Graham,

There are sufficient other possibilities in the Comments for me to respond that, as I put it in my own post on the subject, what we are all doing is reading tea-leaves. But at least there's no sign of a great movement against either the Qld or Cwth governments.

Or if you think there is one, you'll need a highly contrived set of reasons! But no matter, I enjoyed your post.

Don

Graham,

I had a look at the latest count. Labor is ahead by 51.7% 2pp which by any means is a poor result in a "safe" seat.

Sm
If that is indeed the latest count then Bill Glasson was quite justified in waiting for the count of the postal and prepolls before conceeding.

Labours margin is signifiantly less that Sat nights margin.

I thought at the General Election Glasson concede far to early as only 1000 of 15000 prepoll votes had been counted and the view by by both Lab and Lib supporters at the prepolling was that voters were heavily favouring Glasson. No one scrutinized the 14000 counted in the following week.

Don't know about by election as did not get involved.

'Terry Butler for Labor winning with 52.27% of the 2PP vote.'

This % after the counting of all votes reduced to 51.75% 2PP. And Glasson moved closer to winning by 1.26% rather than the mere 0.74% 2PP.

I'd say that was hardly indicative of a draw and given all factors, including historical, it is a hefty reversal for Labor and especially Bill Shorten as well as a positive result for the Fed Libs and Tony Abbott.

A swing of just 1.75% is needed for the Liberals to win at the next election. It is now Labor's 8th least safe seat on a margin of 3.5% and among 13 Labor seats on margins of less than 6%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-election_pendulum_for_the_Australian_federal_election,_2013

Without Rudd campaigning for Labor Federally, Shorten continuing his inadequate performance and Abbott neutralising much of the scare campaign a result closer to that had Gillard campaigned can be reasonably expected in 2016.

I'd like to see your updated analysis, especially the effect of Rudd's personal vote, given the difference between the election night 52.27% and the final count of 51.75%