The 1984 expansion – reverse musical chairs

When the new electoral map was published in 1984, it kicked off a game of musical chairs, but with a difference – this time there were more seats than players. Some of these seats were more attractive than others, but it wasn’t simply a matter of every sitting MP moving to the safest possible seat.

I should explain my hypothesis before I analyse the data. With the House expanding from 125 to 148 seats, there would be opportunities in many areas for sitting MPs to choose between more than one seat, and often would give them the chance to run in a safer seat. MPs don’t have unilateral power over where they run – I’m sure the parties would have their say – but MPs are influential and are likely to have their way. Of course, MPs won’t just run anywhere, and in some cases they will face a choice between staying in their existing area or moving to somewhere safer.

I did find quite a few examples of MPs who moved to safer seats, but there was a handful of seats where an MP ran for their existing seat when there was a safer seat in the vicinity of that old seat. In general, seats without a contesting MP were more marginal than the average, but they weren’t always the most exclusive. This is partly explained by MPs sticking to their old seat, but also because some new seats were made in areas where every neighbouring seat was already safe, so there was no point shifting.

Then I looked at the shape of swings, and found that the ALP suffered bigger swings in their seats without sitting MPs than those with a sitting MP. But that damage wasn’t severe, and the Hawke government comfortably won a second term.

There were 125 seats in the 1983 House of Representatives, and 148 in the 1984 House. So that’s at least 23 new seats with a sitting MP.

Six of those 125 MPs retired at the election, which reduces the number to 119. There was also one seat (Hume) where sitting Liberal and Nationals MPs both ran. So that leaves 118 seats with an incumbent, and another 30 that were open.

Of those 119 sitting MPs running for re-election, 106 ran for the same seat (including five who ran for a seat that was renamed). For the other thirteen, eleven of them moved to a safer neighbouring seat. One of the two exceptions were Russ Gorman, who moved from Greenway to Chifley. While Chifley was more marginal, it was still very safe. The other was Wal Fife, who was the Liberal member for Farrer and successfully won the National Party seat of Hume. In both cases I think the motivation was about local geography – the city of Wagga Wagga was moved from Farrer to Hume.

A few of those MPs switched from a seat that had notionally flipped to the other side of the pendulum. Six seats flipped from Labor to the Coalition or vice versa, but in three of these seats the MP moved to a different seat that had a majority for their party, and in one case an MP retired.

Another way to look at this question is to look at the thirty open seats – what happened to the sitting MP who had represented that seat beforehand?

• 11 – All of the seats in that area held by the same party had a greater margin (or in the case of Fowler, every seat was so safe that it would have been pointless to move to a slightly safer seat).
• 6 – Sitting MP moved to a new seat that is safer for their party
• 4 – MP in neighbouring seat stuck with more marginal seat
• 3 – Party had no sitting MPs available in the surrounding area
• 3 – Sitting MP retired, state/territory unaffected by expansion
• 1 – Switched to different seat despite having a safe seat (Farrer to Hume)
• 1 – Sitting MP retired, affected by expansion
• 1 – Switched to more marginal seat (Greenway to Chifley)

In quite a few of these seats, there was no realistic option of an MP jumping across – either because no MP was avaiilable, or because it would be a downgrade to a more marginal seat.

But there were six MPs who jumped to a safer seat, and four who could’ve jumped and didn’t. That’s a pretty high proportion.

This trend of marginal seat MPs jumping to a safer nearby seat understandably concentrated the open seats amongst the more marginal parts of the pendulum.

Of course almost every seat was significantly redrawn, to the point where most seats are “new”. But if you just look at seats that have a new name (excluding a handful of cases which are clearly renamings of old seats), new seats had an average margin of 8.0%, while pre-existing seats had a margin of 10.0%. But if you instead look at the seats without a sitting MP, the gap widens to 6.9% for open seats and 10.4% for seats with a sitting MP running.

You can see this by distributing seats by their pre-election margin, and splitting that distribution based on whether a sitting MP was running. While the number of seats contested by an MP in each 6% bucket was about the same from Labor 12-18% to Coalition 6-12%. But the curve peaks much more dramatically in open seats.

So how did these decisions about where to run influence the actual election? The 1984 election saw Labor lose ground after a big victory in 1983. Labor suffered a two-party-preferred swing of 1.46%, losing seven seats relative to the notional estimate based on the new boundaries.

The average swings are distorted by safer seats which weren’t critical to the election result, but when you zoom in to the 54 seats with margins of 6% or less, the trend is clear. Labor MPs contested 20 of these seats, Coalition MPs contested 18, and 16 were not contested by a sitting MP.

In seats where a Labor MP ran, the average swing was just 0.6%. In seats where the Coalition MP ran, it was 1.65%. In vacant seats, it was 1.47%. This is a notable difference, although vacant seats more resembled seats with Coalition MPs.

It is very obvious when you examine the list of seats Labor lost. Putting aside the southern NSW seats of Farrer, Gilmore and Hume, where one Coalition party won the seat off the other one, there were seven Labor losses to the Coalition.

If you go by the notional Labor seats, they lost Casey, Flinders, Forde, Hinkler, Macquarie, Northern Territory and Riverina-Darling. Only two of those seats had a sitting Labor MP running in the seat. Indeed in Riverina-Darling a sitting National Party MP contested the seat, and was re-elected. So that’s five out of seven Labor losses where they were deprived of an incumbent MP.

It should also be noted that Labor’s seven losses were all ranked amongst their eight most marginal seats – the only seat on this list that they retained was Eden-Monaro. But still, the swings were muted in the marginal seat category where Labor MPs were running.

I was struggling to come up with a good way to visualise this pattern. This scatterplot shows every marginal seat with its margin and its swing. You can hover over the three categories in the legend to see the different patterns – the swings in seats with Labor MPs was significantly smaller, or more likely to go in the opposite direction. This may have also been aided in 1984 by sophomore surge effects, with Labor only one term into government.

So what are the implications here for the Albanese government if they are considering expanding the parliament?

It is true that expanding the parliament means you no longer have enough MPs to contest all of the seats your party notionally holds. If this is to happen at some point, though, the current parliament is a good one for Labor to take that hit. The Hawke government lost seats in 1984, but still had a comfortable majority. A similar hit on Labor in 2028 would leave them with a large majority.

It should also be a cautionary tale about how seats are allocated amongst MPs. Those members will have a natural desire to seek out the safer option where they have choices, but the Labor government would benefit in having some of those MPs staying put in more marginal seats.

Overall the electoral consequences of parliamentary expansion, in terms of leaving seats undefended, were not a disaster for the government. They caused some issues, but ones that were easily weathered.

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