Sawford's silly suggestion

From the ABC:

The federal Labor MP for Port Adelaide, Rod Sawford, says GST revenue should be withheld from South Australia unless it sets up an anti-crime and corruption commission.

Mr Sawford says it is naive to think that corruption does not occur in South Australia.

The MP believes anti-corruption commissions should be established in all states that do not already have them.

"Now if states fail to comply with this they should have, in my view, a percentage of the GST payments withdrawn," he said.

Now first off, the anti-corruption bodies in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia (I think it's just those three) are highly worthy organisations that have improved the political culture in their respective states. But one must wonder if this is an appropriate erosion of Australian federalism. If it is, then what other strings should be attached to GST funding?

But what makes this a truly dopey suggestion is that no such anti-corruption body exists at the federal level either. Even by the standards of Australian politics, this proposal would be galling hypocrisy. (You might even say it would be naive to think that corruption does not occur in Canberra.)

One must wonder why Sawford - who is retiring at the coming election - appears to have such an axe to grind with his own party's government in his home state. Indeed, what is it with the multitude of departing federal MPs (most of them Labor ones) who refuse to go quietly?

Outgoing Franklin MHR Harry Quick is a case in point. This week, he's used the Mighell controversy to conjure up yet another reason why his preselected replacement is unworthy of his seat.

George Campbell's crocodile tears

Today little known Labor Senator George Campbell announced his retirement from politics. Accepting the inevitably of preselection defeat at the hands of the AMWU leader Doug Cameron; which has been on the cards for at least a year now.

Now as far as news goes, that's not terribly exciting, even for us political junkies. But I had to smirk at Campbell's parting shot at his own faction:

"Let me say it is extremely disappointing that the Left faction in NSW has never endorsed a female Senate candidate," he said.

As the article points out, Senator Campbell is not unique within his faction in holding this view. Except that is, for his insincerity. Considering that presently the only other NSW Left Senator is the far more illustrious John Faulkner, it's clear who the beneficiary of the faction's supposed sexism has been til now.

This fact was no less true prior to Campbell's appointment in 1997. Why wasn't he "extremely disappoint[ed]" then?

NSW state election: post-mortem

On March 24 2007, the Iemma Labor government was re-elected for another four year term. As was widely expected.

So how did my predictions fare? By my count, I scored 87 out of 93.

The ones I missed:

Tweed. Labor's only apparent loss on election night. I felt Labor would retain this seat despite it's small margin, partly because they won corresponding federal seat of Richmond against the tide in 2004.

Pittwater. Another wrong call that was apparent pretty early on. From afar, I thought McTaggart had developed a sufficient profile to retain his seat, but instead he proved to be a mere by-election abberation.

Wollondilly. In a dispiriting loss for the Liberals, this ultra-marginal seat barely moved at all.

Miranda. My 'smokey' seat. A big swing here saw ALP 2PP fall from over 59% to under 51%. Let's claim this one as an honourable loss.

Port Stephens. It took them until over a week after election night, but the Liberal Party finally took a seat off Labor; only just creeping ahead on late counting. My impression was that the poor standing of the NSW Liberal Party would keep a seat like Port Stephens out of reach, but it seems that dissatisfaction with Labor on the Hunter was high enough to see this one fall.

Lake Macquarie. Dissatisfaction with Labor in the Hunter also saw the party lose this previously safe seat. Local mayor Greg Piper pipped Labor in a seat I failed to even mention in my original preview. Indeed this result rubbished my assertion that the appeal of local mayors was overrated. As did the results in Newcastle, Maitland and Goulburn, where independent mayors all came an honourable second.

With this election done and dusted, let's look ahead to 2011.

Labor holds 52 seats in a 93 seat House of Assembly. The boundaries, I am reasonably sure, will remain unchanged during the life of this current term given that a redistribution took place in the last term. Thus only by-elections could change the present parliamentary balance.

A loss of six seat seats would see Labor slide into minority. However, the Coalition would want to take at least eight off the ALP; given that two seats - Sydney and Lake Macquarie - could easily revert from independent to Labor status. (Although it would probably take a retirement in the case of the former.) A gain of 12 seats for the Coalition would give them a majority in their own right, the other four could potentially come by defeating sitting independents. (But again, it would surely take retirements in the cases of Northern Tablelands and Port Macquarie.)

So where might these gains come from? Adam Carr has posted the post-election pendulum.

Two battlegrounds stand out:

Southern Sydney & outskirts - Miranda (ALP 0.7%), Menai (ALP 2.6%), Wollondilly (ALP 3.1%), Camden (ALP 4%) and possibly Heathcote (ALP 8.4%). Federally these areas roughly correspond to the Coalition held seats of Hughes and Macarthur, and to a lesser extent Cook.

