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 | |
This poll is right on the money, I’d say – Galaxy being the most accurate of all the pollsters – and gives the Coalition plenty of time to strengthen its primary vote before the election. It also demonstrates yet again why the PM is the best person to lead the Government to the election, despite all the squealing from ignoramuses like Andrew Bolt.
This Galaxy is not much use. You have to ask why Galaxy is consistently below all the other polls and also question the very odd June 4th Poll that saved Howard’s bacon.
We have a Newspoll last week at 55/45. a Morgan phone poll with an emphatic 59/41 and we are supposed to believe the last 7 days have been so wonderful for the government that they have picked up 3-6% . Clearly rediculous. The Morgan polls have proven accurate this year in State elections.
Where on earth are Galaxy polling Liberal safe seats? Pardon my cynicism, but I will wait for tomorrows? ACNeilsen. If there is again significant differnce Galaxy will have to assess the mix of areas they choose for polling. If they are in the same ball park then I will believe the gap has closed.
Newspoll 20/22 July
TPP 55/45
Primary 47/40
ACNeilsen 12/14 July
TPP 58/42
Primary 49/39
Morgan Phone Poll 25/26 July
TPP 59/41
Primary 48/35
Kina, Taking into account margin of error this poll is quite consistent with the other polls. Newspoll and Morgan (F2F) were 55/45. Acnielsen was 56/44 using the same, less volatile preference distribution method as the other pollsters. It’s the Morgan phone poll which looks a bit out of place.
As for the June 4 Galaxy, Rouge polls do happen. It’s a reality of polling, not some great conspiracy on the part of the polling company. I really can’t see why you persist with this fanciful assertion. I guess the 60/40 rouge Newspoll a few weeks back indicates Newspoll is barracking for Labor?
I do agree however that Galaxy is slightly understating the Labor primary. However, if you look at their predictions for the Greens, it is as William states about double that of the other pollsters. The coalition is not the beneficiary of the lower ALP vote, the Greens are. Hence there is little impact on the TPP figure.
A lot of partisan ‘anaylsis’ of the polls lately. I’m not sure what the point is? You are only deluding yourselves. Throw away the rose coloured glasses. (This applies to both sides of the political divide)
Steven Kaye Says:
July 30th, 2007 at 2:13 am
It also demonstrates yet again why the PM is the best person to lead the Government to the election….
Steven, on what grounds does this poll demonstrate the PM as the best person to lead the Govt to the next election ?
William ^^ noted that
” Also included are figures on Liberal leadership preference which indicate voters are least unlikely to vote Coalition if John Howard remains Prime Minister”.
How is JWH the best person if the poll indicates he the least likely Liberal leadership person least likely to attract votes for the Coalition ?
Your logic escapes me.
This result is exactly as I expected and as foreshadowed by Galaxy principal, David Briggs, last week when he stated that recent polls had been overestimating Labor’s vote by about 2%.
If you are the least likely person in the Coalition leadership to attract votes for your party are you not the WORST person to have in that position ?
Misread William: apologies Steven and William. DOHH.
James there is some partisan analysis of the polls evident at any place you want to debate politics and the polls as indicators of election forecasting.
I admit I dont pay much attention to Galaxy polls unless you put them against others like ACNeisen and Morgan.
However, most here that I have read in the last 6 months don’t have that awful tendency to dismiss a poll completely when it brings bad news for the team they support or make outlandish predictions when a poll brings good news for the team they personally support.
What gets alot of attention more so than the poll figures themselves are-
(a) The way the figures are interpreted by media, particularly in The Australian;
(b) The ‘news’ the poll brings- Often headlines put a positive twist on the results according to the writers political bent or what some call editorial directives;
(c) The effect the polls are expected to have on the tactics used by the contesting parties.
For example, not so long ago there was speculation in the papers that Costello could/ought to be made leader of the Coalition before the election because some back benchers were getting narky about consistently poor poll results for the Coalition.
This set off a debate in this blog about whether or not Costello could/should/would get someone to ‘tap Howard on the shoulder’.
