Bennelong – Australia 2013

1. I moved out of this electorate last month.
   Alexander should win easily, but he doesn’t deserve to. I saw McKew a number of times in my part of the electorate, but I never saw Alexander there at all. I only noticed him once, ironically at a public transport forum prior to the NSW station election in 2011 – at that forum I asked NSW shadow minister Berejiklian a question about the cost to the economy of failing to expand public transport, which floored her, and Alexander was watching me. I have not seen him since.
   In my opinion, Alexander is a waste of space. He’s got to go, but he won’t go, at least not while Labor is on the nose in NSW.

2. I live in this electorate and i disagree i have seen him around Eastwood but i never saw Maxine expect during the election when she was dancing around at granny smith but John wanted a seat in parlement he tried pre selection for Bradfield when Nelson resigned and lost then decided to come down here and run.
   I’ve never had to deal with him but from what I have heard he is a good local member.

3. prob Lib retain….but I would have thought Mr Alexander wold have been a poorer candidate than John Howard to the tune of 3 to 5 %……..I was probably wrong!
   The seat will now most likely go with the flow of an election

4. Mick, there will be a swing to the Liberals here and it will be one of safer seats in NSW. This is close to Liberal traditional heartland and Labor can only hope to win it when the Liberal Party is severly on the nose.

5. db: this is not Liberal heartland……but an area that can swing massively depending on the climate Labor under the right circumstances can win by 5 % and in very bad circs for labor
   the libs can have a 10% margin…….Putney and I think Epping are the only guaranteed lib
   voting subburbs

6. I didn’t say it was. I said it was next to it. Hockey’s seat is right next to it. Labor can only hope to win this seat in landslides.

7. The DLP Candidate for Bennelong is Lachlan McCaffery .
   His Father Simon is also the NSW lead Senate Candidate and stood in the 2010 election.
   http://www.dlp.org.au/candidate-for-bennelong-lachlan-mccaffrey/

8. It would be interesting to see what happens here if Rudd takes the leadership. The removal was the main motive for dumping Labor and the big swings are in the West as polling indicates Labor tracking Ok in liberal held seats

9. Alexander in a land slide, have you seen the Labor candidate’s photo?

10. This seat is now talked up as a key seat and winnable. Interestingly, McKew got an 8% swing against here which looks to have gone to independents and other minor parties which then went to the libs after preferences. Labor will get a swing here now that Rudd is back in but unfortunately, McKew was a quality candidate, high profile and received many visits from the frontbench to win it and the same may not be said about the ALP candidate this time round. But Alexander isn’t the PM so I wouldn’t say that the libs will be certain to win.

    Eastwood and Ryde should be won by labor, they are the traditional labor parts of the electorate and probably most likely to reward labor for the return of Rudd. Epping could very much stay the same but maybe with a 1% swing to labor. Gladesville should still be a liberal area but with a swing to labor probably a bit bigger than that of epping.

    All in all this seat is up in the air but based on the libs strong performance at the state election not being mirrored in Bennelong even though barry campaigned here, wouldn’t be a seat the libs would take for granted

11. Jeff Salvestro-Martin has been sacked as labor candidate in this seat. Shouldn’t do much damage, wasn’t the strongest candidate and now gives labor an opportunity to pick a quality candidate and someone who actually believes they can win

12. Understanable, http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/labor-sacks-bennelong-candidate-over-corruption-claims-20130712-2pud5.html

    With Rudd back (appealing to the mandarin speakers) and a candidate that has wide appeal, the ALP might push Alexander? I wonder if McKew could be enticed back to have a run?

