Oz Politics Blog

According to today’s Australian, the ALP is on track to win government in 2007. Well that was the headline. What actually happened is Australia’s foremost psephologist, Malcolm Mackerras has produced his electoral pendulum for the 2007 Federal election, following the recently proposed (but not finalised) boundary changes in Queensland and New South Wales.

In new figures that will send a shiver down the spines of Coalition strategists, veteran election analyst Malcolm Mackerras shows that the swing required for Labor to unseat the Howard Government at the 2007 federal election has dropped from 4.4 per cent to 3.3 per cent.

…

When Mackerras releases his “pendulum” for the 2007 election, it will show that the new “median seat” - the least marginal Coalition seat required to fall for a change of government - will be Eden-Monaro, in rural NSW.

Eden-Monaro is held by Liberal MP Gary Nairn by a margin of 2.2 per cent, but will firm to 3.3 per cent after the redistribution. On the new pendulum, Eden-Monaro becomes the 14th most marginal Coalition seat. A uniform swing of 3.3 per cent would thus wipe out the Coalition’s 28-seat majority in the House of Representatives.

On present electoral boundaries, the median seat is John Howard’s seat of Bennelong, in northern Sydney. His margin of 4.4 per cent is cut to 4.0 per cent by the redistribution.

The average swing towards Labor over the past four Newspolls has been 4.3 per cent - precisely within the band that, on the new boundaries, would be sufficient to achieve government.

My pendulum based on the current boundaries is here. The new pendulum will need to make some interesting assessments about the three independents (Andren, Katter and Windsor), all of whom will be affected by the boundary changes.

Update 26 July 2006: The new Mackerras pendulum is here.

Update 28 July 2006: The Poll Bludger has done the math and gets a slightly different outcome to Mackerras