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The story of the 2007 election was the large swing to Labor. However it's worth looking at some of the seats in which the Coalition held firm. One such seat was McMillan, where Russell Broadbent withstood the statewide swing and may, after all votes are counted, have actually achieved a swing in his direction.
Broadbent's achievement is all the more because he achieved it against what had been a pretty convincing swing through the seat at previous elections. As the map above shows, almost all of the seat had been swinging against the Liberals since 1996, with only the facts that the swing had been sluggish in Moe, and that it had been to the Coalition in suburban Pakenham, allowing the Liberals to maintain their majority in 2004.
So the big gains made by Labor last weekend appear conducive to McMillan being a Labor gain. While slightly failing to gain a majority in Pakenham the swing was on there; if it had been uniform across the seat it would have granted Labor victory in the seat.
However the swing in the rest of the seat was far more sluggish, and also unpredictable. It would be reasonable to assume that much of Broadbent's gains would have been the result of an incumbent vote. However, Labor generally performed pretty well in the less populated Southern part of the seat, and in the smaller booths, winning all but Inverloch and Leongatha in the South of the seat. What this may suggest is that the lack of a National Party candidate in 2007 won over some votes to Labor.
What was the most interesting result was around the Princes Highway. Here the performance for the Coalition tended to get better the further East you head. We've already mentioned the big swing in Pakenham, but the Liberal stronghold of Drouin in the centre of the seat also moved to Labor, But it was the Eastern fringe of the seat which was the most interesting. In Moe and Warragul results were mixed, with small swings to Labor in some booths countered by swings to the Coalition. Further the small towns along the Highway, such as Trafalgar, tended to move against the statewide trend to the Liberals.
Now, these should have been areas where work choices and interest rates hit the Liberals hard. Other provincial seats, such as Bendigo, Ballarat and McEwen, all moved considerably to the Coalition. But McMillan is close to the Latrobe Valley, Victoria's major power generating area. So I'd argue that Labor's chances of taking McMillan were probably torpedoed by their strong stance on environmental issues. Talk of ratifying Kyoto, climate change, and mandatory targets were a major factor in positioning Labor as a party of a future, and of delivering them government. However it's arguable that the stance cost them any real chance in McMillan
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I thought I'd look at some of the key seats that helped decide Saturday's election. And of course the biggest one to fall was that of the Prime Minister, where a swing of 5.8% has seen Maxine McKew become the first Labor member for Bennelong.
MAXINE'S VICTORY - A SHOCK WIN?
Once the result is officially called in Bennelong, we're going to hear a lot about Labor's triumph there - about how it was an epoch-making event defining new support for Labor after their time in the wilderness. Make no mistake, the result was a historic one in the fact that the PM was beaten, and a great performance by McKew in defeating an incumbent PM. But this was largely the end-game in a long-standing drift across Bennelong to Labor.
What was interesting in Bennelong is just how even the voting was across the electorate. Only a handful of booths gave either party over 60% of the TPP vote, although McKew won Labor a majority of booths for the first time. Overall the seat is largely divded, with Labor winning most booths in the West of the seat around Eastwood, Ermington and Epping, and the Coalition maintaining their majority in most of Ryde and south to Tennyson and Gladesville.
In total, Labor carried 13 more booths than won in 2004. As the map below shows, there is a significant tract of booths in the North of the seat which all gave Labor majorities for the first time in 2007.
All in all it was these booths around Epping which were the vanguard of Labor's victory, with big swings across the North, as well as down towards West Ryde. Only one booth swung to Howard, but the majority of booths in the seat's South and East moved by far less than the seat's average.
As has been mentioned countless times, Labor's win in Bennelong was just the second time an incumbent prime minister has been unseated since federation. But really it shouldn't have been a surprise. The victory of Labor was merely the continuation of a long-standing movement in the polls in the seat of Bennelong, which had seen the North-Western corner of the seat move dramatically to Labor, and all but the south-east areas around Putney move against the tide to stay with the ex-PM.
While the Coalition was performing well across the state this merely meant that Howard was gaining less than many of his colleagues. However the large swing to Rudd across the state was always going to combine with the overall movement to Labor in Bennelong and make it extremely hard for Labor to lose.
Historic? Yes. Impressive? Yes. Shocking? No.
