Lots of commentators have been surprised by the magnitude of the swing against the government in the opinion polls. Given that the economy is going well, and that on most issues divisions between the parties are not all that sharp, why should people change their votes? There are a number of potential reasons, including the increased salience of climate change and the fact that Rudd is a more attractive leader than any of his recent predecessors.
But one fact that doesn’t get so much attention is that much of the swing to Labor is coming from changes in the population of voters, rather than in changes of mind among voters. It’s well known that the Liberals have more support among older voters, and that Labor gets strong support from young voters and recent immigrants. But no-one seems to have drawn the obvious implication. If no-one changes their mind between elections, Labor gets an automatic increase in support as young people and migrants are enfranchised, while Liberal voters are more likely to pass away through old age (I’m not sure about Australians who move overseas and stop voting as a result).
How big is this swing? My rough guess is that we’ve added a million new voters since the last election and lost around half a million. If we assume two-thirds of the new voters go for Labor, and two-thirds of the departed supported the Liberals, that leaves the Liberal vote unchanged, but adds half a million votes for Labor, equal to a bit over 4 per cent of the total number of voters. Since the number of voters has increased, that should be reflected in, roughly, an increase of 2 percentage points in Labor’s share of the 2PP vote, and a decrease of 2 percentage points in the Liberals.
Obviously, there’s more than that going on here. There was a swing against Labor last time, for example. Still if you go back to 1998, when Labor came out just ahead on the 2PP vote, but didn’t win enough seats, the cohort effect since then would give a shift to something like 56-44, which is exactly what we observe in the polls (though of course we still have to wait for the only poll that counts
All this points up a big structural problem for the Liberals. Just to stay in the same place, they have to make sure that some proportion of voters switch to them as they grow older, or (in the case of migrants) spend longer in the country. It’s a commonplace that this happens, but there’s no reason to suppose that the process is automatic.
And it provides an alternative explanation of the “paradox” that Labor wins at the state level, while losing Federal. On this interpretation, Labor has a natural majority which has been offset, until now, by the attractiveness of Howard relative to the opponents Labor has put up against him.
John Quiggin 
“No, snuh – I reported a limited statement. I did indeed hear that, somewhere. I would only be under the burden you describe if I had asserted something much stronger.”
I’ve heard John Howard is an agent of the International Jewish conspiracy out to pave the way for the UN-backed Indonesian invasion of Australia and the extermination of all white Australians.
“hence it is inconceivable that a Green voter would then put Liberal or National second to the detriment of the ALP.”
It may be uncommon but it is certainly not “inconceivable”.
I know a number of conservative voters who register protest votes over specific issues (such as Kyoto) by voting Green first then preferencing the Liberals.
Katz Says: November 4th, 2007 at 6:58 am
Its idle to speculate on the mental projections of Boomers speculating on the likely course of the VN war nearly forty years ago.
My point is that the Boomers would have been attracted to the anti-Right wing party whether the VN war had occurred or not. You appear to concede this point.
I concede that the Dismissal probably did not swing the Boomers to the ALP. They were already mostly there, Dismissal or not. But it did entrench their partisanship, much as the VN war did.
Foreign experience proves that Boomers tend to be somewhat antagonistic to the Right-wing party even if there was no involvement in the VN war (UK) or the VN war was launched by the Left-wing party (US).
Boomers tended to be opposed to the Right-wing party because they wanted individual freedom and social equality for all members of their cohort. The philosophy of individual autonomy.
Their privileged existence away all arbitrary inhibitions on their pursuit of the good life. Their sense of justice made them want to make this freedom available to all members of their cohort.
The politically vocal part of this cohort was mostly made up of minorities (young, female, coloured, atheist, gays). Together with a sprinkling of ideologically facile Jews. They had a shared agenda of pushing the WASPs out of power.
Right-wing party tended to be supportive ofinstitutional authorities (family, corporation, state) run by higher-status WASPish groups (old, male, Caucasian, Christian, straight). So the Boomers identified the political Right with parental authority.
This is the source of their most famous slogan: “the personal is the political”.
In fact, Boomers have favoured the ideology of parricide. (This partially explains their “instinctive” rejection of the Royal Family.)
“In fact, Boomers have favoured the ideology of parricide.”
I agree with this to the extent that it is true to say that non-boomers favour an ideology of corpse worship.
And I wish to reiterate that I never claimed that the Vietnam War or Conscription caused the anti-right tilt of baby boomers.
