2007 Federal Election Briefing #1

I will provide monthly overviews of the forthcoming election campaign in the lead up to the poll later in 2007. Later editions will probably include profiles of key Divisions, players and policies.

Overview

• The federal election for the House of Representatives and half the Senate will very likely be held in either late October or November.
• If the Federal Liberal National Party Coalition loses 12 seats, it would lose its majority in the House of Representatives. If ALP wins 16 seats it would have a majority (requiring a uniform swing of 4.8%).
• The Coalition will continue to control the Senate and be able to block Bills proposed by a new ALP Government.
• The key battleground states are NSW, SA and WA plus Queensland thanks to parochialism and Kevin Rudd’s leadership of the ALP.

When will the 2007 Federal Election occur?

Assuming that the Prime Minister (PM) will call an election for the House of Representatives and a half Senate Election, and allowing for the legislative minimum campaign of 33 days the earliest date for the election is Saturday 4 August. Assuming that the PM will avoid the Christmas New Year period the latest the election can be is 15 December 2007 .

The election campaign is likely to be later than 4th of August as winter campaigns are rare in Australia. It is a rule of thumb that annoyed voters punish the Government, and queuing in the rain to vote would annoy them. The campaign will have to occur before or after APEC, which is being held in Sydney between 2nd and 9th of September 2007. The PM couldn’t by convention attend APEC, if the election campaign was occurring. The PM will also be unlikely to ask voters to vote on the NRL (30 Sept) and AFL (29 Sept) Grand Final weekend. He is also unlikely to ask voters to vote the weekend before Melbourne Cup.

Therefore the election is likely to be in late October (with 13 October being earliest if the election is called immediately after APEC and allowing for the minimum campaign of 33 days) or November.

House of Representatives

Following the 2004 election, there are 87 Coalition held seats (Liberal Party, National Party & CLP ), 60 ALP held seats, and three independents. There are a total of 150 seats in the House of Representatives.

If the Coalition loses 12 seats, it would lose its majority in the House of Representatives. If ALP wins 16 seats it would have a majority (assuming it holds all its current seats including Parramatta). If the Coalition loses more than 12 but the ALP fails to win 16 or more the result will be a Hung Parliament with the Independents in control.

Since 2004 there have been federal redistributions in NSW and Queensland. The seat of Gwydir (held by John Anderson) was abolished in NSW and Flynn added in Queensland.

The Coalition marginal seats to watch , assuming the ALP holds all it current seats (including the NSW Division of Parramatta which is now nominally Liberal by 1.1% following the redistribution) are as follows:

Division	Margin %	State	Party	MP	ALP Candidate	Demographic Rating
Macquarie	-0.5	NSW	Lib	Kerry Bartlett		Outer Metropolitan
Kingston	0.1	SA	Lib	Kym Richardson	Amanda Rushworth	Outer Metropolitan
Bonner	0.6	Qld	Lib	Ross Vasta		Outer Metropolitan
Wakefield	0.7	SA	Lib	David Fawcett		Rural
Makin	1.0	SA	Lib	Trish Draper (retiring 2007)		Outer Metropolitan
Braddon	1.2	Tas	Lib	Mark Baker		Rural
Hasluck	1.9	WA	Lib	Stuart Henry		Outer Metropolitan
Stirling	2.1	WA	Lib	Michael Keenan	Peter Tilley (ex-SAS)	Inner Metropolitan
Wentworth	2.6	NSW	Lib	Hon M Turnbull		Inner Metropolitan
Bass	2.7	Tas	Lib	Michael Ferguson		Provincial
Moreton	2.8	Qld	Lib	Hon Gary Hardgrave		Inner Metropolitan
Solomon	2.9	NT	CLP	David Tollner		Inner Metropolitan
Lindsay	2.9	NSW	Lib	Hon Jackie Kelly		Outer Metropolitan
Eden-Monaro	3.3	NSW	Lib	Hon Garry Nairn		Rural
Bennelong	4.0	NSW	Lib	Hon John Howard	Maxine McKew	Inner Metropolitan
Dobell	4.8	NSW	Lib	Ken Ticehurst		Provincial

To form Government, the ALP needs a uniform swing of 4.8% and to hold all its current seats. It should be noted that due to Queensland local parochialism, the leadership of local Kevin Rudd of the ALP makes the party more competitive in Queensland.

Senate

If the ALP is elected to Government at the federal election it could confront a 1975 style constitutional crisis. Certainly “WorkChoices” is very unlikely to be abolished or significantly amended as the Coalition will control the Senate post the election, and post 1 July 2008, when the new Senators take their seats. The Coalition hasn’t pledged not to block Supply, and of course as the majority, the Coalition could use the Senate Committee system to hold an ALP Government to scrutiny.

In the present Senate, the Coalition has a majority 39 to 37 (being the combined votes of the ALP, Greens, Democrats and Family First Senators). If re-elected a Coalition Government will continue to have nothing to fear from Senate scrutiny.

Half the Senate (plus the Senators for the ACT & NT) will face the electorate.

Senators	Coalition	ALP	Greens	Aust Dems	Family First
Retiring	20	14	2	4
Ongoing	19	14	2		1

If the Coalition elects three Senators in each State plus one each in the Territories for a total of 20 (a worse performance than in 2004 when the Coalition elected four in Queensland including Senator Barnaby Joyce), they will again hold 39 seats and a majority.

If the Greens are to hold the balance of power (which is very unlikely), the Coalition needs to loose two seats, as one seat is a tied vote and tied votes are lost in the Senate under the Constitution . Or to state it another way the combined vote of the ALP and Greens in two states in the Senate must exceed 57% of the first preference vote if they are to hold the Coalition to two seats out of the available six.

The next federal poll is very likely to seen the demise of the Australian Democrats. High profile Senators Natasha Stott Despoja (SA) and Andrew Murray (WA) are not recontesting and all published polls reflect a vote of less than 2%. Simply replacing the Democrats will not however guarantee the Greens balance of power, to do that they need to win Senate seats of the Coalition.

Opinion Polls

These will be updated on a regular basis.

According to Newspoll-The Australian, based on the 2004 distribution of preferences the ALP has opened up a significant lead in the two party preferred vote. This trend has been ongoing since the middle of 2006.


The elevation of Kevin Rudd to the leadership of the ALP had a dramatic effect on the preferred PM poll. John Howard clearly had Kym Beazley’s measure, but Kevin Rudd has overtaken John Howard, as more previous Uncommitted Voters choose him as preferred PM.



The aggregated monthly polls from Oz Politics reveals that the Coalitions two party preferred vote has declined and that the ALP under Kevin Rudd’s leadership has grabbed a handy lead in primary votes before the distribution of preferences.