So close yet so far
23 August, 2010
Finally the pollsters were right. While generally a fair portion of the polls in the lead up to the election are incorrect by more than 1 percent, this time the majority had a marginal difference of less than 1 percent. The tight political race, with no heat I might add, meant more voters were transparent with their intentions.
The huge swing against Labor in Queensland was unexpected. On this, Senator Stephen Conroy has had the best analysis to date when he said a substantial portion of the blame for Labor’s poor showing in QLD and New South Wales needs to go to the State Government.
This was particularly evident in Queensland, where the Liberal National Party ran a highly successful polling booth campaign, which honed in on the negative performance of State Labor.
The wash up of this election is that we have had large swings against Labor in two out of three of the large population states, mainly based on voter anger with incompetent State Governments. There has been a small swing against Labor in WA (albeit with an already low primary vote) and a swing towards Labor to VIC, TAS, and SA, which also had the highest Green Vote.
Which way will the independents go? If we factor the Green as a Labor vote, we are essentially talking about the three rural independents – Katter, Oakeshott and Windsor. It would seem on the face of it that they would naturally support a Coalition Government. However, we do know if there is bad blood between any of them and the National party.
It would seem that the Coalition is in the box seat. Its biggest challenge if they form Government will be reconciling the demands of these conservative Independents with the Greens. They will have until 30 June 2011 to get any legislation they want through under the old Senate. They probably can rely on Senator Fielding’s vote. Nick Xenophon holds the balance of power and looking at his voting record shows that he is closely aligned with the Greens, and has been described as a centre left politician.
Given Labor and the Greens are now more likely to work closer together, this does not bode well for a minority Coalition government. On my reckoning, if they control the lower house (77-73), even with the old senate they will not have control and their legislative program would be stifled.
The issue that could bring down a conservative Government could be an emissions trading scheme (ETS). The ETS has already claimed the scalp of an opposition leader, delivered the first Federal Green MP elected at a General election, and delivered control of the senate to the Greens.
The Coalition has promised to pay farmers to lock up carbon in their soil. The Greens oppose this and want a full blown ETS. Labor has already indicated that it would support carbon capture in soil as being part of an ETS. This places the rural Independents in a difficult position, and the result would depend on what program they saw as being better for their electorate.
If you like your politics hot and spicy the next year could prove to be to your taste and we could be back at the polls by next October.
