A Sober Assessment of the Triple-M By-Elections

As predicted, Labor easily retained all three seats contested in yesterday's by-elections.

Maroubra, without a Liberal candidate or a clear sentiment towards the Greens, was the most easily retained.

Possibly the most startling result was in Marrickville where, even despite the predictions of an upset win by the Greens, Labor candidate Carmel Tebbutt's primary vote actually improved on Andrew Refshauge's in the 2003 NSW election.

The most concerning result for the NSW government is clearly Macquarie Fields, where there was a 13% swing against the government. Given that the largest individual swings were at booths taking in housing estate areas, I'd say this has more to do with the Macquarie Fields riots earlier this year than the release of the Mark Latham diaries, as some have suggested. It's still hard to say exactly how representative of wider trends this result might be.

All in all, despite the negativity of some media (and, as usual, the plain inaccuracy of a couple of outlets, which I won't even bother linking), a pretty strong result for the Iemma government which - as Iemma said himself last night, and which it's very easy to forget - is a mere five weeks old.