Comments on: By-elections in WA?

By: Simon Copland

Simon Copland — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:45:43 +0000

A note that McGinty has now announced that he will retire. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/03/2533773.htm

By: MDMConnell

MDMConnell — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 23:19:02 +0000

“..the Liberals might as well not bother if that happens”

The Liberals wouldn’t bother anyway, would they? Governments are never enthusiastic about by-elections in a safe Opposition seats. Especially if they figure the best way to damage Labor is by encouraging a vote for the Greens and/or a left-independent.

By: Bird of paradox

Bird of paradox — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 06:02:49 +0000

It’s impossible to say. He got about 60% in the mayoral election back in 2005, but local government isn’t politicised in WA , so there’s no ALP or Green vote to compare with. He’d probably get most support in the City of Fremantle, which doesn’t overlap the division neatly – it includes North Freo (across the river, the one booth the ALP win in Colin Barnett’s seat) and doesn’t include East Freo or Hami Hill (East Freo and Cockburn councils respectively). A union hack like Dave Kelly (ALP Left) vs Carles (Green) vs Tagliaferri (Ind) will be fascinating, and absolutely impossible to predict… the Liberals might as well not bother if that happens.

By: Ben Raue

Ben Raue — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 05:36:28 +0000

If Tagliaferri runs as an independent, how much support does he get? Because if he polls less than the Greens he could be just the thing to split the ALP vote.

By: Bird of paradox

Bird of paradox — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 05:00:10 +0000

G’day Ben. Hope you don’t mind a bit of a text dump…

Fremantle’s a very hard / interesting seat to analyse, beause there’s so much variability in the seat from East Freo / Bicton (rich, on the river, Libs do well) down through Freo and South Freo (full of yuppies, Greens do well) and down to Hami Hill / Spearwood (bogans, ALP does well).

I did a quick and dirty distribution of the vote last election in Excel the other day, with prefs like so: CDP -> Lib (then 0.5 ALP, 0.5 Grn); FF -> 0.5 Lib, 0.5 Grn (then all to Lib); Lib -> 0.8 Grn, 0.2 ALP; and ALP -> 0.8 Grn, 0.2 Lib. Of the 11 booths, you can divide them into two regions. Here’s what Excel spat out:

~~~~~

Richmond Primary School: Lib 5.0 v ALP
Anglican Church Hall: ALP 3.2 v Lib
Palmyra Primary School: ALP 10.7 v Lib
Phoenix Primary School: ALP 15.0 v Lib
Winterfold Primary School: ALP 16.3 v Lib

The first two are in East Freo, so the Libs do well. In Palmyra (next suburb away from the river), the Greens start ahead of the Libs but the CDP/FF prefs would put the Libs in front; a small pertubation would make that a small ALP margin v Grn. The last two are typical lower-class outer suburbs (quite a way from the first three), so huge ALP v Lib margin.

~~~~~

White Gum Valley Primary School: ALP 2.4 v Grn
Beaconsfield Primary School: Grn 5.7 v ALP
East Fremantle Primary School: Grn 5.9 v ALP
Fremantle Town Hall: Grn 6.3 v ALP
Rottnest Island Picture Hall: Grn 8.2 v ALP
Fremantle Primary School: Grn 8.4 v ALP

Note: Rotto is tiny, only 64 votes. White Gum Valley has the worst mainland vote of the lot for the Libs (18%) and the best for the ALP (44%), so that’s how ALP beat the Greens.

~~~~~

Of course, all the above is a bit pointless if (1) the Libs don’t run, and (2) Tagliaferri does, but it is kinda interesting.