Details at 11. Thanks as always to the Poll Bludger’s eastern states army of fast-typing Lateline watchers.
UPDATE: That’s Labor on 56, I should stress. In case you were wondering.
UPDATE 2: The Australian reports that Labor’s primary vote is down one point and the Coalition’s up one, to 47 per cent and 40 per cent. Rudd’s preferred leader rating has widened from 43-42 to 43-40. Respondents were asked how a Peter Costello leadership would affect their vote – 22 per cent said it would make them much less likely to vote Coalition and 7 per cent somewhat less likely, with only 8 per cent saying more likely.
UPDATE 3: Note the new headline. I’m sure this isn’t the first time Lateline’s scoop Newspoll figures differed slightly from what was then published.
The unfortunate thing for Howard is, like Beazley, any gaffe now is going to be highlighted and linked to his age. Not fair I know but that’s how the press work.
Lord D It’s true that the Tasmanian forestry issue will have a greater effect in Tasmania but it will resonate also on the mainland and with genuine green voters. I think Latham was actually terminal well before polling day and that was largely as a result of his perceived personality.
Rudd’s support of the pulp mill as well will compound that effect.
The combination will reduce ALP’s primary by a point or two and increase the Greens and independents.
The Haneef issue will completely dead by polling day as is the David Hicks (who?) issue.
Take a good hard look at the trend of all the polls.
There is a slow gradual move back towards the Coalition in spite of the last week’s disaster for Howard.
Most of us felt that the polls would inevitably get better for Rudd after this week.
It hasn’t happened.
We felt the Morgan poll was an outlier. It may not have been.
Think of this. The Newspoll may have been 53-47 without last week.
That would have been on track for a Howard comeback.
It’s going to be remarkably close. I would now guess there will be two or three seats in it.
Here here Noocat. I’ld like to add that it was dissapointing at the last election (Vic) that Green preferances weren’t secured. I don’t follow HTV cards either and I will always prefer a green candidate if it won’t be Labor. FF go last, but I don’t rate Barber, he has been inhaling too much helium.
Swordfish Says:
July 24th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Just wondering if anyone had any particularly interesting takes on local politics – perhaps the seat they live in etc. In 1998 the Coalition seemed to do better than Labor working the marginals on the ground despite Labor dominating nationwide; you look at seats like Deakin and despite the Coalition’s precarious position you wonder how the incumbent could lose.
Swordfish, check out my post at 11.34am. It answers a lot of questions and furthermore offers a lot of food for thought on how Labor and the Coalition are polling in marginal seats.
You’re right Swordfish. I’ll tell you one thing it shows me about the Greens, they are just like all other parties. They claim to have more scruples than the other parties and shout long and hard about ideals and principles but when it comes to the crunch some of them will vote their enemy in rather than stick by principles. They are just another bunch of politicians that will do anything to get elected and stay elected. So let’s not get too precious here. I think most people realise that too.
1. The Liberals can kiss Lindsay goodbye
2. Surely the ALP could have selected a better candidate for Boothby than that bimbo? It doesn’t matter, all Rudd needs from SA is to win back the 3 really marginal Liberal seats, Boothby or Sturt would be an unexpected bonus.
3. Howard fell over during the 1996 election campaign(if memory serves me correctly), and it didn’t hurt him in the final washup. The media makes far too much of these incidents, but I guess it could play into the general view of John Winston getting too old for the job.
Richard, if your aunty had you know what she’d be your uncle too. The polls are pretty stagnant. If the polls moved up for Labor would we really believe they would stay that way. My surprise is that they didn’t move down (past the M Of E) due to the terror scare.
I know you’re wishing for more but just think logically and list the issues you think will cause such a big rush back to Howard. Well there’s um, er … Things are looking bad for the coalition.
“The thesis is sound at the moment but I think there will be more attention when the election date is announced.”
Certainly, that’s what I meant by “at least for now”.
