And now for something different: modelling socio-political landscapes

GIS technology has been used to build an e-research facility whereby it is possible to (a) investigate and visualise on-line spatial patterns of voter support for political parties at the local level of scale at federal elections in Australia, and (b) model the relationships between those voting data and variables derived from census data on the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of local populations. Using data on voting at the 2007 federal election and from the 2006 census, the paper shows that patterns of voter support for political parties have a distinct geography across Australia’s cities and regions. Spatial and statistical modelling is used to derive spatial typologies of voter support for political parties and to identify key demographic and socio-economic factors that discriminate voter support for political parties. Clear socio-political landscapes are evident. The position of political parties in a two-dimensional socio-political space has changed over the last three federal elections, the first two of which in 2001 and 2004 saw the Coalition Government returned with strong majorities, while the third election in 2007 saw a marked voter swing to oust the Coalition parties and put the Labor Party into government.