Oz Politics Blog

According to the Australian, polling in marginal seats between January and March 2007 points to a Labor victory.

Der! All of the polls over the period point to a Labor victory.

If — and it is a big if — Labor were to secure the 58 per cent national two-party preferred vote suggested by the polls at the next election, my election calculator says Labor would win around 111 of the 150 seats.

111 seats is landslide win in anybody’s book. But as Labor’s best ever record is 53.23 per cent, I would be very surprised if Labor polled over 55 per cent, which is still a landslide win with 92 seats. I think 53 per cent (82 seats) or 54 per cent (88 seats) more likely.

Remember the movie Ground Hog Day, where the lead character wakes every day in the same small town to live the same day over and over again.

Well, this blog is beginning to feel like Ground Hog Day. It has the same boring commentators repeating the same boring assertions, engaged in the same boring conflict with the same boring people who hold the equally boring opposing points of view.

If you don’t get it, I am sick of reading the mindless partisan bickering. The funny thing is that I suspect half of you are sitting in Parliament House or party Headquarters engaged in viral marketing techniques for the next election against the other half. [Given his propensity for spelling errors, I am sure Glen is behind the Liberal Party's new web site].

In an effort to bring back some value into your comments (or at least limit the number of repetitive comments you can post), I have introduced a daily limit of 6 (update: 5) comments per person. In the future, I may apply even tighter rations on those who are abusive or extra boring. I can relax the restriction on others who demonstrate a commitment to scintillating narrative and insightful analysis. Indeed, I might introduce a rating system that automates the task for me.

In the mean time, and because I cobbled together the daily limits plugin in a fit of pique in a hour or so before going to bed, there is no guarantee that it is working properly. Contact me if you spot a glitch, or if you want to make the case for extra daily posts.

Update At the suggestion of a number of commentators, I have reduced the daily comment limit to 5.

You can see the top daily commentators on the site stats page.

Download: the latest version of the plugin from here. It is version 0.0.3, released on 11 April 2007.

I have uploaded an election calculator for predicting the number of seats a party will win at the 2007 Federal Election for any given national two-party (TPP) preferred vote share.

It is built on the Mackerras Electoral Pendulum, which can be found here.

Interestingly, the Coalition loses majority government at 49.8 per cent of the national TPP vote share. However, because of the two continuing independents, and the distribution of votes, Labor does not win majority government until it wins 52.1 per cent of the national TPP vote share. Labor has a disproportionate share of its vote locked up in safe seats.

For the record, I have treated the seat of Calare in a cavalier manner, given the redistribution and the impending resignation of independent member Peter Andren. It is probably a much saffer Coalition seat than I have it on this system.

As is the way with these sorts of projects, there is always the chance that I have made a mistake in the underlying arithmetic and algorithms. If you see such a mistake, please drop me a line and I will fix it.

The average probability from the five bookies for a Coalition government following the 2007 election is 47.1 per cent. It was 46.7 per cent on Monday last week.

The other graphs are here. You may need to hit the refresh or reload button on your browser to see the latest graphs.

The betting market has the 2007 election as too close to call. It is pretty close to even money each way, and it looks like the market is beginning to flat-line. The trend to Rudd appears to be running out of steam (at least for the moment). While Howard is the underdog, clearly the punters think he has a real chance of winning in 2007.

When you consider the recent stellar polls for Labor, one must ask: Why is the betting market being so cautious? There are a few possibilities:

• A week is a long time in politics — anything could happen between now and the election
• The punters think Howard a wily politician, with plenty of tricks still in the kit bag
• They are still unsure whether Rudd has peaked too early or can do the hard yards — sure he was out of the blocks quickly, but elections are long and punishing marathons

What do you think?

The Morgan Poll of 2055 voters last weekend predicted a national two party preferred vote of 60 per cent for Labor and 40 per cent for the Coalition. Interestingly, the 6 poll moving average line is also at 60 to 40 in Labor’s favour, suggesting some solidity to these numbers within the context of the Morgan series.

Is 60-40 then a prediction for the next election? I don’t think so! At this point in the election cycle the polls are reflecting perceptions of the parties and their leaders. They tell about who is liked more than the other, rather than reflecting actual voting intentions for the next election. I would be very surprised if Rudd beats Holts’ 1966 post WWII record of 56.9 per cent at an election. However, if this sort of polling continues to hold up for Labor, Rudd might better Labor’s high water mark of 53.2 per cent set by Hawke in 1983.

The primary vote predictions were 49.5 per cent for Labor (up 11.9 points since the 2004 election), and 34.5 per cent for the Coalition (down 11.9% since the 2004 election).

The other point of interest with the latest Morgan Poll is the question: “Regardless of who you’d like to win, who to you THINK will win the next Federal election — the Liberal-National Coalition or the Labor Party?”

For some truly bizarre reason the graph of this series reminded me of the immortal words from Darth Vader to Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: “I’ve been waiting for you, Obi-Wan. We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I left you I was but the learner. Now I am the Master.” At which point the Coalition supporters respond with, “Only a master of evil, Kevin”.

But then I thought, Kevin Rudd has too much of a baby face to be a Sith Lord. And anyway, his followers have ascribed the role of Dark Lord to John Howard. In Rudd’s world the plot line is the return of the Jedi with Kevin in the starring role.

Enough frivolity. We have almost reached the point where as many people think Kevin Rudd will win the next election as thought John Howard would before Rudd’s ascendancy to the Opposition Leadership. The circle is now complete.

The usual opinion poll graphs are here. You may need to hit the refresh or reload button on your browser to see the latest graphs.