Hunter – Australia 2022

So my theory of when Political Leaders or former PMs spend time in seats it is a good indicator that the seats are in trouble (if held) or can be won (if not held).

Albo has spent at least 2 days in Newcastle and made some big announcements. Which Newcastle / Hunter seats are in trouble – Hunter is gone, Shortland and Patterson are possibly gone and Newcastle is safe. What are others views

James
i agree completely. I rate Merryl Swanston & she would be my pick to lead Labor (will never happen) so Patterson is safe (for now) . OTH Pat Conroy is so vain & stupid he makes Morrison look good! Humble even!!.. So SHORTLAND is a dark horse. Hunter is gone the only question will be who to.
If Labor can’t (can but will not) stop talking about themselves they will lose Dobell too.
The more Albo says the more he reveals that he is just not up to the job. When he tries to sound intellectual or anything else it just comes out as gobbledegook. The conceit & (all) knowingness is suffocating, nauseating, & pathetic.
cheers wd

This seat is much stronger for Labor than the upper Hunter state seat. I think this is a Labor retain.. I do not see any of the Hunter seats or Dobell shifting parties. Now Robertson on the central coast is different I don’t know who will win.. but the libs have to be favoured

So today Albo is on the Central Coast – Dobell and Robertson – what does this mean. Dobell Labor holds by 1,5% and Robertson is held by the Liberal Party by 4.2%. So does that mean Dobell is in trouble for Labor or Robertson is a change?

If Labor were to win the election with a comfortable / workable majority – and lose Hunter – it may be a blessing in disguise. Assuming they don’t win Dawson, Capricornia or Flynn either then they have no coal seats. They can get on with a carbon reduction agenda without having to look over their own shoulder. For the coalition it will be a world of pain as the internal carbon wars will continue – unless One Nation or the UAP should somehow come through.

Redistributed
“They can get on with a carbon reduction agenda without having to look over their own shoulder.”
This comment is so completely flawed it’s amazing.Then again it isn’t really uncommon, unusual, nor unexpected.

In the quest to control the world temperature, maybe even the weather itself Australia, & the Australian people have paid, perhaps invested directly, or indirectly about 1 Trillion dollars. With the certainty of the same again over about the next 5 years. And for what ?

For starters over the last 2 decades
1/ electricity prices have tripled
2/ gas prices have quadrupled
3/ water rates have tripled.
This is not very consequential for many people, (singles, even couples) especially the wealthy privileged ( ie securely employed) elites of the left. However for most Australian families/ households, of between 4 -6 people these outcomes amount to an annual cost of between $3000 – $10000 . Yeah every single year. (obviously circumstances vary)

These outcomes & reality, constitute without any question the LARGEST REGRESSIVE impost, on Australian families, in the history of our country. An financial imposition that is certain to double again in the next 5 years !
The price is not paid out of gross income
nor after tax income
It is taken from families DISPOSABLE INCOME .

Were Australian families asked for permission to have this cost imposed on them ?
Did they vote for it ?
Would they choose it ?.
Were other options presented, or even explored ? Nuclear Energy ? HELE Power stations ? Hydro electric projects ? Bio fuels?
NO. NONE OF THOSE OPTIONS were even properly considered, ventilated, let alone modelled
INSTEAD this whole still evolving debacle was created by STEALTH. Hysterical propaganda , faux “science”, distraction, deception, & dissembling venal argument.

Again WRT Australian families
Is the current policy direction, in their best interests ?
Where, & what, is the future benefit for this massive expenditure/investment ?
How do the current & succeeding generations feel, or regard, this massive legacy of debt, & opportunity cost, which they WILL HAVE TO REPAY ? Not to mention the ecological time bomb of often highly toxic, & large quantities of waste from so called “green energy”

It is unbelievably bizarre that so many climate alarmists, social democrats, progressives & so on, portray themselves as devoted to
social justice
equality of opportunity
social welfare
Not to mention the consequences of Job losses, de- industrialisation, & compromising national economic, & broader sovereignty & so on. .
And yet these cabals are wilfully oblivious to having enabled & inflicted such regressive damage, misery & injustice on Australia, & the Australian people !! Just truly amazing.

