There has been a lot of hooey being made of the Bennelong result.
It was a most unusual by-election. ( If the Court of Disputed returns had ordered it like in New England it would have been a re-election.
It was the first time that the member had re-nominated for the electorate. Usually people resign, retire or die. Also important was people knew that a change in voting would mean a change in numbers in parliament that could well mean something.
In other words comparing this result to previous by-elections is completely worthless.
Could I also in Andrew Elder fashion try to get Journalists not to write about 'internal party polls' unless they can see all the results of said poll. Parties very rarely poll one marginal seat. it costs far too much for a start and as we saw form the two poling companies that tried to survey Bennelong it is very problematic. Getting the basics right is very hard. It proved almost impossible in Bennolong where a significant proportion had poor english speaking skills for example!!
What parties usually do is poll maybe 4 marginal seats and go from there.
Clearly most voters did not care how lackadaisical Alexander was with regard to his father's birth. The same could be said for Barnaby Joyce.
I thought the two candidates were poor. Alexander look old, tired and bored. Kenneally although having plenty of energy made a number of gaffes. I hope she does not go to the Senate.
As if to show us the result was highly problematic Newspol on the same weekend shows us the Government is still losing and losing badly.
We do not know if voting intentions changed over time in Bennelong and if so why.
It still is the case that the government is highly likely to lose the next election
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