Move it or lose it

As privately conducted seat polling continues to fly thick and fast, a series of disputes have developed over whether election candidates really live where they claim.

Three items of seat polling intelligence emerged over the weekend, none of which I’d stake my house on:

• Samantha Maiden of news.com.au reports a uComms poll of 831 respondents for GetUp! shows independent Zoe Daniel leading Liberal member Tim Wilson in Goldstein by 59-41 on two-candidate preferred and 35.3% to 34.0% on the primary vote, with Labor on 12.5%, the Greens on 8.9% and an undecided component accounting for 4.6%. It should be noted that the campaigns are clearly expecting a closer result, and that uComms is peculiarly persisting with a weighting frame based entirely on age and gender, which was common enough before 2019 but has generally been deemed insufficient since.

• Andrew Clennell of Sky News yesterday related polling conducted for the Industry Association of 800 respondents per seat showed Liberals incumbents trailing 58-42 in Robertson and 53-47 in Reid, and Labor leading by 56-44 in Parramatta and 54-46 in Gilmore, both of which the Liberals hope to win, and 57-43 in Shortland, which has never looked in prospect. The polling provided better news for the Coalition in showing the Liberals with a 57-43 lead in Lindsay and the Nationals trailing by just 51-49 in Labor-held Hunter. Clennell further related that “similar polling conducted earlier in the campaign also shows the government behind in Bennelong and Banks”. A fair degree of caution is due here as well: no indication is provided as to who conducted the polling, and its overall tenor seems rather too rosy for Labor.

• By contrast, local newspaper the North Sydney Sun has detailed results for North Sydney from Compass Polling, an outfit hitherto noted for polling conducted for conservative concerns that has then been used to push various lines in The Australian, which suggests independent Kylea Tink is running fourth and the threat Liberal member Trent Zimmerman faces is in fact from Labor’s Catherine Renshaw. The poll has Zimmerman on 34.9%, Renshaw on 25.0% and Tink on 12.4%, with Greens candidate Heather Armstrong on 15.0%. The online poll was conducted on May 6 from a sample of 507.

Speaking of staking houses, a fair bit of the electorate-level noise of the late campaign has related to where candidates claim to live for purposes of their electoral enrolment. The ball got ralling when The Australian reported that Vivian Lobo, the Liberal National Party candidate for the marginal Labor-held seat of Lilley in Brisbane, appeared not to live within the electorate at Everton Park as claimed on his enrolment. Labor’s demand that Lobo be disendorsed – always a challenging prospect after the close of nominations – was complicated on Saturday when Labor’s star candidate for Parramatta, Andrew Charlton, blamed an “oversight” for his enrolment at a Woollahra rental property owned by his wife a month after they moved to the electorate he hopes to represent.

The Liberals have naturally sought to maximise Labor’s embarrassment, with the Daily Mail quoting one over-excited party spokesperson calling on Labor to refer Charlton to the Australian Federal Police, as Lobo had been by the Australian Electoral Commission. But as the AEC’s media statement on the issue noted, Lobo has actively identified the Everton Park property as his residential address on his enrolment and nomination forms, potentially putting him in the frame for providing false or misleading information to a Commonwealth officer, punishable by a maximum 12 months’ imprisonment and $12,600 fine.

By contrast, Charlton’s is a sin of omission: failing to update his enrolment within the prescribed one month time frame after changing address, punishable only by a fine of $222 and in practice hardly ever enforced. There remains the question of why he was enrolled in Woollahra rather than at the Bellevue Hill property where he and his wife were living before their recent move to North Parramatta, but it’s difficult to see what ulterior motive might have been in play.

Now a new front has opened in the seat of McEwen on Melbourne’s northern fringe, where the Liberals are hopeful of unseating Labor member Rob Mitchell. Sumeyya Ilanbey of The Age reports today that Labor has asked the AEC to investigate Liberal candidate Richard Welch, who lives 50 kilometres from the electorate in the Melbourne suburb of Viewbank but listed an address in Wallan on his nomination form. Welch claims he had been living separately from his family in Wallan at the time of his nomination, but moved to his own property in Viewbank just days later after his landlord sold the house and terminated the lease.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,514 comments on “Move it or lose it”

Comments Page 22 of 31
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  1. “Leigh Sales’s style is pretty consistent IMO. I’ve watched her interview different politicians (even James Comey), and it’s normally respectful but tough. I do feel though she can ask more, better follow-ups; sometimes she just let the guest escape.”

    I must have missed all her good ones.

