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EspañolAUSTRALIAN GENERAL ELECTION, 2007
The next 'general election' for the Parliament of Australia is expected to take place in November or early December 2007, although technically it can be held as late as 19 January 2008.
The opposition centre-left Australian Labor Party, currently led by Kevin Rudd and deputy leader Julia Gillard, will be the main challenger to the incumbent centre-right coalition government in power since the 1996 election, currently led by the Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party of Australia, John Howard, and his coalition partner the Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the National Party of Australia, Mark Vaile.
Following the 2004 election outcome, Labor with 60 seats require 16 additional seats in the 150-member House of Representatives to form a majority government.
The Australian Greens, Family First Party, and the Australian Democrats amongst other parties and candidates will be vying for the balance of power in the Senate.
Election date
Under the provisions of the Constitution, the next general election must be held by 19 January 2008. Since the inaugural 1901 federal election, no election has yet been called for a January date. Howard has ruled out holding an election in 2008, stating that "there will be an election, it will be held this year, it will be held well before Christmas; beyond that I will announce the election date at the appropriate time." [1]
Columnist Gerard Henderson predicted that the election would be called following the 15th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Sydney on 8-9 September 2007, with the poll taking place on 13 or 20 October. Although dates up to 15 December were conceivable, Henderson concluded that "the earlier dates are more likely than the latter one."[2]
On Radio National's Breakfast Friday panel on 8 December 2006, Paul Bongiorno, political editor for Network Ten, predicted that the next election will be held on 20 October 2007.
The Australian reported in August 2007 that "Liberal sources indicated it was most likely the poll would be in November, with an outside chance it could take place on October 27 or December 1".[3]
About $7 million worth of Liberal Party advertising bookings indicate the Prime Minister is contemplating a November election, The Sydney Morning Herald reports. The bulk of the bookings with the three commercial TV networks extend from early October to the end of November, the newspaper reports. If a November election occurs, as the bookings indicate, it would be the first time in 20 years that a prime minister has allowed his term to run significantly beyond the third anniversary of the previous election.[4]
| 'Newspoll: Federal voting intention and leaders' rating'[5] | ||||||||
| Two-party preferred | Preferred PM | |||||||
| Coalition | Labor | Howard | Beazley | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| '24-26 Nov 2006' | 49% | 51% | 55% | 25% | ||||
| Coalition | Labor | Howard | Rudd | |||||
| '8-10 Dec 2006' | 45% | 55% | 39% | 36% | ||||
| '19-21 Jan 2007' | 45% | 55% | 41% | 39% | ||||
| '2-4 Feb 2007' | 44% | 56% | 40% | 39% | ||||
| '16-18 Feb 2007' | 46% | 54% | 37% | 47% | ||||
| '2-4 Mar 2007' | 43% | 57% | 38% | 45% | ||||
| '16-18 Mar 2007' | 39% | 61% | 36% | 49% | ||||
| '31 Mar - 1 Apr 2007' | 43% | 57% | 38% | 48% | ||||
| '13-15 Apr 2007' | 41% | 59% | 36% | 48% | ||||
| '27-29 Apr 2007' | 43% | 57% | 39% | 46% | ||||
| '11-13 May 2007' | 41% | 59% | 37% | 49% | ||||
| '25-27 May 2007' | 40% | 60% | 38% | 47% | ||||
| '15-17 June 2007' | 44% | 56% | 40% | 46% | ||||
| '6-8 July 2007' | 44% | 56% | 42% | 43% | ||||
| '20-22 July 2007' | 45% | 55% | 40% | 43% | ||||
| '3-5 August 2007' | 44% | 56% | 39% | 44% | ||||
| '17-19 August 2007' | 45% | 55% | 39% | 46% | ||||
| '31 Aug - 2 Sep 2007' | 41% | 59% | 37% | 48% | ||||
Polling
Roy Morgan, Newspoll, ACNeilsen and Galaxy timegraph polling shows Labor leading the coalition in various poll questions since mid-2006, with Labor consolidating their lead after Rudd assumed the Labor leadership, at which point Rudd also assumed the polling position on the question of preferred Prime Minister.
