Looks like a landslide to me

In the end, it wasn’t close, and those who tried to beat up a “cliffhanger election” were left looking silly. (Once again, this means you, Murdoch press.) Labor got a two-party swing of 5.5%, which according to the Mackerras pendulum should have delivered a gain of 21 seats. In fact it delivered a gain of 27 (on current figures), since the swing was concentrated in the areas where there were the most seats to be won – Queensland, Sydney and Adelaide.

Most of the gains were typical marginal seats – lower-income suburban or regional seats, most of which Labor has held before. The “doctors wives” failed to deliver, and the Liberals retained Wentworth, North Sydney, Ryan and Boothby (not to mention Kooyong, Goldstein and other improbably suggested gains). The “election night shockers” turned out to be Dawson, Longman and Dickson in Queensland rather than upper-class city seats. (John Howard’s defeat in Bennelong was hardly a shock.) This tells us that the swing was driven largely by “its time” sentiment, WorkChoices, and Queensland pride. Climate change was not the big middle-class vote-flipper many expected.

In October I predicted a 5% swing and 20 Labor gains. I was close to the mark with the swing, but a bit conservative in terms of seats. Of the 20 seats I predicted as Labor gains, I was wrong only about Stirling (La Trobe is too close to call). I failed to predict nine Labor gains: Robertson in NSW, Deakin in Victoria, and Bowman, Dawson, Dickson, Flynn, Leichhardt, Longman and Petrie in Queensland. I also failed to predict that Labor would lose Cowan.

The Senate looks like being Coalition 36, Labor 33, Greens 5, Family First one, Independent one. The Coalition will thus need the support of both Family First’s Steve Fielding and the Independent Nick Xenophon to block Labor legislation. They are not likely to get this very often, so we probably won’t have a double dissolution in 2008.

The Greens did reasonably well, but crucially failed to win the ACT seats as predicted. Family First did badly. The Democrats were wiped out. I correctly predicted that the Democrats would win no Senate seats, and also that no Democrat candidate anywhere would win 5% of the vote. I await Paul Kavanagh’s acknowledgement of this.

Labor landslide, says Brian Costar

Former Cabinet Minister Graham Richardson predicts that Labor will win 20 seats on Saturday, which is the same prediction as I made a month ago. I should be flattered, but since I have zero respect for Richardson I’m not. I have a great deal of respect for Professor Brian Costar, who has today predicted a Labor landslide: a 7% swing and a 36-seat gain. Read his arguments here

Five reasons why the Coalition will lose

My final election commentary can be seen here

Nielsen poll confirms likely Coalition defeat

Tomorrow’s ACNielsen poll has Labor on 54% of the two-party vote, which represents a two-party swing of 6.5% – a heavy Coalition defeat although not quite the rout which some are predicting. This poll was taken after the PM’s policy launch but before Kevin Rudd’s. A poll taken after the Rudd launch would probably have been ever better for Labor. With only a week to go there seems no way out for the Coalition. Particularly since tomorrow’s news will be dominated by damning report (see link in comment below) from the Auditor-General on the Coalition’s rorting of the Regional Partnerships scheme.

Missing in Action: The Narrowing

There is no Narrowing –  rather there is a Widening. The latest Newspoll shows a 2% move back to Labor, partly reversing the 5% shift to the Liberals shown over the past two weeks. Each of the four main polling companies’ most recent poll shows a movement to Labor. With only 12 days left, the Coalition is still about 5% short of the two-party vote it needs, as it has been for the last three months. This seems an impossible gap to close when none of the Coalition’s campaign themes seem to be resonating with the swinging voters. Provided Labor makes no serious errors in the remaining two weeks, it is very hard to see how the Coalition can win from here.

See my poll table here.

If the final two-party vote is indeed 55%, that represents a 7.5% swing which will cost the coalition about 30 seats. Of course a Narrowing in the last 12 days is still possible, and I would say likely. I am still confident in my prediction of a 20-seat gain

More bad news, however, for the Coalition in a Galaxy poll showing a 50-50 tie in the seat of Wentworth. If a high-profile Cabinet minister with unlimited funds and a generally positive public image is in danger of losing a seat the conservatives have held for 106 years, against a Labor campaign which is generally agreed to be rather shambolic, then the suspicion must be that the Coalition is looking at heavy losses in NSW.

Newspoll: Labor 53%, Coalition 47%

The last two Newspolls have shown a 5% swing to the Coalition in two weeks. Is this the long-awaited Narrowing, or merely a statistical blip? The other three polls – Nielsen, Morgan and Galaxy – have all shown swings to Labor in the last week, so Newspoll seems out of step. Nevertheless, I am among the minority of online commenters who have predicted some narrowing in the final weeks of the campaign. As always, we will have to wait for more polls to confirm or refute Newspoll’s results.

See my poll table here.

Candidate of the week

From the Family First website:

“Ann Bown Seeley married Harold in 2004 and together they have seven children, 18 grandchildren and 12 great grandchildren.”

Very quick work, Ann!