A Ruddslide that never happened
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22889385-5014046,00.html

KEVIN Rudd and Labor owe their election victory a fortnight ago to just 0.1 per cent of the national vote after fewer than 12,000 people across nine electorates dumped the Coalition.

It is a remarkable statistic, revealing that despite an impressive overall swing to Labor across the nation of 5.6 per cent, the Rudd Government holds office by a slim margin.

A relatively small number of voters out of the total 13.6 million people enrolled decided the election outcome.

Labor supporters are jubilant after the party needed to take 16 seats from the Coalition to win and, with 92 per cent of votes counted, appears to have scored at least an 18-seat majority.

The swing to Labor that ended John Howard's 11-year reign was the biggest to either side since 1975, when the Coalition led by Malcolm Fraser trounced Labor after Gough Whitlam's dismissal.

In two party-preferred terms, the result eclipsed the 5.07per cent swing to the Coalition when Howard first won office in 1996.

The swing to Labor was also much stronger than the 3.63per cent to Labor for Bob Hawke's first victory in 1983.

A breakdown of the 2007 election results in marginal seats, however, shows the difference between Labor and the Coalition is much closer than the landslide some observers first suggested.

Labor scored its best results, giving the overall swing, in safe and marginal seats already held by the party

ChrisPer,

Can you run that past me again? The ALP won government because 'fewer than 12,000 people across nine electorates dumped the Coalition'. It was that close?

Despite an overall swing to Labor across the nation of 5.6 per cent (the AEC says 5.62% but let's not quibble about such small numbers), you say that 'the Rudd Government holds office by a slim margin'.

Needing to take 16 seats from the Coalition to win the ALP appears to have scored an 18-20 seat majority. As you correctly point out, that's the biggest turnaround to either side since 1975 (Fraser v Whitlam), bigger than the swing to the Coalition when Howard first won office in 1996, bigger than Hawke's first victory in 1983.

So what are you claiming? Labor didn't do as well in Coalition-held marginal seats as it did in Labor-held marginal and safe seats? What the heck?

Go spruik that to the 20 or so Coalition incumbents who are now unseated. Maybe your definition of marginal seat needs revising.

Anyhow, if what you say is somehow statistically valid, Brendan Nelson should start looking for those 12,000 voters before Rudd gets at them for 2011. Textor-Cosby, here's your big chance!

Yeah, honestly ChrisPer - despite that 12,000 vote point, overall, there was still a massive swing.

In raw numbers, the swing was as overwhelming as has been widely accepted. The key point in this article, is that the difference was made by just 12,000 votes in the marginals.

Nevertheless - in overall numbers, there was just as much of a swing, it just wasn't distributed right throughout the country.

So there has been a Ruddslide - and though the numbers are on a knife edge in terms of victory, huge numbers of people switched to Labor, and the end result was also huge numbers of seats to fall.

And quite frankly, the harsher gun laws didn't bite Howard. Most approved, on either side of the political spectrum.

Certainly, in terms of the voters minds, the gun issue ranks pretty low. You say the issues in this article haven't changed voters minds, but quite frankly, it seems like a convincing case can be made for the fact that given this occurred early in his term, it's far less likely to be an issue with voters.

I don't think many people care. If they do, most, regardless of which side of the political divide they were on, though it was a good thing. Julie Gillard acknowledged it as a good deed on election night. In fact, it's one of the things I do give Howard full credit for.

It's the best thing he ever did.

To claim that only 12,000 voters decided to "dump the Coalition" assumes that the rest of the 13 million+ voters were never going to change their minds anyway. In fact there is at least 30% of the electorate that do change their votes from election to election if there is good reason to. Any change in government requires millions of independent, thinking voters to make up their mind one way or another.

Patrick Baume, I am not sure what your big victory is? But it will most definitely, not be a victory for most.
At no stage of your ramble do you explain that Rudd has played a cruel and treacherous hoax on workers expectations. That this Labor government will shift further to the far right and is being primed to carry out some of the biggest betrayals in the tradition of Labor leaders; Rudd is a very "slick" operater. The 'buzz word' he likes to throw around in the corridors of power is the "productivity revolution" and translated, that means boosting the exploition rate of workers to very high levels. 'Big business' backed Rudd and gave Howard the flick because 'Work Choices' to their pockets did not go anywhere near far enough in its attacks.
Moreover small businesses are going to be squeezed even further so that the multinationals dominate.
Usually small 'l' liberals are referred to as "wets" or bracketed with closet liberals - in parliament they still vote day in and day out for 'big business'. And that means they take society backwards.

ChrisPer - spank me if you can, but my old maths teacher would defend me like this:

Say 5.5% (swing to ALP) x 13,500,000 (AEC voters) = 742,500

Spin it however you like, but this points to a Rudd-slide.