Picking Winners #3: 1998 Reflections

1998 saw a national swing of 4.61% to the ALP, giving it 50.98% of the two-party-preferred vote. It only won 67 of the 148 seats or 45.27%. A depressing reflection for Labor voters. With a uniform swing in every electorate, the ALP would have won 17 of the 18 seats which it did capture, plus 11 more.


This graph of seats which changed hands includes Hume which switched from National to Liberal, Curtin and Moore won by the Libs from independents and Kalgoorlie won by the Libs from the former ALP member and then independent. These swings are not towards the ALP.



Most of the large swings against the government were in safe ALP or Coalition seats. A lot of "wasted" votes. With only 0.93% more in 8 marginals Kim Beazley would have saved us 9 years of Mr. Sneaky.

Kevin Rudd will be hoping that this pattern does not repeat itself in 2007 or that the national swing is enough to overcome this.