Psephology - the prediction of election outcomes - is a very difficult science.I have successfully predicted the outcomes of many elections over the years - with one or two "wobbly" predictions along the way as well!
That's something we all have to endure, because at the end of the day, all voters are psephologists as we routinely predict the outcome of every election which comes along!
For those who recall, I won the Inaugural Crikey/Glug Psephology Competition in predicting the outcome of the last Queensland State Election.
Thank you to Glug, the winner's 2 dozen bottles of wines have all been well drunk!With more polls due overnight for tomorrow's papers, predicting the outcome today - of tomorrow's election - is like guessing how many bites you might get if you put your hand into a bag of King Cobras.
My assessment is that any chance the Government had of pegging back Labor's lead evaporated with the anti-racist scandal perpetrated by the Liberal Party in New South Wales in the last 48 hours. It is also clear that the Liberal Party's advertising campaign of scaremongering has been a monumental flop.
And going to strip clubs in downtown New York is an obvious positive boost for aspiring Prime Ministers!
Labor will pick up a swag of seats in Queensland and New South Wales plus a good clutch in Victoria, 2 in Tasmania, at least 2 and possibly more in South Australia, 1 in the Northern Territory and probably 2 in Western Australia.
I don't detect any last-minute swing back to the Government on this occasion although anything is possible as undecided voters firm up their views.
Looking at the various polls in the past 7 days - with the exception of today's Galaxy Poll which seems to be at the outer limits of a 2% margin of error - and analysing all of Australia's 150 Federal seats on a seat-by seat basis as well as applying a modicum of political "intestinal feeling", my final prediction for the 2007 Australian Federal Election is:
Labor to win at least 24 seats.
