I would be interested to know why you think that the majority of voters in the electorate of, for example, Lithgow, voted neither ALP nor Greens... when they historically voted ALP.
2
Tuesday, 29 March 2011 02:37
Bill Koutalianos
If it was an issue for up to 5% of those from the left, that can explain up to a third of the swing. Some of us in the inner city seats of Balmain and Marrickville, were forced to direct our preferences to Labor in order to avoid a worst fate. That's hardly an endorsement of Labor or Green policies.
3
Tuesday, 29 March 2011 03:46
graham
Hi Jen, Bathurst was only just a Labor seat previously, although it has a long Labor history. There was a huge swing however to the National Party of 36.7%. They've been independently minded out that way for a while with Peter Andren being the local member until he retired.
I'd assume that the carbon tax could have influenced the vote in Lithgow, but I have no data on that. The postcode is 2790 and I have absolutely zero data on that. I admit that I don't have a handle on areas like this in the first par.
But I do have a handle across the state generally.
Bill, it was an issue for people from the left, but it made them less-inclined to vote for O'Farrell. My polling showed that concern about CO2 increased the tendency amongst Greens voters to preference Labor rather than to exhaust their vote.
4
Tuesday, 29 March 2011 03:59
graham
Jen, I've just been looking at Maitland, another coal mining area where Kellie Tranter, a regular on OLO, ran as an independent. Kellie is pro-putting a price on carbon, yet she won 21% of the vote. If she'd been able to grab another 4% from the ALP she might have actually won. That suggests the carbon tax issue is fairly complex.
5
Tuesday, 29 March 2011 10:17
Ross
You still have not addressed my observation Graham.Labor's primary vote was down 13.5%,yet the Greens only picked up an extra 1.4% of the votes and won not a seat.Was this not a carbon tax factor?
6
Tuesday, 29 March 2011 10:39
Michael Lonergan
Seems to me that a carbon tax has been painted, especially by its opponents, as another big boost to the "cost of living" concept being developed by popular discussion. So how can it not be a flow over issue for the Feds from State issues? My betting is that there is real concern in Fed Labor about it and that the State result has put much more squeeze on them. Of course, they won't admit it. And the role of the carbon tax in NSW was simply to cement the antilabor vote and remove the "sympathy for the local member" late swing back to Labor which could reasonably have been expected with such a widely anticipated outcome. That certainly didn't happen, eg in Monaro where a very good local member was beaten.
7
Tuesday, 29 March 2011 22:58
graham
I don't think the Greens vote is directly correlated with the carbon tax. The Greens perform two functions. One is as a political party with their own platform that voters believe in and vote for on that basis. The other is as a protest vote vehicle that voters don't particularly believe in but vote for so that they don't vote either Liberal or Labor.
In this election the Liberals made a clear pitch to that protest vote by saying that if you wanted to change the government you had to vote against Labor. So the only way to protest in a lot of voters' minds was to vote Liberal.
In the couple of seats where the Greens were most likely to win - Balmain and Marrickville - their vote was already pretty high, so there was not a lot of room for improvement. But they needed Liberal preferences to get over the top, and these haven't been forthcoming.
I'd assume that the carbon tax could have influenced the vote in Lithgow, but I have no data on that. The postcode is 2790 and I have absolutely zero data on that. I admit that I don't have a handle on areas like this in the first par.
But I do have a handle across the state generally.
Bill, it was an issue for people from the left, but it made them less-inclined to vote for O'Farrell. My polling showed that concern about CO2 increased the tendency amongst Greens voters to preference Labor rather than to exhaust their vote.
In this election the Liberals made a clear pitch to that protest vote by saying that if you wanted to change the government you had to vote against Labor. So the only way to protest in a lot of voters' minds was to vote Liberal.
In the couple of seats where the Greens were most likely to win - Balmain and Marrickville - their vote was already pretty high, so there was not a lot of room for improvement. But they needed Liberal preferences to get over the top, and these haven't been forthcoming.