A mathematician warns – Coalition’s pro-coal policy likely a vote loser
Coalition’s pro-coal policy likely a vote loser; optional voting in plebiscite helps Yes, The Conversation, Recently the Coalition and its media supporters have condemned the SA and Victorian Labor governments for allowing coal-fired power plants to close. The Coalition is trying to extend the life of the Liddell power plant in NSW, and is considering building a new coal-fired power plant. This is an attempt to portray Labor as the party of intermittent, unreliable and costly power.
The Coalition has been in office for four years. In July 2014, they repealed the carbon price that Labor had introduced. Many people would now ask why energy prices have kept increasing in the three years since this repeal. In a mid-August Essential poll, 59% thought they were paying a lot more for electricity and gas than two or three years ago.
In February, 45% in an Essential poll said that recent blackouts were mainly due to failures of the energy market, 19% blamed privatisation and just 16% blamed renewables.
In mid-August an Essential poll gave the Coalition a net -34 rating on providing affordable and reliable energy, their worst score from a list of 12 issues. In last week’s Essential, 49% blamed private power companies most for rising energy prices, 22% blamed the Turnbull government, 9% environmentalists and 5% renewable energy companies.
People who blame private power companies are more likely to trust Labor than the Coalition to get tough, given the Coalition’s pro-business reputation……. [lots of figures given here]
As a result of the Coalition’s pro-coal policy, some Abbott supporters could return, possibly boosting the Coalition’s primary vote at the expense of One Nation and Others. However, respondent allocated preferences are currently more friendly to the Coalition than the previous election method, and this could change. The Coalition risks losing more centrist voters to Labor.
In some parts of the country, such as NSW’s Hunter Valley, coal is important to the local economy, and the Coalition is likely to benefit. In most of the country, being pro-coal is likely to hinder the Coalition.
SA has been the state most subject to attacks from the pro-coal lobby. It has a Labor government that is over 15 years old, and this would be expected to be a drag on Federal Labor in that state. We would expect the SA swing to Labor to be the lowest of any state.
Instead, the Poll Bludger’s BludgerTrack currently gives Labor their second largest swing in SA. Labor leads in SA by 58.4-41.6, a 6.1 point swing to Labor since the 2016 election. The SA sample sizes used in BludgerTrack are small, so this result is much more error-prone than the national BludgerTrack figure (53.7-46.3 to Labor, a 4.1 point swing), but this is still a large swing to Labor in a state that should have the lowest swing.
SA will have only 10 House seats at the next Federal election, but Victoria will have 38. If the Coalition antagonises Victorians as much as they have South Australians, they could suffer a disastrous loss of seats in both states……..https://theconversation.com/coalitions-pro-coal-policy-likely-a-vote-loser-optional-voting-in-plebiscite-helps-yes-83787
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