Oz Politics Blog

The proposed redistribution for Queensland is out.

If you don’t like the proposed boundaries, written objections must be lodged with the Australian Electoral Commission no later than 6.00pm on Friday 21 July 2006.

Update: Courier Mail, ABC PM

Morgan has released three polls on party leadership in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria.

• 51% of NSW voters prefer Morris Iemma to Peter Debnam (23%) as Premier. 54% approve of the way Mr Iemma is handling his job as Premier, 31% disapprove and 15% couldn’t say. Only slightly more voters approve (36%) than disapprove (35%) of the way Mr Debnam is handling his job.
• 67% Victorians prefer Steve Bracks to Robert Doyle (18%) as Premier. A majority of Victorians (56%) approve of the way Mr Bracks is handling his job as Premier, 34% disapprove and 10% couldn’t say. Only 30% of voters approve of the way Mr Doyle is handling his job as Opposition Leader, while 51% disapprove and 19% couldn’t say.
• 70% of Queenslanders prefer Peter Beattie to Lawrence Springborg (20%) as Premier. 62% of voters approve of the way Mr Beattie is handling his job as Premier, 32% disapprove while 6% couldn’t say. 42% approve of the way Mr Springborg is handling his job as Opposition Leader, 37% disapprove and 21% couldn’t say.

Personally, I would exercise some caution with these results. They are based on very small samples. For NSW the sample size was 409 electors. For Victoria it was 321 electors. And for Queensland it was 235 electors.

Glenn Milne has found some research that suggests Beattie may be in a worse position than many thought. The research was from John Black and John Lockwood of Australian Development Strategies (ADS).

If I understand it correctly, ADS undertakes ecological modelling of voting intentions by polling booth. They have developed a multiple regression model for how booths vote based on the demographic characteristics of the surrounding locale. ADS then compares the model’s predictions with the actual vote. Incumbents typically do better than the model predicts, because they have a personal following in the electorate.

In the case of the recent Gaven by-election, the sitting member, Bob Poole, under performed against the model at the last state election. He was not a popular member, and he scored two per cent less than the ADS model predicted. As a consequence, according to Milne, Black and Lockwood argue that the swing in the recent Gaven by-election should be reassessed from 8.4 per cent to 10.4 per cent. This, Milne asserts, is bad news for Beattie.

The best way to measure whether Beattie is on the way back, post-Gaven, or in deeper do-do is to try to adjust the swing against the ALP, taking onto account this personal-vote quotient. Which is what Black and Lockwood have done. They have been benchmarking sitting MPs for 30 years and, using computer modelling, have been able to estimate the personal votes of the sitting MPs in all three seats, Chatsworth, Redcliffe and Gaven. In Chatsworth the personal vote for the retiring MP was 5.7 per cent. In Redcliffe it was 3.9 per cent. And in Gaven the figure for the unpopular Poole was -2 per cent.

In Chatsworth and Redcliffe, the standing of the local candidates was pulling the Labor vote up. In contrast, Poole was suppressing the natural ALP vote in Gaven.

Without taking into account this personal-vote factor, the two-party preferred swing against the ALP in Chatsworth was 13.9 per cent. In Redcliffe it was 8.3 per cent. And in Gaven it was 8.4 per cent. Given the extraordinary circumstances surrounding Poole’s departure, this led to the dominant theory that Beattie was clawing back support after the so-called Dr Death hospitals crisis.

But what happens when you take into account the personal-vote factor? Suddenly the swing against Labor in Chatsworth is reversed to 8.2 per cent, in Redcliffe it’s down to 4.4 per cent, but in Gaven it jumps to a whopping 10.4 per cent. So much for Beattie clawing back.

I have a couple of difficulties with Milne’s argument. While I agree that the personal vote of an incumbent is lost at a by-election, one must also factor the protest vote into any analysis of by-election results. I would express this as follows.

By-election swing = loss of incumbent personal vote + protest against government + other factors.

The critical factor issue with protest votes at by-elections is that they are not repeated at the subsequent general elections. By way of example, the Canberra Liberals’ Brendan Smyth won the 1995 Canberra by-election, but lost the seat in the 1996 general election that saw Keating decisively deposed by Howard.

If the typical by-election swing were five per cent, I would typically allocate two per cent (in must electorates) to the incumbent and three per cent to a protest vote against the government. In a seat with an unpopular local member, retiring in unusual circumstances, the protest vote may well be higher. Without examining the scale of the protest vote, Milne’s argument is incomplete.

