Miscellany: redistributions, referendums and by-elections (open thread)

A review to what the electoral calendar holds between now and the next general elections in the second half of next year, including prospects for the Indigenous Voice referendum.

James Massola of the Age/Herald reports that “expectations (are) growing that former Prime Minister Scott Morrison will quit politics”, probably between the May budget and the end of the year, entailing a by-election for his seat of Cook. Please let it be so, because a valley of death stretches before those of us in the election industry out to the second half of next year, to be followed by a flood encompassing the Northern Territory on August 24, the Australian Capital Territory on October 19, Queensland on October 26 and Western Australia on March 8 the following year (UPDATE: It’s noted that the Queensland local government elections next March, inclusive as they are of the unusually significant Brisbane City Council and lord mayoralty, should rate a mention). A normal federal election for the House of Representatives and half the Senate could happen in the second half of 2024 or the first of 2025, the alternative of a double dissolution being presumably unlikely.

Redistributions will offer some diversion in the interim, particularly after the Electoral Commissioner calculates how many House of Representatives seats each state is entitled to in the next parliament on June 27. This is likely to result in Western Australia gaining a seat and New South Wales and Victoria each losing one (respectively putting them at 16, 46 and 38), initiating redistribution processes that are likely to take around a year. There is also an outside chance that Queensland will gain a thirty-first seat. The Northern Territory will also have a redistribution on grounds of it having been seven years since one was last conducted, although this will involve either a minimal tweak to the boundary between Solomon and Lingiari or no change at all. At state level, a redistribution process was recently initiated in Western Australia and should conclude near the end of the year. The other state that conducts a redistribution every term, South Australia, gives its boundaries commission wide latitude on when it gets the ball rolling, but past experience suggests it’s likely to be near the end of the year.

However, the main electoral event of the foreseeable future is undoubtedly the Indigenous Voice referendum, which is likely to be held between October and December. Kevin Bonham has a post on polling for referendum in which he standardises the various results, which differ markedly in terms of their questions and response structures, and divines a fall in support from around 65% in the middle of last year to around 58% at present. For those of you with access to academic journals, there is also a paper by Murray Goot of Macquarie University in the Journal of Australian Studies entitled “Support in the Polls for an Indigenous Constitutional Voice: How Broad, How Strong, How Vulnerable?” In narrowing it down to credible polls with non-binary response options (i.e. those allowing for uncommitted responses of some kind, as distinct from forced response polls), Goot finds support has fallen from around 58% to 51% from the period of May to September to the period of October to January, while opposition had risen from 18% to 27%. The change was concentrated among Coalition supporters: whereas Labor and especially Greens supporters were consistently and strongly in favour, support among Coalition fell from around 45% to 36%.

Forced response questions consistently found between 60% and 65% in favour regardless of question wording, while non-binary polls (i.e. allowing for various kind of uncommitted response) have almost invariably had at over 50%. Goot notes that forced response polls have found respondents breaking between for and against in similar proportion to the rest, which “confounds the idea that, when push comes to shove, ‘undecided’ voters will necessarily vote no”. However, he also notes that questions in non-binary polls that have produced active majorities in favour have either mentioned an Indigenous Voice or the Uluru Statement from the Heart, or “rehearsed the Prime Minister’s proposal to amend the Constitution”. One that conspicuously did not do any of these things was a Dynata poll for the Institute of Public Affairs, which got a positive result of just 28% by priming respondents with a leading question and then emphasised that the proposal would involve “laws for every Australian”. JWS Research got only 43% in favour and 23% against, but its response structure was faulted by Goot for including a “need more information” option, which ruled the 20% who chose it out of contention one way or the other.

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.

1,748 comments on “Miscellany: redistributions, referendums and by-elections (open thread)”

Comments Page 15 of 35
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  1. Former federal MP Andrew Laming is setting himself up for a return to politics and potential challenge for the seat of an LNP backbencher by running for branch chair in the Queensland electorate of Oodgeroo.

