Unless the Prime Minister (Scott Morrison) thinks that he is in for electoral wipeout, then I do not think that the House Of Representatives election will be decoupled from the Senate election. As the next term for the Senate begins on July 1, then a half-Senate election must be held on or before 21st of May, according to the rules of the Constitution (1900) and the Electoral Act (1918).
I personally think that the most likely dates for the House and half-Senate election will be 7th, 14th and 21st May because I think that the Morrison Government would prefer to call a March Budget and then a May election, rather than call a March election and then leave the Budget open to the Labor Party.
By leaving it later, the Morrison Government has ample opportunity to try and change the opinion of the general public just enough, to retain government. By the same token, if the Labor Party wants to win government for what is likely to be their only term this decade (as Australia slowly drifts to the functionally fascist right), then it will have to convince a larger section of the population that it should be in charge.
I think that the headline number for a swing to change government (assuming that there is a uniform national swing and allowing for stubborn seats to remain in existing hands) is:
4%
There will be numbers ahead. If you don't like numbers, then abandon this post now. Save yourself!
As we were...
The current Newspoll has:
LN/P - 34.5%
ALP - 37.0%
On a two-party preferred basis that equates to:
LN/P - 48.2%
ALP - 51.7%
If we compare that to the results of the 2019 General Election then what we see is a swing to the ALP of 3.3%.
3.3% is a curious number.
I calculate that for the 8 most likely seats to switch, the swing needed to make the seat change hands is as follows:
Swing - Electorate - Current Member - Year first elected
0.4% - Bass (Tas) - Bridget Arthur - 2019
0.5% - Chisholm (ACT) - Gladys Liu - 2019
1.4% - Boothby (SA) - Nicole Flint - 2016
3.1% - Braddon (Tas) - Gavin Pearce - 2019
3.2% - Reid (NSW) - Fiona Martin - 2019
3.2% - Swan (WA) - Steve Irons - 2007
3.3% - Longman (Qld) - Terry Young - 2019
3.7% - Higgins (Vic) - Katie Allen - 2019
Currently the House of Representatives has the current members (*denotes government):
LN/P - 77*
ALP - 68
Oth - 6
If all of those seats changed hands then the new makeup of the House of Representatives would be:
LN/P - 69
ALP - 76*
Oth - 6
The absolute bare minimum number of seats needed to win government in your own right, is 76.
Any swing towards the LN/P ensures that they remain in government. If the electorate swings towards the LN/P then almost by definition, the electorate approves of the job that the current government is doing and they remain in office. I am not particularly interested in this scenario because apart from more backbenchers appearing on the government side of the chamber of the House of Representatives, I suspect that practically nothing would change in either the cabinet or the policy mix going forward. Why should it? A swing towards the government is a stamp of approval.
However, a 3.3% swing to the ALP (assuming that the 6 seats on the crossbench are irrelevant), means that the ALP would be stranded on 75 seats and not enough to form government. A 0.5% swing to the ALP, means that the LN/P would be stranded on 75 seats and not enough to form government.
A 3.7% swing is enough to hand Higgins to the ALP as the eighth seat and that would put them of 77 seats but even then, unless you end up in a situation where you have a neutral MP standing up to be the Speaker of the House (which isn't very likely because the government wouldn't agree to that), then one of those 77 seats would be Speaker and the ALP would still have a majority on the floor of 1.
So why 4% and not 3.7%?
The reason for this is that at 4%, you can start making reasonable assumptions that there will be 77 seats on the floor. Contained within any swing calculation is some fudge factor; where even though you have a swing towards one party or another, it is still in seats which are already held.
Right at the heart of parliamentary democracy, is the unspoken fact that nowhere in any constitution is there any requirement for there to even be political parties or a Prime Minister. Those things are overlays which are designed to organise political factions and act as brands to sell the ideas to the public. To be perfectly frank, we don't really need political parties and the system would still work perfectly well without them. They do exist though and that has mathematical consequences.
I do not know to what degree the political parties in Australia enjoy rusted on voting blocs of voters. There are probably large chunks on both sides who will continue to vote for their preferred political football team beyond the point of rampant corruption and incompetence. We really need not bother about them.
4% of the electorate swinging one way or the other, already tells you that the remaining 96% of the electorate is already spoken for and that is is split 48-48. As it currently stands, that 96% of the electorate accounts for 138 seats in parliament.
4% of the electorate is enough to swing 8 seats and with it, government; which when you think about it, makes sense if both side are both nominally supported by about half the country. 4% changes 48-52 into 52-48, which is enough to satisfy a parliamentary majority.
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