New England – Australia 2013

1. I think that Barnaby Joyce is making a big mistake in running against Tony Windsor.
   Despite being brought up in the area, Joyce looks too much like a blow-in. I’ve always found him a likeable rogue with a great turn of phrase. But in the context of being a National in a Coalition frontbench full of Liberal city slickers, his penchant for grandstanding makes him look like nothing more than a showpony. And a swing of over 22% looks too large even for someone of Joyce’s standing.
   As for Windsor, he might’ve “defied” his conservative electorate in backing Labor, but he hasn’t always toed the Labor line. He opposed Labor’s abolition of the building industry watchdog, he opposed Labor’s means-testing of the private health insurance rebate, and recently he opposed Labor’s controversial media laws. I dare say that Windsor frightened Julia Gillard into engineering the defection of Peter Slipper to the crossbenches and the Speakership in late 2011, when he opposed the means-testing – although Gillard was bleeding over the anti-pokie laws demanded by Andrew Wilkie, Windsor made her snap.
   And it’s not unprecendented for balance-of-power Independents to “defy” their electorates and back governments of the “wrong” colour. In Queensland, Liz Cunningham defied her Labor-leaning electorate and tossed out the Goss Labor Government, while Peter Wellington defied his Coalition-leaning electorate and tossed out the Borbidge Coalition Government – over a decade later, Cunningham and Wellington are still there today. And in the NT, Gerry Wood survived a swing against him of 18% for backing the Mills Labor Government, but still holds his seat very comfortably.
   Windsor will face the morth-and-father of character assassination campaigns from the Coalition and their conservative media cheer squad until the election – but I think that he’ll hang on in the end.

2. There should be some polling coming up here shortly and I will be very interested in it. Not sure that Windsor deserves favouritism after this term.

3. The bookies certainly don’t see Windsor as the favourite, though I think Joyce is a weaker candidate than Torbay, or at least Torbay before the ‘scandal’ that he got caught up in. Joyce will have to be careful not to make any gaffes, as he can be prone to do.

   Despite Joyce’s favourtism, Windsor is a highly respected man in New England and has a very large personal following. The Lib’s sub-par broadband network announcement won’t help Joyce either, in particular in Armidale and Tamworth.

   I can’t tip him, but at the same time can’t quite write Windsor off. I’d love to see him get up.

4. PJ, I don’t think that the NBN is an issue in Armidale or Tamworth because it has already been built and is up and running using the fibre to the house technology. Suspect Barnaby will get up.

5. pollster
   using the n.b.n to negate Windsor’s re-election chances or to make it a non-issue —is taking away the very reason and strenght that an elected independent can sway.
   on the other hand Barnaby would have to toe the line of party politics and poor Armidale and Tamworth would have to agree with the Tony Abbott fraud band version
   i believe you’ve inadvertently highlighted ton Windsor’s independent quality skills

6. Lance, I agree with your point that an independent can have incredible influence / power in a “hung” parliament. However, when the coalition has a majority of 40 to 50 seats then Winsor, assuming he gets up, won’t have the influence he once had…….

7. pollster
   you are basing your hopes and wants on future outcomes
   whereas I believe the 70% of the electorate have rewarded Tony with his huge majorities based
   on services rendered————-I feel the old adage applies——————:
   IF YOU DON”T KNOW WHERE YOU COME FROM YOU CERTAINLY WON”T KNOW WHERE YOUR HEADING
   I personally believe whilst the electors keep on appointing Tony Windsor as master and captain of the electoral boundaries of New England he will always seek and find safe (political) harbor for
   his constituents

8. Gents, can we make this a policy free zone? fyi – from a poll done in February, when Torbay was running, two things were apparent: one: Windsor was set to lose; two: NBN was listed as sixth important to the constituents of New England.

   I’d still have Joyce as favourite, but it should be quite close.