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So we have a new government, with a sizable majority - although a little smaller than what I predicted earlier in the week. But I'll look at that in a later post.
Firstly though I wanted to go through the seats that are still too close to call. In total, pre-poll, postal and absentee votes tend to favour the Coalition, with incumbent members seeking re-election also favoured to some extent. This may be likely to see the Coalition take the lead in a couple of the seats. Of course we can look at how the non-booth votes have tended to fall at previous elections.
BENNELONG (Maxine McKew (ALP) leads by 2,439 votes with 79.09% counted; 1416 pre-polls counted - 51.77% to Lib)
The Liberals performed comparatively well in pre-poll votes, losing comparatively 0.4% of their vote according to the votes counted so far. In 2004 the Liberals increased their margin by almost 2,000 votes across all non-booth votes cast, including 1,300 in postal votes alone. However a repeat of this strong performance wouldn't be enough to save the ex-PM. Overall he needs to pick up almost 60% of these votes.
COWPER (Luke Hartsuyker (Nat) leads by 1,224 votes with 81.91% counted; 3887 pre-polls counted - 56.91% to Nat)
Hartsuyker is probably safe after gaining on the pre-poll votes, although he did suffer a swing of about 2.5% compared with 2004. In 2004 the non-booth votes broke to the Nationals marginally better than the ordinary votes. This would be enough for Hartsuyker to win by about 1%.
MACARTHUR (Pat Farmer (Lib) leads by 320 votes with 81.32% counted; 1680 pre-polls counted - 52.89% to Lib)
Macarthur is still a chance of maintaining the bellwether status it has held since 1949. In 2004 non-poll votes added 0.1% to Farmer's margin, which would be enough to give Farmer another term. However Labor are still within touch.
ROBERTSON (Belinda Neal (ALP) leads by 904 votes with 76.31% counted; 2141 pre-polls counted - 52.31% to Lib)
The Liberals were handed a lifeline on pre-poll votes, gaining comfortably more than the booth votes showed. If this trend continues they may be able to hang on to the seat. But it will be require a sharp increase from 2004.
LA TROBE (Rodney Cocks (ALP) leads by 378 votes with 77.45% counted; 2421 pre-polls counted - 50.39% to ALP)
Cocks came back from the dead on election night, and boosted his lead with an unlikely majority of pre-polls votes. If they can replicate the post election day vote from 2004 the Liberals would gain enough votes to squeeze to victory. The pre-polls counted so far don't look good though.
McEWEN (Rob Mitchell (ALP) leads by 315 votes with 76.33% counted; 2441 pre-polls counted - 55.06% to Lib)
Bailey performed very well in pre-polls and gained over half a percent in the 2004 election. If she gains that again this year it will be enough for her to win. If the pre-poll figures are representative of the overall figures she should be able to survive.
BOWMAN (Jason Young (ALP) leads by 223 votes with 80.20% counted; 1056 pre-polls counted - 55.87% to Lib)
The Liberals did well in pre-polls in 2004 and have started the same way in 2007. Based on 2004 results this will go right to the wire but Young should hang on for Labor.
DICKSON (Fiona McNamara (ALP) leads by 389 votes with 81.16% counted; 2173 pre-polls counted - 51.77% to Lib)
The Liberal's Peter Dutton gained a little in a good election for him in 2004, and has picked up a few votes on pre-polls. He will have to perform better in 2007 to overturn Labor's slight election-night majority.
HERBERT (George Colbran (ALP) leads by 460 votes with 80.99% counted; 1968 pre-polls counted; 51.17% to Lib)
The Liberal's lead on pre-polls is nothing like the gain they made in 2004, when Peter Lindsay performed well on post-election day counts. That would suggest that Labor will hang on.
SWAN (Kim Wilkie (ALP) leads by 39 votes with 77.35% counted; 1520 pre-polls counted - 51.71% to Lib)
Wilkie won by a razor-thin margin in 2004 and will have to perform slightly better in 2007 to hang on to the seat. It's unlikely that he will have enough of a buffer to win the seat.