13. Understandable….that is!

14. Yes I hope McKew runs, she would have as much chance as Alexander, however if she stays in melbourne, then I hope Justin Li independent deputy mayor of Ryde has a chance, he is a labor man and hard working and intelligent

15. Maxine lives in Melbourne these days. I very strongly doubt she’d run again.

16. I agree PJ but i wouldn’t put it past her especially if Rudd requests and is promised a ministry if she wins.
    Also scratch Justin Li, i just read he is being investigated as well

17. Just a few names that could be candidates

    Maxine McKew- unlikely, but was willing to run in 07 for Rudd, if got a tap on shoulder by him again, may move and run in Bennelong
    Pierre Esber- Councillor for Parramatta, good track record, not in the electorate but was initially the candidate in 07 before Maxine got the nod
    George Simon- Councillor for Ryde, could be a negative atm rather then a positive
    Nicole Campbell- Former candidate

18. I think you might find Labor going with a relative unknown for the seat, in order to encourage a sense of “getting rid of the corrupt, refreshing the party” sort of angle. Maxine McKew has the problem of looking like a drop-in candidate, and given that she was criticised for not spending enough time in the electorate in 2007-2010, it might cause issues. Other “known” candidates have a risk of carrying the “ALP NSW Branch corruption” aura, even if they’re actually one of the “clean” ones.

    Perhaps a Young Labor type candidate would be a smart choice. Someone that looks fairly fresh and “uncorrupted”.

19. This isn’t a seat an unknown can win. In Macquarie, Susan Templeman is known in the community, thats why she was picked again and probably the reason labor has said this is a seat we can win.
    Picking unknowns is a bad idea, the unknowns at the state election fared worst then other candidates and gives the impression that the party has given up trying. This is a seat that needs a high profile candidate, someone who voters will change the way they have always voted. Thats why love her or hate her, McKew did that in 07.
    The local factor won’t matter, Alexander has broken his promise to move to the electorate if elected (He still lives in Bradfield) and has spent more time in Parramatta then Bennelong. A fly in candidate with better ties then the Lalor wannabe will do just fine

20. It is all over for Labor in this seat and always was anyway.

21. Do you have anything to back that statement up DB?

22. do you have anything to prove this DB

23. This seat is pretty safe Liberal; it takes a lot of dislike for voters in Bennelong to vote Labor, and Alexander is so anonymous he doesn’t have the problems that massively-disliked Howard had.

    Plus Rudd has only been back 2 weeks & his government are already looking like total arseclowns (the FBT debacle & resulting deconstruction of vehicle manufacturing ability in this country … and that’s only after 2 weeks). The Liberals only have to continue to keep quiet, Labor will continue to lose voters.

24. It’s not something I intend to spend time arguing, but the FBT changes make total sense. To allow people 20% back as assumed business travel was a total rort. If the public had been alerted to it earlier I’m sure they wouldn’t approve of their tax dollars subsidising the private travel of what are mostly well-paid public servants. If people want to claim business travel, it makes total sense that they are required to have some evidence that it is for business (such as a log book).

    As for vehicle manufacturing, you’ll find that about 1% of cars driven in this country are made here and the FBT changes won’t change that in either direction as salary sacrificing and FBT has blanket coverage where applicable, regardless of where the vehicle is made.

    Anyway, back to Bennelong, yes, Alexander will hold.

25. Internal polling shows a 7% primary vote swing to Alexander. Labor are no chance in this electorate and you have to question if Labor will hold Parramatta.

26. DB – whose internal polling, and when was this conducted?

27. Glen, over the weekend and on a reasonable sample, but I’m not going to answer the rest. I still think western Sydney is proving very hard for Labor. From what I see, the Coalition would still win an election.

28. How many seats are really in play in Western Sydney though? Like 5 at best. And only really Greenway and Lindsay are Labor the underdogs IMO. Surprised that Labor haven’t made much ground here though.

    I’d be careful comparing Bennelong to Parramatta, Alexander will get a sophmore surge and McKew was a strong candidate IIRC. Yes I’d expect a swing to the Liberals in Parramatta, but I dunno if it’ll be enough to win. Plus the current Parramatta is far stronger for Labor than the old one IIRC, whereas Bennelong has always been Liberal-leaning.

