Parliament of Australia Department of Parliamentary Services Parliamentary Library Information, analysis and advice for the Parliament RESEARCH PAPER www.aph.gov.au/library 8 May 2008, no. 30, 2007–08, ISSN 1834-9854 Commonwealth Election 2007 (reissued 10 September 2009) Scott Bennett and Stephen Barber Politics and Public Administration and Statistics and Mapping Sections Executive summary This paper follows a similar format to the Parliamentary Library studies of the 1998, 2001 and 2004 Commonwealth elections. The paper is divided into two parts. Part One is written by Scott Bennett of the Politics and Public Administration Section. It is written as: • a journal of record • a discussion of the election campaign and • a discussion of the election outcome. Appendices give: • the election timetable • names of the departing Members of the House of Representatives and Senators • details of the new members of each house and • details of the number of women in the two chambers, including comparisons with the previous three parliaments. Part Two comprises a comprehensive set of statistics compiled by Stephen Barber of the Statistics and Mapping Section. Tables contain: • national, state and regional vote summaries • details concerning electoral divisions • two-party preferred figures and • the party strengths in the two houses of the Commonwealth Parliament. Two appendices complete this section of the research paper. • the first shows the classification for each electoral division for the various classifications used in the paper and • the second gives figures for Senate and House of Representatives elections held from 1946 to 2007. Contents Executive summary ..................................................... 1 Introduction .......................................................... 1 Part One: The Election ................................................... 2 The background to the election ............................................. 2 Redistributions ...................................................... 2 Changes to the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 ............................ 3 Aid for blind and visually-impaired voters .................................. 3 Remote Australian Defence Force voting ................................... 4 When would it be? ................................................... 4 The election begins ..................................................... 5 The House of Representatives—the battle for government ......................... 6 The Challengers ....................................................... 7 Beazley is dropped ................................................... 7 A new type of Labor campaign .......................................... 9 The incumbents ....................................................... 12 The Government’s claim to be re-elected .................................. 12 Coalition negativism ................................................. 13 Had the campaign been called earlier ..................................... 18 The diminution of the significance of policy ................................ 19 The media and the election ............................................... 19 Playing the media game differently ...................................... 21 The use of new media ................................................ 21 The House of Representatives result ........................................ 23 States and Territories ................................................. 24 Local contests ...................................................... 25 The Senate—in whose hands? ............................................ 31 The setting ........................................................ 31 Senate results ...................................................... 32 Some factors in the election outcome ....................................... 33 Leadership ........................................................ 33 The economy ...................................................... 37 The Green vote ..................................................... 40 Regional sentiment .................................................. 40 The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 ..................................... 41 The next election ...................................................... 41 Further reading ....................................................... 42 Appendix 1: 2007 election timetable ........................................ 43 Appendix 2: The passing parade ........................................... 44 Part Two: Statistical tables ............................................... 48 Symbols and abbreviations ............................................ 48 Table 1: House of Representatives: National summary ........................ 49 Table 2: House of Representatives: State summary ........................... 50 Table 3: House of Representatives: Regional summary ........................ 55 Table 4: House of Representatives: Party status summary ...................... 57 Table 5: House of Representatives: Socio-economic status summary (a) ............ 62 Table 6a: House of Representatives: Electoral division summary ................. 64 Table 6b: House of Representatives: Electoral division summary ................. 68 Table 7: House of Representatives: Electoral division detail ..................... 72 Table 8: House of Representatives: Two-party preferred vote: State summary ....... 100 Table 9: House of Representatives: Two-party preferred vote: Regional summary .... 100 Table 10: House of Representatives: Two-party preferred vote: Party status summary ....................................................... 100 Table 11: House of Representatives: Two-party preferred vote: Socio-economic status summary ................................................... 101 Table 12: House of Representatives: Two-party preferred vote: Electoral division summary ....................................................... 102 Table 13: House of Representatives: Electoral pendulum ...................... 106 Table 14: House of Representatives: Electoral divisions ranked by two-party preferred swing to ALP ............................................. 107 Table 15: Senate: National summary .................................... 108 Table 16: Senate: State summary ....................................... 109 Table 17: Senate: Composition from 1 July 2008 ........................... 115 Table 18: Senate: Candidate details ..................................... 116 Table 19: Comparison of House of Representatives and Senate votes by division .... 139 Appendix 1: Electoral division classification ............................... 143 Appendix 2a: House of Representatives: Elections 1946–2007 .................. 147 Appendix 2b: Senate: Elections 1946–2007 ............................... 148 Commonwealth Election 2007 Introduction This paper follows a similar format to the Parliamentary Library studies of the 1998, 2001 and 2004 Commonwealth elections.1 The paper is divided into two parts. Part One is: • a journal of record, • a discussion of the election campaign and • a discussion of the election outcome. Part Two comprises a comprehensive set of statistics. These include • vote summaries • electoral division details • two-party preferred figures and • the party strengths in the new Parliament. The paper also includes comparative figures for all Senate and House of Representatives elections held from 1946 to 2007. An appendix lists the departing Members of the House of Representatives and Senators, together with their replacements. 1. Scott Bennett, Andrew Kopras and Gerard Newman, ‘Federal Elections 1998’, Research Paper, no. 9, Parliamentary Library, Canberra, 1998–99; Scott Bennett, Gerard Newman and Andrew Kopras, ‘Commonwealth Election 2001’, Research Paper, no. 11, Parliamentary Library, Canberra, 2001–02; Scott Bennett, Gerard Newman and Andrew Kopras, ‘Commonwealth Election 2004’, Research Brief, no. 13, Parliamentary Library, Canberra, 2004–05. 1 Commonwealth Election 2007 Part One: The Election The background to the election Redistributions There had been redistributions in the Australian Capital Territory, NSW and Queensland since the 2004 election. As seven years had passed since the previous ACT redistribution, there was a legislative requirement that one be held in the two electorates that are located in the national capital. At its completion, it was clear that there had been minimal change to party prospects, with the Australian Labor Party holding a comfortable two-party preferred margin in each electorate.2 By contrast, there were apparent winners and losers in the redistribution for NSW brought about by the reduction of the number of the state’s electorates to 49 (from 50). The ‘Federation’ electorate of Gwydir,3 held for the Nationals by former Deputy Prime Minister, John Anderson, was the electorate to be abolished, causing much alteration to nearby electorates. Calare, for example, held between 1996 and 2007 by independent MP, Peter Andren4, became nominally a Nationals’ electorate (10.0 per cent margin). In a ripple-on effect, the neighbouring Liberal electorate of Macquarie shifted to the nominal Labor list (0.5 per cent), while Greenway became much safer for the Liberal sitting member whose margin increased to 11.4 per cent.5 Elsewhere, other electorates, such as Bennelong, held by Prime Minister, John Howard (4.1 per cent), and Wentworth, held by the Environment Minister, Malcolm Turnbull (2.5 per cent), became more marginal, while the Labor electorate of Parramatta became