Oz Politics Blog

According to the West Australian Alan Carpenter will be elected unopposed as the Leader of the State Labor Party, and hence Premier of Western Australia.

Today’s papers are full of stories about Geoff Gallop’s surprise resignation as Premier following his diagnosis with depression.

The interesting political question is who will replace him. Deputy Premier Eric Ripper, who has been Acting Premier while Dr Gallop has been on leave, will continue until a new leader is selected. However, he is not favoured to win the post. The emerging consensus is that Alan Carpenter is the most likely to take up the Premier’s mantle.

According to Peter Van Onselen, a lecturer in politics at Perth’s Edith Cowan University, things should go Carpenter’s way, but may get messy because Carpenter is currently in London.

I suspect it will be smooth, but only because he does appear to have the numbers, he has been touted as the man most likely for a long time.

He’s a clean skin, a lot of the other senior ministers in Western Australia have a certain amount of baggage, whereas he doesn’t, and he’s also in the right faction… because again, a lot of the other senior ministers aren’t from the right faction to have the numbers.

Having said all of that, because it’s come at such a surprise time, Alan Carpenter’s numbers were really in preparation for, you know, three, four or more years from now when Dr Gallop chose to retire, not now.

So the shortness of time, the fact that he’s overseas - things could get muddy. If they do, it’ll literally be in the next 48 hours I suspect.

It looks like the punters, polls and pundits had it right. Based on the current trends (at 7:49pm Perth time) the Western Australian Labor Government should be returned with a slightly reduced majority.

Update: With 72 per cent of the vote counted at 11:17pm Perth time the ABC computer is predicting a Labor win with 32 seats. However, a couple of seats are still in doubt (Bunbury and Murray).

Today is polling day. According to the conventional wisdom Labor should be a shoe-in to win: One term governments are a rarity in Australian politics. However, in WA’s case there has been some cause to doubt.

In 2001, Labor achieved government with an unusually poor primary vote (37.2 per cent). Labor’s win in 2001 was built on the preferences of an abnormally high One Nation vote (of 9.6 per cent). Most of these One Nation voters would have voted for the Coalition in the previous election, yet their preferences in 2001 favoured Labor 2 to 1 over the Coalition (in part because One Nation directed its preferences away from sitting members). If, as many predict, most of these voters return to the Coalition, it will be a tough campaign for Labor.

Labor will also have a tough campaign because of Federal issues. Early in 2001, Howard was trailing Beazley in the opinion polls something savage. This was at the height of Howard’s unpopularity (remember the Ryan by-election in March 2001). If there was any Federal effect in February 2001 it favoured Labor. In February 2005 it favours the Coalition.

While Labor may have began the 2005 campaign as the underdog, in the betting market it has firmed as the favourite.

The punters

The betting market responded to two events during the 2005 WA election campaign. The campaign began with the Coalition as the punter’s favourite. The Coalition’s announcement of a Kimberley to Perth water-supply canal saw Labor become the favourite.

Labor’s odds then firmed this week with the Coalition’s $205 million arithmetic error (or more likely proof reading error that did not detect missing lines of savings) when it revealed its budgetary costings. This latest gaffe could not have come at a worst time for the Coalition, with as much as 25 per cent of the electorate deciding how they will vote in the last week of the campaign.

This morning, the Centrebet odds have blown out to $1.16 for Labor and $4.50 for the Coalition. In probability terms, the punters give Labor an 80 per cent chance of winning the election. (Update @ 12noon EST: it is now $1.15 to $4.60).

The polls

There have been few published polls during the election campaign, and most had very small sample sizes. The West Australian has published a couple of Westpolls, but with small sample sizes these have sizable standard errors. Update: The Age today carries a story of an out of date Westpoll, this one with a larger sample size.

Although the momentum in the past two days has been firmly with the Government, a West Australian newspaper poll of marginal seats, published today, shows that Liberal Party leader Colin Barnett is set to win at least five marginals critical to his chances of ousting Geoff Gallop’s Labor Government.

