Comments on: By-election wash

By: Sam Bauers

Sam Bauers — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 03:38:21 +0000

I goofed up on the 2PP, I accidentally used the “last election” column on the 2007 results for Bradfield (67.55 – 64.81 = 2.74). I don’t imagine the swing between 2004 to 2009 means much

The primary figure was right though, not that it matters.

By: Antony Green

Antony Green — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 19:48:45 +0000

Where do you get this 2.74% 2PP swing from in the AEC data? The current Liberal 2CP is 64.8%. The 2PP result in 2007 was 63.5%. So the Liberal vote after preferencesd is up 1.3%, not down.

By: Sam Bauers

Sam Bauers — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 12:15:19 +0000

@Hamish Coffee

I’m looking at the AEC data, Antony Green’s data can contain projected figures and it’s not always clear when it does. Since I last commented the postals have been counted and it’s still swinging away from the Liberals on primaries of 2.64% and 2PP swing away of 2.74%.

Only provisional votes remain to count and there are only a maximum of 466 of those, so the (extremely small) swing away from the Liberals in Bradfield is pretty much definite now.

By: Joel MacRae

Joel MacRae — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 09:19:48 +0000

All I can say is that it was excruciatingly annoying to see ALP and Liberal spinners coming out saying that Greens were in with a good chance. It was clearly a set-up to make the Greens look like failures when the results were through.

This (non-)strategy that the ALP takes in by-elections may be “clever” in the short-term but it is eroding their base in the long-term. The Greens will continue to grow, slowly and at the margins, while ever the ALP let us.

It reminds me of a phrase I have heard many hacks say: “The ALP are outsourcing its left wing to the Greens”.

By: Hamish Coffee

Hamish Coffee — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 04:59:03 +0000

Primary vote doesn’t really matter much though does it? I mean, the Greens didn’t win the primary vote in Cunningham way back when. You also can’t discount that 22 candidates would lower the major party’s primary vote.

I don’t think it can be fairly said that this is anything but a solid result for the Libs.

And, from what I understand, the 2PP is marginally to the Libs in Bradfield (0.8%, 3.1% in Higgins). http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2009/byelections/bradfield_result.htm

By: Sam Bauers

Sam Bauers — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 03:31:46 +0000

The Libs won two by-elections with swings to them.

Bradfield (so far has) swung away from the Liberal candidate on primaries by 3.33%. The “swing” on 2PP is close to meaningless in this case, but that was away from them in Bradfield as well (3.37%).

After postals it may turn into a very small swing to Liberal, which will negate my “worst ever result” remark. I guess we’ll all be bored of the topic by then though.

By: Hamish Coffee

Hamish Coffee — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 01:04:52 +0000

Good point re: Moderates in the Libs.

To copy and paste from Antony Green’s blog:

“What-if anything, does the Greens vote suggest regarding their potential senate vote at an upcoming election? Do the tealeaves give us any likely trends? ie should they be disappointed with the vote given the pre-poll predictions from various pundits or should they think its a reasonable set of numbers?

COMMENT: I don’t think there is anything to read into these results.”

By: Stewart J

Stewart J — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 01:00:51 +0000

Um, not Kingsford Smith – the likely bits of the eastern suburbs to be Green inclined are all in the north of the seat. The rest is solid old-school ALP. As to Perth, people have often suggested it, but I would consider the core of the Green vote to be too small – and alot of the Green vote you might otherwise expect to find in Perth tends to head down towards Freo, or is spread more thinly around the city. Denison – yes, I will be interested to see what happens this time round with Denison with no Duncan Kerr, but again the problem is that the concentration is relatively low. As well, most of the seats you’ve named are ALP not Liberal seats (North Sydney notwithstanding).

And I’d add that the literature on post-materialist idea transmission would suggest that having a Green party increases the chance of those ideas being transmitted, but this doesn’t show up as a 1:1 vote rise – from the seats where Greens have done well there is a need for a pre-existing increase. Even if you compare Higgins to Mayo, the Greens only doubled their primary in Mayo, but had the presence of high profile Independent (Di Bell) soaking up the ALP primary, as well as FFP (Bob Day) bringing down the Lib vote. This doesn’t occur in Higgins, where the Greens tripled their previous primary. On that basis it was an resounding win – although I notice Greens not claiming a “win” out of this.

Lastly, it became reasonably obvious towards the end of the campaign that both O’Dwyer & Fletcher are more likely to be moderates than hard right Lib MPs. This actually provides the Lib voters with a chance to send a message to their own party about keeping moderates in to counter the right (ie; maybe Turnbull would have won the leadership if both had been in Parlt the week before?).

By: Hamish Coffee

Hamish Coffee — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:47:06 +0000

Let’s not get too lost in the clouds here. The Libs won two by-elections with swings to them. That is a solid result for them. The good voters of Higgins and Bradfield were given the option to stick the boot into Abbott and ultimately did not. The Greens did OK, eating up most of the Labor vote but not recording a swing ala Mayo. That it was their best primary vote is a bit of a redundant point given there was no ALP candidate, and is thus hard to judge actual Green support in the electorates. Equally, that the Libs recorded their lowest vote is again redundant because voters use by-elections to punish major parties and also that there were 22 candidates.

I think the main lesson to learn here is that local issues, rather than leadership (Abbott) or international issues (CC) is probably the best way for the Greens to win by-elections as it alienates far fewer ALP voters (or Lib voters in the case of Labor/Green contests).

By: Peter K

Peter K — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:21:57 +0000

Stewart,
To that list you could add North Sydney, Adelaide, Denison and perhaps Kingsford-Smith, Brisbane, Perth & Batman but it only proves the point that Higgins is demographically in the top 10-12 seats nationally for sensitivity to Green issues, and top 3 for Vic – yet they couldnt manage a protest vote (ie anti-Lib swing) even there on the CC issue. You have to read this result in that light.
Btw I’m talking about demographic inclination to green issues, not chances of the AG actually winning the seat, which is different. I don’t think Cunningham (or Mayo) would rate particularly highly.
As for Bradfield, the Lib vote has declined significantly in recent years – the TPP used to be above 70% even in opposition – due to changes in boundaries and ethnic composition. Having the worst primary vote ever dosent mean much then, especially given the circumstances of the by-election. This time their TPP held up.