“Its idle to speculate on the mental projections of Boomers speculating on the likely course of the VN war nearly forty years ago.”
I don’t agree with this. These speculations were how boomers formed their views of the world, views which have remained quite consistent and influential ever since. This process is not only about what these views were, but also about how they were formed. I would suggest that these views were formed in ways quite unfamiliar to earlier generations, and they have left their imprint on the way views were formed by later groups.
But apart from that I agree with Jack.
PM Lawrence, I’ve worked on electoral law for a decade now and never heard of an automatic exemption for oldies, let alone that Keating mandated it.
The AEC fought, for obvious reasons, to avoid an FOI request to publish its internal guidelines on what are presumptively ‘reasonable excuses’ for not voting. Infirmity related to age is undoubtedly one.
Age itself clearly is not.
To suggest the AEC, which has been a formally independent commission since Hawke came to power, would be subject to prime ministerial direction is pretty scurrilous.
The closest I know to what you are saying is Victorian local elections – where the published Regulations permit anyone over 70 to opt out of the otherwise compulsory vote. (But at local elections turnout of all voters is always well, well under the 95% at federal elections)
That’s dead right Graeme. It would appear that PM Lawrence is either stupidly conflating the Victorian local election rules with federal law, or he is spreading the usual sad old anti-Labor propaganda of the HS Chapman Society (interesting that he denied it before he was asked), a rabble of increasingly elderly and severely muddled conservative tragics who never got over Labor winning the 1983 federal election.
PrQ,
I remember from my youth that immigrants could usually be counted on to vote Coalition (a reaction, I was told, to eurosocialism and the red menace). Is there research to show that they are now more likely to be Labor voters? I would have thought that those who take an interest in politics would be voting on aspirational lines, rather than for a particular party.
A couple of years ago, I used all the available Australian Election Studies, and tried to separate out age and cohort effects. It looked to me as though age effects were dominant. Paper here.
Oh, and to answer 2Tanners’ question, overseas-born voters are definitely more pro-Labor now than they were in the 1960s (same paper).
That last comment will make more sense once our host retrieves my previous comment from the spam-blocker’s clutches.
Andrew, from my reading your results are consistent with a cohort effect distinguishing the baby boomers and subsequent generations from earlier generations where an age effect is more evident.
John, I agree that the age effects aren’t statistically significant for the latest cohort, but I suspect that’s because they’re observed in fewer elections. For all the cohorts that we can observe right across the lifecycle, the “George Bernard Shaw” effect is (sadly) strong.
That’s not the only problem with the age effect interpretation. From your Table 3, the age effect was very weak in 1966 and has become much stronger. That looks to me like another way of saying it is, in large measure, a cohort effect. The cohort of people aged 21-30 in 1966 were more conservative than the electorate as a whole, and that was in an election when Labor got thumped. The same people now are very conservative, but not much more so than back then, I’d guess.
As far as I can see, your cohort analysis explains this by saying that this group swing much more than average (coefficient on Labor vote of other cohorts is close to 2).
So, it doesn’t look to me as if these voters got a lot more conservative over the whole period, though they may have fluctuated a lot in between. Quite possibly, they went for Whitlam in a big way and were disillusioned. I’d call this a cohort effect myself.
Pr Q says:
As I read this debate PrQ is arguing that the imminent Rudd-slide is caused by the (pro-ALP) “cohort effect” swamping the (pro-LN/P) “age effect” amongst the 55+ demographic. In short the “Wordsworth” tendency is more powerful than the “GB Shaw/Briand” one.
There is a big problem in these inter-temporal comparisons because cohort effects may be present throughout. This is because the 20th C was so “interesting”.
The replacement of the Doomers (c 1920-40) with the Boomers (c1945-65) amongst the ranks of the 55+ is only about half-way through. The oldest boomers are barely 65 and most of them have at at least a generation of life left in them. So the “turnaround” effect of the ALP gaining a biased cohort of “never say die” Boomers is exacerbated by the LN/P losing a biased cohort as “one foot in the grave” Doomers.
Interestingly the “We Generation” seem to have been more prone to vote LN/P, “despite” the fact that they were observably more altruistic. Whereas the “Me Generation” are more prone to vote ALP, “despite” the fat that they are observably more egotistic. This is paradoxical because the LN/P is conventionally portrayed as the party of the greedy elite whereas the ALP is portrayed as the party of the generous populus.