9. Lance,

   Not sure how you can impute what I “hope and want” from my comments. If I amend my comments as follows they are equally true:

   Lance, I agree with your point that an independent can have incredible influence / power in a “hung” parliament. However, when the coalition / labor has a majority of 4 to 5 seats then Winsor, assuming he gets up, won’t have the influence he once had…….

   However, all the polling suggests that the coalition will win around 90 to 100 (or more) seats which gives them the circa 40 to 50 seat majority I referred to in my earlier post.

   The point that I am trying to make is it will be very tough for TW to win in the current environment. May be you will be right that the majority of voters will continue to support TW. I haven’t seen anything that suggests that they will. If DB (or other person) sees some polling (and shares it with us) and it favors TW I will have to reassess my view that Barnaby will get up.

   And don’t get me wrong – I have huge respect for Tony Windsor given what he has achieved over the last couple of decades – I live in the middle of Tony Abbott’s electorate and we won’t have NBN (copper or fibre) for at least 4 years whereas the good people of Armadale and Tamworth have the option to link up.

10. Pollster – what you are saying is pretty much in line with what Peter Brent says. Windsor’s prospects are aligned with the fate of the ALP. If the ALP get up, the Windsor will probably win. If they don’t, he’ll probably lose.

11. As a New Englander, I can tell you this. If Barnaby Joyce were to walk up the main streets of Tamworth, Armidale and Gunnedah and was caught on CCTV burning every shop he could see to the ground – he would STILL win. Might lose the odd vote, but not too many. In an electorate that voted 8% Labor and 4% Green, Windsor was gone about 1 nano-second after he signed up with Gillard. I don’t think anyone fully appreciates the anger that one single act had.

12. Mood i find in New England is that people have been offended by the major parties politics and trust windsor as he is a no bull shit guy. i recon this will stay with a 10% swing to the nats

13. I know of people that are hereditary National Party voters that are loath to vote for Joyce because, simply, they cannot stand him as a person. When you look at the short thrift Windsor was given in 2001 by the National Party, and why he ran as an Independent, it becomes a lot more understandable why he didn’t side with the Coalition to form a government, and why he still holds a reasonable chance of winning.
    I ask now, how many people commenting actually live in the electorate, and how many are taking the measure from Sydney, or Melbourne or such. Joyce is not loved in the area. He may be tolerated, if he does get elected, but he shall not have my vote.

14. I am sorry to say Observer my uncle lives in Armidale and he says that yes Tony Windsor will have his supporters, but that pen to paper act with the Labor Party has tarnished a lot of people’s opinion of Tony in the region.

    He said that it will be close but Tony will go down fighting and Barnby will put his foot in it on Election night, he wont be able to help the “foot in mouth”.

    It will be a sad loss for the region my uncle said as Tony has been fighter for New England.

15. Now that TW has announced he won’t be running is there any other credible independent who can fill the breech? Suspect not. TPP will probably be circa 70% plus to the Nats similar to the Northern Tablelands by-election.

    Good 24 hours for the NATS – they get back two seats. NE and Lyne.

16. Sadly there is no other outstanding figure in NE and there wouldn’t be enough time to campaign so I’d say a NAT gain but would seriously doubt it would mirror the By-Election

17. Not the right place for this post but given Tony Windsor says he might not support Kev on the floor of the house there is some relevance – a long bow…..

    One scenario that I have not heard or seen discussed in the current labor leadership debate is that Julia loses the leadership of the labor party but does not resign the PMs role as she believes she still has confidence of the House. Kev would be leader of the Labor party.

    Then it becomes very interesting. Does Tony move a motion of no confidence in JG? If so, do the labor members support it? Do the independents / greens support it.

    If Tony does not move a motion of no confidence in JG does Kevin ? If so who supports it – does half the labor movement vote one way or the other? What does the coalition do? Perhaps nothing to have a PM and a leader of the labor party would be interesting. And what do the indis/greens do?

    Or no body moves a no confidence motion and JG remains PM and KR is leader of the labor party. The PM requests parliament to be dissolved for an election.

