Home // Archive by category "politics"

2013 Federal Election: Minor Parties Take 2

August 30, 2013 Reply
Well we’re a week out and for those considering voting below the line I’ve already covered most of the minor parties (and Antony Green has an excellent guide to below the line voting here) However there’s a whole bunch of single issue parties to add to the menagerie of minor parties running on the NSW senate ballot.

As a sample we’ve got Bullet Train for Australia;

The Help End Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) Party;

The No Carbon Tax Climate Sceptics;

And the Smoker’s Rights Party:

I thought I’d have a crack at trying to get these parties onto the Vote Compass too. Being single issue parties makes them rather difficult to to properly plot them on the metric. I’ve developed vote compass scores by adding up the scores of all the parties they’ve preferenced inversely proportional to the rank that party group has been given. This means I can now chart everyone who submitted a group voting ticket (apologies for the crammed labels).

Click for larger version

Most of the minor parties wind up where you would expect them, although there’s been a bit of movement around the place for those I’ve previously analysed. Senator Online, out of all the single issue parties appears (on this metric) to have the claim to the most non-partisan preferencing allocation. The Socialist Equality Party is more centrist than their idealogical position because of their frankly bizarre group voting ticket (they submitted 3 tickets with Labor, Liberal and Green getting the number 2 spot and the the remainder numbered in the order they appear on the ballot, presumably reading up on the way senate preferences work is too bourgeois – the buck doesn’t necessarily stop with one of the big three).

This brings us to another problem. If you’re an above the line voter chances are your vote ain’t going to your number 1 box. There’s really only about 15 or so parties on the NSW ballot paper who have even an outside chance of being elected (though there’s some scenarios where others could get up with a vanishingly small primary vote thanks to the craziness of preference harvesting). People selecting the preferences for their party know this too, they really only need to be careful about their positioning of these major parties who could attract. So I’ve repeated the above analysis, but this time only considering the preferences allocated to these 15 larger parties.

Click for larger version

There’s quite a bit of movement here for many of the players. Wikileaks is dragged to the right and Senator Online even more so (demolishing their so-called non-partisan claim). Interestingly the Australian Fishing and Lifestyle party winds up with the exact same spot as the Shooters and Fishers. You could accuse them of being a front but in all other aspects (party registration, history etc.) they’re not.

Is this a decent simulation of a party’s preferencing position? Not really. It doesn’t take into account which party the vote is likely to help elect – that would require some decent polling of minor party senate voting intention, which doesn’t exist (at least in the public domain). If we had some polling we could combine that with the preferencing information to run some Monte Carlo simulations and work out not only the probability of various parties being elected to the senate, but which could also tell you the probability of your vote for a particular candidate helping elect another candidate (for example it might be able to tell you that your vote for Wikileaks has a 2% chance of electing a Wikileaks candidate, a 34% chance of electing the Shooters and Fishers party and a 53% of electing The Greens). But we don’t have any polling data, so it can’t be done.

Hopefully this might help you somewhat in your voting. Happy September 7! (and have a snag for me, I doubt the embassy in Geneva, where I’ll be voting, will have a sausage sizzle)

Links of the week

August 31, 2011 Reply

I’m not feeling particularly inspired to write anything at the moment. But here are some interesting links this week.

I came across this excellent parody video (with thanks to Sociological Images) of Miss USA contestants asked “Should Math be taught in schools?”. Check out the original evolution video here if you can stomach a quarter of an hour of airheadedness.

Also on Sociological images Brady Potts compares modern and old responses to disasters after some moron Republican said the response to Hurricane Irene should have been more like 1900. This is the storm that another Republican (and presidential hopeful) Michelle Bachmann says is a ‘message from God‘.

In related news New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is terrified that the Republican party is becoming the ‘anti-science’ party.

Bernard Keane at Crickey ponders that the latest protest movement (typified by the Tea Party and its Australian analogues) of middle-aged, conservative, white, middle- or higher-income men (ie. the most advantaged group of people in the world) is because they’re feeling slightly less advantaged than they used to.

