Galaxy: 54-46

As reported in various News Limited papers, a Galaxy poll conducted over the weekend shows Labor suffering a 2 per cent drop in the primary vote since the previous poll four weeks ago, and a slight narrowing of their two-party lead. Curiously, Galaxy’s figure of 10 per cent for the Greens is at least double what Newspoll has given them in the past four months. Also included are figures on Liberal leadership preference which indicate voters are least unlikely to vote Coalition if John Howard remains Prime Minister. The following table shows two-party and primary vote results from Galaxy’s national federal polls this year:

TWO-PARTY PRIMARY
ALP LNP ALP LNP
July 30 54 46 44 41
July 2 55 45 46 41
June 4 53 47 44 42
May 14 57 43 49 39
April 23 58 42 49 37

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

434 comments on “Galaxy: 54-46”

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  1. Partisan politics aside, I think the next election will be very close. Whichever way you analyse the polls, its hard to see Labor winning less than about 10-12 seats. So then it comes down to whether the ALP can hold its marginals as well and whether Labor can get bigger swings in the areas it needs to. I can only speak from an SA perspective, and in my opinion Labor will win all 3 marginals (whilst holding its own), with Makin being the most difficult. Boothby will almost certainly fall, but Sturt will go down to the wire but most probably stay Liberal.

  2. Rudd said all along that the election would be 51-49 either way. While he had political reasons for saying that, there was and is an element of truth to it as well. Customers lie, and some of the 60% 2PP who said they were intending to vote Labor will not vote Labor on the day. I’ve never been comfortable with the landslide theory and am sticking with “comfortable”.

    I think we’re going through a “phoney war” period at the moment. Howard is firing shots because he has to. Rudd is withholding fire because he can.

  3. Glen – Palpable: adjective: capable of being perceived by the senses or the mind; especially capable of being handled or touched or felt (Example: “A barely palpable dust”).

    So yes, I did perceive Gillard on Lateline last night, though I could just as easily have watched her. It sounds like you are trying to say something negative, but I’m not sure what.

    As to your more substantive posts, I thought Gillard came over pretty well last night – she is a good media performer on te whole. For the record Labor is not “destroying the watchdog” of the buidling industry, and the ABCC will remain in place until 2010. Leaving aside the coercive, confrontational and politicised nature of this body, it only came into being in late 2005, so to argue that it’s kept the peace for “years” is nothing but hyperbole.

    I must say, I constantly amused by this idea that a Labor government will be in the thrall of the unions. Listen up people: Labor governments have always dudded the union movement. This is as true of Federal Labor governments as it is of the current (and past) state governents. I can guarantee that most of the union movement will be disillusioned with Rudd Labor by late next year. So let’s put that straw man to bed, could we?

  4. Hugo said: “I can guarantee that most of the union movement will be disillusioned with Rudd Labor by late next year.”

    Well, yes, because they’ll still be in Opposition. That’s if there still is a Rudd Labor, of course; or a union movement, for that matter.

  5. Hugo there is a difference, the ALP is made up of 100% union members and 70% of their front bench are Union ex-officials i mean seriously they should be called the Union Party and the Liberal/National Party should be called either the United Australia Party as the right-wingers of the 1930s or the Conservative Party so says Glen.

  6. Glen,
    The oft repeated 70% front benchers being Union officials is a myth. Repetition doesn’t make it true. You’ll find the figure is below 50%.

  7. Labor is – hang on – a party of labour? Why didn’t anyone tell me! Who’s have thought an organisation called the Australian Labor Party would have had anything to do trade unions?

  8. And I’m sure that the Liberal Party is a misnomer (not terribly liberal, you know, in the way that the rest of the world understands the word), and the National Party represents only a small section of the nation. So at least the ALP is not guilty of false advertising!

