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.
November 25, 2007 at 3:37 am
I won’t miss ol’ Stinging Nettle but yes the failure of the Greens to do better is a disappointment.
My big hope is that Rudd will pass a Human Rights Act like the UK has.
November 25, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Adam. It was a privilege to be in the hall @ Suncorp stadium last night. The place was electric & when Kevin gave his victory speech I had “tears of joy”, I couldn’t help it. I can now rest for like many Australians we have worked hard to rid ourselves of the “evil dwarf” & give thanks we got a Labor government!
November 26, 2007 at 6:59 am
Adam:
I was surprised to see your defence of ageism/adultism the other day – I’d have thought that a man in his fifties would want to end age discrimination whether it’s against 65 year olds or 25 year olds.
November 26, 2007 at 10:01 am
The _unique_ genuine example of Labor winning a seat never won before at this election was Bennelong. Nominally, Blair, Bonner, Flynn, Longman, and Solomon are seats which Labor has never won before, but they are all recent creations, and Labor has won seats covering much the same areas in the past. Otherwise, _all_ the Labor gains are seats which Labor has held at some time in the past (although not since the 1929 – 31 Parliament in the case of Corangamite).
November 26, 2007 at 6:28 pm
Once again Jasmine, I have not the faintest idea what you are talking about.
November 27, 2007 at 1:08 am
Adam, for all your efforts…
Thanks
November 27, 2007 at 1:40 am
Adam:
A few weeks ago on PB you talked unfavourably about the Greens and Democrats tendency to have candidates under 30 – you mentioned Laura Chipp and Sarah Hanson-Young as examples.
November 27, 2007 at 9:37 am
J-D, if you take a very long-term view Labor won Martin in 1929 which went north of the harbour.
November 27, 2007 at 10:09 am
Jasmine, I don’t know how old Sarah Hanson-Young is and I don’t recall ever saying anything about her. I did say that many of the Democrats candidates appeared to be about 18, and that this was not a good look. Voters expect candidates to be at least in theory capable of being competent MPs. First-year uni students do not fit that bill. There’s nothing “ageist” about this, it’s just a recognition that some kinds of experience can only be gained by experience. I can name several politicians who were elected very young and who came to grief on the rocks of inexperience, such as Andrew Jones, Christian Zahra and Natasha Stott Despoja. (It’s a pity NSD is leaving politics just as she has reached political maturity. I hope she will be back, either for Labor or the Greens.)
November 27, 2007 at 11:12 am
Geoff, I did actually think of that, but I think it’s a stretch.
November 27, 2007 at 11:13 am
Adam, do you know what ever happened to Andrew Jones?
November 27, 2007 at 2:15 pm
A bummer about Stirling. Peter Tinley was an excellent candidate. One of his toughest hurdles this time around was the abyssmal ignorance of politics and economics displayed by many in the electorate. A sample: one bloke said he would not vote for Labor because he does not like Rudd’s chin; another told me Rudd was Chinese. I said No, he’s from Qld and he speaks Mandarin. He is Chinese, said the guy -he’s got slitty eyes when he smiles. Another woman said she was worried about Labor’s union links. I remember the strikes, she told me, and reeled off a list. Minutes later I heard that same list on a radio ad. I love my part of Stirling, with its easy access to bus, train, cafes, restaurants, library, parks, shops… but I’m on my own as a politics tragic.
I saw Peter Tinely at the local service station at about 10.30 Saturday night, and he looked like he had been through hell. I commiserated about his result and tried to console with the prospect of 2010/11. Are you up for another go? I asked him. His face lit up. “Shit yeah!”
Who Dares Wins (eventually).
November 27, 2007 at 8:33 pm
Andrew Jones became a businessman in WA. He would now be 63.
November 28, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Your predictions and comments Adam have turned out to be very accurate. The much maligned narrowing did occur. Its most interesting that the doctor’s wife swing did not occur. I think this was partly due to Labor tactics. In aiming for the outer suburban selfish swingers, you end out cutting out the idealistic. So people in the end did not see that Labor was different to the coalition on climate changeand Indigenous affairs, so didn’t see the point of voting for them. There are very real differences in policy but Labor chose to run dead on the differences, except for general references about taking climate change seriously.
November 28, 2007 at 11:21 pm
Yes, I think that is a fair comment.
The drift back to the Libs as the postal votes are counted is making my prediction of 80 seats more accurate than it appeared on Saturday night, when it looked as though Labor would win 89 seats. The final tally may be around 83.
November 29, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Adam,
83 would be good – because I predicted 82. I’ll predict close to 90 for next time.
November 29, 2007 at 7:55 pm
I was wrong re McMillan. I’d like to know what happened there.
November 29, 2007 at 8:38 pm
Labor performed poorly in both McMillan and Gippsland. I gather the local issues that led to the loss of two seats in the La Trobe Valley in the state election were still running. This was reinforced by running Christine Maxfield, the wife of the state member defeated last year, which just reminded people of those issues. Also Broadbent is well-known and his reputation as a backbench rebel helped him.
November 29, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Labor has pegged back some ground in today’s counting and is now ahead again in Bowman. If all seats stay with the party currently leading Labor will win 85. However Bowman and Herbert could still drift back to the Libs, making it 83.
November 30, 2007 at 8:28 am
Oh, and a single percentage point loss in the ACT would see the Greens pick up at Gary Humphries’ expense.
November 30, 2007 at 8:35 am
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.
Where were you counting the extra seat for Labor?
On current numbers the Coalition only needs Fielding to block Labor.
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2007/results/senate/
The Greens could still pick up a 6th Senator in Victoria at the expense of the Libs, though.
November 30, 2007 at 8:44 am
Hmm. I don’t recall where I got 36/33 from. I hadn’t had much sleep around the time I wrote that piece!
December 1, 2007 at 11:20 am
it is now a week since the election and 15% of reps votes and 25% of senate votes are still to be counted (according to the AEC figures). This seems incredibly slow, how pissed off would we have been if the election was still in the balance (and it wasn’t far off a cliffhanger).
Surely in 2007 they can count these votes quicker; was AEC funding cut?
Any comment Adam,? or is it always this slow and am i just being impatient about collecting a bet?
December 2, 2007 at 6:01 pm
It does seem inordinately slow and I don’t know why it is so slow. In India they have the whole election counted and up on the internet in a week, and they have 387 million votes to count. Admittedly they don’t have preferences or postal votes.
December 3, 2007 at 10:42 am
Looks like you’ve answered your own question there, Adam.