However if the polls are like this going into the campaign, it’s going to take one hell of an effort for the government to turn it around in 5-6 campaign weeks.
Gary,
Do you have a link to the Bolt article?
Cheers
Some thoughts regarding Greens preferences:
1/ In a full preferential system (as we have federally) is there any evidence to suggest that Greens preferences go to the ALP less than 60% (when they split ticket/make no recommendation) or more than 80% (when they advise Greens voters to preference the ALP)? Is the Greens preference differential greater than 20% of Greens votes? Is it smaller?
2/ With most seats producing a Greens vote between 5% and 15%, a 20% gap in preference flow to the ALP is worth between 1% and 3% of the total vote. In which seats does this make a difference?
3/ What is the damage done to the Greens credibility when they preference the Coalition (or don’t preference the ALP)? Remember that Greens voters don’t simply vote on the basis of the environment – are people seriously prepared to argue that a large proportion of voters who are concerned about human rights issues (Hicks, refugees, gay rights etc.) and vote for the Greens are going to send their preferences to Howard?
Perhaps we could look at the Greens preference flows from the Victorian State election – does anyone have the seats in which the Greens didn’t preference the ALP?
For Greens preferences to make any difference, three criteria have to be met:
1/ The two party preferred margin between the ALP and the Liberals must be reasonably small
2/ The Greens vote must be reasonably large
3/ The decision by the Greens to not preference the ALP has to make a substantial difference to the strength of the preference flow to the ALP
So, in which seats would this make a difference?
If however there are no seats in which different levels of Greens preferences would actually change the result, and if the ALP benefits from the forestry policy decision in Bass, Braddon and potentially MacMillan & Gippsland, how is this not the best electoral decision for the ALP?
That is the uncertainty. We don’t know what the polls will be like going into the campaign.
“Amidst a lot of wild commentary, three things are certain:”
1 is not at all certain. The very small gains are well within the margin of error. The polls are entirel consistent with the government making small gains, absolutely no change, or the government going slightly backwards.
2 is true but its relevance questionable; grumpy greens will mostly preference ALP anyway.
3 is true.
Gary Bruce, I’m not suggesting that voters will rush back to the Coalition.
I’m suggesting that the Newspoll result was interesting in that it did not show a move even further away from the Coalition and in fact a slight move towards it. Voters are moving back to the usual positions in my view, regardless of the daily events in the media. 70% always vote the way they usually vote. It’s those on the margins, not rusted on Labor or Coalition supporters who will determine the result. Many of those are small g green voters who often vote big Greens.
This entire election may well be decided by as few as 5,000 green voters in marginal seats. The 1976 election when Wran won by one seat, Hurstville, he won by two dozen votes.
Rudd has just lost more than 5,000 green votes.
“Why have Green voters preferenced Labor 80% or so in the past? Simply because Labor were streets ahead of the Liberals on envonmnental policies. Now they are not. They are about dead even. So why would preferences not flow in a similar way?”
One thing worth pointing out is that many Greens voters are not just concerned with environmental issues. You have to remember that Howard’s social conservatism is also a BIG turn off for many of those who support the Greens.
Unfortunately Ben, Bolt was on 3AW this morning. It wasn’t an article. However if you go to mytalk.com.au his segment maybe there.
Just looking at some of the Greens preference flows. It strikes me that the Greens preference flows are strongest to the ALP in those seats where it meets criteria 1 & 2 in my previous post:
1. Richmond – 90.97%
2. Melbourne Ports – 88.79%
3. Adelaide – 86.83%
4. Eden-Monaro – 88.76%
5. Wentworth – 87.87%
6. Bennelong – 88.75%
7. Corangamite – 83.97%
With preferences flowing to the ALP at the rate of 80% nation-wide and reaching into the high 80s & low 90s in seats where it might matter – the Greens are much more a party of the left than the Democrats were.
