2007 Australian federal election

2007 Australian federal election

The next general election for the Parliament of Australia is expected to take place in late 2007, although it can be held as late as 19 January 2008.

The opposition Australian Labor Party, currently led by Kevin Rudd, will be the main challenger to the incumbent Coalition government, currently led by the Prime Minister and Leader of the Liberal Party, John Howard, and his Coalition partner the Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the National Party, Mark Vaile.

Election date

Under the provisions of the Constitution, the next general election must be held by 19 January 2008. Since 1901, no federal election has yet been called for a January date.

Conservative-leaning columnist Gerard Henderson predicted that the election would be called following the September 2007 APEC leaders' forum in Sydney, with the poll taking place on 13 or 20 October. Although dates up to 15 December were conceivable, Henderson concluded that "the earlier dates are more likely than the latter one." On Radio National's Breakfast Friday panel on 8 December 2006 Paul Bongiorno, political editor for Channel Ten, predicted that the next election will be held on 20 October 2007.

Newspoll: Federal voting intention and leaders' rating
	Two-party preferred		Preferred PM
	Coalition	Labor	Howard	Beazley
10-12 Nov 2006	50%	50%	54%	25%
24-26 Nov 2006	49%	51%	55%	25%
			Howard	Rudd
8-10 Dec 2006	45%	55%	39%	36%
19-21 Jan 2007	45%	55%	41%	39%
2-4 Feb 2007	44%	56%	40%	39%
16-18 Feb 2007	46%	54%	37%	47%
2-4 Mar 2007	43%	57%	38%	45%
16-18 Mar 2007	39%	61%	36%	49%
31 Mar-1 Apr 2007	43%	57%	38%	48%
13-15 Apr 2007	41%	59%	36%	48%
27-29 Apr 2007	43%	57%	39%	46%
11-13 May 2007	41%	59%	37%	49%
25-27 May 2007	40%	60%	38%	47%

Polling

Labor has led the Coalition in polls of voting intention since mid-2006. Labor consolidated its lead after Rudd assumed the Labor leadership, who has also assumed the polling position of preferred Prime Minister.

ACNielsen polling in March 2007 showed 53% of respondents preferred Rudd as Prime Minister compared to Howard on 39%, and Labor on 61% of the two party preferred vote to the Coalition's 39%. Rudd's personal approval rating of 67% makes him the most popular opposition leader in 35 years.

Howard's poll numbers, now in the thirties, are the lowest the prime minister has experienced since before the 2001 election. As of April 2007, the government has not led the opposition in any major opinion poll since August 2006. A post-budget "bounce" did not materialise for the government, with Labor increasing its lead despite tax cuts and increased spending in the federal budget.

Issues

A Newspoll released in June 2006 identified health and Medicare as the most important issue for voters, with 83% of respondents rating it "very important". Other key issues included education (79%), the economy (67%), the environment (60%) and national security (60%). Taxation and interest rates, key issues in previous campaigns, were rated very important by 54% and 51% respectively. Immigration, a key issue in 2001, scored 43%. The poll showed that voters considered Labor better-placed to handle health and education, albeit by a small margin, but gave the government strong backing on the economy and national security.

Attempts by the Liberals to have business groups counter a trade union-backed campaign against the WorkChoices reform, suggest that industrial relations will be a key battleground at the 2007 election. The share of voters concerned about industrial relations grew from 31% to 53% in the two years to June 2006, with almost half of voters backing Labor's ability to handle the issue.

The environment, in particular climate change and water management, will likely be a major issue. Labor's pledge to spearhead construction of a $4.7 billion fibre-to-the-node broadband network suggests that infrastructure could also figure prominently on the campaign trail.

Electoral prospects: House of Representatives

Though the government enjoys a comfortable majority of 27 in the 150-seat Australian House of Representatives, 23 of its MPs will be defending two-party-preferred (2PP) margins of 6% or less in 2007. Labor will require a uniform 2PP swing of 4.8%, or a gain of 16 seats, to win government in its own right.

Redistribution

An electoral redistribution completed in September 2006 by the Australian Electoral Commission will increase the size of the Queensland delegation by one, at the expense of New South Wales. The western New South Wales seat of Gwydir will be abolished and a new seat of Flynn, based around Gladstone, created in its place. Both the old seat and the new are safe for the National Party.