  9. Hugo said: “I can guarantee that most of the union movement will be disillusioned with Rudd Labor by late next year.”

    There won’t be a Rudd Labor late next year. When Krudd loses the election the machine of hacks that is the ALP, with Dillard/Dullard as one of its key members, will have him blasted out of the leadership by Australia Day next year. (Can’t wait for Howard’s glorious address to the nation while Labor searches for another leader!) They will put up Bill Shorten – short on experience and short on substance – because they have no-one else to turn to. Exhume Crean, perhaps?

    As for the union movement all that will be left of them is the militant ultra-left who will be disillusioned with any ALP leader because they want to introduce Communism to Oz. They should just be ignored because that’s what they deserve.

    The good thing though is that we will all be more prosperous and have more in our pockets to enjoy ourselves and also be safer from the Terrorists because Howard is going to be re-elected comfortably.

  10. Nostradamus, have you ever thought that the polls might be scientifically rigorous and an accurate reflection of the electorates’s thinking at this time. Howard and crew may very well be on the nose because they refuse to listen much less understand the feelings of their constituency. Please consider that The Libs are on the way out and no amount of sticking your fingers in your ears and loudly proclaiming “I’m not listening”, can disguise the looming reality that this current Government is on it’s last legs.

    So says the Growler.

  11. How pleasant this blog site reads when I ignore Nostradamus, Snoopy, Glen, Steven Kaye and others, all of whom I suspect are aliases of 2-3 people at most. Nostradamus and Steven Kaye are here at the same time-coincidence ? Snoopy and Ced are here at the same time-coincidence ? I dont think so.

    It’s a shame thier frequent mass posting bombardment has put some people of coming here anymore. William should permanently ban some of these serial offenders to protect this site from becoming another casualty of pointless political point-scoring and dribble.

  12. G’day STROP: It’s up to William what he does with this board.
    I can happily ignore Nostrodamus and his various aliases.
    What did you all think of Rudd interviewed by Kerry tonight on 7.30 Report? He did OK, O’Brien actually has been far harder recently on Coalition ministers.

  13. ABC NEWS tonight: lots of other hospitals have asked the Commonwealth Government to take their ownership, but Abbott’s response is a big fat NO, the Devenport Hospital takeover is just a one off. In other words, because you aren’t in a marginal Liberal seat, we’ll leave you under the control of state governments.
    More cynical pork barrelling and a short term fix from Howard, just to save the hide of a dud Tasmanian Liberal MP, who according to the last poll I saw for Braddon, was headed for a landslide defeat.

  14. Evan the real point that everybody is overlooking is this, sure it is a marginal Liberal held seat yes so some cynicism is warranted but what you and STROP and the rest don’t realize is this….

    We live in Australia the best country in the world and yet we have regional communities without top class hospitals that run a variety of roles beyond just emergencies. That we live in a country that can’t even provide this is a shame on us all.

    The fact is with all these new hospitals coming into the spotlight just goes to show how well the State Labor Governments are handling health especially in regional Australia and this is what it would be like if Rudd ever got in. The State ALP Governments have failed Australians they are rolling in GST money and yet they keep downsizing hospitals crikey what is going on here i mean any Labor supporters should be ashamed that they have been responsible for ruining our health system by under funding it and discriminating against Australians in regional areas.

    The real eye opener is that the State Labor Governments have let all Australians down and it should be addressed by them ASAP! Shows how well the ALP would do if they won in November, they’d be worse than Whitlam!

  15. Are you for real? Unbelievable have you not heard of Private Health Insurance Federal Government Subsidy.. Some 3 Billion and more of money which should be going to public hospitals but is feeding the rich- giving them a handout to take out private health insurance.. oh and its the State Governments fault give this money to the public health system and you would not have many of rural hospitals in distress… Additionally you dill… the hospital in Tasmania was privatised by the LIBERAL PARTY IN 1994 and it was so unsuccessful the Labor State government had to take control of it.. but its the Labor Governments fault.. Moreover please tell me where you the get trained doctors for rural areas when the Federal Government and the AMA refuses to allow for increases in training places for these people.. Moreover what doctors would want to come here after the disgraceful way we just treated DR Haneef.. Please get your facts right you turkey…

  16. Glen,

    The question is how best to deliver services to the community.

