Cowan – Australia 2016

My old seat (was recently redistricted into Moore) – Luke Simpkins has worked very hard over the past decade and a bit (he almost unseated Graham Edwards in 2004), and is always seen throughout Cowan. This redistribution, however, adding Beechboro and surrounds (where the ALP 70 is), and removing Kingsley/Woodvale (which voted Liberal in the low-mid 60s) means he’s got a challenge ahead of him.

The ALP candidate, Anne Aly, was one of my university lecturers back in 2010, is also hard-working, and has the best chance to win Cowan for the ALP since Edwards retired.

AK
Is Luke Simkins now the “mad, (&inappropriate ) uncle” of the libs since Wilson Tuckey retired !!??

@winediamond:

Yes, although a different sort of crazy to Tuckey – Simpkins has a few Geert Wilders-esque traits, for example.

Also, Tuckey was defeated in 2010 by Tony Crook (National) – he didn’t resign.

AK
Didn’t WT try to run again in 2013 ???

@Winediamond Don’t know about Tuckey, but I do know that Crook has been preselected for the WA state election and is set for a comeback.

Anyhow, I think this seat along with Burt and Hasluck are particularly at risk as the Liberal tide in WA which has swept the state for the last 20 years recedes a bit. Many of these seats have deceptively high and inflated margins.

Whilst I would tend to err slightly on the side of incumbency for both Cowan and Hasluck (both of which have pretty solid local members) Burt will surely be an interesting race and act as a good barometer for testing just how strong incumbency can affect an election result.

Should be close, Simpkins has been hurt by the redistribution, Aly is a strong candidate. Personally with the recent shift towards Labor in WA I’d suggest this would fall.
Labor have been smart with preselecting Aly who is muslim as Simpkins has been known to say some farfetched stuff such as “eating halal snags will turn people muslim”.
This is a seat to watch, we could have some real foot in mouth moments.

@L96 that could also work against her too. Whilst I think Aly is probably the strongest candidate that the ALP have put up in years, a really formidable choice if we’re being honest, Simpkins would have the ammunition to paint her as ‘soft on terror’ with her more lenient stances on national security.

Now I do not know the particular demographics of this seat and whether it is conservative enough to work, but the seeds are there methinks. Even then though, it may not be enough to stem the tide back to Labor. We shall have to see.

@WoS
I’m not super sure of the demographics but I believe I saw somewhere that the areas taken out were predominately white whilst the areas that came in from Perth are much more multicultural.

L96
LOL !!!. Halal snags….!!!!. Gold. You are so right about F in M “ENTERTAINMENT !!!’, from the WA “mad uncle” !!!
Luke will probably be well positioned to retain the conservative anglo vote of all socio economic stratas. As such maybe Aly would be better running somewhere else. Perhaps Perth ??.

L96: It’s OK, you just eat a candy cane to turn back into a Christian, or a pastrami on rye if you want to be Jewish.

To break down Cowan’s demographics:

West of Wanneroo Road (the four booths in the bottom-left corner) are the suburbs of Greenwood, eastern Kingsley (the bit that didn’t go to Moore) and Warwick. This area was largely built in the 1970s, and voted between 54-60% Liberal in 2013. Greenwood and Warwick are suburbs with both working and middle class residents, are slightly whiter than WA as a whole, and tend to vote with whoever wins Cowan overall, thus acting as a bellwether.

East of Wanneroo Road, west of Alexander Drive and south of Ocean Reef Road (the remaining blue booths) are a very diverse group of suburbs, I’ll go from north to south:

* Girrawheen and Koondoola (the 61-66% Labor booths on Cowan’s southern border), working class areas also largely built in the 1970s. Originally as a part of a proposed satellite city around Mirrabooka, with a fair percentage of state housing, are home to a very ethnically and religiously diverse population. About 40% of the population speak a language other than English at home, and the area is home to people from many different countries, particularly people originally from Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. Significant Muslim and Buddhist communities are found here.

* Marangaroo and Alexander Heights, directly to the north of Girrawheen and Koondoola, are the booths ranging from 57% Labor to 57% Liberal. Similar ethnic/religious demographics to Girrawheen and Koondoola (Marangaroo more so than Alexander Heights), these suburbs are a bit newer (mainly built from the late 1970s to the 1990s), and a bit more affluent than their neighbours to the south.

* Madeley, Darch and Landsdale, the northernmost three blue booths, all voted between 64-66% Liberal in 2013, and have literally sprung up over the past 10-15 years – back in the year 2000, most of this area was still market gardens. A bit whiter and more English-speaking than Marangaroo/Alexander Heights, Madeley, Darch and Landsdale are home to a lot of mortgage belt families, and can swing very hard – if Labor are on course to win Cowan, expect big swings here.

