Watson covers inner suburban territory roughly 15 kilometres south-west of central Sydney, from Strathfield and Burwood Heights at the city end to Greenacre and Lakemba further afield. The electorate was called St George from its creation in 1949 until 1993, reflecting the unofficial name of the Hurstville, Rockdale and Kogarah area of Sydney which it formerly encompassed. Watson was drawn further away from its traditional base when the redistribution before the 2010 election abolished its northern neighbour Lowe, from which it absorbed southern Strathfield and Burwood Heights. It also gained Greenacre, Mount Lewis and part of Punchbowl to the west, which were formerly in Banks, while in the south it lost Earlwood and Kingsgrove to Barton and Hurstville to Banks. This left only the voters in the City of Canterbury, accounting for barely half the total, to carry over to the newly redrawn seat. The affected areas were a mixed bag electorally, the changes serving to reduce the Labor margin by 1.9%.
The electorate of St George was for much of its history a classically marginal middle suburban seat, frequently changing hands until Whitlam government minister Bill Morrison recovered it for Labor in 1980 after being unseated in 1975 (the unsuccessful candidate in the intervening 1977 election was Whitlam’s son Antony, who had served in the previous term as member for Grayndler). Morrison was succeeded in 1984 by Stephen Dubois, who retired when Watson was created in 1993 as part of a rearrangement that abolished St George and the Bondi-area electorate of Phillip. Labor accommodated Phillip MP Jeannette McHugh in Grayndler, while Right faction heavyweight Leo McLeay moved from Grayndler to Watson. Meanwhile, Labor’s grip tightened thanks to demographic change which has left Watson with the highest proportion of non-English speakers (72.8%) of any electorate in the country, most notably through the concentration of Lebanese at Lakemba and Chinese and Koreans at Campsie. However, the trend to Labor sharply reversed amid a Sydney-wide backlash at the 2010 election, which reduced Labor’s 18.2% margin by exactly half.
Watson has been held since McLeay’s retirement in 2004 by Tony Burke, who had entered politics the previous year as a member of the state upper house. McLeay had long hoped that his son Paul would assume the seat upon his retirement, but the strength of support for Burke within the Right compelled him to abandon the idea. Paul McLeay was instead accommodated in the state seat of Heathcote, which he held from 2003 until he joined the Labor casualty list at the 2011 state election. Burke meanwhile won swift promotion to the shadow ministry in 2005, going on to serve in cabinet as Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister in the Rudd-Gillard government’s first term and as Sustainability, Environment, Water, Populations and Communities Minister (further gaining arts in March 2013) in its second. Burke has been a resolute supporter of Julia Gillard’s leadership, and spoke publicly of the “chaos” of Kevin Rudd’s prime ministership when he launched his unsuccessful challenged in February 2012.
The Liberals have preselected Ron Delezio, a businessman who came to national attention after his daughter Sophie received horrific injuries in separate accidents in 2003 and 2006. Delezio ran in Banks at the 2010 election, picking up an 8.9% swing against Labor’s Daryl Melham, and unsuccessfully sought preselection there again for the coming election.
This is what Abbott and his bunch of wallies is up against.
[Veronica Robbins took Rudd’s hand and refused to relinquish it for more than three minutes, declaring he had saved her from homelessness in Cairns five years ago.
Labor’s $5.2 million social housing policy across 2007 and 2008, partly as a response to the global financial crisis, had given her and her three children a roof over their heads.]
Social housing policy? What’s that Tony?
radguy
the auspol hashtag is notoriously the hangout of right wing loonies. A lot of progressive types thus avoid it totally.
The PM won’t lay down and die, so presumably that’s why she needs her throat cut.
FFS these mob are clowns!
Seems it isn’t just PBers looking at Abbott’s pollie pedal expenses claims.
http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/tony-abbotts-dodgy-pollie-pedal-expense-claims/
Centre,
Your show is slipping.
TA earns $6,760.60 a week, but he’s so poor he has to claim expenses when he rides for a charity!
http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/tony-abbotts-dodgy-pollie-pedal-expense-claims/
Duck
You got me!