Evidently partisan loyalites have a strong civic, contrasted with economic, motive. The traditional LN/P appeals to authoritarian institutionalism (“life wasnt meant to be easy”). Whereas the fashionable ALP appeals to “autonomian” individualism (“if it feels good, do it”).
The pre-war Doomers were a “We Generation” of burden-bearers for State, Church, Union, Family, etc. Conversely the post-war Boomers were a “Me Generation” of burden-dodgers, averse to service for a cause greater than themselves. It maybe that the authoritarian norms of the Depression/War was the exception and the “autonomonian” norms of Boom/Peace are the rule. If so then the partisan “sign reversal” for successive cohorts will benefit the ALP even more as time goes on.
It is also striking to note the ideological vacuity of the baby boomers pro-ALP sentiment. They bought into New Right “financialism” in the early eighties. And they have been gradually won over to Old Right “culturalism” from the early noughties onwards. I put this down to the real estate obsession, first needing to get a foothold into the market, then wanting to prevent a “there goes the neighbourhood” possibility.
It seems that most Baby Boomers can only bring themselves to commit to one vow from their youth: to not vote L/NP till death do them part.
Pr Q says:
Its a bit of a shocker to see that young voters aged 21-30 were, by a significan margin, pro-LN/P in both 1966 and 1969 elections. Presumably more than half of these voters were baby-boomers educated and inculcated in the sixties and therefore prime candidates for Whitlam’s progressive message. No wonder Don’s Party was such a flop!
“It is also striking to note the ideological vacuity of the baby boomers pro-ALP sentiment. They bought into New Right “financialismâ€? in the early eighties.”
You’re assuming that the ALP itself did not change between the mid 1960s, when boomers began to take some notice of politics and the mid 1970s, when political allegiances were more or less set. In fact, the ALP was openly racist and corporatist in 1965. By 1975, the ALP appeared to be the great champion of individual liberties. These were important ideals for your marginal baby boomer.
“And they have been gradually won over to Old Right “culturalismâ€? from the early noughties onwards.”
What is your evidence for this? From my reading of opinion polls, which are more frequent and more age sensitive than the broad categories in Leigh’s charts, boomers have avoided the “culturist” parties to a greater extent than most other cohorts, with the possible exception of the very youngest voters.
“I put this down to the real estate obsession, first needing to get a foothold into the market, then wanting to prevent a “there goes the neighbourhoodâ€? possibility.”
Boomers have long since ensconced themselves in the real estate market. They are riding the real estate boom. And now many are “downsizing” into the inner suburbs, traditionally the more ethnically multi-hued parts of our larger cities.
“It seems that most Baby Boomers can only bring themselves to commit to one vow from their youth: to not vote L/NP till death do them part.”
For the marginal boomer, this does appear to be true.
Katz Says: November 7th, 2007 at 11:05 am
Partially conceded. There was the honeymoon period b/w 1965-1975 when Baby Boomers could indulge ideological fantasies about reconciling the Old Left process with New Left progress. Epitomised in the constrasting personalities and policies of the Whitlam cabinets. (Imagine Al Grassby and Moss Cass sharing the same room!)They were still mostly at uni and could afford to dream.
But the attempt to combine Old Left statist political economy and New Left liberal political culture foundered on governmental realities. The unconditional welfare state quickly suffers fiscal “overload” with too many spurious claimants. And one gets political “backlash” from the sponsors.
One aspet of the dream had to give and it turned out that it was the Old Left statist process. Hence the Keating privatisation, deregulation and means-testing revolution in political economy.
The Boomers kept the New Left attachment to civil liberties and bio-social equality for a while. Which was good up to a point. (That point being about 20 years past its use-by date.) But it wasnt until Tampa and 911 that a key chunk of the Boomers shed their lingering liberal-Left illusions.
Katz says:
My political evidence for this is the undeniable fact that these pro-ALP boomers were the same folk who were content to see Beazley, Latham and Rudd retire to the Cultural Right under Howard’s Culture Warring barrage. Also the decline in defiantly liberal-Left parties such as GREENs & DEMS.
Boomers, like most broad demographics, have shifted to the (secular) Cultural Right over the past generation. This is observable in their increased support for Border Security, private religious schools, law & order, war on drugs etc.
They have no doubt done this reluctantly, but done it they have. Mostly as a result of personal experience or overseas example.
