Malcolm Mackerras

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Malcolm Hugh Mackerras AO (born 26 August 1939) was Australia's leading psephologist [1] and commentator and a lecturer on Australian and American politics.

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Education and works

Malcolm Mackerras was born at Turramurra in Sydney in August 1939. He is a brother of Sir Charles Mackerras, a well-known conductor, and twin brother of Professor Colin Mackerras, a leading China specialist. Another brother, Neil Mackerras, was active in the Democratic Labor Party in its early years. Yet another, Alastair Mackerras, was headmaster (principal) of Sydney Grammar School from 1969 to 1989.

After attending St Aloysius' College, Milson's Point (1947–1951) and Sydney Grammar School (1952-1956) Malcolm was employed by BHP from 1957 to 1960, during which time he studied at night for the degree of Bachelor of Economics at the University of Sydney (awarded 1962).

Mackerras was a member of the ACT Young Liberals in the late 1960s. His second employer was the Federal Secretariat of the Liberal Party of Australia for which he was a research officer (1960–1967). The organisation moved him to Canberra where he has lived continuously since 1965. He spent several years as a ministerial assistant and three years as an economist with the Chamber of Manufactures (1968–1970), "trying to present the case for protection for Australian manufacturing industry".

In 1974 Mackerras was employed in the Department of Government at Royal Military College, Duntroon by the University of New South Wales. He went on to become an associate professor in Political Science, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra in 1999. Mackerras retired from the University of New South Wales in 2004. [2] Mackerras is now an Honorary Fellow at Australian Catholic University, Canberra Campus. [3]

He is especially interested in elections and electoral systems. His several books and many journal articles are largely in those areas. He has written many articles for The Australian and The Canberra Times on these subjects. He likes whenever possible to visit countries during their elections. He visited South Africa in 1999 as an observer for that country's second democratic election (May–June 1999). He likes, in particular, to be in the United States for a presidential election as it greatly improves his American teaching. During his stay in the US in November–December 2000, there was a "snap" election in Canada, which he visited, enabling him to improve his knowledge of Canadian politics.

Mackerras's first published study of Australian politics was The Australian Senate 1965-1967: Who Held Control?. He followed this with The 1968 Federal Redistribution (1969). His first major work was Australian General Elections (1972) in which he pioneered the concept of the two-party majority and the two-party swing, and introduced the "pendulum", a table of federal electorates in order of two-party majority, now commonly known as the Mackerras Pendulum. He followed this with a series of books before each federal election, such as Elections 1975, Elections 1980, The Mackerras 1990 Federal Election Guide and The Malcolm Mackerras 1993 Federal Election Guide.

He is commonly described as a psephologist which means "one who studies elections". However, he insists that his political science interests are much broader than that. Indeed, one of the reasons for his determination on the November–December 2000 North American visit was to study all the legal manoeuvres in connection with the only "cliffhanger" presidential election of the 20th century. He visited the US again in September 2004 to attend the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association in Chicago.

For the years 2002, 2003 and 2004 he has been specialising in Australian state elections. He visited South Australia in February 2002, Victoria in November–December 2002 and New South Wales in March 2003 for elections in those states, which involved writing newspaper articles plus broadcasting. He did the same for Queensland where a state election was held on 7 February 2004. He did the same for Australia's federal election on 9 October 2004.

Publications

His two most recent books are Australian Political Facts: Second Edition (Macmillan, 1997) which he wrote with Ian McAllister and Carolyn Brown Boldiston and, more recently, Constitutional Politics: The Republic Referendum and the Future (University of Queensland Press, 2002), which he edited with John Warhurst of the Australian National University. The two men took opposite sides in the debate over the 1999 Australian republic referendum but have now joined to record the event.

Election commentary

Mackerras has been a regular commentator on Australian elections in print, on radio and television on most federal and state elections. He has become well known for his predictions of electoral outcomes. He claims a "win" ratio of two in three and adds, "at least I'm not boring. The election analyst who makes predictions is far more interesting than one who doesn't. And if I collect egg on my face, then so be it."

An example of an incorrect prediction was the one he made in The Australian on 1 November 2004: he said that John Kerry would defeat George W. Bush in a landslide in the U.S. presidential election the following day, and specifically predicted that Kerry would carry Florida, Ohio, Nevada and Missouri.

Further reading

Related Research Articles

Psephology is the study of elections and voting. Psephology attempts to both forecast and explain election results.

The Mackerras pendulum was devised by the Australian psephologist Malcolm Mackerras as a way of predicting the outcome of an election contested between two major parties in a Westminster style lower house legislature such as the Australian House of Representatives, which is composed of single-member electorates and which uses a preferential voting system such as a Condorcet method or IRV.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1994 Northern Territory general election</span>

A general election was held in the Northern Territory on Saturday 4 June 1994, and was won by the incumbent Country Liberal Party (CLP). Marshall Perron continued as Chief Minister.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1990 Northern Territory general election</span>

A general election was held in the Northern Territory on Saturday 27 October 1990, and was won by the incumbent Country Liberal Party (CLP) under Chief Minister Marshall Perron.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1987 Northern Territory general election</span> Australian Regional Election

A general election was held in the Northern Territory, Australia on Saturday 7 March 1987. Although the incumbent Country Liberal Party (CLP) won a majority under new leader Stephen Hatton, the party's vote was down almost 20 percentage points.