I’m going to vote for the Monkey.
I am in the Senate no kid :shock I want the Loons last and couldn’t be bothered numbering every box on that paper table cloth 😛
Besides – if the voters want Abbott, they should get Abbott. Quickest way to get back into government 😎
This is Steve Ciobo – wants special privileges and then blames government for inefficicency.
http://www.news.com.au/national-news/mp-refuses-to-pay-his-8000-hotel-bill/story-fncynjr2-1226424912282
What about the Greens.
They’re all over Sky News saying that Labor are in disarray so don’t vote for them and only the Greens can stop Abbott’s workplace reforms.
That’s it!
Put the Lunatics last 😡 they’ve done enough damage.
Just caught Combet at the NPC (thanks Guytaur)
Jeez he is good. Solid. Smart. Rational. Oh to have ten of him so we could spread the talent.
Sprocket – yeah, you can’t ignore the dirt.
What is amazing is that while the net is boosting progressive points of view, our country has gone in the opposite direction politically.
There is only one reason and it certainly isn’t leaks attributed to Rudd, or anything else he did aside from challenging the authority (!) of the ALP machine.
[In the 2012 U.S. presidential election, most pre-election polls underestimated Barack Obama’s popular vote strength.]
The Gallup exec summary is a good indication how small things can lead to large errors.
I would be good if Australian Pollsters were so forthcoming about their methodology.
I assume Nielsen did a review after the said the ALP would win 57-43 on election eve 2007, but not for general consumption. If they did not, why believe them?
Why i consider this a potential hold.
The margin on paper places it has at risk but if you look at the graph above those booths in the 70s and booths in the 60s are held by considerably bigger margins than the official margin.
Now normally in a seat with one or two booths with big margins wouldn’t matter but looking at Watson a suburan booth where many of the booths have similar voting numbers i view these booth margins as more important.
Now lets say the booths held by over 70 and the booths held by over 60s all swing by 10% which is bigger than the official swing required on paper at least it looks like becoming a marginal ALP seat.
The other day on Sky Jackie Kelly made an interesting point in the 1996 election she scored the biggest pro-Liberal swing in a seat that was gained 11%
She went on to say for all the talk about Ed Husic and Jason Clare being in trouble the odds were they seats wouldn’t fall due to the local demographics.
The booth results above indicate that while the margin might look within range but when you look at the booths the swing needed is bigger.
Is there any special feature about the two super safe Liberal booths in Watson.
256
Abbott may well be getting $6,760.60 per week but he is certainly not earning it!
lizzie:
Liberals like Abbott and Ciobo are always going on about ending government ‘waste’, yet are the first to put their hands out for taxpayer assistance.
lizzie@258
So, the LNP are full of Fraudsters ? Who would have thunk ?
Lizzie, I guess you don’t watch the auspol hashtag much. Sure, LNP bots are there 24/7 spinning their crap, but only when the tag is quiet do the LNP seem to be in a majority. Mostly though, the LNP bots tweet so frequently that their perceived predominance is an illusion.
When I talk about the day’s top tweets, I am talking about the auspol hashtag. Wikileaks probably gets the most top tweets consistently (on more day’s than they don’t), Pliberseck scored one last week, but the LNP would not even score the day’s top tweet once a fortnight. I can’t remember the last time they scored a top tweet.
It’s official
The Greens have declared that Tony Abbott will win the election and are campaigning to hold the balance of power in the Senate.
Maybe, but no thanks to you and your stupid idiotic UNELECTABLE carbon tax.
Put them Last, nothing but a nuisance and a hindrance.
[Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and his education spokesman Christopher Pyne should back off the bullying and intimidation designed to stop states from signing onto Gonski education reforms, Schools Education Minister Peter Garrett says.
Mr Garrett also says holdout states and territories need to sign on before the end of June as the deadline is just three weeks away.
He said he was concerned about an emerging pattern of behaviour, with Mr Pyne meeting South Australian Labor Premier Jay Weatherill in an attempt to convince him not to sign on.]