    Or Tony moves a motion of confidence in JG as PM after she has lost the leadership but before she can resign with the GG. The implication would be that the House does not have confidence in the alternative.

    I know the above is somewhat far fetched but given what has happened and the alleged “hatred” (very stong word I know) between the protagonists it could happen. Truth is stranger than fiction after all.

    Also losing a no confidence motion is not an absolute reason to resign. I seem to recall hearing that in Tasmania, a minority Government lost a no-confidence motion (or perhaps had its budget amended I can’t recall precisely) and the Premier went to resign and the Governor asked him to see if he could pass a motion to suspend/ajourne Parliament. This motion was successful and therefore the Governor concluded that the Premier did in fact have confidence of the House and the Government continued.

    While politicians are known to be a little lose with the truth, Tony’s comment “we don’t rule anything out this week” is looking absolutely spot on.

18. There is another declared candidate here, Jamie McIntyre of the as yet unregistered 21st Century Australia Party
    http://www.tenterfieldstar.com.au/story/1581289/candidate-predicts-poll-upset/?cs=1262

    He’s had quite a few mentions in the media, but no sign of his party registration application on the AEC website yet so it may have hit a snag or two. Also unclear if he’d still be running now that Windsor isn’t.

    I thought I had seen another minor/micro party that had also announced a bid to take on Windsor, but I can’t seem to find any other reports now.

19. It appears McIntyre is still planning to spend up to $250,000 to win this seat. He appears to be generating a fair few mentions in the local media, but I can’t imagine him having much impact come election day
    http://www.guyraargus.com.au/story/1644602/21st-century-australia-party-open-armidale-office/?cs=605

20. Pat Schultz will again be the Greens candidate
    http://www.armidaleexpress.com.au/story/1670836/greens-announce-new-england-candidate/?cs=12

21. On the topic of the Greens in this seat, do you think we’re likely to see an increase in their vote in the seat?

    Why do I suggest that? Well, Tony Windsor isn’t running in the seat for the first time since they had their major growth. In 1998, they got 2.13% on primary vote, and even in 2010, they were only at 3.57%. In the surrounding seats, here are the Greens primary votes:

    Page (to the east)- 8.58%
    Parkes (to the west) – 5.6%
    Hunter (to the south) – 8.92%
    Cowper (to the south-east) – 9.09%
    Maranoa (QLD seat to the north) – 5.15%

    Even in Lyne, to the south-east (south of Cowper), they got over 4%. Also note that Parkes didn’t even get a Greens candidate in 1998, and in 2001, they got 2.53%; New England saw 2.26% for Greens in 2001. So while Parkes’ Greens vote has increased by 2.21x, while in New England, it was just 1.58x.

    My assertion – many voters who would have voted Greens were actually voting for Tony Windsor, and thus they should see a significant bump in the coming election. Based on neighbouring electorates, I’d bet they’ll jump to around 7%.

    Further evidence – in the Senate, the Greens got 7.29% in 2010.

    On a side note, I think that, when Windsor asserted that the people who voted him in wanted him to support Labor, he wasn’t lying. Coalition voter difference (senate minus house) is 18.51%. Labor voter difference is 20.54%. Greens voter difference is 3.72%. Most of Windsor’s voters came from the left.

22. It’s actually possible to determine how voters who preferred Windsor over Labor and National split between Labor and National directly from the 2010 results.

    This is done as follows:

    From the distribution of preferences breakdown at http://results.aec.gov.au/15508/Website/HouseDivisionDop-15508-135.htm at the point where only three candidates remain:

    Labor-National-Windsor + Labor-Windsor-National = Labor vote with three remaining =9.86
    Windsor-National-Labor + Windsor-Labor-National = Windsor vote with three remaining = 64.14

    From the Labor-vs-National 2PP at http://results.aec.gov.au/15508/Website/HouseDivisionFirstPrefs-15508-135.htm:

    Labor-National-Windsor + Labor-Windsor-National + Windsor-Labor-National = Labor 2PP vote over National = 33.20

    Now we know LNW+LWN+WLN=33.2
    LNW+LWN = 9.86
    Subtracting second equation from the first, WLN =23.34
    Therefore WNL = 40.8

    …and actually Windsor voters (or minor candidate voters who preferenced Windsor ahead of the majors) preferred the National candidate over the Labor one, 63.6%:36.4%.