However i’m sure none of these facts, or realities, will trouble you much
OTH the voters of Hunter are likely to be overwhelmingly sympathetic to the proposition outlined above, rather than to yours . Therein lies the impetus for Labor deservedly losing Hunter.

Ps Please don’t anyone bother arguing over detail. Ive made a broad argument of essence. Anyone is free to disagree.

On the prospect for one nation winning this, the likelihood might be higher then many were inclined to think. If one nation run in liberal seats, if they get to second on preferences from working class erstwhile labour voters, the rest of the labour voters are usually quite progressive, and both them and the greens preference the liberal candidate. (I,E) Maranoa, Dawson or any of the Qld Coal seats. This is quite similar to situations like Canberra, Cooper or Willis for the greens, where they need to run long, well manned and funded, campaigns in one area to build up a goliath primary vote a la Batman.

When They run in seats like this they win the erstwhile labour voters, then ideally get up on the nats on preferences, and finally collect the nats preferences to win. This same strategy is being used by the greens in the city in places like ryan, higgins, macnamara, brisbane and kooyong.

Betting odds currently have Labor just eking out a victory, paying $1.82 to the Coalition’s $1.87.

I think the optics of keeping this seat are very important for Labor, because if they can’t win here, it’d be unlikely for them to win any coal seats anywhere. So I expect to see Albo making several more stops here in the next few months.

Sportsbet is paying $91 for One Nation to win here. Possibly the best value bet they’re offering for the next election!

Labor’s 2PP vote will return to the high 50s or 60% range here. The demographic is much more suburban Newcastle than “Hunter Valley” coal voters. Also with Bonds running as an independent, ONP vote will collapse and with it, the reliable flow of preferences to the Coalition.

So I would say that Labor @ 1.8s is a very safe bet

@ Luke

I think you are being generous with Labor being in the high 50s or 60% range. Whoever wins (and it is a toss up) the result will be more like 51 – 54%.

Luke
Thanks for returning here. I now feel very confident, & reassured, in making a substantial wager on ON winning this seat.
Apparently your grasp of geography is as wildly erroneous, & unfathomable, as your ideas on economics, industry, & this whole region itself. Congratulations !. I’m not easily impressed !.

Even a the most cursory of views would reveal that only the
“”””Lake Macquarie North 21.5 61.6 10,652 10.4 “””
on Bens “voter group’ analysis could possibly be seen as ” The demographic is much more suburban Newcastle than “Hunter Valley” coal voters. about six (outer suburban, & semi rural ) booths really.
IN FACT “suburban Newcastle” is in Shortland, & Newcastle.

The vote that will “collapse” is the ALP VOTE. same as last time -14.2%, & this time without Fitzy there, to beg for “one last chance” Or this whole event just a “one off”!!??. A “misunderstanding”!?
What has Labor done exactly with that much vaunted “one last chance” !??. Who do you think they have impressed ? Anyone ??. With what, & How EXACTLY ?.
Try, Just TRY, to open your eyes mate

sextus pompey
Excellent post. I’m seeing what you are seeing.

James “generous” isn’t the word that comes to mind !

Could see this seat going any number of ways but my best guess would be Labor hold – they faced a backlash in this seat last time arguably due to Shorten being seen as too radical (and just generally not well-liked, especially among blue collar voters) as well as the anti-Labor PUP blanket advertising that I think particularly resonated here (but seems to be more generally anti-Labor/Liberal/Greens this time). It’s debatable whether Joel Fitzgibbon absence will help or hurt Labor. Possible that his polarising approach alienated more voters than it attracted, ala Michael Danby.

