This morning brought the news that former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie will be running for the ALP in the marginal LNP seat of Forde, on the southern outskirts of Brisbane.
Discussion has already begun on the Forde page about his prospects in the seat, and the very quick turnaround in the bookmaker’s odds in the seat, with the LNP losing their favourite status. Centrebet has moved the odds for the LNP winning Forde from $1.68 to $3.75, with other bookmakers making similar changes.
We’ll just have to wait and see what the polls say about Forde, and whether Peter Beattie has effectively snatched an LNP marginal by entering the race.
It’s no secret that Labor is focused on gaining ground in Queensland, and Beattie will strengthen their presence. It’s not yet clear whether he will be devoting most of his energy to winning Forde, or if he will be free to act as a high-profile surrogate for Kevin Rudd across the rest of Queensland.
Please use this thread to generally discuss the election, including the impact of Peter Beattie’s entry into the race on Queensland and the race in general. To discuss the specifics of the race in Forde, please check out that page.
Also, I thought readers might find it interesting which electorate profiles are garnering the most hits. The below table lists the top five electorates for each day this week, and I’ll post updated versions throughout the campaign.
| Rank | Monday 5th | Tuesday 6th | Wednesday 7th | Thursday 8th (so far) |
| 1 | Greenway | Greenway | Greenway | Forde |
| 2 | NSW Senate | Griffith | Indi | Rankin |
| 3 | VIC Senate | VIC Senate | TAS Senate | McPherson |
| 4 | Dobell | Lindsay | Grayndler | Griffith |
| 5 | QLD Senate | Moreton | Griffith | Greenway |
You can see in this table which seats dominated the new each day, with Jayme Diaz’s terrible interview with Channel 10 keeping Greenway at the top for three days. David Bradbury’s radio interview in Lindsay also pushed the seat up the list for one day only. Today’s list is dominated by Queensland electorates. They also reflect electorates that have had particularly heated comment exchanges.
Kernot was a former party leader that tried to come back in to parliament. I think Beaties time has passed too.
Forde and Bert Van Manen seems a bit of a soft target. Why not use Beattie to challenge for a tough but getable seat like Dickson? Take on somebody your own size Beattie, ya bully!
What I wrote in the day one thread is better placed here:
I don’t know where to put this, but I have a theory about this morning’s development. I think Beattie may have been put in as a tactical move. Rudd isn’t gaining momentum in western Sydney and needs to focus on there and Victoria to stop them losing seats and maybe even help picking some up.
I think Beattie has been brought in to campaign in Queensland to enable Rudd to focus on NSW.
Just a theory…
Maybe Rudd said he would endorse Beattie for leader of the ALP should he lose the election?
Wow who saw that coming!
^Good theory I think QO, it does make a lot of sense. Sort of agree with Jim too, a harder seat would have been better given Beatties popularity. However, he probably wanted what he thought could end up being a ‘safe seat.’
I disagree with people suggesting he should have gone for a harder seat.
Beattie is high-profile. Such candidates typically get given safe seats, in typical circumstances. These aren’t typical circumstances, of course, but he wasn’t going to be given a seat he had to fight tooth-and-nail for. His appeal needs to be broad, to help Labor win some more seats beyond the seat he runs for, and to do that, he needs to be in a seat that his candidacy will save for Labor, but that he doesn’t need to do heavy campaigning to hold. Forde is the perfect seat for him, in my opinion. Brisbane is too easy to win, while the Libs would put a huge fight up for Dickson and Beattie wouldn’t be certain to win it.
Mind you, I honestly think that Labor should have tried to get Margaret Keech to run in Forde, and then have Beattie step into one of the other marginals – Margaret Keech was quite popular in Albert (one of the state electorates in Forde), and only lost her seat because of the MASSIVE swing against the Bligh government. Against van Manen, she would probably have won here in Forde. This would mean that Beattie could then run for Bonner, or Fisher if he wanted a bit of a fight.
