Sturt – Australia 2022

The seat of missed opportunities

In 2016, it seemed like there was enough Nick Xenophon Team vote to get rid of Pyne, but Labor did slightly too well (especially after Green preferences which favoured Labor) so there was no Liberal vs NXT runoff. It could have been another Mayo.

This also seems like a “Turnbull Liberal” seat. That means Labor could have made a serious play for it in 2019, especially with Pyne retiring. It’s clear they didn’t and the results show it. The end result was “Safe Liberal Seat” yet again.

I don’t think it’s a real prospect in 2022, though there might be some interesting interactions with the SA state election.

Liberal hold. I agree with John there was a chance of pulling this off the liberal party in 2016 to the NXT. Labor & the Greens should have directed there preferences to unseat Pyne.

This almost looks like the inverse of Boothby and trending towards the liberals…… in 2007….. Pyne almost lost….. now the libs seem secure….. this looks similar to how Dunstan is changing at the state level

Why did Labor lose this in 1972 despite winning government? This along with Forrest and a few others switched to the coalition in 72′ and bucked the trend. Did McMahon have some sort of appeal here or were there demographic changes that happened back then?

Daniel
The 1972 election was a nation in two parts. NSW, Victoria, SE QLD and southern Tasmania swung to the ALP. North Queensland, SA, WA and Northern Tasmania swung to the coalition. There had been very big swings to the ALP in SA and WA in 1969. Both from what I can gather being driven by state issues. In SA it was a swing back from a huge liberal swing in 1966. In Forrest, Gordon Freeth was Foreign Affairs minister and apparently made comments in 1969 that made it seem he was soft on the Cold War. And Forrest reverted to type in 1972. 1972 was not the Labor sweep that historical legend has invested it with.

Redistributed, finally someone says it! I hate it when the media paints 1972 as some huge landslide. The Coalition were just 5 seats away from majority government!

Its been reported Labor have preselected community services worker Sonja Baram. The margin of 6.9% and the latest Newspoll you would think Labor could be competitive in this seat. I’m still skeptical if Labor is that far in front ahead though because you would think you would hear alot more seats in play then has been reported at the moment. James Stevens should benefit from a sophomore surge to counter a swing against him.

It was mentioned in the comments Labor was close to winning this seat in 2007. I remember it and the Labor candidate at the time Mia Handshin was getting praise for her performance taking it to Christopher Pyne. There were even murmurs in the Labor party if she didn’t beat Pyne which was considered likely because Sturt wasn’t an easy prospect. That Labor may look for a seat for her in the state ranks. But Handshin didn’t recontest the seat of Sturt in 2010 and hasn’t resurfaced since on the political scene.

6.9% is a reasonably big margin to overturn but the Libs may also find that they may need to sandbag to maintain a presence in the Adelaide metro area. It would seem that only a miracle will save the Libs in Boothby.

Wreathy, whilst 1972 was not a true landslide, from a historical perspective that election was a generational change from 20+ years of Coalition government to a more progressive, left leaning Labor government.

I think Whitlam was like Rudd, fairly experienced but tried to implement too much change in a short timeframe. Had Labor in both 1972 and 2007 opted for a slower, and more gradual rollout of their progressive policies, with the public kept well informed of their intentions, then they could have lasted more than one term.

Yoh An
Whilst thats true of Whitlam in particular narrow sense, i don’t think Rudd was comparable. IIRC his famous quote (from the so called “2020”summit) was “give me something to believe in”!!. Most of his change was unplanned (ie disaster ! ) IMO. Older libs are saying now feels like 2007. I guess it is in respect of the libs are looking like losers. However there is a critical difference. Voters are about to vote for an undisclosed, if not unknown agenda, if there actually is one (which is highly improbable).

