Oz Politics Blog

My temporary home at Ozpolitics.biz is no longer needed! Ozpolitics.info is back online. I have redirected Ozpolitics.biz back to Ozpolitics.info (but to be fair, both are now hosted on the same physical server, one over the top of the other).

I think I have restored everything from the old ozpolitics.info site, with the exception of the Senate calculator (for the above the line vote) that I wrote in perl for the 2004 election. I have restructured the Ozpolitics Guide, so the old links will fall over. I will write a replacement Senate calculator in PHP before the next election.

I have added a list of the top 15 commentators on the site stats page. No surprises on who heads the list. I have reinstalled the site hits plugin — but I suspect it needs some work.

Today’s Australian has the latest Newspoll results. The national two-party preferred prediction was 57 to 43 per cent in Labor’s favor.

The cheer squad for Team Howard is likely to herald these results as the first step in Rudd’s march to electoral defeat in 2007. Personally, I think such an assessment is hubris. The more likely explanation is the previous poll — at 61 to 39 — was a little roguish in Rudd’s favour. This poll is a return to the same result as the poll before that.

While Shannahan used the analogy of a ‘market correction’ to explain this movement, I suspect it is a poor analogy, as it implies the voters have reassessed Rudd. I am more comfortable with the notion that the previous poll was a little rogue.

I would want to see the polls over the next (say) eight to 12 weeks before I would be comfortable in asserting there was a trend away from Rudd. I have said it for some time, it will not be until June or July that we will know whether Howard has a chance at repeating the 2001 and 2004 claw-back to victory scenario. However, it is worth noting that Labor’s 2007 line continues to track higher than its comparable 2001 and 2004 polling trajectories.

The primary vote prediction for the Coalition was 38 per cent, and for Labor it was 49 per cent.

Interestingly the Green primary vote is down to four per cent. While I suspect this is an under assessment, Rudd has managed to reduce Newspoll’s prediction by up to two points on average.

Of note, the Green primary vote chart suggests there are significant systemic biases in the approach of some (and perhaps all) of the polling organisations. ACNielsen routinely predicts a higher figure than Morgan, which routinely predicts a higher figure than Newspoll. This bias is somewhat, though not as clearly, reversed in respect of the other minor parties. Go figure!

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.

I have decided to emulate Lavartus Prodeo with a clearly articulated comments policy.

My policy draws on my previous posts on comments, as well as the text from LP.

Comments on the policy are welcome.

The latest notional TPP count figures have Labor winning 53 seats, the Coalition 35, and the independents 5.

The close seat contests are: Port Stephens (where the Coalition is ahead of Labor by 19 votes); Newcastle (where Labor is ahead of the independent by 363 votes); Miranda (where Labor is ahead of the Coalition by 557 votes); Maitland (where Labor is ahead of the independent by 584 votes); Lake Macquarie (where Labor is ahead of the independent by 65 votes); and Dubbo (where the independent is ahead of the Coalition by 709 votes).

Peter Debnam has resigned his position as NSW Opposition leader. Apparently he did not have the numbers to stave off Barry O’Farrell’s challenge.

And Morris Iemma deferred appointing new minister Paul Gibson just hours before he was to be sworn in. Gibson is alleged to have assaulted his former partner Sandra Nori. The matter has been referred to the police for investigation.

Update: 4 April 2007: The NSW Count appears finished, except for Port Stephens where a recount is occurring, The only change from the previous count was that Lake Macquarie ended up being won by the independent, Greg Piper. Provided the Liberals can hold Port Stephens in the recount: the final outcome looks like: Labor 52, Coalition: 35, and Indpdendents: 6.

The average probability from the five bookies for a Coalition government following the 2007 election is 46.7 per cent. It was 47.4 per cent on Monday last week.

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