Meanwhile Empirica Research has released a study commissioned by the ACTU on wealth inequality in Australia. Some key findings:

  • The wealthiest 20% own 61% of the wealth; the poorest 20% just 1%
  • Most people believe that the wealthiest 20% own 40%; the poorest 20% own 10%
  • And the ideal distribution is for wealthiest 20% owning 24%; the poorest 20% owning 14%
  • These views are remarkably stable across all wealth categories.
  • People believe the minimum wage is $1.60 higher than reality and most support raising it.
  • Most also agree that Government should adopt policies which improve wealth equality.

 And finally videos from ILHC are up – check out Patrick and Natasha’s Youtube channel

What is the new ‘Middle Class’?

May 14, 2011 Reply

The post-budget articles in the newspapers are making me sick. Making out families on $150,000 a year as though they’re on struggle street is pretty dirty, when folk in that situation are better off than most of us.

Matt Cowgill has written an excellent piece trying to find out what the middle class (middle meaning median, not average) actually is. It’s been picked up by ABC’s The Drum as well.

I’ve looked at how big the supposed ‘working families’ demographic is before, but let’s explore what this ‘middle class’, that Government budget savings will affect, is really like.

My source – “Household Wealth and Wealth Distribution, Australia, 2005-06” from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (I know it’s a little old but it’s the latest issue of the product).

I’ll be looking at the top 20% of households by gross income. These are households making more than $100,000 a year –  including plenty of families making substantially less than those examined in the papers.

Share of Wealth and Income
Now this top 20% of households controls 45% of the income in Australia and 60% of the wealth. This is nearly double the income and triple the wealth of the next highest 20% and 10 times the income and 60 times the wealth of the lowest 20% of households. This may sound bad but it’s better than the US where the top 20% controls 61% of the income and a whopping 85% of the wealth (and the top 1% of households 34% of the wealth).

The median income of this group is $130K a year, more than double the median income for all households and nearly 10 times that of the lowest group.

The median net worth of this group is $635K, double the median for all households and three times that of the lowest group.

Income Source
This group is fairly similar to the next highest 20% in that they both get their primary income from wages and salaries, although there appears to be a very small number that claim their primary source of income is government pensions and allowances – perhaps The Australian found them. However about a quarter of this group gets 1-20% of their income from pensions and allowances. Unfortunately the stats don’t break down further but I’ll assume the contribution will mostly be closer to 1% than 20%.

Tenure Type
Most of this group, 57%, has a mortgage the highest proportion of any income group. Makes sense – mortgages are expensive so the highest income bracket will be able to have more of them.

Family Type
Nearly half of this group (and more than twice the average) have kids under 15, the highest proportion for all income groups. Makes sense – kids are expensive so the highest income bracket will be able to have more of them.

Also less than 4% of this group are lone person households, close to seven times less than the average. To get into this income bracket you need a combined income. This is also borne out in the stats – these households have an average of 2.3 employed persons and one child under 15 (again, almost twice the average).

Location
Three quarters of these households live in capital cities which is higher than the average (about 63%).

Summary
So this group of top 20% in household earnings does fit the postcard. They’re likely to have a mortgage and kids with both parents in work, get the majority of their income from work and live in a capital city. But this is a group that as a whole controls a majority of the household wealth and close to a majority of the household income.

This group does get some government benefits, less than that of the next highest income bracket, but their biggest advantage is that they earn more and possess more. If this group actually depends on government assistance then the rest of us are screwed.

NSW State Election Contests: The Wash

April 12, 2011 Reply

It’s taken some time but all the results are finally in. Time to review the contests I previewed.

The Legislative Council

After what ended up coming down to what Green’s candidate Jeremy Buckingham described as a ‘neck and redneck battle‘ the final results are in. Thankfully Pauline Hanson, despite getting a surprising portion of the first preference vote didn’t win a seat. The results were:

Liberal/Nationals – 11
Labor – 5
The Greens – 3
Shooters and Fishers – 1
Christian Democrats – 1

This was in line with what the polls predicted with the Greens performing well enough on preferences to pick up an additional seat and the CDP taking back the Family First seat that was the result of Gordon Moyes defection.

Pauline Hanson picked up 2.4% of the primary vote and came very close to winning. This performance surprised many, but if you examine her last tilt at the LC the combined Hanson/One Nation percentage of the vote was 3.4%. Although her personal support appears to have picked up since 2003 (where it was 1.9%) it’s likely these were stolen from those who voted for One Nation at the time.