    The difference between this and the Senate figures may seem a stark one but in New England, candidates who were not Labor, Coalition or Green scored 13.07% above the state Senate average, a total of 26.64% for NE Senate cf 1.21% in the House. The leading contributors to that were S+F 6.04, CDP 2.32, ASP 2.21, LDP 1.99, FF 1.53, ON 1.47, DLP 1.22, AD 1. They’re mostly right-wingers, and of that list only ON contested the NE seat scoring 0.87.

    So it’s very probably not the case that most of TW’s voters were lefties – it’s just that the right-wing vote for Windsor in the House was fractured in the Senate with a lot of it going to micro-parties ahead of the Coalition. Which makes sense because if they’ve had enough of the majors in the Lower House they might not rush out to vote 1 for them in the Senate either.

    Probably the 63.6% to National in the Lower House overstates it though, because Labor was making much less effort in the Lower House and hence their candidate would have had less profile and hence a bit less appeal to TW’s voters than the Labor Senate team. Would be at least a few points back in that.

23. Sent a long comment here that was put into moderation, perhaps for containing links or being too long, and seems to still be there.

    To summarise, it can be determined from actual data from the AEC website that those voters who preferred Windsor over the National and Labor candidates, nearly all of whom voted 1 for Windsor, then went on to preference National over Labor by a margin 63.6%-36.4%

    The problem with analysing the alignment of Windsor voters by Senate-House differences for Labor, Liberal and Green is that New England had a 26.6% vote for parties other than these in the Senate, and most of the micros that got votes in NE were right-wingers led by Shooters and Fishers with 6%.

    It seems Windsor’s voters actually were right-leaning but in the Senate results this is disguised by their fractured voting pattern.

24. Sorry Kevin – it was a good comment, and yes it was put into moderation because of the links. It’s been approved now.

25. Kevin – the flaw in your analysis is that you, for instance, include votes that went -Windsor-Labor-Nationals – which is a valid thing to do if you’re interested in, as you say, how people who put Windsor above both preferred the two. I am concerned only with the ones that voted Windsor as their primary vote. It also leaves out the Greens, and I did say “left wing” rather than “Labor”.

    Having said that, I do see a flaw in my analysis, and it’s a bigger one – namely, that I only accounted for about 69% of people who voted for Windsor. So I figured I’d look a bit deeper – if we take Labor and Greens as “left”, Windsor as the unknown, and the other three as “right”, and then look at how the Senate votes lined up, we find that the voting difference on the left (including Democrats (left of Labor nowadays), Sex Party, Communist/Socialist parties, Carers Alliance, Equal Parenting, and the independent ticket under Cheryl Kernot) represents 28.65% of the total vote. If we assume that these flowed to Windsor, as a simple approximation, then this represents about 46.3% of Windsor’s vote, with the other 53.7% coming from the right.

    So it’s actually remarkably close, by the looks of it.

    Of course, one thing to notice is that clearly many people who voted for a “left” party in the senate still put Nationals ahead of Labor in the house; that’s why I was more interested in left/right rather than Labor/Nationals.

26. There’s another way of looking at those figures, too. Since Windsor became a major candidate in New England, the Labor vote has withered, and the National vote hasn’t. Labor lost a much greater proportion of its previous vote to Windsor than the Nats did. After a couple of decades of not bothering to campaign very hard in the area, running dead to help Windsor / Torbay / Fardell / etc, that former Labor vote might not come back. These contests have usually been between the Nats and independents, so people voting for the indie are anti-Nat but not necessarily pro-Labor. If KAP put some effort in, they could pick up a decent chunk of Windsor’s old vote for themselves.