The Mackerras federal election pendulum, 2006 shows the state of the major political parties ahead of the 2007 Australian federal election. The table shows seats in the Australian House of Representatives arranged in the form of a Mackerras pendulum based on their 2004 federal election two-party preferred result. Some seats in New South Wales and Queensland underwent a redistribution in 2006, their margins have been recalculated due to this.

The following pendulum is known as the Mackerras pendulum, invented by psephologist Malcolm Mackerras. Designed for the outcome of the 2007 federal election, the pendulum works by lining up all of the seats held in Parliament, 83 Labor, 55 Liberal, 10 National, and 2 independent, according to the percentage point margin on a two candidate preferred basis, as elected in 2007. The two candidate result is also known as the swing required for the seat to change hands. Given a uniform swing to the opposition or government parties in an election, the number of seats that change hands can be predicted. Swing is never uniform, but in practice variations of swing among the Australian states usually tend to cancel each other out. Seats are arranged in safeness categories according to the Australian Electoral Commission's classification of safeness. "Safe" seats require a swing of over 10 per cent to change, "fairly safe" seats require a swing of between 6 and 10 per cent, while "marginal" seats require a swing of less than 6 per cent.

The following pendulum is known as the Mackerras pendulum, invented by psephologist Malcolm Mackerras. Designed for the outcome of the 2010 federal election, the pendulum works by lining up all of the seats held in Parliament, 72 Labor, 72 Coalition, 1 Nationals WA, 1 Green and 4 independent, according to the percentage point margin on a two candidate preferred basis. The two party result is also known as the swing required for the seat to change hands. Given a uniform swing to the opposition or government parties in an election, the number of seats that change hands can be predicted. Swing is never uniform, but in practice variations of swing among the Australian states usually tend to cancel each other out. Seats are arranged in safeness categories according to the Australian Electoral Commission's classification of safeness. "Safe" seats require a swing of over 10 per cent to change, "fairly safe" seats require a swing of between 6 and 10 per cent, while "marginal" seats require a swing of less than 6 per cent.

A by-election was held for the New South Wales Legislative Assembly seat of Mosman on Saturday, 29 July 1972. It was triggered by the retirement of the former Leader of the New South Wales Liberal Party and Minister of the Crown, Pat Morton.

The following is a pendulum based on the outcome of the 2010 federal election and changes since, including the redistributions of seats in South Australia and Victoria. It is a Mackerras pendulum, invented by psephologist Malcolm Mackerras, which works by lining up all of the seats held in Parliament according to the percentage point margin on a two-candidate-preferred basis. The two-party result is also known as the swing required for the seat to change hands. Given a uniform swing to the opposition or government parties in an election, the number of seats that change hands can be predicted. Swings are never uniform, but in practice variations of swing among the Australian states usually tend to cancel each other out. Seats are arranged in safeness categories according to the Australian Electoral Commission's (AEC) classification of safeness. "Safe" seats require a swing of over 10 per cent to change, "fairly safe" seats require a swing of between 6 and 10 per cent, while "marginal" seats require a swing of less than 6 per cent. The swings for South Australian and Victorian seats are notional, based on calculations by the AEC.

Neil Richard Maclaurin Mackerras was an Australian barrister and social campaigner.

The following pendulum is known as the Mackerras pendulum, invented by psephologist Malcolm Mackerras. Based upon the outcome of the 2007 federal election and changes before the 2010 election, the pendulum works by lining up all of the seats held in Parliament, 83 Labor, 55 Liberal, 9 National, and 3 independent, according to the percentage point margin on a two party preferred basis.

The Coalition won the 2013 federal election with 90 of 150 lower house seats on a current 17-seat, 3.65-point two-party swing, defeating the 6-year Labor government. Labor holds 55 seats while crossbenchers hold the remaining five. The Division of Fairfax was the last seat to be declared.

Ian McAllister FASSA FRSE is the Distinguished Professor of political science at the Australian National University. He earned his PhD in political science in 1976 from University of Strathclyde. He is a leading election specialist with a research focus on Australian politics which involves co-directing the Australian Election Study, a national survey of political opinion conducted after each federal election since 1987 at the Australian National University. He is a leading scholar in individual level political survey research.

This is a Mackerras pendulum for the 2016 Australian federal election.

The Coalition won the 2016 federal election with a one-seat majority 76 of 150 lower house seats. Labor holds 69 seats while crossbenchers hold the remaining five.

The Coalition won the 2019 federal election with a three-seat majority of 77 of 151 lower house seats. Labor holds 68 seats, and crossbenchers hold the remaining six.

The Mackerras pendulum was devised by the Australian psephologist Malcolm Mackerras as a way of predicting the outcome of an election contested between two major parties in a Westminster style lower house legislature such as the Australian House of Representatives, which is composed of single-member electorates and which uses a preferential voting system such as a Condorcet method or IRV.

The Australian Labor Party won the 2022 federal election, winning 77 of 151 seats in the House of Representatives. The Coalition holds 58 seats, and crossbenchers hold the remaining 16.

References

  1. ↑ "Malcolm Mackerras". theconversation.com. 12 December 2021.
  2. ↑ "MALCOLM MACKERRAS AO" (PDF). 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 May 2014. Retrieved 15 October 2012.
  3. ↑ "MALCOLM MACKERRAS AO". 2012. Archived from the original on 18 April 2012. Retrieved 15 October 2012.
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