Queensland 2009 Archive

In a move right out of the Labor “how to win an election” textbook (just like most of the Bligh campaign), the Australian today features a story by Peter van Onselen reporting on leaked Labor polling showing large swings to the LNP that could topple the government:

Labor strategists are rushing campaign workers into the electorates under threat, even flying operatives in from interstate, in a last-minute attempt to turn around local fortunes.

Labor’s track polling was continuing last night. It is understood the internal polling shows a collapse in Greens preferences flowing Labor’s way as voters indicate their intention to take advantage of Queensland’s system of optional preferential voting by placing a “1″ next to the Green candidate without preferencing down the line.

Such a protest vote – the internal polling reveals the Green vote is more than 8 per cent – would hurt Labor candidates who rely on a steady flow of Greens preferences.

This is much in line with my predictions, but you have to always take these things with a grain of salt. I remember that in the 2005 Werriwa by-election a story leaked that the ALP was worried that, ala Cunningham, the seat would fall to the Greens. I polled 5.5%.

In other news, I’ve been hearing rumours of a possible LNP upset win in the heartland Labor seat of Brisbane Central, which could be borne out if the Greens vote holds up and, as reported above, the preferences largely exhaust. You heard it here first.

For my South-East Queensland predictions, check out last night’s post.

Central Queensland

I predict that the ALP will lose three seats to the LNP: Hervey Bay, Keppel and Mirani. This would happen on about 8% swing across the region, with the remaining Labor seats in Mackay and Rockhampton much safer.

Central Queensland region

North Queensland

In northern Queensland, I predict that Barron River, Burdekin and Whitsunday would likely fall. I’m predicting this based on a 7% swing.

Electorates around Cairns and Townsville

Western Queensland

I’m predicting that the only western Queensland ALP seat, Mount Isa, will fall.

Unlike Pauline Hanson, there’s one independent candidate taking their clothes off, one “Honest” Dave Zwolenski in Mount Coot-tha:

I’m at a candidates’ forum in Moggill, and I’ll be twittering from the event. You can see them on the right-hand side of the blog.

I’m now in Brisbane, and to kill time on the plane up I took a map of Queensland and flipped the seats I thought would fall. Of course, predictions are always fraught and I’m sure I’ll make plenty of mistakes. I’m gonna run through the predictions over two posts, but here is the overall prediction:

• ALP – 42 (-17)
• LNP – 42 (+17)
• Ind – 5 (+1)
• ON – 0 (-1)
• GRN – 0 (-)

Now I know this looks very symetrical, with the ALP and LNP stuck on the same number, but that’s mostly coincidence. Also there are some similarities to William Bowe’s predictions at Pineapple Party Time, but that’s probably unsurprising.

I’m working off the redistribution figures, so in the case where a party changes hands under the redistribution (such as Burdekin, Glass House and Clayfield) I’m counting them as notional seats post-redistribution. So I’m predicting that Tim Nicholls will hold Clayfield, but I count that as an ALP loss and an LNP gain.

The make-up of the seat changes are:

• 20 seats going from the ALP to LNP.
• 1 seat going from the LNP to ALP
• 1 seat going from the Greens to the LNP
• 1 seat going from the LNP to an Independent

A 42-42 tie would produce a likely LNP government, with Copeland and Cunningham very likely to support an LNP government, and an overall anti-Labor sentiment likely giving them government.

So let’s go through them by region:

Brisbane:

The map below shows a predicted election result. Light blue seats are those that I predict the LNP will win off other parties. In Brisbane I predict that the LNP will gain five seats off the ALP and one seat off the Greens. LNP Shadow Treasurer Tim Nicholls  will overcome the redistribution and hold his seat, and I expect that the ALP will lose Aspley, Chatsworth, Cleveland and Springwood. I considered Redlands and Redcliffe but I leant against those seats falling, although it is very possible, as it is possible that safer ALP seats such as Everton could fall. This prediction comes from a 5-6% swing across Brisbane.

I also predict that the LNP will win Indooroopilly off Greens MP Ronan Lee. This would have been an easy prediction if the ALP was not preferencing the Greens, but I believe this will come down to the line. However the fact remains that Lee was not able to come first on primary votes in 2006 when he was an ALP member during a landslide election. If Scott Emerson manages an underwhelming 3% primary vote swing, that puts him on 45%, and I can’t see enough ALP voters preferencing Lee to give him the seat in that situation.

In the Sunshine Coast there is only one remaining Labor MP, in the seat of Pumicestone, straddling the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane. I predict that seat will fall. I’m predicting a 5% swing in the Sunshine Coast, but pretty much any swing to the LNP would produce an ALP wipeout.

Greater Brisbane area

Gold Coast

There are ten electorates the ECQ classifies as being part of the Gold Coast, and following the redistribution only four of these ten seats were held by the LNP. While the LNP has caused itself a lot of local trouble over funding for the new Gold Coast AFL stadium, I still think they will net a lot of the seats they need to form government. As you can see below on this map, I predict that the LNP will gain a further five seats, with the ALP only holding on to the seat of Albert, straddling the Logan area in the northwest of the Gold Coast region. This would happen on a predicted swing of 9%.

