The Sydney Morning Herald has just previewed a poll to be published tomorrow which shows Labor leading 57-43 in New South Wales. This hardens my impression that, for all the government’s extensive list of negatives, the Coalition will make very few inroads at the March 24 election. I will now set to work on charts tracking opinion poll results through the current term and add them to this post when I have finished. In the meantime, you might like to take another look at my election guide: seats on the Labor side of the table down to and including Heathcote have been brought up to date with photos, further candidate information and, in some cases, analyses of booth variations.

UPDATE: It’s even worse for the Coalition in Newspoll – Labor leads 59-41, "its best result on the two-party preferred measure since the eve of former premier Bob Carr’s third election victory in March 2003".

I appear to be out on a limb here, but the plan for Maxine McKew to run for Labor in Bennelong (apparently confirmed in the Sydney Morning Herald) strikes me as being Kevin Rudd’s first serious misstep. Last week the Prime Minister homed in on what his finely tuned political antennae told him might be Rudd’s Achilles heel: that the smooth-talking former diplomat was a "bit full of himself". Rudd’s apparent focus on rubbing salt into wounds he hasn’t yet inflicted suggests that Howard might have been on to something.

It is indeed probable that McKew’s candidacy will increase the possibility that John Howard will follow Stanley Bruce (defeated in Flinders in 1929) in becoming only the second serving Prime Minister to lose his seat. However, this must be weighed up against the equal or greater likelihood that she will fail. Psephos curator Adam Carr noted the precedent of Billy McMahon (whose Sydney seat of Lowe is now held by Labor) in comments on this site a few weeks ago:

In 1972, 1974 and 1980 he was widely predicted to be facing defeat. His margins at those elections were 4.9%, 3.0% and 6.3%. Each time he hung on, despite the predictions of Mungo McCallum (who wrote a column called “Swing Lowe, sweet chariot”). High-profile sitting members DO have a personal vote, and can also get a sympathy vote if their constituents think they are being hounded in the press.

The national media attention Maxine McKew’s campaign will attract could well have precisely that effect. If Labor wins the election, this might not be such a disaster: in all likelihood, Howard would quit parliament and McKew would win the seat at the ensuing by-election. But if they lose, they will face their next term of opposition with one fewer member of front-bench star quality in the lower house.

Much of the approving comment in the blogosphere is typified by Tim Dunlop’s observation: "at last a high-profile recruit takes on something other than a safe seat". I’m sure Dunlop’s memory isn’t so short that he has already forgotten Cheryl Kernot, although he would no doubt argue that her self-destruction was a special case. However, there are also similarities between the two that should not be overlooked. Both have been lured to major party politics by the power and influence associated with high ministerial office. McKew seems little more likely than Kernot to thrive on the unglamorous grunt work involved with tending to a marginal seat. If she is going to be fast-tracked to the front bench, she would be better served without such distractions.

The notion that high-profile candidates should use their capital to secure the seats needed to win government is better suited to local community figures and sports stars (Steve Waugh, perhaps) than to those selected for leadership potential. Those who would invoke the largely unhappy experience of Mary Delahunty in the safe Victorian seat of Northcote should remember the counter-example of yet another ABC television presenter: Alan Carpenter, who was poached by Labor in 1996 and accommodated in the plum seat of Willagee.

Another point worth making is that the Labor hierarchy should be using every opportunity available to it to clear the forest of dead wood that is the New South Wales chapter of the federal parliamentary party. The Poll Bludger is too kind to name names, but a scan through safe Labor seats on the state’s election pendulum should make my point for me.

UPDATE: The opening sentence was based on the initial frenzy of comment from excited anti-Howard bloggers. Those with sober words and wiser counsel were holding back until the morning. Graham Young at On Line Opinion has rounded on the idea in terms similar to my own. Richard Farmer at Crikey and Peter Brent at Mumble go so far as to say McKew would be less likely to defeat Howard than an unknown. Farmer had this to say:

She and the Party are talking as if this is a serious challenge to John Howard in his own seat. They are armed with the good news of the recent Crikey-Morgan poll and the knowledge that changes to the Bennelong boundaries have brought the electorate into the theoretically winnable category for Labor if the kind of swing which would deliver government is actually on. This is really bravado - the real purpose of the McKew candidacy is to irritate and annoy the Prime Minister to help Labor beat his government throughout Australia rather than to actually defeat him in his own seat. A high profile opponent probably increases the chances of Howard being returned whatever happens nationally. There’s unlikely to be a protest vote against a man who has led the country for a decade in a successful and popular way when the voters realize that there is a real chance of him being defeated. The Labor vote in Bennelong would probably be maximized if Howard was facing an unknown candidate with no apparent chance of victory. Should McKew perform the unlikely and emerge the winner she would naturally become a Labor heroine and be assured a glittering ministerial future. More likely she and her boss Kevin Rudd see this as a training run for the future. How she fares will determine her role in any future Labor administration. If Howard is returned McKew will become the key adviser in opposition for the next three years. If Labor wins without her winning Bennelong she will emerge as the boss of the Labor media apparatus. Any future as a member of parliament will depend on how she handles the rough and tumble of her first campaign.

