Predicting elections several years in advance is stupid

But here I go anyway.

Australia 2012 - 2013
Assuming no by-elections occur and the election is held at the discretion of the Prime Minister, I predict that Labor will win the next federal election.

As the election looms closer, the government will start selling their policy more. I already outlined a few points on that, so I won't elaborate further on those. Labor will start pushing their side of the story more, the carbon tax won't be as bad as the naysayers would have us believe. The polls will swing closer and closer to Labor's favour.

I'll do a brief partial state-by-state breakdown of what I think will happen at the election.

Haha! I fooled you! I said this would be brief but it isn't!


NSW
The 2011 state election was very much a swing against an unpopular Labor government, rather than a vote for a Coalition government. Labor were punished at the 2010 federal election for their association with the state government. As the state Coalition government sets in and the people of NSW realise that voting for a conservative government might actually get them a conservative government, we'll see them swing back to Labor.

Prediction: 5-10% swing to Labor.


QLD
There was a big swing against Labor in QLD, and there are three main reasons for it, in order of what I believe to be the most important:

1. The state government
2. The sudden deposition of Rudd, a Queenslander
3. The mining tax

All predictions currently suggest that the state government will be gone in March of 2012. I don't think it will be the brutal landslide it was looking like last year, but I do not believe Anna Bligh can win. Although I don't know that the opposition leader, currently not a sitting member, can win his seat. Will be very interesting to see.

Three years on, Queenslanders be used to Julia Gillard as PM, and won't be thinking about how Rudd was ousted. It was just a consequence of politics.

The mining tax is hardly even an issue anymore. It will be at the next election what WorkChoices was at the last election. Labor tried so hard to make WorkChoices an issue, and people just didn't care. The same will be true of the mining tax. Though I think the Coalition will put more stock in the carbon tax, but I do believe they will not win that fight.

In summary, I think much of the damage done to Labor in Queensland will be undone, but not all of it.

Prediction: ~5% swing to Labor.


VIC
There was a decent swing towards Labor in Victoria. I think the Coalition winning in the state election came as a surprise to a lot of people. I'm guessing there will be much buyers remorse. With the state government having a very weak hold on the state parliament, a by-election could send them to an early election. We shall have to wait and see on that.

There will be a swing against Labor because there will be a swing against Labor. But there will be a swing against the Coalition because of the state government. It all depends on how unpopular they become and how bad/well federal Labor performs.

Prediction: 2-5% swing to the Coalition, but we could see as much as a 2% swing to Labor.


WA
There was a decent swing against Labor in WA. But WA was the only state to where the Coalition did better than Labor in 2007, so a huge swing was always going to be unlikely.

The swing against Labor in WA was all on the mining tax. As I already stated, it won't be much of an issue. WA is has one of the higher turnouts for the Greens (13.1% compared to the national result of 11.7%). WA is pretty socially progressive, and concerned about environmental issues, but economically concerned. The carbon tax issue will not have the same effect on WA as the mining tax issue did. Labor will almost certainly gain ground in WA.

Prediction: 5-10% swing to Labor.


SA
It's hard to say what will happen in South Australia. The state Labor government is getting unpopular. But aside from that, South Australian's are pretty laid back. I don't know enough about South Australian politics to really have much insight.

Prediction: 0-5% swing to the Coalition.


TAS
Fairly big swing to Labor in 2010. The state Labor/Greens coalition government is getting a bit unpopular, but the Greens seem to be getting more popular. So it really is hard to know. The Coalition may win a federal seat in Tasmania, the Greens may win one, Andrew Wilkie will probably hold on to his seat.

There will probably be a bigger swing to the Greens, it's just hard to know if this will offset the swing against Labor. The Coalition will probably gain ground, but I doubt it will be a lot.

Prediction: 0-5% swing to the Coalition.


ACT
Probably a small swing against Labor, and a decent swing towards the Greens. One may offset the other. I'll throw up a wildcard and say that the Greens may win the second senate seat, which they narrowly lost to the Liberals in 2010.

Prediction: 0-2% swing to the Coalition.


NT
Big swing against Labor. Biggest in the country in fact. But all of it went to the Greens and third parties. There was a small swing against the Coalition too. Not enough to plausibly elect a Greens or independent third party to one of only two seats in the territory.

Prediction: 0-10% swing to Labor.


Overall, I don't know if Labor will outperform themselves in 2007, but they will certainly improve upon their 2010 result. Though the current polls tell quite a different story, it is important to keep in mind that the election is a long way off, and Labor haven't been putting the hammer on the Coalition nearly as hard as they would be doing closer to an election.