There were 5 'by elections' (elections for a single seat in parliament) over the weekend in Australia
I'll leave the nitty gritty arguments to the motivated but in summary
- 5 elections like this are unusual, its normally one or two, leading to Saturday being referred to as 'Super Saturday'
- The government had 'hoped' to win one or two
- But, as expected, they didn't (governments tend not to perform overly well at these little elections)
The major Australian financial newspaper the Australian Financial Review concluded their report with (ps. Labor is in opposition here in Australia, Liberal Coalition the ruling party):,:
- Averaging out the vote swings against the Coalition on Saturday … produces a result of about 5.3 per cent, or about average for a voter push against an incumbent government in byelections.
- … If nothing else, Super Saturday has added to pre-federal election tension in both parties, but particularly Malcolm Turnbull's Liberal Party.
(bolding mine)
Link here for more, may be gated
The Financial Times (for a view from offshore) say:
- The by-election results in four states leave Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's government with a single-seat majority in parliament and a big challenge to turn around its performance ahead of an election that must be held in the first half of next year.
- The scale of the defeat in Longman - where Labor's Susan Lamb retained her seat - is particularly concerning for the government as the state of Queensland will be critical to its chances of winning the next election.
Link (again, gated)
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AUD implications? Close to zero. Domestic political considerations are far down the list of concerns for AUD traders at present. What are the higher ranking concerns? I've been over this quite a few times recently but if anyone missed out I am happy to summarise them again. Let me know in the comments.