The other major change sees boundaries shift for Liberal-held Macquarie and Labor-held Parramatta: both are now notionally held by the opposing party. A number of other seats were also substantially changed, including Parkes, Farrer, Calare, Greenway and Hughes.

Marginal seats

Labor and the Coalition each hold 23 marginal seats: seats with 2PP margins of 6% or less. Since the 2006 redistribution, Labor-held Parramatta is notionally a Liberal marginal and Liberal-held Macquarie is notionally a Labor marginal.

The marginal seats of Makin (South Australia) and Cowan (Western Australia), held on 2PP margins of less than 1% by the Liberals and Labor respectively, will be especially closely-watched, with sitting MPs Trish Draper and Graham Edwards retiring at the election. In the south-eastern New South Wales seat of Eden-Monaro, Liberal Gary Nairn will be defending the so-called bellwether electorate for the government with a 2PP margin of 3.3%. The Liberal electorate of Lindsay, with a 2PP margin of 2.9% will be another seat which will be hotly contested due to popular member Jackie Kelly's announcement that she will not be recontesting the seat.

In the table below, based on the Mackerras electoral pendulum, marginal seats are shown in the order they would fall, assuming a uniform swing. A uniform swing to Labor would deliver the party seats on the left-hand side. A uniform swing to the Coalition would deliver seats to the Liberals and Nationals on the right-hand side.

Notional marginal seats as of 2007 redistribution
Seat	MP	Party	Margin	Seat	MP	Party	Margin
La Trobe, Vic	Jason Wood	Liberal	5.8%	Corio, Vic	Gavan O'Connor	Labor	5.6%
Blair, Qld	Cameron Thompson	Liberal	5.7%	Lilley, Qld	Wayne Swan	Labor	5.4%
Page, NSW	Ian Causley	National	5.5%	Brand, WA	Kim Beazley	Labor	4.7%
Boothby, SA	Andrew Southcott	Liberal	5.4%	Jagajaga, Vic	Jenny Macklin	Labor	4.4%
Corangamite, Vic	Stewart McArthur	Liberal	5.3%	Brisbane, Qld	Arch Bevis	Labor	4.0%
McMillan, Vic	Russell Broadbent	Liberal	5.0%	Capricornia, Qld	Kirsten Livermore	Labor	3.8%
Deakin, Vic	Philip Barresi	Liberal	5.0%	Melbourne Ports, Vic	Michael Danby	Labor	3.7%
Dobell, NSW	Ken Ticehurst	Liberal	4.8%	Lyons, Tas	Dick Adams	Labor	3.7%
Bennelong, NSW	John Howard	Liberal	4.0%	Bruce, Vic	Alan Griffin	Labor	3.5%
Eden-Monaro, NSW	Gary Nairn	Liberal	3.3%	Banks, NSW	Daryl Melham	Labor	3.3%
Lindsay, NSW	Jackie Kelly	Liberal	2.9%	Rankin, Qld	Craig Emerson	Labor	3.0%
Moreton, Qld	Gary Hardgrave	Liberal	2.8%	Lowe, NSW	John Murphy	Labor	3.1%
Solomon, NT	Dave Tollner	CLP	2.8%	Chisholm, Vic	Anna Burke	Labor	2.7%
Bass, Tas	Michael Ferguson	Liberal	2.6%	Ballarat, Vic	Catherine King	Labor	2.2%
Wentworth, NSW	Malcolm Turnbull	Liberal	2.6%	Holt, Vic	Anthony Byrne	Labor	1.5%
Stirling, WA	Michael Keenan	Liberal	2.0%	Isaacs, Vic	Ann Corcoran	Labor	1.5%
Hasluck, WA	Stuart Henry	Liberal	1.8%	Richmond, NSW	Justine Elliot	Labor	1.5%
Parramatta, NSW	Julie Owens	Labor	-1.1%	Adelaide, SA	Kate Ellis	Labor	1.3%
Braddon, Tas	Mark Baker	Liberal	1.1%	Bendigo, Vic	Steve Gibbons	Labor	1.0%
Makin, SA	Trish Draper	Liberal	0.9%	Cowan, WA	Graham Edwards	Labor	0.8%
Wakefield, SA	David Fawcett	Liberal	0.7%	Macquarie, NSW	Kerry Bartlett	Liberal	-0.5%
Bonner, Qld	Ross Vasta	Liberal	0.6%	Swan, WA	Kim Wilkie	Labor	0.1%
Kingston, SA	Kym Richardson	Liberal	0.1%	Hindmarsh, SA	Steve Georganas	Labor	0.1%
MPs shown in italics are not contesting the 2007 election. See Mackerras federal election pendulum, 2006 for a full list of seats.

