The effects of local campaign spending on the geography of the flow-of-the-vote at the 1991 New South Wales state election

There is a tendency to assume that election campaigning at the local electorate level has little or no impact on voters subject to the influence of highly centralised campaigns and an increasingly nationalised media. However, as applied to the flow-of-the-vote, this study concludes that local campaign spending has real consequences for vote shifts. For the 1991 New South Wales state election, it is established that any major commitment to local electorate spending by one of the major parties relative to the other increases flows to that party and reduces flows from it. However, incumbency of individual seats as such does not appear to have any significant effect. There is a strong suggestion that, for this election, the Liberal-National Coalition in government was at a distinct disadvantage compared with the Labor Party in opposition, the spending of the former having a much reduced impact on retaining or attracting votes compared with spending by Labor.