John Hatton unfortunately didn’t pick up many votes, receiving a similar number to the Fishing Party, Family First and the No Parking Meters Party. Most of his votes exhausted so he didn’t help elect anyone really.


The Side Contests

Marrickville – Labor retained by the skin of it’s teeth – an 0.9% margin. It was always going to be close. If the Greens can continue to swing towards them, with an impressive 35.9% of the primary vote, they’ll probably take it at the next election.

Balmain – In rare 3-way contest the Greens did manage to take Balmain (though with a lower primary vote than in Marrickville – 30.7%) and hold it with a 3.5% margin against the Liberal Party.

Wollongong – Despite a massive swing against it (24.3%) Labor managed to hang on against the Independent Gordon Bradbery with a margin of just 1%.

Sydney – Clover Moore managed to retain Sydney – except where she held it before with a 16.6% margin against Labor she now holds it with a 3.1% margin against the Liberal Party.

Lake Macquarie – Greg Piper easily retained the seat, although as in Sydney the 2PP vote is now against the Liberals.

Newcastle – In what was probably the best Labor performance in the State the sitting member Jodi McKay lost only 0.6% of the primary vote, however the Independent challenger was decimated delivering the seat to the Liberal Party


Dubbo, Tamworth and Port Macquarie – All fell to the Nationals which wasn’t a surprise

Hornsby – Independent Nick Berman put in a good show but not good enough to beat the Liberal candidate.

As a side note it was interesting to see the number of safe Liberal seats where the Greens out-polled Labor on first preferences. This happened in at least Davidson, Hornsby, Ku-ring-gai, Lane Cove, Manly, North Shore, Pittwater, Vaucluse, Wakehurst and Willoughby. The two candidate preferred vote for many of these seats is going to need to be reviewed – in some cases these seats may become Liberal vs Green (depending on exhaustion of preferences).

The Swing

It was almost certainly historic and we know what the results are on the primary vote (roughly – there’s still votes to be counted). But it’s going to be another couple of weeks before we know the final swing. Watch this space.

Links of the week

April 9, 2011 Reply

Although the result in Balmain has finally been sorted, the race for the last seat in the NSW Legislative Council is still ongoing. Antony Green tracks the progress. I’ll post my wash up of the results when this contest is finally decided.

Despite the Greens poorer than expected performance in the State election Greens MLC Cate Faehrmann argues what the party needs to do to become a party of government in a generation.

Sean Nicholls in the National Times argues that that Barry O’Farrell’s honeymoon may almost be over. Although much has been made of the restructure of the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water there has been very little media interest in the broader departmental reshuffle. The only department that remains untouched is Transport with many other departments are undergoing changes as big as that of DECCW and some senior public service executives have already been given the sack. (If you feel like some reading the full administrative order detailing the restructure is here) In particular few commentators have worked out that the majority of the public service will be spending the next few months implementing the restructure as opposed to policies and programs. This has very real implications for a government trying to look like they’re achieving results. It’s telling that the big ticket items in Barry O’Farrell’s 100 Day Plan are to be implemented by the departments that are undergoing fewer changes.

More on the climate change debate. Paul Griffiths and Mark Colyvan on The Drum examine how difficult it is for the public to work out who is speaking with the authority of science. Also on the Drum Darren Osborne shows how science actually works – your opinion should follow the evidence, not the other way around – in preliminary results of a new analysis of global temperature data. On the front of solutions New Scientist reviews research suggesting that large scale implementation of wind power could have unintended consequences and Jessica Irvine in the National Times discusses how the economics of a carbon tax is supposed to work.

NSW State Election Contests: The Swing

March 22, 2011 Reply

This is the final in my series of NSW State Election Contests posts, previewing the interesting contests for election watchers beyond the obvious conclusion of the poll. I’ll be back after March 26 to make more commentary. In this post I’ll examine the swing.

What is the swing?
For those Lindy Hoppers out there I’m not talking about this, I’m talking about what is mooted to be one of the largest swings in Australian electoral history. The swing is a crude measure of the change in the two-party preferred vote since the last election. It is supposed to measure the change in preference of the electorate for one side of politics over the other. However it does have a number of flaws. It’s not an entirely useful concept as in a multiseat parliament where each seat elects one candidate, the swing may not necessarily predict the outcome of the election particularly for close elections. It also doesn’t reveal complexities in voter trends, such as the recent rise of the Greens, or shed much light on local contests with independents.

