From left field: Labor still in the hunt, but then again they always were

Today’s (November 6) Newspoll in The Australian shows that the ‘gap between Labor and the Coalition is closing’.

The widely accepted analysis of these national polls is that Labor has been ‘catching up’ during the course of the election campaign. From a situation where Howard was considered a shoe-in, the commentariat are now saying that the result is likely to be line-ball.

It’s taken a long time for mainstream commentators, who’ve relied on national opinion polling, to reach a view that should have been apparent very early on.

This conventional analysis is grossly misleading because the national poll is meaningless unless – and this is the critical factor – the distribution of the swing across the 150 electorates is even. Which of course it isn’t. The fact that Labor won almost 52% of the preferred vote last time around, and 46% of the seats is symptomatic of this basic but poorly understood reality.

As such, Labor has always been in the hunt in 2001, because the crux of the issue isn’t about the national vote but the distribution of the swings across the electorates.

My analysis, based on demographic modeling has shown from day one that this election is tight – and will boil down to how effective the two major parties are in winning over the swing voters that matter. And that is those that are disproportionately concentrated in electorates where the number of swing voters is sufficient to cause the seat to change hands. (This is another way of saying that the margin isn’t that important if there aren’t many swing voters in the district.)

So as we enter the last week, the real question to ask is not whether the national two-party preferred vote is converging but how the parties are performing in winning over key demographics.

The dynamics I had sketched out a couple of weeks ago remain dominant:

Labor’s pitch remains strongly focused on low-medium income groups via its GST rollback package, and they’re appealing to the brighter sides of our nature via its fairly minimal redistributive program and environmental policies that stand in stark contrast to the Coalition’s. Labor’s tried to neutralise the One Nation demographic by sidling up to the Coalition on immigration and refugees.

The Coalition is making a two-pronged move on low-income/low education One Nation types through its borderline race campaign, and medium-high income, well educated groups (particularly women within this group) with tightly targeted financial bonuses.

The campaign has as such not really revolved around the dichotomy of global-domestic issues as much as it has on the twin dynamics of quasi-racism and ‘hip pocket’.

Without debating the policy merits of the positions adopted, we are seeing the political consequences of these positions across key ‘switch’ electorates around the country.

Three weeks ago, I made a number of ‘predictions’ (for want of a better term). The core of the crystal ball exercise then was that the most likely outcome was the status quo (with some shuffling of the deck chairs) and a less likely scenario was a hung parliament with Jacki Kelly jumping into bed with the One Nation-types in the House of Reps and the Senate.

My Pick

A few weeks on, and with much campaigning under the water my pick for the weekend is a narrow win for the Coalition, with Labor making a net gain of 2 seats nationwide. The wash-up is Labor 69, Independents 2 (Katter and Andren – Windsor will miss out in New England) and Coalition 79.

In Queensland, Labor will win Herbert and Petrie but lose Dickson. It will not gain Moreton, Longman, Wide Bay or Hinkler. Labor will hold Ryan, just. Up 1 in Queensland.

In NSW Labor will lose Macarthur and Parramatta, hold Dobell (which I had previously thought was on the ropes), and win Richmond. The GST targeting of caravan park dwellers will be enough to swing Richmond to Labor. Down 1.

In Victoria, Labor will pick up La Trobe and Ballarat. No losses are anticipated. Up 2.

In SA, Labor can win Makin but Adelaide will stay in Coalition hands. Up 1.

In WA, Canning will fall to the Coalition with the increased weight of the rural demographic tipping Labor out. Down 1.

Tasmania, Labor can now hold its seats, so no change.

Preferences

Much has been made of the preference deals made between Labor and the Democrats and the Greens. Frankly, I don’t think this will amount to much net gain at all for the ALP though it will consolidate the general favourable flow of preferences it receives from these two parties.

Labor would pick up around 65% of Democrat preferences and 70% of Green preferences regardless of whether a deal has been done or not. With deals in place, Coalition voters who would otherwise have voted ‘1’ Democrat or Green will fall back into the Coalition’s camp (reaction to the deals), thereby naturally increasing the proportion of preferences that will go the Labor from the two smaller parties.

It will simply be a matter of mathematics rather than the deal having any real effect.