Malcolm Mackerras: double defeat
In yesterday’s Crikey the father of Australian psephology, Malcolm Mackerras, predicted a double defeat for Howard in the seat of Bennelong and the Liberal/National Coalition at the 2007 Federal Election.
Let me be the first pundit to predict that the Liberal Party will lose this year’s general election as a whole, and Bennelong in particular.
…
It will become conventional for commentators to say that the Howard defeat in Bennelong in 2007 followed the precedent of the defeat of Stanley Melbourne Bruce in 1929. However, there will be a major difference. In 1929 there was a snap election, the earliest federal election ever. The defeat of Bruce in Flinders was the big shock of the night.
By contrast, by election day in 2007 almost every pundit will be predicting that the Howard Government will be defeated and that Howard will also be defeated in Bennelong.
Will this be one of Mackerras’ two out of three that he gets right, or will this be one of the clangers?
Update: Simon Jackman has an amusing take on Mackerras’s self-aggrandising style.