  3. You would think there would be a way to have both prefab homes (whatever is best and cheapest tiltup concrete whatever) that could actually be significantly cheaper, and modules like second floors / granny flats that can be dropped in.

    But it seems those products move the price toward the market, which I think deflates their demand.

  4. Some amazing work being done on modular residential and commercial buildings. Plenty of Australian companies do this. Modscape. Archiblox. Architecturally designed, factory built and erected in a week (site prep and post fitout required). Some clients are in the process mainly due to the time of build in these parts is getting insane for anything bespoke. Generally, these houses come with better efficiencies – some fully sealed options which most of the local builders avoid or charge a fortune and take an age to construct. These top end modular homes are not cheap. But they have significant other cost benefits.

    One client a few years ago got Chinese made modules – despite the warnings.

    There is also the insulated (sandwich) concrete panel construction that has me curious.

  5. Re the leak
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/11/pentagon-leak-traced-to-video-game-chat-group-users-arguing-over-war-in-ukraine

    >However, even that did not appear to be the original source: a third Discord server, named “Thug Shaker Central”, among other titles, may have been where the documents were originally posted as early as mid-January.

    >“Posts and channel listings show that the server’s users were interested in video games, music, Orthodox Christianity, and fandom for the popular YouTuber ‘Oxide’,” Toler said, referencing the military-themed YouTube channel. “This server was not especially geopolitical in nature, although its users had a staunchly conservative stance on several issues, members told Bellingcat. Racial slurs and racist memes were shared widely.”

    Last sentence seems to be code for neo-nazi/fascist server. Also the number of Americans with a deep interest in ‘Orthodox Christianity’ would not be that high.

  6. ”
    Upnorthsays:
    Wednesday, April 12, 2023 at 10:58 am
    Ven says:
    Wednesday, April 12, 2023 at 10:15 am

    I challenge you Leftie to ask any Labor supporter (other than Upnorth) on PB whether they support Blackie’s behaviour in public.
    I hate Nats because this kind of behaviour.
    中华人民共和国
    Huh? How did I get drawn into this? I don’t even know this “Blackie” character.

    I only pick fights to Tories and the odd Green.

    Geez Louise – I go out to find the Grilled Rat vendor has gone home for 7 days for the Songkran holidays, come home witn some odd smelling Somtum and now I’m mates with some bloke called “Blackie”.

    We Queensland ALP Members are far more genteel with each other. Oh don’t for a minute think we haven’t got factions, and dealings are tough, but 32 years of Tory rule and Bjelke Joh taught us to fight the real enemy.
    ”

    I apologise Upnorth if you thought the post implies that you approve of Blackie behaviour. I didn’t mean that. What I meant when I included your name is that since it appears you are an avid drinker (as per my understanding of your posts ) you understand that behaviour. But that doesn’t mean approve of that behaviour. I am in no way suggesting you worked as a staffer long time ago.

  7. What’s it with some people that couldn’t build a house of cards becoming immediate experts on why prefabricated houses aren’t a thing. Except of course they are. Reality is weird that way… getting in the way of their narratives.

  10. ”
    leftieBrawlersays:
    Wednesday, April 12, 2023 at 11:09 am
    ven if you think blackie is a degenerate then no doubt you would be no fun to have a drinking session with. Are you more of a $60 a bottle non-alcoholic gin type ?.
    ”

    No. I am teetotaler.

  13. Boerwar I’m tempted to place a small sportsbet on labour NZ forming a government of some sort after the election.

    Granted the current PM comes across (as Latham might say) as a bit of a nerdy pencil neck he appears nowhere near as divisive to the NZ electorate as Ardern and the massive amount of seats and margins she left the party with could very well be enough to at least allow them to cling on with a minority with the help of the greens and the seats reserved for the Polynesians

  14. Socrates:

    Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at 11:06 pm

    [‘Mavis

    I take their point that a lot of western ethics is entwined with the development of Christianity in the west. However I’m not sure I’d agree that it had a causative role in the formation of Liberal states.

