Anthony Albanese’s government has been coming under fire for its proposed changes to regulation of online gambling, with critics saying the moves don’t go far enough (or even make things worse). With that in mind, a warning that today’s post is about betting odds: if you do choose to move from theory to practice, please gamble responsibly.
I had not heard of Paul Papalia before, but he’s a senior minister in Western Australia’s Labor government who has just announced his resignation, due to a serious illness in his family. That means a by-election for his seat of Secret Harbour, ably previewed the other day by Leonardo Puglisi in Crikey. State by-elections are rarely very interesting, but this one might be the exception.
Secret Harbour (formerly called Warnbro) is in the outer southern suburbs of Perth. At the last state election, in March of last year, Papalia suffered a swing of nearly twenty points against him – but that, to be fair, was coming off the Covid-era landslide of 2021, when WA Labor swept all before it. It still left him with a healthy 61.5% two-party-preferred, off a primary vote of 46.5%. It was also good One Nation territory: they recorded 8.4%, their second-best metropolitan seat (after neighboring Mandurah on 8.8%).
So given their current renown, One Nation is a certainty to contest the by-election. The Liberals would probably prefer not to, but they can’t afford to leave the field to the far right. And it’s given added urgency by the fact that Secret Harbour largely overlaps the federal seat of Canning, held by controversial Liberal MP and One Nation hate figure Andrew Hastie.
With that background, have a look at the betting odds. Sportsbet this morning has Labor and One Nation equal favorites, both at even money, with the Liberals back at 5-1 and others at 16-1. That accurately reflects the experience of similar seats in this year’s South Australian election, where, although Labor won all its seats under challenge, the Liberals were just uncompetitive against One Nation.
But now compare November’s Victorian election, which we touched on earlier this week. Sportsbet’s odds on the party of the next premier put the Coalition favorite at 5-3 on, Labor 17-9 against, and “any other” – presumably including One Nation – at 10-1. That’s an extraordinarily generous number for a three-horse race, especially considering the polls actually have it in the lead. It’s much longer odds, for example, than are being given for Count Binface in the Clacton by-election, who is quoted as a 5-1 chance to beat Nigel Farage.
It may be that the punters simply haven’t thought about these markets much at all yet (perhaps deterred by some of the anti-gambling push already mentioned), and that therefore they just reflect whatever random initial settings the bookmaker used. Or perhaps people think that One Nation’s support is basically a protest vote, good for by-elections but not when real power is at stake. (South Australia could be used either for or against the latter suggestion, depending on how you look at it.)
What about other markets? Pauline Hanson is quoted at 5-1 to be prime minister after the next federal election, close behind Angus Taylor on 4-1 (Barnaby Joyce also gets a mention at 14-1, equal with Hastie). And One Nation is said to be an even-money chance to unseat Hastie in Canning – and, for that matter, 9-4 to beat Taylor in his seat of Hume.
So on this admittedly unscientific survey it looks as if Victoria is the outlier: the one place where punters aren’t convinced about the reality of the One Nation threat. Let’s see if the next few months will disabuse them.
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UPDATE, Monday: It’s probably due to some poor polling for One Nation rather than people reading this post, but the odds in Secret Harbour have shifted, with Labor now outright favorite. Count Binface has also improved in Clacton, his odds coming in to a little better than 3-1. The Victorian prices are unchanged.
The World is Not Enough 