My second issue with the analysis is that it does not appear to have comprehended the changing demography of the seat. In the 2004 election there were 29,040 electors enrolled. In the 2006 by-election that number had increased to 32,223. I suspect the demographic modelling was based on data from the 2001 Census, when the enrolment in the seat was 24,357. Since 2001, it is highly likely that there have been significant changes in the population characteristics of the Gaven electorate that were not factored into the most recent analysis. Those changes may have explained the deviation between the model and the vote at the 2004 election.

In summary, while I can see the logic of Milne’s argument, I am not convinced about the reliability of the underlying analysis. The cited analysis has not independently assessed the by-election protest vote effect, nor has it considered the changing demography in Gaven.

Was yesterday’s by-election for the Queensland state seat of Gaven (map and statistical profile) a harbinger of things to come?

At the close of counting last night, Labor had suffered an eight percentage point swing against it in the two-party preferred vote. The notional two-party preferred result at the end of last night was 52.3 per cent for the Nationals and 47.7 per cent for Labor. While the count was incomplete, there can be little doubt that Labor lost the seat, and the National’s gained it. (For more information, check out the Poll Bludger).

The next Queensland state election must be held before 5 May 2007. Unlike some states and territories, Queensland does not have fixed election dates, so the election could be later in 2006 or early 2007, more likely the latter in my assessment. An eight per cent swing across the state could well see the Beattie Labor government fall. Of the 63 seats Labor won in the 2004 election, it gained 20 seats with less than an eight per cent TPP margin. If Labor were left with 43 seats after the next election, it would be just short of a majority in a house of 89 seats.

At the Federal level, there is a tradition of bad by-election results being an ill portent for the government at the next election. In June 1975, the Bass election saw an almost 14 per cent swing against the Whitlam government. Whitlam lost the subsequent December 1975 election in a landslide. The March 1995 by-election in the seat of Canberra saw a more that 16 per cent swing against the Keating government. Keating lost the 1996 election to Howard in another landslide.

But a bad by-election result does not always signal a change of government at the next general election. Labor won the Ryan by-election from the Liberals in March 2001 with a 9.7 per cent swing. However, at the November 2001 election the Coalition retained government (and won back Ryan).

By-elections in government-held seats are magnets for the protest vote. They allow voters to send a message to the government of the day without risking a change of government. The average by-election swing is three to five per cent. If we assume that (say) four of the eight per cent swing against Labor in the Gaven by-election was a protest vote, then Labor is on much safer ground. It would only lose 8 of its 63 seats were there a uniform 4 per cent swing against the government at the next general election.

Notwithstanding yesterday’s by-election, my guess is that Beattie would win the next general election. Like Carr and Howard, he is hard working, uses the media, and he usually manages the dangers of hubris and arrogance. For as long as the economy holds, this should be enough to get him over the line.

However, I recognise the opinion polls are less sanguine. The most recent Newspoll results are as follows.

Tomorrow, by-elections will be held for the Queensland seats of Redcliffe and Chatsworth. The by-elections were triggered by the resignations of the then Deputy Premier, Terry Mackenroth (Chatsworth), and the Speaker of Parliament Ray Hollis (Redcliffe). Hollis resigned after criticism over his hospitality and overseas travel costs.

The latest Newspoll of the Queensland electorate, a combined poll over the months of July and August 2005, predicts a state-wide, two-party-preferred swing of 5.5 per cent from the Labor Government to the Opposition since the 2004 state election. More worrying for the Government, the April-June poll had the Government 6 percentage points ahead of their current position.

The big problem for the Beattie Labor Government has been the ‘Dr Death’ Royal Commission into the employment of Dr Jayant Patel at the Bundaberg Hospital. Like all Royal Commissions, this is taking on a life of its own and going places where no one expected. The discovery of around 100,000 people on secret hospital waiting lists is just one example.

There are two critical questions: Has the Beattie gloss faded sufficiently for Labor to lose these seats? Will the safety of a protest vote that cannot change the Government see large numbers vote for the Opposition and minor candidates?

The Poll Bludger is predicting both seats will be retained by Labor with a much reduced margin. I am not so sure.

In the 2004 election, Hollis got 50.08 per cent of the first preference votes in Redcliffe, and that was because he did well in the postal and absentee votes. In the booths he only got 49.49 per cent. After the distribution of preferences he got 57.10 per cent. My guess is there will be a protest vote sufficient to unseat Labor in Redcliffe.

Things looked better for Labor in Chatsworth. Mackenroth got 56.26 per cent of the primary vote in 2004, which increased to 61.40 per cent after the distribution of preferences. While some of that vote would have been attributed to his personal following, I suspect there is a sufficient buffer for Labor to retain Chatsworth.

If you want to follow the results on election night, Queensland’s Electoral Commission website is here.