Centre Alliance's Rebekha Sharkie most vulnerable at byelections forced by dual citizenship saga

On Wednesday morning, the High Court disqualified Labor’s ACT Senator, Katy Gallagher. As a senator, Gallagher’s disqualification will not require a byelection; she will be replaced by Labor’s second candidate on its ACT ticket, David Smith.

However, Gallagher’s case was seen as a test case for four House members: Susan Lamb (Labor, electorate of Longman), Josh Wilson (Labor, Fremantle), Justine Keay (Labor, Braddon) and Rebekha Sharkie (Centre Alliance, Mayo).

By Wednesday afternoon, all four of these members had announced they would resign from Parliament and recontest their seats at subsequent byelections. With the Perth byelection that was required last week, there are likely to be five federal byelections on the same date.

Read more: Dual citizenship debacle claims five more MPs – and sounds a stern warning for future parliamentarians

All byelections will be held on 2016 boundaries, even if there has been a redistribution in the state in which the byelection takes place. As the incumbent will be recontesting, the byelections caused by section 44 are different from most byelections.

At the 2016 election, Labor gained both Braddon and Longman by defeating Coalition incumbents. Labor’s 0.8% margin in Longman, and 2.2% margin in Braddon do not reflect the “sophomore surge” effect.

If Longman and Braddon were held at a general election, Labor would expect to do better in those seats than nationally, as their new incumbents should receive a personal vote bonus, while the Coalition loses the personal votes of their previous members.

A negative for Labor in Longman is One Nation preferences. In 2016, One Nation won 9.4%, and their how-to-vote cards put Labor ahead of the LNP; Labor won 56.5% of One Nation preferences. One Nation is now more pro-Coalition than in 2016, and is likely to recommend preferences to the LNP at the byelection. However, One Nation’s primary votes are likely to come more from the LNP than Labor, mitigating damage from One Nation’s preferences.

Labor has a 7.5% margin in Fremantle, and the Liberals are more likely to focus on Perth (Labor by 3.3%), where the incumbent Labor member is not recontesting.

In Mayo, the Centre Alliance’s Rebekha Sharkie (formerly Nick Xenophon Team) holds a 5.0% margin against the Liberals. However, Xenophon’s attempt to win the balance of power in the South Australian election failed dismally, as his party won zero lower house seats.

Read more: Liberals win South Australian election as Xenophon crushed, while Labor stuns the Greens in Batman

It is likely Xenophon’s failure will affect Sharkie, although her profile as a sitting member will help her. Sharkie’s interest would be best served by running as an independent, not endorsing Centre Alliance policies. The former Liberal MP Jamie Briggs was negatively perceived, explaining some of the swing to Sharkie in 2016.

On a two party basis, the Liberals hold a 5.4% margin against Labor, a 7.2% swing to Labor since the 2013 election. However, some of this swing is explained by Briggs, and Labor is unlikely to be competitive with a better Liberal candidate.

In summary, I think it is likely that Labor will hold all four of its seats, and that Sharkie is the most vulnerable at these byelections.

Essential: 53-47 to Labor

This week’s Essential, conducted May 3-6 from a sample of 1,033, gave Labor a 53-47 lead, unchanged since last fortnight. Primary votes were 38% Coalition (up one), 37% Labor (up one), 10% Greens (down one) and 6% One Nation (down two). This will be the last poll conducted before the budget.

Malcolm Turnbull’s net approval was -2, up one point since April. Bill Shorten’s net approval was -4, up four points. Turnbull led Shorten 40-26 as better PM (41-26 in April).

39% (up six since November 2017) thought the Australian economy was good, 32% (down six) thought it was neither good nor bad, and 24% (steady) thought it was poor.

Since May 2017, there was an 11-point increase in those thinking the budget should increase assistance to the unemployed, and eight-point increases for aged pensions, affordable housing and assistance to the needy. The only large decrease was for public transport infrastructure (down six).

28% thought more funding for schools and hospitals most important for the budget, followed by 22% for supporting industries that create jobs, 17% for personal tax cuts, 12% for building infrastructure and 8% for fully funding the NDIS.

Status quo result likely in Tasmanian upper house elections

Every May, two or three of Tasmania’s 15 upper house seats hold elections for a six-year term. Currently the left has control with eight seats (four Labor and four left-wing independents). On Saturday, elections were held in Hobart and Prosser.

Read more: Dems easily win Virginia and New Jersey governors. Left gains control of Tas upper house

Tasmanian analyst Kevin Bonham has more details. In Hobart, left-wing incumbent independent Rob Valentine defeated another left-wing independent challenger, 61-39, with the Liberals a distant third.

In Prosser, in a field of 13, Liberal Jane Howlett had 26.1%, Labor’s Janet Lambert 22.0% and independent Steve Mav 19.8%. Bonham thinks Howlett is most likely to win when preferences are distributed next Tuesday, the final day for receipt of postals.

If either Howlett or Mav wins in Prosser, the right and left will retain their seats, with no change to the overall balance of power.

In brief: UK local elections, Malaysian election, Australian vs US employment

I wrote for The Poll Bludger about the May 3 UK local government elections. According to the BBC’s projected national vote share, Labour and the Conservatives tied on 35% each. This was the first major UK electoral test since Labour surged back at the June 2017 general election to deny the Conservatives a Commons majority.

Read more: Conservatives suffer shock loss of majority at UK general election

In Wednesday’s Malaysian election, the party that had governed Malaysia since independence in 1957 was defeated. Former PM, and current opposition leader, Mahathir Mohamad, will become the new PM, the oldest head of government in the world at the age of 92. The opposition parties gained 54 seats from the government.

I have written about the Australian and US employment figures on my personal website. The current US unemployment rate is 3.9%, while Australia’s is 5.5%, but Australia’s participation rate is 2.7% higher than in the US. As a result, in my opinion, Australia’s employment situation is better than in the US.