article was titled “Greedy politicians can expect a caning from angry voters” and was published on June 24 on page 11 (the Opinion page).

My theory was that, whenever an Australian by-election is caused by resignation it is almost always attributable to the greed of the resigning member. The result is almost always bad for the incumbent party. Pembroke will be a new test of this theory. Although the greed here is of a different type to that of Mark Vaile, Alexander Downer, Rob Kerin and Jim McGinty it is still, I assert, a case of politician greed.

Much of the detail on this is in my article but you may be interested to know the results of the most recent eight federal by-elections. Two were caused by death (Isaacs in 2000 and Aston in 2001) and both results were good for the incumbent party. The other six were caused by resignations. While Werriwa in 2005 and Gippsland in 2009 were good results for the incumbent party the other four were very bad for the incumbent party. John Moore threw Ryan away to Labor in 2001, Stephen Martin threw Cunningham away to the Greens in 2002 and Mark Vaile threw Lyne away to an Independent in 2008.

In the case of Alexander Downer the Liberal Party retained his seat – but it was a most unimpressive win in a blue-ribbon seat.

If my phenomenon has any validity it may be that compulsory voting has something to do with it. While we know that most Australians support compulsory voting (and, therefore, do not resent it in normal circumstances) it may be they do resent it when the by-election (for example, Lyne and Mayo) is caused by the resignation of a politician motivated solely by greed.

The article explains why I have not noticed this phenomenon in other countries. Indeed I have noticed its absence in New Zealand.

Cheers

Malcolm"

Update: Malcolm adds:

"Further to this e-mail I point out that the failure of Labor to nominate a candidate for Pembroke means the party has already lost the seat. Consequently the record of three by-elections this year (all in state parliaments) is three losses by the party of the resigning member: Frome (SA) in January lost by Liberal, Fremantle (WA)in May lost by Labor and Pembroke (Tasmania) in August lost by Labor. The two most recent federal by-elections, both in September 2008, were Lyne (NSW) lost by the Nationals and Mayo (SA) where the Liberal Party retained the seat but suffered a four per cent negative swing.

It seems to me my general thesis is being borne out by events. A worse series of results for the parties of resigning members could scarcely be imagined. Well, I suppose the Liberal Party could actually have lost Mayo!

Cheers