I do agree that One Nation also has a good shot at winning this seat and those odds definitely seem waaay too low (although based on One Nation’s history, there’s a good chance even if they do get elected, they’ll quit the party within their first term)

@nicholas

It seems sportsbet seems to do well on the major parties, and selectively on greens and independents but fail miserably where seats have not been hyped to them by the media
Some highlights
– Richmond being on 34$ for a greens win is just insane – as probably the third most winnable seat in this race for the greens on a 5% swing to win on the same 34$ as paramatta. Richmond would be my bet as the next best bet. Added salt to the wound is that cooper is on a total of 6$ for a greens win on a damn 15 percent margin, where they weren’t even sure they were prioritising it this election.
-Next best bet is Mackellar – how the hell is this on 21$ when literally every other Voice race is on good odds – literally both campaigns to kick out two of the three really high profile ministers have higher odds then this and both of them aren’t even the core heartland for this crap
– Shoutout to Sportbet for mixing up Oxley and Blair again and putting blair – the only other one nation seat that can have the effect of overtaking the libs – on a normal QLD odds while Oxley- with no chance for one nation – gets the heightened odds. – Honestly a lot of one nation odds in key seats are really undeveloped because they just set one value for the whole state and don’t so a lick of research into the actual seats
– I am also very grumpy that Canberra has the liberal odds greater then the greens – how are the liberals ever going to win Canberra – riddle me that.

Also the centre alliance is on 34$ for every seat but mayo – biggest joke of the year, Nick Xenophon is running AGAINST the damn party

Yep, I’ve taken Greens in Richmond and Independent in Mackellar too!

Gosh, it is so exciting to live and vote in the most pivotal electorate in the world.
As a true believer who regularly pilgrimages to Barcaldine, I am stunned that I am considering not voting Labor this time round.
As an aside I reckon if Stuart Bonds was running with PHON he would romp it in.

Looks like the easiest flip to call in NSW if you ask me. Don’t see how Labor holds on with Fitzgibbon retiring and nothing indicating the massive swing last time around will be reversed. Everyone should keep an eye on One Nation here, looks like their strongest chance at a pickup this election.

This one is going to be a very messy one on election night. Labor will lead the first-preferences, but Nationals, ONP and Stuart Bonds (IND) are going to be in a competitive 3-way fight for that 2CP spot vs Labor. It wouldn’t be surprising if ONP or Bonds end up in that spot from 3rd or 4th place and even manage to snag enough Nationals preferences to push in front of Labor vs 2CP. Similar results often happen in QLD state elections (see Mirani & Bundamba 2020).

I have doubts for Stuart Bonds performing better than ONP. Defectors from ONP notoriously do quite poorly in subsequent election campaigns. It is arguable that the One Nation brand is more significant than any individual profile candidates might think they have developed (except for Pauline herself). One example is the ONP candidate for Wright in 2016, achieving 20.9% of first-preferences. After defecting to FACNP for the 2019 election, he received only 2.23%. The new ONP candidate, despite not having developed a profile, achieved 14% of the vote, eclipsing the defector in a particularly crowded field.

On the other hand, Stuart Bonds definitely has a higher profile than the Wright candidate I mentioned. The specifics of his defection are different as well like running as an Independent rather than FACNP.

Funny that Nicholas mentioned ONP odds at $91 in January, its now down to $18 so it looks like a few punters might have snatched those odds.

SEQ Observer – I can’t see the path for ONP or Bonds to get into the second slot, not when Joel Fitzgibbon, who had become deeply unpopular, is departing (ALP got a swing against them of about 2.4% in NSW in 2019… Fitzgibbon had a swing of more than 14%) and ONP are competing against one of their own – leakage will be a factor. This will almost certainly end up being Labor vs Nationals, with Labor over 40% of the primary vote.

The most recent indicator of how ONP are doing in the area is the Upper Hunter By-Election in 2021, which saw ONP only get 12% of the vote, while the Nationals got 31%.

Nationals could conceivably manage to poach the seat, if they boost their poll numbers in the area. I don’t see ONP or Bonds managing it, though.