    With Morrison I would expect she’d do a gentle walk through lnp talking points.

    Isn’t that what ABC ‘balance’ requires?

  3. @alias… of course.

    But, the weird thing – I had very similar concerns before the 2016 US election and the 2019 election here. A strong feeling “something” was off. No idea what it was, but a high level of concern. TBF – I tried to ignore those concerns, mostly because I was convincing myself I was just traumatised from what happened to Hillary. But as a consequence I’ve stopped focusing on numbers and models etc etc – but trusting my gut and the vibe.

    BUT since I stopped trying to make it more technical than it really is, my record on these things has been pretty good- I never had a moment’s doubt about Trump losing – even if he didn’t lose by the landslide he deserved to, he still lost. At no point over the last six months, I’m being really honest here, have I felt the Morrison Government was going to be re-elected. We’ll just have to see.

  4. Here’s a thought:

    Election on Saturday
    Quad Meeting on Tuesday in Tokyo – at which the Australian PM is expected to attend.

    Assume not every seat is called on Saturday night (which seems likely).
    Logistically how do you elect a ministry and have a swearing in time to attend the Quad meeting.

    What’s the solution? Albo-Marles-Wong triumvirate is sworn in Sunday afternoon/ Monday Morning. You’d swear in Wong because she will be needed for the quad meeting. Labor ministry elected on Friday and sworn in next Monday. At a stretch maybe swear in Marles too as defence minister?

    Shades of Whitlam/Barnard duumvirate in 1972.

    That will warm some of your hearts surely?

    Albo and Wong fly to Tokyo on Monday night to represent the country.

  5. Well jt1983, you’ve just reassured me!

    Re Leigh Sales: A short extract on ABC TV 7pm news in Melbourne suggests it’s a pretty tough interview.

  6. I think this time Australian polling is unlikely to be as off as 2019, but your electoral system makes the result inherently unpredictable, to some extent.

  7. Re: Forde. Forde was on 0.63% LNP margin after the 2016 election. It blew out massively to 8.6% in 2019; and I say from personal experience that this was largely related to the outright lie about Labor and death taxes. Other outright lies from the past, such as about refugees getting exorbitant payments, have also been extremely effective. The community is suffering: disturbing increases in house prices, rental prices and homelessness – the eye is mainly on cost of living now. But the targeted Google ads I am getting are trying to rehash the death taxes lie that many still believe.

    I think Labor is slightly behind in Forde. But it is much closer than anyone is going to care to talk about. It is just us bogans out this way, after all. The bogans, united, will never be defeated… but we are so easily divided 🙁 Still perhaps worth a punt.

    Now I am nervous about the LNP housing policy. It is complete trash, of course, that will only push up house prices and kneecap retirement savings; more transfer of wealth upwards. My concern is that it will get traction among a certain demographic – the same demographic that thought Covid was a great opportunity to raid their super unnecessarily. It’s typical Scotty from Marketing; this could bite us in places like, well, Forde and Longman. The only positive I can see is maybe it backfiring in some other seats – Higgins? North Sydney?

    I’m still tipping an ALP win but nervous enough to not put a percentage or number of seats on it tonight.

  9. PVO has mastered the art of clickbait …

    I have leaked polling for four key seats. Literally handed the full details, not just given a flavour of it. It’s not a “drop”, it’s unauthorised. Will reveal the full details tomorrow night. Some shocking results. #auspol 

  10. @alias

    Colour me semi surprised, I know some party members carried cards back in the early days. I thought by the 50’s it was more a figure of speech than a real thing.

  11. Ven @ #913 Monday, May 16th, 2022 – 5:52 pm

    Because Sandman said Wentworth could be in play because Sharri Markson is trying to portray Albanese as anti-Semitic. I said McNamara could be in play.
    If Wentworth is not in play because of how Albanese is portrayed then McNamara will not be. 🙂

    OK, but I ask the same thing about Wentworth, then – why would it be in play because of this?

  12. Re Quad meeting, I think whatever the result, but especially when the result is close and unclear, the solution should be pretty simple – both party leaders go together. I just don’t know if Morrison is willing to do it, given his personality.

    Merkel brought Scholz to G20 summit when he was still negotiating the new coalition, for example.

  13. @alias – that wasn’t my intention, lol – I could still be wrong (I don’t think I will be), low primaries and unpredictable preference flows could give us anything from Morrison having to cobble together a coalition of chaos to a Labor blowout.

