2022 Federal Electoral Pendulum

With redistributions of electoral boundaries now complete for Victoria and Western Australia, it is time to publish an updated electoral pendulum for the 2022 election.

The redistributions have abolished the WA Liberal seat of Stirling and created the new notionally Labor held seat of Hawke in Victoria. (See my previous posts on the redistributions, in Victoria here and Western Australia here.)

Compared to the 2019 election result, the changes reduce the Coalition from 77 to 76 seats and lift Labor from 68 to 69 seats. In the 151 member House of Representatives, 76 seats are needed for majority government.

As well as the web formatted pendulum inside this post, I’ve prepared a well laid out printable ‘pdf’ version with seats listed in double-sided A4 format. You can find it at this link.

The Political Landscape

The abolition of Stirling in Western Australia leaves the Morrison government defending 76 seats at the next election, the minimum number needed for majority government. Labor holds a notional 69 seats, so needs a net gain of four seats from the Coalition to hold more seats in the House, and a net seven seats for a bare majority government. Between the Coalition losing one seat and Labor gaining seven lies minority government.

The Morrison government’s success in defending its own seats in 2019, and Labor’s collapse in Queensland, has produced a slightly lop-sided pendulum. Labor needs a uniform swing of 3.1% to gain four seats and 3.3% to gain seven. Yet Labor is defending 13 seats on a margin of up to 3%.

Labor’s two-party preferred vote in 2019 was 48.5% to the Coalition’s 51.5%. Assuming a uniform swing, Labor on paper needs a national 51.8% of the two-party preferred vote to win, but that high figure is in part due to Labor’s poor result in 2019.

But I wouldn’t assume a uniform swing. The Coalition goes into the next election holding 23 of the 30 seats in Queensland and 10 of 15 in Western Australia, that’s 33 of 48 seats in the two big resources states. The last year has seen Labor government’s re-elected in both states, in Western Australia by a landslide of gargantuan proportions. Any slippage from the Coalition’s current strong position in both states would cost the Morrison government its majority.

Earlier this year, unnamed sources were quoted as suggesting the Coalition could compensate for losses in the north and west with gains in NSW. The Coalition holds 22 of 47 seats in NSW, and Labor is defending 10 seats on margins under 5%, seven of them outside the Sydney basin. With the Berejiklian government riding high earlier this year, and the state having avoided Victoria’s lockdowns under Labor, prospects looked good for the Coalition.

But how quickly the political landscape has changed. With Sydney in lockdown, and the Berejiklian government pointing at Canberra as responsible for the slow pace of vaccination, the Prime Minister has had to change his rhetoric on lockdowns. The Commonwealth government helping NSW has been necessary, economically for the nation and politically for the government, but isn’t viewed favourably by voters in other states.

Especially in Victoria, criticised in mid-2020 for not lifting restrictions as quickly as other states, and then criticised when the Andrews government imposed an even tougher lockdown to stamp out infection. Victorian voters see a difference between the criticism of Victoria’s lockdowns last year and reactions to the on-going outbreak in Sydney. The tag “Prime Minister of NSW” for Scott Morrison has entered political language, which will put the government on the defensive south of the Murray.

But the election could yet be nine months away, and as the last year has shown, you should never get too far ahead in predicting the future.

Notes on the Pendulum

The new pendulum includes estimated margins for all seats as the starting point for discussing the 2022 election. The most marginal seats for Labor and the Coalition are at the top of the list, safe seats towards the bottom. Seats held by independents and minor parties are shown in a block at the bottom right of the pendulum.

I know this chart is upside down compared to how a clock pendulum works, but no-one has come up with a replacement for the traditional term ‘electoral pendulum’.

Some may quibble I have picked the wrong year for the election. In June I published a blog post on when the next federal election can be held. In the six weeks since that post was published, prospects for an election in late 2021 have diminished with outbreaks of the Covid-19 Delta variant in Sydney and elsewhere.

The pendulum is based on 2019 election results, adjusted for the redistributions in Victoria and Western Australia. The pendulum doesn’t take account of the Eden-Monaro by-election result or the resignation from the Liberal Party of Craig Kelly, member for the southern Sydney seat of Hughes.

Coalition seats in Queensland were won by the LNP, but all seats are shown as Liberal or National held based on which Coalition party room successful LNP candidates joined after the election.

Margins are based on two-party preferred results in contests between the Coalition and Labor in 142 seats. Two-candidate margins are shown for the six seats won by minor parties and independents in 2019, and the final three seats are shown with Labor versus Green margins. (Cooper and Wills in Melbourne, Grayndler in Sydney.)

There were six other non-2PP contests in 2019. These were Cowper (NSW 6.8% NAT v IND), Farrer (10.9% LIB v IND), New England (14.4% NAT v IND), Wentworth (1.3% LIB v IND), Maranoa (22.5% NAT v ONP) and Kooyong (5.7% LIB v GRN). These margins are only relevant if a non-major party contestant emerges for the election so two-party preferred margins have been used for each seat on the pendulum.

Party codes are Liberal (LIB), National (NAT), Labor (ALP), Greens (GRN), Centre Alliance (CA), Katter’s Australia Party (KAP), Independent (IND) and One Nation (ONP).

I will update the pendulum if necessary when the AEC publishes its redistribution estimates ahead of the election. I may also amend margins depending on the pattern of Independent contests.

As already mentioned, I’ve prepared a well laid out printable ‘pdf’ version with seats listed in double-sided A4 format. You can find it at this link.

The 2022 Electoral Pendulum