Thanks Glen, I’m operating on a 6% swing (2019) against the Nationals in my assessment of this division. A similar but softer swing against ONP. A pretty steady vote% for the new Labor candidate, considering Fitzgibbon’s personal base roughly balanced out his declining popularity and ended up being closer in line with the division’s default Labor vote. I’m also assuming that Bonds picks up a bit of shine from the general increased appetite for independents in this election, while also recognizing that this will be far from the numbers we will see in affluent electorates with teal or Climate independents.

Concede that you’re right that Labor vs Nationals is still the most likely outcome in this race.

In February I had commented about One Nation’s chances, but I’m not so sure now. I wasn’t aware about Bonds running as an Independent at the time, and after learning he is I now agree that this is very likely an ALP vs NAT race. Also a lot higher on Labor’s chances than I previously was, though I do think this can go either way. If I had to pick I’d probably favor the Nats but this is a pretty straight up tossup in my opinion, but I do see this as the most likely seat to buck the nationwide trend and be a Coalition gain.

@winediamond
Most of your comments towards me I will gladly leave through to the keeper, champ. Except for my grasp on the geography of this seat, as I happen to live here and have done most of my life. West & North Lake Macquarie is effectively suburban Newcastle, trust me. Locals will more often than not say they are from “Newcastle”, not the “Hunter Valley”.

What it means, I suppose, is that the Nats have no natural base to speak of in the areas that comprise the majority of votes to be won. It might be a different story with a decent Lib candidate (and a LNP leader that hasn’t lost the floor!) but then they’d do poorly in the rural booths.

A well organised & resourced ONP or independent candidate can do pretty well in these parts, as evidenced in the state IND Greg Piper (although my personal view is that Bonds reached the high watermark for ONP last time around), but without that I think that the most likely scenario is a decent recovery in the Labor primary vote and scattered preferences from the “other” vote going all over the place, but not flowing all to the Nats like a lot are assuming.

My earlier prediction of a 2PP vote up to 60 for Labor may have been a bit bullish, but it will definitely recover to at least 56.

As for Fitzgibbon, I have never been a fan.

The Liberal Party’s James Thomson has a bit of history.
https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/4628472/new-faces-in-liberal-shake-up/

The YouGov MRP poll has ONP at 16% for Hunter, UAP at 6% and 10% for Others (I presume former ONP candidate Bonds makes up the majority of this 10%). Coalition embarrassingly on 16%. Assuming ONP pick up the majority of the preference flow from UAP and Bonds, this will put ONP in front of Coalition for the 2CP matchup with Labor. ALP (42%) will probably sail home on the 10% Greens vote expected (seems quite high for Hunter). This will be one to watch on election night.

16% for the Nats does seem very oddly low. Unless them and ON are just cannibalising each other’s votes. Or maybe just Fitzgibbon being gone will be a net positive for Labor.

This will be interesting to watch although it seems Barnaby Joyce is up in the NT so maybe they think Lingiari is a better chance than here.

I was quite concerned about Labor’s prospects in this electorate a couple months back but as things improved for them it entered the back of my mind whilst other seats took its place. I’ll certainly make sure to check up on it come election night but it’s not one that I’ll have my eyes locked on constantly.

I’m a tad surprised there has not been more discussion on The Tally Room about this seat, especially after the release of the Resolve poll this week showing a collapse in Labor’s primary vote in NSW. Fitzgibbon’s departure puts this seat in play if the Resolve finding mirrors reality on Saturday.

At the moment there’s no way to assess the Resolve finding that Labor’s primary in NSW slumped from 41 per cent on 30 April to 28 per cent from a poll conducted between 12 May and 17 May. However, I suspect that the latest Resolve MIGHT be wrong given that the primary vote was roughly 34.5 per cent in 2019. Alternatively, the collapse might be explained by a surge in strategic voting by traditional Labor voters in seats where an independent is presenting the most viable alternative to LNP candidates.

