Secular seasons' greetings and best wishes for 2016 to all. Since this site started a few years ago, I've developed a strange habit of posting something every Christmas Day. As I may be too busy playing chess badly in early January to post all that much around then, I've taken the risk of going early with this year's prize for the unwise, the Ehrlich Awards for the wrongest predictions in a field of interest to this site made in or concerning the year 2015. The Ehrlichs are named for Paul Ehrlich, the ecological don of doom whose failed resources bet with Julian Simon and poor excuses for losing it (and litany of other false "scenarios") have given heart to those who snort derisively at the claim the world is rooned ever since. For previous instalments, and to see the groundrules, just click on the Ehrlich Awards tab at the bottom.
As usual we briefly glaze over hard-to-quantify bogus puffery from politicians of all varieties, spearheaded this year by Bill Shorten's commitment to the National Press Club "that Labor will be defined in 2015 by the power of our ideas." In fact, Labor was largely defined as a mirror of the government it opposed: popular by default while Tony Abbott clung to power then deeply unfashionable once he was given the boot. A few Labor policies attracted public attention (emissions targets, voting age, smoking excise) but it was not always the right kind of attention, and some of these were pilfered from the Greens. Labor has been releasing policies but none are especially original and so far hardly anyone has noticed. Mostly they smack of a strategy tried without success against John Howard: when you have nothing just trot out the usual, cover it with a sudden interest in technology and science and say you've discovered something new.
Showing posts with label NSW 2015. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NSW 2015. Show all posts
Friday, December 25, 2015
Thursday, April 16, 2015
Godless Wealthy Greens? Too Rich By Half
Advance Summary
1. A recent article claims that Greens voters are likely to be rich and to be atheists, agnostics or others who do not believe in God.
2. While the connection between Greens voting and irreligion might be sound, the connection between Greens voting and very high wealth is not.
3. Booth patterns in electorates with high Green votes tend to show that very rich booths within these electorates vote Liberal rather than Green.
4. The use of family income data for inner-city suburbs overestimates the proportion of very wealthy voters within them.
5. As income is also highly correlated with Liberal voting, it is much more likely that some high-income suburbs are attractive both to very rich voters and Greens voters, but for different reasons and without much overlap.
6. There is a tendency for higher-income voters to be more likely to vote Green overall but that tendency probably weakens among the very rich and is probably strongest among those with moderately high incomes.
7. Census data by electorate is an unreliable source of information about the reasons for minor party voting.
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1. A recent article claims that Greens voters are likely to be rich and to be atheists, agnostics or others who do not believe in God.
2. While the connection between Greens voting and irreligion might be sound, the connection between Greens voting and very high wealth is not.
3. Booth patterns in electorates with high Green votes tend to show that very rich booths within these electorates vote Liberal rather than Green.
4. The use of family income data for inner-city suburbs overestimates the proportion of very wealthy voters within them.
5. As income is also highly correlated with Liberal voting, it is much more likely that some high-income suburbs are attractive both to very rich voters and Greens voters, but for different reasons and without much overlap.
6. There is a tendency for higher-income voters to be more likely to vote Green overall but that tendency probably weakens among the very rich and is probably strongest among those with moderately high incomes.
7. Census data by electorate is an unreliable source of information about the reasons for minor party voting.
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Wednesday, April 15, 2015
New South Wales: Final Lower House Results And Poll Accuracy
The New South Wales Legislative Assembly election is fully counted. The Coalition government led by Mike Baird has retained office with 54 seats to 34 for the ALP led by Luke Foley, 3 for the Greens and 2 Independents.
Many basic details of the results were covered in my day-after wrap Decisive Win For Coalition. Apart from Lismore falling back over the line on declaration votes and because the preference flow to the Greens was weaker than that to Labor, no seats have changed hands in the postcount, and in the end the swing did not increase significantly in the postcount.
Vote Share, 2PP And Preference Change
The primary votes were 45.63% Coalition, 34.08% Labor, 10.29% Green and 10.00% Others (including 3.24% Christian Democrats and 2.02% No Land Tax with most of the rest for independents). The 2PP was 54.32% to the Coalition, a 9.9% swing.
Antony Green has posted a lot of goodies about the result including a very comprehensive new pendulum format that deals well with the three-cornered contests.
Many basic details of the results were covered in my day-after wrap Decisive Win For Coalition. Apart from Lismore falling back over the line on declaration votes and because the preference flow to the Greens was weaker than that to Labor, no seats have changed hands in the postcount, and in the end the swing did not increase significantly in the postcount.
Vote Share, 2PP And Preference Change
The primary votes were 45.63% Coalition, 34.08% Labor, 10.29% Green and 10.00% Others (including 3.24% Christian Democrats and 2.02% No Land Tax with most of the rest for independents). The 2PP was 54.32% to the Coalition, a 9.9% swing.