    A lot of the principles of ethics and politics, including conceptions of justice, date back to Greek philosophy. This predated Christianity by 400 years and would have influenced the Judaic thinking of ancient Israel during the occupation by the Macedonian Successor kingdoms at least. Neitsche said that Christianity was “Plato for the masses” and I think he had a good point.

    That being said, the idea that even the king / ruler was subject to the rule of law does seem to be something that originated in the west, and it is obviously critical to the rule of law, individual freedom, and stable democracy.

    Some of these ideas you can trace back a long way. I was impressed by the reasoning in the funeral speech of Pericles in Thucydides. Themes in that have lasted 2500 years.’]

    The argument that the precepts of the ancient philosophers had a role in the development of Western liberal democracies can’t be denied. But as I see it, the central thesis of “The West” is that for democracy to thrive in the form it eventually did, the monotheism practised by Christians was a pivotal, incontrovertible factor.

    In short, once there was only one deity who held precedence above all others, the powers that be were held to account by, for want of a better phrase, a Higher Power; and, that many didn’t is neither here nor there. Incidentally, I’m an atheist and became one after being forced by my parents to attend a Billy Graham crusade in Sydney in ’59; thus I’m not pushing the Christian barrel.

  15. yabba says:
    Wednesday, April 12, 2023 at 11:42 am
    Cronus @ #679 Wednesday, April 12th, 2023 – 11:23 am

    Mass produced pre-fab homes have advantages but in every other way, all the same infrastructure developments (roads, power, shops, schools etc) are still required. It is a less expensive option for individual families initially but not entirely inexpensive more broadly.
    “Combined analysis by CoreLogic and Archistar identified 583,440 properties in Australia’s three biggest cities that meet the criteria for an additional self-contained unit of at least 60 sqm.”

    These potential homes have no requirement at all for additional sewerage mains, power supply, NBN, roadways or footpaths, and the shops and schools are already there. What are needed are well thought out incentives to encourage and realise a slam dunk major social benefit at minimal cost. Not like Jobkeeper, or the first home owner’s grants. Keep the super-greedy middle man rent seekers nasty fingers out of it!
    —————————————————————

    Even if it was only half that number it’s significant. Is there a link or do you happen to know the nature of these locations? Are they undeveloped plots, knockdowns, land on which existing houses could be moved to incorporate other homes? If practical, it sounds like a no-brainer so I wonder what’s currently preventing such development?

  16. A belated good morning all. Thanks for the roundup BK.

    Leeser resigning from Shadow Cabinet over the voice is pretty damning of Dutton’s leadership. A Labor leader would be “embattled” after that in Murdochspeak.

    Yet I think it is even worse than that for the Liberals. As much as the Australian Democrats before Meg Lees split them, the Liberal party is really split, and not in a good way. They are split between two far right factions.

    One faction is not religious or racist but believes in doing everything out of good old fashioned personal greed (British Torry wannabees). The other faction is highly religious and racist, and believes god wants them to have everything (US Republican wannabees). This makes them simultaneously narrow in appeal, yet unable to agree with each other.

    The world champions at surviving in office by wedging their opponents on everything from public education to nuclear submarines, have wedged themselves.

    The fact that one faction (the religious fundies) is larger than the other faction, does not help electorally when the dominant faction is only popular in one state, end even there does not represent a majority of that State’s voters.

  18. ”
    leftieBrawlersays:
    Wednesday, April 12, 2023 at 12:00 pm
    Ven out for a first ball golden duck-

    bowled Lillie caught milli vanilli
    ”

    It would be a honour to face Dennis Lillie as batsman even for one ball.

  19. ’Leeser resigning from Shadow Cabinet over the voice is pretty damning of Dutton’s leadership. A Labor leader would be “embattled” after that in Murdochspeak.’

