Oz Politics Blog

One week from today the nation will elect a new Parliament.

Yesterday, the Coalition had no new policies listed on its website.

Labor announced policies on early childhood, radiotherapy in Lismore, a GP Super Clinic for Wallan, Sisters Of Charity Outreach In Devonport, Forward with Fairness for Australia’s Young Workers, the Central West Queensland Growth Corridor, Northern Territory Roads, NT Remote Airstrips and WA Infrastructure.

Go on, test yourself: with the updated, LDP, 10 question Australian Political Quiz. The Oz Politics test is here. The News Limited test is here.

Newspoll: Today’s Australian reported a Newspoll of 3615 voters in 18 key marginal seats over the period 12-15 November. The headline prediction was 54 to 46 in Labor’s favour. Sol Lebovic’s analysis is worth reading.

Morgan: The latest Morgan poll is out. It has returned from its stratospheric prediction of a fortnight ago — 62 per cent for Labor (judged an anomaly by many) — to 56.5 per cent to 43.5 per cent in Labor’s favour last weekend. Nonetheless, of the most recent projections for the six polling streams, it remains the most favourable for Labor.

If we take the middle four projections, they range from 54 to 56 per cent for Labor, with an implied seats haul in the range from 87 to 96 seats.

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.

Predictions: Possum has built a regression model that predicts Labor will win 55.15 per cent of the national two party preferred vote. According to Antony’s calculator, this translates to 94 seats. This is just a touch up on Possum’s earlier prediction of 54.9 per cent, but it is not as high as Geoff Lambert on 55.5 per cent.

Critics of the model in Possum’s comments suggest it is over parameterised. The model has nine variable terms and 13 input variables. While the model shows an impressive fit and it has accurately predicted Labor’s two-party preferred vote over the past three elections to 0.1 per cent, the critics believe it is an example of line-fitting rather than a predictive model. One wag gave a paraphrase of John von Neumann’s, “With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk”.

Worth a read: Adam Carr’s twelve seats that will decide the election.

What the … On ebay there is a John Howard pinata. The current bid is $405. Suggested use is for an election night party.