UPDATE 2 (1/3/07): Missed this outstanding analysis of Bennelong demographics from George Megalogenis in The Australian.

The New South Wales election campaign has begun without me, with the press taking Sunday’s Labor campaign launch as its cue to open festivities with pendulums, key seat summaries and – in The Australian’s case – Malcolm Mackerras’s too-bold-for-his-own-good predictions. Mackerras has tipped that Labor will be returned with a one-seat majority following the loss of Penrith, Port Stephens, Menai, Miranda and Wollondilly (a new notional Labor seat on Sydney’s southern fringes) to the Liberals, Tweed and Monaro to the Nationals, and Newcastle to independent candidate John Tate. He also tips four independent-held seats will fall to the Coalition: Manly and Pittwater to the Liberals, and Dubbo and Tamworth to the Nationals.

For those as keen on a punt as Mackerras, books on the election are being run by SportingBet, Centrebet, Sportsbet and Sports Acumen. They are currently offering short odds on Morris Iemma remaining Premier: $1.16 compared with $4.50 for Peter Debnam for each agency except Sports Acumen, which is offering $1.17 and $4.40. SportingBet is also taking bets on 14 individual seats, with the odds currently on offer converting into the following percentages. Note that this indicates the likelihood of winning the seat, rather than predicted vote share.

The first batch of Campaign Update entries for the Poll Bludger election guide will read as follows:

Wyong (Labor 12.3%): The Liberal campaign for this winnable Central Coast seat is off to what could kindly be described as an awkward start. Yesterday, Simon Benson of the Daily Telegraph gleefully revealed the party’s candidate, Brenton Pavier, had a profile up on Fairfax’s RSVP dating website. Pavier proved good enough of a sport to accept the paper’s invitation for a "date" yesterday with its reporter Kate Sikora. Unfortunately, it was interrupted by a call to Pavier from Peter Debnam, who told him he was about to be disendorsed. His crime was to have forwarded an SMS message containing a rude joke to his fellow Wyong councillors. The Poll Bludger finds this a little severe, and wonders whether it might underscore concerns that the state party has become unduly doctrinaire and puritanical. Debnam has moved very quickly to replace him with the party’s candidate from 2003, Ben Morton (a "federal government adviser"), who was then 21 and is now 25.

Newcastle (Labor 15.4%): The Newcastle Herald published a poll of 300 voters on Tuesday which indicated Labor was set to lose the seat to an independent, with their candidate Jodi McKay on just 24.0 per cent. The apparent front-runner was Bryce Gaudry, the sitting Labor member who had been dumped for preselection, on 22.7 per cent. The other main independent, Newcastle lord mayor John Tate, was on 20.3 per cent, with the Greens on 11.0 per cent and the Liberals on 8.3 per cent. Damien Murphy of the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the result has "come as a shock to Labor strategists who thought Mr Tate was shaping as Ms McKay’s main rival".

The Entrance (Labor 9.7%): On Wednesday, The Australian’s Imre Salusinszky reported that polling by both parties had Labor member Grant McBride in "a virtually hopeless position", with "one senior local Labor Party figure" declaring the seat to be "gone". It was also reported that Labor’s state general secretary, Mark Arbib, was going to "warn the party to expect double-digit swings against its MPs". Other seats said to be at risk included Penrith, Miranda, Menai, Port Stephens and Murray-Darling (which has become a notional Nationals seat after the redistribution).

Maitland (Labor 10.3%): Peter Blackmore, former Liberal member now running as an independent, accused Labor candidate Frank Terenzini of breaching the Electoral Act after posters were nailed to power poles without the permission of the electricity provider. Yeah, I know, big deal. What actually caught my eye about the report in the Newcastle Herald was Terenzini’s campaign slogan: "Frank Terenzini, criminal prosecutor. Someone you can depend on".

The previous thread was getting on the long side, so here’s a new one. Conversation starter: a Roy Morgan poll commissioned by Crikey shows the Prime Minister trailing Labor in his seat of Bennelong by 41 per cent to 40 per cent on the primary vote, and 55-45 on two-party preferred. The sample was 394, which is pretty good for an electorate-level poll. The fortnightly Newspoll will be published in The Australian tomorrow.

