fewer than 12000 voters put labour in power

The victory is not as grand as people think.




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.

It is no wonder that Labor hard-heads, while savouring victory after a gruelling campaign, know the party must consolidate its position at the next election to reduce the risk of Mr Rudd leading a one-term government.

The Coalition needs nine seats to win the next election, expected in late 2010 or early 2011. With morale among Liberals and Nationals poor and new leader Brendan Nelson scoring a record-low 14 per cent approval, the task seems almost insurmountable.

Most commentators argue Labor is assured at least two terms unless the performance of Rudd and his cabinet is unexpectedly lacklustre or voter sentiment wanes because Australia's economy gets dragged down by a possible US-led recession.

In the nine seats that the Coalition would need to win office next time, however, the number of voters required ranges from 182 in Robertson on NSW's central coast to 2320 in the former prime minister's seat of Bennelong.

These nine former Coalition seats swung Labor's way by a total of 11,799 votes a fortnight ago, according to the latest tally.

The nine most marginal for Labor would all fall to the Coalition with a uniform swing of 2.92 per cent next time. Of those, Braddon in Tasmania sits on 2.92 per cent, followed by Deakin in Victoria on 2.8 per cent, Bennelong on 2.68 per cent, Hasluck in Western Australia on 2.3 per cent and Bass in Tasmania on 2.02 per cent.

The remaining four seats would switch to the Coalition with a swing of between 0.2 per cent (Robertson) and 1.64 per cent (Corangamite in Victoria).

With the AEC handing Labor victory with a 52.86 per cent majority to the Coalition's 47.14 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis, Newspoll's last forecast, published in The Weekend Australian on election day, came very close to the actual result.

With AEC counting over the past fortnight pegging back Labor's lead, Newspoll's 52-48 per cent prediction was almost exactly in line with voters at the ballot box.

Newspoll chief Martin O'Shannessy said yesterday Labor's majority was slim, as confirmed by the nine seats on small margins that could turn to the Coalition next time.

Of the eight seats still undecided, the Liberals and Labor are expected to win four each, with former Liberal minister Fran Bailey hanging on by just 32 votes in her Victorian seat of McEwen.

This result would give Labor 84 of the 150 seats in House of Representatives to the Coalition's 64.