However as a single number to tell you how the election fares up for the major parties it’s the best figure out there.

A brief comparison of past swings
Antony Green has an excellent post on his blog about past swings in Australian electoral history. Here’s a few records since 1950 (prior to 1950 it is difficult to determine a 2 party preferred vote):

  • Last NSW Election – 3.7% against Labor
  • Record at a State Election – 14.6% against Labor in Victoria in 1955
  • Record at NSW Election – 9.1% to Labor in the 1978 Wranslide
  • Record at NSW Election for change of Government – 8.3% against Labor in 1988
  • Record at Federal Election – 7.4% against the (dismissed) Labor Government in 1975

Polling 

There are four main polling companies that gather data for the NSW Election (although there are others). Two of these are commissioned by the two major newspaper organisations in Australia (Nielsen by Fairfax,  published in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, and Newspoll by Newscorp published in The Australian), another poll is done by Essential Media a social marketing and communications firm and the fourth by Galaxy Research another PR and communications research firm.

Here are the last four polls done by each firm. They all differ in their timing and methodology and the additional questions asked. I’ve listed the primary votes of Labor, the Coalition and the Greens and then the two-party preferred vote (2PP) as well as the swing.

Nielsen – Published 16 February – Swing 18%

Labor 22%
LNP 53%
Green 13%

Labor 2PP 34%
LNP 2PP 66%

Galaxy Poll – Published March 4 – Swing – 16%

Labor 23%
LNP 50%
Green 14%

Labor 2PP 36%
LNP 2PP 64%

Newspoll – Published 14 March – Swing 15%

Labor 26%
LNP 50%
Green 11%

Labor 2PP 37%
LNP 2PP 63%

Essential Poll – Published 18 March – Swing 17%

Labor 24%
LNP 54%
Green 12%

Labor 2PP 35%
LNP 2PP 65%

This sort of polling generally has sampling errors of a few percent so there’s no clear trend up or down in the data. What is clear is that even the lowest swing is pointing towards what will almost certain be a record in NSW and likely a record nationally too.

Applying these results broadly suggest a result along the lines of:
Coalition: 65-71 (including 16 Nationals)
Labor: 13-19
Greens: 2
Independents: 7
Though as I outlined in my previous post, some of the independents are in for a tough fight whilst some Labor seats could be had by independents. A statewide swing doesn’t tell you much about these local contests.

Some might suggest that at least part of the swing is due to other factors. I’ll talk about two that are sometimes discussed:

Incumbency
It is suggested that incumbent candidates receive an advantage in elections. It’s difficult to determine what the average advantage is, but it’s usually assumed to be between 1 and 2%. With so many Labor members retiring at this election (18 vs 7 Coalition MPs) you might assume that this could affect the magnitude of the swing. However in a 93 member house the effect would be less than a half of a percent and not influence the result. It could lead to the loss of a seat that Labor would otherwise be able to retain if the seat with a retiring member is held by a margin close to the predicted swing, though only Campbelltown would fit this description.

An increase in the Green vote
An increase in the Green vote (assuming it’s coming from what would otherwise be Labor supporters) would reduce Labor’s primary vote and potentially its two party preferred vote through exhaustion of preferences. However given that the Green vote appears to have collapsed almost back to it’s 2007 figure of about 9% (possibly from left voters switching back to Labor in a futile attempt to boost its primary vote) it’s unlikely that the small increase in the Green vote will increase the swing by much.

Conclusion
Aside from a record breaker, there’s nothing terribly exciting about the swing in this election. The ‘Bazslide’ (you heard it here first) is going to go down in the history books. I’ll know what I’ll be watching on election night – the Legislative Council and the local side contests.

NSW State Election Contests: The Side Contests

March 17, 2011 Reply

Just because the election is all but a foregone conclusion doesn’t mean there still aren’t some exciting contests happening. I’ve put together a list of electorates to watch on the evening of the 26th. They won’t change the result of this election but could set up an interesting contest in 2015 with the rise of Independents and minor parties in traditional Labor heartland. I’m going to categorise these contests more broadly by which parties they are between.