@SM Bruce I agree, Labor might only hold on here by skin of their teeth.

IMO if Labor ends up losing a seat in NSW it is most likely to be Hunter.

I’d like to see a map of this one. Labor held on. It seems like they did well in Newcastle suburbs and had swings against in Muswellbrook and Singleton, but it’s not neat and I don’t know the area well enough to associate names with areas.

Did some my own manual look-a-like audience modelling on the 2022 Election paired up with the 2021 Census data.

I found that Hunter region, Central Coast region and Ballarat + Bendigo seemed to be the Labor seats that most closely clustered to the Coalition seats in various demographic metrics. I will call this Labor cluster the Provincial Labor cluster. The divisions that the Provincial Labor often overlapped with was most of Queensland as well as the NSW & Victorian divisions held by the Nationals. Curious about where the differences in political-preferences and attitudes arise between these two groupings despite their demographic similarities.

So far I have only made observations based on age, income, people born overseas, languages other than English spoken at home and a bespoke mortgage stress index. I intend to further refine these lookalike audiences with dwelling composition, employment composition, pensioners, education and religion data. I might feed it into some ML after some further data cleanup.

The three QLD Greens seats unsurprisingly cluster closely and Melbourne is a bit of an outlier to this cluster due to its cultural diversity. Canberra is often clustered in proximity to the Greens held divisions. Richmond often sits somewhere in-between the Queensland Greens cluster and the Provincial Labor cluster (ie. Newcastle)

The independent divisions also closely cluster on various metrics, particularly markers of affluence and diversity, with Indi and Fowler being outliers.

There is a significant Labor cluster which is tightest on metrics like “born overseas” and “languages other than English” spoken at home. Wills and Cooper are often within this cluster along side one another.

Coalition outliers included Banks (closely aligned with the Labor diversity cluster) and Bradfield (close to the teal-independents).

Would the difference between Ballarat/Bendigo/Hunter and Queensland regionals be that there is more history of a union movement in the former than in Queensland?

Some of those Queensland regional provincial towns (like Rockhampton and Mackay) are strong Labor seats historically at state level, although becoming less so. At federal level most of them aren’t big enough to be a seat on their own so the Labor vote in the major town is offset by a strong conservative vote elsewhere.

What I find more interesting here is that Bendigo and Ballarat have trended steadily towards Labor at both federal and state level over the last 25 years, while demographically analogous provincial city seats in NSW and Queensland have gone the other way. Both are now amongst the safest Labor seats in Victoria, having been marginal seats (and often Liberal ones) for most of the second half of the 20th century.

@Bazza, one point to note is that Bendgo/Ballarat/Hunter seats are much closer to their respective state capitals than the Queensland regionals. The Queensland regionals also have a lot more agricultural areas than the former seats so have never been as strong for Labor.

All great ideas regarding the potential differences in political attitudes between LNP Queensland, Nationals NSW & Nationals Victoria with provincial Labor seats.

One counter argument I’d provide @Nimalan is Toowoomba (Groom), a similarly-sized inland town to both Ballarat and Bendigo, also about 2 hours from the state capital, Brisbane. Groom is comfortably an LNP seat (despite the last minute Independent scare at the most recent election).

One factor which I considered today is the difference in political-brand offerings between each of the two categories. Queensland has an inherent self-identification with the populist-right parties like ONP and UAP. Mainly because they act as de-facto regionalist or regional-interest parties due to where they were formed. This has peeled off disillusioned Labor voters in formerly Labor-held regional divisions throughout Queensland.

LNP, an incarnation of the Coalition unique to Queensland, also offer a political brand which has been adapted to fit Queensland and its regional demographics. The LNP might also receive a level of self-identification by Queenslanders.

I wonder if a similar Coalition brand, like the LNP but tailored towards provincial large towns in NSW and Victoria, would be more appealing to punters in Central Coast, Hunter region as well as Bendigo + Ballarat. Provincial regions like these with large established towns and non-capital-cities are in the middle ground between what the Nationals (rural) and the Liberals (capital-city) tailor their brand towards.

