Current betting odds - federal election

The polls seem to be 52-48, with Labor doing poorly in Queensland.

Since the national polls seem to be a bit confusing, now might be worth having a look at the betting markets to see what they're saying about individual seats.

Currently, in marginal seats, the Liberals are tipped by the punters to gain:

Dawson (QLD)
Flynn (QLD)
Leichhardt (QLD)
Macquarie (NSW)
Robertson (NSW)
Swan (WA)

The Greens stand to Gain:
Melbourne (VIC)

And Labor stands to gain:

McEwen (VIC)

This result would leave Labor with 77 seats - a very slim majority (76 is needed to form government).

Into the mix we also need to throw in the following seats, which are dead even in the current betting markets:

Hughes (NSW) - currently held by libs
Macarthur (NSW) - currently held by libs
Hasluck (WA) - currently held by ALP
Solomon (NT) - currently held by ALP

If Labor was to lose all four of these seats, there would be a hung parliament, with Labor winning 75 seats. Labor would be the likely election winner with the 1 Greens MP from Melbourne probably supporting them. The coalition would win 71 seats and there would be 3 Independents.

Hughes and Macarthur are marginal seats that were on Labor's hitlist in 2007. Popular liberal incumbents prevented Labor from getting over the line despite some big swings, but they are retiring in 2010, giving Labor an opening.

Labor has been optimistic about Hughes since the start of the campaign and has been campaigning very hard. Dana Vale was a master at attracting pork-barrelling projects into the seat when she was an MP, but with the Howard government gone, she has decided to retire. Macarthur is in the same boat - the Liberal, Pat Farmer only held on to that seat with a tiny majority in 2007. The question with of those seats will be - can Labor win them against the broader trend of dissatisfaction in NSW? It won't be easy. The markets in Hughes are a dead heat, but the liberals are very slightly favoured in Macarthur.

Solomon is the seat that takes in Darwin and surrounds. Labor won the seat off the liberals in 2007, but some upcoming personal scandals will not help Labor's candidate a second time around. Currently it's all tied up on the markets.

Hasluck was the only seat Labor took off the liberals in WA in 2007, but the mining tax has made it a hard win the second time around in a state that Labor isn't favoured. The liberals have nominated a good candidate here. Currently all tied up as well.

Labor will be desperately hoping it can win one of these four seats, because it will make their job a hell of a lot easier. On current market predictions, if Labor won one of them, it would put them back into government.



Anomalies -

The markets are usually good predictors of seats, but they didn't get everything right in 2007. The big swings in queensland surprised a lot of people - some swings were up around the 15% mark.

There seems to be a disconnect between current polling and these betting results. Labor's polling is down in QLD, with some predicting a 4% swing - this would be enough to cost Labor nearly 10 seats, according to some News Ltd papers. This could be an exaggeration or it could not. Yet the markets are only predicting a loss of three.

Likewise, markets are showing safety for seats like Bennelong and Lindsay, despite Labor also being on the nose at a state level in western sydney. If Labor win those seats, plus Hughes and Macarthur, they could afford to lose Macquarie and Robertson with - amazingly - no net loss. Perhaps the key will be incumbency - Maxine McKew is running again in Bennelong and David Bradbury is recontesting Lindsay. Meanwhile, Belinda Neal was disendorsed in Robertson, while Bob Debus isn't recontesting a redistributed Macquarie.

The other disconnect is SA - despite Labor showing enormous poll leads, they aren't predicted to pick up either of the 2 remaining marginals there.

Somewhere, someone is getting it wrong.

Personally I think all eyes need to be on Queensland. Labor might shed the odd seat in NSW and WA, and they might gain the odd one in SA, NSW and VIC. I honestly think once those seats are settled, there'll be no more than -4 seats for Labor.

The real focus is Queensland. If Labor loses more than 3-4 seats there, they will be badly under the pump.