  14. Lars

    If a new PM is sworn in on Sunday, that means the old one is effectively ‘sworn out’ – does that affect Morrison’s pursuit of Curtin’s time in the job?

    I think he will be level with Curtin on3 years 271 days on Sunday.

    Some have uncharitably suggested that’s why he chose May 21st not May 14th as was widely expected.

  15. @ alias

    I’m in New Zealand, a new immigrant here; permanent residents can vote in NZ elections, so I’ll be voting next year.

  18. Late Riser says:
    Monday, May 16, 2022 at 6:24 pm
    Dinner beckons. And just BTW, those guesses are rolling in too fast for me to get them all plugged in. I’ll do that later tonight. Now hoping for a “report” in the morning.
    (back soon…
    中华人民共和国
    Gee you are having your dinner late. It’s Tea time now.

    Labor 82 seats – that’s all I’m good for cobber.

  21. Does anyone know where on the internet we can find booth matched swings on Saturday?

    William Bowe in recent elections has provided an excellent service on this site, which had all the booth matched swings you could ever need. However, he is now otherwise engaged.

    The ABC I think only publishes booth matched swings for seat projections which are only published after 10% counted.

    I also don’t think the AEC provides booth matched swing on its Virtual Tally Room.

    So any tips on where we can find booth matched swings on election night?

  22. @Rocket – technically, Morrison will need to resign his commission first to reflect the outcome of the election should they lose.

    So unless the result is really clear, Morrison concedes on Saturday and resigns on Sunday – it’s hard to see a swearing-in happening on the same day (it has happened when there’s been leadership flips)- but the arrangements for the trip can be made very quickly.

  23. Ok, my first crack at the Election Poll;

    ALP: 82 (Gain: Swan, Pearce, Hasluck,
    Boothby, Chisholm, Higgins, Bass, Braddon, Longman, Brisbane, Reid, Bennelong, Robertson)
    LNP: 61
    IND: 6 (Goldstein + Wentworth gains)
    GRN: 1
    KAT: 1

    TPP: 54.1-45.9
    AG CALL: 9.30pm
    BEST ROUGHIE: Herbert

  26. The Quad meeting: It could be like the Potsdam Conference. The UK election was held on July 5th 1945 and results were held back until the 25th of July. This was right in the middle of the Potsdam conference with Stalin and Truman. Churchill had flown in for the start on July 17 but then Attlee was elected in a landslide and became PM, flew in and took over.

  28. DPRee @ #906 Monday, May 16th, 2022 – 5:48 pm

    ‘Why Albo wins, and ScoMo loses, with women voters’ – AFR article

    https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/why-albo-wins-and-scomo-loses-with-women-voters-20220515-p5alio

    ‘This is Morrison’s real women problem – not that he is a misogynist, just that the man he represents has fallen out of fashion. The Liberals are going to need to plot their way around this, or they will be in the wilderness for quite some time’.

    *cough*Bullshit!*cough*

    SfMs problem with female voters is that he treats us with contempt through his inaction. He has no empathy towards us.

    SfM can’t ‘plot’ his way around womens’ issues. He could try empathising with us, but we all know how well his consultant worked…

    The difference between this:

    When Scott Morrison asks Jenny what she thinks he cops flak,

    and this…

    but when Albanese says he always tries to think what his mother would do he gets applauded.

    is empathy.

    SfM can’t think for himself, so he deferrs mental effort he should be putting into an issue to someone else. Albo actually tries to put himself in his mothers’ position and consider the implications. Empathy.

    (Definitely not a go at you DPRee!)

  29. “Experts broadly believe that nationwide two-party-preferred polling is a more reliable predictor of the election outcome and that individual seat polls can be fraught.

    Kevin Bonham, an electoral studies and scientific research consultant, says a constant problem for seat-specific polls is “demographic churn”, especially in inner-city seats, where there are “a lot of transient votes”.

    “They have a long history of being very badly polled,” Bonham says.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/16/will-australias-opinion-polls-be-more-accurate-in-2022-than-at-the-last-election?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

  30. Good luck with settling in over there Jude. Never a breeze to move countries.

    You’re clearly a politics junkie if you’re keeping an eye on this place (and from the way you phrased it, I’m assuming you’re not from Australia).

  32. Freya Stark says:
    Monday, May 16, 2022 at 5:50 pm
    Even I would think a 2pp of 52.2 to ALP would be a majority Labor government.

    Not many Coalition marginals under 5%, and they can absorb very big swings in safe seats, be behind in the TPP and still get within strike of gvt. There were some theoretical models knocking around last year that showed the Coalition could win majority off 48.5 TPP. And remember 1998!

