Oz Politics Blog

I have been looking at Professor Roger Stimson’s 28 March 2007 Parliamentary Library presentation on his ecological analysis of the 2004 election using the data from the 7576 polling booths and the 2001 census. The presentation was based on research by Stimson, Dr T- K Shyy, and Dr Prem Chhetri.

Absolutely fascinating.

For their analysis the researchers categorised each polling booth on which major party (Labor, Liberal, National and Country Liberal) won the most votes, and whether a minor party (Greens, Democrats and Family First) won more than 20 per cent of the vote. Then taking 46 variables from the 2001 census, the researchers used multiple regression to see whether socioeconomic or demographic characteristics could explain the variability in voting patterns.

Their key finding was that three discriminant functions explained more than 96 per cent of the variability in terms of the seven-fold categorisation of polling booths. The first two functions were:

1. The monocultural/older - multicultural/younger discriminant function, which accounted for 54.7% of the variance [this function comprised 16 census variables]
2. The disadvantage - advantage discriminant function, which accounted for 28.9% of the variance [this function comprised 11 census variables]

If you take the first two functions, and map the centroid of the distribution of polling booths by the seven-fold category onto a Z-score Cartesian plane, you get some interesting observations on the core voting base of the major parties.

According to Stimson,

• The Labor Party is clearly separated from the other political parties, being located within the multicultural/younger – disadvantage quadrant of the graph.
• In contrast, the Liberal Party is located within the opposite monocultural/older - advantage quadrant of the graph.
• The National Party is located in the monocultural/older - disadvantage quadrant of the graph.
• The Australian Greens Party and the County Liberal Party are both located in the multicultural/younger - advantage quadrant of the graph.
• The widest separation is between the Nationals and the Greens.
• There is a wide separation between the Nationals and the Liberals within the Coalition, with the results from the discriminant analysis modelling demonstration just how much the voting constituencies for these Coalition partners are differentiated.

Using spatial mapping techniques, Stimson also created maps of the political landscape of Australia, including the following:

Stimson described the 2004 political heartlands as follows

Coalition

• The government Coalition parties have captured most of the settled rural and regional areas, and it is not just the Nationals but also the Liberals that have widespread ‘heartlands’ of political dominance.
• Within the big cities the, dominance of the Liberal Party is not only across wedges of the higher socio-economic areas of the mostly middle suburbs, but it has also extend across the large belts of the outer suburbs and even more widely across the outer fringe areas to capture many areas in what used to be Labor’s ‘heartland’ as transform them into Liberal ‘heartlands.’
• Much of the outer areas of the big cities where most of the population growth continues to occur are now more Liberal ‘heartland’ than domains of Labor dominance.
• These new outer suburban and urban fringe Coalition ‘heartlands’ are the places where many of the so-called ‘aspirational voters’ live with their families.

Labor

• The Labor ‘heartlands’ are predominantly found in the central city and inner suburbs of the big cities, and in suburbia the now more restricted belts of Labor dominance are clearly associated with populations characterised by immigration and multiculturalism as well as the traditional areas of disadvantage.
• In rural and regional Australia, Labor’s ‘heartland’ is spatially relatively confined to some of the old industrial regional centres and some of the mining towns as well as the areas with concentrations of Indigenous populations in remote areas of Australia.

Others

• The Greens have clearly defined and spatially restricted areas of concentration of higher levels of primary vote support, and those are typically found in the ‘café latte’ trendy inner suburbs of the big cities as well as selected more advantaged suburban areas, and in regional Australia the Greens vote tends to be concentrated in selected coastal and tourism-oriented regions.
• The Australian Democrats primary vote collapsed at the 2004 federal election, and it is very low and thin across just about all of the nation. The few pockets of concentration of primary vote support for the Democrats are a handful of outer suburban and fringe areas in Adelaide and Perth and in parts of regional South Australia.
• The Family First Party, contesting its first federal election in 2004, had its primary vote spread thin with the areas of concentration being in the more advantaged outer suburbs .and in some parts of regional Queensland.

Want to know more

• Visit the ARC Research Network on Spatially Integrated Social Sciences

Hat tip

Thanks to Mark Rodrigues for the copy of the presentation.

Actually, Oz Politics came 21st, in a list of the top 100 Australian blogs.

To see who came first … Click here … and scroll about a third of the way down looking in the right hand side panel.

Update 20 April: I have been out of town for a couple of days. I arrive back to two emails. One twlling me that I am now ranked 22nd, but at least that was better than Andrew Bolt at 28. The other email told me I was ranked 12th on another Australian blog list.

