An ominous comparison can be made between the Keating Government facing the 1993 election and the Fraser Government facing defeat in 1983.
It comes down to the number of marginal seats.
Labor has a majority of nine seats (assuming Wills is Labor and North Shore anti-Labor). An even swing of 0.9 per cent will tip five seats to the Coalition, giving it a majority.
Since 1983, the number of marginal seats held by Labor has steadily increased. (By marginal I mean requiring under 5 per cent swing to change hands.) As the bottom line of the table shows, Labor had 13 marginals just before the 1983 election rising steadily to 31 just before the 1993 election. The size of the House was increased from 125 to 148 after the 1983 election. The Coalition had 28 marginals going into the 1983 election (about the same percentage of the House as Labor has now). This election the Coalition has 22 marginals.
The table shows cumulatively the number of seats requiring swings of under 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 per cent to change hands. In all brackets, Labor is in a worse position than at any of the previous four elections.
Governments tend to have more marginals than Oppositions. First, because they have more seats and thus on average are likely to have more marginals. Secondly, because elections are determined by a small percentage of swinging voters at the margin, perhaps as few as 10 per cent. Governments get elected because they command this territory. The consequence is that they have more marginal seats.
In the ordinary run of things, you would expect that the larger the Government’s majority, the more marginals it would have. Labor’s history since 1983, however, has been to some extent the opposite. The smaller its majority, the greater number of marginals it has had to defend.
It may have been just an aberration, but the most likely explanation is the development in the past 10 years of the marginal-seat policy, where the party puts most of its effort into close seats, both its own and those of the other party.
The marginal-seat policy is not the sole province of Labor. Indeed, its first significant use was by Greens in the 1983 campaign. Pressure groups seeking favours from governments or notoriety campaign in marginal seats and seats with high-profile major-party candidates. The latter is of no moment but will no doubt continue. The former is electorally significant.
Labor would have won in 1983, but the Greens’ campaign was none the less seen as effective and Labor strategists worked the marginals.
Organisation at a local level is as important as the big picture in an election. It is one of the main reasons the National Party does so well. It has more members than any other party. They target their seats. And in the 1990 House election got 10 per cent of the seats with 8 per cent of the votes. The Democrats got 11 per cent of the vote and no seats.
For the major parties it is equally important: manning polling booths, knocking doors, putting pamphlets in letter boxes and so on.
Concentrating on the marginals seemed a good policy in 1984. It was a very good policy in 1987 when Labor won fewer votes than in 1984 but got more seats.
In 1990 the marginal-seat policy was refined. It included a late call by Labor for the second preferences of Greens and Democrats. It appeared to work. Malcolm Mackerras in his ü1993 Federal Election Guide $19.95 AGPS (that’s a lunch you owe me, Malcolm) says 64 per cent of Green-Democrat preferences went to Labor in 1990 compared to 57 per cent in 1984. That 7 per cent of the Democrat vote which in turn was 11 per cent of the total vote represents 0.6 per cent of the total. As elections are often determined by a handful of critically placed votes, Mackerras correctly concludes that the second-preference strategy was critical to Labor’s re-election.
In the 1993 campaign, therefore, Labor is going to be very stretched organisationally, leaving aside the issues, personalities and policies. It will have to continue to attract the Green-Democrat preferences just to get near its 1990 starting position.
Even then, its policy of working the marginals in the 1984, 87 and 90 elections will now come home to roost. As Labor held its vote in the marginals, its lost votes in mid-range seats. In successive elections, more mid-range seats became marginals. In 1983, 22 per cent of Labor’s seats were marginal, in 1984 it was 28 per cent rising to 30 in 1987, 31 per cent in 1990 and this election 40 per cent of Labor’s seats are marginals, perhaps a higher proportion than at any other time in Australia’s history, and ominously similar to the Coalition’s position in 1983 when 38 per cent of its seats were marginal, compared to its present 31 per cent. The job is getting harder and harder for Labor.
The success of the marginal-seat and second-preference strategy is clear from the voting figures. Labor won 49.9 per cent of the two-party preferred vote get got 53 per cent of the seats. The Coalition got 50.1 per cent of the vote but only 47 per cent of the seats. Labor’s vote was much better targetted last election. That makes this election that much harder. Labor’s buffer has been eaten away.
Added to Labor’s organisational worries is the fact that each electorate has more people in it than previous elections, thus there are more voters to cover. Labor’s leaders and its organisers will be spread thin on the ground in the marginal seats this election.
Thus there will be fewer resources for the non-marginals _ seats with more than 5 per cent safety margin. To ignore these seats might be fatal. Last election, 27 seats had greater than 5 per cent swing. Of those eight swapped parties: six to the Coalition and 2 to Labor _ almost enough to determine an election in 1993.
The more the Labor effort has to go to marginals (because there are so many of them), the more room there is for the election to be determined by maverick swings in the non-marginals.
Of course, policies, leaders’ performance in the campaign and a host of other things are of great importance. But the best policy and leader in the world is useless without organisation and number crunchers.
Not all Labor’s marginals were created by the strategy of previous elections. The redistribution has had some effect, especially in South Australia where the abolition of the Liberal seat of Hawker has made the fairly safe seats of Hindmarsh and Adelaide marginal and other changes have made Grey more marginal.
Although the marginals run against Labor, the state-by-state split-up can help Labor. Five Coalition seats in Victoria could fall with swings under 2 per cent. That is half of its 10 most vulnerable seats. If they had fallen in another state Labor would have less chance of capturing them. But given the Kennett factor, Labor would hope to pick up some of these. Two more of these 10 fall in Tasmania, which also has rid itself of an unpopular Labor (minority) Government. The Liberals made Franklin (where the popular and colourful Bruce Goodluck is retiring) easier for Labor by picking the less well-known candidate to replace him.
Labor will need to do well in Victoria and Tasmania to off-set its own vulnerability in South Australia and the West, where holds three seats each with a margin of under 2 per cent, and in NSW where it holds two “”natural” National Party seats at under 1 per cent.
Despite some advantage in the state-by-state split, Labor’s greater number of marginals must give it the more difficult organisational task. This election has so many marginals that it is likely many seats will change hands (both ways) and that any slight swing in the percentage of the vote will translate into a comfortable majority of seats for the winner.