ACNielsen polling in March 2007 showed 53% of respondents preferred Rudd as Prime Minister compared to Howard on 39%, and Labor on 61% of the two party preferred (2PP) vote to the Coalition's 39%. Rudd's personal approval rating of 67% makes him the most popular opposition leader in the poll's 35 year history,[6] with Newspoll (News Limited) 2PP polling the highest in its history.
Howard's poll numbers, were in the thirties (according to Newspoll), are the lowest the prime minister has experienced since the lead up to the 2001 election. A post-budget "bounce" did not materialise for the government, with Labor increasing its lead despite tax cuts and increased spending in the federal budget. However Howard has sinced pushed up his numbers - going as close as a 1% gap with Kevin Rudd in early July.
A weighted collaboration of all polling since Rudd assumed the ALP leadership shows an average Labor 2PP figure of 57% compared to the coalition on 43%, with Rudd consistently outpolling Howard on Preferred Prime Minister ratings, something not achieved under previous leaders Kim Beazley, Mark Latham, or Simon Crean.
A poll released in June 2007 by Galaxy Research (News Limited), out by 0.7% in the 2004 election, recently polled ALP 53% LIB 47% 2PP, ALP down 4%, however a Roy Morgan Research poll was released several days later contradicting this swing with the ALP on 58% 2PP, up 1%.[7] This was later backed up by two polls issued a week later showing the ALP on 56% 2PP down 4% with Newspoll, and 57% down 1% with ACNeilsen. The July Galaxy poll recorded a 2% 2PP swing to the ALP at 55%.
Roy Morgan polling conducted on 25/26 July 2007 revealed an ALP 2PP of 59% up 1.5%, following questions over John Howards leadership and the Mohamed Haneef affair. However the Galaxy poll conducted on 27-29 July reported a 54% ALP 2PP, down 1%.
Possums Pollytics states that due to the uneven nature of the swings, where safe Liberal seats are swinging up to 14.6% with safe Labor seats swinging around only 4.1%, the Labor party stands to potentially end up with 106 of 150 lower house seats.[8]
Despite polling consistently showing the economy and national security being the coalition's strong areas, August 2007 saw Ipsos polling finding 39 per cent of voters thought Labor the better economic manager, compared with 36 per cent for the coalition, while 25 per cent were undecided.[9]
Issues
Changes to the industrial relations system, WorkChoices, were enacted by the Howard Liberal government in December 2005, and came in to effect in March 2006.
Roy Morgan polling in June 2007 revealed WorkChoices as the biggest reason behind the Labor vote, with a negative perception of unions as the biggest reason behind the coalition vote.[11] Attempts by the Liberals to have business groups fund advertisements to counter union-backed anti-WorkChoices advertisements suggest that industrial relations will be a key battleground at the 2007 election.[12] The share of voters concerned about industrial relations grew from 31% to 53% in the two years to June 2006, with almost half of voters backing Labor's ability to handle the issue.
A Newspoll released in June 2006 identified health and Medicare as the most important issue for voters, with 83% of respondents rating it "very important". Other key issues included education (79%), the economy (67%), the environment (60%) and national security (60%). Taxation and interest rates, key issues in previous campaigns, were rated very important by 54% and 51% respectively. Immigration, a key issue in 2001, scored 43%. The poll showed that voters considered Labor better-placed to handle health and education, albeit by a small margin, but gave the government strong backing on the economy and national security.[13]
The environment, in particular climate change and water management, will likely be a major issue. Labor's pledge to spearhead construction of a $4.7 billion fibre-to-the-node broadband network suggests that infrastructure could also figure prominently on the campaign trail.[14]
On 7 June in a speech promoting the government's handling of the economy, Treasurer Peter Costello recalled the of the 2004 election: "This [the economy] is like a highly engineered racing car and I tell you what, I wouldn't be putting an L-plate driver in the cockpit at the moment".[15] August 2007 saw a 0.25% interest rate rise to 6.5%, the fifth rise since the last election.[16]
Electoral prospects: House of Representatives
Though the government enjoys a comfortable majority of 24 in the 150-seat Australian House of Representatives, 23 of its MPs will be defending two-party-preferred (2PP) margins of 6% or less in 2007. Labor requires a gain of 16 seats to form a majority government in the lower house, which corresponds to a uniform swing of 4.8%.
