WHAT do John Howard, Bob Hogg, Grahame Morris and Dennis Shanahan have in common? And Antony Green, Annabel Crabb, Glenn Milne and Michael Costello? And a host of others?
They're members of this year's Hung Parliament Club.
Each of these commentators has pronounced that we might - just might - end up with a hung parliament on election night, October 9. They're not saying we will, mind you, but it's a "strong possibility" that "shouldn't be discounted" this time - and the implied corollary is that we should be quite scared.
And Mark Latham's fine performance in Sunday's debate will only increase such predictions.
The Club comes out, albeit containing different members, before every federal election. They've always been wrong before, and they're almost certainly wrong this time.
The arguments take several forms. Most easily dismissed is the perceptive pundit who examines the two combatants, " feels the mood" of the electorate and declares that Australians, unable to separate the two protagonists, might score a tie.
Slightly more sensibly, an inability to predict the winner leads some to expect a "close" result - perhaps even a hung parliament!
But to understand the flaw in this, think of a high-scoring sport, like basketball or AFL. If two teams of equal strength play a game, either could win but the chances of a draw are minuscule. The same with elections.
Other pundits reckon that because the two-party preferred vote might split about 50:50, the seats will too. But our electoral system doesn't work like that.
The closest to 50-50 in Australian Federal history was in 1990, when the Hawke government won a majority of eight seats with 49.9 to the Coalition's 50.1 per cent support.
Robert Menzies won by one seat in 1961 although Labor got 50.5 per cent of the vote. Bob Hawke won by 24 seats in 1987 with 50.8 per cent, while 11 years later Kim Beazley got 51.1 per cent but lost by 14 seats.
Historically, a 50-50 vote split has been no closer to a hung parliament than, say, 51 to 49.
And finally, boffins might examine both sides' marginal seats and (especially if they try hard enough) aggregate likely outcomes to produce a hung parliament.
This at least has a scientific basis, but its downfall is that seats never fall exactly how anyone predicts them. Too many can go either way.
Currently 40 electorates have margins under five per cent (which is what the Australian Electoral Commission calls marginal), and the chances of them all behaving as one might predict, and none of the non-marginals bolting out of the blue on election night, are microscopic.
Admittedly, the fact that three independents are likely to be returned this year increases the chances of a hung parliament. Mathematically, it makes it four times as likely as if there were none. But four times a small chance is still a small chance.
And, true, every state in the country has experienced a hung parliament in the last decade. But this was just a series of flukes that have no bearing on the national outcome. A hung parliament would certainly make life interesting (which is why it always gets a run).
Queensland Independent Bob Katter, he of the bug eyes and shock of white hair, shouting stipulations at the party leaders nightly on the news would send a shiver up the national spine and send the financial markets scurrying.
But we can wish all we want, it's very unlikely to happen.
Peter Brent is publisher of mumble.com.au
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