I think your view that most in here are wearing “rose coloured glasses” and “deluding yourselves” is over the top and could only be directed at a small percentage of contributors to this blog.
James said ‘Rouge polls do happen’. Only in France!
The primary vote gap between Labor and Coal is 3 pts in Galaxy, 7 pts in Newspoll, 10 pts in AC Nielson and 13 pts in the latest Morgan phone poll. I would have expected the Haneef affair to do damage to the Coal; this seemed to be the case in the Morgan phone. Will have to wait until Friday for Morgan F2F; the last Morgan F2F seemed to be overly Coal favourable, so will expect a correction.
This may be a drift back from Labor to the Greens following the policy announcement in Tas?
How many people do Galaxy poll? 1000 or more(like Newspoll and AC Nielsen)?
The Haneef stuff probably helps the Government. Even after the charges against him were dropped on Friday, the majority of callers to radio talkback were still branding the guy as an Islamic terrorist. Demonisation of Muslims is still a powerful electoral tool for Howard and his mates.
I’ll say again, in a time of supposed economic prosperity and a media concentration on national security, it’s remarkable the ALP has any sort of lead in the polls, whether it’s 8 points or 12 points.
A drift to the Greens meanings very little in the grand scheme of things; they will overwhelmingly preference back to Labor because Greens voters are fundamentally amongst the one-third of the electorate who are Howard-haters.
This poll, which comes from the most accurate pollster last Federal election, shows that there is real movement back to the Government, and that we are well on track for a fifth Howard Government.
Happy birthday, Mr Howard!
Why well back on track? Just because there was swing to the Coalition from the last poll doesn’t mean there will be a swing in the next poll :S What’s to say the swing won’t go back to Labor?
Galaxy’s major party primaries have been outstanding at elections for some years now.
But they do appear to be tracking somewhat to the right of Newspoll and ACN. Curious.
Nostrodamus and Steven Kaye getting carried away by a 1% swing to the Coalition? Hilarious! 54 – 46 would be a 7% swing to the ALP(2PP), an election winning lead.
The SMH letters page is full of vile against Howard and Andrews, the like of which I haven’t seen in previous election years. However, the SMH is read mostly by people in safe Liberal electorates on Sydney’s North Shore and in the Eastern Suburbs, so all that probably doesn’t mean anything.
Evan you are right about the readership of the SMH. However, I have noticed in recent weeks that The Daily Telegraph and the Mx (the rail commuters’ paper) have been running more favourable headlines and stories for the Australian Labor Party. This is important if you subscribe to the view (as I do) that they are the “newspapers” more likely to reinforce perceptions about the ALP among low involvement voters.
Looking at the summary of Galaxy results since April shows why the trend is more important than poll by poll fluctuations.
Apart from the odd looking 53-47 on June 4 there has been a 1% move to the Government per month. Individually these movements have all been within the margin for error and so have tended to be dismissed. However when taken together they represent a 4% movement which is of course significant, in fact more significant than a movement of 4% from one month to the next such as happened in June because that carries with it the suspicion of being a rogue.
If you look at the last three Nielsen polls there has been little volatility or movement in their figures.
http://au.acnielsen.com/reports/documents/ACNielsenPoll1998_000.pdf
In my opinion that is about the lay of the land give or take a couple of points. Plenty of jumping around from poll to poll but overall not much change in the political enviroment.
I am a little suspicous of Galaxys figures due to the rogue a couple of months ago and David Briggs suggestion last week that he was getting it right while the others were overstating the Labor vote. Sounded a bit Gary Morgan 2001 to me.
Maybe this topic has been covered elsewhere (and if so, I apologise) but to what extent do opinion polls influence people’s perception of a government/opposition.
Certainly, opinion polls – properly conducted – reflect public intention on any given day but does anyone know of any studies on the _affect_ of opinion polls on public perception? (For instance: Opposition down 3%… Joe Blow thinks ‘well maybe there is something wrong with the Opposition’ and henceforth… regards the Opposition with more suspicion…)
I’ve always thought that there is this dual action of opinion polls… and I’m wondering anyone else has any thoughts regarding this issue?