However, it is clear that the downside of such an incarnation is that it has struggled to perform well in Brisbane, especially at the state level. I imagine that a similar incarnation would also perform poorly in the major capitals. Given the most recent election and the loss of “blue-ribbon” style seats already to “Teal-independents” and the Greens, this might not be such a big deal. I wouldn’t actually be surprised to see a cutting of losses in these now “blue-ribbon” seats with a pivot towards the regions. Worth reiterating that these formerly “blue-ribbon”, now “teal” seats are now clustered disparately far away from the currently held Coalition seats. Only Coalition-held Bradfield, Aston and Menzies are somewhat close to this teal-cluster.

As for favourable demographic changes in Australia, since the pandemic, there has been a lot of regional migration out of Greater Sydney and Greater Melbourne and into the regions. Should this trend continue, this might boost numbers of electors which might be more attracted to tailored provincial messaging.

Agree with @Nimalan about the agriculture differences of the seats. Another differences is that in the federal seats of Ballarat and Bendigo and even the states seats where their suburbs share an electorate with more rural areas is that theses cities and their suburbs drown out the surrounding rural areas whereas in Brisbane there are a couple of population centres in their mining seats that they usually win when they win government but didn’t win this time (too big of margins to overcome in one election).

@Bazza the union movement started in Queensland, most likely due to voting patterns but the Queensland seats probably have more agriculture than the Hunter seat and the Bendigo and Ballarat seats i believe have decent sized uni population due to their uni campuses. Also could be due to different types of industry, people in coal industry might be hesitant of Labor’s climate policies. I don’t think Bendigo and Ballarat have a coal industry.

SEQ Observer Toowoomba has always been quite religious and maybe more older, that might explain the voting patterns there.

Definitely agree with all your points North East. Your assessment of Toowoomba and it’s religious nature is right. I think I would find that the Coalition cluster and the provincial Labor clusters probably would deviate on religion. As I mentioned in my first comment, religion is not something which I have formally looked at yet in the census data but Ballarat and Bendigo seemed to have a strong proportion of “No religion” listed on the census. Groom is amongst the most religious in Queensland.

I will make an effort to factor in religion, education and sector of employment composition into my rudimentary modelling today.

Keep in mind that I’m not just referring to the Hunter seat but also Paterson, Newcastle, Shortland, Dobell and Robertson. Gilmore appears quite frequently clustered with the Coaliton on various demographics too.

@ SEQ Observer, good point i forgot about Toowoomba. The Division of Groom/Darling Downs has never been held by Labor. when i mentioned the Queensland Regionals i was thinking about Flynn, Capricornia/Dawson etc which Labor has held in the past. With respect to Ballarat/Bendigo, Labor has improved greatly there since the 1999 state election (at both state and federal levels). There has been a shift of public service jobs to Victorian regional cities. Cunningham and Newcastle have become more progressively recently (high Green vote). Also i would add the fact that Ballarat/Bendigo have alternative lifestyle areas such as Daylesford-Hepburn springs and Mount Alexander Shire respectively. I am not sure what the Regional QLD alternative lifestyle areas areas are. Without Byron Shire i think Richmond would be Coalition leaning. With respect to the Teal cluster i am thinking Sturt could be added instead of Menzies. Menzies tend to be a middle class ethnic seat in the middle ring of suburbs. it will be like Tangney or a mix of Mitchell and Berorwa rather than old money areas. Seats such as Bennelong, Chisholm, Moreton are also middle class ethnic seats.

Nimalan, I think Noosa is one of the ‘alternative lifestyle’ areas based in Regional Queensland. The Greens poll well there in most elections and the state seat is held by a local independent Sandy Bolton. It is probably similar to Byron shire in terms of it being a coastal community and also quite close to major centres (namely Sunshine coast and Brisbane).

