Oh, Darling… please don’t ask.. it’s too horrible! |
Here, for the record, are Troppo readers’ election predictions from the last two editions of Missing Link. No more entries will be accepted unless they fall outside the current range, in which case they’ll be accepted until Friday. On the other hand, if you know of specific predictions on other blogs made in the last two weeks, let us know and we’ll incorporate them.
A quick reminder of the basics, to give some context:
The current vector is: Coalition 87, Labor 60, Independent 3. One National-held seat (Gwydir) has been abolished in Queensland, but a new one (Flynn) has been created, so they cancel out. But with the retirement of the Independent Peter Andren, the Nationals are expected to win Callare. So, with two independents remaining, Labor would need to take 14 seats from the Coalition parties to have a chance of forming government (both would have 74). If they take fifteen they will have half the seats, and with 16 an outright majority. A uniform four percent swing would deliver this result.
The seats requiring less than a seven-percent swing are as follows, those with asterisks being the ones Antony Green seems confident Labor has in the bag.
NT:Solomon.
Tasmania: Bass, Braddon.
Queensland: Bonner*, Moreton*, Blair, Longman.
WA: Hasluck*, Stirling*, Cowan, Swan, Kalgoorlie.
SA: Kingston*, Makin*, Wakefield*, Boothby, Sturt.
Victoria: Corangamite, Deakin, LaTrobe, McEwen, McMillan.
NSW: Dobell*, Eden-Monaro*, Lindsay*, Bennelong, Wentworth, Page, Paterson, Cowper, Robertson.
In this table predictions are ranked in order of the Labor majority either stated or implied in the House of Representatives. Unfortunately not many people ventured a predictiction on the Senate. You’ll have to visit Andrew Bartlett for that. There is a third column for any additional details supplied, which may compound the glory — or the disgrace, as the case may be — enjoyed by the entrant on election night.
| Entrant | Prediction: winning party and majority | Additional Predictions |
| David Rubie | Labor by 50 | Labor 100 |
| Nick | Labor by 40 | Labor 95 |
| Roger Migently | Labor by 36 | Labor 93, Coalition 55, Independents 2 |
| haiku | Labor by 32 | Labor 91 |
| Andrew Elder
Tim Lambert |
Labor by 30 | Labor 90, Liberals 50, Nationals 7, CLP 0, Independents 3. |
| Geoff Honor | Labor by 32 | Labor 91, Coalition 57, Independents 2. |
| Doug | Labor by 18 | Labor 84, Independents 3, Coalition 63
ALP to win:; NT – 1 seat; Tas – 2 seats; WA – 1 seat; SA – 4 seats; Vic – 6 seats; NSW – 5 seats; Qld – 6 seats; Bennelong but not Wentworth |
| Derrida Derider | Labor by 12 | Two-party vote will be lopsided (say 57-43). |
| El Nino
MarkL |
Labor by 8 | ALP 79, Lib/Nat 69, Others 2 |
| Rex Ringschott | Labor by 6 | |
| Stephen Bartos | Labor by 4 | labor 77, coalition 69, independents 4 |
| Vee | Labor by 0 | Kingston, Braddon, Bonner, Wakefield, Makin, Hasluck, Stirling, Bass, Solomon, Moreton, Lindsay, Eden Monaro, Bennelong, Dobell and Deakin |
| Jezery | Hung Parliament | ALP 74 |
| murph the surf | Hung Parliament | ALP 72, Libs 66, Nats 8, Others 4. |
| Jim Belshaw | Labor by narrow margin | |
| Patrick | Coalition by 3 | Chester |
| Liam | Democrats outpolled on Senate first preferences by Family First in every State but NSW, where they will be beaten by the CDP; Howard and Turnbull increase their margins in Bennelong and Wentworth, | |
| saint | Xenophon into the Senate; SA – or at least Adelaide – will go wall to wall Labor; Dems annihilated; Greens will lose ground; two independents will win seats in the lower house (including OConnor) | |
| Robert | A face on Janette which could curdle milk at five hundred paces. |
This far out, in oreder: (1) Howard scrapes; (2) Hung; (3) Rudd scrapes.
I don’t wish to call the result this far out but I would implore voters to cast their votes wisely. Approach it from the point of view that the two major parties are burdened with no-hopers, spivs, liars, dead-beats, cozeners, T/A abusers, trough aficionados, and, others. As you can see both major parties can’t do much at all other than to promise to wallpaper every Australian’s home with money. It is therefore the duty of each voter to elect the party that will do the least amount of damage to Australia and Australians.
I would like to make a prediction as we get closer to the election day.
Given Antony Green got NSW election wrong by a considerable margin (I don’t remember the figures just the result) and Malcolm Mackerras was closer – I’d rather know what Mackerras thinks.
That said one election is a horrid statistic to judge an analyst by.