    (Are KAP even running in New England? With the coal seam gas issue there to play for, they certainly should be.)

27. Katter has announced candidates in a number of seats in Sydney and southern NSW, but none in any northern NSW seats yet.

28. If KAP don’t run in New England, they’re crazy (OK, crazier than they already are, given that they’re part of a party run by Bob Katter :P). I honestly think that they could manage a healthy 55% or so 2CP against the Nationals. Heck, they could probably even talk Windsor into helping them campaign, essentially getting him to call them his natural successor.

    In that situation, I’d imagine that we’d see the Greens vote rise as per my previous post, but the Labor vote wouldn’t increase much – maybe up to 14% primary vote.

29. Next commenters will be suggesting that Labor will win North Sydney and Warringah!

    Barnaby’s problem would be in a high profile Independent candidate. No-one else will get close.

    Given the strong performance of the Coalition in the Senate in this seat and a high profile candidate, I cannot see anything other than a strong National Party win.

30. I think Katter is a uniquely North Queensland phenomenon and may be having trouble finding candidates in these areas.

    Don’t forget Jamie McIntyre. According to excessive local media coverage and his own extravagant claims, he stands a real chance of beating Barnaby… Oh, so none of you are convinced by that – me neither! I think he’ll be lucky to get his deposit back, even with the amount of money he’s spending.

31. Glen – the difference between people who voted 1 for Windsor and people who supported Windsor over Labor and Nat is a trivial one, since the latter were almost all 1 Windsor voters. 61.88% voted 1 Windsor. Those preferencing Windsor but not voting 1 for him are only 2.26% of all voters, or 3.5% of Windsor’s pile. Also, they’re mostly Greens voters, who aren’t going to be right-leaning compared to Windsor voters. So not only is the “flaw” minor but to the extent that it makes a difference it’s one that likely makes the 1 Windsor voters in the House even more Nat-leaning.

    But the point that it looks a lot closer when the Senate figures are considered is a valid one. As you noticed a lot of people voted for a “left” party in the Senate but preferenced National over Labor in the House. I make the difference about 7.2 points, which is a bit larger than I expected when I said “at least a few points back “. These are probably leftish voters who didn’t preference Labor in the House because Labor wasn’t making any effort there. Some of them would probably be Senate Labor voters. The Windsor voters still come out as right-leaning but not by a huge amount.

32. Nick C – while I recognise that Katter’s natural “base” is north Queensland, it should be noted that they will be strong in regions where agriculture is the major industry and issues like CSG are major concerns. Issues like CSG are some of the biggest concerns in New England – do a search for “CSG New England” (without the quotes), and you’ll find a few early listings that demonstrate the point.

    Indeed, I think that, outside of Queensland, New England is KAP’s best shot at winning a lower house seat. As I said, if they can get Windsor to back their candidate in the seat, it would go a long way towards winning it. And I do think that Windsor would be willing to consider it – Windsor has little love for the Nationals, and would probably like to see New England go to another party.

    Also, Barnaby Joyce has a few problems. One of these is that he’s been a Queensland senator all this time – it makes him look like a drop-in candidate, despite the fact that he was born in Tamworth and educated at UNE. If a potential challenger from the KAP is a true local, it’ll play well for them – and since KAP tends to choose current locals with non-political jobs, if KAP put up a proper fight, Mr Joyce will need to convince the people that he will represent them, and not the National Party. Which would have been easier, before he became the leader of the Nationals in the Senate (when he was able to cross the floor when he felt it necessary).

    Kevin – it’s not just whether they voted 1 Windsor, but who their second preference was. If their preferences went Windsor-Greens-Nationals–Labor, I’d call that a Greens voter voting for Windsor, and thus a left-wing voter – that they put Labor last is more about Labor itself than about political orientation. But I think we agree that I was inaccurate to begin with, and that evidence can be viewed multiple ways.

