Lawler was Labor's hospital-pass leader after Natasha Fyles succumbed to repeatedly having no idea what a conflict of interest was. Historically the fate of third leaders in a term is grim, as was covered off in the poll launch article when Fyles resigned. Lawler probably deserved better for her efforts to clean up the mess than being dumped from her seat with a 21% swing but Palmerston had had a gutful, as had north-east Darwin, and the NT's history of turbulent electoral swings continued. Can Finocchiaro put a lasting end to the chaos?
How did the sidebar Not-A-Poll go at predicting that Lawler would be next to get the boot? This was one where the historic federal drag based argument that she would lose was pretty strong, but there were more votes overall for Steven Miles, who is up in a couple of months. There were also more for Jeremy Rockliff, who had to deal with two hostile crossbench defectors then called an election that many people probably thought he was going to lose. Because this site has a lot of Tasmanian readers, if some portion of the Tasmanian readers think the Tasmanian Premier is doomed then the Tasmanian Premier is likely to dominate the voting. But Rockliff survived.
Looking at votes cast solely after the March 23 Tasmanian state election, Miles led with 91 votes to 70 for Lawler and just 40 for Rockliff and 15 for Dutton. However late in this Not-A-Poll run awareness grew that Labor was at high risk of losing in the NT first, and from mid-June onwards Lawler received a plurality of votes, getting 44% of votes cast in August. Not-A-Poll might have done better had the middle of this year not been a pretty quiet time for the site in terms of events that attract high interest levels.
(A note that in theory Not-A-Poll should be closed during elections but I often forget. So votes cast after the polls close for an election where the incumbent loses are deleted.)
Not-A-Poll did not do brilliantly re the NT election result either with a narrow plurality only tipping a CLP majority.
The way ahead
It's only two months before the ACT (on Oct 19) and Queensland (Oct 26) have their elections. The Miles government is generally expected to fall (and probably even more likely to do so off the NT's reassertion that federal drag is a theory and a fact). There is no polling for the ACT where it is historically very difficult for anyone but Labor to win, so it would be brave for anyone to vote for Andrew Barr to be gone before Queensland, but maybe it could happen. None of the others appear likely to succumb in the next two months though Rockliff has encountered some instability with two crossbenchers who were supporting him kicked out of their party, and the probably forced resignation of the Infrastructure Minister (who is also the Treasurer) from that portfolio.
I don't understand the claim that Lawler losing is evidence that Miles will lose - I get what you mean by Federal drag, but having read your previous articles...we knew that already. Not to say I don't think there's ample evidence Miles /will/ lose - I'd just like to understand what the NT has to do with it.
ReplyDeleteThere's always the possibility with each new federal government, especially after benign state results during its honeymoon period, that maybe the drag effect has gone to sleep. (People running the silly "demographic extinction" theory every time the Coalition loses office federally are fond of this idea).
DeletePeople understand the difference between state and federal voting. I recall when the Cain/Kirner govt was on the nose... the harmed federal Labor. There is not so much an "it's time " as normally a govt gets elected then reelected. Each extra term gets harder.. 4th term is very difficult and if a govt wins a miracle election then they are due for the chop after that. IF of course a opposition is seen.as unable to govern than these "rules ' are bypassed.. eg Victoria in the Bolte years and in recent times
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