Central Coast - The Entrance (ALP 4.7%), Gosford (ALP 4.9%) and Wyong (ALP 6.9%). Federally these areas roughly correspond to the Coalition-held seats of Dobell and Robertson.

If the Liberal Party can mount a serious challenge in four years time, then perhaps a third battleground could be added:

Western Sydney - Londonderry (ALP 7.0%), Penrith (ALP 7.2%), Riverstone (ALP 10.1%), Mulgoa (ALP 10.9%). These areas bear some overlap with the federal Coalition-held seats of Lindsay and Greenway.

Then there are the marginal seats that can't be categorised into neat geographical clumps. The Nationals will again have a crack at Monaro (ALP 6.3%). Coogee (ALP 7.1%), much of which is inside the federal seat of Wentworth may also be soft. Perhaps too the inner metro seats of Drummoyne (ALP 7.7%) and Ryde (ALP 9.9%) will also bear close examination.

So whilst 2007 was a dismal failure for the Coalition, writing off 2011 would be foolish. The talk of eight more years of Labor from some Liberal figures is nothing more than defeatist nonsense. As the federal government is presently discovering, incumbency is a wasting asset. And a government as long in the tooth as Iemma's will be in 2011 can never be assured of an easy victory.

New South Wales election: predictions

The New South Wales state election is this Saturday. Today the
Poll Bludger has today released his usual pre-election seat-by-seat predictions. It seems like a bit of fun, so here's my effort. Like the Poll Bludger, I see the small swing to the Coalition at this election for minimal seat gains.

PB tips Camden (ALP 8.7%) to fall but neighbouring Wollondilly (ALP 4.6%) to stay with the government. I'm inclined to think it will be the other way around. PB reckons the boundary changes will hurt sitting Camden member Geoff Corrigan's "incumbency advantage" but surely this is more than offset by the increase in the Labor margin delivered by those same boundary changes. Additionally a recent Sydney Morning Herald poll showed Labor's lead to be just outside the poll's margin of error.

Wollondilly, on the other hand, a new semi-rural seat with no sitting member and a small Labor margin appears to be a soft target. Yes, Labor have selected a good candidate in local mayor Phil Costa, but I'm inclined to think the popularity of local mayors is often overstated.

The same applies the Hunter based seats of Newcastle and Maitland. Where respectively, local mayors John Tate and Peter Blackmore are running as independents. Labor's preselection mess in Newcastle does appear to make the seat genuinely vulnerable to either Tate or sitting member (and disendorsed Labor MP) Bryce Gaudry. But I think that Labor will be saved by the disunity of the non-Labor candidates. Look at the HTV instructions:
* The Greens are preferencing Gaudry, but not Tate
* Tate is preferencing Labor ahead of Gaudry
* Gaudry is preferencing neither Tate nor Labor

Probably only the Liberals have got it right, who are certainly preferencing Tate, though it's unclear whether they will also be preferencing Gaudry ahead of Labor. I therefore expect a high informal exhaust vote in Newcastle to save Labor's bacon.

My reasoning for Maitland (ALP 10.3%) staying in Labor hands is much more straightforward. I don't believe either the official Liberal candidate or a former Liberal MP in Blackwell can chop down such a healthy margin.

As for the other independent-held seats, disendorsed Liberal MP Stephen Pringle has no chance of holding Hawkesbury, the seat will surely return to the Liberal fold. And like Poll Bludger I see Manly's David Barr (Ind 0.6%) as the most vulnerable independent. This may be a bold call - for Manly has been independent-held since 1991. But Barr's failure to increase his 1999 margin in 2003 suggests he is vulnerable should there be even a modest statewide lift in the Liberal vote.

Pittwater, Tamworth and Dubbo are the other independent held seats to watch on election night. But I suspect all will remain in independent hands. Pittwater is the most difficult to call, since sitting MP Alex McTaggert, who won the seat on John Brogden's retirement, has not been tested at a general election. Tamworth and Dubbo have slender margins against the National Party, but I don't expect these to return to the Coalition fold, because, with some exceptions, the Nats have generally proven themselves pretty inept at defeating rural independents. Although Dubbo's Dawn Fardell has also yet to be tested a general election.

Similarly I expect the Nationals to fare poorly in Labor's marginals. Tweed (ALP 4.0%) and Monaro (ALP 4.4%) at opposite ends of the state are Labor's two most marginal seats. But in Tweed I expect the reportedly pro-Labor demographic changes to counteract any swing to the Nationals. Whilst in Monaro, first term MP Steve Whan should be able to exploit the incumbency advantages he didn't have at the last election.