33. The Labor candidate is Stephen Hewitt
    http://www.armidaleexpress.com.au/story/1683480/breaking-labor-names-candidate-for-new-england/?cs=471

    @Glen I don’t doubt that KAP candidates will do ok in rural seats, and I take your point that New England could be potentially their best seat in NSW, but from what I hear Katter doesn’t play as well in rural communities outside Queensland, and particularly Nth Qld, as he might hope. If KAP was a serious contender in these seats why do they not have candidates announced yet? He has candidates in western Sydney but none of the rural northern NSW seats. I think he is struggling to find candidates.

34. Nick C – with the election now called, I think the next few days will be telling.

    Katter has been “on the lookout for the right candidate” for the seat since April, according to media reports from that time. It’s possible that it’s considered too important a seat to just let any old candidate go in… or it might be that they’re having trouble finding even half-decent candidates. As there’s no more time for Katter to search, he’ll have to choose a candidate from the list he already has. If it’s a decent candidate, then it was about maximising chances. If it’s a poor candidate, then they were having trouble finding a decent candidate.

    Basically, I’m saying that there are two plausible explanations – either Katter’s standards were too high, and he needs to be willing to choose a candidate with a little more variation in politics, or Katter is having trouble even getting anybody’s interest in running on his platform in the seat.

35. UPDATE: Jamie McIntyre claims conspiracy by AEC to prevent his party being registered, considering legal action to have election delayed.
    http://www.inverelltimes.com.au/story/1683660/election-date-shock-candidate-claims-electoral-conspiracy/?cs=1271

36. In latest developments in the Jamie McIntyre circus, he has now asked Tony Windsor’s office for advice on how to run as an independent! Windsor has an appropriate response
    http://www.inverelltimes.com.au/story/1686277/mcintyre-seeks-windsors-advice/?cs=1523
    Oh and as well as considering legal action to have the election delayed, he’s also planning a class action from everyone who wanted to vote for his party.

37. So McIntyre’s problem was that his party couldn’t manage to supply a list 500 members who were actually on the electoral roll (maybe he tried to count his fake Twitter followers?)

    For light entertainment purposes here’s his response
    http://21stcenturyaustralia.com.au/articles/letter-to-the-editor-of-the-armidale-express-from-jamie-mcintyre-regarding-article-in-fridays-edition-entitled-the-partys-over-for-jamie-mcintyre/

38. The most remarkable part, Nick C, is the supposed polling information at the bottom on the right side. Apparently, they had polling asking “Who are you most likely to vote for come September between Barnaby Joyce and Jamie McIntyre?” and they provide both primary and after preferences.

    Primary votes? Barnaby at 26% and Jamie at 12%, with 62% “undecided” (AKA “I’m not voting for either of them!”). After preferences? Jamie goes up to 31.8%… and Barnaby DROPS to 23.9%. That’s right – magically, at least 2.1% of voters would put Barnaby 1, but put Jamie above Barnaby on preferences.

    Quite remarkable.

39. Insightful crikey article here on Barnaby on the campaign trail with Truss in Maitland in Hunter,
    “He wanders in and out of various metaphors, starts them, abandons some, hunts others down to their burrow and clubs them to death. ”
    http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/08/14/rundle-barnabys-giving-it-his-all-for-a-hopeless-cause/

40. So, it turns out that KAP really didn’t get a candidate, here. I’m surprised – it’s the seat outside of Queensland that I’d have thought would be KAP’s best chance, followed by Lyne.

41. Also surprised on that one Glen. PUP may get a slight donkey vote being first. No one seems to have mentioned last weeks Newspoll results on this seat:

    “It found the Coalition’s primary vote was 53 per cent, up from 25.2 per cent in 2010, while independents attracted 18 per cent of the vote, down from 63.1 per cent in 2010. Labor’s primary vote was 24 per cent, up from 8.1 per cent in 2010.” 2PP would be 66%
    http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/08/17/coalition-gets-new-england-and-lyne-poll

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