As an aside, this poses a problem for the progressive parties (ALP, Greens, Democrats) in picking up votes off the Liberals for the Senate – something which the Democrats were able to do and translate into seats but which the Greens are unable to do. The bulk of Greens votes come from the ALP and go straight back to the ALP in the House. The Greens can’t harvest small-l Liberal votes in the Senate the way the Dems could (particularly in SA & QLD) .
By the way, I think the effect of the past couple of weeks of the Howard biography revelations and the Haneef affair will be to help to further strengthen the commitment of those planning to vote against the government. While it doesn’t seem to have shiften voter intention (don’t forget that some redneckish, racist elements of our community would have been PLEASED with Howard’s treatment of Haneef), some previously soft votes have probably hardened and will therefore be much harder for Howard to shift as we get closer to the election.
These past couple of weeks have not taught us anything new about Howard. But it has helped to confirm what we already know, that is, Howard is a mean-spirited, deceitful individual who has no morals or decency when it comes to trying to win votes.
Yes most Green voters will preference to the ALP regardless, but not all Green voters are the self-identified inner urban left. In the country and the suburbs Green votes drift much more when the Greens issue an open ticket. Compare SW Coast in Vic at the last two state elections. Open Green tickets make a difference.
Hang on Richard so after one poll showing a move well within the margin of error you’re saying the trend to the coalition is on. Not even your rusted on journalists at the Government Gazette are saying that now. In fact the mood is glum over there. All this poll shows is that, uptil now, the trend shows Labor a mile in front. Which is it Richard these polls tell us what is going to happen in the future or not?
Richard Jones – while I can sympathise with your disappointment about Rudd embracing the logging companies and unions, your posts read that you can’t see the forests for the trees (pun fully intended). You strike me (though of course I don’t know you, so I could be wrong) as the type of Green who would be uncomfortable with power – it’s much easier to carp from the sidelines. Your posts suggest that you would be more comfortable with a re-elected Howard government. However, I suspect that most Green voters will be so desperate to get rid of JWH that they won’t even notice the forest policy.
Gary Bruce hinted at the reason that Greens annoy the political class so much – they often take a rather holier-than-thou approach. However, until they learn that politics is not the same as it was at uni, that unpalatable deals often need to be made, then the Greens will stay as a minor 5-7% party with a few Senators from time to time.
Every comment on Rudd and the Tas forests issue so far has been based on the assumption that on the issue itself the Greens are right and the Lennon-Rudd line is wrong, and that Rudd has adopted this line out of pure expedience (Bass and Braddon). That is also the assumption in the Fairfax press. Has it occurred to anyone that Lennon and Rudd may actually think their policy is correct? There are after all half a million people in Tas as well as a lot of trees. This is a good example of the ideological bubble that most people here live in (except our three token Liberals, Edward SJ, Stephen K and Nostradamus).
Noocat
no truer words
“Howard, of course, is a lost cause – an environmental, economic, and social vandal at heart. Nothing will ever change with him. Enough said”
Howard looked and sounded desperate and his claim that no-one should criticise the AFP was stupid stupid stupid, although no-one in the MSM had the guts to point out the AFP, like the immigration department are two key planks in the battle against terrorism, and under the PM’s watch neither seem they could run a chook raffle without some kind of major stuffup.
Really the PM’s responsibility is to make us safe from terrorism, not just to do media stunts and pass stupid law to look tough on terror. How long since 9/11? Other than posturing and politically motivated wedging what has the PM done to ensure the Immigration department runs well and can tell the difference between an Australian and a foreign terrorist, and how come the AFP don’t have the skill set of journalists (we criticise and fairly a huge amount)?
Martin B is right. Any small gains are within margin of error. Morgan polled on the same weekend as Nielsen and before that the previous Newspoll. Niether Nielsen or Newspoll demonstrated the sort of movement to the government that Morgan picked up.
To suggest a government improvement on the basis of the latest Morgan poll and a one point movement in todays Newspoll is really a bit optimistic in my opinion. I really don’t think much has changed apart from the fact that some government supporters have discovered the virtues of the Morgan Poll.