Discussion at work the other day turned to why the Coalition’s attempt to smear Rudd was so much less successful than its attempt to smear Latham. The conclusion we came to was that Latham had form. It’s not your average leader who can boast biff and broken arms. The smear reasoned with the punters. It found traction. Latham appeared flaky and manic. He looked like an L-plate prime minister. You could not trust him with the economy.

With Rudd, the lines of attack against him are less compelling. For example, the fake Sunrise outrage from the Murdoch press looked more like professional journalistic jealousy than any failing on Rudd’s behalf. But fundamentally the lines against Rudd — same old Labor, glass jaw, blame-shifter, temper tantrum thrower, policy detail avoider, confabulator — are failing to get traction because they are not convincing. They do not resonate. They are not what the voters are seeing. (Alternatively, some of the labels can be applied to both sides, and therefore do not mark a point of competitive advantage).

What do you think? Will the Coalition get a grip on Rudd with some killer spin? And if so, what will it be? Have they already done it, and there is just a lag before it shows up in the polls? Or will the Coalition continue shooting blanks, as they sink slowly into the sunset?

The headline result from the latest Newspoll was just pre-announced on Lateline. The national two-party preferred vote prediction, were an election held last weekend, was 59 percent for Labor and 41 per cent for the Coalition. I am not reading any bounce in today’s figures. Although there is a little volatility, Newspoll’s TPP prediction has been within this range for four polls over six weeks.

The election calculator predicted Labor would win 117 of 150 seats — a landslide — should Labor win 59 per cent of the two party preferred vote at the next Federal election. But before Labor supporters get too excited, remember that Labor’s best Federal performance was 53.23 per cent in 1983. I suspect that a prediction of 59 per cent in 2007 is fanciful.

There is even less in this poll for Coalition supporters. At this point in 2001 and 2004 we were starting to see a trend down from Labor’s high point for the year. It is difficult to argue that today’s data point is following that same narrative. If the next two polls are in the same range, Coalition supporters should be officially worried.

You may need to hit the refresh button on your browser to see the latest graphs.

Rudd’s rating as better PM was 48 per cent (unchanged), compared with 36 per cent for Howard (down two points).

More details when tomorrow’s papers are published.

Update 17 April

Well I now have access to the full suite of Newspoll statistics from the Australian.

Rudd’s satisfaction rating has been at or greater than 60 per cent now for 6 polls. A remarkable achievement considering the flak he has been copping. The contrast with Beazley is stark.

The usual opinion poll graphs are here.

The next half-Senate election must occur between August 2007 and May 2008. As there is likely to be a House of Representatives election during this time, the two elections should occur concurrently.

Six of the 12 senators for each state are elected every three years, for a term of six years. The two senators for each of the two territories are elected concurrently with the elections for the House of Representatives. The terms for the Senators from the territories is for the life of the House of Representatives.

A Labor win in 2007

If Labor wins the next election, it will face a Coalition dominated Senate for its first budget, as the new senators for the states will take their seats from 1 July 2008. (I am assuming that the territories will each return a pigeon pair of 1 Coalition and 1 Labor Senator. This is the most likely outcome, although it is not beyond possible for Canberra to return two left of centre senators. If the Senate primary vote for the Coalition drops by a touch over four points, the second ACT senator would be decided on preferences.)

The Coalition holds currently 39 of the 76 Senate seats. Whereas in government this is a bare majority of 50 per cent plus one, in opposition it would give the Coalition an effective majority of two. Under the Australian Constitution, when the Senate votes are equal the question passes in the negative.

A Labor Government may even face a Coalition dominated Senate for its first term, if the Coalition manages to pick up three Senators in five or more states.

The more likely scenario, should Labor win government, is that it would face a hostile Senate where the Greens (and/or Family First) hold the balance of power from 1 July 2008.

Consequently, if Labor wins the 2007 election, I would give it better than even odds of calling a double dissolution election sometime in 2008, but more likely 2009 or the first half of 2010.

Interestingly, these numbers would also create an incentive for Labor states to be tardy in filling any Coalition casual Senate vacancies that might arise. Because, for the duration of the vacancy, the Labor Federal government may have the Senate numbers it otherwise would not.

A Coalition win in 2007

If the Coalition wins government at the next election, it is fairly likely to win three senators in each state (ie. it is likely to get more than the 42.86 of the two party preferred vote needed for the three quotas). However, if the Coalition (say) only gets two senators in one state, it would only have half the Senate vote, and would need the support of the Greens or Family First to pass legislation (because tied votes pass in the negative).

On balance, under a Coalition government, its Senate majority is likely to continue until 30 June 2011.

The current Senate

The current state of the Senate is as follows.