Labor vs Green

Marrickville
Deputy Premier and health minister Carmel Tebbut holds this seat with a 7.5% margin against the Greens. The Greens candidate is the Mayor of Marrickville, Fiona Byrne. A low Liberal primary vote and lack of other front-running candidates would indicate a Green win, however bad press relating to Marrickville Council’s boycott of Israel as well as claims of some dirty tricks muddy the waters somewhat. One to watch closely.

Balmain
Labor education minister Verity Firth holds this seat with a margin of 3.7% against the Greens whose candidate is also a local Mayor. The Green candidate, popular Leichhardt Mayor Jamie Parker, is tipped to win with the crash in the Labor vote. The Greens face more challenges in Balmain than in Marrickville, with the Independent, former Mayor Maire Sheehan, potentially splitting the green/left vote and the Liberals polling higher in Balmain than Marrickville. There’s an outside chance the Liberals could win on first preferences and steal the seat or of Labor retaining it – making Balmain a seat to watch.

Labor vs Independent

Wollongong
Labor holds this seat by one of the biggest margins in the State (25.3%) but the sitting member, Noreen Hay has been embroiled in a number of scandals including corruption at Wollongong City Council. She was cleared of any wrongdoing but damage to the Labor brand and a lack of any local government elections for the electorate to express their displeasure could narrow that margin significantly. Well known local minister Gordon Bradbery is running as an Independent and is polling quite highly, but would need preferences from Green and Liberal voters to get over the line. The how-to-vote strategies from the Greens do preference Bradbery, but the Liberals don’t lower his chances. Nevertheless this could be the only seat in the State which goes from being safe Labor to marginal against an Independent at this election.

Sydney
Independent and Lord Mayor of the City of Sydney holds this seat with what appears to be a comfortable margin, 16.6%. Moore should retain the seat however voter dissatisfaction with her mayoral performance may reduce her primary vote. A split on the left and a large number of exhausted votes could give the Liberals an outside chance at victory.


Lake Macquarie
Independent and Mayor Lake Macquarie Council holds the seat with a very narrow margin, 0.1%, over the ALP. Although he needs Green and Liberal preferences to hold the seat it’s highly unlikely he’ll lose to Labor in this election.

Newcastle
Former local news reader and current sitting Labor member Jodi McKay battles Newcastle Mayor and Independent John Tate. McKay holds the seat by 1.2%, so Tate has a reasonable chance of winning if the 17% swing against Labor at the 2007 election continues.

Independent vs National
Dubbo
Sitting Independent Dawn Fardell holds this seat by 0.9% over the Nationals candidate of Troy Grant. With dissatisfaction at the rural independents federally and a desire by the locals to have their member in government this seat is tipped to fall to the Nationals.

Port Macquarie
Peter Besseling has held this seat since a 2008 by-election after the move by Rob Oakeshott to Federal Parliament. He holds it by a fairly slim margin, 4.5% and dissatisfaction with Oakeshott and a desire by the locals to have their member in government could mean a loss to the Nats.

Tamworth
Independent Peter Draper holds this seat by 4.8%, although holding the seat since 2003 is in similar circumstances to Peter Besseling in Port Macquarie.

Liberal vs Independent
Hornsby
Hornsby Mayor Nick Berman got passed over for pre-selection and has decided to challenge the Liberal candidate Matt Kean as an Independent. The sitting Liberal member is retiring so Berman has a decent chance at splitting the Liberal vote. However votes for the right side of politics are quite high, making it unlikely that Berman will win.

There are a number of other seats where high profile Independents or Greens could narrow margins considerably however any change in those seats (aside from Labor to Liberal) is unlikely. I’m not going to discount any bolts from the blue though.

NSW State Election Contests: The Legislative Council

March 15, 2011 Reply

The outcome of the upcoming NSW State Election seems to be done and dusted. You might think that for a politics-watcher and self-confessed election geek there might be nothing in it for me. But you’d be wrong. There’s a number of contests that will shape the course of politics in the state, some for the next 4 years and others further down the track. Over the next 10 days I’ll be previewing three important contests:

  • The Legislative Council
  • The side contests – Greens and Independents in the Legislative Assembly
  • The swing – how big and who to

This week I’ll be looking at the Legislative Council (LC) – otherwise known as the NSW Senate. Before I get into the election preview I’ll examine the role of the LC and how it gets elected.