A gain of 15 seats, however, would put a Labor win beyond doubt. Labor would have as many seats as the combined total of Coalition and independents, so making one of the independents Speaker would give it a majority on the floor. Regardless of their inclinations, there would be nothing the independents could do to give the Coalition a majority.
High-profile candidates
Labor will field a number of high-profile candidates in 2007. Broadcaster Maxine McKew will challenge John Howard in his electorate of Bennelong.[17] Union boss Bill Shorten, touted as a future prime minister during the Beaconsfield mine collapse drama, will contest the safe Labor seat of Maribyrnong. Former New South Wales attorney-general Bob Debus will contest the marginal seat of Macquarie. ACTU Secretary Greg Combet has been announced as the ALP's candidate for Charlton, a safe seat in New South Wales. The assistant secretary of the ACTU Richard Marles will contest the Victorian seat of Corio, which Labor currently holds by a 5.7% margin. Nicole Cornes, a journalist for the Sunday Mail and the wife of media personality and ex-footballer Graham Cornes is the ALP's candidate for Boothby, a South Australian seat which Liberal MP Andrew Southcott currently holds by a margin of 5.4%. The ALP have also recruited Mia Handshin, a journalist for The Advertiser and a small business operator, to contest another South Australian seat, Sturt. Sturt is currently represented by Government minister Christopher Pyne who holds the seat by a 6.8% margin. [18] Another ALP recruit, former Australian military lawyer Mike Kelly will contest the marginal seat of Eden-Monaro in regional NSW.
The ALP has received criticism from some quarters regarding their recent recruitments, especially the trend of placing union bosses in safe seats while leaving "star" candidates to contest seats held by the Liberal Party. Greg Combet's selection, in particular, has received criticism and anger from Kelly Hoare, the MP he replaces, and others within the New South Wales Labor Party. [19]
Redistribution
An electoral redistribution completed in September 2006 by the Australian Electoral Commission will increase the size of the Queensland delegation by one, at the expense of New South Wales. The western New South Wales seat of Gwydir will be abolished and a new seat of Flynn, based around Gladstone, created in its place. Both the old seat and the new are safe for the National Party.
The other major change sees boundaries shift for Liberal-held Macquarie and Labor-held Parramatta: both are now notionally held by the opposing party. A number of other seats were also substantially changed, including Parkes, Farrer, Calare, Greenway and Hughes.
Marginal seats
Labor and the Coalition each hold 23 marginal seats: seats with 2PP margins of 6% or less. Since the 2006 redistribution, Labor-held Parramatta is notionally a Liberal marginal and Liberal-held Macquarie is notionally a Labor marginal.
The marginal seats of Makin (South Australia) and Cowan (Western Australia), held on 2PP margins of less than 1% by the Liberals and Labor respectively, will be especially closely-watched, with sitting MPs Trish Draper and Graham Edwards retiring at the election. In the south-eastern New South Wales seat of Eden-Monaro, Liberal Gary Nairn will be defending the so-called bellwether electorate for the government with a 2PP margin of 3.3%. The Liberal electorate of Lindsay, with a 2PP margin of 2.9% will be another seat which will be hotly contested due to popular member Jackie Kelly's announcement that she will not be recontesting the seat.
Currently polling indicates that the two Tasmanian marginal seats of Bass and Braddon, both in the state's north, are likely to return to the ALP at this election. Both seats were lost by the ALP to the government at the last election, with commentators associating this with Mark Latham's forestry policy and its lack of popularity in these seats.