While I love trees, really there are many more important environmental issues than trees and endless arguments over whether this block should be saved and this woodchipped. Endless promises of downstream value adding and processing that never ever happens to any of our natural resources. Who really cares …
To put things into perspective, who cares about Greens preferences?
(no offence intended, just being realistic and looking at the main game)
Jas am I channelling you or vice versa? 🙂
“what do you make of the Greens/Liberal cooperation in the State Parliament?”
The vast majority of the ‘cooperation’ are on standard scrutiny of government procedural matters, in which the ALP government has voted to avoid scrutiny. They include matters which the ALP voted for when they were in opposition (and the Liberal govt voted against) but which the ALP now vote against now that they are in government.
There are a number of matters in which the tactics of the Greens have been, IMO questionable at best. However the ALP is clearly being hyperbolic.
“That is the uncertainty. We don’t know what the polls will be like going into the campaign.”
Of course.
But the thesis is that people have made up their mind for now, and will think further when the campaign rolls around.
I don’t know if that thesis is correct or not. But if it is true, then the govt are in trouble, and the evidence in favour of it is getting better.
You are much smarter than me … so it must be me channelling you, my typing a bit faster …
I suppose the run of 39’s had to end sooner or later.
There is still little or no evidence of significant poll movement since the 2-point (or so) budget bounce in May.
A curiousity: ACN seems to be running, not just on preferences but also on primaries, a touch to the left of Newspoll. Was a feature of Beazley’s final months in the top job, but had not been evident in the first few months of the Rudd leadership. Have no idea what it means, I simply note it.
As to Haneef or Tampa shifting votes to Labor – give me a break. To the extent most voters care, they probably like it that the government is going in hard, and the reminder of the Tampa is a reminder of why they like Howard. Looks like they may have bungled it, but most people’s priority is safety – and they would much prefer a government that errs on the side of security not liberty. Rudd isn’t lining up with Howard for no reason.
The so called greens / liberal deal in the Victorian parliament is one of the biggest loads of tripe (I wanted to say something stronger but the fear of moderation is Just too great) that the Vic ALP have tried to roll out. Most of the issues have been procedural or have been to do with trying to get information out of an increasingly unaccountable government.
If I was the libs, I would preference the Greens in Melbourne deal or no deal – though I suspect there would be considerable leakage.
BTW, where does someone like Duncan Kerr stand on the forestry issue? The Greens must surely be close to being able to make a lunge for Denison.
Comments by RobertBe, Mike Paul and Golfer (three of them) just freed from moderation.
“Has it occurred to anyone that Lennon and Rudd may actually think their policy is correct?”
I have no doubt that Lennon does and I’d be surprised if Rudd was entirely being pragmatic.
OTOH there are a number of pretty mainstream economists who argue that the low-cost low-margin clearfell and woodchip practice of Gunns cannot be the future for the Tasmanian forest industry.
But I’ll desist from arguing policy further…
The voters gave their verdict on Tampa in 2001 – they supported Howard and Ruddock keeping unauthorised Muslim immigrants out of Australia, and if there is anything certain in Australian politics, it’s that they still do. The left raises this issue again at its peril. Rudd of course is far too smart to be dragged into that swamp again.
For those that are interested, Michelle Grattan in The Age this morning was quite interesting.
Kevin Rudd’s main achievements from yesterday are:
1. He has put fire into the Greens belly probably shoring up their vote and maybe getting it of 7
2. Possible opened up a two front war – he will be attacked from right and left.
3. Basically shafted Peter Garrett before he ever sits on the ministerial leather – where would PG stand on a new uranium mine? especially one in the NT?
A 55-45 Newspoll result could quite possibly be a 57-43 result or a 53-47 result – both resulting in different media reports.
We are still flatline.
I really feel for Garrett at the moment. His heart must be aching with what he is trying to get Rudd to release to the voting public. Still, after the election win (if), he may get more breathing space.
