From Defeat to Landslide Loss

The 2011 NSW election produced the largest two-party swing in recent Australian election history, ending 16 years of Labor government. It raises the prospect of the end of Labor's dominance of NSW politics. This paper focuses on the consequences of ALP instability for the Party's electoral opportunities and strategy in the lead-up to its 2011 defeat. The authors single out the mass departure of Labor MPs prior to the election and the loss of Greens preferences as interesting problems for empirical analysis. They explore both loss of incumbency and preference effects in a seat-level (n = 93) regression model and comment on the significance of the findings for NSW Labor. Keywords: election studiesLabor politicsNSW politicspolitical strategy Notes 1These were Coogee, Granville, Riverstone, Toongabbie and Wallsend. 2For reasons of space, we briefly summarise the variable coding in the text. A full list of variable coding and modelling decisions and sources can be obtained from the authors. 3We selected the 2007 Greens vote on the assumption that the 2011 swing reflected a ‘negative reputation’ effect operating against Labor and that this effect would be moderated in seats where large numbers of centre–left voters already vote Greens. 4This variable includes all seats where the relative order of Labor and Coalition candidates changed, not only those where the Labor candidate was first on the ballot. 5Our unpublished research exploring the 2010 federal election suggests distinct shifts in the patterns of the Informal vote and Turnout. It appears that partisan voters use the Informal vote (and non-turnout) to ‘protest’ against their preferred party, which has the effect of limiting the two-party vote for the opposing party. For this reason, the ‘stock’ measures of the Informal vote and Turnout capture the strategic ‘churn’ in voter strategy. 6A by-election was also held in Port Macquarie due to the retirement of independent Robert Oakeshott. Because this did not involve a Labor incumbent, it was excluded. 7This included our modelling of some sophomore effects (see Brent Citation2010) and regional effects. Unlike the Australian Electoral Commission, the NSW election commission does not classify its seats by area. Antony Green offers his own classification, which guided our modelling decisions. We modelled the impact of swings in various parts of NSW where we would expect swings to be larger – particularly, greater western Sydney and the Hunter and Illawarra. 8Influential outliers included the huge swings in Bathurst, Ryde and Riverstone. We speculate that for Bathurst and Ryde in particular, the large ‘outlying’ swing was affected by the success of federal conservatives in these areas (Bennelong, Calare) in August 2010. 9It is possible our preference variable reflects a shift in individual-level willingness to preference Labor as well as changes in Party recommendations. Additional modelling to investigate this was inconclusive. Additional informationNotes on contributorsShaun Wilson Dr Shaun Wilson is Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales where he teaches social research and social policy. Dr Ben Spies-Butcher is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Macquarie University where he teaches political economy

Ballot · Demographic economics · Dominance (genetics · Economics · General election · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Reputation · Turnout · Voting · Commonwealth, Australian Politics and Federalism · Labor Movements and Unions · Law · Public Administration · Social Media and Politics

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