29. morgieb, most of the western Sydney seats were showing consistent swings of 15-20% under Gillard (about the same as the 2011 State election). This has reduced to 5-8%, but it’s enough to capture a handful of seats. Broad polling now shows NSW in about an equal position as 2010 in 2PP terms. This will result in a few seat losses for the ALP in NSW on a net basis. Parramatta is very much in play. Lindsay and Greenway will be lost by Labor as a minimum I expect around Sydney. I think it will be very hard for Labor to hold either Robertson or Dobell and Page. Eden-Monaro is probably a Labor hold but traditionally, polls understate the Coaltiion vote in this seat so it could go either way. I’d also keep an eye on Richmond because I think it is a sleeper.

    Most of the QLD marginals will have sophomore surges to the Coalition candidates (8 of the most marginal 9). I think Labor will pick up seats in QLD, but it won’t be as high as the 6-7 people are predicting due to the sophomore surge effect.

    I think Labor will lose net seats in VIC, SA and TAS. Labor may pick up a net seat or two in WA.

    Therefore, I’d still have the Coalition as favourites but Labor are a chance. The campaign will be a critical one.

30. Yeah, I agree with your points. Though dunno if Labor loses seats in SA.

    And Labor performed very well for a ‘bang for buck’ in NSW, so it’s likely that we’ll see swings in safe Labor and Liberal seats to Rudd, but many marginals move towards Abbott.

    I get more optimistic about a Labor win as time goes along, but I think they’re still behind.

31. DB: I think is talking about liberal polling…..but not conducted as a formal poll.
    The sample I suspect is Liberal skewed …..has an adjustment been made back for that.
    Also there is a large Chinese population in this seat……. there could be a larger than expected
    swing amongst the Chinese voters. Labor has an outside chance

32. What Mick mentions is essentially the reason I was asking “whose internal polling” – internal polling tends to skew differently depending on who is actually doing it. Not only does the choice of wording of a poll affect the poll’s results (consider the differences between “Which candidate do you plan on voting for?” and “Are you most likely to vote for Labor, the Liberals, or an alternate candidate?” – one will get a lot of “I don’t know”, while the other will get an explicit answer, which may not be representative of actual intent), but you have to account for a variety of additional factors – for instance, if you poll during the day on a weekday, there will be a higher proportion of unemployed and housewives/husbands.

    Internal party polling will often make assumptions based on their own natural biases. This is why the main polling is done by professional polling companies, who have at lot of extra long-term data and experience.

33. I agree and i think when looking at seats, its better to look at its census rather then the margin. This is why Lindsay will probably go, Greenway i would be careful at calling that a loss for labor its still possible to retain, I highly doubt that parramatta will go. Dobell is gone but Robertson should hold i suspect as will Page, Richmond and Eden Monaro, but Macquarie Gilmore and Bennelong will be key seats to look out for.

    QLD wont necesarrily give sophmore surges and if your relying on that to keep seats then keep dreaming. 8 is doable and Dickson will be close (labor has actually done alot for the electorate) and Fisher will be a tough one to call. And labor would be lucky to gain 2 in WA

    Gillards brand was a drag in SA so no seats loss there, Victoria probably won’t go to the libs , Deakin will be tough but Corangamite may go but with a narrow swing and yes 1 seat lost in Bass but Denison will be interesting.

    This will be completely different in a month

34. Jason Yat-sen Li, who ran for the Senate for the Unity Party in 1998, set to be the Labor candidate
    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/yatsen-li-answers-labors-11th-hour-callup-20130718-2q7b1.html

35. Glen, I think you will find things have changed somewhat with respect to your first paragraph.

    Most polls tend to say the Coalition are still ahead, albeit it is very close. Internal polling tends to show the Coalition ahead by slightly more in the marginal seats than the general mainstream polls, however, many are too close to make a call on (e.g. in QLD on average, the swing only appears to be smallish in the LNP held marginals under 4%, which would indicate a loss of some seats but not the whole lot). The main difference is in NSW where internal polling tends to show the Liberals still ahead of Labor than the mainstream polls suggest.

