Crispin Hull

If Terry Connolly resigns, his replacement will be determined on countback. It will without any doubt go to Labor candidate Marion Reilly.

The Hare-Clark count-back is unlike the Senate system where the party of the resigning candidate selects the replacement.

Under Hare-Clark countback the Electoral Commission goes back to the ballot papers cast at the February, 1995, election to determine who should take Connolly’s seat.

Connolly was the third candidate elected in the seat of Molonglo, after Kate Carnell (Lib) and Rosemary Follett (Lab).
Continue reading “1996_02_february_recount”

A very natty election database hit the desk this week.

It has all the candidates with their address, phone numbers, party, seat and so on.

The database, from Capital Monitor, will enable analysts and lobbyists to target candidates more easily. Thus you can extract all ALP women contesting seats needing a greater than 5 per cent swing.

A lobbyist could extract all major-party candidates in marginals.

Having extracted them, the program allows a mail merge and a standard form letter with the relevant data filled in. For example:
Continue reading “1996_02_february_program”

Poll Conducted : Sat 10 Feb 1996 to Tues 13 Feb 1996

Sample Size : 542 registered ACT voters in the Division of Namadgi

Sample Method : Simple Random Sample of 1995 Telecom White Pages

Survey Method : CATI Telephone survey of telephone connected dwellings
Continue reading “1996_02_february_pollnam”

Liberal Brendan Smyth will be re-elected in Namadgi, according to a Canberra Times-Datacol poll.

However, the poll shows that Labor has made up significant ground since the by-election in March and there is a significant undecided vote.

At the by-election, Mr Smyth won a swing of more than 16 per cent. That was in the seat of Canberra, but the redistribution carved the whole of the new seat of Namadgi out of the old seat of Canberra.

The poll gives the Liberals 39.1 per cent; Labor 33.4; Greens 5.4 and Independent 3.3. There were 18.8 per cent undecided.
Continue reading “1996_02_february_poll16”

The seat of Namadgi is on a knife-edge, according to the latest Canberra Time-Datacol poll, with the Liberals’ Brendan Smyth just ahead.

The poll shows the undecided vote has swung 70-30 in favour of Labor’s Annette Ellis since the previous poll two weeks before and that the Mr Smyth has had his by-election whittled away to less than 1 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis. His lead on first preferences is now at 2 per cent.

The poll returned to the same respondents who were polled two weeks previously, rather than take a new sample. This heightens the accuracy of the poll and gives a more accurate feel for changing opinion.
Continue reading “1996_02_february_oppoll”

Voters in the critical seat of Namadgi have shown strong pro-Labor opinions in a series of questions put in a Canberra Times-Datacol opinion poll which was finalised yesterday.

They tended to favour Labor positions on Telstra, the Public Service, their preferred prime minister and the republic … though arguably the last is non-partisan.

They were also asked about their voting intention in the March 2 election and results of that question will be published tomorrow.

Details of the questions and the sample are in the panel.
Continue reading “1996_02_february_nampoll”

The Labor Party’s marginal-seats strategy is now spread very thin, and puts the party in the worst position it has been since it won office in 1983.

The strategy over the past four elections has been for the party to concentrate its efforts on marginal seats (those requiring less than 4 or 5 per cent to change hands) and to do very much less work in safe seats.

The result has been that a lot of safe seats have turned marginal because swings against Labor were not uniform because of the strategy. True, there are lots of factors in an election campaign and the result it yeilds. But there is a pattern that has got worse for Labor as time goes on.
Continue reading “1996_02_february_marginal”

Stopping the sale of alcohol at 3am is not going to help at great deal. Underage and excessive drinking will not suddenly disappear just because bars stop serving at 3am. More likely, there will be a 3am swill. People knowing that the tap is about to be turned off will have several “”last drinks” at the clock edges to 3am. Rather than helping excessive drinking, it may add to it.

Further, people are likely to buy takeaway liquor and move off-site causing just as much trouble or more than if they were allowed to keep drinking in licensed premises where there is at least some control.

When the 3am limit does not work, there will be inevitable calls for a 2am or a 1am closing. The underlying problems will remain unaddressed.
Continue reading “1996_02_february_leader29feb”

The criticism that the Cabinet of the new Queensland Premier, Rob Borbidge, contained only two women is worth making, especially as the choice of one … Liberal leader Joan Sheldon … had been made for him because it is automatic under Coalition rules. It is also more pertinent because the Cabinet is unrepresentative in other ways, with 11 members from the land and none from the key provincial cities of Townsville, Cairns and Rockhampton.

Strict balance is impossible and a Premier must pick the best available talent on the team. But is the nub. While the National Party as a whole denies women a better chance to get winnable seats, the available talent after an election will have fewer women. More has to be done to get more women into Parliament. That may require changes of behaviour at the branch level. Other political parties in Australia are not much better.
Continue reading “1996_02_february_leader27feb”

Not a great deal should be read into the huge swing away from the Liberal Party and to the Labor party in the Tasmanian state election at the weekend. The first question to be asked is what was the swing from? In the election of February 1, 1992, the Liberal Party did extraordinarily well and Labor did extraordinarily badly. In that election the Liberals got a huge 54 per cent. As a result they got 19 seats in Parliament and could govern as a majority government. Labor, on the other hand, got only 29 per cent and could only manage 11 seats. Five seats went to the Greens who won 13 per cent.zzz

All that has happened this election is that the support or the three major groups has been restored to the levels common from the mid-1980s to 1993.zzz

This election the Liberals lost 12 per cent of its vote, down to 42 per cent; Labor gained about 14 per cent to 43 per cent and the Greens lost 2 per cent. The result is that the Liberals have lost their majority. The most likely result is Liberals 15; Labor 15; Greens 4 and doubtful one. The doubtful seat will not change the fundamentals. No party has a majority in Tasmania.zzz
Continue reading “1996_02_february_leader26feb”