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/national/17527406/stop-bullying-states-on-gonski-garrett/
Pyne trying to bully WEatherill? Pyne is nothing more than an annoying gnat.
radguy
Like zoomster, I don’t use or follow #auspol. I have been warned off it. And like sprocket, I choose my own wide selection of professionals and people I respect, to follow. I’m not especially interested in the trends.
Bob Ellis unhinging.
He blames Faulkner and seems to abuse him for not drinking alcohol.
[All this is delusional anyway. Abbott’s character flaws, and his connection with pederasts, and his habit of f#cking girls while dressed as a priest, will do for him I think, and bring back the Undecideds, and Labor will win with 39 percent or 40, and 52 percent twi party preferred. This is my call, a hundred days out, or is it only ninety-nine. Polling in Dobell tomorrow and Sunday will support this, I am sure.
Watch this space.
And we will see what we shall see.]
http://www.ellistabletalk.com/2013/06/07/curse-you-john-faulkner-an-agonising-reappraisal/
Centre@269
Yes
How Labor wish they could’ve gone to the election with the CPRS, a policy agreed to by half the Coalition.
Instead they go to the election with JuLIAR.
Well done!
Silence here by the half yellow/half blue full mooners 😐
NBN will be connected to 0.21% of houses in SA by 2012-2013 rather than the 10% estimate, which is 1/50th.
Very poor.
[South Australian budget papers released on Thursday by Premier — and Treasurer — Jay Weatherill revealed the government had forecast that 10 per cent of all premises “would be connected to fibre broadband access by the NBN” in 2012-13.
However, the budget papers state the estimated result for the current financial year is just 0.21 per cent. The forecast for 2013-14 has been drastically revised to 2.5 per cent. “The 2012-13 estimated result is due to significant delays in the deployment of the NBN in SA,” the papers say.]
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/rollout-delays-hit-budget/story-e6frg6nf-1226659615904
I think it was leone over the road who said she was polled this morning by I think Reachtel. She lives in Lyne.
I enjoyed this (or most of it). It took me back a few decades to similar pseudo-scholarly writing of the past.
But a few perceptive statements, all the same.
http://www.ellistabletalk.com/2013/06/06/canberra-diary-d-day/
Rudd’s out and about trying to get the local Labor members re-elected.
Wheres Gillard?
Has any Bludger ever been polled at work? I have not heard of it happening.
Are the Greens seriously deluded not to think that the carbon tax has been a nightmare for the government?
The fact is that it could be possible for Abbott to control the Senate even after this election.
How ironic, the Greens get nothing on climate change at the end!
Beautiful 😎
*catch u later 🙂
Centre, just tell me how much better direct action will be.
Long term, climate change will become a more pressing issue internationally.
If international perception of us is of an apathetic and selfish bunch, how will that affect our exporters?
Sorry to point out that blind spot of yours 300 times the population of Australia.
Developing nations will be able to see our energy source and consumption metrics.
I don’t think you are considering our international competitiveness long term. We might be pretty smart, but there is only an easily replicable education system as well as established businesses making our labour competitive.
If you want us to be seen as a selfish bunch, go ahead, you have plenty of company. I hope you leave your kids something, because they sure aren’t going to be able to pull in the big bucks like we can now. In the future, particularly if we have conservative leadership, we will be nothing special on a competitive world stage.
Tisme.
What will you be knitting and where for World Wide Knit in Public Day?
As a political analyst, Bob Ellis makes a passable writer of provincial theatre restaurant melodrama.
[Has any Bludger ever been polled at work? I have not heard of it happening.]
No, thats why the polls keep underestimating the Coalition vote (QLD, NSW, NT Elections, etc etc).
Coalition voters are busy at work paying taxes while Labor voters are sitting at home doing phone polls.
[Are the Greens seriously deluded not to think that the carbon tax has been a nightmare for the government?
The fact is that it could be possible for Abbott to control the Senate even after this election.]