At the risk of sounding a little like Donny R, there are things we know and things we don’t know.
1. We don’t know what the election result will be, no-one does, not Michael Kroger, not Rod Cameron, not David Briggs, not Gary Morgan, not the bookmakers, not even Mark Textor.
2. We don’t know what the true voting intention of the electorate is, whether it was last month, last week or next week, no-one does (see above).
We find out the answer to the first question on the night of the election.
We can estimate the answer to the second question by asking a sample of people; which is all that polls are; responses from samples of the population. It’s probably most useful to think of the polling data, as just that, data. Try to ignore the events of the week and all the media analysis and just focus on the figures and analyse those.
It’s baseless to say one agency is “more accurate” than another, especially when looking at polls this far out, but even with the election eve polls that are
conducted. I would suggest the “bragging rights” are more a result of good luck than anything else.
It’s equally baseless to dismiss polls out of hand, as they’re all simply the responses of samples of the population and should all be accepted as such.
No-one knows why Morgan’s telephone poll conducted on Wed and Thurs last week gave the primary votes as ALP 48 L/NP 35 (margin of error 4%) and Galaxy’s telephone poll conducted on Thur, Fri and Sat gave the primary votes as ALP 44 L/NP 41 (margin of error 3%), they are just what they found.
The best we can do is look at all the data that is published and hopefully the accumulated knowledge provided by the information will get us as close to the truth as we can reasonably expect to get.
These two polls combined (1600 sample) tell us that the primary votes are:
ALP 46 Coalition 38 TPP 55.3/44.7 (@58% flow to ALP)
The last two series of polls from each of the pollsters, (8 polls in all – includes one morgan face to face and one phone poll) 10,000 sample.
ALP 47.2 Coalition 39.5 TPP 54.9/45.1 (@ 58% flow to ALP)
That’s as good as we can expect.
My numbers agree Aristotle – 55/45 approximately based on recent polls.
Whether or not there has been movement since early June is slightly more difficult to say now, but I would certainly want to see such movement in ACN next month before making a call in favour of it.
Let’s put it all in perspective: the polls seem to be quibbling over whether the Government gets six types of piss thumped out of it, or five.
Well the punters have shifted very firmly in favor of KR. It is getting to look like 60/40!! Some weeks ago disappointed Howard supporters claimed the betting odds as more reliable than polls. Perhaps they are!!!
Of all the analysis Ive heard over the past couple of months – yours is simply the best Lefty.
Remember, you cant get analysis without getting a little anal.
See… I got to thinking during that period where Newspoll didn’t come out regular as clockwork… (which is incidently how I came across this site – trying to find out what happened to it)… what would the political world look like without opinion polls. Certainly, the pundits and commentators wouldn’t have those easy observational pieces on the ‘latest trends’… it would be an interesting moment. It sort of underlined to me how important opinion polls are in politics. It underlined that generative function of opinion polls. That opinion polls don’t simply reflect but affect the perception of the political landscape. In a world without opinion polls… would Beazley still be leader of the ALP?
Once again, sorry if these observations have been made a thousand times before or is off-topic or just plain dull to boot! Just curious about the opinions of a group of ppl who have clearly put quite a lot more thought into opinion polls than myself.
I think this is shaping up to be a rather normal Election year, let go back to March-May when the ALP were ahead 60-40 we all knew that the gap would narrow and sure enough that is what has happened across all Four polling companies to different decease.
The biggest swing has been from Galaxy while Morgan has seen the smallest.
Looking at Bryan OzPolitics graphs in every Election year shown we have seen a improvement in the Government’s position during June and July, this as again occurred but the different is the ALP have maintained a bigger lead, both in 2001 & 2004 the ALP vote appears to have hit the skids during August-September.
Even in 1996 the then Government appeared to improve its position in the months just before that Election, I recall Andrew Robb saying after the 96 Election that even during the campaign the Liberals were not convinced they would win.
I think we all agreed back in March-May that the real test for Rudd was how he handled things post Budget and the Campaign, there is no doubt the Liberals are in trouble and its heartland is peeved, the question is will they go to Rudd on Election day.