  33. Re Leigh Sales, I think someone could write a PhD on the inability of people with strongly partisan views to objectively assess the performance of political journalists.

    I’m very occasionally underwhelmed by Sales’ interviews, but overall I think she’s smart, tenacious and generally fair-minded.

    I have some reservations about certain other ABC journalists though can’t think of any that fall into the Sky News after Dark category of partisan journalism.

  34. jt1983 @ #609 Monday, May 16th, 2022 – 7:19 pm

    @Rocket – technically, Morrison will need to resign his commission first to reflect the outcome of the election should they lose.

    So unless the result is really clear, Morrison concedes on Saturday and resigns on Sunday – it’s hard to see a swearing-in happening on the same day (it has happened when there’s been leadership flips)- but the arrangements for the trip can be made very quickly.

    I heard Penny Wong saying on TV that Labor had made arrangements to be in Tokyo if necessary.

  35. Isle of Rocks @ #1069 Monday, May 16th, 2022 – 7:18 pm

    Does anyone know where on the internet we can find booth matched swings on Saturday?

    William Bowe in recent elections has provided an excellent service on this site, which had all the booth matched swings you could ever need. However, he is now otherwise engaged.

    The ABC I think only publishes booth matched swings for seat projections which are only published after 10% counted.

    I also don’t think the AEC provides booth matched swing on its Virtual Tally Room.

    So any tips on where we can find booth matched swings on election night?

    Ben Raue’s ‘The Tally Room’ ?

  38. @alias

    I’m not Aussie – I’ve visited Sydney and Mel before covid – lovely cities.

    I’m technically settled – it’s been a few years already, but housing is also insane here.

  39. So the election campaign has entered madness territory. Let’s raid our super to speculate on property, nothing short of irresponsible.

  40. @jt1983 – exactly the same for me. Trump 2016 I abandoned the analytical habits of a lifetime seeking reassurance the night before because even with no particular disbelief of the national polls, I could see the path for a Trump win in states that were underpolled and where primary polls had already been badly off, the trend was not our friend, and the bad Hillary campaign (including the late FBI surprise) had me extremely worried that the US pundits were way underestimating the chances of a Trump win.

    Come 2019 here, and it was similar although different. The campaign was so bad, the poll margin was always narrow, I found it hard to believe there was not more movement, there was never seat or state level polling to say with any certainty a path to victory for Shorten, and again ended up just clinging to “well, surely this many polls this consistently aren’t going to be wrong” and overrode my instincts.

    This time so far I think the campaign after week 1 had been Albo’s, there’s multiple clear paths to get enough seats and then some, the polls can be a few percent wrong and the win should still be there. I’ll panic if we get a sudden, like, 52-48 Newspoll and 50-50 essential but that’s about it.

  41. Lars Von Trier @ #1049 Monday, May 16th, 2022 – 7:08 pm

    Here’s a thought:

    Election on Saturday
    Quad Meeting on Tuesday in Tokyo – at which the Australian PM is expected to attend.

    Assume not every seat is called on Saturday night (which seems likely).
    Logistically how do you elect a ministry and have a swearing in time to attend the Quad meeting.

    What’s the solution?

    Caretaker conventions would still apply, but as the guide to the conventions says, they are conventions not rules.

    See Chapter 6 for the conventions in the case of the Quad meeting,

    https://www.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/publications/guidance-caretaker-conventions-2021.pdf

  42. Rocket Rocket @ #1062 Monday, May 16th, 2022 – 7:15 pm

    Lars

    If a new PM is sworn in on Sunday, that means the old one is effectively ‘sworn out’ – does that affect Morrison’s pursuit of Curtin’s time in the job?

    I think he will be level with Curtin on3 years 271 days on Sunday.

    Some have uncharitably suggested that’s why he chose May 21st not May 14th as was widely expected.

    Scott Morrison is no John Curtin. No matter how long he is in the job.

  44. The ScoMo interview with Sales is pre-recorded. Would have been the condition set by the PMO, so the bloopers can edited out

  45. @Geetroit

    The relative swings of seats typically get scrambled from election to election, and there are always surprises, so I would be extremely surprised for either side to not get a majority on 52.2% of the 2pp. In 1998 Labor only got just under 51.0% of the 2pp.

    That being said, a hung parliament off a much lower 2pp result for Labor (50.5 to 51.5) remains a distinct likelihood. This could lead to either a Labor or Coalition minority government or possibly a snap repeat election.

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