However, I don't expect it will be all bad news for the National Party on election night. Murray-Darling (Nat 1.4%) has been redistributed from a Labor held seat to a National one. Many, including Poll Bludger, believe incumbent Labor MP Peter Black will retain this seat, but I am sceptical. Antony Greens loves to point out that Labor has never lost the seat based on Broken Hill, even when it was altered into a notional National Party seat prior to the 1991 and 1999 elections. However, this surely ignores the big statewide pro-Labor swings that occurred at both those elections. No such swing will happen this time, and the Nationals will accordingly "retain" Murray-Darling.

Back to Sydney, where suburban seats Penrith (ALP 6.6%), Menai (ALP 8.9%) and Miranda (ALP 9.1%) must be considered serious chances to fall. Of these, I'm inclined to plump for Miranda on geography alone; it's an entirely Sutherland shire electorate. I've shied away neighbouring Menai given that it was one of five seats included in a Daily Telegraph poll that produced a collective Labor 2PP of 58%. I don't believe Drummoyne (ALP 8.7%) is a serious chance given its Labor history and inner suburban character.

Were the Liberals performing better in this election campaign, more focus would be placed upon regional seats like Port Stephens (ALP 7.2%) and Kiama (ALP 8.3%). As it is, Opposition-held seats like Terrigal (Lib 0.6%) and South Coast (Lib 1.6%) appear more vulnerable. However, I am not predicting any Labor gains.

Perhaps I should also devote space to the Greens challenges to Balmain (ALP 7.1%) and Marrickville (ALP 10.0%). However, I see no chance of the Greens taking the latter seat. Whilst Balmain would be a 50/50 proposition were the Liberals to direct preferences to the Greens. The Liberals though, seem set to preference neither party.

In summary:

Labor-held to Liberal: Wollondilly, Miranda
Independent to Liberal: Manly
Notional National to actual National: Murray-Darling

The rest, including the pseudo-independent held seats of Newcastle, Hawkesbury and Macquarie Fields and the vacant Swansea will revert to their 2003 colour. With the exception of Pittwater, where I'm predicting 2005 by-election winner Alex McTaggert will retain his seat.

A very status-quo election result. Thus the next NSW parliament will look like this:
Labor 53 (-2)
Liberal 22 (+3)
National 12 (-)
Independent 6 (-1)

SA's super-sized swings

The Advertiser today has been reporting some polling on marginal seats in South Australia, indicating massive swings to Labor for the upcoming Federal election. The question is, are these swings for real, or are they just part of Kevin Rudd's honeymoon period, and if they're for real, are they specific to these seats or would they go state wide?

The first of the polls is from the seat of Kingston (Lib, 1.0%), in Adelaide's southern suburbs. A seat the Coalition picked up from Labor at the last election, the polls are indicating a seven percent swing to Labor, which would be more than sufficient to take the seat.

The two newer polls are from ultra-marginal seats on both sides of the house. Hindmarsh (ALP 0.1%) in Adelaide's western suburbs was one of the few seats Labor took off the Coalition at the last election, but this poll indicates that Labor would make this one safe, with 60% of the two party preferred vote. Further north, in Gawler based Wakefield (Lib, 0.7%), the Coalition would be looking likely to lose another seat they took off Labor in 2004, with Labor ahead 61-39 on the two party preferred vote.

Big numbers.

It's always a good idea to take polls like this very warily, but even if half these swings happen, the ALP could even be looking at winning less marginal SA seats, like Boothby (Lib 5.4%) in Adelaide's southern suburbs, and even perhaps Sturt (Lib 6.8%) in the inner eastern suburbs.

Certainly numbers the ALP would like hearing with such ground to make up. Given Labor's woes in SA at the last election, winning only three of eleven possible seats, you'd have to think a correction is on.

- And of course, I left out the electorate of Makin (Lib 0.9%). If these swings are even remotely true, you'd think Makin would be absolutely certain to change hands as well.

Brand, Beazley, Burke, the Bulletin and a bunch of Bollocks

Hello everyone. Since I've signed up to post here, it seems like a good idea to actually put something up. One thing that caught my attention recently was a suggestion that Kim Beazley might quit Parliament immediately, causing a by-election in his seat of Brand here in WA. Now that's all well and good, but I keep seeing the suggestion that this would give the Coalition a chance of winning the seat, because Beazley was the Labor leader.

Most recently, this came up in the Bulletin, where the resident pundit suggested that the fact the local member was the Federal Opposition Leader was worth a few percentage points to Labor at the last election:

The former Labor leader holds the seat of Brand with a margin of 4.7 per cent. Being party leader was probably worth a couple of percentage points, so the actual margin is less than 3 per cent.

Now I know many on the left of politics in Australia might be trying to forget the last election, but for a political journalist to not remember who were the two major party leaders is pretty poor. Especially as I'd personally think that Mark Latham was a fairly memorable politician.