When reading a summary of polling trends (I can’t recall if it was Morgan,Newspoll or Possium) but it appears those whom are planning to vote for Family First are more inclined to place Rudd ahead of Howard than 6 months ago.
I’m still tipping an ALP victory but and while the Polls are screaming landslide when I look at the pendulum I’m struggling to see the ALP winning more than 80 seats unless its a real bloodbath.
The evidence from Morgan phone poll and the marginal seats survey in Adelaide is that the govt is not going well at all. Marginal seat polling will generally reflect the statewide trend. As to public opinion on Haneef, I don’t think the govt would have released him had they not been feeling real heat over this issue. I also think Labor would have continued its me-too approach, rather than calling for an inquiry; presumably, both parties’ polling is telling them that Haneef is a negative for the govt.
Actually, Lefty (10.35), much as I approve of your sentiment, the polls aren’t saying that at all. If the election was held tomorrow, maybe the size of the government loss would be all that’s left to debate. But the election will probably be mid November. What the polls are telling us – and we have to look at moving averages, not individual results – is that there is a very slow trend back to the government amongst an electorate that was, back in March, pretty seriously pissed off with them.
Is the trend enough? Will Howard’s majority buffer him from a big swing, as it did in 1998? Will there be an external jolt to panic the horses, as there was in 2001? Or will the dirt unit find a weakness in the ALP team, as it did in 2004? Time is running down and the swing back is not strong, but there’s plenty of nail-biting ahead.
Personally, I believe the government was on the nose early in the year because of the IR hubris beautifully underlined by WorkChoices. And I am sure the ACTU/ALP IR campaign will be ramping up again very soon with lots of fresh new evidence of bastardry and wage slashing amongst the young and defenceless. I’m looking forward to it.
John Rocket, a more eloquent poster than me once wrote that changing government is about ‘shifting the mysterious tide of hearts and minds’. So many factors are in play and there are so many levels of political engagement out there. You are right – polls are part of the mix and help to set the tone of the political narrative the two sides attempt to spin. Are they more important than the other intangibles… the too-hard handshake, the birthday cake confusions? It’s a mystery all right.
Does the Poll Bludger have a prediction for this election? I’m just curious.
The smartest thing anyone has said in the above discussion is that the Haneef affair has been a net plus for Howard. The elite media has been full of elite outrage. But even a badly botched and transparently political prosecution of a Muslim with links to terrorists serves to remind the floaters of why they voted for Howard in the past. The election may well turn on whether the floaters dislike WorkChoices or Muslims more.
The Greens are sniping at Labor again. An opinion piece in The Age wonders wether “Labor’s agressive stance against the Greens” can last.
Regarding Haneef, the PM this morning is strongly supporting Kevin Andrews and has rubbished claims the Government is distancing itself from the Minister. In defence of the AFP’s and the Government’s handling of the affair, he said that it’s “better to be safe than sorry”, which I reckon is a sentiment shared by the majority of the community. I don’t think this going to concern anyone other than the usual Howard-haters.
Also, did anyone see Tony Abbott on Insiders yesterday? It was a very relaxed performance and he confidently predicted a Coalition win, saying that the “dark corners” of Rudd’s character would soon be exposed. This might have been a reference to a certain story that’s being put together at a certain news organisation, a story that will destroy Kevin Rudd once it’s made public (probably some time during the election campaign).
I agree with Adam… mostly. The Haneef debacle is a ‘dog-whistle’ issue, and the response will from the ‘floaters’ will depends on the kind of ‘floater’. In the cushy suburbs of Brisbane, where Beattie performs well but Latham and Beazley bombed, I suspect many floaters will be outraged. But in the regional and outer metropolitan seats, the Haneef may help Howard mine a rich vein of xenophobia.
Still, I reckon Howard has to be careful. If you’ve ever taken a stroll through the ‘burbs of Bennelong, you’ll know what I mean. The electorate of Bennelong has received a huge influx of fairly affluent Asians (Koreans, Hong Kong Chinese, some Indians) over the past 10+ years, so the old migrant-bashing ploy won’t work so well. The biggest swing against Howard in the last election came in the Epping booth, where the influx of Asian migrants is especially strong.