    Also, the party would be “in disarray”.

  20. @Mavis: “The argument that the precepts of the ancient philosophers had a role in the development of Western liberal democracies can’t be denied. But as I see it, the central thesis of “The West” is that for democracy to thrive in the form it eventually did, the monotheism practised by Christians was a pivotal, incontrovertible factor.”

    Monotheism is also practices by Jews and Muslims of course, and democracy (without universal suffrage, but neither did Western democracy have that at first) was invented in a polytheistic culture, so that seems a bit weird.

    Western democracy has many parents. The English would point to the Magna Carta and the rise of primacy of Parliament over the King over hundreds of years including Cromwell’s interregnum 150 years before the French Revolution. Iceland’s Parliament is over 1000 years old. The French Revolution, obviously. The American Revolution, obviously. Reaction to WW1 in which the losing side of autocratic Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire had a common element and turning them into democracies like the victorious England, France and USA seemed like the “right” move, reinforced by reaction to WW2 and the USSR, ditto reaction to the whole colonial era as self-determination (an inevitably democratic concept) became important.

    In not a single one of these factors so far as I can tell is Christianity actually important – it just so happens that the “West” is predominantly Christian, historically. But so were the beaten Western autocracies.

  22. Boerwar @ #706 Wednesday, April 12th, 2023 – 12:02 pm

    NZ polling.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/12/new-zealand-labour-tied-with-national-in-latest-polls-six-months-out-from-election

    Something is wrong with politics and/or the media when a party that “actively campaigns against the rights of the tangata whenua [Indigenous people]” is still entitled to be described as “libertarian”. Removing rights and liberties from people is the opposite of what that word is supposed to mean.

  23. Arky: “In not a single one of these factors so far as I can tell is Christianity actually important – it just so happens that the “West” is predominantly Christian, historically. But so were the beaten Western autocracies.”

    As was nazi germany. And Victorian england. And Imperial France. And pre-WW1 gernmany for that matter. The US was specifically formed to NOT be a christian nation. (re: treaty of Tripoli)

    https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/2144/1797-treaty-of-tripoli

    “Article 11 of the treaty stated: “As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religious or tranquility of Musselmen, and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.” ”

    This narrative that the church should be thanked for democracy is ludicrous. Modern democracy came about because those integrated government/church strucutres were dismantled. Violently.

  26. @Rex:
    “Surely Albanese wouldn’t take us into a war without UN Security Council authorisation again …?”

    This the UN Security Council on which Russia, China and the United States all have a veto?

    I don’t think that’s the bright line it briefly was.

  31. On housing, it is a huge problem so no one policy will fix it. An affordability solution of the required magnitude would send too many mortgagees broke. A housing supply solution of the required magnitude is claimed not to be build-able by our current construction workforce.

    Looking at the raw numbers, Australia’s population has grown by around 250,000 to 300,000 people per year for most of the last two decades. Assuming average household occupancy of 2.6 that requires 100,000 new homes per year. In addition, if you take the average life of a house as 100 years, and we have 11 million dwellings, we need a replacement stock of 110,000 homes per year, or 210,000 new homes and apartments per year.

    On the supply side, average dwelling construction per year has varied from 180,000 per year to over 240,000 per year in the past decade, but averaged over 200,000. That excludes renovations of existing structures. Overall, the housing supply increase per year looks close to the require total rate.
    https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/building-and-construction/building-activity-australia/dec-2022

    So the problem really looks to be affordability more than supply capacity. Worst case, we could always tweak immigration down a little and the supply problem would be fixed. How to fix affordability?

