Day 4: Essential, Labor-Greens preferences

Yesterday, Essential followed Newspoll and Galaxy, with a poll showing the ALP with 55% of the two-party preferred vote. The ALP is steady on 41%, the Coalition up one to 39%, and the Greens steady on 13%. This puts them in a similar position...

Day 3: Galaxy and Newspoll diverge

We've had two polls come out in the last few hours showing remarkably divergent results. Galaxy has brought out their second poll of the weekend. After a poll conducted on Thursday and Friday gave the ALP a lead of 52-48 on a two-party preferred basis,...

Election called for August 21

News reports are unanimous in reporting that Prime Minister Julia Gillard is on the way to Canberra to meet with the Governor-General and ask for an election. There doesn't appear to be consensus on whether Gillard will call it for the 21st or 28th. The...

Deeply off the record…

Many commentators have reacted with great surprise to how long it took the Liberal Party to preselect candidates for the Western Sydney marginal seats of Lindsay, Greenway and Parramatta. Parramatta was held by the Liberals until 2004, Lindsay until 2007, and Greenway is still...

Maps of federal MPs by gender

A year ago I made a map where I colour-coded seats in the NSW parliament according to gender. With the rise of our first female Prime Minister, and the impending federal election, I figured it would be worth making a similar map for federal...

Galaxy/Nielsen: 52-48 to Labor, Greens on 14/13

I don't usually post about the regular polls that we will see more of over the next few weeks as we plunge into the election, but I'll make an exception for the two polls coming out overnight. We have had two polls in the last...

Seat profile #136: Murray

Murray is a safe Liberal seat in northern Victoria. It covers Victorian towns on the southern side of the Murray river, including Shepparton and Echuca. The seat has always been held by conservative seats. It was held by John McEwen from 1949 to 1971, during...

Finishing the guide to the federal election

Yesterday I finished the final seat in the guide to the federal election. I have now posted all 150, which you can access in alphabetical order, by state, or by visiting the pendulum. I have also written up a summary of political events over...

What will Julia do?

From media reports, it appears that Julia Gillard is set to be comfortably elected as Labor leader and Prime Minister tomorrow morning. The question then becomes: what does she do about the impending election? She will surely be planning some changes of key policies, possibly...

Penrith by-election maps

I've now created a few booth maps showing the primary vote results for the Greens and the two-party preferred figures for the Liberals (who won every single booth), as well as maps showing the swings in each booth. With regard to swing figures, I have...