Greater Gold Coast region

Inland South-East Queensland

In spite of my prediction of a swag of LNP seats falling, I predict the LNP will lose two seats in South-East Queensland. I’m making an entire reckless prediction that former LNP MP Stuart Copeland will defeat the official LNP candidate. I also predict that, while she has no chance of winning, Pauline Hanson will perform surprisingly well in Beaudesert on the back of a sympathy vote over the supposed nude photos in News Limited papers as well as a general anti-major-party swing. I believe this will largely eat up the usual anti-Labor vote, and should push the LNP, whose campaign has been very shoddy in the electorate, down below the ALP.

I also predict that, outside of those two seats, there will be a swing in South-East Queensland large enough to topple the ALP in Toowoomba North.

South-East Queensland

Tomorrow: my predictions in Western Queensland, North Queensland and Central Queensland.

Update: Stuart Copeland, independent candidate for Condamine, says in comments:

Thanks for the reckless prediction – hope you are right. I think you are the first and only person to predict a Copeland victory.

Well, you can’t win if you don’t play.

In spite of appearances on the blog, I’m not actually dead. I’ve rather been busy working on more advances for my maps for Queensland election night.

I’ve added a feature whereby, when you click on the electorate label, it provides you with the margin, the candidates, and the notional 2006 primary votes following the redistribution. You can download the file here or view it on the Queensland election page of this blog.

I’m getting to work now on trying to get XML built in, which would allow you to watch election results on the map.

The Greens have announced a preference deal with the Labor Party. The Greens will receive preferences in Indooroopilly for former Labor MP Ronan Lee, while the ALP will receive Greens preferences in fourteen seats: Ashgrove, Aspley, Barron River, Broadwater, Cleveland, Everton, Gaven, Greenslopes, Mansfield, Pumicestone, Redcliffe, Redlands, Southport and Whitsunday. Most of these seats are in Labor’s marginal range, although they go as high as Greenslopes on over 11%. (via Pineapple Party Time)

Some may criticise the Greens for this, as they had previously demanded a deal on Traveston Dam, and considered asking for proportional representation in local councils, but these would have been a waste of time for a few main reasons:

• While some Greens voters may criticise them for not standing firm on the dam, even more Greens voters in Brisbane would likely blame the party if, ala 1995, helped bring down the ALP government by exhausting statewide.
• The ALP wasn’t going to buckle on Traveston Dam, and a deal on proportional representation on councils would have been unlikely, and would be unlikely to include Brisbane City Council, which is really where the Greens most need proportional representation. Even if they had done a deal, the ALP has demonstrated in the past that policy promises are completely worthless.
• While there may be higher priorities than electing Ronan Lee in Indooroopilly, absent a genuine for a more long-serving Greens member in another seat or any form of proportional representation, I can’t see any other option for them.

Also in Queensland, here’s Ronan Lee speaking at the Greens campaign launch this week:

Burdekin is a North Queensland coastal electorate, lying on the coast starting north of the Whitsundays and following the coast to the southern edge of Townsville.

Burdekin is a traditional National Party electorate. The seat was one of 11 won by One Nation in 1998. The sitting One Nation MP joined the City-Country Alliance prior to the 2001 election, where the conservative vote was split three ways, allowing the Labor candidate to win the seat. The seat was won back by the Nationals in 2004 by Rosemary Menkens, who retained it in 2006 and is running again in 2009, although she only held on by 2.4% in 2006.

Read the rest of this entry »

Via Public Polity, the Australian is full of speculation about a possible deal that would see the ALP preference Greens MP (and former Labor MP) Ronan Lee in the inner-Brisbane electorate of Indooroopilly.

The Greens’ public position has been that the ALP will not receive their preferences unless the ALP reverses its position on the Traveston Dam. The mainstream media seems to be running on the assumption that this is a negotiating point, although I have heard from Greens members that the party is ready to hang the ALP out to dry if a deal is not reached.

My experience is that a deal which involves extracting policy concessions from the ALP in exchange for Greens preferences tend to be useless. The ALP will not usually move very far, and anything they promise will almost always be broken. This  has led to a tendency for Greens to work on an assumption that anything the ALP says cannot be trusted, and that they lie almost out of habit. In contrast, the Greens have generally had better luck where deals operate on a “like-for-like” basis.

If the polls remain where they are currently sitting, and the chances of the ALP losing government remain high, the Greens should be able to extract a high price for their preferences. It would also benefit the Greens, who want to be able to exercise power on the ALP, but may be hurt with their base if they are seen as responsible for bringing down a Labor government and electing Lawrence Springborg. It would normally be not much of a big deal for the ALP to preference the Greens in a race against a Liberal, but the ALP has a tendency to throw a tantrum whenever a politician has the nerve to leave the party. Maybe the upside of a close election would be that it would help the ALP get over itself.

It’s interesting that the possibility of a Greens candidate winning a single-member electorate has arisen again. We’ve already seen Greens come close to winning in Mayo and Fremantle last year, and the federal election next year, along with the next Victorian and New South Wales state elections, could see the real possibility of Greens being elected in the Melbourne federal electorate as well as three inner-city Victorian state electorates and Balmain and Marrickville in Sydney.