A Labor landslide

BRIAN COSTAR puts his reputation on the line WITH only four sleeps to go to polling day we are still being informed that the election will be close. It won’t be - it will be a Labor landslide. The reputable polls have been saying this for months so why don’t the players and commentators listen to them? Both party campaign managers spin the “it will be close” story to stop Labor candidates getting complacent and Coalition candidates becoming despondent. In an excruciatingly long campaign, journalists who have to file copy every day talk up the tightness of the contest to maintain some interest in the campaign and to help sell newspapers. This election has brought forth enough myths to fill an ancient Greek anthology. Let’s consider some of them. The polls would narrow when the election was called. They have not. Just before the House of Representatives was dissolved Peter Brent’s Mumble trend poll had Labor on just over 55 per cent of the two-party preferred vote; today it’s just under 55 per cent. The individual polls (minus two rogues from Newspoll) have not moved beyond sampling error for months. The government vote always improves during the campaign. No it doesn’t. The government vote improved during the 2004, 1993 and 1987 campaigns but not so during others. The government’s incumbency advantage in marginal seats will see it squeak home. No it won’t, and the coalition knows it. That’s why it has thrown in the towel in Labor’s and its own marginals and is now trying to defend seats it holds by margins of between 5 and 8 per cent. It is not campaigning to win but to minimise the size of the defeat - that’s what the $800 education tax rebate was all about. Lots of people will change their minds during the campaign and this will save the government. First, this assumes that all the switchers will go in the same direction and, second, there is no evidence from the polls that this is happening. The polls are often wrong. Not in Australia they’re not, thanks to compulsory voting. The last time the pollsters were embarrassed was way back in 1980 when they predicted the wrong winner. The Coalition always runs better campaigns than Labor. Not this time it hasn’t. In fact the government campaign has been a litany of disasters. You know a party is in trouble when it loses confidence in its slogan two weeks out from polling day. A sixteen seat swing is beyond the Opposition in a single election. No it isn’t. With the exception of 1972, all post-war changes of government in Australia have been landslides with swings of around 7 per cent, which is what the polls are saying will occur on Saturday. ... And so we could go on. What will happen? Labor will poll just in excess of 54 per cent of the two-party preferred vote - a swing of 7 per cent since 2004 - and will win about 36 additional seats to give it 96 House of Representatives members. If you think this is far-fetched remember the Coalition currently holds 88 seats. • Brian Costar is professor of Victorian parliamentary democracy at the Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University of Technology Photo: AAP Image/Dean Lewin