    Avoiding a “single silver bullet” policy approach, affordability will be a long term fix by acting on the following in combination:
    – capping amount of Air BNB etc to keep the hotel market and the housing market stable (or make Air BNB homes may commercial planning/land use fees similar to hotels)
    – capping negative gearing like super was capped at $3 million. No tax paid on property below $4 million, then pay tax after that?
    – increasing tenants rights by national policy or legislation establishing tenants rights
    – limiting land banking by developers by putting sunset clauses on rezoning approvals (use it or lose it)
    – free TAFE places for basic trade courses to train more construction industry workers
    – a return to government building inspectors and national consistent building regulations. Building uninhabitable buildings does not help.
    – encouraging wage inflation!
    – therefore, changing the RBA board, and giving it new policy objectives.
    –

  32. “ Twitter has ceased to be an independent company after merging with a newly formed shell firm called X Corp, driving speculation about what Elon Musk intends for the social media platform.”
    “ The world’s second-richest man has professed his desire to make X similar to China’s WeChat, a super-app owned by Tencent and used for everything from payments and booking event tickets to messaging.”

    https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/twitter-no-longer-exists-musk-merges-firm-20230411-p5czpe

  33. Leftiebrawler
    Only drink when I’m in Victoria with my snowboarding mates.The bottle of Maker’s Mark 46, 94proof that I have in the cupboard has been untouched since I was having drinks with a couple of mates just after Christmas. One was a cousin of Peter Reith, the other a cousin of Julie Bishop. Reith’s cousin doesn’t vote but favours Labor, Bishop”s cousin is considered a town eccentric who takes his chickens for walks, nice bloke cops a bit of grief though.

    My gripe is with your mentor but fortunately for him he’s to old for me to lay into him should he still be around the next time I visit the hill, not that I would because I abhor violence and have never started a fight in my life.

  34. The English would point to the Magna Carta

    So do Sovcits when refusing to show their rego and drivers license while “travelling”.

  35. The obvious easy thing to do would be to ban foreign ownership of Australian residential property (other than maybe Kiwis because they allow us to buy there).

    Dont understand why this cant be done? There are strong arguments that some of the money coming in is dirty money being washed in especially Sydney Harbour property.

    Doesnt seem like either side is open to this – presumably because it would deflate property prices?

  37. Arky / Pi

    “This narrative that the church should be thanked for democracy is ludicrous. Modern democracy came about because those integrated government/church structures were dismantled. Violently.”

    I argued similarly in a reply to Mavis last night. After I saw episode 2 of the series, I thought there were many holes with their whole definition of “the West” and where concepts originated. The choice to start the history of the west in post Roman western Europe left out the influence of the Greek philosophers, who pre-dated Christianity.

    Many ideas central to western democracy including individual freedom and autonomy, ethics, and reason itself (!) started with Greek philosophy and were co-opted into Christianity centuries later.

    I thought the 3rd episode on the rule of law was much better.

    PS almost forgot – the whole idea you can trace the history of western democracy from England is a litle tough, considering that Iceland is easily the world’s oldest democracy, and pre-dates English parliament by 600 years. No monarch required.

  39. Arky:

    Wednesday, April 12, 2023 at 12:45 pm

    If you haven’t already done so, I urge you to view “The West” doco series on YouTube.

  40. Lars Von Trier @ #689 Wednesday, April 12th, 2023 – 11:30 am

    Yabba :
    2000 old bomb car
    6000 fuel cost annual
    1000 rego and green slip annual
    1000 insurance annual
    X? Service costs annually to keep the bomb on the road
    Environmental vandal spewing crap into the air.

    As usual with you L’arse, wall to wall ignorant bullshit.

    2008 luxury 7 seater. Quiet, super comfortable, super reliable. Everything works as per brand new.
    Original purchase price for first owner in 2008, $54,000 in 2008, cf Camry top of line V6 $29,000.

    Under $2,000 per year fuel for 15,000 km. (Actual incurred, last 12 months.)
    $820 total for green slip and rego
    $610 insurance pa, with $650 excess.
    Service $285 per 15,000 km plus tyres, pads as required.
    About $4000 all up.
    CO2 emissions 2.1 tonnes per year.