The Coalition should retaliate by nominating one of their popular and personable past state Premiers for a marginal seat. Oh, I forgot. There aren’t any. Actually come to think of if there aren’t that many Liberal or National State premiers alive let alone popular.
I agree completely with what you say in your 2nd para Glen.
However, as of last week Forde was already being written off by the LNP, “..Bonner….and Forde are going to be very hard, if not impossible, to hold.” as Hardman has reportedly been campaigning quite well in the last 12 months. Now, Hardman may not have won whereas Bettie guarantees a win and he may have wanted a seat he could make safe.
However, another seat – not Dickson given the history – which required a slightly bigger swing and which was surrounded by other winnable marginals may have been more strategic? There are obviously many internal ALP factors we are not aware of.
Optics wise this would have been better done prior to calling the election as a way of building momentum – doing it now looks a bit organised. It adds to a sense the ALP should have sorted out all of their candidates before calling the election, eg. Dobell.
Forde is very marginal. Since it was created in 1984, it has bucked the national trend only twice, when the Lib/LNP candidate won in 1984 and 2010. Apart from that the seat has always been won by the party of government: Labor 1987-1993, Liberal 1996-2004, Labor 2007.
Ben, true, but the first election was essentially a tie, with Watson winning from second by a margin of 63 votes. The 2010 election was a special circumstance, with the seat closely matching the state’s revenge swing of 5+ against Labor. It would already have been easy to see this as a special circumstance with a Ruddstoration swing to Labor expected. This is all to say that I can see Glen’s point about it no longer really being a marginal.
John Fahey anybody? But a Qld history of popular state/local leaders failing to make the federal jump successfully: Ted Theodore, Clem Jones, Sally-Ann Atkinson
My theory is that Beattie is a smokescreen. For some reason they had to get rid of Hardman but did not want the bad publicity that would attract. As a result, Hardman has been sacked but the media focus is on Beattie being there, not the reason that he is there. Guess we’ll have to wait till after the election to find out what is really going on.
I highly doubt that beattie would be willing to be a candidate with a real chance of being an MP for atleast 3 years, just so the ALP wouldn’t have bad publicity in one seat
Odds are 1.19/4.80 according to Sportsbet. Seems rather generous for the LNP, I’d say it’s more like 1.50/2.50 or something like that.
Do we really need gambling data on this site and the names of gambling companies? Excessive betting is a illness like excessive boozing.
morgieb – what are you talking about? Sportsbet has Labor ahead… or rather, had them ahead. Forde isn’t even listed on their site, now. Centrebet has Labor at 1.25 to LNP’s 3.65. How is 1.5 to 2.5 less generous for the LNP?
Adrian – we’re not encouraging betting, we’re looking at where the punters are expecting seats to go. It actually tends to be a pretty good judge of how electorates are going, and provides more data than you get from the occasional seat-based opinion poll.
Glen, talking about the election in general. If I wanted Forde odds, I’d post in the Forde thread, not the general one :p
Ah, sorry, morgieb. It’s just that most of the discussion around “Day four” has been Forde, so I failed to notice you didn’t specify Forde in your comment.
I think at this election the wild card seats will be: Solomon, Boothby, Leichardt, Herbert, Bonner, Flynn, Macquarie, Greenway, Bennelong and Dunkley. I think labor will gain Brisbane, Longman, Dawson and Forde regardless of polls and probably gain Hasluck and possibly Swan. Lose Lindsay, Bass and Bradon but Bass is salvageable, lose Corangamite and Deakin.
Thats why I agree with the Australian blogger Mumble in suggesting labor can win this election
When I saw the Gallaxy Poll this morning it really raised my eyebrows. I thought the ALP were a lot closer than that in Queensland. But over the last week or so we’ve had Reachtel polls in Griffith and Forde which show a combined swing of 2/3 percent to the Coalition since the last election. So if anything it confirms the validity of those polls. It would be interesting to see any polling for Moreton, Lilley or Petrie.