    The Tassie Government made a “tough” decision to close certain services at the Mersey Hospital in the attempt to provide an overall better service to the wider community within the area.

    Everyone included in the process, Doctors, economists, politicians of all sides etc. have ticked the Tassie government’s solution.

    If you think contacting Canberra to get your cataracts fixed is the ultimate answer to all ills, then it is a pretty stupid question.

    What must Costello be thinking!

  17. The person who wrote the report into the Tasmanian health system decided there were not enough people in the area to support the two hospitals. Hence the decision to rationalise them and move some services from Mersey to Burnie. On the surface you would have to say that is a legitimate decision by the state govt in which case blaming the state govt for something is disingenuous.

  18. Hey guys,

    As a former Braddon resident, I feel I can add to the debate.

    The north-west coast of Tassie has two cities, in Devonport and Burnie, and a series of towns which, in the main, hug the coastline. Population growth over the years, and out love of coastal views, has had the effect of joining all of these towns/cities into one long strip of development. Through this runs a major and beautifully maintained highway, thanks to buckets of federal cash that is thrown at the region every election year or so.

    Because of the amalgamating effect of population growth, the region should be seen as ONE elongated city of less than 200,000 people.

    Devonport has region’s major airport (Burnie does not have one, but there is a small airport in the nearby town of Wynyard) while Burnie, about 45km away, has the region’s major hospital, which was built in the 1990s (I think).

    The Mersey community hospital, which is the recipient of this election years’ bucket of cash, has always been kinda superflous to need. Not that the Devonport locals would admit to that – no – they bitch, scrap and moan in a bid to keep their local services … which you would expect.

    But the fact is, a population of less than 200,000 people doesn’t need two major hospitals, with 24-hour emergency wards … just like they don’t need two major airports!

    P.S. My parents live there, I grew up there, I’ve been to both hospitals, I know the locals, I know what I’m talking about.

  20. I’ll say it again – one group has played the Haneef affair as opportunistic zealots. And it is not the government so much as the media.

    Yesterday, 60 point type on teh Courier-Mail’s page one about ‘al Qaeda’ links.

    Today, we learn, buried in an ABC online sotry, that ‘A senior Indian police officer dismissed a report that Dr Haneef had alleged links with Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network as false. But Bangalore’s Joint Police Commissioner, Gopal Hosur, said that was not true.’

    Where is the retraction or accountability. If electoral politics is a sad game in Australia, the structure and behaviour of the media is the primary reason – politicians and the electoral system come second.

  21. Apparently Costello privately is furious about Howard’s intervention to save the Mersey Hospital – he can see once again his beloved budget surplus is getting frittered away, so the rodent and Janette can keep Kirribilli House for another 3 years, and still no dinner invite for Pete and Tanya.

  25. The latest Morgan poll has the Coalition at 40.5% and Labor at 47%. Adjusting for the usual Morgan face-to-face screwiness, you’ve got the Government at 45.5% and Labor at 42%. Excellent. When even Morgan has the Government above 40%, you know they’re in good shape.

  26. Unfortunately, yes, things are looking better for the govt, though Morgan also reported that 49%, down 6, now think Australia is going in the right direction. 58%, up 6, now expect Labor to win; this is in line with the bookies.

  29. For the last two weeks the issues have been fought on the so called coalition strong points and thre’s no change. Have we reached bedrock?

  34. Thanks Guys –
    this is much more fun than The`Age or Crikey. Most of the comments are informative and interesting. And then there is the Absolute Hoot Factor reading the Liberal party stooge/s trying to put a spin on the fact that Howard and his crew are finished.
    Thank God.

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