Richard Jones – This election will be fought on polarising issues such as IR, Economy, Climate Change and trust. These are issues you are either for or against. Most people who disapprove of the governments positions are willing to vote for anyone to get rid of JWH. This includes previous Greens voters voting or preferencing the ALP to do so. Don’t get me wrong, the green vote will be important in several key seats, but nationally I do not expect the Green vote to rise markedly, nor would the preference flows to Labor drop as a result of this decision.
Like I said to get 2 seats from 16 in the back pocket Rudd would sleep with Bronwyn Bishop.
Fire in the greens belly – oh please if anyone is permantently on fire (which I respect) it is them. What it has done is given them media space. Michelle might not understand the difference but it is quite significant.
Being attacked from the left and right can be fantastic for Rudd. A gift from heaven. “I must be right – the left want me to go further and the Government thinks I haven’t gone far enough. Nothing is more certain to make me think I’m right” as Australia furiously nods its head. And when did the left ever stop shooting itself and anyone silly enough to stand close in the foot if not somewhere worse.
There is a big differnce between being an evangelist (Garrett was) and being a pragmatic politician (he is now) he shafted himself before he joined the party, nothing to see here move along move along. BTW IMHHO the pragmatists are much more loved by the electorate and get much more done, nice to have a few (a very few) of the Bob Brown evangelists around, but never within smelling distance of government benches.
Jas, I don’t know about that, I like reading your analyses
At the risk of being on topic is part of the coalitions problem that the evangelists are running the circus?
There will be a narrowing of the difference of the parties no matter what as we get near the election. This may be seen as ‘Howard chasing down Rudd’ by the pro-Howard commentariat, but it is a normal event as people start thinking about who they are going to vote for and may decide to stick with the current status quo. The extenct of this I am not really sure.
Regarding the Greens preferences a lot will depend on the primary vote. If the ALP’s primary vote stays up, it means less primary votes to the Greens (as I am sure the Greens would get most of their votes from ex-Labor voters) .
However I am not really sure about ‘the doctor’s wives’ thing. If we take the Blue Ribbon seats of Kooyong where these fantomatical wives live there was a swing towards the Liberals last election (I guess you have Howard-critic Petro Georgiou there, so that may have made a difference) But also if we look at another seat where these wives live in Peter Costello’s Higgins the swing to the Coalition was 1.4% last time.
Over the last two months there seems to be a 1.5% shift to the govt. Trend or noise? Even if trend, it’s too small to help and not unexpected anyway.
Interesting that Sportingbet has Blair at $1.50 for the ALP and $2.60 fot the Libs. At a margin of 5.7%, shows how much the swing seems to be on in QLD. Sportingbet have ALP in front in 14 seats inlcuding all 4 close seats in WA, and very close in another 3-4 seats.
On the green split tickets in the 2006 Vic election.
Retrieved from LP here: http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/11/22/split-tickets
“According to the Greens’ How to Vote card, they are running a split ticket in:
Ballarat East (ALP 7.6%), Benambra (LIB 4.0%), Bendigo West (ALP 15.9%), Box Hill (LIB 1.1%), Doncaster (LIB 0.8%), Footscray (ALP 24.9%), Gippsland East (IND 11.7% vs NAT), Gippsland South (NAT 10.9%), Hawthorn (LIB 5.9%), Kew (LIB 6.0%), Mitcham (ALP 7.7%), Monbulk (ALP 8.3%), Mornington (LIB 1.8%), Morwell (ALP 4.9%), Murray Valley (NAT 13.9%), Nepean (LIB 0.2%), Ripon (ALP 7.4%), Scoresby (LIB 3.3%), Shepparton (NAT 4.3% vs LIB), South Barwon (ALP 5.0%), South-West Coast (LIB 0.7%) and Warrandyte (LIB 6.3%).”
Note that there were no marginal ALP-held seats here.
The most marginal, and only one to fall was Morwell, and as I have previously commented, it was the ALP that were the ALP’s problem here, not the Greens.
Cool, now we have the Trip & Tip show.