Bear – polls have been all over the place, recently. They’ve been saying that Rudd is at risk of losing his seat (really? He was the only one who would keep his seat while Gillard was leader, but now he’s at risk?), that Beattie would give a 5 point bump to Labor in Forde yet has no change after it’s announced, a split result in Melbourne in which one poll says Bandt is in second place and unlikely to win while the other says he has 48% primary vote, and numbers suggesting that Labor might pick up THREE seats in WA, yet lose a seat in Queensland?
It might be that there’s an imbalance from “uncommitted” voters – perhaps the ones leaning towards the Liberals are firming more quickly, while those leaning to the left are less certain? It would explain a lot of the results so far, given that uncommitted voters are typically removed when reporting primary votes, etc, if you’re able to be uncommitted at all (ReachTel doesn’t allow you to be uncommitted).
Griffith, if it wasn’t for Rudd, would probably have swapped over to LNP by now due to changing demographics. Some parts of Griffith (Bulimba, Hawthorne, Morningside etc) have become quite gentrified over the last 15 to 20 years. The Bulimba State Electorate switched over to LNP for the first time since WW2 last year. Admittedly just. So what Rudd is facing is a gradual erosion of his ALP base support. Yes he will win on September 7 but by less than 55% 2PP in my belief.
Observer – I agree that Labor can win the election and noone is a bigger supporter of Brenty than me. I just don’t think they will. But there is a way to go. I think for Labor to win they need Abbott to stuff up.
Bear Necessities – Lilley safe. Moreton likely Lib gain. Petrie very close.
Bear – my issue with the Griffith poll numbers isn’t that it shows a shift to the LNP. It’s that it shows a bigger shift to the LNP now that Rudd is PM again than it did back when Gillard was leader. Some people refer to the sympathy vote, but that could only have applied in 2010, not in 2013.
DB – I think Abbott’s biggest danger is the debates. He has never been a particularly skillful debater, while it’s Rudd’s strong suit. This is why Rudd kept challenging Abbott to a debate, and Abbott kept turning them down.
Glen – agree, hence why Abbott wants town hall style debates where he will outshine Rudd. Rudd is made for TV, not Town Halls. Good to get the formal debate over today, early in the campaign.
Based on current projections I have the Coalition on 85.
On Griffith I would not overstate the bullimba result. That was one of the smallest swings in the state. Most seats had double digits swings. Bullimba had a small 6 percent or so. A lot of that wasdue to di farmer who is one of the best community linked retail pollies in queensland.. I rate her above all the current labor opposition bar Curtis Pitt. I think what impacts Griffith more is the greenslopes area. The state swing was bigger there and Ian Walker is very organized with a good lnp organization that will help glasson.
QO – Agreed my wife works in a school in the Bulimba area. A lot people were “upset” that Di Farmer was not re-elected. I notice that Abbott is visiting the area about once a week just to annoy Rudd.
Thanks DB. I’m surprised that Lilley is listed as safe. I thought being next door to Petrie, admittedly with a higher margin to the ALP, it would be showing a trend to LNP. I also think one to watch as well would be Blair. I think Neumann should be OK there but parts of that electorate (Jindalee, Mt Ommaney, Middle Park) will have solid swing to LNP based on current trends.
That is the first I heard about Lilley for a bit. I thought I wasn’t hearing about it because it must not have been looking good for the LNP and db has confirmed that.
I think you will find Blair won’t swing enough, while Rankin and Oxley may swing by bigger margins then Blair. I don’t know if Lin or Nguyen will pick them up, but I expect bigger than average swings there. Both candidates dominate with signage, corflutes, attendance of public events and roadsides which is having an effect. I know residents in labor heartland suburbs such as Kingston, Woodridge and in ala have made comment to me about this.
Bear – Lilley not seen as a crucial seat. Effort placed elsewhere. If the LNP win Lilley they end up with +90 seats.
The marginal seats tend to be moving towards the Coalition at this point in most States. ALP could have bigger losses in SA than anyone is predicting.