Antony Green has posted a lot of goodies about the result including a very comprehensive new pendulum format that deals well with the three-cornered contests.
Monday, March 30, 2015
New South Wales Postcount: Ballina
Ballina (Nat 24.6) Kris Beavis (Nat) vs Tamara Smith (Greens) vs Paul Spooner (ALP)
Outlook: Greens favoured.
Outcome: Greens have won preference distribution.
This thread follows post-counting in the NSW seat of Ballina. On election night this was widely called as a certain Green gain, the Greens being only slightly behind the Nationals on primaries. However extremely strong post-counting performance by the Nationals has both placed the Green win in doubt and also created a possible exclusion order issue. As absent votes have not been included yet, it is probable the seat now looks closer than it actually is and the Greens will still win fairly easily. However we need to see if this will actually be the case.
Ballina is one of the two far north coast seats where the Nationals have copped an enormous swing over coal seam gas issues and because of demographic change, the other being Lismore where the Greens' position in the postcount is somewhat weaker.
The ABC has been projecting Ballina as a certain Greens win, but what the ABC is showing for the Ballina Nationals vs Greens two-candidate contest are not real figures. Rather, they are ABC estimates of preference flow. It is very difficult to know exactly what the preference flow will be, other than that it is safe to assume it will be stronger than in 2011. In 2011 the net flow of all preferences in Ballina was that 58.8% of third-party preferences exhausted, and those not exhausting split 77% to the Greens and 23% to the Nationals. That gave the Greens a gain rate of .191 votes per preference. The gain rate required is the key statistic that I monitor for these contests.
Outlook: Greens favoured.
Outcome: Greens have won preference distribution.
This thread follows post-counting in the NSW seat of Ballina. On election night this was widely called as a certain Green gain, the Greens being only slightly behind the Nationals on primaries. However extremely strong post-counting performance by the Nationals has both placed the Green win in doubt and also created a possible exclusion order issue. As absent votes have not been included yet, it is probable the seat now looks closer than it actually is and the Greens will still win fairly easily. However we need to see if this will actually be the case.
Ballina is one of the two far north coast seats where the Nationals have copped an enormous swing over coal seam gas issues and because of demographic change, the other being Lismore where the Greens' position in the postcount is somewhat weaker.
The ABC has been projecting Ballina as a certain Greens win, but what the ABC is showing for the Ballina Nationals vs Greens two-candidate contest are not real figures. Rather, they are ABC estimates of preference flow. It is very difficult to know exactly what the preference flow will be, other than that it is safe to assume it will be stronger than in 2011. In 2011 the net flow of all preferences in Ballina was that 58.8% of third-party preferences exhausted, and those not exhausting split 77% to the Greens and 23% to the Nationals. That gave the Greens a gain rate of .191 votes per preference. The gain rate required is the key statistic that I monitor for these contests.
Sunday, March 29, 2015
New South Wales Postcount: Lismore
Lismore (Nat, 24.3%): Thomas George (NAT) vs Adam Guise (GRN) and Isaac Smith (ALP)
Assessment: Nationals favoured to retain.
Result (provisional following button press) Nationals retain
Assessment: Nationals favoured to retain.
Result (provisional following button press) Nationals retain
Original Article:
As my paragraph about the Lismore postcount got longer I decided to give it a thread of its own so the potentially many updates do not swamp the main postcount thread.
Lismore is one of the far north-east NSW seats where there have been massive swings to Labor and the Greens as a result of a combination of demographic change and concern about coal-seam-gas and other mining projects.
This seat caused a lot of confusion on the night as it swayed between being projected to the Greens and Labor on the ABC website. Today it has swayed between being projected to the Greens and the Nationals.
What is known is that current primaries as of Sunday are 39.9% Nationals, 29.4% Green, 25.4% Labor, 2.9% Christian Democrat, 1.5% Animal Justice and 1% No Land Tax.
While the gap between the Greens and Labor may narrow in post-counting, four points is too large to close down and the preferences of the tiddlers (especially the AJP) will most likely be slightly worse than useless to Labor in that regard. So the seat is between the Nationals and Greens.
New South Wales Postcount Thread
Legislative Assembly seats won: Coalition 54 Labor 34 Green 3 Ind 2
As of 10 April counting in all LA seats has concluded
This seat follows post-counts for undecided or otherwise interesting seats in the NSW state election, including the Legislative Council. Each seat has an overview with updates scrolling to the top. I've decided that Lismore, while not quite as thrilling as Prahran, is juicy enough to merit a thread of its own, so that's here: Lismore Postcount.
My review of the result can be found at New South Wales: Decisive Win For Coalition.
I am going to start by posting the Legislative Council and then edit the remaining unclear seats into the post progressively later today.