    If there are any ‘biases’, both of these parties have been polling for many many years now, and are clever enough to discount these and then some in their assessments. It’s not as if the internal pollsters go, “G’day mate, you look like one of us, I’m from the Labor Party, who are you going to vote for in this election now that we have that great guy Rudd as PM?”. Doesn’t work that way and in fact, we were right on the money in terms of seats at the last federal poll. Actually, I’d go so far as to say Labor’s leaked internal polling under Gillard indicated seats that Labor would lose that the Liberals didn’t believe they would win. Small samples increases the error potential.

    All in all, my overall assessment is that it’s pretty clear the voters want a change in Government. They just don’t want Abbott as PM. Perhaps they won’t have to if Rudd delays, in which case we are again looking at a similar scenario as per Gillard’s leadership. Interesting times ahead. I wouldn’t be sure that Abbott will lead the Liberals at this point. It’s not too late for them to change.

36. Labor candidate has been endorsed:

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2013/guide/benn/

37. DB, I wasn’t suggesting bias in how they asked the question. I was suggesting that there is inherent bias that comes from choice of question (for instance the difference between “Which party’s candidate do you plan to vote for in your seat” vs “Which party will you be voting for in the election” – the subtle difference between the two can impact the numbers), as well as bias arising from the fact that you have to correct your sample to remove unintended bias.

    Unintended bias can include, for instance, randomly calling 200 houses in an electorate, and 100 of them all happening to be in a very small area. Time of day influences the people that will answer the phone. Polling in a shopping centre will favour people who shop in that centre, which may not be representative of the people in the area.

    Internal pollsters don’t tend to be the experts in polling. It’s the professional pollsters, the ones that do it for a living, that I’d trust. And any internal polling that is allowed to leak (by any method, including through some person posting it on some politically-oriented website) is inherently suspect.

38. Glen, I’d like to put some comments and questions to you
    1. Why were Labor saying they were going to lose Isaacs when the Libs considered they were never any hope of winning it? There were other Victorian seats in the same boat under Gillard’s leadership.
    2. You are correct that internal polling is not as robust as mainstream polling. I personally don’t think it is because of the methodologies use, questions asked etc. I believe it is more because the samples are much smaller and open to higher margins of error. Regardless of the number of people in a seat a sample size of say 150 people as opposed to 1500 by the major pollsters provide a much higher margin of error. Arguably, you can reduce that if you poll and poll and poll again regularly, but it is still a higher MoE.
    3. Are you saying that Mark Textor (pollster for the Liberal Party and regular commentator in the Australian Financial Review) is not an ‘expert’? If so, that is laughable.
    4. In my view the only type of polling which is the most accurate is telephone polling. Face-to-face polling is undoubtedly subject to shy tory factor e.g. Roy Morgan, not just in Australia but also in Canada, NZ, US and UK. I’ve done extensive research on this subject. Internet polling is not established enough to make a judgment on and my early view is that it is not as accurate as telephone polling, but more accurate than face-to-face polling. To my knowledge, both major parties only use telephone polling but with smaller samples.
    5. As to your last point, you have just convinced me to not write another word on this site regarding internal polling. I do not want to be accused of providing ‘suspect’ information, which is clearly your clever assertion. It is quite a nasty accusation and it has only resulted in me making up my mind to only now contribute to Peter Brent’s site.

    Bye bye all.

39. DB
    Please don’t go!!!.

40. Glen
    Well done you imbecile . Apologise you half wit

41. DB, “inherently suspect” doesn’t mean “necessarily done with ulterior motives”. It means that we cannot know the nature of it. There are three possibilities with any leaked internal polling:

    1. It is leaked intentionally by the party in order to sway opinion.
    2. It is shown to someone because of some narrative they want to convey to that person, and that person then provides more information in their commentary than was intended.
    3. It is a legitimate case of leaking.

    I have little doubt that your leaked numbers are not within category 1. But we, as the people not seeing the internal poll numbers first-hand, cannot know whether you are being manipulated by them showing you certain numbers, or if the leaking is genuine.

