A socio-spatial analysis of voting for political parties at the 2007 federal election.

The 2007 federal election in Australia saw voters throw out of office the Howard Coalition Government, which had been in power for more than a decade, and elect the Rudd Labor Government. That represents a fundamental change in Australia's socio-political landscape. This paper provides an analysis of voter support for parties focusing on the disaggregated spatial level of local polling booths. Relationships between votes for political parties for the House of Representatives and the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of populations living in polling booth catchments across all the electorates in Australia are modelled to identify key demographic and socio-political dimensions underlying voter support for political parties.

INTRODUCTION

At the November 2007 federal election for the House of Representatives, voters handed the Labor Party, led by Kevin Rudd, a resounding victory, throwing out of office the John Howard-led Coalition (Liberal-National) Government which had been in office since 1996. The two-party preferred vote of 52.6 per cent for Labor as against 47.4 per cent for the Coalition gave the new Rudd Labor Government 83 seats in the House. Between the 2004 and the 2007 elections the swing in voter support from the Coalition to Labor was about five per cent for the primary vote and 5.3 per cent for the two-party preferred vote. The Liberals lost 20 seats, including that of the Prime Minister, and the Nationals lost two seats. Labor had a gain of 22 seats.

This was a decisive victory for Labor which had lost government to the Coalition at the 1996 election with a similarly large swing to the Coalition of 6.17 per cent for the primary vote, a swing which saw the Labor Party consigned to a long period of time in opposition. Between winning government in 1996 and losing it in 2007, the Coalition government had experienced four successive electoral victories, with the 2001 and 2004 election victories being decisive, particularly the 2004 victory in which the Coalition had gained a swing of 3.69 per cent for the primary vote.

Thus the 2007 election outcome represented a fundamental change in Australia's political landscape, ending more than a decade of Liberal-National Party ascendancy as the 'John Howard battlers', the working-class living in the suburbs of the big cities and in the regional centres deserted the Coalition and returned to Labor. It has been said that much of the swing was due to Labor capturing what has been referred to as the 'working families'.

In this paper we discuss some of results of modelling to identify the demographic and socio-economic dimensions that might explain spatial variations in the level of voter support for political parties at the 2007 federal election for the House of Representatives.

METHODOLOGY