[csaa-forum] Re: wanting to be effluent

[Jon Stratton]

   Hi Everybody,
           While I am finding the general discussion of what happened in the
election fascinating and I, too, feel pretty upset, many people are writing
as if the Labor vote collapsed.  It didn't.  If you look at the ABC News
website where they have the total polling figures what you will see is that
the Labor vote actually increased by 0.3 per cent to 38.2 per cent of the
total vote.  What has happened is that One Nation's vote collapsed and so
did the Democrats vote.  One Nation's vote is down 3.2 per cent and the
Democrats down 4.2 per cent.  The Greens vote is up 2 per cent.  The Liberal
vote is up 3.4 per cent.  Thus, imho, what seems to have happened is that
the One Nation votes went to the Libs as did some of the Democrat vote, the
Greens picked up some of the Dems vote as well.  The remainder of the votes
seem to have gone to 'Other Parties' which most probably means the Family
First party mostly.  Probably this is where those far right voters have gone
after One Nation's implosion.  Thus, what appears to have been most
destructive for Labor in the election was the realighnment of the
conservative vote, concentrating it in two major parties--the Nats vote was
up .3 per cent.  I also suspect that the Greens preferences didn't flow
solidly towards Labor.
    If the above analysis is correct the problem for Labor is not the
collapse of its vote but Labor's inability to increase its vote.  Now, what
the above also suggests is that all those 'swinging voters'  (how '70s) were
actually One Nation and Dem voters looking for somewhere else to go.  From
this base point the question for Labor becomes how to attract more
conservative voters--in a country that has a strong conservative history and
where, up until Latham, Labor had been increasingly prepared to sell out its
status as the major party of moral standing in order to compete
pragmatically for the votes of an increasingly self-interested population,
something that has been well-pointed out (though not this bluntly) by a
number of postrings.  
cheers,
Jon    

 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/ms-tnef
Size: 4484 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://bronzewing.cdu.edu.au/pipermail/csaa-forum/attachments/20041014/fafd1095/attachment.bin