2001 Federal Election Pendulum

The election pendulum ranks the 150 electorates in the House of Representatives won by each party on a two-party-preferred basis.

The pendulum is based on the 1998 election results in Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT. In New South Wales, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, redistributions have taken place, so the margins have been derived from the new boundaries.

Two additional seats have been created for this election. In Western Australia, the new electorate of Hasluck is notionally ALP. The Northern Territory electorate has been divided in two, notionally creating one ALP seat (Lingiari) and one CLP seat (Solomon).

In NSW, Paterson, held by the ALP’s Bob Horne, is now notionally Liberal and Macarthur, held by the retiring John Fahey, is notionally ALP.

The pendulum puts Calwell in the ALP column, since this is traditionally a safe ALP seat. The current member, Andrew Theophanous, resigned from the ALP and has been sitting as an independent. He will be replaced by the new Labor candidate, Maria Vamvakinou.

The electorate of Kennedy, currently held by Bob Katter, elected as a National, but now sitting as an independent, has been placed in the coalition column.

The electorate of Calare, held by the independent Peter Andren, has been placed in the ALP column on the basis that it is a non-government seat.

Assuming the notional placements hold in the election, the government has 78 seats, the ALP has 70 and there are two independents, Peter Andren and Bob Katter. The ALP therefore needs to hold all 70 seats and win another six from the coalition. The pendulum shows that a swing of 0.7% would deliver six seats.