“The voters gave their verdict on Tampa in 2001 – they supported Howard and Ruddock keeping unauthorised Muslim immigrants out of Australia, and if there is anything certain in Australian politics, it’s that they still do. ”
You are probably right in an overall sense, but I suspect that the number of people who think about things differently in 2007 than they did in the heat of the moment oin 2001 is not insignificant. I certainly think that while people may still support the goal, there are fewer people now willing to achieve it by any means.
“the reason that Greens annoy the political class so much – they often take a rather holier-than-thou approach.”
And I might have to go and do something else, but at least one more comment before I do.
The Greens insiders that I know (and it’s a few) are as realistic about their motivvations and tactics as anyone else. I’ve never noticed any holier-than-thou attitude.
It is of course in the Greens interests to be perceived (and hence to portray themselves) as a party of principle, and in the ALP’s interest to portray them as pragmatists as grubby as everyone else, and this is what happens.
That’s not surprising at all. What is surprising is when seasoned observers think that either party should be expected to do anything else.
The fall/stumble/trip/tumble will be more important this time as opposed to 96 because of Howard’s looming 68th birthday on Thursday and it feeds directly into the Labor campaign of tiredness/stale/old vs fresh/new/young.
I can understand why Rudd has decided to ditch Latham’s forestry policy, but as an ex-Tasmanian with most of my family still down there, I really think its impact was grossly overstated as a cause of the loss of Bass and Braddon.
I was down there at the time of the last election. My wife’s family lives in Braddon and my family in Bass. My sister-in-law and her husband voted for Howard because they’re small business persons who were worried about interest rates. A friend of ours (a widow in her 60s) said she didn’t vote for Latham because she didn’t think he was a gentleman. My brother (who runs a business that is reliant on the plantation timber industry) didn’t really care about the forestry policy but thought Latham wasn’t quite the full shilling. My other brother (a dairy farmer) said similar things. Every conversation I listened in on (I kept my mouth shut) was the same. They didn’t like Latham. Interest rates were a worry.
Perhaps the ALP have some hard statistics showing the forestry issue cost them Bass and Braddon but my anecdotal evidence is that it was Latham that did it. Forestry didn’t get a look-in during my unofficial focus group meetings 🙂
It’s hard to gauge the effect of Rudd’s new forestry policy and the pulp mill on the federal election. Personally I think that from now on, Kevin would be wise to keep his mouth shut about both as much as possible. A pulp mill in Tasmania is always going to be contentious. One just outside of Launceston (the major town in Bass) is a seriously bad idea. However, those who oppose it will blame the State Government first for pushing it, and the Federal Government second for not doing something about it. They might fume about Kevin’s abandonment, but ultimately, they are not going to vote for JH. They may vote Green, but the preferences will come straight back to the ALP.
One thing that mainlanders don’t appreciate is the amount of resentment most Tasmanians have towards the Forestry industry in Tas. Proportionally more Tasmanians live in country towns than over here, so the effects of logging are obvious to them. Most Tasmanians go bushwalking or fishing. They really don’t like seeing the countryside ripped up, unless there’s a good reason. Very few Tasmanians are employed by the old-growth logging industry. The state is heavily reliant on tourism. Consequently, Gunn’s (the big forestry company down there) are not terribly popular. In the part of the state where my family live (rural north-east) there’s great resentment at seeing lots of productive dairy country go under Gunn’s timber plantations. Dairy towns that have been around for 130 years or more are turning into ghost towns. The way they soak up the water annoys lots of people too.
I’ve always thought it very unlikely that the Libs would hold either seat at this election. Bass seems to change every election. Braddon, while less volatile, is likely to change if there’s a swing on. My opinion is that Kev could have promised to end old-growth logging and he’d still get both seats. But he obviously doesn’t want to risk it.
(Sorry about the length of this post. It’s a topic of great interest to me.)
Am I correct in thinking that the window of opportunity for an election before APEC has now closed? I think I am.