So Big Kim wasn't the Labor leader at the last election, so I guess that means that the margin in Brand is genuinely 4.7%. Add that to the fact Brand is not held by the Government, and history shows the Government never picks up seats at bye-elections, you'd have to question why this is coming up at all. I;d guess of course it's because here in WA, we've had a bit of a recent scandal in state ALP ranks, involving our unlamented former Premier, Brian Burke, and one of the implicated local MPs was a state minister the member for Peel, Norm Marlborough, who's electorate is entirely within Brand.

Now Burkie showing up isn't ever going to be good for Labor in WA given his reputation as being a bit on the dodgy side, but still, this is a State thing, not a Federal one. If Marlborough resigned from politics today, and we had a state by-election for Peel, then Labor would be worried about the result maybe. Except it's a safe seat at 13.1% - certainly safer than any of Labor's Federal seats in WA.

The article in the Bulletin did bring up an interesting point though - whether having a WA boy as the opposition leader would help Labor in WA. I'll grant, we're a fairly parochial bunch here in the West - we did vote to secede from the Commonwealth once - so there's probably something in it. So I checked the swings in a few WA seats at the last election compared to the one before where Beazley was the Opposition Leader.

What I found was that nearly every seat had about a 3-5% swing to the Coalition, with the exception of Curtin (0.7 % to Lib) and O'Connor (1.2% to Lib). Both already had a tiny Labor vote so a big swing was difficult to start with. In Curtin, you could shoot a gun into a crowd and if you hit a Labor voter you'd halve the Labor vote - probably by killing my Dad, so I'd prefer you didn't; while in O'Connor Labor is a swear word - this is the seat with Ironbar Tuckey as the incumbent. So while it might be true - but if so, it already happened, at the last election.

So what does this mean in WA other than in a hypothetical Brand by-election?

My first reaction is that if I were the Coalition, I'd reckon that 2004 in WA was as good as it gets aided by the fact that Beazley was no longer the Opposition Leader, and that the only chance of keeping the status quo would be if the State Government imploded; an election on Federal issues only would be highly unlikely to result in any seats changing hand s to the Government. Certainly the two coalition marginals, Hasluck (1.8%) and Stirling (2.0%) would have exceptionally nervous sitting members. At this early stage I'd personally rate both as much more likely to change hands than any Labor held seat, even ultra-marginal Swan (0.1%) or Cowan (0.8).

In the end though, even if Kevin Rudd was caught in a compromising position with a farm animal, Julia Gillard turned out to be a man, and John Howard personally interceded to get Adam Vosges into the Australian Test cricket team, Brand should be unassailable.

(All figures grabbed from the ABC's election site)

Abbott at it again!

Babies inconvenient for some: Abbott

Saturday Jan 6 06:45 AEDT
Australia's high abortion rate reflects women whose lives are under control but who view childbirth as a "terrible inconvenience", Health Minister Tony Abbott says.

Cultural changes were causing more women to abort pregnancies, Mr Abbott said, and those considering terminations needed greater soul-searching, News Limited newspapers report.

"Once upon a time, women who found themselves pregnant were culturally conditioned to have the baby and have it adopted out," Mr Abbott said. "These days, there is very different cultural conditioning. This is particularly the case for women who have got their whole lives ahead of them or women who have got things nicely under management - a baby, or an extra baby, is a terrible inconvenience."

Mr Abbott's comments are backed by a survey that shows women in their 20s and in stable relationships are most likely to have unwanted pregnancies.

Mr Abbott said 84,000 abortions a year was too high and the government's 24-hour pregnancy counselling hotline could help women make informed choices.

"The whole point of this is to try to ensure that, whatever decision a woman makes, it really is her decision and not something that has been forced on her by social conditioning," Mr Abbott said.

" ... I think every abortion is a tragedy, in a sense, but I am not going to be judgmental about people who decide to have an abortion. In the end, it's a matter for the individual facing those circumstances to decide."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So let me get this straight, Tony.

1. It was perfectly ok for 'social conditioning' to effectively force women into putting their lives on hold for almost a year to have a baby that they don't want.

2. 'Soul-searching' is what is needed for these women who commit the terrible offence of actually wanting to get on with their lives rather than put their health at risk for a baby they don't want. I wonder who picked this term? Was it Abbott, or some clever editor?

3. 84,000 abortions is too high and the government has come to the rescue so that women can make 'informed choices'. Via a Catholic-operated counselling service, of course. I take it then that Abbott rejects abortion as a potential 'informed choice'? No pressure, Tony.

4. But it's ok - all Abbott wants is to ensure that 'whatever a woman decides, it really is her decision'! I guess, then, that the old social conditioning of forcing women to have a baby they don't want is equally deplorable, Tony?