Christopher Buttersnip
Beware of the Drop Bears
- Oct 28, 2020
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Society/Culture Clive Palmer
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.... much political commentary focuses on the so-called split in the progressive vote between Labor and the Greens. Yes, a small if significant section of Labor’s post-1970s tertiary-educated, “post-material” voter base has migrated to the Greens, notably in 2001 during an election dominated by asylum-seekers and in 2010 when the Rudd government put its emissions trading scheme on hold. At each election, swings against Labor correlated with a swing to the Greens.
Yet, after the high-water mark of 2010 (11.76 per cent), the House of Representatives vote for the Greens plateaued at the past three elections: 8.65 per cent in 2013, 10.23 per cent in 2016 and 10.40 per cent in 2019. Most of their preferences flow back to Labor and it appears determined not to add to its single lower house member, leader Adam Bandt. A party that proposes to ban horse racing is surely betting against self-interest.
What must inform Labor strategists this year is twofold: winning back swinging voters from the Coalition – its federal first preference vote is stable while Labor’s remains mired in the low to mid-30s – but also the threat from populist minor parties of the right, such as Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party.
...... At the 2013 election, a landslide victory for Tony Abbott, the Coalition’s combined lower house primary vote rose by just more than 2 per cent while Labor’s fell by 4.61 per cent. Then known as the Palmer United Party, Clive’s party won 5.49 per cent at its first attempt. It then ran dead in 2016.
On its revival in 2019 and an $80m anti-Labor advertising blitz during the 2019 federal contest, while not winning a single seat, it polled 3.4 per cent of the vote. Its preference deal with the Coalition is credited with assisting Scott Morrison’s “miracle” victory. Just ask Clive. Palmer was never really in it to win it; what he desired was preserving the status quo.
This year the spectre of Clive and his sidekick, ex-NSW Liberal MP and UAP leader Craig Kelly, looms large over the election and not only in Queensland. According to reports, internal Liberal and Labor polling shows the UAP’s support is in the high teens in several outer suburban seats in Sydney and Melbourne, a game changer in close contests if its 2019 preference deal is replicated. Don’t be fooled by the UAP’s “anti-incumbent” populist slogan that voters “can never trust Labor, the Liberals or the Greens again”.
Yet, after the high-water mark of 2010 (11.76 per cent), the House of Representatives vote for the Greens plateaued at the past three elections: 8.65 per cent in 2013, 10.23 per cent in 2016 and 10.40 per cent in 2019. Most of their preferences flow back to Labor and it appears determined not to add to its single lower house member, leader Adam Bandt. A party that proposes to ban horse racing is surely betting against self-interest.
What must inform Labor strategists this year is twofold: winning back swinging voters from the Coalition – its federal first preference vote is stable while Labor’s remains mired in the low to mid-30s – but also the threat from populist minor parties of the right, such as Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party.
...... At the 2013 election, a landslide victory for Tony Abbott, the Coalition’s combined lower house primary vote rose by just more than 2 per cent while Labor’s fell by 4.61 per cent. Then known as the Palmer United Party, Clive’s party won 5.49 per cent at its first attempt. It then ran dead in 2016.
On its revival in 2019 and an $80m anti-Labor advertising blitz during the 2019 federal contest, while not winning a single seat, it polled 3.4 per cent of the vote. Its preference deal with the Coalition is credited with assisting Scott Morrison’s “miracle” victory. Just ask Clive. Palmer was never really in it to win it; what he desired was preserving the status quo.
This year the spectre of Clive and his sidekick, ex-NSW Liberal MP and UAP leader Craig Kelly, looms large over the election and not only in Queensland. According to reports, internal Liberal and Labor polling shows the UAP’s support is in the high teens in several outer suburban seats in Sydney and Melbourne, a game changer in close contests if its 2019 preference deal is replicated. Don’t be fooled by the UAP’s “anti-incumbent” populist slogan that voters “can never trust Labor, the Liberals or the Greens again”.
