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While the cat's away..

ALP Plunges 14% in Primary Vote

It's still Sauce,

Our good friend Jim001 has been looking into the Lyndhurst results and brought this AAP piece from the Daily Telegraph to my attention.

The key here is that there was a 14% swing away from Labor and there was no Liberal candidate for the election.

This leave the Victorian Parliment with as close to a hung parliment as you can get.

The Government must now rely on the  former Liberal MP who is now a cross bencher and under police investigation for misconduct in public office - Mr P. Slipp Mr Geoff Shaw.

 

Lyndhurst warning for Vic Labor: expert

  • By Melissa Jenkins and Melissa Iaria 
  • AAP 
  • April 28, 2013 5:38PM
Labour Party candidate Martin Pakula

Labor's Martin Pakula has claimed victory in Victoria's Lyndhurst by-election. Source: AAP

THE slump in Labor's primary vote at the Lyndhurst by-election may be a warning the party faces a tougher road than expected to the Victorian poll.

Labor's Martin Pakula claimed victory in the south-east suburban seat on Saturday with about 41 per cent of the primary vote - 14 percentage points weaker than at the 2010 state election.

The coalition did not run a candidate in Lyndhurst, which is classic Labor territory with a strong manufacturing base and high percentage of ethnically diverse voters.

Monash University political scientist Nick Economou says it can be difficult to draw broader conclusions from by-elections but the dive in the primary vote is a worry for the party.

"The message coming from Lyndhurst isn't that good," he told AAP.

"It's a warning to the opposition ... there are some in Labor who think they can win the next state election.

"I don't think it's going to be that easy."

read the full story here

 

Comments

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Mac1

I find it interesting the number of people with Greek names such as Kakoulous, Megasomething Economou are either advisors to, or supporters of, the Labor Party. It sort of makes sense of Labor's ability to run deficits.

jones alan

It is a pity, that the Liberals did not put anyone up.

Mac1

I think the key point to that article is that the journalists think that the result makes it the closest thing to a hung parliament you will get.
Fact..there was no change in the make of the parliament. The only change in numbers was Labor losing 14% of their support. These lefty journalists will print anything.

BillK

A 14% swing is unprecedented in Federal elections. A swing of that magnitude would decimate Labor. I believe the actual swing may be even higher. Never before have I noticed such widespread hatred for a sitting PM. People will be celebrating in the streets once Gillard is gone.

A real hammering would serve them right for treating the electorate as fools.

Jollybagman

Lyndhurst by-election results are here....
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/vic/2013/lyndhurst/result.htm
...the only parties that had a swing against them apart from ALP are those that didn't stand this time around, including LNP candidate.
The fact LNP didn't stand candidate, yet ALP had 15% swing against them is reason why party leader Daniel Andrews couldn't mask the fact it was the (Federal) Labor brand that was behind the rot.
You're doing well Sauce.

Jay

He's one of the main reasons labor stinks and this piece should be compulsary reading,
I just love this line, "Deconstructing Swan's arguments is as challenging as picking a dead man's wallet."

Henry Ergas
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/t-rex-rises-dim-dangerous-doomed/story-e6frgd0x-1226631147751

"Sure, the Treasurer's colleagues, showing a shrewd sense of survival, have flocked to that most popular of authorial associations, Labor's 6W club: Where, Why, When We Went Wrong (coming soon to a Melbourne University Press distributor near you). But as he girds his loins for next month's budget, Swan remains defiant. And far from analysing Labor's blunders, he paints them as triumphs that confirm Labor's call to govern.

"Shop-worn tropes go round and round, like unclaimed bags on an airport carousel: Labor is the party of opportunity, a sentiment to which Eddie Obeid, Ian Macdonald and John Maitland are presumably living testimony; Tony Abbott, accused of every possible malfeasance short of starting a leprosy pandemic, would destroy what this country retains of good and true; and only Swan and his colleagues stand between Tony Abbott's Visigoths and the "fair go".

Jay

@Mac1 | Sunday, 28 April 2013 at 10:17 PM
Inherited thinking, jobs for life and jobs for the boys.

Today "Hundreds of people joined a protest in the streets outside parliament.
The law is a condition for Greece to receive the next tranche of loans worth 8.8bn euros (£7.4bn; $11.4bn).

The new law would overturn what had been a constitutional guarantee for civil servants of a job for life, says the BBC's Mark Lowen in Athens.
The sector has been seen as notoriously bloated since it expanded in the 1970s and '80s as successive administrations employed their own people."

mel

They think that's bad, wait'll the electorate find out about the AWU scandal which has been hidden from them by the rent seekers in Canberra.