I point out the seat of Groom has a No vote for SSM in 2017 and Toowomba has the origins of some Christian Right figures in Australia including Lyle Shelton who was formerly known as the managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby, Howard Carter who created the Logos foundation and David Van Gend. There are lots of religious churches and organizations there.

Assessing Religion as a demographic deviated Ballarat, Bendigo and Newcastle from my aforementioned provincial Labor cluster. Looking at “No Religion”, these three appeared in the top-quartile of seats along with Green seats and urban seats like Sydney and Grayndler. This particular metric had the culturally-diverse Labor cluster on the other end of the spectrum as the most religious. The religious Coalition seats like Groom, Maranoa and New England were positioned just behind the diverse Labor cluster. In the middle a jumbled assembly of various Labor and Coalition seats, generally with a “typical” religious affiliation broadly in-line with the nation’s average.

Assessing “Christianity” specifically produced clusters which had a more discernible Labor-Coalition divide. The most “Christian” divisions were generally Coalition, becoming more likely to be Labor as rates of Christianity fell. Greens seats generally again featured as the least “Christian” along with seats like Sydney and Grayndler.

I also assessed Judaism as part of a curiosity I had with the teal-independent seats. Because there is such an inconsistent distribution of Jewish communities in Australia, I had to look at this metric at a logarithmic scale. Interestingly, the teal independent seats and non-classic contests featuring the Greens stood out discernibly as the most Jewish divisions (religion). The long-tail of all the other divisions had a Judaism percentage very close to zero.

I also assessed Islam, again with a logarithmic scale. This really highlighted Labor’s culturally-diverse cluster of divisions again. The Greens were nestled between this cluster and the long-tail of other divisions. One interesting outlier was Richmond, the least Islamic division in Australia. Noted for being a Greens target seat.

The sector of employment composition and educational attainment data isn’t going to be released until October 2022. Still a lot of data to sift through in the meantime.

I am also surprised is Queensland is actually less religious than NSW and even Victoria on 2021 Census. Is it because QLD Christians are more strictly conservative so that mean they have a bad reputation and many youth left it as a result and Vic and NSW are more moderate so they don’t think of leaving?

No Marh, you’re forgetting about the growing religions, namely Islam.

Sydney and Melbourne has received the brunt of much of international migration comparatively to Queensland. Islam has been a significant component of these new migrant communities and their children. The growth in Islam has kept Religious Affiliation quite elated in NSW (see South-Western Sydney) and Victoria (see North-West Melbourne). Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism are other rapidly growing religions due to new migrant communities. There has also been a notable increase in some migrant Catholic communities which has helped to keep NSW’s Catholic affiliation elated compared to Queensland.

Decline in Christianity is a trend that continues amongst Australian born communities, particularly those with British ancestry. These communities now appear with a high “No Religion” percentage. Queensland comparatively did not receive much of the same high-levels of international migration and thus has simply reflected the trend of declining Christianity.

Much of the interstate migration to Queensland throughout the pandemic was Australian born residents of Melbourne and Sydney. Also worth noting that a lot of the interstate migration was young families.

expect this to be in play in 2025 after redistribution

This will be become safer for labor at the next election it will lose muswellbrook and possibly lose Singleton and gain the remainder of cessnock from Paterson. This will however cost them their margin in Paterson which will probably become notionally liberal.if it just lost muswellbrook it would be ultramarginal as that area was lightly better on 2pp to labor but given paterson will be taking in territory to ita north and is already over quota it will need to shed cessnock which is a labor friendly area

Condolences to former member Joel Fitzgibbon after the loss of his son. We won’t be seeing a third generation in parliament. Though the story does sound a bit like he may have died “on assignment”.

Deepest Condolonces very sad news.

I think hunter should regain in the “hunter” even though it’s names after the person not the region. Instead of shedding Muswellbrook it can shed parts of lake Macquarie to top up shorthand which is surrounded by at quota divisions