Leaderboard

I don't think I'd like to make a prediction on what will happen in almost two years time. People lost a lot of faith in opinion polls when they got it completely wrong in the Shorten lost election. The party faithful at party election HQ were popping the champagne before the polls were closed, and an hour later they looked shell shocked. The thing is, that election was all about the two major parties and now something else entirely is happening. I don't live in a political monoculture as far as friends and people in general that I know. I've got close friends that vote Green and close friends who are paid up One Nation party members, so from one end of the spectrum to the other. But for the last few months it seems like everywhere I go I'm hearing stuff that looks good for One Nation and bad for Labor. The only prediction that I'd be game to make is that the coalition will preference One Nation, which is not good for Labor. In the past, the coalition has preferenced away from One Nation to try to extinct them as conservative competition. It's too late to do that now and if they did they'd just lose more base and wouldn't have enough support in the centre to survive.

It's no news to anyone that One Nation has led the last three major voting intention polls taken. But I wonder how many people who have expressed a dislike of our preferential system and support for a first past the post system are starting to have a rethink now that One Nation is polling at number one on primary vote intention. There's arguments for and against both systems. The way I see it, with a first past the post system you could end up with a government elected on a fairly small percentage if we had a few strong parties instead of the traditional two major party dominance. That might be our immediate future, ie: an end to the two party status quo. The preferential system can have a lot more unpredictable outcomes, that's for sure. I was reading some of the views of Dr. Shaun Ratcliff, principal of Accent Research regarding preferences. He was saying based on current polling, what happened in Farrer could replicate around the country at the next election. Here's a quote from him: "In seat after seat, the Coalition is predicted to fall to third place in seats it has traditionally held, either on primary votes or it is pushed to third by Labor on Greens preferences, with Labor then losing to One Nation – usually on Coalition preferences”. That would mean One Nation defeating Labor candidates with the unintentional help of the Greens. This is my interpretation of that if I'm correct - in a four cornered contest between Liberal, Labor, One Nation and Greens, the Greens get knocked out first and Labor gets most of their preferences, pushing the Liberals to third place. It's then a contest between Labor and One Nation, and if One Nation polls well on the primaries, they pick up the Liberal preferences to top Labor. I think either way, it would be Labor with Green preferences against either One nation with Liberal preferences or Liberal with One Nation preferences. Dr. Ratcliff said the effect can magnify a small change in primary vote into a large difference in outcome. He said: “A Coalition primary vote that was just a few points higher would win considerably more seats,”. Round about now, Albo might be checking his wardrobe to see if he's still got those brown cord pants. He'd certainly be hoping for a big turnaround in the next six months or time will be running out to do it. I think the government knows that momentum will be their enemy if they don't stop it, and stop it soon.