I laugh whenever Labor talk about their “Vision”!!. In 2007 voters were promised everything which was exposed allies, deception, illusion, etc.
In 72 “its time” was not seen as to be necessary to even explain. Whitlam took his election an an unconditional endorsement of everything he thought,(& would do) such was his ego. so “a slower, and more gradual rollout of their progressive policies, with the public kept well informed of their intentions, then they could have lasted more than one term” was never even contemplated in either case.
cheers wd

Yeah would have to agree with you Winediamond. Albanese seems a lot like Joe Biden 2020, he is lying low at the moment in order to keep the spotlight on Morrison. If Labor do win this time around, Albanese may then try to force through some potentially unpopular policies and that will result in his popularity/approval plummeting.

Yoh An and WD
In 1972, Whitlam went to the polls with grand policy ideas. They were well developed as a lot of them had already been taken to the 1969 election. After 23 years, they was a huge appetite for change and there was no dispute that they had a mandate for change. However, the problem was in the implementation – Whitlam abandoned the concept of a Cabinet and outer ministry so he had an unwieldy 27 member cabinet. The cabinet and some of the policy settings were ill disciplined and they took their eyes off the politics with some disastrous results – Jim Cairns and Rex Connor being the main cases in point. Also the cabinet was elected by the party room, so Whitlam could not choose his team. Whitlam also had a recalcitrant senate that sent him to the polls in 1974 and ultimately led to the Dismissal. The Dismissal and the events of 1975 has always overshadowed the whole Whitlam Government so it has always been hard for an objective historical review. One of the key achievements of the Hawke Government was that they learned from the political failures. In 2007, Kevin Rudd basically coasted in on the back of a feeling for change. If John Howard had retired in 2006, it might have been very different. If the GFC had not happened, it would be hard to see what the Rudd Government would actually achieved beyond the Apology to the Stolen Generation. The political failures of the Whitlam Government were apparent at the time but the Rudd Government failures became more apparent in hindsight – and his dumping was probably the ultimate political failure as it overshadowed the next three years and to some extent overshadows us now. The big problem in this country is that since 1993, oppositions have been frightened to go with a big agenda preferring the small target strategy and Albo is very small target as he is just waiting for the political collapse of a very tired government. That is not to say that he won’t make the big reveal once in government.

You An
I think the presumption that Albo HAS policies is a stretch !.His “popularity” is based on only one thing – that he is NOT Morrison !. I don’t think the media need any encouragement to ‘SPOTLIGHT” the PM. iN fact the media have enabled the opposition to avoid any reform, or even critical self examination since 2013. The result is a party completely unprepared, & ill equipped for government. A predictable outcome,-disaster, awaits the country.
I feel pretty sanguine about the future, as i accept that this is a democracy, people have free will, & lessons need to be learned, illusions shattered, & falsehoods exposed. The cost however will be almost unimaginable.

Your comparison with Biden is apt, but could be applied far more widely
cheers wd

Redistributed
“The Dismissal and the events of 1975 has always overshadowed the whole Whitlam Government so it has always been hard for an objective historical review.” Yes in a dramatic sense. However as an historian i can condemn it completely. Even it’s much vaunted “achievements” can be exposed as policy disasters.

“In 1972, Whitlam went to the polls with grand policy ideas. They were well developed as a lot of them had already been taken to the 1969 election.” Just because the policies were well known, doesn’t mean they were “well developed”. The consequences of most were again disastrous .

However i broadly agree with most of the rest of your assessment

” That is not to say that he won’t make the big reveal once in government.” You can’t be serious surely ?
There is nothing to reveal. Sadly, or fortunately !
cheers wd

ps i note there has been no response to my cost of CC post

If the swing to Labor is really on nationwide, could this get close? Haven’t seen much discussion about the possibility of this seat flipping. I’d imagine the state election is making the Liberal member here feel somewhat nervous, although I’d also be careful to put too much stock in the federal implications of a state election. Would like to hear what others think.

I think it might be close like 2007 when Chris Pyne barely hung on with a margin of only 1%, that is if the Labor swing is going to be quite large and in line with current polls.