R we there yet

Whew, that`s a good news article. Here we go then.
Giddyup that needed Election.
Thanks for the info Sauce and Mr Smith.
Sounds about right too.
They only have themselves to blame and there is NO valid way labor can or will gain ground now. No way.
It`s liberals by a good lap!

Maggie1954

I think that there is a lot of analysis that is missing regarding the Lyndhurst by-election. There seems to be one factor that has been left out of the equation and it is the change in the population demographic.

Lyndhurst is in an area that is opening up to new estates (I should know because my son lives in that electorate). In recent years there have been several new estates in the area. As a result it means that there are newcomers who are not necessarily ALP voters. It could account for some of the swing that was seen in the by-election.

On the other hand, the result of a 14% swing against the ALP is significant and it could translate into the loss of a Federal seat at the coming election.

Julie

Thompson, Slipper and Shaw - where do we get these dickheads???

Terryp

Lets hope that % swing holds for the federal seat of Isaacs and we see the rear of Mark Dreyfus

RJ of Melbourne

Sauce and Jim001 can you tell if there was a large informal vote like the last by election in Victoria where the Liberals did not field a candidate ? I wonder if at the federal election whether there will be a massive informal vote - Labor voters are so angry at the ALP but don't want to vote for the Coaltion. Also there has been much talk on blogs about voter fraud on Election Day. Some have suggested that ID be produced - but you can go to every polling booth in your electorate WITH your ID and cast a vote - it is only after wards that the fraud is realised. Not sure what the answer is, but ID is not it I am afraid.

RJ of Melbourne

Sorry, saw the link saying how many informal votes there were after I posted ! Almost 3000 out of 34000.

delfino

@RD of Melbourne. I've worked as a temporary employee of the AEC for election days, as I'm sure a few people who comment here have. And one of the questions we have to ask is 'have you voted anywhere else today?' Well you can only rely on people's honesty, got some funny replies, such as 'do you think I want to queue up for 20 minutes again?', which apparently in 2007 in my area where I was working crossing off names, the queue was almost a mile long and we were flat out all day. I actually didn't get home until 11.30pm after all the counting, so didn't know the results overall. As for id's like you not sure if that helps. Actually, come to think of it, don't know what one would do, if someone came over all shifty after you asked the question. I mean you couldn't deny them a vote. Hmm interesting.

Ron OKnox

The people of that area are probably sick of Labor pollies who want to represent them but can't bring themselves to live in the area or even close by. Pakula lives in Upper Class Black Rock and the Federal Member for Isaacs, Mark Dreyfus lives in very posh Malvern.
Funny though, how it's Labor that wanted to push that Newman didn't live in his electorate (even though he worked there and his kids went to school there and he actually lived right next door) and they also wanted to bag Barnaby Joyce even though he grew up in New England, he went to school there, his parents live there, he was married there, played Rep Football there etc., etc.
Typical double standards but I think the electorates in general can't cop a Party of liars. Funny about that.

Old Rooster

For Julie

This may be part of the answer:

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes.

See wiki for more. The term was coined in the '90s but it is noted by poets, playwrights, historians and others from about the dawn of recorded history.

Over many years I have come across many examples in the defence forces, public and private sector. The politicians are on display for all to see as are the media and academia. Compare and contrast the differences between Gillard, Swan etc and Tony Abbott whose more thoughtful and intelligent consideration of issues is painted as a weakness. As Alexander Pope wrote in 'An Essay on Criticism'

"A little learning is a dangerous thing;"

and further on

“For Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread"

The problem for our present society is that nearly all our important institutions have been so affected by it that we are heading for collapse. I think that it is a major causal factor in the fall of most empires and civilisations of the past. It seems difficult if not impossible to resist let only eradicate.

What can be done? I can only pass on these words of Edmund Burke:

"Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair."

Kathryn E.

Hi Michael,

no matter how high the deficit, Swan and especially Gillard will continue spending.Gillard's political past tells us she is determined to carry out her marxist agenda.

Otto Von Bismark introduced the old age pension back in 1870 for the sole purpose of making the German people totally reliant on the state.(he stated this publicly). He also introduced PAYGO tax.

Gillard has blamed Abbott for the voters' perception through misogyny and while in China, actually acused australians of the same when she said they had problems with a female prime minister.

Whatever it takes! She has diminished the office of the Prime Minister and continues to do so every time she utters a word.

Kathryn E.

Hi michael,

I meant to post my recent comment in your post "Budget Black Hole".

FB Of Perth

As the well worn saying goes "It is not like she can a job at Macca's they already have a red headed clown."
Saw the AG on Agenda yesterday saying the big news this week will be how Brough and the Libs conspired to bring down Government (Slipper Affair) - how can he know the result?
If he does and he is right it will be a massive turn around for the Government and she may not need a new job.

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