Katz says:
Boomers have more or less climbed the property ladder and now pulled it up after themselves. The AUS obsession with real estate really started to take off in the mid-80s, not coincidentally with the full arrival of all the BB cohort into the job and accommodation market. (By 1985 the youngest boomer was 20 yrs old.)
This demographic “phase transition” was driving the popular move for more financial freedom. Hence Keating’s relaxation of financial regulation. Hene the BB flirtation with New Right “financialism”.
The boomers took about a decade to get their houses in order. By the mid-nineties they were established and on the look out for residential investment property.
And that was the year that the federal electoral pendulum lurched to the LN/P, mostly responding to populist concern over various forms of unruly behaviour amongst elements within the minorities. Thus was ushered in the current phase of the Culture War, with a shift to the Old Right observed accross both major parties.
I suspect that concern over property values was at the heart of this. If there is one thing we know about crime its that it causes realty values to plummet. YOu only have to look at the changing fortunes of Harlem to see this.
So Howard et al war on crime and incivility was just the ticket to keep us “relaxed and comfortable” about our “white picket fences. I dare say that most Baby Boomers picked up the subliminal message and refused to jump to the GREENs or DEMs when the ALP shifted to the Cultural Right.
Finally, Howard’s relentless Culture War has paid some civic dividends. Unmeltable ethnics from previous poorly reguated intakes have more or less pulled their heads in. And, over the past decade, in-bound ethnics have integrated much better into the labour and spouse market (How many times a day do you see a cute Asian chick hanging off the arm of a well-heeled aging Boomer? Lots where I frequent.)
You’re correct when you imply that the whole political spectrum moved to the Right in the mid-1980s. And no doubt many, if not most, BBs shifted with it.
Economically, BBs were never particularly attracted to corporatism. They enjoyed its fruits when they were growing up, but they were at the front of the line buying incredibly cheap shares in CBA, Tabcorp, Telstra (first tranche) when the govt put them up for sale. Since then, Australian BBs have become the most active equity market players of any population in the world. We’re all capitalists now.
The GST and related income tax relief was a balm for BBs, who’d done most of their big spending and who were at the top of hteir earning capacity.
Recent superannuation changes are also a huge giveaway to boomers.
Culturally, perhaps BBs aren’t going to the streets in favour of gay marriage, or whatever. But don’t forget that most of those big battles over human rights and personal liberties were won in the 1970s. Even Howard is loathe to touch the Family Law Act or the Sexual Discrimination Act. At the time they were passed, Tories would rather have chewed their own legs off rather than to support this legislation.
I would therefore suggest that the BBs lagged in this rightward movement post 1985.
Katz Says: November 7th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Agreed. In this case Whitlam established the new Centre in his first term in office. Moves to the Left or Right are judged relative to this fulcum.
The designation of ideological valency is, as with all partisan political identifications, relative. I suggest that any insitutional policy aimed at improving the condition of the low-status be termed “Left”. Likewise high-status improving policies should be termed “Right”.
There has been and will not be any serious attempt at a Right-wing roll-back to Whitlams policy of granting full civil rights and some social entitlements to women, indigenes, immigrants, gays, youth and so on.
To that extent the Baby Boomers politico-cultural centre of gravity was settled by around 1974. With some add-ons by Fraser to ethnics in the latter half of the seventies.
The real Culture War began in the latter half of the eighties as the organised social basis of the Left shifted from a stable majority of the working class (through de-industrialisation and de-unionisation) to a coalition of minorities (through immigration and “feminisation”). Putting it crudely, the Left went from Old Left economic class to New Left “ethnic” cult.
The ALP made a pitch for this new, largely Baby Boomed, demographic which was no longer prepared to unquestioningly accept the WASP status ascendancy or indeed accept any insitutional authority that compromised their individual autonomy. (Note the epidemic of films and memoirs about the horrors of strict schools that swept accross book stands and cinemas at the time.)
But by the mid-nineties the BB’s, and many besides, could see that Left-liberal “culturalism” had reached the point of diminishing returns. It is not obvious that the condition of indigenes is improved by shovelling barrow-loads of money into the pocket of a serial rapist.
I do not think that there will be any more serious reactionary or revolutionary moves in AUS political culture. Cultural policy will be “reformatory” with the emphasis on mopping up the last pockets or resistance and tending to the casualties inflicted in the Great Disruption.
We have reached equilibrium point with the established Boomers more or less becoming the centre of political gravity.