New South Wales: Decisive Win For Coalition
Seats apparently won: Coalition 52 Labor 32 Green 3 Ind 2
(Includes some seats not absolutely certain)
Seats in doubt and not included in list above:
East Hills: likely Liberal retain
Gosford: Labor leading
The Entrance: likely Labor win
Lismore: National vs Green, Nationals currently slightly favoured
Expected outcome Coalition 53-54 Labor 34 Green 3-4 Ind 2
Normal Programming Resumes
The Liberal-National coalition under Premier Mike Baird has won the NSW state election comfortably and decisively despite a large swing back from the massive margin in the 2011 poll. On present counting, both the primary votes and the seat distribution will finish up about as predicted before the election. The main surprise is a strong seat performance by the Greens, who without much increasing their statewide vote have won three or perhaps four seats.
Saturday, March 28, 2015
NSW Election Live Comments
Summary
Coalition wins with seat tally in the low to mid-50s.
(Estimate Coalition 53 Labor 34 Green 4 Ind 2. Includes at least four seats in doubt)
Exceptions to template pattern (Coalition losing seats below 8%, holding seats above):
Seats below 8%:
Oatley: Liberal retain
Monaro: National retain
East Hills: Liberals ahead
Seats above 8%:
Port Stephens: Labor gain.
The Entrance, Gosford ALP leading narrowly
Ballina: apparently lost to the Greens
Lismore: unclear Nationals vs Greens
Coalition wins with seat tally in the low to mid-50s.
(Estimate Coalition 53 Labor 34 Green 4 Ind 2. Includes at least four seats in doubt)
Exceptions to template pattern (Coalition losing seats below 8%, holding seats above):
Seats below 8%:
Oatley: Liberal retain
Monaro: National retain
East Hills: Liberals ahead
Seats above 8%:
Port Stephens: Labor gain.
The Entrance, Gosford ALP leading narrowly
Ballina: apparently lost to the Greens
Lismore: unclear Nationals vs Greens
Monday, March 23, 2015
New South Wales: The Final Week
NSW Primary Aggregate (updated 27 Mar) Coalition 45.4 Labor 34.0 Green 10.7 Others 9.9
2PP By 2011 Preferences: 55.8% to Coalition
Estimated 2015 Preferences: 54.0% to Coalition
Seat Projection (estimate): Coalition 53 Labor 36 Green 1 Ind 3
It's time to kick off my rolling post for the last week of the NSW election, which will be updated an unknown number of times through the week. Before posting too much detail and getting into some of the finer modelling detail - I've posted provisional figures above, but these will be revised through the week - I want to get something up about the big picture of where the polling is at.
From their position last week I thought there were three things Labor needed to do all of to still win the NSW election:
1. Reduce the primary vote gap to the Coalition compared to what polling was showing at that time.
2. Increase their preference flow from the Greens and minor parties compared to what polling was showing at that time.
3. Get lucky on the distribution of seat swings.
There is some evidence that 2 may be occurring. There is still some evidence that 3 is unusually likely. But as concerns 1, the four polls out in the last week don't provide cause for hope; indeed they suggest the gap is widening. No amount of preferencing or uneven seat swing magic will win it if the primary vote gap is too big. And so, based on current polls, Labor starts the final week in a losing position and needs a late swing back to have a realistic chance. The extent to which dramatic swings occur in most election campaigns is overstated and Labor's task if they want to win is very challenging now.
2PP By 2011 Preferences: 55.8% to Coalition
Estimated 2015 Preferences: 54.0% to Coalition
Seat Projection (estimate): Coalition 53 Labor 36 Green 1 Ind 3
It's time to kick off my rolling post for the last week of the NSW election, which will be updated an unknown number of times through the week. Before posting too much detail and getting into some of the finer modelling detail - I've posted provisional figures above, but these will be revised through the week - I want to get something up about the big picture of where the polling is at.
From their position last week I thought there were three things Labor needed to do all of to still win the NSW election:
1. Reduce the primary vote gap to the Coalition compared to what polling was showing at that time.
2. Increase their preference flow from the Greens and minor parties compared to what polling was showing at that time.
3. Get lucky on the distribution of seat swings.
There is some evidence that 2 may be occurring. There is still some evidence that 3 is unusually likely. But as concerns 1, the four polls out in the last week don't provide cause for hope; indeed they suggest the gap is widening. No amount of preferencing or uneven seat swing magic will win it if the primary vote gap is too big. And so, based on current polls, Labor starts the final week in a losing position and needs a late swing back to have a realistic chance. The extent to which dramatic swings occur in most election campaigns is overstated and Labor's task if they want to win is very challenging now.
Monday, March 16, 2015
New South Wales: March Poll Roundup And Seat Modelling
(For the final week's article go here - note added 26 Mar because this one for whatever reason is still getting more hits!)