    Merc electric. 15,000 km per year, power consumption 2,500 kWh.
    In NSW 75% from coal, with 20% transmission losses.
    CO2 emissions 2.2 tonnes per year, not counting massive additional methane emissions from coal mines. Way more in Victoria. Obviously less if solar charged.
    Embedded CO2 in new car production vs continued use of perfectly fine 14 year old luxury 7 seater.
    About 8 tonnes CO2. (European Environmental Agency)
    ie about 4 years deficit if purely solar powered, and ignoring significant embedded emissions involved in solar power setup.

    There is a simple answer to every question, and it is always wrong.

  41. Too much youtube, not enough history books.

    yabba: “In NSW 75% from coal, with 20% transmission losses.”

    That’s a load of crap. If you want to talk about ‘transmission losses’ how about you include the emissions of the transport that gets your fuel to you and the losses relating to extraction and refinement. Let alone the infrastructure needed to store that fuel that is put into your car. That 20% was pulled out of a dark space directly beneath you.

    If you don’t have a point to make without making shit up, you don’t have a point.

  42. Mavis

    Thanks for the link to the series “The West” which I watched Episodes 1 to 3 of last night. I really liked episode 3 on the Rule of Law for the reasons we discussed earlier last evening. I will watch the rest with interest.

    However after watching episode 2 I thought there were a lot of historical holes in their attempts to link Christianity to the development of western liberal democratic states. I posted this reply at 11.06 pm last night

    “I take their point that a lot of western ethics is entwined with the development of Christianity in the west. However I’m not sure I’d agree that it had a causative role in the formation of Liberal states.

    A lot of the principles of ethics and politics, including conceptions of justice, date back to Greek philosophy. This predated Christianity by 400 years and would have influenced the Judaic thinking of ancient Israel during the occupation by the Macedonian Successor kingdoms at least. Neitsche said that Christianity was “Plato for the masses” and I think he had a good point.

    That being said, the idea that even the king / ruler was subject to the rule of law does seem to be something that originated in the west, and it is obviously critical to the rule of law, individual freedom, and stable democracy.

    Some of these ideas you can trace back a long way. I was impressed by the reasoning in the funeral speech of Pericles in Thucydides. Themes in that have lasted 2500 years.”

  44. Leftiebrawler
    I took issue with you saying that Broken Hill types would would have issues with Earlwood and implied that he wouldn’t want to be in the bar with him,go back and read what you said last night.

    You remind me of Tom Koutsantonis, all mouth little brains.

  45. I didn’t imply anything- I said I’d like blackie to be in a room wi the him to give him a good taking- no inference of physical violence and none was conveyed.

  47. Brawler, no one is interested in your adoration of a drunkard from the remote parts of NSW.

    You’re livin’ in the past, man! You’re hung up on some clown from the sixties, man!

  48. The other really critical point on EV emissions is that in the real world most (80+% in RACV survey) recharge their EV from their roof top solar panels. Most life cycle vehicle emissions are from driving, not manufacture. I agree with all of PI’s other points.

    We don’t have to guess these things. There are published studies of net lifecycle GHG emissions per vehicle by motor type for Australian cars. Jake Whitehead did several studies of this at UQ
    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328782184_Where_are_we_heading_with_electric_vehicles

    And
    https://theconversation.com/clean-green-machines-the-truth-about-electric-vehicle-emissions-122619

  49. Socrates:

    Wednesday, April 12, 2023 at 1:29 pm

    [‘Mavis

    Thanks for the link to the series “The West” which I watched Episodes 1 to 3 of last night. I really liked episode 3 on the Rule of Law for the reasons we discussed earlier last evening. I will watch the rest with interest.’]

    You’re welcome. I think the series is scholarly & convincing but accept that others take a contrary view. Apparently, there are 6 episodes. I’ll be interested in the last one as it may speak to the current geopolitical standoff.

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