The Role of the Legislative Council

NSW has had a bicameral (two houses) parliament since 1856 with the upper house originally intended as a house of review – with all members apointed by the Governor. The LC has undergone many reforms, including several attempts to abolish it, and became directly elected in 1978.

It still has a strong review role with a series of committees which scrutinise Government Ministers and business, conducts inquiries and forces the Government to produce state papers. It also plays a strong role in amending legislation, through it rarely defeats bills.

Electing the Legislative Council

The LC has 42 members who have 8 year terms, half (21) being elected at each State election. The council is elected by proportional representation with the whole state being treated as a single electorate.

To be elected to the LC a candidate needs to achieve 4.55% of the vote or roughly 180,000 votes. Anything less than a full quota will be redistributed through preferences. Voting for the LC is similar to the Federal Senate with large ballot papers featuring a series of ‘groups’ above the line and each individual candidate below the line.

However this is where the similarity ends – for the Senate ballot paper a voter can determine the preferences for all candidates by numbering all the squares below the line or by voting above the line and letting the party they vote for determine the flow of preferences. For the Senate all formal votes count and will be used to determine preference flow. Voting in NSW uses optional preferential voting. The ballot paper looks similar but there are more options to vote formally.

You can vote above the line by placing a number one and then (if you wish) numbering as many other candidates in order of preference as you like.

Or you can vote below the line by numbering at least 15 candidates in order of your preference.

This system has a couple of advantages; it makes it easier to vote formally, particularly if you vote below the line; political parties don’t determine preference flow to other parties if you vote above the line; and you don’t have to vote for a candidate you don’t like.

But there is one drawback. About 80% of people just vote 1 above the line, and don’t number any others. This may be because they’re lazy, or because they think its like voting in a federal election for the senate. Either way a large number of votes exhaust, which means that a relatively small group of voters determines who will pick up the scraps in a LC contest. According to the ABC’s election guru Antony Green any candidate picking up 2.5% of the vote has strong chance. The Shooters won with 2.1% in 2003 or about 76,000 first preference votes. Incidentally this seat is one of the ones up for election.

So if you want to be one of those voters make sure you fill in the blanks.

The 2011 Election

Now onto the 2011 election. Of the 21 continuing MLCs there are:
Labor/Country Labor – 9
Liberal/Nationals – 8
The Greens – 2
Christian Democrats (Fred Nile Group) – 1
Shooters and Fishers – 1

It is the continuing members that make the upper house a more interesting contest. On the left side of politics you have 11 continuing members and on the right side 10. The effect of any swing is thus diminished by the existing membership of the LC. In order to secure a full majority in the upper house the LNP would need to secure about 60% of the vote – a swing of 27%, something you won’t see outside of a by-election.

No, one of two things will happen in the LC. The balance of power will be held by either the Greens or the conservative minor parties and independents. This will direct the power-plays in NSW politics over the next 4 and 8 years.

Under either circumstance the LNP may be forced to work with Labor to pass legislation, when Greens or conservatives are playing hardball. Although there’s plenty of bipartisan legislation, the contentious stuff will end up being decided by either a group of conservative parties and independents or the Greens. The conservatives could extract amendments (or other concessions) dragging a piece of legislation towards the right, whilst the Greens could drag it back towards the centre.

Current polling suggests that the LNP will pick up 11 seats giving it a total of 19. Labor will pick up at least 5, the Greens at least 2 with another seat swinging between them. Based on past voting patterns it is reasonable to suspect that the Shooters and Fishers will pick up 1 and Family First (the candidate a former Christian Democrat) and the Christian Democrats are fighting over a further 1 seat.

There are two maverick independents: Pauline Hanson and John Hatton, both of whom have an outside chance of picking up enough votes for a quota.

Let’s deal with Ms Hanson first. The last time she had a tilt at the LC in NSW was in 2003 when she managed to pick up 1.9% of the vote on her own, with One Nation (their candidate then is now #2 on her ticket) getting 1.5%. That’s a total of 3.4% of the vote that could well go to Hanson potentially delivering her a seat.