No way will they tolerate anyone rocking the boat, financially or culturally. They have too much to lose.
Veering away from the theoretical to the empirical, does Pr Q have a threshold ALP vote level that would constitute a refutation of his Baby Boom “cohort effected” theory of ALP governmental ascendancy?
Mark Bahnsich is forever insisting that it is impossible to frame predictive empirical tests for psephological hypotheses. This seems post-modernist to me.
I suggest that if the ALP primary vote comes in at or above 50% then I think we can safey say that some kind of cohort effect is in evidence. This would imply a 2PP vote in excess of 55% – a complete anihilation and a major “sea-change” in partisan alignment.
Any ALP primary vote that is substantially below 50% means that the electoral “parameters” are more or less stable. This result would be consistent with the typical periodic recession of the electoral pendulum, given dissipation of votes through the combination of excessive govt incumbency and an appealing opposition leader.
I assumed the “null hypothesis” regarding demographic earlier in the year. That is, I assumed no significant change in the populations underlying psephological propensities or partisan preferences.
My prediction implied that the polls, or samples, are flawed and are underestimating the LN/P’s vote by a couple of percent. However this assumption is looking more and more shaky as we approach election day with the polls still indicating something approaching a Rudd-slide.
“But by the mid-nineties the BB’s, and many besides, could see that Left-liberal “culturalismâ€? had reached the point of diminishing returns. It is not obvious that the condition of indigenes is improved by shovelling barrow-loads of money into the pocket of a serial rapist.”
Nicely put Jack.
I think that concept of the recognition of diminishing returns captures the pragmatism of the marginal BB, especially in relation to the way in which the Australian political economy has been structured to make life as pleasant as possible for the BBs.
Interesting and prescient post by Andrew Norton just after the LN/P won the 2004 election. I am surprised that no one has made reference to it yet.
The differene bw pre-war Doomers and pre-war Boomers is stark. People born in the decade before the Second World War have been biased towards the LN/P, from youth through middle age onto elderly. Hence the Menzies ascendancy.
But the situation is reversed for the people born in the decade before the Vietnam war. They have been biased towards the ALP. Hence the ALP’s ascendancy from the early 80s onwards.
More support for the Norton-Quiggin thesis in this mornings SMH: “Baby boomers carrying Rudd”
THe only problem I have with this analysis is that it conflates cohorts somewhat. The BB’s are conventionally defined as the generation born b/w 1945-1965. This puts them more or less in the 45-65 age group.
But Stirton’s analysis is focused on the 40-55 age group. He finds that its has increased its support for Rudd’s ALP from 49% on previous elections to 59% on current polls, a whoppping ~20% proportionate increase.
Given that this demographic is ~ 25% of the electorate, a 20% increase in its propensity to vote ALP translates into a 5% swing towards the ALP. That explains most of the turnaround in the 2PP vote, from LN/P 53% – ALP 47% in 2004 to LN/P 44% – ALP 56% in 2007.
Meanwhile the older generation, including approximately half of the elder baby boomers, still lean heavily towards Howard’s LN/P. THis means that an LN/P “aging effect” is still possible as Baby Boomers get older. But it is likely weaker.
If the Baby Boom cohort retains this underlying bias towards the ALP then the LN/P are in big touble as the 75+ generation die off over the next decade or so. THat implies the 55-75 generation will be biased towards the ALP, a first in modern history.
Unfortunately, the two party system these days does not allow any real choice by voters…As in the US, australia offers Howards pro-US-pro-war pro-business government, which demonises innocent people….and Rudd has shown he’s all to ready to endorse the Howard agenda.
Worse, on foreign policy, which most voters ignore, both parties are similar, with Rudd saying he will seek to have president Ahmadinejad of iran indited for plans genocide…laughable for anyone who know Ahmadinajad, but worrying that Rudd is little better on foreign policy than the odious Howard/Downer.
Tweedledee will complete what Tweedledum began:
‘Leaders vie to be tough guy
David McLennan
The major parties competed on how tough they could be on Canberra yesterday, with Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd saying he is “dead serious” about taking a razor gang to the public service and the Coalition claiming it has been a “tighter-fisted government” than Labor.
Mr Rudd has promised to cut $3billion from the Commonwealth Public Service and said yesterday that he would outline even more cuts before the election.
etc
http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/news/local/political/leaders-vie-to-be-tough-guy/1084012.html