North of Ocean Reef Road (the green booths), is Wanneroo itself, and the surrounding suburbs of Pearsall, Hocking, Sinagra, Ashby and Tapping, along with semi-rural areas to the east. These suburbs voted between 55-58% Liberal.

Wanneroo itself (the 55 and 58% booths), which was built between the 1900s and 1970s, have historically voted Labor, and still lean Labor overall compared to this area of Cowan. Sinagra, Pearsall, Hocking, Ashby and Tapping have all been largely developed within the past 10-15 years, and like Madeley, Darch and Landsdale on the other side of the Wangara Industrial Estate (the divider between the blue and green booths), are full of families with mortgages on their houses.

This area has a higher British-born population than the rest of Cowan (all of these suburbs have at least 10% of their residents born in England alone), with the UK-born population increasing as you head north, peaking at over 22% in Tapping. Voting between 62-68% for the Liberals, this block of suburbs to the east of Wanneroo will be a block to watch on election night.

Finally, the booths in the City of Swan, or the booths in orange.

Ballajura (the Liberal 54% x2 and 50.9%, plus the 60% Labor booth) is a large suburb, the 50.9% Liberal booth is similar to Alexander Heights, the middle 54% booths are a bit more upmarket (a significant portion of central Ballajura was built as a lakes estate in the 1980s), and the Labor booth is like a newer version of Girrawheen, built in the 1980s and 1990s.

Into the area added by the redistribution from the Division of Perth (all these booths voted Labor), Bennett Springs (the 51% booth) is a new area, similar to the likes of Madeley. Beechboro’s western end (the 55% booth) is more like Marangaroo, as you go further east it’s more like Girrawheen (the 63%/62% booth), in terms of affluence and age of the neighbourhood, Kiara (the 57% booth) is a small suburb built in the late 1980s/1990s, again similar to Marangaroo, and Lockridge (the 70% booth) in the far south of Cowan is like the eastern end of Girrawheen.

All in all, quite the slice of middle Australia in one seat. If you would like any more information about Cowan’s demographics, feel free to ask me.

AK
What a tome. i want time to thoroughly analyse it, & give a response that your effort deserves
cheers WD

With Cowan I think it’s Liberal margin of victory at the last election is probably at its zenith, this is broadly a working/middle class seat with a mortgage belt that voted 60%+ for the Libs at the last election.

With the WA economy slowing and the associated dissatisfaction with the state Liberal government I would not be surprised to see a swing of around 10% towards the ALP at the election.

Anton,

That demographics post is outstanding. Thanks very much.

Interesting that the betting markets still have this seat favouring the Liberals holding when seats with larger margins like Swan are 50-50. Would be interesting to see some seat by seat polling in WA.

I’ve been around much of the southern end of Cowan over the past few days (the blue/orange booths), and there are way more Simpkins signs than Aly signs out the front of people’s houses.

Still have this as a toss-up in my book.

@AK further, there was also a seat poll that had this still at 50/50. This would be quite a remarkable feat considering how that would only be a swing of ~ 5% – half the statewide swing.

^^ Sorry, the aforementioned poll was 51 – 49 the ALP’s way but my point still stands.

any seat in wa with less than a 10% margin can be lost…… remember the last federal election 2pp was 58/42 the liberals way

WoS, I suppose it is possible that the swing to Labor will be a big correction in both parties’ safe seats, and that the marginals will swing much less. But that Cowan poll seemed quite odd given the national and WA level polling.

I’m probably talking out of my arse here, but might Aly’s profile be a liability in this kind of seat?

Another poll here has it at 50 – 50. Perhaps you’re right MM and that the swing is emanating from the safe seats, while the marginals are swinging much less.

Sportsbet has Labor ahead, here

Labor 1.75, Coalition 2.00

It’s two weeks out from an election. So of course, this is the perfect time for the former candidate to spit the dummy about not winning pre-selection this time, and tip a bucket over their party. That’s such a smart and sensible thing to do…….

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-18/former-labor-cowan-candidate-tristan-cockman-lashes-out/7523290

@MM he obviously wants to derail Labor’s candidate here. Otherwise, why release this so close to the election? Not released too soon to be forgotten but not too late to not have an impact.

Does he really think this kind of tantrum will further his future political ambitions?

My prediction: Luke Simpkins has had some of his best booths (Kingsley/Woodvale) exchanged for solid Labor territory in and around Beechboro. Perhaps the biggest fight Simpkins has faced since he first won Cowan in 2007.