Debate finished not long ago, and I’m astounded by the media reporting on it. Supposedly Rudd looked “nervous”… except, he didn’t, not once. So many in the media are talking about Abbott looking relaxed and prime ministerial – he looked stiff and scripted, to me… not unlike what Gillard sounded like. Rudd was supposedly evasive… but he answered every question in one way or another… indeed, if anything, it was David Speers cutting him off that prevented him from finishing his points.
I’m also flabbergasted by Seven’s worm. Apparently, it gave the debate to Abbott – meanwhile, Nine’s worm gave it to Rudd, as did Ten’s and ABC’s twitter polls. I switched from ABC’s coverage to Nine’s coverage about half way through, and the shifting of the worm was quite stark – it went up when Rudd spoke, and down when Abbott spoke, with more of a drop when he used his slogans.
QO – It is interesting you mentioned about signage etc in Rankin and Oxley. I was walking around the Ekka on Saturday and I saw people with LNP bags and balloons. I didn’t see it but there must of been a LNP stand at the show or the LNP was handing out merchandise. The LNP seem to have their act together for this election in Brisbane. In a little over 4 years the LNP has won 7 federal seats in 2010, landslide in 2012 State Election and increased BCC majority. Admittedly they have had a demoralised ALP to go up against but not a bad achievement for a merger that I think could of come apart at anytime in the first couple of years. (or may still do)
DB – Do you have any idea’s how Katter’s and Palmer’s votes are trending as we get closer to election day in Qld? It feels to me that don’t have that feverish intensity that Pauline Hanson’s One Nation had.
Amusing little twitter storm here, involving the Wikileaks Party in Victoria:
https://twitter.com/dpfhaidon/status/366426181643403264
That got linked to me by some people who post on Whirlpool / Slashdot / etc much more than I do. Asher Wolf is a tech journo… I’m not that sorta geek, so I’ve never heard of her before, but apparently pissing off her or her followers (she has a few) is not a clever thing for Wikileaks to be doing. (From a quick glance at Wolf’s profile, she seems to be involved with the Pirate Party. Micro-party turf war, perhaps?) There’s some goss going around that Wikileaks might preference right-wing microparties (the Shooters et al) before the Greens in NSW, which is where this debate seems to have sprung from.
https://twitter.com/maxphillips/status/366402575991455745
Speaking of Wikileaks, I was surprised to see Gerry Georgatos turn up as a WA candidate for them. I would’ve thought he’d’ve given politics a rest after the Willagee by-election, which caused so much angst back in 2009. Apparently not. Anyone who’s been involved in the Murdoch uni guild over the last decade probably saw that, groaned and went “oh gawd, not him again”. I wonder where they’ll put the Greens on their preference ticket here… it could be lower than you’d expect.
Observer: “I think at this election the wild card seats will be: Solomon, Boothby, Leichardt, Herbert, Bonner, Flynn, Macquarie, Greenway, Bennelong and Dunkley. I think labor will gain Brisbane, Longman, Dawson and Forde regardless of polls and probably gain Hasluck and possibly Swan. Lose Lindsay, Bass and Bradon but Bass is salvageable, lose Corangamite and Deakin.”
That is an interesting list. I think I’d exclude Liechardt as seems too safe & not sure about Dawson. Gilmore perhaps should be included in the wild cards given the tight polling there? I suspect a non-Qld country seat will throw a surprise somewhere. In Qld we might see some interesting results in a 2-3 seats due to KAP & PUP. The high number of retiring members adds more volatility. I’d add ALP gains of Dobell & Melbourne to your list but are obviously not a transfer from the LNP to ALP.
The fact that the ALP have now changed 5 candidates (Benn., Dobell, Forde, Hotham & Kennedy) adds to my view that they went too early. However, as Mumble says with polling holding 52-48 (todays Newspoll) to the LNP it does provide the ALP some scope if they can hold that for the next 2 weeks in an election that was always the LNPs to lose. The question is, will boredom set in with the electorate in the next 2-3 weeks?
This thread is closed. Move federal election discussion to day eight.
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