In the table below, based on the Mackerras electoral pendulum, marginal seats are shown in the order they would fall, assuming a uniform swing. A uniform swing to Labor would deliver the party seats on the left-hand side. A uniform swing to the Coalition would deliver seats to the Liberals and Nationals on the right-hand side.
Electoral prospects: Senate
A total of 36 senators are not up for re-election: 19 from the Coalition, 14 from Labor, two Australian Greens and one Family First. The Coalition needs to win 20 of the 40 contested Senate seats to maintain its Senate majority, while Labor would need to win 25 seats to have a Senate majority in its own right. A Labor majority would require a preferred vote of over 57% in five of the six states; this would be a record for Labor, surpassing the 55.09% it recorded in the 1943 election. Given the current Senate majority of one in favour of the Coalition, it is likely that the balance of power will revert to the minor parties.[20]
The Australian Democrats, who were the minor party with the most Senators from 1978 to 2005, now face electoral oblivion. All four Democrat seats are up for re-election, and two incumbents, Andrew Murray and Natasha Stott Despoja, have indicated that they will not seek a fresh term. The loss of Stott Despoja, arguably the nation's highest-profile Democrat, will complicate the party's efforts to resuscitate its electoral appeal.
The minor parties with a chance of holding the balance of power are the Australian Greens and Family First. With the exception of Greens Senator Bob Brown who is likely to receive sufficient first preference votes (14.3%) in Tasmania to secure re-election, each party's success will largely depend on securing favourable preference flows from the major parties and assorted micro-parties. While the Coalition is expected to preference Family First ahead of the Greens, the battle to secure Labor's preferences will be fierce.
Government senators Paul Calvert, Rod Kemp, Sandy Macdonald and Kay Patterson; and Labor senator Robert Ray will not contest the 2007 election.
High-profile candidates
Independent Peter Andren, the Member for Calare in NSW, had originally decided to contest the Senate following the substantial changes to the boundaries of his electorate. This would have created significant interest to the senate election in his state. However, following his diagnosis of cancer on 10 August, 2007, Andren decided to not stand for re-election.[21]
Andrew Wilkie has been pre-selected as second on the ticket for the Tasmanian Greens behind Senator Bob Brown. He is a former intelligence officer who resigned from the Office of National Assessments (ONA) over his concerns about government use of intelligence information in building a case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In the 2004 election he polled 16% for the Greens in Prime Minister John Howard's electorate of Bennelong.
Former Queensland politician Pauline Hanson announced recently that she will be standing for the Senate in Queensland. [22]
References
1. Shanahan, Dennis & Franklin, Matthew, "Vote well before Christmas: Howard " ''The Australian'', September 5, 2007/ Accessed September 5, 2007.
2. Time is not on new leader's side
3. [1]
4. [2]
5. Federal voting intention and leaders’ ratings ; Federal voting intention and leaders’ ratings ; Federal voting intention and leaders’ ratings Federal voting intention and leaders’ ratings Sampling error ±3%. Figures do not include the Northern Territory.
6. Ruddslide: polls shows Labor increasing its lead Phillip Coorey
7. [3]
8. [4]
9. http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/government-shrugs-off-poll/2007/08/26/1188066918904.html
10. http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/reps/dailys/dr080807.pdf Questions without notice, Page 46
11. IR Reforms Still Driving Labor Support; Liberal Voters Afraid Of Union Dominance
12. PM's appeal to business shows workplace ads failed: Labor
13. Importance and best party to handle major issues
14. Broadband looms as an election issue
15. Costello warns against economic 'L-plater'
16. Interest rates jump to 6.5pc
17. McKew makes presence felt in Bennelong
18. Union heavies join Labor's star recruits
19. Anger as Combet chases safe seat Laura Anderson
20. [5]
21. Davis, Mark, "MP diagnosed with cancer", ''Sydney Morning Herald'', August 10, 2007. Accessed August 10, 2007.
22. "Hanson Launches new political party.", ''ABC'', August 15, 2007/ Accessed
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