Adam,
If Haneef gets his visa back after 8 August, and sues the govt for compensation &/or defamation, will that still be a net plus for Howard?
Steven Kaye Says:
July 30th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
Also, did anyone see Tony Abbott on Insiders yesterday? It was a very relaxed performance and he confidently predicted a Coalition win, saying that the “dark corners†of Rudd’s character would soon be exposed.
Once again you are looking through rose coloured glasses.I saw that interview as well and Abbott said a lot about nothing,was umming and arring as usual and was spinning the Coalition line.They,( the Coalition ),are bereft of ideas,have nothing to offer this country,and they have tried to smear Mr Rudd since Dec last year.Hasn’t worked so far won’t work this time either.The Haneef debacle is another example of why they don’t & won’t be in government after the election.
Adam, I guess given you’re speculating about the ‘unwashed masses’ – I’ll throw in my own observation. One, I’m in far western NSW, guess that’s regional enough. I also have a couple of acquaintances I catch up with occasionally and with whom I have a ‘political’ chat… (they probably hate me for this… but usually play along!). My own little attempt at qualitative research!
Anyway, this couple are pretty right-wing… the ‘One Nation’ end of the Liberal Party… they supported Hicks being incarcerated without trial… they supported the hanging of that fellow in Singapore nearly two years ago… they would like to see the Bali 9 hanged as well… you get the idea. I expected them to be fully behind Howard on the Haneef issue, but surprisingly they weren’t. The whole thing sounded suspicious to them. They didn’t think it was being handled fairly. They weren’t more supportive of Mr. Howard. This response did shock me and I think that many – not just the elite – think that something very disturbing happened with Dr. Haneef.
Maybe it’s a case of that sense of fairness overcoming the xenophobia. We’ll see… but (based on my sample of two!) I don’t think it’s playing out quite as simply as the ‘dog-whistle’ interpretation you’ve put forward.
As for trends, well, am I reading the same poll?
Seems to me galaxy suggests the coalition primary hasn’t moved zip in two months, and nor has the 2PP.
The only thing I read there is a minor move from ALP to Green primary, and a coalition comeback that stalled in early June.
And Galaxy is their best poll.
Tick tock…
Yep, it looks like the Libs’ dirty tricks bag is is just about empty.
Although John at the moment has the thing upside down and is furiously shaking it to see if there is anything left in the bottom of the bag.
The thing about the Haneef issue, is that even if he is guilty of something more than simply wanting to go home quickly … it should still reflect badly on this government. Not only because they botched the case against him, but also because it’s clear that anybody can get into this country on a 457 visa, with scarcely a security check.
Results from opinion polls commissioned by newspapers are merely make-news. I’d be much more comfortable if newspapers and other media outlets were not allowed to comment on polls they had commissioned themselves, only on polls commissioned by others. I appreciate that perhaps some outlets might not commission some polls but this is a price I am prepared to pay. Bearing in mind that political questions are added to surveys that would’ve been conducted anyway, the polling companies themselves would not suffer greatly.
That Guy, you have to stop thinking like someone who reads The Age and watches/listens to the ABC. Think like someone who gets all their news from half paying attention to the 6pm news and flicking through the Herald-Sun (insert your state equivalent). They are the people who decide elections. They’ve never heard of a 457 visa and they don’t care about the rule of law or civil liberties. All that will have got through to them is that Howard has locked up a Muslim guy with a beard whose cousin is a terrorist – which is in fact an accurate summary of what has happened. The great majority of them will think this was a good thing to do, and will accept Howard’s “better safe than sorry” line. Anything that reminds the voters of Muslim guys with beards is a plus for Howard, since Muslim guys with beards are about as popular as Patterson’s curse and Howard wants to keep them out of the country.
I think the Haneef affair will be long forgotten by election time. I don’t think it has played as badly for the government as some. There are many who agree with the “better safe than sorry” view.
Looks like the market has not dropped significantly today and may have shrugged off the bad news from the US. The fundamentals in Australia are very strong and the price earnings ratios are really not excessive.