UPDATE: 54-46 to Labor in Newspoll; down from 56-44 last time, but Kevin Rudd has a headline-grabbing lead as preferred PM. Elsewhere, England’s finest blogger, Harry Hutton, has made his debut entry on Australian psephological matters.

The Poll Bludger’s New South Wales election guide is now operational – all 30,000 or so words of it. Virtue is of course its own reward, but if you think my labours deserve a little extra you are invited to follow the directions here. Further embellishments, like candidate photos and local issue summaries, will be added in due course. Please drop me a line if you spot any errors, particularly if they’re of a kind likely to invite ridicule. With that out of the way, I really am going to be keeping a low profile around here in the next four weeks or so; heavy duty state election coverage will commence thereafter.

The previous federal election thread was getting long and unwieldy, so I’ve closed it and set up shop here. Perhaps you might like to discuss today’s front page splash in The Australian, "Labor in strongest electoral position since 2001", based on a 56-44 Newspoll result.

Sunday 3pm. Some perspective on this remarkable result. The table below shows the primary vote swing to the incumbent and opposition party and the two-party swing to (or, in this case alone, against) the opposition, at each comparable by-election going back as far as I could find. This is limited to instances where the major parties dominated both the by-election and the preceding general election, and excludes by-elections involving first term governments and those held in the immediate aftermath of general elections.

POST-MATCH OVERVIEW. Like every by-election result, this one will open a torrent of speculation about federal implications, leadership implications and all the rest. This time, believe the hype. Today’s by-election was held almost exactly in the middle of the government’s second term, against the backdrop of a sitting member retiring in disgrace and a government that had every reason to fear a backlash. For the Liberals to lose more than one in six of their voters under these circumstances is an extraordinary result, for which nobody can escape blame.

The Prime Minister might claim that the result has no federal implications, as he has routinely done on the morning after each state election disaster. Most of the time he has been right; this time, it’s very hard to construct an explanation that doesn’t involve industrial relations policies and interest rate hikes. Peel may be a safe Labor seat, but it’s also an outer metropolitan electorate dotted with new suburbs rich with wage-earners and mortgage payers, so it scores high on most indicators of federal electoral sensitivity.

Closer to home, the result is an even bigger disaster for the state Liberal Party, and in particular for leader Paul Omodei. The Poll Bludger normally gets exasperated when parties (usually state Liberal parties) go through leaders like tissues, but this time the verdict is clear: Omodei is an electoral dud and must go before the next election. Expect to hear a lot of talk in the coming weeks about alternative leadership scenarios, such as the plan for Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive John Langoulant to parachute in by replacing Colin Barnett as member for Cottesloe.

As for the other parties, Labor should be feeling very pleased with its candidate selection procedures. The Greens have had a good result, though this is partly an indictment of the Liberals’ clear failure to win the confidence of disaffected Labor voters. Similarly, the doubling of the One Nation vote is unlikely to be the harbinger of a new wave of Hansonism. The Liberals can at least claim that 5.0 per cent of their vote went to pro-Liberal independent Gerard Kettle. But they were also spared opposition this time from Family First, whose 3.3 per cent vote in 2005 was not significantly harvested by the Christian Democratic Party.

9.20pm. It’s actually worse for the Liberals than I thought. Turns out there WERE two-party results coming through, but they could only viewed in aggregate, not booth-by-booth. This count is more-or-less complete for this evening, and it shows a 1.0 per cent swing to Labor. Table now amended.

8.23pm. I guess the Liberals can say they had pro-Liberal independent Gerard Kettle to contend with this time, draining 5.0 per cent of the vote. The only independent in 2005 polled 0.4 per cent. However, there was Family First last time, who scored a pretty solid 3.3 per cent, which has not been absorbed by the CDP.

8.19pm. Did I say absent votes still to come? Silly me. You don’t get those at by-elections. That mitigates the high turnout a little, but only slightly - it’s nearly level with 2005, compared with a sharp plunge at the Victoria Park by-election.

8.18pm. I expect the two-party count will also come in as a flood, probably in about half an hour.

8.17pm. The trend on turnout was also maintained. Comparing like with like, we’ve got 22,082 today compared with 21,576 in 2005. That would have helped Labor a lot.

8.12pm. No mention of the by-election on the ABC radio news just now. I reckon they’ve missed a pretty big story.

8.09pm. Still to come: absent votes (about 2000 to 2500) and the actual two-party count. The above figures are based entirely on my own assumption as to where the minor party vote will go. BTW, the CDP and Gerard Kettle had Liberal ahead of Labor; Greens the other way around; others no recommendation, except the CEC for whom I couldn’t find an HTV card.

