Pearls and Irritations

The first federal election lesson I would draw from the recent South Australian election is: “the polls got it right”. This combined with the significant differential in the performance of female candidates in the election could have a profound impact on the forthcoming federal election.

We may be about to experience the women’s election.

There is much cynicism about polling. Some of it based on the recent failures of polling in Australia and USA. Some of the cynicism is based on a proper understanding of the methodological challenges facing pollsters in the 21^st century, particularly given the virtual demise of landlines. However, some of the suspicion is based on ignorance and conspiracy theories.

I am as critical as most about the bias in the Murdoch press. It is now so bad it is almost laughable!

However, neither Murdoch nor Newspoll has any credible reason to deliberately distort the polling as disclosed fortnightly in The Australian. Some of the reporting in the Australian of the polling is distorted and/or just plain wrong, but the polling numbers are credible. We now have several regular polls which give Australians a chance to judge how the forthcoming election is going at the particular moment. At this relatively early stage it doesn’t necessarily tell us much about how the final result will go on election day. There is a lot of water to flow under the bridge before the result will be known.

It is however clear that the current indications are very positive for Labor and for Anthony Albanese.

A second lesson from analysis of the South Australian election results is the superior performance of female candidates.

It has been widely reported that all the key seats gained by Labor at this election were won by female candidates.

What has not been reported is the better overall performance of women as candidates at the election.

At the time of writing, although there are a few votes still to be counted, the average swing to Labor in a seat contested by a woman was 7.46%, while for male candidates the average was 6.22%.

There is no obvious explanation for this quite significant difference. It is true that several female candidates were in key marginals in which the Labor Party made extra effort, but the Liberals would also have waged major campaigns in these seats. As many of the women were running against incumbents this would suggest that the difference in gendered results may be more than suggested.

It seems the voters prefer female candidates with a margin of difference sufficient to influence the outcome in closely contested seats.

This is significant additionally because the ALP has female candidates in 18 of the 27 key seats within which the next federal election will be determined.

Taken together with the very significant number of female independents threatening otherwise safe Liberal seats, the 2022 federal election could become known as the women’s election!

In fact, to bring these two lessons together, polling suggests Labor may be very close to 50% female MPs in the lower house after this election if they do as well as the polls predict.

Applying the state-by-state polling breakdown to the pendulum suggests Labor would win 12 seats, 10 of which have female candidates for the ALP.

The ALP currently has 29 women and 38 men in the House. One new safe seat has been created, Hawke, for which a man, Sam Rae, has been selected. Of the seats of retiring members Marion Scrymgeour is running for Warren Snowdon’s seat of Lingiari and Kristina Keneally is running to replace Chris Hayes in Fowler. Assuming Andrew Charlton is chosen to contest the seat of Parramatta currently held by Julie Owens, this makes a starting point in a status quo election of 30 female and 38 males in the House for the ALP. Should Labor win the 12 seats as suggested by the current polling this would create an 80 seat ALP team in the House which would be split 40/40 between men and women.

Of course, even if the polls are correct in predicting the overall seat count it is never as precise on a seat-by seat basis. And it is far too early to be predicting how many seats Labor will win, let alone which ones it may win. But this analysis is indicative of a trend towards gender equality in the parliament as it becomes more truly a House of Representatives.

The swathe of potential Independents contesting previously safe conservative seats makes a similar analysis for the Liberals and Nationals very difficult at the moment. However, they start from a much lower base. In the current parliament the coalition has a combined gender split of 15 women /61men. If the coalition lost the same twelve seats considered above they would fall to 9/55. In addition, only 1 of the 8 men retiring at this election is being replaced by a woman. This would take a status quo election result to 16/60. A twelve-seat loss would mean 10/54.

For the purpose of comparison, should the coalition gain the first twelve seats for which they have endorsed candidates (which excludes Lilley and Greenway) they would gain five women and seven men. This would lead to a composition of the coalition House team of 21/67.

Of course, most of the members under threat from female independents are men, but losing seats is a perverse method of moving towards gender equality.

The South Australian election can predict nothing about who will win the next federal election. But it does point to some interesting underlying trends in the choices Australian voters are making. It also reinforces the point from the Western Australian election that it is unwise to disregard the message the polls are sending about public attitudes.

The prospect of a more gender balanced House, at least on the Labor side and amongst the Independents with a possible indication of voter preference for female candidates adds an intriguing note to the study of the forthcoming election.

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