A Win for Everyone

Is it possible for everyone to be a winner? In a by-election, yes.

I've written previously about the way that even if the Nationals won the Clarence by-election (as they inevitably would) Labor would be claiming the result as a win, and living off it for some time.  There was never any doubt that there would be a swing back to Labor, given that the National's member had resigned in disgrace just 6 months after an election.

Disgraced National Steve Cansdell.

Electorates always take out their anger at returning to the polls so soon after an election, no matter what the reason. The circumstances of Cansdell's departure meant that their anger would be heightened, and the size of the swing increased.

The equation was further muddied by the absence of a high-profile independent. While this may affect primary votes, the NAT/ALP 2PP should in theory be unaffected - but of course these things are not always as simple or straight forward as that.

In the event, the results look like this (thanks to Antony Green, whose analysis has been brilliant, as always):

From here

A few salient points.

First of all, the vast majority of Richie Williamson's votes (the majority of the OTH row) flowed across to the ALP. That was to be expected.

But the 2PP for the National's was well down, although in fairness it was more or less what had been predicted.

What really interested me tonight was both sides trying to count the result as a win.

For the Nationals it was easy, given that they had actually won. Andrew Stoner had this to say:

He followed that up with an interesting response to a comment from ABC reporter Mark Tobin:

His point is a fair one, and it picks up quite neatly on just one of the reasons that the swings that we will no doubt be hearing about for some time are essentially meaningless.

Another point he might have made was that there was clearly a large "anyone but Labor" vote in March.  Some of that bitterness would be expected to have evaporated by now.

Funnily enough, the swing was what John Robertson chose to focus on:

Whilst the numbers he has quoted are more or less correct, he is perhaps misusing them slightly to fit the narrative I predicted Labor would try to run. His spin of the reason for the swing is little more than wishful thinking, in my view.

Nonetheless, the ALP will be hoping that this will continue the growing disquiet about the O'Farrell government.  Nothing reinforces an uneasiness felt by a swinging voter than the impression that lots of other people feel the same way.

As journos start (inevitably) picking up on that narrative, Robertson will have at his disposal a powerful tool to starting chipping away that those awful polling numbers that were released earlier this week.

As for the Greens, however, they've really had very little to say.  I'm not aware of any Greens MLC or MLA who has made any comment on twitter (or elsewhere) at this stage regarding the result.

The Greens have been campaigning hard on the Coal Seam Gas issue, and may have been expecting a bump from farmers concerned about the effect on their land and particularly their water supply.  Especially given the lack of a high-profile IND candidate, a swing of 0.3% is really a loss of the Greens,

John Kaye tweeted this photo earlier today, so clearly he is involved, but hasn't been heard from since:

In any event, the Greens' numbers will really only interest Greens members and wonks like myself.  The interesting part will be following the media over the next few days as the Nationals try to talk about how they won and as Labor tell anyone who can hold a pen about the massive swings they achieved.

It's going to be a fascinating week.

By the by

Some things mean so little and yet so much at the same time.

The Nationals will win the by election in Clarence, and they will do so at a canter.  Anthony Green, Australia's greatest election savant has declared it to be so, calling the seat a "Certain National Party retain".

Not that he needed to be a savant to make that call - the Nationals dominated this seat in March. Steve Cansdell's TPP vote v Labor of 81.8% made was the 5th highest in the state, trailing only Davidson, Ku-Ring Gai (both lodged deep in Sydney's North Shore), Pittwater (Sydney's Northern Beaches) and Hawkesbury (a seat the Libs have held since 1950).

In fact, the ALP didn't even manage to grab 2nd place.  An Independent by the name of Richie Williamson nabbed second spot with 17% of the first preference votes.

Table from NSW Electoral Commission

From Anthony Green's blog

In this article on SMH, Williamson indicated that was willing to discuss running for preselection as the Nationals candidate. I've done some searching and I've been unable to ascertain if Williamson was at any time a Nationals member  In any case, this Northern Star article explained that Williamson ran for preselection for the Nationals this October as a part of a crowded field, as is common when a by-election is contested.

The first candidate discussed in that article was business owner Stuart George.

From Anthony Green's blog

In the event, pre-selection was won by Chris Gulaptis.

From Anthony Green's blog

Whilst a number of stories suggested that Williamson was planning on running as an independent, he is not listed on the NSW Electoral Commission's site:

The absence of Williamson is not the only difference.  Labor also have a new candidate by the name of Peter Ellem. He is a newspaper editor and advisor to a federal member Janelle Saffin.

So - Labor is not going to win the seat, but will there be a swing to Labor? And, if so, how much?

It's important first to consider just how different by-elections are to general elections. Sometimes, as in this case, the sitting member has been forced to resign in disgrace.  In others, the member has received a better (usually Canberra based) offer. Obviously that can create more than a little resentment from the electors.

Further, in a by-election the opportunity to "send the government a message" is often difficult to resist. The by elections between the 2007 and 2011 general elections are good examples - the voters vented their bile towards the Labor party, with catastrophic results for that government.

Finally, by-elections tend to bring out a larger than usual number of unelectable independents, which often muddy the water.

The biggest problem for the Nationals, however, will ironically enough be the simply massive margin Cansdell won with earlier this year.

Put simply, that kind of margin is out of the question in this by-election, given the massive anti-Labor vote in March that will have dissipated somewhat.  The Labor vote will be further assisted by the absence of a Williamson, who may well have been a convenient home for Labor voters who couldn't in good conscience vote for Labor again, but could not bring themselves to mark the Nationals box with a "1".

It is also worth noting that Cansdell's TPP margin in 2007 was a far more modest 26%.

Taken from Anthony Green's blog

The Labor vote will increase.  Whilst the Nationals will most likely also benefit from Williamson's absence, the margin will cut - possibly dramatically.

Which brings me back to how I kicked off this posting.  The Nationals will, as I have said, win at a canter.   There is absolutely no "story" in the result.

That said, there is no doubt that "Big swing against Coalition" is a tempting story, especially when run in the context of the number of groups that O'Farrell has been pissing off since he got into office.

The real problem for O'Farrell will not so much be the result but the possibility that another piece of bad news could start to build a narrative of NSW being very unhappy with the new Coalition government. It doesn't matter right now, but we have seen federally just how quickly a pattern where a government are seen as undesirable can become gospel truth, almost before anyone notices.

Neither O'Farrell nor the Nationals candidate for Clarence will be able to stop the stories about the reduced margin being written.  But O'Farrell will need to start looking for ways to change the story, or else he could find himself in charge of a government that has lost the trust of the electorate.  And that trust is not won back easily.

The by-election will mean nothing, but it has the real potential to mean a lot. Should be interesting viewing.