8.07pm. Matter of fact, all the remaining booth results came in at once. Way to kill the suspense, WAEC! It very much appears that the trend in the first batch of booths was borne out in the remainder - both parties down 6 to 7 per cent on the primary vote, translating into a very small swing after preferences.

8.06pm. Big flood of results in. Stay tuned.

8.04pm. Still nothing. Turnout so far is 5331 compared with 4952 from equivalent booths in 2005, a remarkable turn-around on last year’s Victoria Park by-election.

7.55pm. It’s also possible that my preference calculations flatter Labor a little, but nonetheless it’s a very encouraging two-party result for Labor. Unless these booths are aberrant, the remarkable feature of the count is that the Liberals seem to be shedding votes to minor parties and independents.

7.54pm. Still no more results, but my table now compares primary vote figures booth by booth. So Labor only appeared to be holding equal on primary votes because they were Labor booths coming in.

7.44pm. Apologies for those whose comments were in moderation. I’ll turn it off.

7.42pm. The count proceeds at a leisurely pace. We’ll probably get hit with seven booths at once in a few minutes.

7.38pm. None of these booths are from the Liberal-friendly southern end of the electorate, which might explain their poor performance on the primary vote. Remember, the swing figure above for the primary vote is compared with the overall total, whereas two-party only compares like booths.

7.31pm. Turnout actually appears to be up, which is a plus for Labor.

7.29pm. These results are so good for Labor I’m checking my spreadsheet for errors, but it all appears to check out.

7.25pm. Five booths now in, including tiny Special Institutions. Apologies for two-party glitch - working on it.

7.18pm. Reckon I’ve finally got my act together now. So yeah, pre-polls and postals actually accounted for 8 per cent in 2005. Perhaps Labor are doing better than expected here because they organised better this time, the seat not being a foregone conclusion.

7.04pm. I should stress that this is 3 or 4 per cent of the vote. Working on something to show the amount counted.

7.02pm. Pre-polls now in; table updated.

6.53pm. In case you’re wondering, only the two-party result is measured against comparable booths. The One Nation vote on postals is actually only up 2.9 per cent, if that comforts you.

6.50pm. That’s better. By the way, booth figures tend to come in three or four big spurts over the next 45 minutes or so.

6.48pm. There’s a problem with my non-Labor primary swing figures, obviously. Working on it.

6.38pm. Unusually, postal votes are in first. They’ve gone 45.5 per cent Labor, 28.5 per cent Liberal. By my reckoning that’s a 6.3 per cent two-party swing to the Liberals on 2005, although postals might behave differently at by-elections

6.26pm Welcome to the Poll Bludger’s live coverage of the Peel by-election. No results yet, which is good because I still have work to do on my tables and such.

Alan Carpenter’s year-old WA government faces its first electoral test tomorrow with the by-election for Peel, the seat vacated after Corruption and Crime Commission hearings blew the lid off Small Business Minister Norm Marlborough’s remarkable dealings with former Premier Brian Burke. As usual, this site will provide live commentary as the booth results come in from about 6.30pm Perth time, complete with up-to-the-minute figures adjusted to take individual booth swings into account. Media reports a fortnight ago suggested Labor polling showed it facing a 12 per cent swing in a seat it holds by 13.5 per cent; in today’s Australian, Amanda O’Brien reports that the Liberals consider themselves a "strong chance". Labor state secretary Bill Johnston has told The West Australian that "anything less than 8 per cent would be an excellent result, anything above 8 per cent would be above average". Some noteworthy campaign developments from the past few weeks:

• Chief among the government’s announcements seeking to limit the damage has been a $600,000 promise to free up police from desk jobs to provide security on the forthcoming Mandurah to Perth line, which Robert Taylor of The West Australian says is expected to be swamped by "young hoods from Rockingham, Kwinana and Mandurah".

• Comments on the Poll Bludger’s earlier by-election thread indicate a degree of hostility about the Waikiki electricity substation development, which is said to be on land originally set aside for a school. More than one noted that the zoning amendment was made after a number of people had bought properties in the area. Among those campaigning against the development was Greens candidate Dawn Jecks.

• Labor has also had to deal with criticism from one of its own preselection aspirants, Kwinana mayor and Police Union lawyer Carol Adams, over neglect of the local area in respect to police numbers and intervention services for domestic violence and drug and alcohol abuse.

Below is a map showing the location of the electorate’s 15 polling booths, and a table showing the individual results from the 2005 election. No changes have been made to the booth arrangements from the state election. Note the clear trend of progressively weaker support for Labor from north to south.