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Current aggregate (updated March 19): Coalition 44.6 Labor 35.3 Greens 10.2 Other 10.0
2PP Estimate: 53.3% to Coalition (54.6 by last election preferences)
Current median seat projection: Coalition 52 Labor 37 Others 4
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Current aggregate (updated March 19): Coalition 44.6 Labor 35.3 Greens 10.2 Other 10.0
2PP Estimate: 53.3% to Coalition (54.6 by last election preferences)
Current median seat projection: Coalition 52 Labor 37 Others 4
Summary:
1. Recent polling shows the Coalition continuing to maintain a primary vote lead of at least eight points over Labor.
2. Recent polling also shows that while preferencing patterns among minor party voters may change, they are unlikely to change by nearly as much as in Queensland.
3. However, current polling when translated to seat projections suggests only a small Coalition majority.
4. There is more uncertainty than normal in translating the Coalition's current lead to seat results, and for this reason current voting intention levels do not quite assure the Coalition of victory.
5. Any narrowing of voting intention from this point would make a hung parliament significantly more likely.
Saturday, February 28, 2015
New South Wales Roundup: Is Even This A Bridge Too Far?
Time to kick off some NSW state election analysis, much of it in broad and general terms. I haven't done the usual seat-modelling yet; that will follow in a week or two.
Feds Will Destroy Everything
A common theme on this website is the massive influence of which party holds power federally on state elections. While this impact is not obvious in every election, and isn't even present in a few, there is a long-established pattern that is the very first thing anybody looking at state elections needs to know. Once a party has been in government federally for any length of time at all, it starts tending to shed seats in state elections. This process continues until it has lost most if not all of the states, and not long after that it will probably lose federally as well. A new federal government comes in with massive majorities in many states, and then starts losing those. Rinse and repeat.
Since the Liberal-National Coalition came to power federally it has faced four state elections, winning only Tasmania where an ancient Labor government could not escape retribution for a deeply disliked coalition with the Greens. This happened while the federal government was still relatively new. However, the Coalition has also lost office in Victoria and Queensland and failed to win in South Australia. The Victorian result was no surprise, SA was a vaguely forgiveable case of electoral geography 1, 2PP vote 0, but the Queensland result was an earthquake. The government that had won office with a record majority only three years earlier, almost wiping its predecessor out of Parliament, was sent packing (by one seat) with a 14% swing against it. The LNP's aggressive and divisive born-to-rule approach in office had done it no favours but things would have been very different had Julia Gillard still been in the Lodge.
With declining levels of rusted-on adherence to both major parties, there's just no such thing any more as a win so big that you cannot possibly waste it in a single term. That applies especially when the prevailing wind from Canberra is not in a party's favour. In fact, the idea that a seat margin at one election determines the seat margin at the next is overrated anyway - what winning big really does is just gives a party a lot of seats in which it has new personal votes. It turns out that in NSW even that doesn't apply much this time around. So is there such a thing as an election that is too hard to lose, or is nothing actually safe in state politics anymore?
Feds Will Destroy Everything
A common theme on this website is the massive influence of which party holds power federally on state elections. While this impact is not obvious in every election, and isn't even present in a few, there is a long-established pattern that is the very first thing anybody looking at state elections needs to know. Once a party has been in government federally for any length of time at all, it starts tending to shed seats in state elections. This process continues until it has lost most if not all of the states, and not long after that it will probably lose federally as well. A new federal government comes in with massive majorities in many states, and then starts losing those. Rinse and repeat.
Since the Liberal-National Coalition came to power federally it has faced four state elections, winning only Tasmania where an ancient Labor government could not escape retribution for a deeply disliked coalition with the Greens. This happened while the federal government was still relatively new. However, the Coalition has also lost office in Victoria and Queensland and failed to win in South Australia. The Victorian result was no surprise, SA was a vaguely forgiveable case of electoral geography 1, 2PP vote 0, but the Queensland result was an earthquake. The government that had won office with a record majority only three years earlier, almost wiping its predecessor out of Parliament, was sent packing (by one seat) with a 14% swing against it. The LNP's aggressive and divisive born-to-rule approach in office had done it no favours but things would have been very different had Julia Gillard still been in the Lodge.
With declining levels of rusted-on adherence to both major parties, there's just no such thing any more as a win so big that you cannot possibly waste it in a single term. That applies especially when the prevailing wind from Canberra is not in a party's favour. In fact, the idea that a seat margin at one election determines the seat margin at the next is overrated anyway - what winning big really does is just gives a party a lot of seats in which it has new personal votes. It turns out that in NSW even that doesn't apply much this time around. So is there such a thing as an election that is too hard to lose, or is nothing actually safe in state politics anymore?
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