Simpkins appears to have more of a ground game than Anne Aly, although with the projected swing in WA, this has a good chance of falling. Labor gain, possibly narrowly.

Sportsbet now has Cowan on a knife edge,

Labor and Coalition both on 1.90

Prediction: Labor gain, I expect WA to swing a fair bit

Sportsbet has the Coalition edging ahead.

Coalition 1.75, Labor 2.00

Unbelievable really if the Liberals hold this, but it looks like they actually might. Simpkins undoubtedly has a big personal vote, but if somehow wins, it seems the religion of the ALP candidate will have been the decisive factor. Ridiculous that its an issue, but I also wonder why the candidate / their party made it an issue in the first place, with every description of Anne Aly describing her as a “Muslim anti-radicalisation expert”.

@Peterjk I agree. Perhaps I am a bit premature, but it looks like Simpkins *may* actually hold this. Amazing given where we were a few months ago.

As I said earlier, I was always of the opinion that Aly’s background would work against here in this seat. Of course, all will be revealed come polling day.

@Wreathy, the published electorate level polls here were showing a tight race even when double the swing needed here was being shown statewide. At the time I disbelieved them, but it now looks like they were onto something.

This will be my last time updating the Sportsbet numbers, and it has strengthened for the Coalition,

Coalition 1.50, Labor 2.50

This seat was tipped to go down to the wire and it just did that. This is one of the few seats left that’s listed as in doubt. However, alot tipsters suggest Labor is more then likely to hold on, and that something considering most of the indoubt seats will probably go to the Liberals. The question for Labor is if the roughly 1000 vote lead will be enough to withstand the postals.

A few AEC mistakes during the count, it seems.

Now they are corrected, the Labor margin has suddenly blown out to nearly 800. I think they’ve got it won now.

Cowan is the anti-bellwether.

From 1993 onwards, it’s been held 7 out of 9 times by the party in opposition.

The biggest thing ignored is that Cowan’s always been a swing seat. Graham Edwards held it so solidly only because of his personal appeal: the moment he retired Cowan was flipped to the LNP. Luke Simpkins also being a person of military history would have helped along with the opponents he was up against from then on until now not being of the highest grade or solidly supported by the ALP.

Luke Simpkins was able to build a credible margin off the last elections as a result, with boundary changes not really affecting him until now as he had not lost his solid supporters in the northern area. Also because of the high number of FIFO workers who live in this seat and it being an even cross-section of both low income, middle income and high income families he genuinely could appeal to most of them without too many snags on his personal religious beliefs or stance on welfare. With the drama of the ALP Federal Government (Rudd > Gillard > Rudd) helping too he was sitting reasonably well as long as he kept himself well seen and heard in the seat, but the moment the drama turned around with Abbott being ousted by Turnbull with the assistance of Luke Simpkins, he lost his “she’ll be right” cover from the public eye and people started remembering some of the gaffes he’s done (his “halal” comment from the past certainly wasn’t helpful at this election given Pauline Hanson has said the same thing).

Still, even given the quality of the ALP candidate against him in Anne Aly, he should have made a good show of it all without too much gutter politics. Then Turnbull started to falter with his election campaign being very boring, lackluster in character and meandering poorly when the gutter politics began at the national level (as it does every election), which meant Luke Simpkins now had to carry a lot more locally with his reduced 4.5% margin. But he gave a poor gaffe with his gutter attack Anne Aly, which failed to gain much traction and when you look at the aggressive volunteer phone campaign that was also supporting Anne Aly (having received no less than 15 calls myself during the campaign from the ALP volunteers, frankly I was sick of them at the end) that reminded people of her Q&A presence, academic history and the federal ALP party line, the coin of fate was thrown into the air and not even the TAB could easily call it anymore.

And here we are. The ALP calling victory now for Anne Aly strikes of arrogance, but it can’t be denied that off the current percentages the chances of Luke Simpkins coming back is slim with the <10,000 absentee votes still being counted. LNP supporters are likely hoping for it to do so and the gap number to drop to 250 or less so a recount challenge can be made. ALP supporters are giddy hoping for everything to stay as is.

Personally I'm curious to see how Anne Aly handles it if she holds her margin and officially wins the seat. But Anne Aly certainly won't be able to sit on her laurels, because if the history and variety of Cowan remains the same come the next election she will find herself in for another fight. Moving to actually live in the area of Cowan would be a step in the right direction: after all, voters are fickle over the smallest things.

Then again, if the Cowan boundary shifts once more and takes in more ALP areas it certainly wouldn't hurt her chances…