Sunday, 12th February, 2006

Senators from major parties don't have to worry about ordinary voters. Above the line voting and official how to vote cards have seen to that. The only vote that matters for them is at the pre-selection. For minor party Senators it's pretty much the same with the exception that their party is only after minority support in the first place. That makes Senators a difficult group to frighten when it comes to a debate like that on RU486. How they vote on a controversial issue is not going to affect their chances of being re-elected provided they can keep that pre-selection.

Most members of the House of Representatives - those with a healthy majority - similarly do not have to feel personally threatened when the bullies come to lobby. MPs know they only have to really worry when they are around that three per cent margin mark. Then a single issue campaign just might make the difference between winning and losing, depending, of course, on how your party is doing overall.

The arithmetic behind an MPs judgment should go something like this. On an issue like abortion it does not matter how the electorate as a whole splits for or against. What you need to have an idea of is how many people there are who feel so strongly about the issue that they will change their vote because of it and it alone. In my experience there are very few issues, if any, where more than 1% of people are in that category and some of them will be strongly in favour of something and some strongly against. On something like abortion and RU486 there are likely to be more strong antis than strong pros.- say a net 0.8 percentage points of antis. Among them there will naturally be a split of supporters for different parties so probably only 50% of that 0.8% total will be able to change so a 0.4 percentage point swing is about as much influence that can be gained or lost on the single issue.

The warning by Australian Family Association and other so-called pro-life groups to MPs that they may have to pay an electoral price for supporting a bill to strip the health minister of his control over the abortion pill RU486 therefore does not amount to a great deal. There are only four seats where a member has a majority of less than half a per cent: Richmond in NSW held by the ALP by 0.38; Swan in WA held by Labor by 0.16%; Kingston in SA held by the Liberals by 0.14%; and Hindmarsh in SA held by Labor by 0.12%. The next closest seat is Bonner in Queensland where the Liberal majority is just over 1%.