Mackerras has called Labour at 89 seats, and I think has been calling Labor since the beginning of the year.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22586061-5014047,00.html
I don’t see how anyone can ‘call’ this election until sometime in week six
It is too far out the speculate. And I suspect there will be surprises. For example, Phillip Nitschke forced Andrews to preferences when he last stood for Menzies the election before last. With Andrews and his government being on the nose he could well lose Menzies.
Although Flynn is in Qld, Gwydir was in NSW.
You seem to have omitted Kalgoorlie from the list.
There are 31, not 30 seats with margins of less than 7.0%. Kal is 6.3%. we trying hard to get it back.
For some analysis of the 2004 and 1998 elections please visit ‘Labor View from Broome‘ and browse the psephology topic. I’m not sure what it all means but I’ll keep you posted. I feel rennie’s law is about to emerge. Check the laborview campaign videos while you’re there.
You seem to have omitted Kalgoorlie from the list.
There are 31, not 30 seats with margins of less than 7.0%. Kal is 6.3%. We are trying hard to get it back.
For some analysis of the 2004 and 1998 elections please visit ‘Labor View from Broome‘ and browse the psephology topic. I’m not sure what it all means but I’ll keep you posted. I feel rennie’s law is about to emerge. Check the laborview campaign videos while you’re there.
I’m late, but I think I qualify for inclusion under your terms :) I still remember returning to Australia three weeks before the last election and saying that a coalition landslide was coming. So I will go out on a limb and suggest Libs by 3. Perhaps Libs 75- Labor 72- Independents 2 Chester -1
You qualify, Patrick. The rest of your numbers aren’t quite conistent, so I’ve taken the main one at face value.
There are some big numbers above for Labor in the middle column – or is that against the Coalition? Heady heavy stuff. For us Howard-off lot, is this inspiring or cause for concern?
Bearing in mind it’s going to heat up, will you be allowing further revisions, James?
On reflection, and seeing my prediction in the above context, though possibly conservative am pleased to say I’m happy with my numbers (as David R said, I’m pretty much there already).
Not consistent because Libs won’t have an absolute majority? But I know Chester won’t let Labor form government :)
Oh, I’ve just seen your updated table – I meant Chester to win in Solomon! Stupid en-dash getting out of place!
Patrick, If you have the Coaltion on 75, that’s almost the same as murph’s prediction, which I’d put in the hung parliament catogory. As I understand it, the majority is strictly the absolute majority, i.e. the difference between the party in question and the others combined, in which case it has to be an even number. ‘Coalition by 2’ would translate to 76 seats and so on. But I could be defying convention here for all I know.
I believe you are – the PM merely needs the confidence of the house. I understand that if there are only two parties, that requires an absolute majority or a defection.
If there are multiple parties, then one would need a coalition – in effect what we have at the moment, except they decided to make it permanent.
But it has been a few years since I could reliably say that I ‘knew’ any of this, so maybe I, or even both of us, is/are wrong.
Don’t forget someone has to provide the Speaker if the numbers are even. This could be offered to an Independent if there is one, otherwise it makes the numbers a bit dicey.
The exit polls seem to be showing a comfortable victory for the ALP. Time for me to exercise bragging rights. In June 2006, when Beazley was Oppo leader and the polls were neck and neck and the odds favoured the ALP, I predicted the ALP would win the 2007 election:
Jack Strocchi says July 13th, 2006 at 10:16 pm
A year later, still somewhat skeptical of the landslide polls, I predicted that the LN/P would achieve a comfortable victory:
I have standard psephological reasons for making this prediction: the periodic recessional tendency of the electoral pendulumn politically outweighs the periodic expansionary tendency of the business cycle, especially when one is deep into both cycles. See the Cameron-Crosby or Ray Fair model.
But this model underpredicts the size of the swing against the government. Policy differences between the two parties are minimal, as I predicted three years ago (“The Great Convergence”). Leaders are important but act as triggers or traps for underlying tendencies.
So there must be some other structural factor at stake inflating the Oppositions vote. It seems that the polity, rather than policy, has changed.
Norton-Quiggin’s “cohort theory” of Baby Boomer partisan alignment explains the bias of the middle-aged in favour of the ALP. The Boomer children of the revolution are replacing the Doomer children of the Depression in the electoral rolls. These two “cohorts” are biased, the Doomers pro-LN/P and the Boomer pro-ALP.
But the ALP’s cohort are still alive and kicking whilst the LN/P’s cohort are dying off. So the ALP is getting a demographic double whammy at the polls. This turnaround seems to be sufficient to explain the extraordinary situation where a government responsible for presiding over an unprecedented period of industrial prosperity, martial potency and cultural pride are facing an electoral wipeout.
Looks like Doug and Geoff Honor got the closest. I was sure the Liberals would implode in the last week of the campaign in an internecine shit fight over Howard, but the Kelly Gang were the first to snap.
I stand humbled at my own hubris – 100 seats was looking pretty good when Newspoll was 58/42 :)