What’s good for investors may be bad news for John Howard. It means the Reserve Bank is more likely to raise interest rates.
That is what may put Kevin Rudd over the line.
The latest Galaxy poll may reflect the dissillusionment with Labor over the forest decision. The Greens polling is predictably up. It may indeed be 10%. It was never going to be as low as 5%.
As one writer in the Herald said, I’d like to vote for Kevin Rudd. Please give me a reason.
There’s really so little differentiation between Labor and the Coalition.
Labor cannot win in any case without Green preferences and just what incentive has Kevin Rudd given to Green voters to give their preferences to him?
The old growth forests, whether in Tasmania, WA, Vic or elsewhere are extremely close to the hearts of green voters – those who vote for The Greens and those who vote for other parties.
Yes some Green voters could never in a fit give their preferences to John Howard but others, especially small g green voters could do so even if only to teach Kevin Rudd that they can’t be taken for granted.
It looks at this stage, if we are to take an average of the polls and how they are moving, that Labor will still win but it certainly won’t be a landslide.
There obviously won’t be a change of leadership now in spite of the Morgan poll showing Turnbull level pegging with Howard.
If the Galaxy poll had shown a significant trend to Labor, anything like the Morgan poll, then it may well have been on.
The closer it gets, the less likely, notwithstanding Andrew Bolt!
My view is the forest decision did a lot of damage to Labor who may well be saved by an interest rate increase.
Adam, I suspect you’re right to a point. I do watch abc, read the age, and avoid the editorials in the Adelaide Advertiser like the plague.
I can see the sense in your theory that the Haneef case will lift Howard’s rating among bogans in marginal seats.
But there must be some reason the government was so eager to give him permission to go back to India, despite him still being “under investigation”. There’s also reports that they even made a lame attempt to gag him from speaking to the media.
And at this stage it looks like young Dr Haneef is going on the warpath to clear his name. And why wouldn’t he?
For starters, he’s coming back to Australia on 8 August to appeal the cancellation of his visa. If he’s successful, wouldn’t surprise me at all if he then sues for defamation, or some sort of compensation.
Looks to me like this thing is still playing out. Far too early to say that it’s a “net plus”.
Richard Jones, there’s been no change in Galaxy’s results for the Green vote. It’s been at 9-10 in all five of their polls this year.
The Green vote for the other pollsters has been, Nielsen 7-8, Newspoll 3-6, and Morgan 5.5-9.
what do people here think about Government’s position on Kevin Andrews? is it worse to keep him in the Minsitry, or lose a Cabinet Minister this close to an election?
It would be better for Labor if the focus on public debate was on the areas where the govt is seen by voters as performing poorly, ir, environment, health, education etc. etc. These are hard work for journalists to analyse (and less relevant to well-paid journos anyway), it is easier to write entirely accurate articles on the govt’s dodgy behaviour.
How large is the population of people in Australia from the Indian Sub continent and where do they live.
.
I’m told by a friend from that group, that the Indian community is outraged and very worried
There are certainly many evidences in my suburb of a substantial “Indian” community here in Melbourne.
Sorry to pour rain on the Lefties parade but did anyone take note of the Queensland Sunday Mail’s Survey? 10,500 Queenslanders posted back a “Your Say” survey and the Coalitions Primary Vote was 43% to Labors 38% and The Man of Steel was Preferred PM. These Surveys have been fairly accurate in previous years and 10,500 punters is better than the Galaxy’s 800 Punters. Voting Conservative is like Masturbating; we all do it but don’t brag about it. I am 100% confident that the Howard Government will be re-elected, there is no reason to kick this Government out. This victory will be the Sweetest of them all, one for the true believers. So Says Snoopy. http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,,22149755-5007190,00.html
Am I the only one who noticed it but Tony Abbott had a sly little dig at Rudd on insiders yesterday. this from the Insiders transcript:
“But you can’t go with the Prime Minister and the Premiers simultaneously when they’re on different tracks. It’s like being a Catholic and Anglican, which is another particular issue where Kevin seems to have trouble deciding where he really is.”
He really is a pernicious git.