The poll of 1000 electors predicted definite Barnett wins in three seats and likely wins in two others.

But the poll was taken on Monday and Tuesday last week, before Prime Minister John Howard visited Perth and before a potentially critical mistake by Mr Barnett, when he delivered an election costing with a $205 million gap.

Newspoll publishes quarterly surveys of voter opinion in the West. None would have brought comfort to Labor over the last 12 months. Newspoll also conducted a poll was on 28-30 January, which had Labor and the Coalition at 50 per cent each in two party preferred terms. Today’s Australian, predicts that Labor is poised to win, on the basis of a recent Newspoll (not yet available on Newspoll’s website). My only gripe with this story is that it mentions neither the actual date of the opinion poll nor the sample size. So it is a little difficult to interpret.

Barring any late swings, the poll shows that, on a two-party-preferred basis, Labor has forged ahead with 54 per cent compared with the Coalition’s 46 per cent. That represents an increase of four points since the start of the campaign.

A little caution is needed here. While a 54 per cent two party preferred vote looks compelling, with Western Australia’s system of unequally populated electorates, it is possible this may not translate into a win for Labor. A detailed seat-by-seat analysis is necessary. For this analysis we will turn to the pundits.

The pundits

First, however, let’s recap the state of the Assembly. Labor has 32 seats, the Coalition 20, and others 5, in a Legislative Assembly of 57 seats. Although Labor has a seven seat majority, its absolute majority is a buffer of only three seats. If Labor lost four seats, it would be either a minority government or in opposition.

Mumble previously predicted a Labor win with an eleven seat majority (that is to say Labor will win 34 seats). Update: Today he upped that to a 13 seat majority (Labor winning 35 seats).

Charles Richardson from Crikey tipped Labor unchanged at 32 seats, Liberals 19 (up 3), Nationals 4 (down 1) and independents 2 (down 2).

The PollBludger predicted a Labor majority of 5 (that is to say Labor will win 31 seats).

The verdict

There we have it, the punters, polls and pundits are in perfect alignment: all are predicting a Labor win. While it looked shaky for Labor at the beginning of the 2005 campaign, Colin Barnett appears set to do a John Hewson (remember 1993 and the unlosable election). Tonight we will see if Barnett can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

However, it is unlikely that everything will go Labor’s way this evening. The polls are predicting Labor will be defeated on its two referendums for extended weeknight and Sunday trading hours.

Want to find out more?

These sites have a lot more on the WA election. They are worth a visit.

• Nic White’s WA election blog
• The Poll Bludger
• Robert Corr’s kick and scream
• ABC’s election site

The Centrebet odds at the moment are $1.38 for Labor and $2.80 for the Coalition: win probabilities of 67 and 33 per cent. Unchanged from yesterday.

Update: the odds are unchanged at 10am on Sunday 20 February 2005, and at 8:30am on Monday 21 February 2005.

The latest blurb from Gerard Daffy at Centrebet (dated 18 February) …

The Western Australian election will be held this coming Saturday, and while the polls still have the Coalition either ahead of neck and neck with Labor, we see it differently.

Labor continue to have a stranglehold on favourtism at $1.50 a place they have occupied for nearly two weeks. While many have said that the proposed canal from the Kimberley to Perth is a fantastic idea, the idea put forward by Coalition leader Colin Barnett hasn’t impressed punters who have backed Labor from $2.30 into as short as $1.40.

Over $100,000 has been wagered on the WA election, with a lot more expected to come in before people head to the polls on Saturday. At the current prices ($1.50 Labor, $2.40 Coalition) we are seeing money come in both ways, with some of the bigger bets this week including $6000 and $5000 for Labor, and bets of $2000 and two of $1000 for the Opposition. The power black outs in WA this week seem to have had a significant bearing on the policies of both parties this week, and have also been the catalyst for a wave of smaller bets coming through for the Coalition.

This will be a really good test for what we have labeled the ‘punters poll’ as the betting has been completely different to what every political expert, and the polls have said, and that is that the Coalition will win!