    The fact that the leaked numbers are “suspect” does not mean that there is no value in seeing them. They must merely be taken with a proverbial grain of salt. If people not taking your internal numbers as gospel truth such a problem for you, then you shouldn’t be posting them – anywhere.

42. Glen
    That is NOT an apology. Just another self-rightous justification. DB supplies a very invaluable stream of insight, comment, & deduction to this site. It’d be good if you could manage a fraction of it.

43. Winediamond – Ditto

    DB don’t go. Always interesting to hear your views and after a lengthy period of time consider your views to be as objective and factual.

44. winediamond – I am not apologising for a valid statement that DB overreacted to. I am happy to clarify if he misunderstood, but there is nothing to apologise for.

    What’s more, if DB would really completely stop posting things on this site because one person suggested not taking every bit of internal polling at face value, then either I’ve hit a nerve, or DB is WAY too thin-skinned.

    Note that I’m always happy to read DB’s insights, too. But I always couch any reaction to his internal poll information with conditionals, for good reason. And it’s not self-righteous, it’s observation and logic. I’m not holding myself up as better than anybody, I’m simply noting that internal polling is meant to be kept internal, so when it goes public, either it’s accidental leaking or intentional leaking. There’s simply no getting away from that fact.

45. I hope DB will come back – I find their information very insightful and tells us a lot about the shape of the race.

    I think the comments section is reasonably civil and respectful and I don’t think Glen went over the top.

    Of course people should take internal polling with a grain of salt. In my experience DB’s comments don’t seem to have a partisan bias and seem genuinely interested in sharing information and making us better-informed, but we don’t know who DB is or where they get their information.

    Having said that, I don’t think Glen is right in suggesting that DB’s motivation is “to sway opinion.”

    Not everyone will agree with everybody else’s comments but I think we have managed to conduct conversations with respect, and most commenters, if not everyone, thinks DB’s comments are very useful and helpful, and I hope they wouldn’t leave because one commenter questions their motivations.

46. Ben, I made no comment on DB’s motivations. I truly think DB has completely honorable reasons for posting the internal polling information posted. But we don’t know where information is gotten from, the level of detail provided, or whether DB is directly involved in collection, is given it directly by pollsters, is gotten from a friend, etc. I fully understand why DB wouldn’t reveal the source, or which party it’s coming from, etc. But I also can’t take the information at face value without at least knowing some of the details that can’t be given.

    DB seemed to think that, by specifically referring to the way that internal polling numbers are being posted on this site, I was saying that DB is manipulating opinion or something. I said the poll numbers were suspect, not that DB was.

47. Ben Raue
    My grandad always said courtesy, & humility cost nothing. They truly don’t. So if i piss someone off, & i care, i apologise immediately. Being a more confrontational type however, usually i step it up. Glen could have saved himself a lot of time by apologising, & simply taking responsibility for causing offence. (however unintentionally)

48. I’ve read theses comments and I have to agree with Glenn. There is nothing wrong with questioning reliability, it happens all the time in life. When you comment on a site like this you open yourself to criticism and thats perfectly fine because this is putting up opinions and people dissecting those opinions. I’ve certainly been criticised but all i do is stress my points if I think i can justify them. likewise i have criticised people to find out their reasoning for their views.

    In this case I think it is fair because if you are using internal polling as your reason then its only fair that the reliability is questioned (I.e the wording, whether it reflected the entire electorate). and Glenn is right asking a question about party or candidate will skew the results because people are more likely to know the incumbent rather then the candidates.

    Political debates aren’t about being nice there as fiery as the bear pit in the NSW parliament. I certainly have gone over the top but Glenn was reasonable and fair in trying to get the most out of a contribution. For Glenn to apologise would be insulting to both DB and Glenn as it wouldn’t be sincere and there is nothing to apologise for.

49. Observer
    You illustrate my points perfectly !!

50. how so winediamond?

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