As votes get closer to being completely counted from last Saturday’s poll, two old leaders have kept their records by the narrowest of margins.  Bob Hawke will no doubt be happier about it than Malcolm Fraser.

Back in 1983, Bob Hawke as party leader saw Labor gain 53.23% of the two party preferred vote, the highest Labor has ever recorded according to calculations by the Australian Electoral Commission on results from 1983 onwards and by the Federal Parliamentary Library back from then until 1949.

For a while on election night it looked like Kevin Rudd’s team would do even better but the latest AEC figure is 53.17%.

Kevin07 has no grounds for complaint because surely no non-member of parliament has ever worked harder than Hawke did during the 2007 campaign. He made appearances in marginal seats everywhere spruiking  for Labor.

Malcolm Fraser holds the record for being Liberal leader when the Coalition side reached its 1983 nadir of 46.77% of the two party preferred vote. The fact that John Howard has sneaked past that figure to 46.83% owes nothing to his old parliamentary leader. Fraser’s major contribution to the campaign was to join with his old Labor adversary, Gough Whitlam, to plead for better governance by future governments than had been delivered under Mr Howard.

Gough, incidentally, can still glory in retaining his 1972 record of achieving Labor’s high of 55.4% in New South Wales. Kevin Rudd will surely settle for being Labor’s new Queensland champion with a two party preferred share this time of 51.16%, only the second time since 1949 that Labor has gone through the 50% mark.

Labor’s other election high of 56.41% came in the Northern Territory, perhaps letting Mr Rudd know what Territorians thought of federal intervention in Aboriginal affairs.

Two Party Preferred (ALP):

Election NSW VIC QLD WA SA TAS ACT NT AUST
10.12.49 50.80 49.70 42.70 47.00 50.60 46.50 NA NA 49.00
28.4.51 50.50 50.70 43.50 45.60 51.80 47.40 NA NA 49.30
29.5.54 53.00 50.70 44.80 48.10 52.70 50.00 NA NA 50.70
10.12.55 49.50 40.80 43.90 43.50 49.00 47.50 NA NA 45.80
22.11.58 49.80 42.30 41.40 40.80 49.80 49.80 NA NA 45.90
9.12.61 54.80 44.50 50.70 43.50 54.20 56.00 NA NA 50.50
30.11.63 49.30 42.50 48.10 43.80 53.30 54.50 NA NA 47.40
26.11.66 43.90 39.30 44.30 45.70 42.40 53.90 55.80 NA 43.10
25.10.69 51.60 44.90 49.90 52.60 54.20 56.10 71.60 40.80 50.20
2.12.72 55.40 50.40 49.50 48.30 52.70 60.50 68.00 45.50 52.70
18.5.74 54.90 50.60 45.40 48.50 52.50 55.40 59.70 47.30 51.70
13.12.75 46.80 43.80 39.80 41.20 44.90 44.10 49.30 45.10 44.30
10.12.77 47.60 44.50 42.00 39.90 48.70 43.80 54.30 47.50 45.40
18.10.80 50.40 50.70 46.90 46.70 49.60 47.10 58.60 48.80 49.60
5.3.83 54.09 54.50 49.46 55.00 52.30 43.58 65.49 51.87 53.23
1.12.84 52.91 53.09 47.71 50.86 51.67 46.63 61.96 48.61 51.77
11.7.87 50.29 52.30 49.32 50.91 50.24 46.90 63.25 52.22 50.83
24.3.90 52.13 47.46 50.19 47.13 49.50 47.90 58.54 55.02 49.90
13.3.93 54.38 51.80 48.43 46.02 47.33 54.65 61.19 55.31 51.44
2.3.96 47.44 50.30 39.78 44.00 42.74 51.58 55.46 49.63 46.37
3.10.98 51.54 53.53 46.95 49.46 46.89 57.32 62.44 50.57 50.98
10.11.01 48.34 52.14 45.14 48.38 45.92 57.73 61.08 52.49 49.05
09.10.04 48.07 49.00 42.91 44.60 45.64 54.19 61.54 52.15 47.26
24.11.07 54.47 54.43 51.16 46.94 52.68 56.13 63.62 56.41 53.17