On the other hand in the last election the most similar party was Australians Against Further Immigration, who are not running in 2011. They only picked up 1.64% of the vote, with a swing of 0.74%. Even if that swing were to continue that’s only about 2.4% of the vote, and probably not enough for seat. On the other hand Hanson could split the vote that is otherwise going to the CDP and Family First, muddying that contest considerably.

Now onto John Hatton the anti-corruption advocate who was one of the forces behind the establishment of the Wood Royal Commission into police corruption. He was also the local member for South Coast between 1973 and 1995. He’s campaigning on an anti-corruption and anti-part3A platform. In the current political climate and with enough publicity this could resonate with enough voters to get him enough votes for a quota. Given his platform and the role of the LC its a pretty damn good fit. Unfortunately there’s not much in the way of good data to judge his chances. There is some alignment with the Save our State party (aka Save our Suburbs) who picked up 0.3% of the vote at the last election, suggesting his chances aren’t great.

Now here’s where things get interesting. Using Antony Green’s example Labor could wind up with about 5.5 quotas and The Greens 3.3. Labor has a chance of picking up another seat, but only if Greens voters preference them. If most of the Greens votes exhaust, then this seat that the Greens could have given Labor will likely be lost a party on the right (most likely the LNP).

If, like me, you believe that a ‘hostile’ senate is good for democracy then you should make sure you preference above the line, back through to the major party on the side of politics you think will be in opposition. In the example above, if you vote Green you should then preference Labor, to ensure that your vote gets counted in the fight over partial quotas. Otherwise your vote exhausts and you could help a candidate on the right win.

So number more than 1 – vote for as many preferences as you feel necessary.

Next time – the side contests.

Working Families?

February 16, 2011 Reply

With a state election in NSW in the next few weeks and a federal election one by-election away we’re again being bombarded with political commercials. Here’s a few for sampling:

NSW Labor’s “Fairness for Families”

 
 

NSW Liberal’s spoof of the above (which gets points for comedy)

And (because it features Zombies) my favourite from The Greens

Although you’d only know it from the Labor video “families” appear to be a strong theme for the campaigners, as has been the case in most recent elections. But how many families are there out there for these policies to target? Although many policies will benefit the whole population the benefits will vary.

Take Labor’s Fairness for Families promise of an extended and increased energy rebate. People on a variety of welfare payments (including the aged and disability pension) currently receive an annual rebate which in 2011/12 will reach $161. The policy promises a household with combined income of $150,000 a rebate of $250 a year. $150,000 is more than double the median household income in NSW. This means that a significant proportion of the better-off half of the population will receive $250 they didn’t have whilst someone on the aged pension get’s $89 more. That’s barely a third. So it’s quite clear who this policy is aimed at from a monetary perspective.

Looking at the campaign material targetted at ‘families’ generally shows mum, dad and the kids. How common are these households?

Let’s take a look at houshold composition. The source for this is the 2006 Census Basic Community Profile for NSW. Of the 2.3 million households in NSW they are made up of:

Single person households – 24%
Non-family group households – 4%
Couples without children – 26%
Couples with children – 34%
Single parents with children – 12%

So couples with kids seem to come out on top making up a third of all households. As the biggest group it probably makes sense to market more to them.

Hold on a minute though. How many campaign ads do you see showing the 23 year old uni student still living at home or a group of run-amok teenagers in the house? Most advertising material shows young children, very rarely older siblings.

Fortunately the census data breaks down further. Of those 34% of couple with children households only about half have all their children under 15. Let’s redo that table with this new information – I’ll call the new group “Working Families”:

Single people – 24%
Non-family group households – 4%
Couples without children – 26%
Working Families – 18%
Other couples with children – 16%
Single parents with children – 12%

The largest group of households is now Couples without children – and you don’t see many ads targetting them. Admittingly this is a fairly diverse group ranging from newlyweds to empty-nesters to retirees. Also couple households should have roughly double the number of votes of the singleton households. Unfortunately the Census doesn’t collect data on voting habits so we can’t know whether working families are swinging voters or not.

In any case the stereotypical ‘working families’ bloc is not nearly as large as most people think. With another five and a half weeks to the NSW election there’ll be plenty more fodder aimed at them though.