STURT (Christopher Pyne (Lib) leads by 954 votes with 79.85% counted; 2616 pre-polls counted - 64.14% to Lib)
Pyne was behind for much of election night but managed a slight majority on the night before gaining a huge bunch of votes on the pre-poll count. It's unlikely that he will maintain such a majority of all the non-booth votes but it is probable that Labor will fall just short.
SOLOMON (Damian Hale (ALP) leads by 711 votes with 76.16% counted; 1636 pre-polls counted - 53.14% to CLP)
In a small electorate, Hale's lead was close to 1% on booth votes. While this should be enough, the seat always has a large number of postal votes which broke heavily to the CLP in 2004. But Hale should havng on.
THE WRAP-UP
Obviously Labor will have a comfortably majority regardless of how the cliffhangers fall. Labor should win Solomon, Herbert, Dickson, Bowman, La Trobe, Robertson and Bennelong. The Coalition will keep their leads in Sturt, Macarthur and Cowper, and overturn small Labor leads in Swan and McEwen. This would give Labor 87 seats to the Coalition's 61 - almost the complete opposite to the 2004 result.
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I'll finish with the election's most pivotal state, Queensland. It's very hard to imagine Labor winning government without substantially increasing on their current tally of six seats in Queensland. They will need a good sized swing, as only two seats are within five per cent.
QUEENSLAND
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Welcome to Part 3 of what is becoming an epic (if only in size, rather than predictive qualities, at this stage) preview of Saturday's election. So far I've covered New South Wales and the ACT in Part 1, and Victoria and Tasmania in Part 2. Now I'll look at the Western two-thirds of the country, starting with South Australia.
Since I wrote those first two sections last night, we've received five wildly divergent polls: Galaxy and Newspoll bringing the Coalition to within 4 points for the first time recorded this year, two AC Nielsen polls giving Labor a 14 point lead that would deliver them over 100 seats, and a Roy Morgan poll which basically split the middle. But despite the first polls putting the Coalition in touch all year, I have seen nothing over the last couple of weeks which suggests the Coalition would have gained so many votes in a few days. So I will plow on, based on my earlier thinking
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The second part of the Election Preview will look at the South Eastern corner of the country, starting with Victoria.
VICTORIA
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So we are finally near the end, which means it's time for an overall and seat-by-seat prediction for the 2007 election. With the opinion polls showing the ALP consistently gaining around 7% across the country I'll be focusing predominately on the Coalition seats that look most vulnerable. However where appropriate (e.g. WA) I'll also look at the crucial seats Labor needs to hang on to. The main question for Labor is whether they can gain the 16 seats necessary to gain government.
The tempting solution is to say that the election will be close; that the polls were narrow, or that the ALP will struggle to win seats from a Coalition fighting a 'seat-by-seat' campaign. But both points seem pretty week; the narrowing hasn't occurred thus far in the campaign, and for it to occur now would only suggest an error in the polling. Secondly, federal elections are rarely won like that, with only a handful of seats per election defying overall swings to a large extent. If the swing is the 7% that it currently is now some seats amongst the most marginal 16 - which all have a margin under 4.2% - could hold. But it won't be enough
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The polls are almost all saying that the 'swing is on' - that the ALP are maintaining their significant lead in both the primary and TPP vote. This raises a few interesting points at the seat-by-seat level as every mainland state has moved to the Coalition at each of the last two federal elections. The point is this: a handful of seats have moved to Labor against the tide at recent federal elections which have seen the Coalition gain overall. Now with Labor expected to make large gains, will these movements be replicated in the 2007 poll, bringing about massive swings as overall movements are added to swings against the statewide movements? On the other hand will those seats which have swung heavily to the Coalition under the Howard government revert to their previous status.
There's more at stake here than just the 2007 election. Large swings to Labor in seats such as North Sydney, Higgins and Ryan would suggest a fundamental shift in Australian politics, with traditionally blue-blooded Liberal seats now marginal. This would be the ultimate revenge of the so-called 'Doctors Wives' and would push out a number of very high-profile Liberal politicians. The alternative is a swing that sweeps Labor to victory in seats such as Hughes, Dunkley and Forde. Big swings through these seats would suggest that the Howard Government was something of an aberration, winning the Coalition convincing victories in a tract of hitherto marginal seats which reverted back to Labor at the first sign of a big swing. The central political contest in the future would focus on winning these seemingly volatile seats
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