High-profile candidates

Labor will field a number of high-profile candidates in 2007. Broadcaster Maxine McKew will challenge John Howard in his electorate of Bennelong. High-profile union boss Bill Shorten, touted as a future prime minister during the Beaconsfield mine collapse drama, will contest the safe Labor seat of Maribyrnong. Former New South Wales attorney-general Bob Debus will contest the marginal seat of Macquarie. ACTU Secretary Greg Combet has been announced as the ALP's candidate for Charlton, a safe seat in New South Wales. The assistant secretary of the ACTU Richard Marles will contest the Victorian seat of Corio, which Labor currently holds by a 5.7% margin. Nicole Cornes, a journalist for the Sunday Mail and the wife of media personality and ex-footballer Graham Cornes is the ALP's candidate for Boothby, a South Australian seat which Liberal MP Andrew Southcott currently holds by a margin of 5.4%. The ALP have also recruited Mia Handshin, a journalist for The Advertiser and a small business operator, to contest another South Australian seat, Sturt. Sturt is currently represented by Government minister Christopher Pyne who holds the seat by a 6.8% margin. Another ALP recruit, former Australian military lawyer Mike Kelly will contest the marginal seat of Eden-Monaro in regional NSW.

The ALP has received criticism from some quarters regarding their recent recruitments, especially the trend of placing union bosses in safe seats while leaving "star" candidates to contest seats held by the Liberal Party. Greg Combet's selection, in particular, has received criticism and anger from Kelly Hoare, the MP he replaces, and others within the New South Wales Labor Party.

Electoral prospects: Senate

36 senators are not up for re-election: 19 from the Coalition, 14 from Labor, 2 Australian Greens and 1 Family First. The Coalition needs to win 20 of the 40 contested Senate seats to maintain its Senate majority, while Labor would need to win 25 seats to have a Senate majority in its own right. A Labor senate majority would require a preferred vote of over 57% in 5 of the 6 states, effectively impossible. The likelihood is that the Coalition will retain control of the Senate, or that minor parties will hold the balance of power, even if Labor wins government.

The Australian Democrats, who were the minor party with the most Senators from 1978 to 2005, now face electoral oblivion. All four Democrat seats are up for re-election, and two incumbents, Andrew Murray and Natasha Stott Despoja, have indicated that they will not seek a fresh term. The loss of Stott Despoja, arguably the nation's highest-profile Democrat, will complicate the party's efforts to resuscitate its electoral appeal.

The minor parties with a chance of holding the balance of power are the Australian Greens and Family First. With the exception of Greens Senator Bob Brown who is likely to receive sufficient first preference votes (14.3%) in Tasmania to secure re-election, each party's success will largely depend on securing favourable preference flows from the major parties and assorted micro parties. While the Coalition is expected to preference Family First ahead of the Greens, the battle to secure Labor's preferences will be fierce.

Government senators Paul Calvert, Rod Kemp, Sandy Macdonald and Kay Patterson; and Labor senator Robert Ray will not contest the 2007 election.

High-profile Candidates

The announcement by independent Peter Andren, the Member for Calare in NSW of his decision to contest the Senate following the substantial changes to the boundaries of his electorate will add interest to the Senate contest in that state.

Andrew Wilkie has been pre-selected as second on the ticket for the Tasmanian Greens behind Senator Bob Brown. He is a former intelligence officer who resigned from the Office of National Assessments (ONA) over his concerns about government use of intelligence information in building a case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In the 2004 election he polled 16% for the Greens in Prime Minister John Howard's electorate of Bennelong.

See also

• Mackerras federal election pendulum, 2006
• Candidates of the Australian legislative election, 2007
• List of political parties in Australia

External links

• Australian Parliamentary Library research note
• Adam Carr's Guide to the 2007 Australian federal election
• Australian Electoral Commission
• OzPolitics polling