I flat out don’t believe that the swings in state and federal elections have no relation to each other. Sturt’s in trouble for the Libs, and Boothby is so far out of their reach that it might as well be on Mars.

I suspect the Liberals would have won Sturt on state figures. One (relative) bright spot for the Liberals is that they appear to have held their marginal seats in the eastern suburbs: Hartley, Morialta, and maybe Dunstan.

Furtive Lawngnome
I agree, I think they must have some relation. Especially when the state election is being held so close to the federal election, it would be very easy for voters to conflate state and federal issues. Sturt is definitely on my radar as a sleeper pick to flip to the ALP.

STURT is the type of area that coincides with the more wealthy 6 to 11% margin state seats which are so close This and Grey if a strong independent candidate runs.. will cause the liberals trouble at the Federal election.. they will need to allocate resources as they will be unsure

On the other hand MQ, the Libs will have an easier time in some ways because they only need to sandbag one or possibly two seats (Boothby is a write-off at this point imo). Contrast this with 2007 when the Libs were basically on the defensive everywhere – Makin, Kingston, Sturt, Boothby, Wakefield etc.

@FT, the evidence for a reciprocal relationship between state and federal election results is weak at best. History shows it’s generally a one-way street where the party in power federally drags down their state counterpart. Based off the 2017 WA election, Scott Morrison should have lost at least five seats in WA. Not only did he lose zero seats, but he was even within a hair’s breadth of retaking Cowan!

That said, there are some examples you might point to where state issues have certainly affected federal results to some degree – TAS 1983, QLD 1990, VIC 1990, SA 1993 etc.

If Boothby is considered a write off, then the upcoming Federal election may well be similar to the 2007 result with Labor winning 80+ seats.

It is an interesting picture for the Libs in SA this election. Obviously, they have virtually no prospects of any gains, including Mayo, so they won’t invest anything into any seat they don’t already hold. They might throw a token effort at Boothby, but I largely agree with you Wreathy of Sydney that it is pretty much a write-off, ALP Gain. Barker is safe, although if Troy Bell switches to federal politics one day an independent win is in the cards. I’d be surprised if they lost Grey, but resources must be allocated there, it could get competitive with an independent running. And then of course Sturt is the real question. The majority of SA Liberal resources must go here, as it could be a true down to the wire marginal, and if the Libs take it for granted, they could lose it. However, I’d imagine the Liberals are acutely aware of all of this, and will invest in Sturt accordingly. My current prediction would be that the Liberals hold Sturt on a margin similar to their current margin in Boothby, around 51-49 or 52-48.

what if Troy Bell ends up in jail?

52-48 2PP lead for Labor in a Sturt poll carried out by uComms for the Advertiser. I would be shocked on election night if this seat changed hands as you’d expect national polls to tighten and the Liberals to increase sandbagging efforts in seats with these types of margins.

Lib retain

Given that 2 recent polls have a swing to Labor in SA of 10% and 12% is this seat a virtual goner or are Labor held seats going to have ridiculously lopsided outcomes? Even if the polls are incorrect by a few % points this seat is severely under threat. Mind you, I’d expect polls in SA to be more accurate because there are minimal One Nation & UAP supporters muddying the waters by refusing to disclose their voting intentions in case they are tracked down and victimized by the authorities.

Newspoll on May 11 showing this one is in play. Shaping as the boil-over of the 2022 election.

If this seat falls, unlikely as it may be, the Liberals would not hold a single seat in the Adelaide metropolitan area. Has there ever been a time where one of the major parties has failed to win a single seat in one of the five mainland state capitals?

The primary vote results here look a bit like the seat of Griffith in 2016 or the seat of Melbourne Ports in 2013 or the Victorian state seat of Prahran in 2010, with a Liberal vote in the 40s, Labor vote in the low 30s, and Green vote around 15-20%. I wonder if this seat could become a future three-cornered contest (LIB vs ALP vs GRN) like the others above have become during the next few election cycles.

