Gaven review

Table 3 below, shows Gaven to have disproportionate percentages of 0 to 4-year-old girls, and correspondingly disproportionate percentages of their mothers, in the 30 to 34-year age group. Gaven is just ahead of Chatsworth and well ahead of Redcliffe, a much older seat, containing high percentages of 80-plus females, who do not change their vote.

Table 3. Selected female age groups for by-election seats

We would expect therefore, any swings in Gaven, to be much greater than Redcliffe, a little larger than Chatsworth and a little ahead of Queensland as a whole. Figures for income and mortgage levels confirm this analysis.

When we look at the swing in the three by-election seats however, see Table 4, below, we see a different picture. In the two by-elections, held last August, the two party preferred swings were much higher in Chatsworth, than that in Gaven and the stable seat of Redcliffe was almost the same.

Table 4. Two Party Preferred swings in by-election seats 2004-5

It would appear therefore, on this superficial analysis, that the State Government was “clawing back” the anti-Labor swing from last year’s by-elections.

This is currently translated into the Premier keeping his job, providing what seems from our ABC online research, to be a significant advantage for Lawrence Springborg and the Coalition. As one senior Labor figure agitating for a leadership change told me this week: forget your research mate, even Lassie knows he’s had it.

Lassie however had not been briefed on our latest ABC online polling, which shows the Coalition leading the Beattie Government on the issues of health, water, infrastructure, roads, road transport, crime, the state economy, population growth, rail transport, urban planning and public transport.

The Government remains ahead of the Coalition on Aboriginal issues, industrial relations, the environment (this was taken before the post-Gaven back flip on uranium mining), education and unemployment.

Education, administered by new Minister Rod Welford, represents the one major plus for the Labor Government, while Energy Minister John Mickel has done a good job taking the electricity distribution crisis off the front pages. Voters also like seeing the State Government oppose the Federal Government’s IR changes.

Point Three

By looking at the adjusted swing in Gaven in the context of Chatsworth and Redcliffe we can see who is really in front.

Australians seem to be more interested in cricket than politics, understandably enough, so we use expensive slow-motion cameras and sophisticated computer software to track the imaginary flight of a cricket ball after it has hit a batman’s pads, and small microphones and images of sound wave patterns to detect if a slight snick was off the bat or the pads.