May well we say God Save the Queen, because nothing will save Adam Bandt.
The coalition put him into the job, now it’s time to sack him.
I complete research for Morgans at work but not political polling.
Tisme
One of the reasons Gallop identified for their predicting a Romney win, was that the changed from random number calling, to calling listed home numbers randomly.
It was a serious question, but fools like you only have smartarse answers.
If nobody gets rung at work, it means Australian pollsters are using a flawed method. That is why I asked the question.
Ruawake,
No you were trying to find yet another reason to pretend the polls aren’t showing a higher Labor vote.
We’ve heard them all before… they don’t call mobile phones… only old people do the polls… poor people can’t afford a landline… young people don’t do polls.
It’s all bullshit. The NSW and QLD polls under predicted the Coalition vote, not the Labor vote. If anything you could argue the polling is actually worse for Gillard than what we are seeing based on that trend.
[If nobody gets rung at work, it means Australian pollsters are using a flawed method.]
When Tone starts his sacking spree the method will be less flawed.
Perhaps Julia Gillard ought to make a short statement at the launch of the election campaign…: “Look, I know there are those who would have liked to see me come down harder on some in my cabinet and much harder on the opp’n..well, to those I say that is not how I believe a democraticly run govt’ should be managed….I am sure the leader of the opp’n has the opposite view as we have seen by his actions both contempory and past, so sure, if you want a leader that grabs every outspoken individual in the ministry by the throat and chokes the life out of them…then there’s your man…but I caution you to be carefull he doesn’t have hold of your throat!”
Australia is a good microcosm of how the world economy will look in the future. Tasmania and WA can’t profitably compete with east coast producers and service providers.
When the world becomes flat, we will be less important than Tasmania and WA are to the rest of Australia.
All that conservatives can do is slow this trend down through their usual tactics of enslaving the powerless. This tactic cannot continue in perpetuity, particularly when one considers the strength of online activism has in enlightening ordinary folk of how they are getting screwed over by class supremacists.
[Perhaps Julia Gillard ought to make a short statement at the launch of the election campaign…: “I resign”]
Fixed that for you
Tisme
Stop talking crap.
[Over the final weeks of the 2012 campaign, Gallup’s daily tracking poll showed President Barack Obama consistently trailing Romney, including a final survey that gave Romney a 1-point edge. Instead, Obama won by nearly 4 percentage points. While Gallup was far from the only polling firm to call the election wrong, its visibility and reputation, as well as the size of its error, made it one of the most notable.]
The polls in the US were wrong. Fact.
I do not care what the polls say at the moment, I do not believe in the pre campaign beauty contest. Come Mid August and the polls are the same I will call an LNP win, as I did in Qld last year.
So please stop playing games.
Tisme
NSW and Vic use optional preferential voting, although I doubt you know what that means.
Ruawake,
What did the NSW and QLD state polls say??
You are talking out of your arse. You pick 1 pollster who isn’t even in Australia in a country where compulsorary voting doesn’t exist using a handful of polls as proof that Australian pollsters don’t know what they are doing.
The truth is that Labor polled worse than the pollsters predicted before the NSW, QLD, NT and WA elections.
Now suddenly they are under representing the Labor vote at the Federal election because it suits your spin? Show us the evidence mate!
[Come Mid August and the polls are the same I will call an LNP win, as I did in Qld last year.]
Wow you are a polling genius… you predicted just before the QLD election Bligh would lose?
CENTRE 259 UNHINGED I THINK
_____________________How can you suggest putting the Greens last…that would ensure Lib victories in some senate seats and make an Abbott Govt supreme
Your hatred of’the Greens…typical of some here is so extreme that it is electoral madness
You prefer Abbott to a blocking Green senate balance of power
Get help !!
[The truth is that Labor polled worse than the pollsters predicted before the NSW, QLD, NT and WA elections]
So the polls were wrong, thanks for proving my point.
God its like having a conversation with a 3 year old.
Yes Ruawake,
They under predicted the Coalition vote.
The trend is your friend…