@ GPPS, i would say Sturt while the wealthiest seat in SA is more mixed demographically since Adelaide is a smaller city so this has some working class areas as well such as Gilles Plains which are traditional Labor rather than gentrified inner city areas it also has traditional Liberal territory with old money such as Beaumont. I would say booth Boothby and Sturt are more like Higgins being mixed seats rather than Kooyong or Goldstein. Having old money rock solid Liberal areas these voters would often prefer Teal than Greens. i would say the next seat the Greens should target is Richmond if Justine Elliot looses as Labor could easily fall into 3rd place.

Labor nearly won this seat in 2022. If the Libs continue on their right wing populist path, the Libs will end up having no seats in Adelaide and only 2 (Aston and La Trobe) in Melbourne. In terms of future Green targets, Richmond is the obvious one but I’d say Perth and Fremantle could be future Green seats given Labor can only go backwards from their 2022 election performance. Grayndler and Sydney as well once Albanese and Plibersek retire especially if the Libs decided to preference the Greens ahead in those seats. The Greens seem to be much better at winning 3CP contests recently than ALP vs Green contests as a result of the Lib preferencing.

@ Dan M point raised. Agreed about Libs populist rhetoric and the direction of the Libs putting this seat at risk. The only caveat i would ad is that this is more mixed seat and Labor came close in 2007 as well and has been held by Labor in the past such in 1972 which makes it different to Kooyong, Goldstein or Warringah. I would say Aston is at risk of the populist direction due to increasing ethnic diversity and the if the recent state results were overlapped on the federal seat it would be Labor held, same with Deakin. The issue with La Trobe is that the current boundaries take it into very conservative rural territory such as Bunyip, Koo Wee Rup etc. La Trobe on the 2010 boundaries would have fallen to Labor last May. The Opposite trend is all the new housing estates which are populated with educated and diverse population and at state level Labor did well in this area.

* Good point

This seat has the biggest swings against the Libs in South Australia with possible factors include
1) Many wealthy abandoned the Libs
2) Large Chinese Australian population in the Southern half of the seat

@mark sa is a heavily manufacturing hub and logically0 highly unionized so it’s no wonder labor does well here

Um I just mean seat overall not SA

Yes and that is the reason. The china thing was because of propaganda by the ccp. They use Chinese media and apps to advertise against the libs because they wanted a labor govt

@ 🙂 Northern Adelaide is a manufacturing hub which is why the seat of Spence is one of the safest seats for Labor in the country but also one of the poorest. The Seat of Sturt includes very wealthy areas close to the Hills but the some parts of the seat are more middle class.

Smiley above, I wouldn’t say CCP propaganda was solely the cause of the Asian vote swinging to Labor. Many suburbs and districts which did swing to Labor not only contain voters of Mainland Chinese origin, but they also have voters from other backgrounds (such as HK Chinese and Taiwanese who may be strongly anti-CCP and also 2nd generation migrants who were born in Australia).

The reason why most Asian voters swung against the Liberals was because these people didn’t like the way the Coalition was being antagonistic towards China (Trump like using anti-free trade rhetoric). They support a party that still wants to engage in open discussion and maintaining partnerships with all Asia-Pacific countries.

@ yoh because thats how they portrayed them the coalition was standing up to a bully andthey made it look like australia was the agressor its no secret the ccp wanted labor to win the election. china was hitting australia with tariffs simply because the coaltion rightly blamed china for the release of the virus that wiped out jobs and saw people worried about predatory buying up of austrlaian companies assets land and what not at rock bottom prices because theyd been decimated by virus related issues andwere doing it tough. china didnt and does not currently have interest in partnerships they do what they do the way it best serves them. and btw anti free trade is slapping retalitory tariffs on a country to hurt key industries for stnading up to you and telling the truth

Lot of Liberal Party propaganda being thrown around in these comments.